Fromundus or Frodomundus

ON ST. FROMUNDUS OR FRODOMUNDUS, BISHOP OF COUTANCES IN NORMANDY,

ABOUT THE END OF THE VII CENTURY.

SYLLOGE.

Fromundus, bishop of Coutances in Normandy. (S.)

BY V. D. B.

§ Sole. The birth of St. Fromundus, his monastic life, the foundation of the monastery called by his name, his episcopate of Coutances, the dedication of the nunnery of Ham, his cult in the dioceses of Bayeux, Rouen and Coutances. He is to be distinguished from St. Fremundus or Fromundus, the English martyr, with whom he has been confused by the English and the Normans.

Although it is almost our custom first to remove impediments, that we may then set out on our way more securely, St. Fromundus perhaps born at Brevands in the district of Coutances; yet I think that greater light will shine on the things to be said, if I depart a little from that accustomed manner, narrating at the beginning all that I seem to have ascertained concerning St. Fromundus, as if they were involved in no difficulties. In the diocese of Coutances, then, in the former archdeaconry of the Bauptois, in the deanery of Carentan Lecanu, History of the Bishops of Coutances, p. 491, there lies a parish whose name is Brevands or Brevan, one league distant from Carentan and thronged with nearly five hundred inhabitants. Several writers will have it that St. Fromundus was born in it; in whose favour the custom of the parishioners of St. Fromundus (of the village of Saint-Frémond we shall speak presently) and of other neighbours to some extent votes, piously going on pilgrimage to Brevands, as if to the natal place of their patron. Others indeed will have it that he was born in the district of Évreux New Gallia Christiana, vol. XI, col. 866, others in the village of Ebroicum * in the Coutances country; but, if the Rev. Mr. Lecanu is heard, the more recent historian of the bishops of Coutances Ibid., p. 59, since those who wish to seem more accurate say at the same time that the parish which they intend is two leagues distant from the village of St. Fromundus, they surely understand Brevands and reveal themselves to be in error in pronouncing the name. But I fear whether these statements of the Rev. Mr. Lecanu can stand. For, as the Rev. Mr. Gilbert, vicar general of Coutances, who has sweated very much in searching out the matters of the saints (for he himself took care above all to have written and approved by the S. R. Congregation the new diocesan Offices of the saints), has informed us by written letters, Toustain de Billy, who departed this life in the year 1709, plainly affirms in his most learned

manuscript history of the bishops of Coutances that he saw manuscript commentaries, once preserved in the priory of St. Fromundus, in which it was related that the blessed man was born in the diocese of Évreux and came into that of Coutances, that he might more freely cultivate the solitary life; and these things agree well with the Gallia Christiana and seem to be accepted as certain. There then the blessed man first saw the light somewhat before the middle of the VII century, whether when Neustria was a single kingdom, or when it was held a part of the Frankish kingdom. For in the year 622 Neustria was divided from the rest of the empire of the Franks, to become the dominion of Dagobert; but in the year 632 by the same Dagobert it was again brought back with the remaining parts into one kingdom; in the year 638 it was separated again by Clovis II; and in the year 670 by Childeric II it was once more united, the mayors of the palace meanwhile presiding over it, Ega, Archembald, Ebroin, and from the year 681 Varato. But these things in haste.

[2] [he is said to have founded and ruled the monastery called of St. Fromundus, in the XI century made a priory of the abbey of Cerisy,] St. Fromundus is said to have first cultivated the monastic life in the village which thereafter bore his name, now commonly Saint-Frémond, and of which we have just made memory. Nor is he related to have been only a monk there, but also founder and abbot of the monastery. This tradition I do not dare to approve, because certain testimonies are not at hand; nor to weaken it, since in fact there was a monastery there, which already before the middle of the XI century had his name and whose origin besides is hidden in darkness. I should not think that any more ancient document exists concerning that monastery of St. Fromundus than what is read in the Monasticon Anglicanum; here it is Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. VI, p. 1074: I, William de Houmez, nephew and heir of Robert, seeing the church of St. Fromundus being brought to nothing through the negligence of the clerics, relying on the counsel of Geoffrey (de Montbray), bishop of Coutances (from the year 1049 to 1093), and of religious persons, or my barons, have decided to restore monks * in that place, this being granted by the most serene William, king of the English (who from the year 1066 to 1087 held the sceptre of Great Britain). Therefore concerning that church, namely of St. Fromundus, I have made a donation to God and to St. Vigor of Cerisy and his monks with all its possession, with which it was endowed by my predecessor Robert; namely with land of four ploughlands, and with the tithe of the same vill, and the vineyard which was at the side of the church, and the church of Canigneum with the tithe, and the tithe of Boscflamen, and his part of the church of Airel with the tithe, and with the tithe of all my substance, and with the tithe of my mills of Nira and of my fisheries; on this condition, that the abbot, the clerics being removed, should substitute monks, honourably serving God and St. Fromundus; and that they might have no occasion of omitting the ecclesiastical office, I have absolved them from all secular services which pertain to me. Signature of William, king of the English, etc. From this diploma, then, which must have been given between the year 1066 and 1087, it seems established that there were monks in the village of St. Fromundus before Robert de Houmez brought clerics there, since his son William professes that he decided to RESTORE monks there. Whence it does not plainly shrink from likelihood that those old monks were an offshoot of the institution of St. Fromundus. We shall return below to this priory.

[3] [Created bishop of Coutances, he builds and dedicates, as is established from the inscription of the altar,] St. Fromundus was then created bishop of Coutances: which see other saints had held before him. In some ancient indices of bishops he is called Rochmundus and Rothmundus In Lecanu, p. 59; in the Gallia Sacra of Robert and of the brothers Sainte-Marthe Rotmundus; in the new one Frodomundus; but that Frothmundus also is found the Rev. Mr. Lecanu is witness, the more recent (as I have already pointed out) historian of the diocese of Coutances and parish priest at Belleville. But of his deeds nothing is known except the effort which he laid out in founding the nunnery of Ham. Namely in the year 1693 there was found there under the morning altar a threefold inscription, carved on a square stone of three feet, with the sign of the cross in the middle and in the four corners. Mabillon first edited it in volume I of the Annals Benedictine Annals, book XVI, no. 76, vol. I, pp. 496 and 497, according to a copy which he had received from two learned Benedictines; but then in the second appendix No. XXVI, p. 641 he expressed the same more correctly, having received better information from the presbyter Raguet. The Rev. Mr. Trigan, parish priest at Digosville, who not long ago published the ecclesiastical history of those parts, edited and explained the same inscription; likewise the distinguished Mr. de Gerville in a Notice published in the year 1834; and following these the Rev. Mr. Lecanu, whom I mentioned above. I have only this last edition and the two readings of Mabillon at hand; the stone itself is now preserved in the public library of the town of Valognes *, which is in those parts. Further, fortified with those supports of whatever sort, I shall myself now give it. The first part, which occupies the circuit of the square, is this: † CONSTANTININSIS VRBIS RECTVR DOMNVS FRODOMVNDVS PENTIFEX IN HONORE ALME MARIA GENETRICIS DNI HOC TEMPLVM HOCQVÆ ALTARE CONSTRVXIT FIDILITER ADQVÆ DIGNE DEDICAVIT MENSE AGVSTO MEDIO ET HIC FESTVS CELEBRATVS DIES SIT PR ANNVS SINGOLVS. [The ruler of the city of Coutances, the lord Frodomundus, pontiff, in honour of the kindly Mary, Mother of the Lord, built this church and this altar, faithfully and worthily dedicated it in the middle of the month of August, and let this festal day be celebrated through every year.] And on the four sides are inscribed these other things: † ANNO … IAM REGNANTE THEODORICO REGE IN FRANCIA HOC CINVBIVM CHINGSIT ABENS CVRAM PASTVRALEM IN AMORE DNI. SVARVM OVIVM — † PATRAVIT CAVLAS QVAM PVLCHERREME NEC A MORSEBV s lupo RVM … PASCVA PERPETVA CHORO NEXAS VERGINALE CVM MARIA — † ALMESSIMA. CVM IPSA VIVANT ET EXVLTENT IN ETERNA SECOLA. LOCVM REX CONCESSIT AD ISTVM CENVBIVM. IPSI ETENEm — † PRIMVS CIPIT STRVERE HIC MONISTERIVM. DEMVM PENTIFEX PLVREMVS ATEQVE CITERAS PARtes sEPTENARI NOMERO. [In the year … , Theodoric now reigning as king in Francia, he girded this monastery, having pastoral care in the love of the Lord. Of his sheep — † he accomplished the folds most beautifully, nor from the bites of wolves … perpetual pastures, joined to the virginal choir with Mary — † most kindly. With her let them live and exult for eternal ages. The king granted the place for this monastery. And he too — † first began to build the monastery here. Finally, by very many pontiffs and other parts, in the number of seven.]

[4] [the nunnery of Ham, most probably in the IV year of the reign of Theodoric III or the year of Christ 677,] From this inscription we gather first that the place for building the nunnery was granted by King Theodoric; second that the fabric was begun by the same; third that the monastery was girded with walls by Frodomundus, bishop of Coutances; fourth that the church and altar were built by the same in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary; fifth that these things were dedicated by him and other bishops, so that they were seven in number, in the middle of the month of August. We have left the year empty, since there is much dispute concerning it; and this is its figure in Mabillon [ ], which he himself judges is to be interpreted by quarto; so that one should read: In the fourth year, Theodoric now reigning in Francia; (formerly, however, he had referred the upper part of the numeral to the years of the episcopate of St. Fromundus; and the lower part to the years of the reign of Theodoric; so that that dedication would have taken place in the third year of that pontificate, in the fourth year of King Theodoric; which interpretation, though most certainly false, was carried over into the new Gallia Christiana). Whether the former is true I very much doubt, since in the very figure edited by Mabillon the upper spits do not so agree with the lower, that from this the number III seems able easily to be formed. Wherefore others, noticing that in manuscript codices it is signified by two numbers, set one above the other, that a multiplication is to be made, said that by that figure 3×3 is indicated, or ninth. But there is this defect in this explanation, that it seems more learned than is right and sought too far; then it is true indeed that [ ] is often found for three hundred and [ ] for seven times twenty, since we are accustomed to count by hundreds and also by twenties (which number some northern peoples or Normans called a whole man, as one who has ten fingers of the hands and as many of the feet), but multiplication or numeration by three has been found nowhere in Europe. I should prefer therefore to go over to the side of Mabillon, until greater light is shed from somewhere; although it matters little to us whether one should read IV or IX, since we have only this one indication by which to determine the age of St. Frodomundus, and it is therefore not worth while to fight over some years.

[5] [He was made bishop after the year of Christ 649; nor may the beginning and end of his episcopate be defined more closely.] It is more certain, however, that Theodoric III is here treated of, who in the year 673 was made king of Neustria and of Burgundy, and fourteen years afterwards, namely in the year 687, lost the royal dignity and met his last day in the month of March of the year 691 Gebhardus, Merovingian Kings of the Franks, pp. 159 and following: for Theodoric I was only king of Austrasia Ibid., pp. 32 and following; Theodoric II first king of Burgundy and then also of Austrasia Ibid., pp. 82 and following; and Theodoric IV, or of Chelles, who in the year 720 encircled his head with the diadem and in the year 737 yielded to the fates Ibid., p. 169, reigned at that time at which no bishops occupied the see of Coutances approaching Frodomundus at all in name. For what likeness is there between this appellation and Willebert, Agathius, Livinus, Wilfrid, Josue, Leo and Angulo, who occupied the greatest part of the VIII century Compare new Gallia Christiana, vol. XI, col. 866? To define in some way the beginning of the episcopate of St. Fromundus, one must have recourse to his predecessors and successors; but here there is more darkness than light. Claude Robert First Gallia Christiana, p. 311 published this series: Waldomarus or Baldomerus; Trabus or Trahus, perhaps Strabus; [F]rotmundus; Salomon; Agathius; Livinus; Wifridus; Aldebertus. The brothers Sainte-Marthe Second Gallia Christiana, vol. II, fol. v° 538 this other: Huldericus; Waldomarus or Baldomerus; Chairiboinus: [F]rotmundus; Salomon; Agathius; Livinus; Wifridus; Aldebertus. The Maurists New Gallia Christiana, vol. XI, col. 866 this third, propped rather on conjectures than on documents or the tradition of the church of Coutances: Chairibonus; Waldalmarus or Baldomerus; Hughierius or Hildericus; Frodomundus; Willebertus or Aldobertus; Agathius; Livinus; Wilfridus. Finally the Rev. Mr. Lecanu, here and there indicating that he trusts little in these, this fourth History of the Bishops of Coutances, pp. 53 and following: Chairibonus, Baldomerus, Trabeus, Huldericus, St. Frodomundus, Willebertus, Agatheus, Livinus, Willefridus, Aldobertus. And in these this one thing is certain, that Charibonus, bishop of the church of Coutances, before the other suffragans of the see of Rouen, because perhaps he had been ordained before them [Compare Council of Chalon, chap. 7, in Burchard. See Binterim, Geschichte der deutschen Concilien, vol. I, pp. 174, 176 and following], subscribed the council, in the time of Clovis II, on the VIII of the kalends of November, in the city of Chalon in the basilica

of St. Vincent, held Labbe, Councils, vol. VI, col. 387, 388 and 392; and indeed between the year 640, in which SS. Ouen and Eligius, present at the same synod, were named bishops, and the year 653, in which St. Audobert, prelate of Paris, who also subscribed it, had already died Compare Pagi, Critique of the Annals of Baronius, at the year 662, no. 3; or rather in the year 649, in which the 25th day of October coincided with a Sunday; for, as Mansi observes Observations on the Annals of Baronius, at the year 662, note 1, councils were accustomed to begin on a Sunday, although Binterim Geschichte der deutschen Concilien, vol. I, p. 190 prefers to attach their beginnings to Mondays, not noticing that the three-day fast, which by fixed law was to precede them, could never be prolonged into a Sunday. Other things are related as certain; but they are divinations and conjectures. Namely the name of Wandalmarus (not Waldalmarus) is read inscribed on a diploma which Clovis II gave on the 22nd day of June of the year 653 to confirm a donation made by Landeric of Paris to the monks of Saint-Denis Bréquigny, Diplomas of the First Race, p. 213; but the place of his bishopric is not added, nor does the name of Wandalmarus come close enough to Baldomerus for me to dare to agree with Mabillon On Diplomatics, p. 467 and other Maurists New Gallia Christiana, vol. XI, col. 866, who say that Wandalmarus was the same as Baldomerus, bishop of Coutances; nor shall I go more over to their side where they hold Hughierus, a bishop without see, who subscribed about the year 659 a diploma of Emmo for the monastery of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif of Sens, to be the same as Hildericus of Coutances [Benedictine Annals, at the year 658, book XIV, no. 64, vol. I, p. 414; new Gallia Christiana, vol. XI, col. 866]; nor shall I trust them when they will have it that Willebert, who subscribed the council of Rouen of the year 689 Ibid., at the year 689, book XVII, no. 65, vol. I, p. 540 or 693 Dom Bessin, Councils of Rouen, vol. I, pp. 12 and following, was bishop of Coutances, namely the same as Aldobert Gallia Christiana, vol. XI, col. 866; for neither the name of the see, nor any other indication appears there by which this might be determined. It remains then that St. Fromundus was raised to the see of Coutances after the middle of the VII century and sat in it in the year 677 or 682, in which he girded the monastery of Ham with walls.

[6] The remaining fortunes of the nunnery of Ham. And since the memory of this asceterium has returned, here in few words are its fortunes. It was situated not far from the Ocean, in the archdeaconry of Coutances , in the deanery of Valognes. It suffered much, or rather was destroyed, from the Danes or Normans rushing in [Compare Robert Wace, Roman de Rou, in Lecanu, History of the Bishops of Coutances, p. 66]. But when those, converted to the faith, had made an end of plundering, it was restored with the title of a simple priory under the patronage of St. Peter and called Saint-Pierre-du-Ham. To that time seems to be referred the present church, whose nave was built according to the later rules of Roman architecture ; but the choir was added later, namely in the XII century. If the Rev. Mr. Lecanu is heard History, etc., pp. 531 and 532, at the persuasion of Bishop Algar, who from about the year 1131 to 1151 sat at Coutances, William Botellarius gave this priory to the Grande Chartreuse; on the other hand Mabillon, writing at the end of the XVII century, has this Benedictine Annals, book XVI, no. 76, vol. I, p. 497: This priory of Ham from its restoration acknowledges Blessed Peter the apostle, and for seven hundred years it has been subject to the abbey of St. Peter of Chartres by the gift of Arefast, brother of Gonor, formerly wife of Richard, first king of the Normans. Which are the better I cannot define [Lecanu, p. 531 and Pouillé of the diocese of Coutances, pp. 20 and 21, Paris, 1648], although Mabillon is for the most part the weightier witness. For the rest, its revenues were rather slender, since in the middle of the XVII century they were only 900 pounds

[7] [The holy man seems to have been buried in the monastery of St. Fromundus; his relics, while the Normans were laying waste those regions, were translated first to Bayeux, afterwards to the priory of Saint-Lô of Rouen;] We have said above that St. Fromundus is said to be the founder of the monastery which thereafter bore his name. It seems more certain that he was buried there; for not long ago, as the Rev. Mr. Lecanu is witness History, etc., p. 60, his sepulchre was still shown there; where it has gone is unknown, as the Rev. Mr. Gilbert has written back to us. How long the body of St. Fromundus was preserved there is difficult to say. In very truth it is most certain that the body of St. Fromundus, just like the remains of SS. Laud and Rumpharius, was preserved in the church of Saint-Lô of Rouen at the end of the XII century or the beginning of the XIII. Which is established from the Ordinary of the canons regular of Saint-Lô of that city; which, since it does not have the feasts of SS. Bernard, Francis, Dominic and Louis, or any more recent than the festival of St. Thomas of Canterbury, must have been collected about that time from old books and domestic customs. In it namely is read the following: Of St. Fromundus the martyr, a double feast. At both vespers and at matins let a candle burn before the shrine. At vespers either Beatus vir or the Psalms of the day. If it shall be a Sunday, at the procession let the responsory Gloria et honore be said; in which procession the casket of Blessed Fromundus ought to be carried, and two candles next to the shrine. But whether, as is commonly related, from the end of the IX century, when the Danes more infested the open cities and monasteries of Normandy, that holy pledge followed the fortune of the bodies of SS. Laud and Rumpharius, is somewhat doubtful to me. For on the one hand in the more ancient monuments mention is made separately of the translation of the remains of SS. Laud and Rumpharius and the body of St. Fromundus is omitted; on the other hand it is certain that already in the XII century, as we have just seen, his relics were preserved there, without our being able to suspect at what other time than the irruption of the Normans they came there. But if these things seem to be admitted, since on that matter, as far as it chiefly pertains to St. Laud, our Stilting has spoken fully at the 22nd day of September Acts of the Saints, vol. VI of September, pp. 442 and following, on which he is venerated, we may yet be brief. The pious bodies were first carried to Bayeux, which city seemed sufficiently fortified; and, enclosed in sacks or wallets of leather and cases of solid wood, they were entrusted to the earth before the portico of the cathedral church. And after Rollo, duke of the Normans, in the year 912 (as it pleases most) had received baptism from Franco, bishop of Rouen, Theodoric, who was then bishop of Coutances, seeing his city altogether destroyed, asked of his metropolitan that he might be allowed to place his chair in the church of St. Saviour at Rouen. Franco assented to the petition; and for this cause he brought there whatever precious thing he had anywhere. So the most pious relics were dug up and carried into the church of St. Saviour; which from then took the name of Saint-Lô and retained it, until it was closed at the end of the preceding century.

[8] [where in the year 1470 they are enclosed in new cases and in the year 1629 are visited.] In the year, says the anonymous historical author of Rouen, who called himself a solitary History of the City of Rouen, vol. II, part VI, p. 11, in the year 1470, on the 27th day of May, the bodies of SS. Laud and Rumpharius, bishops, and of St. Fromundus, martyr (on the title of martyr, below), which were enclosed in leather wallets, were placed in magnificent cases by the care and piety of William Monachus, prior of that church, in which about the middle of the XII century Algar, bishop of Coutances, had established canons regular. The same thing had been related a little more clearly before him by Artur du Moustier, following the commentaries of Dom Le Prevost: On the 20th day of May, he says Neustria pia, p. 811, in the year 1470, William, the aforesaid prior, had the relics of SS. Laud and Rumpharius, bishops of Coutances, and of St. Frothmundus, abbot and martyr, drawn out by certain of his religious in the presence of witnesses from the old sacks of leather where they were enclosed, and laid up within new caskets above the high altar of the said church; and on the following Sunday, the 27th of the said month, the said relics were shown to the people upon three altars of the said church, and afterwards were translated by the same prior within their old shrines, which he had caused to be repaired. In the midst of the disturbances which the Huguenots or Calvinists stirred up in the XVI century, and amid which they despoiled so many churches in Normandy as in all Gaul, those relics did not perish: for when in the year 1629 the priory of Saint-Lô was canonically visited by the Rev. Mr. Corbet, capitular vicar, several bones of St. Fromundus were inscribed in the catalogue of the relics History of the Bishops of Coutances, p. 326. These things we learn from the Rev. Mr. Lecanu; who elsewhere relates more general things of those pledges. From a book, he says Ibid., p. 61, of the offices of the priory of Saint-Lô, written at the end of the XII century Ibid., p. 160, we have learned that the relics of St. Fromundus were preserved in this asceterium; that on the principal festivals a candle was lit before the shrine and that it was carried about in processions with the relics of SS. Rumpharius and Laud; which book, since, by the testimony of its collector, it was copied from older ones, brings us back to the first times after the Norman invasion. Nor does William Monachus or Lemoine alone, prior there about the year 1470, make us certain of the relics of St. Fromundus having been guarded, but Dom Avicius, also himself a prior, teaches the same, and that their cult has persisted up to our times.

[9] [His arm, preserved in the priory or monastery of St. Fromundus, is carried about at the beginning of the XVI century to collect alms.] Already before the year 1470 the arm of St. Fromundus had been extracted from this treasure and given as a gift to the priory distinguished by his name. We have already said that this asceterium, in which they will have it that the holy man was abbot, was restored to monks between the year 1066 and 1087, the clerics having been cast out, and was made a priory of the abbey of St. Vigor of Cerisy. When Eudes Rigaud, archbishop of Rouen, came there on the kalends of September of the year 1250 and visited that place on the following day, he found there fifteen monks of Cerisy, all priests Register of the Visitations of the Archbishop of Rouen, p. 91; which number seems to have been the lawful one Compare ibid., p. 251; and a revenue of five hundred pounds, with which you would then have bought as much grain as now with sixty thousand francs [Compare Leber, Mémoire sur l'appréciation de la fortune privée etc., in Mémoires de l'académie

des Inscriptions, savants étrangers, vol. I, part I, p. 269]; nor do those revenues seem to have decreased afterwards: for in the middle of the XVII century the benefice of the prior, to whom half of all the revenues is to be reckoned as assigned, had yearly sixteen thousand pounds Pouillé of Coutances of 1648, p. 20, worth as much as thirty-two thousand francs now; so that the whole revenues would now be estimated at sixty-four thousand francs or even more Compare Leber, work and page cited. But although the riches of this priory were so great, at the beginning of the XV century, when the buildings were to be renewed, this could not be done from the annual rents; but Thomas III, who is also Dubourg, abbot of Cerisy from the year 1402 to 1427, asked of Gilles Deschamps, who held the see of Coutances from the year 1408 to 1413, leave to carry the arm of St. Fromundus through the diocese and to beg alms from the pious worshippers of those relics Lecanu, History of the Bishops of Coutances, p. 516. Whence it is clear that at that time that sacred pledge was preserved in the priory of St. Fromundus; which is related to have been dispersed by the Huguenots. In the same century, when the church of St. Fromundus had perished by fire, the Roman curia was asked for indulgences, most commonly used in that age and afterwards rightly suppressed by St. Pius V, for those who should stretch out helping hands: and to this day the diploma by which they were granted is preserved in the archive of the province of the Manche (department de la Manche). With those supports it was built anew by Laurent Leclerc, abbot of Cerisy, who met his last day in the year 1497 Ibid., in the page cited. Near that church a spring is seen, called of St. Fromundus. Formerly, when the fields were thirsty through excessive dryness and pious supplications were instituted for the sake of obtaining rain, the foot of the processional cross was plunged into it. In the year 1840 this custom was restored, five parishes coming together and rejoicing on the same day in the longed-for rain.

[10] His cult was very probably begun immediately after his death, It is very likely that the cult of St. Fromundus the bishop was begun shortly after his death. In old catalogues of the bishops of Coutances and in registers, in which Agathius is indicated as successor of Rotmundus, or rather of Frotmundus or Fromundus, there is read written after the name of Agathius: There follow the names of the bishops who are not saints Ibid., p. 68; by which words all those preceding, among whom St. Fromundus, are reckoned in the number of the saints; although most of them no longer have public cult; which on account of the devastations of the Normans can cause no amazement to anyone. And St. Fromundus had a cult, by the witness of the Rev. Mr. Lecanu Lecanu, History of the Bishops of Coutances, p. 62, in the dioceses of Coutances, Rouen and Bayeux; but these things seem rather to be restricted than enlarged. First concerning the diocese of Bayeux: I use that part of the Breviary of Bayeux, edited about the year 1627 by the care of Bishop Jacques d'Angennes Compare Hermant, History of the Diocese of Bayeux, p. 462, in which the proper of the saints is contained; and there no mention is made of St. Fromundus.

[11] [it flourishes in the abbey of Cerisy and the monastery of Fécamp, where also a parish is raised under his patronage] Likewise St. Fromundus is entirely omitted, as the Rev. Mr. Gilbert has written to me, in the Ordinaries of Coutances of the XIII and XIV century, in the Breviary of the XIV century and in the Missals of the end of the XV and the beginning of the XVI century. Wherefore I very much doubt whether this saint was ever venerated in that whole diocese. But in this diocese lay the abbey of St. Vigor of Cerisy, to which we have seen more than once that the priory of St. Fromundus was annexed. In that abbey, then, until it was violently suppressed at the end of the XVIII century, the feast of St. Fromundus was kept every year on the 24th day of October Lecanu, History, etc., pp. 61 and 62. Now concerning the diocese of Rouen. We have the Breviary of the distinguished metropolitan church of Rouen, published by order of Archbishop François de Harlay in the year 1627; and in this the memory of St. Fromundus is not recalled: yet his ecclesiastical veneration was not altogether exiled from that diocese. Mabillon however Benedictine Annals, book XVI, no. 76, vol. I, p. 497 went further than is right, when he wrote that St. Fromundus is patron of some churches in the Caletan district, commonly the Pays de Caux; for although I have rather diligently turned over the first volume of Du Plessis on the description of Upper Normandy, in which the Caletan district was contained, I have found there no church with this patronage, except a certain one of Fécamp. And indeed here is its origin. We read in Orderic Vitalis Ecclesiastical History, book XI, no. 30, vol. IV, p. 270, Le Prévost edition concerning William, abbot of Fécamp: The nave too of the basilica (of Fécamp), where the oratory of St. Fromundus is held, he elegantly enlarged; and the work being at length completed he caused it to be consecrated by Archbishop William and four other prelates on the XVII of the kalends of July (of the year 1106). This building of William, which was part of the abbey church, has long perished Le Prévost, Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, vol. IV, p. 270, note 2; but in its place another building was erected outside that church, which, as long as it stood, was called of St. Fromundus. On these matters Toussaint Du Plessis learnedly disputes in this manner Description de la Haute-Normandie, vol. I, p. 102: In some commentaries of Fécamp there is found a parish church of St. Peter, situated within the circuit of the abbey and in the year 1450 transferred into that of St. Fromundus. If this church existed, nothing stands in the way of its having been the parish of the servants and table-companions of the abbey; but nothing else has become known of it. And if it was transferred into the building of St. Fromundus, this must have taken place when that sanctuary was still in the nave of the abbey church. For this building or altar of St. Fromundus was parochial from the beginning or at least was made so afterwards, and its cemetery was in that part of the first court in which at the beginning of this century (namely the XVIII) a water-channel was dug, called la voûte. It is nowhere found at what time the sanctuary and parish of St. Fromundus were put out beyond the abbey church and established in that place where now the church of St. Fromundus is seen: perhaps that year 1450 indicated above belongs here. But, however that may be, whether within or without the walls of the monastery, in the year 1288 the parish of St. Fromundus existed. This parish remained up to the change of the Gallic commonwealth; but that it was then suppressed, so that now scarcely or not even scarcely does a memory survive [Compare Leroux de Lincy, Essay on the Abbey of Fécamp; Cochet, The Churches of the Arrondissement of Le Havre, vol. II, etc.], no one will wonder.

[12] and relics are preserved. The relics of St. Fromundus, which were formerly preserved there, are recalled by Lecanu History of the Bishops of Coutances, p. 61 and Du Plessis Description de la Haute-Normandie, vol. I, p. 103. They are not yet listed in the catalogue of the relics which were most solemnly translated on the fifth of the nones of March of the year 1162 Leroux de Lincy, Essay, etc., p. 21; but in the book which at the end of the XVII century the sacristan of Fécamp published on the treasure and history of his monastery Le thrésor ou abbrégé de l'histoire de la noble et royale abbaye de Fécamp and which Leroux de Lincy partly inserted in his essay on the same abbey Essay on the Abbey of Fécamp, p. 194, the Fécamp shrine of St. Fromundus is said to have been clothed with gilded copper plates, and in it there were contained bones of the arms, of the legs and several others: indeed it is related in the same place Pp. 193 and 194 that in the shrine of St. Taurinus there existed the head of St. Romanus the martyr or of St. Fromundus; but in the XIV century this was undoubtedly held to be the head with relics of St. Romanus the soldier, who was baptized by Blessed Lawrence the martyr Ibid., p. 328.

[13] [His cult likewise holds in the diocese of Coutances, chiefly in the priory of Saint-Lô of Rouen;] That in the whole diocese of Coutances the cult of St. Fromundus existed up to the year 1829, in which a new Breviary came out by order of Bishop Pierre Dupont-Poursat and by the care of the Rev. Mr. Manger, president of the seminary, the Rev. Mr. Lecanu relates History, etc., pp. 59 and 417. But these things too are to be explained. As the Rev. Mr. Gilbert has written to me, St. Fromundus is entirely omitted in the Ordinaries of Coutances of the XIII and XIV century, in the Breviary of the XIV century and in the Missals of the end of the XV and the beginning of the XVI century; likewise in the Breviary which in the year 1609 Nicolas de Briroy, bishop of Coutances, ordered to be published, no mention is made of St. Fromundus, and not even a simple memory is made of him; and I do not know but that he was exiled from there up to the middle of the XVIII century, when, as we shall see below, his office was inserted in the renewed Breviary. Yet, since the priory of Saint-Lô was part of the diocese of Coutances, it cannot be said that up to that time no festivity at all of St. Fromundus was kept in that diocese. For in the XII century a festivity was kept in his honour in that priory with double rite [Ordinary of the Canons of Saint-Lô, in Migne, Latin Patrology, vol. CXLVII, col. 189]; which in that age was held to be of as great solemnity as is now what is called the greater double rite. The Rev. Mr. Lecanu errs therefore Ibid., pp. 61 and 161, when he wrote that this feast was then kept with as great a solemnity as the feasts of the Epiphany, the Purification, the Annunciation, St. John the Baptist, St. Rumpharius, bishop of Coutances, and St. Augustine, patron of the canons regular: for the solemnity of all these was certainly to be equated to the doubles of the second class of today. Afterwards, however, the rite of the office of St. Fromundus was increased there: and so in two Breviaries of Saint-Lô, written in the XIV century and now preserved in the Mazarine library at Paris, the Rev. Mr. Gilbert found the office of St. Fromundus with an octave; but everything was to be taken from the common of martyrs. The Rev. Mr. Lecanu adds that the office prescribed there was formerly common to all the churches which pursued St. Fromundus with special cult: and by these he undoubtedly understands the priory of St. Fromundus and the abbey of Cerisy: and indeed that in the old breviaries of this asceterium the feast of St. Fromundus is indicated in red letters, like other solemn feasts Lecanu, History of the Bishops of Coutances, p. 62.

[14] [where formerly the office was made of him as of a martyr, but in other churches more rightly as of a confessor pontiff.] But neither are these things altogether accurate. In the church of Saint-Lô, as is established from what has just been said and from the passage alleged at no. 7 of this commentary, there was made of St. Fromundus the MARTYR a double

feast; on the other hand, as Toustain de Billy relates, in the abbey of Cerisy the festivity of St. Fromundus was once celebrated from the common of confessor pontiffs; and for that cause at the end of the XV century the abbot of Cerisy took care that the holy man should be painted in episcopal habit in a window of the church of the priory of St. Fromundus; yet in that same abbey it also finally prevailed that the office should be made of St. Fromundus the MARTYR. Whence the Rev. Mr. Gilbert has written to me that in the Ordinary of Cerisy, written after the XVI century and used up to the end, he found at the 24th day of October the following: Of St. Frotmundus the martyr, a double. His relics were held here, burned, as is related, by the Huguenots. The prayer from the manuscript codex. Lessons of the I Nocturn Fratres, debitores. Of the II Nocturn: Triumphalis dies beati martyris Frothmundi. Of the III Nocturn the homily on: Nolite arbitrari. The rest from the common in the first place. In the priory of St. Fromundus they were more constant. There St. Fromundus was always venerated as confessor and pontiff and he continues to be so venerated; and so he is shown there in pontifical habit and with a round disc about his head in a window painted in enamel, on an old banner, and in an old parchment image; and his statue, small but very ancient, which is preserved there, has the same form. Now since the priory of St. Fromundus is older than the Ordinary of Saint-Lô, these things in my judgment are of such great authority that by them it seems to be altogether established, and to become the most certain truth, the conjecture of Mabillon Benedictine Annals, book XVI, no. 76, vol. I, p. 497 and of Du Plessis Description de la Haute-Normandie, vol. I, p. 103, who, when they saw that St. Fromundus, venerated in Normandy, was commonly held to be the same as the English hermit and martyr, did not hesitate to depart from this opinion and to say openly that he seemed to them to have been bishop of Coutances; daring to affirm nothing further because they did not know that St. Fromundus, so celebrated in parts on this side of the sea, once had an office from the common of confessor pontiffs, or that in the old catalogues of the bishops of Coutances all up to Agathius (see above, no. 9) are referred among the heavenly ones. But of this confusion one must speak much more widely. For as Mabillon was most happy in that conjecture, so he less rightly judged that the cult of St. Fromundus, bishop of Coutances, passed over to the English, and so that he is the same as the namesake once celebrated among the English: There is venerated, he says, among the Neustrians, he who was once also greatly venerated among the English, St. Frotmundus, commonly Fremundus, under whose patronage there exists a small town and priory in the diocese of Coutances, and some churches in the Caletan district: but who that Frotmundus is, is not ascertained, whom certain more recent writers wrongly say was the son of Offa, king of the English. I should easily believe that he is no other than Frodomundus or Frotmundus, bishop of Coutances. It is to be shown therefore that there were two SS. Frotmundus, the one an English martyr, the other a bishop of Coutances: and for this to be done, since we have said enough of the bishop, it will be sufficient that we indicate very briefly the deeds of the martyr, keeping rather to the translations of his body. For if we have one cult for a martyr, another for a confessor pontiff; and then if two bodies were preserved, one in England, the other in Normandy, we do not see what can be lacking to our demonstration. But first there must be set aside a third Fromundus, whom they have also brought in here.

[15] [The pilgrimage of another Fromundus to the monasteries of Egypt, to the sepulchre of St. Cyprian near Carthage and to many other places about the middle of the IX century.] Led by the likeness of the name, the Rev. Mr. de Garaby published under the present day Lives of the Blessed and Saints of Brittany, pp. 567 and following the history of Fromundus or Frotmundus the penitent, whom he himself calls a saint. In very truth the monk of Redon, who wrote down from the mouth of Fromundus his penitence and pilgrimages, adds at the end [Life of the Saints of Redon, book III, chap. 8, in Dom Morice, Mémoires pour l'histoire de Bretagne, vol. I, col. 259 and following]: But on the same day of his departure from the monastery of Redon, he hastened from this world to the heavenly kingdoms; where now he exults with the holy angels, reigning with all the saints. But similar words of a single writer do not suffice to establish a cult and not even to assert a repute of sanctity: add that by that monk of Redon Fromundus is nowhere honoured with the title of saint. It will be worth while however to report here a very few things from this narrative. Fromundus was born of most noble parents of the Franks, who were chiefs and nobles of the king's palace. About the year 850, his father being dead, a dispute arose concerning the inheritance, in which Fromundus and his two brothers incautiously killed their paternal uncle, who was also a presbyter glorious in the king's palace, and also their brother, the youngest by birth. Wherefore, led by penitence, they went to Lothar, son of Louis the Pious; at whose command the bishops, called to a synod, ordered them to make iron chains and bind them through the arms and through the loins tightly, and so to go round the holy places in ash and haircloth, until the Lord should receive their penitence or their chains should break of themselves. So the three first went on to Rome; and thence, having received from Benedict III, who had been ordained on 29 September 855 Art of Verifying Dates, vol. I, p. 264, formal letters, to Jerusalem; afterwards the men went on to Egypt, going round the monasteries and cenobia and the holy troops of monks, and they were there for almost two years: and setting out from there they directed their steps to Africa to visit the sepulchre of St. Cyprian, archbishop and martyr of Christ, who rests at the second milestone from the city of Carthage next to the sea, where many mighty works and many miracles are very often shown by the Lord. And after four years (rather at the most after two) Frotmundus with his two brothers returned again to Rome; and from there with the counsel and blessing of St. Benedict the pope, who died on the 8th day of April of the year 858, they went back beyond the sea to visit again the sepulchre of the Lord. They then also visited Galilee, Armenia, Mount Sinai and the Red Sea for three years, and in the fourth year they returned to Rome. Then they traversed Italy, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Neustria and finally Brittany, everywhere begging the mercy of God through the intercession of the saints. At Rennes they were received by Electramnus, who on the 29th day of September of the year 866 had been consecrated bishop. There Frotmundus lost a brother; and he himself, emitting pus and blood from the pressure of the chains, sought the monastery of Redon; where, when he was thinking of returning to Rome, he was wonderfully loosed from the chains in sleep by the merits of St. Marcellinus the pope; and three days afterwards, having gone out from the monastery, he departed this life. So this man is altogether another, easily distinguished from his namesakes. Wherefore without delay let us come to St. Fromundus or Fremundus the Englishman.

[16] St. Fromundus of Coutances Namely on the 11th day of May a feast was formerly kept in some places of England in honour of St. Fremundus, whose Life, stained with fables, Capgrave once edited, and which is supplied to me by volume III of the Lives of the Saints, comprising the saints of the months of May, June, July and August, collected at the end of the XV century by John Ghent, canon regular of Groenendael. In it St. Fremundus (for the English prefer this form of the name, not unknown to the Gauls, but they know Fromundus also) is said to have been the son of King Offa; and in fact nothing stands in the way of his having been born in the ninth century from some petty king of the county of Warwick.

[17] [has been confused with St. Fremundus or Fromundus, an English martyr, whose deeds,] Baptized in his youth by Bishop Heswi, which name seems the same as Aescwy, he was compelled by his father to hold the reins of the kingdom for a year and a half. Then with two clerics, Burchard, who is said to have written his Life (certainly that English one, which afterwards is narrated to have been found in his tomb), and Edebrid, he secretly fled to the island of Fage, placed in the mouth of the river or gulf of the Severn * Challoner, Britannia sancta, vol. I, p. 286; and there, a little cell or oratory having been built in honour of St. Mary, he lived most piously with his companions for seven years. Meanwhile Yngar and Hubba with a troop of Danes or Normans invade England and monstrously kill St. Edmund the king; which took place on the 20th day of November of the year 870. When the report of this came to Offa, father of St. Fremundus, he judged that the barbarians must be resisted, if there was any way. Wherefore he sent twenty-two legates to seek on every side for his son, once a vigorous soldier. He was soon found and with his companions departed from the island and sought again his paternal land. The Danes offer peace on iniquitous and impious conditions; these being rightly spurned, they come to battle, from which St. Fremundus, although he had with him only two companions of the wilderness and twenty-two legates of his father, came out the victor. But shortly afterwards Oswi, formerly a soldier of the petty king Offa, but having abjured Christ, then following the party of the Danes, fearing that St. Fremundus would exact from him the penalty of his perfidy, stealthily came to him and impiously killed him by cutting off his head. On the fifth of the ides of May of the year 866 this is related to have happened in the Passion, by Harpsfield, by our Alford Compare Acts of the Saints, vol. II of May, p. 656, by Cressy The Church-history of England, p. 739, by Colgan Acts of the Saints of Ireland, vol. I, p. 693, no. 45 and by Smith Flores historiae ecclesiasticae gentis Anglorum, p. 157. Compare p. 156; and by the author of the more recent English Martyrology A memorial of British piety, p. 76 and Challoner Britannia sancta, vol. I, p. 286 in the year 862; but that this slaughter was perpetrated after the year 870 is clear if only from this, that it is later than the martyrdom of St. Edmund. The body of the holy martyr was first buried, enclosed in a leaden coffin, in the place which is called Offchurch, within the enclosure of the royal house, which village is distant about five miles from Warwick, towards the east: on the place see the commentary of Henschenius on St. Fremundus Acts of the Saints, vol. II of May, p. 656.

[18] the translations When sixty-six years had elapsed after his death, by which we come at least to the year 936, three girls, labouring under various bodily disorders from their first birth, came, not without prodigies, to the body of the blessed man and carried it to a certain place between the Charwell and the Brademere, surrounded with pitch, where these rivers join each other, and they decently placed the martyr's body in a snow-white stone, wonderfully sculpted. There upon the river Charwell five priests had received a dwelling, or (unless I am mistaken) a priory of canons regular was erected; in which the shrine of St. Fremundus was at one time hidden in the ground, very probably on account of enemy incursions. The Charwell or Cherwell is a stream from the southern corner

of Northampton flowing into the territory of Oxford and at Oxford pouring its waters into the Isis or Thames: but what stream the Brademere is I do not find, because I lack accurate English hydrographers; but these things are so diligently described that those whom it may concern to find out what church is designated there will easily understand it from the confluence of the Charwell and the Brademere. Further, the shrine of St. Fremundus lay hidden there, until those priests, at the indication of a certain Aelbert, returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, uncovered the sepulchre in a pit and in it, in the presence of Birinus (?), bishop of Dorchester, the body of the glorious Fremundus decently wrapped in cloths, and in the same sepulchre with his body his Life and Passion noted down in English letters. Then the body was carried to a certain place which was called Redic; where, a chapel having been built, it was handed over to that Aelbert and five priests to be guarded, placed in a coffin of silver plates, offered by the devotion of the faithful, put together with decent work: which elevation from the old sepulchre was made on the fifth of the kalends of April; and that same prelate of Dorchester is related afterwards to have built an oratory over him of mortar and stone.

[19] [and chiefly his cult in the priory of Dunstable in the territory of Bedford and the diocese of Dorchester or Lincoln are briefly reported.] In our days, there is added in the codex which I use, his holy body resting in the priory of canons regular of Dunstaple is held in great honour. It seems to have come there before the year 1207, at which in the Chronicle of this asceterium, brought to light, unless I am mistaken, by Gough, the editor of Camden Compare Gough in his edition of Camden's Britannia, vol. I, p. 331, one reads New Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. VI, p. 240: A.D. 1207 there were dedicated in our church the altar of St. Mary, and the altar of St. Frehemundus, and the altar of St. Nicholas and the altar of St. James; undoubtedly by the care of the prior of the convent, who at the year 1213 is praised in general because he acquired relics of many saints from many friends New Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. VI, p. 241. Indeed some years before the cult of St. Fremundus was already fervent there. For in the year of the Lord, as the praised chronographer says Ibid., p. 240, one thousand two hundred and three the king gave and confirmed to us a fair of three days in May; or, as is read in the History of the foundation Ibid., in the page cited: The said prior and canons also have … from the gift … of King … John a fair on the feast of St. Fremundus, which was celebrated on the 11th day of May, to last … for three days. From this time the name of St. Fremundus, king and martyr, seems to have become famous; whence, when Henry III, successor of John in the kingdom of England, was staying in the year 1257 in the monastery of St. Albans, he named, says Matthew Paris Historia major, p. 915, Zurich edition, 1606, who was present at this conversation, all the canonized holy kings of England; and lest so great a writer should have studied on this in vain, we have thought that these saints should be noted on this page, that thus their titles may be recited to their praise: Albert, Edward the martyr, Kenelm, Oswald, Oswen, Neithan, Wistan, Fromundus, Edwulf, Edmund, Edward; which Colgan understood Acts of the Saints of Ireland, vol. I, p. 693, no. 45 as if the holy man had been canonized in that year. Likewise the name of St. Fremundus was inscribed not only among the Usuardine auctaria which Henschenius indicates Acts of the Saints, vol. II of May, 656, and among which the Altemps one was formerly used in the church of Winchester, as Du Sollier shows Martyrology of Usuard, p. LXIII; but also in the Salisbury and English Martyrologies Colgan, Acts of the Saints of Ireland, in the place cited it obtained a place by good right.

[20] [Although therefore two bodies were honoured and the one was venerated as a confessor pontiff, the other as a martyr, yet they were confused into one saint both by the English and by the Normans.] Now since in that age Normandy and England obeyed the same kings and scarcely anything was known of St. Fromundus, bishop of Coutances, it came about gradually that in both regions one saint was held, or that the praises of the holy king and martyr were referred to St. Fromundus of Coutances. For here is what concerns England. In the Altemps auctarium of Usuard, where one reads at the 11th of May: In Great Britain, of St. Fresmundus (I have already said once that other English monuments have Fremundus and Fromundus), king and martyr, and at the 24th day of October, on which the feast of St. Fromundus of Coutances is kept, these things occur: Likewise of St. Fremundus the martyr. Now of the Gauls. In the third Bigot codex of Usuard, older than the other two and edited by our Du Sollier, at the 24th day of October the memory of St. Frotmundus the martyr is recalled. Among more recent writers Du Saussay omitted him: and Chastelain used prudent words: In Normandy, he says, of St. Fromundus, honoured as a martyr in the priory of Saint-Lô of Rouen, where his body rests. On the other hand Cardinal de Noailles in the Martyrology of Paris wrote less cautiously: At Rouen, of St. Fromundus the martyr, whose body is honourably preserved in the church of Saint-Lô; and finally much more incautiously Pierre de Rochechouart, bishop of Évreux, in the Martyrology of his diocese: In England, of St. Fromundus the martyr, whose body rests in the church of Saint-Lô: by which words it was sufficiently openly intimated that the relics of the holy man, religiously venerated in Normandy, had at some time been translated from England into the parts on this side of the sea. But at what time? He once divined this who about the middle of the XVIII century, under Bishop Léonor II Gouyon de Matignon, reformed the Breviary of Coutances, writing that this was done at the beginning of the X century and that on that occasion the monastery of Ham was founded Lecanu, History of the Bishops of Coutances, pp. 62 and 63. How false the latter is, is altogether plain from what was said in nos. 3, 4 and 5; and the former conflicts with all that we have just seen concerning the relics of St. Fremundus preserved in England; to say nothing of there being at that time no room for translating relics into Normandy, occupied and devastated by barbarians. But what you may wonder at much more, or rather be astounded at, the very canons of Saint-Lô in the XII century called him martyr in the Ordinary and at the end of the XV century, in the commentaries which we reported at number 8, abbot and martyr. But it is time at last to draw in the sails: wherefore let this be our conclusion, that Mabillon erred, that the English and Normans erred, when they believed that one and the same saint Fromundus or Fremundus was he who was once venerated in England and he who was venerated in Normandy; but that Mabillon judged rightly of St. Fromundus the Norman, namely when he supposed that he was the bishop of Coutances who dedicated the nunnery of Ham. I should not wish to close this commentary of whatever sort without pointing out that at Rome nothing indeed was done that it might be permitted to insert the feast of St. Fromundus in the new Proper of the saints of Coutances; but that when mention of this most blessed man came up, the Rev. Mr. Capalti rightly said to the vicar general of Coutances, so often praised by me, that his cult should be preserved in the parish of St. Fromundus, as being lawful and confirmed by most ancient custom. Which memory will some day be of value lest it perhaps be altogether suppressed; for elsewhere it is nowhere any longer in use.

* Evreux

* monachos?

* Valognes.

* le Cotentin

* style roman

* Severn