ON ST. MARTIN OF VERTOU, ABBOT AND CONFESSOR, AT NANTES AND POITIERS IN GAUL,
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE VIITH CENTURY.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Martin, abbot of Vertou, in the districts of Nantes and Poitiers. (S.)
BY V. D. B.
§ I. His memory in the sacred calendars; his diaconate at Nantes; his preaching in the district of Herbadilla; whether Herbadilla ever existed as a town.
At the present day we read in the Roman Martyrology: In the monastery of Vertou, of Martin the abbot. The memory of St. Martin of Vertou in the sacred calendars; This has been taken from Usuard; some of whose codices however have Vertano, others Vertao, and others finally and better Vertavo. Usuard was similarly followed by the writer of the auctarium to Ado, such as George, author of the Francigallic or Bourges Hagiology, edited Ap. Labbe, Bibl. nov. Mss. tom. II, pag. 704., Galesinius, Saussay, Ferrarius and the Benedictine Menologists. But Usuard himself had been preceded by Wandelbert the deacon, writing in verse Ap. Dacherium, Spicileg. tom. II, pag. 54; edit. in-folio.: And Vertou, celebrating, adorns its Martin. Among those passed over at the VIIth day of May Act. SS. tom. II Maji, pag. 133. our predecessors judged that the deposition of St. Martin in Saintonge, indicated in the Martyrology of St. Savin, and the same at the following day Ibid. pag. 285. in the Martyrology of Notker Lect. Canisii, tom. II, part III, pag. 126., and at the XIIIth of May Act. SS. tom. III Maji, pag. 187. in a Manuscript of the Queen of Sweden, belonged to our Martin; but the error is manifest: for it deals with St. Martin of Saintes, disciple of St. Martin of Tours, whose feast is celebrated on the VIIth day of December: and so St. Martin the solitary, whom they likewise proposed from a Manuscript Florarium among those passed over at the XXIInd of June Ibid. tom. IV Junii, pag. 139., and who Baronius affirms, in the annotations at the present XXIVth day of October of the Roman Martyrology, is praised in a certain auctarium of Ado at the IXth day of December, I judge once more to be not ours, but the one of Saintes: indeed I fear that he is not of Vertou who comes at the XXth of September among those passed over Ibid. tom. VI Sept. pag.106..
[2] the first Life, written before the invasion of the Normans However that may be, from Wandelbert and Usuard it is made certain that in the IXth century the name of St. Martin of Vertou was celebrated. But this shines forth much more from three Lives, of which certainly two and perhaps also the third were already being read in this age. The first, or the most ancient of all and hitherto unpublished, seems to have been written when Nantes was still a part of Neustria. For in num. 1 Nantes is called a city of Neustria, and further down in num. six it is said that from the holy community of Vertou so great an opinion of sanctity burst forth, that all Neustria was fragrant with it. Further, I should readily grant that by foreigners the county of Nantes, even after the year 851 Art de vérifier les dates, tom. II, pag. 893., in which Erispoe, having gained the victory, obtained from Charles the Bald the quiet possession of it, was sometimes reported within the bounds of Neustria; but I should not believe that the city of Nantes was still called a city of Neustria by the inhabitants themselves before suitable documents are brought forward. Nor among these does the second of the Lives of St. Martin seem to be reckoned, of which we shall speak further down; since it is manifest that it was taken from the first or is an amplification of it: whence it is no wonder if the same expressions recur in it too.
[3] and the restoration of the kingdom of Lesser Britain; Further, although it is not my intention to renew controversies on the mutual rights and duties of the kingdom of the Franks and Armorican Britain; it will nevertheless be helpful for the present argument to weigh these words of the Chronicle of Saint-Brieuc, woven from more ancient monuments, so that it may appear what the Britons and their clients thought after the pacts with Charles the Bald: Erispoe, says the author of that chronicle Ap. D. Morice, Mém. pour servir à l'Hist. de Bretagne, tom. I, col. 23., son of Nemenoe, after the death of his father succeeded to the kingdom of Britain by hereditary right, and had himself raised up and anointed king… Peace being made and sworn on the Gospels of God between him and Charles the Bald, king of the Gauls, he retained the county and city of Nantes for himself and his successors, kings and princes of Britain, freely and quietly, and united it to his British kingdom, as they had been before in the time of Conan, Meriadoc, Grallon, Solomon, Audroen, Budic and Howel the Great, kings of Britain in succession, before the city of Nantes had been captured and occupied by the governor of the Gauls by virtue of the power of the emperor reigning over him after the death of Howel, king of the Britons. And since the Britons had already occupied the territory of Nantes somewhat before the year 851, one is led to suspect that even before that time the inhabitants of this land, and hence those of Vertou, did not see themselves as subject to Neustria. Add to these things not only that at the end no talk is made of translations of the body, but also that from the rougher and less polished style it is manifest that this writing lit the way for the authors of the other Lives; whose zeal in adorning the deeds of St. Martin is easily detected everywhere. And of these we must now speak.
[4] the second Life, written before the end of the IXth century Namely Mabillon edited two Lives of St. Martin in the first Benedictine Century, the one in the middle of the volume Pag. 371 et seqq., the other in the appendix Pag. 681 et seqq., and to both he added a history of miracles and translation. In the preliminary observation to the former he wrote that it may be suspected that this Life and the book of miracles were written by the same author; for in num. 9 these words are read: We have already said how at his commotion Herbadilla was overwhelmed: which matter is described not in the book of Miracles but in the Life; but that the writer of the Miracles shows sufficiently that he lived a little after the Norman storm, when he testifies that a certain Arnulf, both of whose hands had been cut off by the Normans, was known to him; and to the title of the other Life he added that it was written by an anonymous author who lived at the close of the Xth century. But Dom Rivet, or whoever else wrote this passage of the Literary History of France, by no means approved all these things Hist. litt. de France, tom. V, pag. 664.. And indeed it seems to be established that the History of the Translation and Miracles is the same in both places, so that there is a double edition of the same writing, differing only in the arrangement of the matter. Next, as Rivet rightly observes, it is made clear from the style that this History was written not by the author of the former Life, but of the latter; and accordingly that this, as being arranged by a man who had seen Arnulf who suffered from the Normans, belongs not to the Xth, but to the IXth century.
[5] by a sincere man, to whom we owe also the Miracles and Translation; Rivet greatly praises him, saying that he was manifestly a native of Nantes, a monk of Vertou, a man skilled for his time, and in writing most observant of order. Nor shall I resist these praises; indeed I shall add that he was a man of outstanding sincerity. For, as has been said already, the most ancient Life of all lit the way for him; and he continually amplifies and augments this with commonplaces, yet he inserts nothing of his own that pertains to the substance of the matter: wherefore if in this part he brings forward some things scarcely credible, care must be taken that this should not be imputed as a fault to him, but rather to his exemplar; and so he is to be trusted, where he comprises in his narrative the translation of the body, whose circumstances he himself searched out, or where he reports miracles, of which he gives warning at num. 5: Nor was there lacking an abundance of miracles: which have been partly given over to oblivion by sloth, partly recorded by the venerable archdeacon Seguin; a few of which we insert here. He had also read the precepts or diplomas of his monastery, since, speaking of its excellent monks, he writes: Of which fathers one was Lannegisil, whose diligence and skill of shrewd mind can be clearly manifest to one reading the tenor OF OUR PRECEPTS.
[6] the third Life, not much later; other more recent Lives. The praises of the other biographer, whom we named above, Rivet somewhat lightens; namely that his writing is rather an oration than a history; that the former evidently lit the way for him; that he perhaps belongs to the Xth century; that the chief deeds were selected by him and so rhetorically adorned that they could be read in choir on the feast of St. Martin; however that may be, whether he had before his eyes the most ancient Life of all, or the second, he sometimes departs from the rest, and is for that reason the less to be approved. We shall give below the first and second Life, and shall omit the third; being satisfied to indicate in the Annotations what is different. Both editions of the Miracles and Translation, moreover, we shall try so to combine into one that nothing may perish and at the same time it may be understood what is wanting or differs in one or other. To pass over the Benedictine Menologies, the Life of St. Martin is narrated in several other books: namely by Gonon Vit PP. Occid. pag. 258., Menard Martyrol. Bened. Observ. lib. I, pag. 358 et seqq., Mabillon [Annales Bened. lib. VI, num. 14 et seqq. tom. I, pag. 134 et seqq. lib. IX, num. 37, pag. 235.], Bulteau Abrégé de l'hist. de l'ordre de S. Benoit. tom. I, pag. 261 et 262., Baillet Vies des Saints, ad 24 Oct., Butler Lives of the fathers etc., ad 24 Oct., Albert Le Grand Vies des Saints de la Bretagne Armorique, pag. 645 et seqq. édit. 1837., Lobineau Vies des Saints de Bretagne, tom. II, pag. 4 et seqq., Garaby Vies des Bienheureux et des Saints de Bretagne, pag. 270., Deric Histoire ecclesiastique de Bretagne, tom. II, pag. 1 et seqq. édit. 1847. and the rest. But you will draw out nothing from all these which you do not have in the aforesaid Lives of the holy man. Moreover, since the most ancient Life itself seems to have been written long enough after the death of Blessed Martin, it is to be understood from this that most things were received from report, which we all daily experience to grow as it goes, and accordingly that those monuments are not present to us here which would win full credence for wonderful things: for it is established that in ecclesiastical tribunals themselves firmer proofs are required for miracles than for establishing other things commonly met with.
[7] How it came about that, although St. Martin was a deacon of Nantes, Since, however, what is reported of the birth, diaconate and other things of St. Martin are not of that kind, there is nothing that anyone should call into doubt. A difficulty arises, however, when concerning his mission to the district of Herbatilla or Herbadilla
the discussion begins. Above, at the preceding day, in the Commentary on St. Benedict, we discoursed at length of the districts of Mauges, Tiffauges and Herbadilla, which were comprised approximately by the rivers Loire, Layon and Lay, showing that in the district of Mauges was included the deanery of Mauges and the territory of Saint-Florent; in that of Tiffauges the deaneries of Saint-Laurent and Montaigu; and finally in that of Herbadilla the deaneries of Rais, Clisson, Mareuil, Talmont and Aizenay. That the districts of Mauges and Tiffauges were formerly subject to the bishop of Poitiers is openly handed down in the diploma which in the year 849 Charles the Bald granted to the monastery of Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, saying D. Bouquet, Recucil, tom. VIII, pag. 501. that there consented, or rather urged, the venerable bishops Dido of Poitiers, to whose prelacy is subject the district of Mauges, in which the aforesaid place (Saint-Florent-le-Vieil) is situated, and also that of Tiffauges, Actard also, prelate of Nantes etc. Similarly it is undoubted that the deaneries of Mareuil, Talmont and Aizenay were of the diocese of Poitiers, until the bishopric of Luçon was created in the year 1317. But if these deaneries, or by far the greater part of the district of Herbadilla, obeyed the prelate of Poitiers, why not similarly the remaining part, namely the deaneries of Rais and Clisson? But if the deanery or tract of Rais, in which Herbadilla lay, was liable to his jurisdiction, why did the bishop of Nantes, Felix, a man much commended, put his sickle into another's harvest, destining St. Martin there? Wherever therefore we turn, we are pressed by the stings of difficulties; which it seems worth the trouble to remove, or at least to try.
[8] and the district of Herbadilla belonged to the diocese of Poitiers I for my part think that in the VIth century, in which it is established that St. Martin lived, the tracts of Rais and Clisson were by right of the bishop of Poitiers: for first that these tracts belonged to the Pictones, or at least to the Aquitanians, Strabo makes attested, writing in book IV on the Gauls Ibid. tom. I, pag. 20. that the Loire flows out between the Pictones and the Namnetes: Ὁ δὲ Λείγηρ μεταξὺ Πικτόνων τὲ καὶ Ναμνίτων ἐκβάλλει; and further down Ibid. pag. 21. he again encloses the Pictones by the Loire and the Ocean. Not otherwise Vibius Sequester: The Loire of Gaul, he says Ibid. pag. 101., dividing the Aquitanians and Celts, rolls out into the British Ocean. Similarly the anonymous Ravennate, or whoever he is, about whom not so long ago the distinguished Boch disputed excellently Aunuaire de la bibl. royale, année 1851, pag. 161 et seqq.: The Loire, he says D. Bouquet, tom. I, pag. 121., which divides between the Gauls and Aquitaine itself; and so others, who wrote after Augustus had extended the bounds of Aquitaine. Now that the province, or rather the ecclesiastical boundary, within whose compass the diocese of Poitiers lay, was circumscribed by the limits of the civil province of Aquitaine, not only the common law of that age makes manifest, but even the inscription alone of the book of St. Hilary of Poitiers, in which bishops are distinguished by civil provinces and the bishops of the province of Aquitaine are chiefly read S. Hilarii Opp. col. 1149., since namely about the year 358 it was not yet divided into two parts Cfr D. Bouquet, tom. I, Præf. pag. XV.: wherefore, as the civil province of Aquitaine was bounded by the Ocean and the Loire, so too the ecclesiastical, and accordingly the diocese of Poitiers, the last bound of the ecclesiastical province towards the north-west. And indeed, which is our second argument, we see St. Hilary performing the episcopal office in these parts; for St. Gregory of Tours writes De Gloria Confess. cap. LIV.: Within the boundary of the Pictavians itself, which adjoins the city of Nantes, that is, in the village of Rezé, a certain Lupian, passing away in his white robes, rests. He is said to have received the gift of baptism from Blessed Hilary the prelate: but soon, as we have said, he departed from the body. Thirdly it is not credible that the boundary of the Pictavians, which, as we have just received from St. Gregory, took in the village of Rezé, and the district of Herbadilla, of which we have already shown the tract of Rais to be a part, were so divided into two parts for ecclesiastical government that one should belong to the province of Tours, the other to that of Bordeaux. Other things of the kind could be added; which however for brevity's sake it is better to omit.
[9] and that the very tracts of Rais and Clisson, What, then, do the adversaries say to these things? Nothing certainly of any weight, except that afterwards the tracts of Rais and Clisson were by right of the bishop of Nantes. But nothing certain can be deduced from this head: for was not the district or deanery of Mauges still subject to the bishop of Poitiers in the year 849? and yet afterwards, probably when in the year 958 this land came into the hands of the counts of Anjou, it passed into the authority of the bishop of Angers [De la Fontenelle de Vaudoré, Recherches sur les peup. qui habit. le Nord de l'anc. Poitou, in Mém. de la soc. des ant. de l'Ouest, tom. I, pag. 91]. For something similar to happen in the district of Herbadilla, a most apt cause arose in the year 851, in which Respogius, as the Annals of Saint-Bertin put it D. Bouquet, tom. VII, pag. 68., son of Nomenoe, coming to Charles, in the city of Angers, hands being given, is received, and is presented both with royal vestments and with the dominion of his father's power, and there are added moreover Rennes, Nantes and Rais. In establishing these things indeed I grieve that I do not have as ally Rev. Tresvaux L'Eglise de Bretagne, pag. 63., who holds that already in the year 843 the village of Liré, which the maps show on the left bank of the Loire over against Ancenis (Ancenis), belonged to the diocese of Nantes; but the more I consider and go over again what I attempted on the same matter in the Commentary on St. Vitalis of Rezé Act. SS. tom. VII Oct. pag. 1092., the firmer settles in me the opinion that that change of limits was made in the year 851. For the occasion must have been such that only the northern part of the district of Herbadilla was added to the county of Nantes; which is clear to have happened only then.
[10] St. Martin nevertheless preached there. But while we discuss these things, we tighten the knot, rather than loose it. Why then did Felix of Nantes send his deacon into the diocese of Poitiers? Certainly to go beyond the boundaries which the fathers have set has always been held the greatest fault in the church and full of schism. But this knot is loosed by the Life of St. Martin itself, in which it is openly handed down that this part of the district of Herbadilla, contiguous to Nantes, still lay plainly buried in the darkness of idolatry. Now no one is ignorant that the lands of infidels, even if they are judged to be included in some diocese, are held as unattached, and accordingly that the laws on keeping boundaries are not of the same weight there: indeed Ariowald, king of the Lombards, had a suspicion that bishops had not so great authority in places far distant from episcopal cities Jonas, Vita S. Bertulfi, in sæc. II, Benedict. pag. 161.; certainly because the Christian faith was judged not yet to have penetrated into them. And by these things I think the obstacle sufficiently removed to this part of the Life of St. Martin being held sincere: although those who wrote the Breviary of Luçon of the year 1836, and perhaps others too, have judged that it should be omitted.
[11] The first opinion, on Herbadilla destroyed because of unbelief; On the destroyed town or city of Herbadilla I find a threefold opinion; for the first, all that the biographers of St. Martin have handed down on this matter is plainly admitted; for the second, a selection is made: namely it is easily granted that Herbadilla existed, and that it was overwhelmed by waters; that this was done by a miracle is rejected; finally according to the third all is referred to fables. I shall try to set forth the weight of each, leaving the settling of the dispute to the judgment of the reader. Now that prodigy is held as true not only by Albert Le Grand, but also by Menard Martyrol. Bened. pag. 358 et 359., Bulteau, and him who added notes to the Life of St. Martin in the first Benedictine century: Certainly, he says Pag. 372., lest anyone should hold this prodigy among fables, from the lake itself, stretching for almost two miles, ruins of ancient buildings, beams, and various furniture are said to be still drawn out by the inhabitants. Afterwards however Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals Lib. VI, num. 15, tom. I, pag. 134. inserted into the narrative of the same prodigy this parenthesis: Others prefer to call it a fable. The very argument of the beams and ruins of buildings Lobineau Vies des Saints de Bretagne, tom. II, pag. 9 et 10. and Deric Histoire ecclésiastique de Bretagne, tom. II, pag. 4 et seqq. have tried to destroy, observing that those beams and ruins were rather carried there by four streams, sweeping with them the ruins of mills and houses.
[12] the second opinion; The second opinion is followed by Valesius Notitia Galliæ, pag. 245., Huet [Statistique de la Loire Inférieure, cfr Mém. de la soc. des antiq. de l'Ouest, tom. V, pag. 419.] and de la Fontenelle [Recherches sur les peup. qui habit. le Nord de l'anc. Poitou, Mém. de la soc. etc., tom. I, pag. 96 et passim.], each fighting with his own arguments: namely first that the Life of St. Martin of Vertou, although written long after his death, is not a monument to be spurned, and that in it the fault was perhaps committed of turning a natural thing into a miracle, but that it does not seem credible that nothing true lies beneath. Second, that in the Life of St. Amandus, bishop of Maastricht, it is handed down that he sprang from here; but this assertion is deceptive: in truth in one of his Lives Act. SS. tom. I Feb. pag. 854. Blessed Amandus is said to have drawn his origin in the district of Herbatilla, not far from the shore of the Ocean of Gaul…; from which indeed it would be established that a district of Herbatilla existed; but not this, but the town of Herbadilla is what is in controversy. Thirdly there is called in to aid what is reported in his Life of the birth of St. Senoch; but again a pretence is made, since nothing else is read there than the following: Therefore the most blessed Enoch , by race a Theiphal, sprang from the district of Poitou which they call Theiphalia . Fourthly that in the Chronicle of St. Brieuc and in other books it is written that the city of Herbadilla was despoiled by Bego; but that argument sins in two ways, since from this it would follow that this city still existed in the IXth century; although nothing of the kind is found in those writings, but that the REGION of Herbadilla was granted by Lambert, count of Nantes, to Gueferius his nephew; and that Bego, attacking Herbadilla (namely the region or district) unexpectedly with a multitude of soldiers, could by no means find Gunferius Ap. D. Morice, tom. I, col. 20 et 21.. Fifthly that it is not understood how it came about, if Grand-Lieu is supposed to have existed before the age of St. Martin, that none of the writers who before the VIth century mentioned several places of the district of Herbadilla anywhere made talk of the Great Lake or place, or used it as a topographical indication; hence that it is easy to believe that at that time not yet
this lake existed, and accordingly that it occupies the site of Herbadilla, afterwards destroyed; but, as we shall soon see, others wonder much more that no one ever made mention of the splendid city of Herbadilla. Sixthly that without a miracle a lake is easily created by a gaping of the earth and tides of the sea, or even by the overflowing of the Loire, by the boiling up of stagnant waters and other things of the kind. Which Lobineau, the chief assertor of the third opinion, far from denying could have happened, on the contrary affirms in the highest degree; and indeed who is ignorant that in the Netherlands, in England and elsewhere places have rather often been sunk by waters? But that things can happen is of little help to history, the searcher out of the truth of things. Seventhly and finally that it is probable that the district of Herbadilla owes its name to its head or principal town, just like other districts: an excellent argument, if it were established that the other districts took their name from their head: but I nowhere see this law or custom proved, but on the contrary openly attacked and overthrown in the prodromus of the chronicle of Göttweig Pag. 528 et seqq..
[13] the third opinion. The third opinion, to which I now come, is held by Dufour, who in his ancient Aquitaine Cfr Mém. de la soc. des ant. de l'Ouest, tom. V, pag. 411. openly pronounces that a city or town by the name of Herbadilla never existed; Mabillon in the Annals clearly indicates that it is a fable; and to omit other historians, as well as more recent Breviaries, Lobineau attacks this whole history at length. The first weapon launched by him against it is not indeed unwarlike, but less certain and rather often dangerous in this kind of matter, namely that this whole history seems to be invented after the divine exemplar of the destruction of Sodom, so that not even a woman, too eager to see, and turned to stone, is absent. Second, that he who first narrated it was led by so absurd a disposition that after describing the grief and penitence of St. Martin over the destroyed Herbadilla, he yet adds in an appendix that other towns were afterwards destroyed by the most holy man: but these things can no longer be said, since we have brought forward an older writer, by no means guilty of this fault. Third, that before the Norman disasters that town was recorded by no writer; but it will easily be granted, unless I am mistaken, that the Life which we now first bring to light is somewhat older than this age. Fourth, that at least no one besides the biographers of St. Martin mentioned this place, and much less all these things which Albert Le Grand added of his own. Fifth, that St. Gregory of Tours lived in the age in which Herbadilla is said to have been destroyed; that he made clear mention of this district; that he was most zealous in collecting wonderful things; and that the diocese of Nantes lay within the province of Tours: and yet that he was deeply silent about that stupendous ruin. Sixth, that similarly Fortunatus, who seized every occasion of praising Felix of Nantes, nevertheless omitted the destruction of Herbadilla. Seventh, that if the condition of the places is considered, everything round about seems so arranged that, with four streams bringing waters here, a huge pool of waves is present here, without any extraordinary cause having ever been needed. Eighth, that the vengeance implored by St. Martin conflicts with the gentle spirit of Christ, and that all miracles of that kind are to be cast away. Ninth, that very many have made talk of Herbadilla or the district of Herbadilla, but always in such a way that they understood a district or region, never a town or city. A tenth finally and, so far as I know, the last is added by Rev. Travers in his Dissertation on the coinage of Britain, namely that the history of Herbadilla, swallowed up by waters, arose from confusion with Ratiatum, now the village of Raise, which in the VIIth century was taken away by the flooding of the sea and the Loire Ap. Kératry, in nova edit. Vitt. SS. Alberti Le Grand, pag. 647.: to which he adds many other things from his own store. What then? I should not say that all these arguments please me equally; but I should wish much less to disapprove of most: yet I hold it enough to leave all these things to the reader; who, whichever side he embraces, will have most upright allies.
Annotations* Al. Senoch
* Tiffauges.
§ II. The eremitical life of St. Martin; the foundation of Vertou; whether the Benedictine rule was in use from the beginning; the foundation of Deux-Jumeaux and of Durinum. His death, translations, cult.
St. Martin, for some time a hermit in the forest of Dumen, When therefore St. Martin was making no progress by the preaching of the word of God, he resolved to lead an eremitical life in the forest which they call Dumen, or Du-Men; as three biographers openly relate. But these things by no means please Lobineau, who judges that all that has been brought over here from the Life of St. Martin, bishop of Braga, who, because he founded and inhabited the monastery of Dumium, is still called of Dumium; and whose Life you have in our work at the XXth day of March Act. SS. tom. III Mart., pag. 86 et seqq. and next that in the neighbourhood of Nantes the forest of Dumen is unknown and was never mentioned by older writers. But to these assertions of Lobineau Rev. Tresvaux opposes that the words Du Men are properly British, signifying Black Rock or Black Stones; next that a forest of this name is mentioned by later historians, contiguous to Nantes and taking in Vertou: but why does he not designate these historians by name? Meanwhile let their place be supplied by the first biographer of St. Martin, writing: The forest which they call Dumen; the second: From the most remote parts of that forest which they call Dumen; and the third: For there is a forest which by the inhabitants of the region is named to the present time Du-Men. Which testimonies cannot be held of no account, even if no one could now easily assign the situation of this forest.
[15] he founds Vertou, not (as it seems) having embraced the Benedictine rule; From here he came to Vertou, two leagues beyond the Loire, distant from Nantes, which place is still called Vertou. Rev. Tresvaux has collected much on the abbey which St. Martin founded here L'Eglise de Bretagne, pag. 487 et seq.; it will be enough for us to say that at the beginning of the XIIth century, when the same abbot presided over the asceteria of Vertou and of Ension or Saint-Jouin-de-Marnes, it was turned into a provostship or cell of Saint-Jouin. In the first and second Life it is read that St. Martin established there the norm of a Rule, which, outstanding for strictness, he is said to have brought from parts beyond the Alps; by which words most judge that the Rule of St. Benedict is designated, because St. Gregory the Great in the Dialogues Lib. II, cap. 36, tom. II Opp. col. 272. called it outstanding in discretion. Yet there are very many causes for doubt. The first, that it could easily have happened that, since the biographers wrote long after the age of St. Martin, seeing the rule of St. Benedict observed at Vertou in their time, they believed that it had been in use there from the beginning and accordingly had been brought in by St. Martin Vies des SS. de Bretagne, tom. II, pag. 14.. The second, that St. Benedict is judged to have died about the year 543 Mabillonius, Annal. Bened. lib. V, cap. VIII, tom. I, pag. 105., and not long before his death to have committed his Rule to writing Cfr D. Mège, Vie de S. Benoit avec explic., pag. 451 et seqq. and to have destined St. Maurus for the Gauls Mabillonius, Annal. Bened. lib. IV, num. XLVII et seqq. tom. I, pag. 96 et 97.; whence it would follow that a few years later the monks of Vertou were already Benedictines: which argument indeed does not touch those who judge that the Rule of St. Benedict, like a new sun, almost at once illumined all monasteries with its light; but only those who are persuaded that its progress was very slow, especially before the times of St. Gregory the Great. The third, that the third biographer corrected what the others had written, saying only: He too with them subjected himself to the regular line of manners: which Rule, instituted by the decrees of the earlier fathers, they say was brought by him from regions beyond the Alps; and that by a Rule instituted by the decrees of the earlier fathers is understood not the Benedictine, but a collection of many older ones, as Mabillon himself is witness Ibid. lib. III, num. XXXVI, tom. I, pag. 66 et alibi.. A fourth is added by Le Cointe Annal. eccles. Franc. ad an. 565, num. XIII, tom. II, pag. 60., by which Lobineau however professes himself little struck, namely that no familiarity is read to have existed between Blessed Maurus and Martin, although the monastery of Glanfeuil, over which Maurus, once a disciple of St. Benedict, presided, was only a journey of two days distant from that of Vertou, which Abbot Martin administered. The fifth, that all the biographers had nothing certain on the Italian journey of St. Martin, nothing on the carrying away of the Rule, and so that some force must be done to the sequence of events for these things to be inserted anywhere: wherefore Mabillon himself in the annotations to the third Life Sæc. Bened. I, pag. 374., after he has mentioned that it is affirmed by Menard that the Rule of St. Benedict flourished at Vertou from the beginning, adds: But since this author speaks doubtfully on that matter, we have preferred to note this rather than to affirm it: and we shall not pledge our credit here. The sixth finally, that stability, which is a singular part of the Benedictine Rule, does not appear to have been prescribed by St. Martin to his monks; so far as can be judged from what will be said below of St. Evroul.
[16] he founds Deux-Jumeaux in the diocese of Bayeux, and there seems to have been However that may be, from the holy community of this place so great an opinion of sanctity burst forth that all Neustria was fragrant with it. For Martin built very many monasteries on all sides: so the first biographer, and after him both the others similar things. To which belongs what Orderic Vitalis has related of St. Evroul: Having made a sale of his goods, whatever he could have he paid out to the poor. His wife, whom he had taken that he might have the name of father, consecrating with the sacred veil he gave up to the heavenly spouse. He himself, as if escaped from shipwreck, hastened to a monastery. And having become a monk, he remained there in all humility, serving God for some time, and the affection for holy conversation grew in him more and more. The narrator of the Life does not distinguish by its proper name the monastery to which the aforesaid man fled. Whence what I have learned of this from the relation of the elders I consider worthy of briefly unfolding for those to come. The venerable Martin, abbot of Vertou, had built an abbey in the place which from antiquity the common people call Duo Gemelli, because of the raising to life of twins, which antiquity records was done there. For untimely death had carried off without baptism the twin offspring of a powerful lord; from which excessive grief had seized both parents. Martin, returning from England, found his friends mourning, sought consolation from heaven, by his merits and prayers gave the twins back to life, and dedicated them as monks to God on their own patrimony. The ancient name from the event lasts in the same place to this day, and a huge mass of stones in the foundations of buildings and ruins of walls gives evident testimony that a dwelling of men of great dignity made illustrious the district of Bayeux. Evroul, still in riches
and powerful in honours, a layman, stood by as a fit co-worker in the building of the aforesaid (as they say) monastery. For he helped the beginners with counsels, strengthened the hesitating, and increased the things newly begun with riches and estates and in many ways. At the last, stripped of all things, he renounced himself there, and, a true poor man of God, in that same place he took the monastic habit, and served as a soldier of God with the arms of obedience, and shone with example to those who beheld him.
[17] teacher of St. Evroul; Thus Orderic Ecclesiastical History, book VI, in Duchesne, Writers of Norman Affairs, p. 609; and after Le Cointe [Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, at the year 565, nos. XI and XII, vol. II, p. 59] has recited these things, he at once attacks them, asserting that not in the Breviaries of Nantes and Le Mans, not in the Life edited by Hugues Ménard, not in the Compiègne manuscript, not finally in that which Albert Le Grand or de Morlaix put together, is any trace found of a journey which Martin undertook from Nantes to England and from England to Bayeux; on the contrary, that Martin is said to have carried his rule away from Italy. Nevertheless there existed at Vertou a tradition that St. Martin had gone into parts overseas; by which England seems to be designated. For in the book of the Miracles one reads: Now there was a prince, whose name has dropped out, in parts overseas, who had a daughter whom a fierce legion of demons was accustomed to vex; and to heal her St. Martin was summoned; and thence he afterwards returned upon a marble dish, in place of a boat. For the other argument: It may be suspected, says Le Cointe, that Evroul withdrew into a monastery before Martin laid the first foundations of the monastery of Vertou; which he then presses with the help of a chronology which Albert Le Grand had proposed, not from certain testimonies, but from mere conjectures. Wherefore both the order of the life of St. Evroul and that of St. Martin come into question here.
[18] nor does the age of either, which is inquired into, stand in the way; Further, the age of St. Martin and the sequence of his deeds is to be measured from the age of St. Felix, who in the year 582, as Du Sollier shows from St. Gregory of Tours Acts of the Saints, vol. II of July, p. 471, began to be ill, and on the VIII day of January of the following year, as the Rev. Mr. Tresvaux will have it The Church of Brittany, p. 58, departed this life in the thirty-third year of his episcopate, at the age of seventy; whence it is clear that in the year 549 or 550 he was invested with the episcopal fillets, and therefore that St. Martin was not created deacon before this time. But if some years are then added, which he spent in preaching in the district of Herbauges, in leading the eremitic life, perhaps in undertaking the journey to Italy and in laying the beginnings of Vertou, it seems that it must be determined that the monastery of Deux-Jumeaux could not have been begun before the year of Christ 560; but nothing compels us to hold that these things took place later. Concerning the age of St. Evroul we have ascertained in the first place the year of his birth and death, namely from the double manuscript Chronicle of the monastery of Saint-Evroul and from William of Jumièges, book VII, chapter XXIII; in which it is read that he was born in the year 517 and departed this life in the year 596 Compare Benedictine century I, p. 359. From the same passage of William of Jumièges we know that the monastery of Ouche was founded under the kings Chilperic and Sigebert, and therefore not before the month of December of the year 561, fatal to Clothar their father Compare Gebhardus, Merovingian Kings of the Franks, p. 51. In very truth the biographer of St. Evroul relates that when the twenty-second year of their beginning in that very wilderness had elapsed, in the same monastery, by the incursion of the plotter against the human race, a pestilential destruction of sudden death came in and was present; and Mabillon Benedictine century I, p. 357 judges this to be the same plague as that of which St. Gregory of Tours speaks at the year 582; whence the first beginnings of the asceterium of Ouche would belong to the year 560. But the argument is weaker than it ought to be, since St. Gregory discourses of a general plague, the biographer of a particular one: and what forbids that Ouche should have been tried by a similar evil some years after that general wasting had lain upon a great part of Gaul? It may also be that the grave plague reached as far as Ouche which in the second month of the year 591 wore down the people both in the territory of Tours and in that of Nantes, and of which the holy prelate of Tours speaks in book X of the History In Dom Bouquet, Recueil, vol. II, p. 383. And so Mabillon himself Benedictine Annals, book VI, no. XIV, vol. I, p. 135 sufficiently perceived the weakness of the argument, and following him the writers of the Gallia Christiana Vol. XI, col. 406, who note that the year of the beginning of the monastery of Ouche is not sufficiently ascertained and explored by them. Let William of Jumièges therefore keep his credit, and let the beginnings of Ouche be placed between the end of the year 561 and 575, in which Sigebert died miserably; and so there seems to remain no impediment to St. Evroul's having stood by, about the year 560 or certainly somewhat before the year 574, as a fit co-worker in the building of the monastery of Deux-Jumeaux, and to his having himself founded Ouche not long afterwards.
[19] what Orderic Vitalis affirms on this matter: For the rest, Le Cointe might opportunely have noticed that Orderic Vitalis did not hesitate as to whether St. Martin founded the monastery of Deux-Jumeaux (for he affirms that, doubting nothing), but as to whether St. Evroul first betook himself there: wherefore, if it should please anyone to snatch from St. Martin the glory of having been the spiritual father of St. Evroul, yet by the same right he will not deny that the asceterium of Deux-Jumeaux owes its beginnings to him, since these things have the certain testimony of the most careful Orderic. Moreover the memory of St. Martin remained in that same place, so that the church was honoured with his name; but it will be of service to set down here what has become known about this place, since it is little and some of it contributes to the glory of our saint.
[20] the remaining fortunes of this asceterium and traces of the cult of St. Martin. In the Acts of the bishops of Le Mans Analecta, vol. III, p. 417, says Mabillon Benedictine Annals, book VI, no. XIV, vol. I, p. 135, an abbot of the monastery of Deux-Jumeaux under Dagobert, the first of that name, is praised; and in the same place P. 240 it is said that Herlemundus, bishop of that city, who by origin had been a cleric of Cologne, having given up the episcopate because of the violence of tyrants, deprived of his eyes, betook himself to a certain monastery where his brother presided as abbot, called Deux-Jumeaux, in the district of Bayeux. This was done in the reign of Pepin. They will have it Gallia Christiana, vol. XI, col. 407 that long before, namely at the end of the seventh century, monks of his own were sent there by St. Annobertus, abbot of Livry; who, since the monks of Deux-Jumeaux had turned aside to the canonical life, should bring them back to the monastic; for thus, they say, St. Gereboldus, bishop of Bayeux, had ordered. After this there is no mention of this monastery, except in the History of the translation of SS. Peter and Marcellinus, in which it is read at the year 827 that a certain blind man named Hildeboldus, having set out for St. Salvius from the monastery which is called At the Two Twins, received the light of his eyes Compare Benedictine Annals, book XXX, no. VII, vol. II, p. 477; and in the testament of Abbot Ansegisus, who in the year 831 bestowed two pounds on the monastery of Deux-Jumeaux Ibid., book XXX, no. IX, vol. II, p. 504. Afterwards destroyed by the Normans, it seems to have come into the hands of laymen: for, as the Gallia Christiana adds Vol. XI, col. 406 and 407, Robert de Villiers gave to the monastery of St. Vigor of Cerisy, of which Robert was at that time abbot, the priory of Deux-Jumeaux with all that fell to it and was of the right of his patronage, namely the status of the place, the church of St. Martin and the tithe of the vill, half of the church of Ver, etc. The same Robert founded a lamp before the altar of St. Martin and a candle for the Mass of the Blessed Virgin. William de Ver in the year 1224 and Sanson Guart in the year 1227 bestowed some things for the same candle. Finally, in the English Registers it is read that the custody of the temporalities of the abbey of St. Vigor of Cerisy, and also of the priories of St. Fromundus and of St. Martin of Deux-Jumeaux, was committed to religious men of the aforesaid abbey in the VI year of Henry V. Now it is a simple priory dependent on Cerisy, distant five or six leagues from Carentan.
[21] he founds the monastery of Durin; We have moreover learned of the third of the monasteries which St. Martin raised up, namely that of Durin; to omit that of Ension or St. Jouin de Marnes, of which discourse is held in the History of the translation. Concerning the name of Durin, however, a dispute may be raised: for in the Chronicle of Saint-Brieuc In Dom Morice, vol. I, col. 21 and that of Nantes Dom Bouquet, Recueil, vol. VII, p. 219 is written Durenum, a village of Tiffauges; in the most ancient Life and in the other employed by Albert Le Grand, Durinum; in the second and third, Durivum; in the Life edited by Ménard, Dirimum; and finally Dureium in the Fragment of the History of Armorican Brittany Ibid., p. 48. Since the Lives edited in the Benedictine century have been everywhere employed by the learned, and it was noted there, at the suggestion of Dom Jacques Sergent, claustral prior of St. Jouin de Marnes, that Durivum was so called from two streamlets flowing together there into one (the Great and the Little Maine), it has everywhere prevailed that Durivum is held to be the true name. For Durenum or Durinum, however, the greater and better part of the codices contend; then it is added in the aforesaid note that the common name is still Durin. I would not dispute concerning the etymology or derivation, although it seems more likely to be a British name, just as Dumen, of which we spoke before. For the rest, the monastery of Durin, which as was usual in this age was double, of men and of women (of which matter we have spoken more than once), was afterwards reduced to a priory with the name of St. George de Montaigu, and, just like Vertou, subject to the abbey of St. Jouin de Marnes. It was situated four or five leagues from Vertou, in the place which on the maps is now called S. George de Montaigu.
[22] in what year he died there; How St. Martin died there is sufficiently set forth in the Lives. But in what year? Albert Le Grand places it in the year 589; Ménard, the Benedictine Century I, Mabillon in the Annals and Bulteau about the year 600; the Proper of Nantes and Baillet assign the year 601; Lobineau between the year 625 and 630; and others otherwise. In the midst, therefore, of this diversity of opinions it seems that it must before all be determined that St. Martin died before Dagobert, prince of the commonwealth of the Franks, was pressed by the many and various events of wars, and took away much from the monasteries of the saints to distribute to his soldiers; for then a vindicator from heaven was at hand to Centulf, who was perpetrating like things at Vertou in the king's name, as will be read below in the book of the Miracles. But that Dagobert fell into these disgraces from the year 629 or the following, from Fredegar's
Chronicle of Fredegar Scholasticus Chap. LX, in Dom Bouquet, vol. II, p. 437 is manifest, and therefore that St. Martin had already then departed to those above. Moreover it is likewise certain that he was a deacon already somewhat before the year 583, in which St. Felix died. Then, if you admit that St. Evroul laid the first beginnings of the monastic life in the asceterium of Deux-Jumeaux, we have shown above that this necessarily took place between the year 560 and 574, and so that a beginning had already then been given to Vertou. Other limits of time we do not have: whence it may be plain that nothing in these things stands strongly against any one of the opinions set forth.
[23] The opinion of Lobineau. Lobineau, in order to prolong the life of St. Martin at least to the year 625, testifies that he was induced by the silence of St. Gregory of Tours: for how would he have been silent about an apostolic man, the founder of so many monasteries, the father of three hundred monks, and one who for the most part lived not far from Tours? Wherefore it is to be judged that St. Martin filled the part of a deacon, or at least of an apostolic man, up to the death of St. Felix; that he then spent a long time in the wilderness; and that only about the year 600 did he give a beginning to Vertou. I shall not deny that there is some force in this argument of the negative kind; yet not so great that it seems one must depart from the common opinion, which sets the death of St. Martin at about the year 600; chiefly because St. Gregory had disputes with St. Felix concerning certain temporal matters [Ecclesiastical History of the Franks, book V, chap. v, in Dom Bouquet, vol. II, p. 235]; which disputes perhaps had their origin from the time when St. Martin, by his office of deacon, administered the temporal goods of the church of Nantes: whence it would be no wonder if the deeds of St. Martin were entirely passed over by St. Gregory, even if he had died some time before the latter finished his History. For the rest, who does not know that nearly half of the things done in his time in the Gauls were omitted by the historian of Tours?
[24] [He is carried from Durin to Vertou, thence to Noviheria, where St. Veteranus rested;] In whatever year, in the end, St. Martin met his last day, it is certain that this took place at Durin. In what manner his body was carried from there to Vertou the biographers explain. It lay at Vertou buried in the ground, until the Normans, having gained possession of Nantes, slew Bishop St. Gohard at the altar; which took place, not in the year 864, as is read in the History of the Translation, but on the 24th day of June of the year 843, as Janning fully shows in the Commentary on St. Gohard Acts of the Saints, supplement to June, pp. 244 and 245. When this slaughter was heard of, the people of Vertou, terrified with fear, brought out the remains of St. Martin from the tomb and fled to Noviheria, where Bl. Veteranus rests buried, and they stayed there for some time. On which matter Mabillon observes Benedictine Annals, book XXXII, no. LXIX, vol. II, p. 597: There are in the district of Anjou two priories of our order under the title of St. Veterinus, of which one is commonly called S. Veterin, situated perhaps in the place which was once called Noviheria; the other in the village of Geinum, de Gennes, of which St. Gregory the bishop makes mention in book IV On the Miracles of St. Martin, chap. XIV. There is also a village on the border of the district of Poitou called in the vernacular Vihiers, which name comes rather close to the word Noviheria.
[25] The conjectures of Mabillon on these matters weighed. These conjectures of Mabillon please less. For the matter concerns not St. Veterinus but Veteranus; and this latter indeed rested at Noviheria, while the former lay in the village of Geinum, as is manifestly established from the diploma In Dom Bouquet, vol. VIII, p. 480 by which Charles the Bald in the year 845 endowed the monastery of Glanfeuil, handing over to it certain properties situated in the district of Anjou (on the left bank of the Loire below Saumur), in the place which is called Gena, the church built in honour of St. Veterinus, where he himself rests in the body, etc. The body of the same man, when the Normans threatened, was afterwards carried to Tournus and thence to Corbigny in the territory of Nevers Benedictine century IV, part I, p. 562, where his feast was kept on the 23rd day of February The Universal Martyrology of Chastelain and that of Auxerre by Caylus and the 18th of July Acts of the Saints, passed over at 18 July. Since therefore it is by no means likely that Noviheria was at one and the same time called Gena or Geina, it follows that St. Veteranus is not to be confused with St. Veterinus, as has been done by some. Likewise I would not dare to agree that Noviheria is Vihiers or Vihers, since this place seems always to have been called Viheriae, and to the monastery or priory begun in the year 1061 the title given was not St. Veteranus, but B. Mary for the one church, St. Jouin for the other [Compare Gallia Christiana, vol. II, col. 1274, and Antiquities of the West, vol. IV, p. 46]. What, indeed, should be substituted for the conjectures of Mabillon I do not have; content to note this one thing, that the journey was undertaken not by way of the Loire, but with vehicles and an immense array of beasts of burden, and that therefore Noviheria was situated on the left of the river, and yet not far from its banks, since heavy things were conveyed over through its channel; it also seems certain that Noviheria was not in the district of Poitou; since concerning the repulse which the people of Vertou afterwards suffered from those of Ension, the title has these words: How his holy body was rejected by the Poitevins: whence it is natural to conclude that Ension was within the district of Poitou, but Noviheria outside this district. The ancient Breviary of St. Jouin, to be cited below, intimates that Noviheria was in the district of Amniacum; but what that district may be I have sought in vain.
[26] [From Noviheria, after many attempts, the body of St. Martin is brought into Ension or to St. Jouin;] So after the people of Vertou had halted some time at Noviheria, they set out for Ension, which they judged to be a cell of their own right. But the people of Ension, who had admitted the canonical life, fearing lest they be compelled by the people of Vertou to return to the monastic, ordered them to depart from their borders. Wherefore nothing remained but to go to Pepin II, king of Aquitaine, who was then staying in the district of Auvergne; to demand insistently that the village of Branziacum *, given to Landric as a benefice, and the cell of Ension be restored to them. The prince assented to their petitions; who, at the request of Landric himself, granted a royal precept to the people of Vertou for the restitution of Branziacum, and by letters admonished the count of Poitou to see to the return of the monastery of Ension to them and to expel the canons who would not submit themselves to the monastic rule. In this manner the way was opened for the people of Vertou and for the body of their most blessed patron. Such, nearly, from the History of the Translation. Of the same things, in the old manuscript Breviary of St. Jouin of which we spoke above, the following is read Benedictine century I, p. 689: In the times of Pepin, king of the Aquitanians, under Abbot Ramirandus, a man provident in counsels, the body of B. Martin of Vertou, shining with miracles, was brought back from the district of Amniacum, and at Ensium, in the little cell formerly of his own right, was received by royal authority, and was venerably placed in the church of B. John the Evangelist next to the body of St. Jouin, abbot of the same place. At which time there were held there two churches consecrated to God, of the same honour and reverence, the one to the south in the name of B. John the Evangelist, the other opposite to the north in memory of St. John the Baptist. Between these two side-by-side churches, in the middle interval, there seemed to be a road, along which, out of reverence for the sanctity of the basilicas, it was by right anciently observed that no one should pass on horseback: and when the body of Blessed Martin had been brought, the road was blocked, dwellings of the monks were arranged there, and the church of St. John the Baptist was fitted up as a refectory.
[27] Pepin II, king of Aquitaine, although it is commonly determined otherwise, Further, if it is asked at what time these things took place, one runs into more than one difficulty; since these things belong to that age in which disputes over the kingdom of Aquitaine raged between Pepin II and Charles the Bald. Yet I would not go over what bears on this; but for our purpose let us observe that the body of St. Martin was carried out from Vertou at the end of the month of June 843; that a stay of some time was made at Noviheria; that then it was vainly attempted to bring it into Ension; that from there they went into Auvergne to Pepin II, king of Aquitaine, from whom a precept was obtained to the count of Poitou and to the people of Ension; but these things could easily be done within a few months; so that it seems the body of St. Martin was finally brought into Ension either at the end of the year 843 or at the beginning of 844. But if you object to these things that at that time the Poitevins obeyed not Pepin, but rather Charles the Bald; I shall indeed confess that this is commonly intimated [Compare Art of Verifying Dates, vol. II, pp. 251, 349 and 350; Vaissette, History of Languedoc, vol. I, pp. 535 and following], since it is everywhere supposed that at that time Charles the Bald prevailed in Aquitaine.
[28] was then prevailing in the territory of Poitou. But if at that time he had friends and supporters in many places throughout Aquitaine, he exercised scarcely any authority outside his own camp Compare Sismondi, History of the French, vol. II, p. 65, Brussels edition, 1846; and so, since that History of the Translation of St. Martin is a contemporary document, it must be that Count Rainulf, the most bitter enemy of Pepin, was not then at Poitiers, but that Count Emeno had returned to that same place, who a few years before, when he feared for himself on account of the proclamation of Pepin II as king of Aquitaine, Louis the Pious being opposed, had fled to his brother Turpio, count of Angoulême: so that the territory of Poitou was at that time subject to Pepin, just as that of Angoulême; in which Pepin routed the army of Charles the Bald in the year 844; and that of Saintes; among whose princes was reckoned Landric, whom we were just now seeing in Auvergne with Pepin. And even after the pacts of the year 845, by which Charles the Bald obtained the districts of Saintes, Angoulême and Poitou, and the rest of Aquitaine fell to Pepin, the latter's authority nevertheless persisted to some extent in the same places: as is clear from his diploma of the 27th day of May of the year 847 for the monastery of St. Florent of Glonne, which is situated in the district of Poitou Dom Bouquet, Recueil, vol. VIII, p. 360; from another for the monastery of St. Maixent, given on the 24th day of March of the year 848 [Tables of the Manuscripts of Dom Fonteneau, Memoirs of the Society of Antiquaries of the West, vol. IV, p. 4]; and from a third of the month of December of the same year concerning goods granted to the abbey of Nouaillé and situated in the district of Poitou Ibid., in the place cited; to say nothing of the coins ascribed to Pepin II and struck at Melle and Poitiers [Lecointre-Dupont, Essay on the Coins of Poitou; Memoirs cited, vol. VI, pp. 322 and following]. For the rest, since Pepin by degrees alienated minds from himself, having fallen into many disgraces, hence there seem to have been no annalists to narrate what he did; but many to set forth what was done against him: whence it comes about
that his history is wrapped in the greatest darkness.
[29] In what place at Ension he was buried; St. Martin Further, the body of St. Martin rested at Ension at first next to St. Jouin; on which matter the History of the translation and the Breviary of St. Jouin agree; but since there were two churches in that place, and in the History of the translation they are called, the one of St. John the Baptist, the other of St. Peter; but in the Breviary the former of St. John the Evangelist, the latter of St. John the Baptist, hence it comes about that St. Martin is said in the one document to have been first buried in the church of St. John the Baptist, in the other in the church of St. John the Evangelist. But although that Breviary is a domestic monument, its credit nevertheless seems to be held of less account, since the most ancient breviaries are not older than the XII century, and chiefly because conflicting things are related in it. For it is asserted that the body of St. Martin was first buried in the church of St. John the Evangelist, and yet a little below it is said to have been taken up out of the church of St. John the Baptist, because the latter was to be changed into a refectory. It is therefore to be held that the remains of St. Martin were buried in the church of St. John the Baptist next to the body of St. Jouin, and not long afterwards were taken up and translated into the church of St. Peter, as the historian of the Translation has it.
[30] the remaining fortunes of his relics This was done on the IV of the nones of December; but in what year is hidden. Albert Le Grand relates that the body of St. Martin was translated from Vertou to Ension in the year 878; and Lobineau has the same. That this is erroneous is clear; but perhaps it will occur to someone that in this year the translation from the church of St. John the Baptist to that of St. Peter took place; I should not believe it, since in the year 878 the IV of the nones of December, or the 2nd day, was not a Sunday, but a Tuesday. Wherefore I rather judge that in this year the remains of St. Martin were placed in a shrine with the relics of St. Judicael, king of Brittany, and of SS. Leominius, Rufinus and Marculf; which shrine the same Albert and Lobineau relate was opened again in the year 1130, and a new translation made; the memory of which was thereafter celebrated on the Sunday after the Nativity of B. M. V. in the month of September; which matter, although difficulties arise here of their own accord from the fortune of the relics of St. Judicael [Compare the Rev. Mr. Tresvaux, in Lobineau, Lives of the Saints of Brittany, vol. II, p. 116], does not seem to be called into doubt Compare Breton Chronicle in Dom Morice, vol. I, col. 4.
[31] and cult. The relics of St. Martin, as Mabillon already said in his time Benedictine century I, p. 689, no longer exist in the monastery of Ension, which is now called St. Jouin de Marnes, dreadfully violated by the heretics. His sacred head is venerated in the abbey of St. Florent at Saumur, but a bone of the arm in the monastery of Vertou, where the holy man's sepulchral stone, more than five feet long, is seen and frequented by the faithful. But, as is understood from the recent edition of Lobineau, the bone of the arm of St. Martin no longer exists at Vertou; for it perished in the disturbances of the preceding century. The church of Vertou, however, had better fortune: for it still exists, if you except the choir, destroyed in this century. At the end of the year 1849 very ancient parts were uncovered, namely of the XI century; on these and other matters the journals are to be seen Ami de la religion, 22 Dec. 1849, vol. CXLIV, p. 329. It is very difficult, on account of the namesake saint of Tours, to know the churches in which St. Martin of Vertou was patron. Yet we know the most certain from the Life of St. Gregory of Nicopolis or the Armenian, who came into the Gauls about the year 1000 and thereafter led a most holy life in the territory of Pithiviers. For when he came to Pithiviers, he was divinely admonished by night that not far from there a certain small church had been consecrated in honour of St. Martin of Vertou, separated from all the noise of men; which on account of its solitude the inhabitants called Sola, distant not more than two thousand paces from this town. How St. Gregory obtained it from Alviza, a pious matron, and made it illustrious by the holiness of his life, may be seen in his Life at the XVI day of March Acts of the Saints, vol. II of March, p. 463. Chastelain in the Universal Martyrology calls this place in French S. Martin-le-seul-en-Piverez or Pitheverais; but I find no further trace of it in the Universal Dictionary of Gaul, in the Maps of Cassini, or in the polyptych of the present diocese of Orléans, in which Pithiviers is enclosed. For what cause the cult of St. Martin arose there, conjectures can be made, but nothing determined. In his honour churches are said to be dedicated at Cré and Dissé or Dissay-sous-le-Lude of the diocese of Le Mans Pesche, Topographical Dictionary of the Sarthe, under Cré and Dissay-sous-Lelude. Moreover in the western part of Gaul several dioceses celebrate the feast of St. Martin of Vertou; and so very many ancient and more recent lessons are at my hand: but there is nothing singular in them.
[32] A hymn on the miracles of St. Martin. A rhythmic prose on St. Martin from the Vertou manuscript codex Mabillon edited in the first Benedictine Century; this we too shall give here:
With tongue, with heart, with all the mind Let now Martin's devoted people Recall his solemn rites; Whose holiness and fervent charity Are proved by his Various miracles.
While she believes not, she took her fall Herbadilla, to the foundations: Through Martin, at first, Vertou's Company flourishes; Freed and saved Is the prince's daughter; The bear yields and obeys, Its savagery put away; A rock knows how to swim through the sea At the command of the one present; The spring tastes of nectar, which he Takes for his solace.
The wave yielded; and the unclean Cohort, under his breath: Here I am redeemed and purchased, It cries, by the sacred blood.
Annotation* perhaps at Saintes.
THE MOST ANCIENT LIFE OF ST. MARTIN, ABBOT OF VERTOU,
From the Utrecht manuscript codex of St. Saviour.
Martin, abbot of Vertou, in the districts of Nantes and Poitou. (S.)
BHL Number: 5670
aBY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.
SOLE CHAPTER.
His diaconate at Nantes; his preaching at Herbadilla; the ruin of this town; the origin of the monastery of Vertou; the death of St. Martin in the asceterium of Durin.
St. Martin; born at Nantes, he becomes archdeacon; Martin was born of most noble parents of a city of Neustria b, Nantes by name. From boyhood he appeared of so good a disposition that his parents * handed him over to teachers to be imbued with the divine law. And in a short time he so advanced that he surpassed those of his own age in knowledge and in morals, shining chiefly with the brightness of his eloquence. And as he grew from day to day in virtue, subjecting the body to the service of the spirit, when he reached the bounds of the fitting age, Felix c, then bishop of Nantes, ordained him deacon d, committing to him the care of the whole parish e. How holily he lived in that state, and how many souls he gained for Christ both by word and by example, it would be difficult to show.
[2] he is sent by Bishop Felix to Herbadilla, to preach the faith; For Gaul was still in part intent on the superstition of idols, and chiefly the citizens of the city which was called Herbadilla f: which city, contiguous to Nantes, although bordering upon the Christians, was yet joined to them by no pact of alliance. For it seemed to itself wealthy and self-sufficient; it had a great abundance of most fertile soil; and then, abounding in wares of the sea and of the Loire, it was far at variance with the morals of all good men. Whence no preacher now presumed to go there. The venerable aforesaid Felix was therefore vehemently distressed that in a city so near him the worship of idols flourished. So having called Martin his deacon, he said: You see, dearest one, that even in our times the ancient enemy of the human race bears rule. Why do we not blush that we have not yet rooted out the filth of profane worship so near to us? Now therefore go to the city of Herbadilla, and announcing the word of God to the unbelieving people, labour to subject them to the faith of Christ.
[3] he suffers a repulse; Martin, devoutly obeying, went on board a ship and came to the city; and preaching the kingdom of God to the people, he thunders forth the delights of eternal life and the perpetual punishments of Erebus. And dwelling there for a long time, he made no progress by preaching, but was mocked by the worthless people, and was driven out now from one place, now from another. Yet a certain citizen of that city, Romanus by name, alone with his wife believed and received St. Martin in hospitality; staying with whom, the saint ceaselessly pressed the words of life upon the wretched city. But as the crowd derided his perseverance *, the saint began to be wearied, groaning that daily he was holding out pearls to swine to be trampled underfoot.
[4] the town is sunk and a woman is changed into stone; And as he was deliberating what ought to be done about this, a voice from heaven told him that the city would perish; ordering that he should go out of the city with his host and his wife, and forbid them to look back. When they had done this and had already gone far off, St. Martin, with eyes raised and hands stretched out to heaven, said: You, O Christ, who came to redeem the human race, since this city, which I have laboured to win for you by the word of your goodness, has counted it for nothing, and you have ordered me to spurn it by flight, order it to perish for ever, that here there may no longer be a wicked seat of workers, but that the abyss, covering it, may shut it off in eternal oblivion. When he had finished words of this kind, suddenly the earth gaped and the sea rose, and sooner than the word was said levelled the high summits of the walls and the tops of the temples. But the wife of Martin's host, astounded by the sound of those perishing, forgetting the warning she had heard from the saint, turned backward to see what cause had stirred up such a tumult. And turned, she stiffened; and in the manner in which she was leaning she remained, turned to stone; but St. Martin, standing far off, began to weep most bitterly, accusing himself as the agent of this destruction h.
[5] St. Martin imputes this to himself as a fault and goes away into the wilderness; Therefore leaving the world, he sought a vast wilderness, remote from the habitation of all men. There, afflicting himself exceedingly, he lived only on herbs and the roots of herbs. And when he drew from a spring there to drink, it was changed for him into the best wine. And when he had remained there long in contemplation, suspended in God with the whole intent of his mind, at length he was admonished to revisit the communion of human habitation, lest the lamp should lie hidden longer under the bushel. So from the forest which they call Dumen i, he hastened to the place which is now called Vertanus. When he had spent a little time there, he began to be frequented by countless people, drawn by the odour of his good fame; of whom some joined themselves to him, desiring to be enlightened by his example; others conferred on him great estates, with which he might either build monasteries or come to the help of the poor; some also offered their sons to serve the Lord.
[6] he goes out from there and founds Vertou and many other asceteria; He therefore built a most noble monastery in honour of Blessed John the Baptist; which place we think was anciently called Vertanus from its charm. Here Martin, gathering a multitude of monks, led with them an angelic
life. He also established a norm of Rule, which, exceptional in strictness, he is said to have brought from parts beyond the Alps k. From the holy community of this place so great an opinion of sanctity burst forth that all Neustria was fragrant with it. For Martin built very many monasteries on every side; in which the multitude of monks was so great that there the number of a hundred l was surpassed: which monasteries he committed to the most energetic monks, reserving Vertou to himself. Yet at suitable times he visited the same monasteries. And he appeared to all of such great humility and sanctity that no one could consider him without the world's growing vile to him.
[7] having repulsed the demons, he dies at Durin; So in visiting he came to Durin m; where he had built two monasteries, one of men and the other of women. And while he was there examining their morals, touched with fever he took to his bed, and when he was pressed by the infirmity and the monks stood round his little bed, he saw troops of the evil ones, resounding horribly with an immense din; and, as is read of the great Martin of Tours, so he too said to them: Why do you stand here, evil ones? Go away, he said, quickly. Then they suddenly vanished.
[8] [miracles and a dispute over his body between the people of Durin and those of Vertou;] And so when he had died at Durin, the men of Vertou went to Durin to seek him. But since the men of Durin were unwilling to give back the body, a dispute was stirred up between them and the men of Vertou; and when both sides had been posted around the body, sleep invaded the men of Durin and they all fell asleep. Then the men of Vertou, taking up the body, began to flee. When a cripple met them and touched the pall which was over the bier, he was immediately healed. Likewise also a blind man running up received his sight. And so when the men of Vertou had come swiftly with the holy body as far as near the bank which was formerly called Laudosa, and is now from the event called Separis n, the men of Durin, awakened, pursued them with arms as far as near that bank. And when it had nearly come to the holy body's being carried off, as the men of Vertou prayed, the river, turned back, gave the bearers themselves the means of crossing; and when they had crossed, the river soon returned into its channel.
[9] among these he is at last buried. And so the men of Vertou, since they no longer feared the enemy, taunted the men of Durin, saying: Why have you lingered so late? Whence also the name of the place remains to this day, that it is called UT TARDE *. The men of Durin, seeing the will of God, returned to their own home. The holy body was therefore buried in the church of John the Baptist, which the blessed man himself had built; where how great and what manner of things the clemency of Christ has wrought, no eloquence of human industry suffices to set forth. This Saint passed away on the ninth of the kalends of November, to the praise of God almighty. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
* read parentes.
* read perseverantiam.
* Attarde
ANOTHER LIFE OF ST. MARTIN, ABBOT OF VERTOU,
By an anonymous monk of Vertou, who lived at the end of the IX century.
From a manuscript codex of the monastery of La Sauve-Majeure, according to the edition of the Benedictine century I.
Martin, abbot of Vertou, in the districts of Nantes and Poitou. (S.)
BHL Number: 5667
aBY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.
THE AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE.
The manifold order of the saints. The Lord Christ, being about to lay the foundations of his holy church, after he redeemed it by the outpouring of his precious blood, and, having conquered the prince of death, restored himself to the paternal glory, by no means left it a widow or destitute of the regard of heavenly governance. For he did not cease to visit it from the supernal seats of his glory: and by the sole majesty of his foreknowledge he provided by what rudders of sound doctrine it might be freed from the shipwreck of the world. And although he founded it in the Patriarchs and Prophets, heralds of his future sacrament, yet he cultivated it with the grace of a fuller privilege in the Apostles, and strengthened it in the Martyrs, who with the laurel of victorious patience spat upon perishable things, that they might be able to obtain those that will remain without end. Nor could the terror of the raging world break through the long-suffering of their virtue: for to them to live was Christ and to die gain. From their glory the numerous choir of Confessors appeared not exiled; who, although they did not experience the rage of the bestial cruelty of persecutors, yet by fighting against the machinations of the hidden and unseen enemy and the blandishments of their own body they left to the emulators of good works great proofs of their virtues. More glorious, further, is the confession of the Martyrs, in that it did not yield even to the most exquisite pains of bodily torment: and then at last
the fortitude of the Confessors, the virtue given by God, is to be proclaimed, in that, having trampled the pleasure of a fleeting life, they mortified in themselves for the name of Christ the harmful desires of carnal suggestion. For bearing the cross of Christ, constant in the same purpose of virtue amid adversity and prosperity, they made themselves separate from the superfluous stain of all vices.
[2] The trustworthiness of this writing. Of these, the condescension of heavenly mercy has bestowed on this world one to be proclaimed for the glory of his virtue, Martin: who, manfully holding the shield of faith, hurled against the incitements of the venomous serpent the spiritual javelins of holy exercise. Concerning his birth, life and death, what we have ascertained we desire to note down for the utility and profit of many with the truth of full faith, not trusting in our own strength or propped up by the prerogative of a loftier talent, but subject to the omnipotence of that most merciful Divinity who opens the mouth of the dumb and who loosed the rude tongue of a beast into articulate speech. To this also is added this further point, that it is not unbidden, or by the presumption of a rash venture, but at the bidding, in charitable sweetness, of certain reverend Fathers, that we undertake this: fearing indeed to be marked with disobedience; to have despised which is to have escaped a labyrinth of great peril. We thought at the same time that it would be of no middling increase, if the praiseworthy life of so great a man were set out for imitation, that those zealous for equity might have what to follow, and the mouth of those speaking iniquity might have that by which it should be stopped: and yet not even now has iniquity altogether fallen dumb, which shall have no unity of communion with beatitude and with the blessed who live in the bosom of the blessed kingdom. But whoever you may be who have deigned to turn over the letters of this poor little sheet, let not the rusticity of the words displease you, but let the truth of the history sincerely tasted beforehand be pleasing to you. For the kingdom of God consists not in speech, but in power. Moreover it does not become the most devoted of Christian service to search out the paint of words, since the almighty Father himself, lover of simplicity and purity, chose for the preaching of the truth of his word, not rhetors or grammarians, but the simplest men and the unlettered, lest the truth should seem to be propped up by the arguments of fallacy. We are forbidden also by the authority of the Law to plant a grove in the house of God, namely that we should not presume by the composition of words to have mutilated in any respect the clarity of the heavenly oracle: since he clouds the serenity of the truth who strives to build it up, not with simple arguments as it is, and pure ones, but with arguments gathered from every side.
ANNOTATIONS.
* profectum
* supply est
LIFE OF ST. MARTIN OF VERTOU.
SOLE CHAPTER.
Deacon at Nantes; his preaching at Herbadilla; the ruin of this town; the origin of the monastery of Vertou; the death of St. Martin in the asceterium of Durin.
Martin of Nantes, noble, lettered, and of good character. There was a man of venerable * life, Martin by name, who from the very beginnings of his youth became a follower of heavenly discipline. Sprung from the blood of most noble parents, he turned all the high pride of that lineage to the obtaining of the dignity of supernal glory. Nor was the height of his ancestry a ground of pride for him: but the dearer he was, the humbler he studied to be. And although he still seemed unskilled in letters, yet he followed in every way the force of that word: The greater you are, humble yourself in all things, and you shall find grace before the Lord. Further, the place of his sacred beginning was a city of Neustria, which is called Nantes: so that he should not be absent from the West, from which he might scatter the rays of supernal brightness even upon the East itself. When his parents, who (as we have said) were strong in the prerogative of nobility, noticed that he was of a keener talent, they gave him to teachers: staying with whom for no long space of time, it is wonderful to tell how, passing those of his own age, he was found in nothing second to the masters of that very discipline. For together with the brightness of his admirable instruction there was in him such a sweetness of eloquence, that he restored the joy of gladness to the mourning, the increase of modesty to the undisciplined. So, leaving these things, which were rather for display than for salvation, renouncing, that is, the scholastic disciplines, he turned the whole research of his mind to investigating the secrets of the supernal philosophy. Being then intent on these things, he subdued the body as it struggled against the spirit, and following the newness of the inner man, he had put off from its foundations the old, which is corrupted according to the desires of error, loving Christ alone, holding the world in hatred. His speech, according to the Apostle seasoned with spiritual salt, brought the sweetness of grace to those who heard. And further, what shall I say of the quality of his morals? Fitted to all, condescending to all: he used the temporal things of the fleeting world like those who used them, and was joined in a singular affinity of purest love chiefly to those renouncing the things that are seen. To the wise he seemed wiser, to the simple, lower than any, made indeed all things to all that he might make all safe.
[4] Made a deacon, he profits all. So when he had reached the bounds of the fitting age, by order of Felix of sacred memory, who then held the pontificate of the church of Nantes, having received the height of the diaconate he took up the common care of the whole parish. And having taken up this burden, how much he gave himself to the utilities of the church it is not in our power to trace out. For who was weak and Martin was not weak with him? Who was scandalized and Martin did not burn? Resisting those who struggled against the truth, this man, drunk with the nectar of the supernal word, with the highest humility of heart, so acted as to seek both the salvation of the hearers and the correction of the unbelieving; urging the good to persevere, suggesting to the wicked to come to their senses from the crookedness of malice. Martin, therefore, distinguished by such honours of virtues, was pleasing to all who were of sound mind.
[5] The unhappy state of the city of Herbadilla. Further, the Gauls, still in part ensnared in the bonds of demonic damnation, had not yet clearly received the faith, matrix of all the virtues of the Maker; especially the citizens of the city which was called Herbadilla, brought low by an erring spirit, had beyond the madness of their fellow-provincials subjected their necks to demonic worship. This city, contiguous to the city of Nantes, although it seemed to border on the Christians, yet was joined to them by no pact of alliance: for it was needful that it should also avoid the society of human community with those whose integrity of faith it had spat out. For it seemed to itself wealthy and self-sufficient, since it had a great abundance of most fertile soil, suitable for the uses of crops. Then, placing the hope of its state in the wares of the sea and of the Loire, it was far at variance with the morals of all good men. For there befell it from the greatness of its riches a greatness of pride, nor had it even a moderate knowledge of the God who gives all good things. But would that it had sinned by the guilt of ignorance alone, and had not raged with the machinery of all savagery against the heralds of truth. For what is commonly pardonable in ignorance, what is committed through the contumacy of pride is deservedly judged damnable. And so to the city of which we speak no preacher, no servant of Christ Jesus now presumed to go: for there was in it so great a monstrousness of savagery that the magnanimous patience of only a few, even of the most perfect, could bear the light of it.
[6] To that city Martin The venerable Felix, therefore, who, as we said before, then held the office of pontificate of the people of Nantes, was vehemently distressed that in his own age of time there should still have remained in this city so contiguous to him the traces of the former error of demonic servitude Col. 806F. He feared to leave those of the Lord's fold * entrusted to him, dreading the losses of his own, nor hoping for any gains from the enemies of the faith. So tossing in an immense grief of mind, he did not see what he ought to do in the cause of this business. At length by the help of divine compassion that which could seem useful to his understanding is sent, not for the salvation of the reprobate, but that they might have no excuse for their wickednesses. So the bishop, having called Martin, who attended him in the service of the diaconate, said: Do you see, dearest one, that in our times the ancient enemy still bears rule over the human race? Why do we not blush that we have not yet rooted out the filth of profane worship so near to us? Everywhere Christ, everywhere the riches of supernal glory are announced: and do we here, slothful, suffer the seats of demonic right to remain unimpaired before our eyes? Wherefore, sweetest one, following the example of our Paul, who rejoices in tribulations, is glad in stripes, desires even to die for those very enemies; secure in the fullness of supernal help, go, announce the kingdom of God to these faithless men, nor be called back by the greatness of the evils hanging over you: for the more you labour in the place of your sojourn for the name of the Lord, the more shall you be presented with the beatitude of the reward in the fatherland of the just. When Martin had heard these things, although he conjectured from the experience of many that his undertakings would be frustrated, yet strengthened by the promises of heavenly assistance and with the fear of death put aside, he endeavours to enter on what is ordered. So having obtained the blessing he had asked for, with the favour of Christ as companion, he entrusted himself to the channel of the Loire: and like another Jonah he goes to preach to the Ninevites. Truly the prophet, hesitating and unwilling, announced to the people of Nineveh the savage perils of impending ruin: Martin, glad and eager, strove to preach to the city that was to perish the ordinances of salvation. The people to be saved heard that one threatening cruel things; the people to perish scorned to hear this one beseeching and continually admonishing. That one grieved that Nineveh had not experienced the perils of the promised destruction: this one grieved that the city of Herbadilla had incurred the punishment of eternal ruin.
[7] He announces the word of God. So Martin, carried by ship, hurries to the city, and announces the kingdom of God to the people, making known the delights of eternal life and the perpetual punishments of Erebus, the majesty of the almighty Divinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: refuting the superstitious ordinances of their vanity, he preached with the grace of a singular eloquence: Your gods, he said, whom, driven by profane error, you madly worship, were made by the industry of human art when they did not exist, and are guarded by the skill of great care lest they perish. But if any accident has hurt those who are powerless to guard themselves, those who were made by the knowing skill of men are nonetheless cured by the art of men. How then do you believe those to be gods whom you know were made by the labour of your hands? Rather you are to be reckoned their gods, you who are wearied by the wakeful solicitude of unceasing care for them. For Martin had seen there the image of golden Jupiter, of Mercury and Diana, of Venus too and Hercules, monstrosities cast in bronze or marble. And so the blessed man would by no means suffer himself to be at rest, but in season, out of season, by reproving, beseeching, rebuking, he strove to sow the word of Christ in the minds of the lost. He announced to them how in the beginning of the world God made man to his own image, how man lost the happy beatitude of paradise: and through a fall by the persuasion of the venomous serpent, he recovered it through the incarnation of his only Son. To these things he also added the childbearing of the Virgin, the passion of the most blessed cross, the resurrection from the dead, the ascension into the heavens, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the remission of sins through the laver of baptism, the future judgment of God at the consummation of the age, the resurrection of our flesh, the joys of the saints, and also the punishments of the wicked: all of which the catholic faith teaches are fulfilled or to be fulfilled in Christ and through Christ. At such admonitions and preachings of his the savage people became more atrocious, and fell to such a madness of folly that it not only did not fear to deride the words of life, but also thought that the herald of salvation should be shut out from all the grace of humanity and hospitality.
[8] He is despised by the inhabitants. Further, when Martin saw that the words of salvation were being thrown away, and that he himself was being set apart from the law of nature, he complained to himself of the impiety of so great a misfortune. But divine grace
which never abandons those who hope in it, inspired one of the citizens, to whom the solace of a wife was dear, and whose name was Romanus, to receive in his own hospitality the blessed man, who complained more of the impiety of men than of his own need, and to cherish him with suitable nourishment as far as he could. When Martin saw that this man was of such great devotion, in order to repay temporal things with eternal, he at once declared to him the name of Christ Jesus, preached his power, announced his kingdom, and baptized him, believing, with his wife, in the faith of the holy Trinity: and staying with him, unceasingly, as he had begun, he pressed eternal life upon the wretched city. But as the crowd of that gathering destined to perish laughed at the perseverance of his manifold long-suffering, he began to be exceedingly wearied, and to be consumed by the anguish of a mourning mind. And so, thinking of deserting the hostile city, he began to be greatly troubled that none of them had been worthy to be joined to the grace of the heavenly calling: and considering in himself the equity of the supernal counsel, he decided that the council of vanity and of those doing iniquity ought to be left by him: lest, made a tiller of unfruitful ground, he should have nothing to reap when Christ came. Having gathered also that if, before those who, rolling themselves in the mire of malice, were not undeservedly judged equal to swine, he should set forth the pearls of divine grace which they had once spurned, guilty of disobedience, he would bear the sentence of damnation with Christ as judge.
[9] He withdraws from it with his host. As he was thus turning these things over within himself, a vehement voice came down from the pole on high, ordering him to spurn the faithless community of the city destined to perish and to return to the leisure of the silence dear to him. And when he took in this voice of the divine command with his inmost ear, he understood at once that the punishments due from heaven hung over the damned city. Having called his host, whom he had already assigned to Christ, he indicated the chastisement of heavenly justice, and urged him with exhortation to desert by flight those who were to perish. He, hesitating, at length overcome by prayers and terrified by threats, strove in haste to carry out with his wife what was ordered. And when they had gone out of the city with Martin, they were ordered * with a terrible threat not to dare to turn back toward the city; he perceiving, no doubt, through the Spirit that here too the perils of the Sodomite ruin were to come forth, from which Lot, delivered by the Angel with his wife and twin offspring, received the precept that he ought not to look back. Mindful therefore of this peril, Martin with threatening voice restrained those whom he had parted from the city, lest they should be turned from the gaze of the straight road by the greatness of any tumult.
[10] He calls down destruction on the city. When therefore he had thus admonished them and by admonishing had frightened them, and had now gone a fair distance from the city, with eyes raised upward and hands stretched out to heaven he said: You, O Christ, who, led by the powerful mercy of your goodness, came to redeem the human race created by you and lost by the desert of its fault, let the prayer of my littleness now penetrate the magnificence of your justice. I have laboured to acquire this city for your mercy, but behold, it has laboured to claim itself for its errors: it has refused guests, it has counted the words of your goodness for nothing. You have ordered me, Lord, to spurn it by flight; order it, O king most just for ever, to perish, that here there may no longer be a wicked seat of workers, but that the abyss, covering it, may shut it off from the sight of your Divinity in eternal oblivion. When therefore he had finished such words with immense groaning and tears, suddenly the earth, gaping, was ordered from the supernal sight to depart and was gone: and the sea, rising from the depths, levelled sooner than the word was said the high summits of the walls and the tops of the temples. The abyss covered it; that which once rejoiced in most flourishing assemblies of men became fertile in fish. For woe to you, says the Truth, who laugh, for you shall weep. And truly this city, because it strove without measure to follow temporal gladness, came to eternal lamentation. By this censure of vengeance truly the city deserved to perish, which scorned to obey the admonitions of our Martin. Let those who spurn the servants of truth see and weigh, and understand if they can with what austerity of vengeance they are to be changed. For who does not know that a holy man is a temple of God? For the temple of God, cries the Apostle, is holy, which you are. And when a temple of this kind is provoked to anger, the indweller of the temple is assuredly roused to vengeance.
[11] His hostess, looking back, is turned into a statue. For those punishments which the impious people of that city bore, let each of the reprobate and of those resisting the truth know that they are prepared for them for ever, as the Lord himself is read to have said to those reporting to him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices: Amen I say to you, that unless you do penance, you shall all likewise perish. But to return to the point from which we have wandered a little; the wife of Martin's host, astounded by the sound of those perishing, forgetting the warning she had heard from Martin, turned backward to see what cause had stirred up a tumult of this kind. And turned she stiffened, and in the manner in which she was leaning she remained, turned to stone. Here indeed is a rich place for speaking, but lest we confuse the reader's mind with a multitude of discourses, let us leave to the more skilled what further seems to need saying on this deed. One thing it pleases us to insert, that after we have come to Christ, we should not perpetrate iniquity.
[12] He betakes himself to the wilderness. So when this judgment of so horrible a destruction had been accomplished, Martin, standing far off, began to bewail with tears of great bitterness the lot of their fall, and to repeat that he was the author of the destruction of those whom he had been unable to convert by admonishing. With such a failing of mind, then, he arranged to carry out what he had once thought of. For, deserting all things that are of the world, he sought the solitude of a vast wilderness, where he remained with great contrition of heart and spirit through the courses of many days, avoiding the community of men, and fixing the eyes of his mind on the heavenly mysteries of supernal glory, he was fed with divine contemplation: and the more he had parted himself from human things, the more freely he drew near to the Angelic choirs. He was nourished indeed, as often as the need of bodily breath commanded, with herbs and the roots of herbs, which the parched ground of that wilderness brings forth: the burning of whose most bitter juice was tempered by the wave of water changed from heaven into the sweet liquor of wine. For there a spring poured forth most sweet waters: and when Martin went to it for the sake of relieving his thirst, by the doing of Christ who made all things out of nothing, in place of the cheap waters he was refreshed with excellent wine. Assuredly the Lord was present there, who once in Cana of Galilee changed the cheap matter of waters into the most precious nature of wine. For that his servant might be more eager in the praises of his powerful grace, he not only relieved him by the hope of glory to come, but also cherished him with fitting help for the passing life. So Martin, living thus in the wilderness in thanksgiving and in the sharpness of contemplation, was suspended with the whole intent of his mind: then, plainly towering over all things that revolve, and next to the heavenly things, he awaited him who should save him from pusillanimity of spirit and from the tempest. For every man living among men suffers the tumult of a tempest in his mind, and as it were a kind of whirlwind drives him on, while the multitude of thoughts pours in upon him. And while he thinks now this, now again another thing, the mind, tossing in uncertainty, as if from the face of the whirlwind, does not know where it can be hidden. But those who seek the remoteness of a more secret life, separated from the movements of the worldly flood, rest in the continual peace of their Maker: and as if in the tranquil mirror of contemplation they gaze upon the foulness or the beauty of their soul. Yet this is not true of all: for many also placed in cities have pleased the Lord by a more secret mind, and some residing in solitudes have become sluggish through negligence of mind. But our Martin did not give his hands to idleness or sloth, but always aiming at what was arduous and more secret, he was either the example or the imitator of all the most perfect.
[13] He seeks Vertou, where he draws many to himself. When therefore the providence of supernal kindness had disposed, or rather wished to be fulfilled before human eyes what had been disposed before the ages in the secret of its counsel, namely to bring forth the life of Martin to the knowledge of men; he is admonished through the quiet of sleep to revisit once more the communion of human habitation, namely that by the blessedness of his examples many might be instructed to justice, and, freed from the squalor of sins, might be restored to a most clean life: that also the lamp of God, not placed under a bushel, but set upon the candlestick of the Church, might shine for all who are in the house, and might irradiate the gloom of the darkness of the present life with the splendour of its light, by which those present might see where to direct the aim of their spiritual steps, and might no longer turn aside from the way of peace into the way of scandal. So Martin, departing from the most remote parts of that forest which they call Dumen, hastened to the place which is now called Vertavus: and there he had not yet spent much time, when behold he began to be frequented by countless peoples, whom the odour of his blessed fame aroused from the most distant shores, desiring to be more attentively commended to Christ by the prayers of his holy merit. Others nevertheless joined themselves to the servant of God, rejoicing to be enlightened by the true heavenly discipline of his examples, that with him in the kingdom of recompense they might find a part in that beatitude, whose agonies of sufferings and labours they here shared. Some also of the greatest devotion and power conferred on the holy man great estates of their own right: with which he might both build monasteries and come to the help of the need of the poor. Some also offered their sons as the first grace of kinship, praying that they should be nourished with the milk of spiritual sustenance, until they should grow strong, to be refreshed by the food of the heavenly commandments, a more solid nourishment.
[14] He founds a monastery there. After, then, he was compelled by the multitude both of the estates and of the men flowing together to him to live the practical life, yet not to be absent altogether from supernal contemplation; he built a most noble monastery in honour of the Baptist John, than whom no greater has arisen among those born of women. This place, then, as has been said above, the ancients called Vertavus, which we think was so called from the charm of its verdure; because, surrounded by a border of pleasant plain, it excels not so much in the grace of beauty as in every prerogative of utility also. Here then Martin, gathering a multitude of monks, led with them an Angelic life, sighing more and more for the perennial glory of the future beatitude. He also established a most blessed norm of Rule, rather arduous and exceptional in the censure of discretion, which he himself is said to have brought once from parts of the Transalpine region. From the holy community of this place, then, as from a fertile bee-garden, there burst forth swarms so fragrant with the honey of heavenly instruction that all Neustria was marvellously fragrant from their gathered flowers. For Martin, departing from this place, built on every side very many monasteries of the regular life, in which there was a great multitude of monks: so much so that the number of three hundred was surpassed in multitude, in whom there grew together a common affection toward God and the purpose of a holy life.
[15] Likewise many others. Those, then, whom he had set outside, he delegated to the most energetic persons sought out among them; Vertou he left to his own solicitude and care, yet not altogether deserting those outside, but visiting them at suitable moments of time, and supplying the pastures of eternal life, he watched with the highest and insatiable care of pious solicitude lest any of them should admit unlawful things, refuse the commands of the Divinity, or defile himself with the fellowship of the company of the wicked, persuading them to climb from virtue to virtue as much by illustrious examples of pious action as by the charitable hand of exhortation, not despising the weak, but in imitation of Christ condescending to their pusillanimity
faithfully, refuting the proud, taking himself as the undivided companion and imitator of the humble and the meek: and above all the love of humility had claimed his mind for itself, whence also a continual discourse on avoiding pride by all was rolling on his lips. And who, considering the arduous vow of his frugality, did not forthwith hold the whole world in hatred and despise it? Who, considering the abasement in his clothing, who the mortification of his body, did not at once renounce the pleasures of the proud life? For so great was his energy in fasts, his assiduity in the watches of holy vigils, that those beholding were amazed how the strength of his sacred body not only did not succumb to the multitude of labours, but even, consolidated by the exercise of labour, marvellously took on an increase of daily progress. Assuredly Christ was heaping up in him the gifts of his mercy: that he who ceaselessly grew strong by the help of his most powerful aid, the mind of Martin, might never fast from the sweetness of contemplating him.
[16] At Durivum he builds a double monastery. And so while, solicitous for winning the souls of the faithful for Christ, he went away to various places, he came to Durivum. Further, in this place the same Martin had built two monasteries, of which troops of men distinguished the one, while the other indeed was governed by a band of nuns. There then the man of God, staying for some time, carefully examined the morals and life of his disciples, imparting to each, as he saw fit, the admonitions of perpetual salvation, and not ceasing to instruct them how they might become winners of their souls from the snares of the slippery serpent.
[17] Near death he sees demons. Being thus intent on these things he is touched with fever, and is urged to open to the knocking judge. So, deprived of all the power of bodily health, and yet glad and eager in spirit, he awaited his departure, knowing and hoping that the crown of justice was laid up for him by the just Judge. And when his brothers and sons stood round his little bed, and complained that they were being deprived of the solace of so great a father, suddenly Martin, looking round, saw troops of evil spirits resounding horribly with an immense din of clamour: and as is read of that great Martin, the mirror of pontiffs, he by no means feared: but secure in the powerful kindness of Christ Jesus he exclaimed before all who stood by: What are you doing here, he said, shadowy phalanxes? Go away quickly; I, redeemed by the blood of the kind Jesus, will not be a partaker of your damnation. When he had said this, all that infestation of unclean spirits vanished before his eyes. Soon then, as the trouble of his body grew stronger, having laid down the burden of the corruptible man, his happy soul departs to contemplate the joys of the blessed, no longer in an enigma or through the tracing of a mirror, but that face to face it might perpetually contemplate the clarity of its Creator.
[18] [The men of Vertou contend with the men of Durivum over his body. The men of Vertou obtain it by a miracle.] When then the throng of the brothers of Vertou heard of Martin's death, with the mourning of the greatest grief they go to Durivum, and strive in every way to carry off with them the clod of that most holy body. The men of Durivum on the contrary contend, saying that where he had received the end of life at the call of Christ, there nonetheless with Christ's assent he should have the right of burial. Why say more? The price of salvation is turned into a tumult of sedition, and unless the mercy of Christ had set a limit to the litigants, Martin, once the minister of life, would have seemed the author of very much death. But Christ by the counsel of his goodness broke up the counsel of the wranglers in this way. When rain and the dead of night came on *, and all were wishing for rest, so great a sleep invaded all the men of Durivum that none remained of their great number who was awake. So the men of Vertou, seeing that the rivals of the opposing party had fallen asleep, resolutely carry out the burden of the holy body, and spirited with immense gladness they strive with rivalry to return to their own home. But behold, there met the holy body as it came one deprived of the office of walking, who immediately on touching the holy pall obtained the joy of his former health. Another too, bereft of light, there, through the suffrages of Martin, the heaviness of blindness having been driven off, rejoices to see the restored light once more. So then with all speed of course they come to the bank of the river which was then called Laudosa, but now by the outcome of the affair, which we are about to tell, has received the name Separis. But the men of Durivum, to go back a little, waking up and seeing themselves deprived of the treasure which they had been guarding, set about pursuing the fugitives. And those others, with another Moses as leader, had already reached the bank of the above-mentioned river, when behold they see at close quarters armed men threatening with missiles, and now approaching the shores of the river. They despair in their hearts, and turning to prayers they supplicate the most high Lord that he would by no means suffer them to be cheated of their own patron. And as they were pouring out vows of prayers with intent mind, soon the river, twisting back the rapid tracks of its course and raising itself into the crest of one mass, gave the bearers of the holy body the means of crossing. The men of Durivum on the other hand, mindful of the peril which had once befallen Pharaoh, by no means dared to trust themselves to the channel of the river, but looked on and wondered at the outcome of so great a novelty, and at the victors singing to the Lord a second hymn of the song of Moses. So when those who were carrying the body of Martin had quickly passed over, the waters, seeking again their accustomed paths, were restored to the channel of their course. And when they had crossed, and no longer feared their enemies at all, one of them, turning round, with a taunting word said to the men of Durivum: Why have you moved forward so late? At which saying, while gladness raises these up, shame overwhelms those: the name remains to that place to this day, it is called Attarde. So the men of Durivum, seeing so many marvels, and unable to resist the will of the supernal artificer, return to their own home with the mark of confusion.
[19] Praise of St. Martin after death. So those who had the honour of Martin's blessed funeral, delivered from so great a peril, having shown thanksgiving to Christ, the bestower of good things, came with immense gladness of heart and spirit to the thresholds of the monastery of Vertou. There then according to the will of God the body of the holy man is entombed in the church which he himself had raised from the foundations in the name of Saint John the Baptist, which is also placed on the more prominent part of that hill. In this place, then, how great and what manner of things the clemency of Christ has wrought, no eloquence of human industry suffices to set out. For although, through the opposition of the pagans, that once most flourishing place has been reduced to the solitude of a wilderness, and on account of the wild rage of the barbarians the body of the blessed man has been carried out from there, yet it is still made illustrious by many and countless signs of miracles. The history of the overthrow, then, we shall reserve for the following little book: and we shall take care to add also those things which faithful report has made known of the works of Martin found thus far, and some also of those things which we have learned Christ accomplished through Martin in various places while his sacred remains were being carried away: or also those things which we ourselves have seen in the place where now, by Christ's favour, he lies entombed a. And Blessed Martin passed away in the Lord on the IX of the kalends of November, when the faith of Christ was flowering and vigorous now in almost the whole world, and the most vain superstition of demonic worship was yielding to the church of Jesus Christ, while Jesus Christ our Lord also triumphs, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be might and glory, power and dominion, both before all ages and now and unto the day of eternity. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
* venerabilis
* caulas
* Anxius (?)
* ne
* urbe … jussit
* perhaps superveniente.
MIRACLES AND TRANSLATION OF ST. MARTIN, ABBOT OF VERTOU.
By the same monk of Vertou. From the Papers of Vertou and of La Sauve-Majeure.
Martin, abbot of Vertou, in the districts of Nantes and Poitou. (S.)
BHL Number: 5668
aBY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.
CHAPTER I.
Things omitted, and miracles before the translation.
The journeys of Blessed Martin. It was the continual wish * of Blessed Martin to go to Rome and see the see and sepulchre of Blessed Peter, prince of the apostles: whose memory, when he was at home, he was accustomed most sweetly to weep over; and he had the greatest care, wherever the road was difficult, in laying down bridges, and in levelling with stones, sometimes also the greatest rocks: of which those who go to Rome from here, if they apply zeal, can weigh how good an instruction that man had. But since these things are very well known to all, let us turn to the course of our narration b.
[2] A bear renders Martin service in place of an ass. When the blessed man was on a certain occasion returning from the City, he had as a comfort Blessed Maximinus c, who was afterwards made bishop of the Treveri; and they had only a little ass as supplement for carrying the baggage. And so when they came to the city which is called Sutrium , Blessed Martin went to the town to buy necessaries: Maximinus, guardian of the little ass, remained at the crossroads; and as he dozed a little, the wretched little ass, while occupied in feeding, went beyond the edge of the road and was intercepted by a bear that met it, and without delay was consumed. Martin, returning from the town, looks for the carrier of the baggage, and complains with the guardian as to what has become of the ass. Finally, searching, they find the bear sitting on the eaten remains of the carcase and licking its bloody claws with its own mouth. The fraud is not in doubt, when the defrauder is convicted by a bloody mouth. Because, said Martin, you have brought upon us the loss of our help, take up the office of the ass, that you may become in the administration of its labour the successor of him whose blood you have become the invader of. At this voice the bear rises, and with neck lowered is made tame and submits to the hands of the servants of God, and taking up the baggage the robber is made a companion of the blessed: nor could the wild beast refuse the command of Martin as he gave the order, because it felt that the power of Christ was in his breast. And when they had come to that place which is called the Urseria valley, lest it should seem boastful that they had a wild beast in their service, the Saints order the beast to go off, bearing with it evident signs of the baggage. For where the breast-strap and the crupper had been, the hair having been removed, the naked skin appeared: and it was also presented with this honour, that being taken by no one it should come to its natural end, and should propagate all the offspring of its stock crowned with the same insignia. We have also seen in our days some of those returning from Rome who, according to the testimony of the inhabitants, had bought pelts of the same breed: and had nonetheless brought them home as evidence. Of this matter the witness is the venerable Rainald, viscount of the Angevins, who tells these and very many other astonishing miracles of Martin.
[3] Martin's staff, fixed in the cloister, grows green again into a tree. And we are going to tell a wonderful thing about the staff which the man of God, after a dryness of many years, planted in the middle of the cloister. For it grew into the bulk of a great tree, and to many (as the man of God had foretold) has up to now been for salvation. [For little branches torn from it are a remedy to those with fever and oppressed by various languors. If on any other ] occasion branches are torn off, it does not pass unpunished. Whence that tree seems very shaggy, and leafy all over from the lowest stems, which we too have seen and for love of our father have so many times kissed. And it is held in such veneration of admiration by the inhabitants, that the chiefs of the Bretons (to whose right that region belongs), if ever they come there, first coming to the tree d adore Christ in that place, and afterwards enter the church. Which King Alan was accustomed to do, and he said that this was the custom of his forefathers e. Now that kind of tree is suited to darts and crossbows, for it is commonly called Ivus . And when after much time had passed, in that place
the Normans had come f, two of them, climbing the tree, were trying to take bows for themselves. One with a sudden crack lost his eyes, another falling and dying crushed the integrity of his neck; a further one nonetheless, while he strove to descend and knew not where to place his foot, slipped and at once, ill-fated, broke his hip: seeing which, the rest, struck with dread, did not dare to presume on such things any further.
[4] The flourishing state of Vertou. Siguinus wrote down the miracles of Martin. And that same place flourished most nobly through many courses of time, and had most energetic fathers, until by permission of the kindly judge the monstrous rage of the pagans grew up: of which fathers one was Launegisilus g, whose industry and the solicitude of whose sagacious mind can be clearly manifest to one reading the tenor of our precepts. Nor was there lacking an abundance of miracles, which were partly handed over to the oblivion of sloth, partly written down by the venerable archdeacon Siguinus: a few of which we insert here, that we may come in order to the history of the removal.
[5] A blind man receives his sight. At the same time, when that same place was brilliantly strong, there was a certain young man of Toulouse, born of distinguished parents, to whom from the first beginning of his birth the offices of walking and seeing were denied. He heard through the quiet of sleep: If you seek the tomb of Martin, you shall at once rejoice in health. Not knowing whose suffrage, of which Martin, he was ordered to seek, he was carried to the city of Tours, and was not heard by Blessed Martin with the joy of recovering health. After this, seeking Salionum *, when he profited nothing, he is again ordered in sleep to go to Vertou; that it was of this Martin that he had been ordered. Rising up he commanded himself to be carried, and he came to Vertou rather early on a day which was held as a Sunday. But before he reached the thresholds of the monastery, he heard the voices of the brothers singing, at the beginning of the Mass, the antiphon In voluntate tua h: on hearing which, lifting his head, he began to see the monastery clearly, and leaping from the litter on which he was carried, without any support, he came to the venerable sepulchre of the blessed man; and there, when, after weeping for a long while for joy, he had got up, he explains everything to the brothers who were questioning him, and honours the same place sufficiently with gifts as far as he could. The brothers, glad and eager, render countless thanksgivings to Christ and his faithful servant.
[6] Centulf, spoiling the monastery of Vertou at Dagobert's nod, pays the penalty. King Dagobert, prince of the commonwealth of the Franks, being pressed by many and various events of wars, took away much from the monasteries of the Saints, which he distributed to his soldiers i. To presume on this he was persuaded by the counsel of Centulf, who was a courtier chief, exceedingly crafty and well suited to persuasion. When the king had ordered it, [and] he himself was to be the executor of the counsel, he began to inquire into the resources of the holy places and to enter half of them in the tablets of the royal treasuries. Carrying this out, when he had come to Vertou to do the like, where noble estates were held, he added half of them to the treasury and left half to the brothers: who, although they grieved, yet because this censure had not gone forth against them alone, thought they should be silent. Centulf, having set out to the king, lyingly said that the part of the estates which was left was greater than the entire possessions of other saints: and he persuaded the king to divide what had remained, saying that a third part was enough for the brothers whom he said he had seen in that place; adding: Why should those who are ordered to be content with food and moderate dress be possessors of great estates? Let them live, and let them allow us, who are soldiers and serve the lord king, to have the less. Saying this he persuaded the king that it should be so done, and to accomplish this he himself was sent as executor. Coming and being received by the brothers not as an enemy, he asserted that he had come unwillingly to perform the king's mandate. To him the brothers replied and said: If you come unwillingly, as you assert, you will doubtless show it. He saying that he had a lord, and could not spurn his mandate, the brothers, very sad and powerless to rebel, withdrew into the cloisters of the monastery. Centulf, glad and eager, reclined to dine sumptuously, and amid the cups armed himself and his companions with speeches to hasten that for which they had come. The brothers passed the night awake, and standing by the sacred ashes of Martin redoubled their complaints with importunate voices, begging for his suffrages. Centulf, filled with feasting, lay down in a most beautiful little bed, and with proud mind purposed to heap up his contempt of the saints: when behold, at the time of the night's stillness, he sees standing in his sight two men terrible in appearance and shining in dress, who, when with a fierce look they inquired whether he was asleep, he, using his accustomed pride, answered: Who are you, he said, of such great madness, that you dare to rouse me? We, they said: behold we are here, John k and Martin, whom you have despised, insulting whom you have undeservedly usurped the estates of this place. Behold, die, and even against your will pay the punishment of what you have committed. At which word, John first dashed his heels strongly against his belly, and all his entrails by ejection from the belly at once *. And he, trying to rise, with eyes now open saw Martin standing over him on a staff and striking him heavily on the head: and filling the place with a dreadful cry, his companions having been awakened, he cried out wailing the authors of his punishment, and thus by a swift death he hastened to Tartarus. When this had been so accomplished, there was no one at that time who would invade the property of St. Martin, or try to bring trouble on the brothers of that place.
[7] Now there was a prince l, whose name has dropped out, in parts overseas, Martin frees a prince's daughter vexed by demons. who had a daughter whom a fierce legion of demons was accustomed to vex; and while he strove in manifold ways to bring help to his daughter, he vainly increased daily the torments of the girl. At length the demon sounds through the mouth of the possessed girl: That at the prayers of Martin of Vertou the legion will go out, and for as much time as remains to us, O companions, take vengeance for the flight of our expulsion. At this voice the girl began to be driven with as many shrieks, as many movements, as the spirits by which she was held bound. What was the anxious father to do? He did not know Martin, nor on what shores he should seek him; he could not find him. He sends legates to go round all the provinces, if anywhere Martin might be found, and being found might be called to him with the greatest honour. Over the immense * ocean of the sea, after many circuits of the way, they find Martin, God so willing; they adore him, revere him, and explain the cause of their voyage. And the man of the Lord, when he had received them most courteously, after he had cherished them with all the charity of pious solace, began to inquire into the causes of the girl's vexation: and when they said that this had happened to her by reason of a disease from infancy: The Lord, he said, is able to free his creation from the hand of the impious devastator. So taking one of his own with him, he goes with the legates, and having crossed the space of the sea he came to the country of the aforesaid prince. Some of the legates run ahead, announce the servant of God; the prince runs to meet him, rejoicing vehemently that he had been able to find the effect of his desire; and now holding in his heart the salvation of his daughter, he throws himself at the reverend feet of the man of God, and gives thanks that the holy man had taken on the labour of so great a journey for one unworthy as himself. Then as the man of the Lord was hurrying with the prince to the palace, suddenly there was heard a multitude of confused voices crying out the presence of Martin. So the iniquitous legion, not bearing to be presented to the gaze of the holy man, tearing and vexing the girl greatly, withdrew confused and turbulent into thin air. The man of the Lord, going in, raised up the prostrate girl, and with the sign of the saving Cross impressed on her forehead presented her safe to her father, and consecrated her, not unwilling, as a spouse of Christ by the imposition of the sacred veil.
[8] He receives a marble disc from the Prince. He uses it as a boat. So the father, most joyful at the salvation of his daughter, ordered a great heap of gold and silver to be offered to the blessed man: who not deigning to turn his eyes to these things, ordered them all to be given to the poor. Staying also there for some days, he delivered the whole house of that prince to Christ with faithful enough devotion. Now the man of the Lord Martin had seen in the hall of the aforesaid prince a marble disc of wonderful size and wonderful beauty: which he begged of the prince, that he might consecrate it to Christ as an altar. He, most willingly assenting, also provided for the conveying of the disc to the shore of the sea. And the holy man, when all things had been duly accomplished, arranged to return, and hastened as far as the sea, where those who had carried out the conveyance of the disc awaited him, and by order of the prince were to transport it across the deep. These the man of the Lord, lest any trouble should arise to them in going or returning, bidding farewell, orders to return, and commends his conveyance to the powerful Lord: and having impressed the standard of the Cross on the disc, he pushed it out on the waves, and fortifying himself with the same holy protection, with his faithful companion he climbed on the stone, and on the same day most tranquilly reached a port of Neustria, and in a wonderful manner a rock of so great a bulk ran upon the waves like a soft poppy, and neither the storm of the winds could turn the stone aside, nor did the weight of those sitting on it make it stagger in any respect. Assuredly Christ himself sustained it, and as to another Peter, but of stronger faith, stretched out his kindly hand. He himself was helmsman, he himself the look-out at the prow. Soon then they came to the shore; a conveyance being given, Martin orders that disc to be carried to the villa Saviniacus, and following after he fits it upon the altar of the church of the same place, in honour of Christ, where to this day Christ God through the suffrages of Martin bestows many benefits on those who ask m. Of this matter which we have told, although many witnesses are at hand, and the thing itself uses its own testimonies, one in particular is Arnulf, whose two hands the barbarity of the Normans took away. For he was of the ancient household of the monastery of Vertou, and he still inhabits the place which is called Attarde, where the body of the man of God crossed by the divided waters, as has already been said above: in which place we too have been and have often conversed with that same man n. Of whom it is wonderful that although he lost both hands, he did not lose his industry in hunting, so that he has run down the boars which in that place are held to be most ferocious, not only with snares, but even with the spear. We have said these things so that we may make known to all that what we write of Martin is not made up.
[9] The severity of Martin. It is related of the man of God Martin that he was of the bitterest severity, and so powerful and efficacious, that the word which he uttered rarely or never fell in vain. Assuredly, as St. Gregory says of Blessed Benedict, the words of him whose heart had suspended itself on high by no means fell in vain. We have already said how at his being moved the city of Herbadilla was overwhelmed, and, as the abyss burst forth below, was covered with perpetual waters. If we should begin to set out how often he did this, not only to cities but to certain places, we shall seem to be reweaving vain fables. For this he carried out on a village once most flourishing, Sarlebia by name, which although it is filled with perennial waters, yet its former name has remained to this day. And there are moreover many things which are celebrated on the lips of many, almost exceeding the nature of human frailty, which we pass over, not out of doubt, but lest we seem to impose tedium on readers by a great facility of words: and for this reason also, that very many things remain which ought not to be omitted, which either we ourselves have seen, or have talked over with those who were present.
[10] He foretells his own death. The man of the Lord Martin, not wishing the talent
of his Lord to be hidden in the earth, was hastening to announce the word of God to those near and far off. And when in carrying out this office he had gone some distance from the cloister of the monastery, the Angel of the Lord stood by him through the quiet of sleep, ordered him to return to the monastery, and announced that his death was now imminent and at the door. Rising, he began to go back, and when he was still almost three miles from the monastery, the bells of the same monastery began to move, and began to pour out a sound clearer than usual. Martin's presence did not escape the brothers, but leaping forth they ran to meet him with psalms and spiritual canticles. With these going before, he enters the church, and amid the sacred offices of pious prayer he commends his flock to the good shepherd Christ: and rising from prayer, before the brothers there present he fixes in the middle of the cloister the staff which he had always carried in his pious hands, and which by the power of God had been the discoverer of many springs. This sign of my direction, he says, you shall have, that I have loved this place, which by Christ's favour I founded, more than all others. For this staff which is here planted will represent my presence to you, and will be of saving profit to future ages. But you shall by no means see me conversing with you any more, for the time of my dissolution is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: to this image prepare your minds, and go forward along the way of Christ with me going before, that you may be partakers of my crown. The peace of Christ I give you, the charity of his peace and of my love I leave you. I commend you to God whom you have followed, that by his help you may be able to reach the heavenly kingdom. And, having given the peace to all, he set out for Durivum. He left all the brothers in great grief and heavy mourning: and when he had come to Durivum, a few days intervening, touched with a pain in the side (as we have already said above) he reached the heavenly kingdoms: and his most holy body, God so willing, was carried off, and buried in the basilica of St. John, by the Lord's assent.
ANNOTATIONS.
* voto
* Sutri.
* read postilena.
* The Vertou manuscript has only: si aliqua
* Vertou manuscript: Juris.
* Saumur, on the Loire.
* supply effusa sunt.
* Emenso
CHAPTER II.
As the Normans press on, the relics of St. Martin are translated; Miracles.
The disaster of Nantes through the Normans. And so in the year of the Lord's Incarnation eight hundred and sixty a four, when the name of the Norman nation had not been heard among our people, suddenly coming forth from the sheath of its habitation and taking up piracy, having laid waste the places contiguous to the British sea, and having entered with long ships the channel of the Loire, it hastens to the walls of the city of Nantes, displaying the appearance of a multitude carrying on trade. A festal day had then invited all the people to the church: for it was the nativity of the holy forerunner: nor was there any suspicion of warlike tumult, and entrance was made by gates always open. The holy pontiff Gunhardus also, in the church of Blessed Peter the Apostle, at the altar of Ferreolus the martyr, which is to the left of that see, was reverently applying himself to the sacred solemnities of the Mass. So the Normans, entering with none to forbid them, conceal their arms under their clothing, and shade their swords, and entering the church bare their blades, and cut down the pontiff himself as he was saying Sursum corda, next to the sacred victim: and raging through the people they think no age is to be spared: and having laid waste the city itself, and set fire to the church, with a great multitude of captives and the precious furniture of the city they board their ships, and make a community on a certain island. From there, by frequent eruptions upon the coasts more hostile , they force the inhabitants, pressed by great strength, to seek out unknown lands. Whence the brothers of Vertou, exceedingly anxious, since they were contiguous to the city of Nantes, and with the channel of the Loire and of the Vienne set between were scarcely three miles parted from it, collect what they can, and stow it in six great ships, and having dug the blessed man up from the place of burial, they place him in a golden coffin b, distinguished with noble gems. Yet while they tarry, and, as is the way of human frailty, no moderate agitation is theirs, two of the ships, through the violence of the winds, were overwhelmed and sunk with all their contents. They themselves had overturned the ancient church, and had arranged to restore it with greater beauty, which can be seen with the eyes even today. For that same work, stretched out three ells from the pavement, is a testimony to the nobility and power of those who had begun to build. They had collected, moreover, for covering the building an immense mass of lead, which was buried in the earth by them and recently found by us. A certain man also, in the presence of us who were there, carried off something of that mass by theft, and lest it should be presumed on by others, his sinews contracted and he stiffened at once: and confessing his guilt and giving himself up at the blessed man's sepulchre, he obtained health as we looked on. Other things also of no ignoble price the same brothers hid, which are known to us and will be made manifest in their time.
[12] [How his holy body was rejected by the Poitevins, and what King Pepin decreed about it.] At that time Abbot Raimbaldus ruled the fold of this place, a man provident in counsels and prepared with a strong spirit for bearing misfortune: who, summoning the advocate of the place, whose name was Badilo, prepares flight, and bidding him be their protection, entreats him. He answered with a willing spirit that he would rather leave everything than to the blessed man the due
service deny. So the coffin bearing the bones of the holy man having been carefully arranged on a litter, with all the movable furniture, with all the household, with vehicles of every kind and an immense array of beasts of burden, all weeping and given over to excessive mourning, Vertou is left, and unknown seats are sought by the new exiles. They came to the place which is called Noviheria, where Blessed Veteranus rests buried, and stayed there for some time. Now it is impossible to tell what great mighty works almighty God did through each of the places through which the most blessed limbs of the holy man were carried. Moving then from there they make for a cell of their own right c, which is called Ension, in which place, after the manner of Vertou, two monasteries were built: on the top of the hill one dedicated in honour of St. John the Baptist, and toward the East one in honour of St. Peter the Apostle. Further, in the church of St. John rests the body of St. Jouin d, abbot of the same place. In this place, then, one Fulrad was provost over the canons who at that time were to be seen there; to whom Abbot Rainald e and the other brothers send word that they should receive the body of the blessed man and themselves, and acknowledge that the same place had been of the right of the man of God Martin. They, having held counsel among themselves, and fearing the dominion of the monks, refuse to receive them, and send word to them to depart from the limits of their borders. Yielding to these, they seek the district of Auvergne, in order to lay this and other complaints before Pepin, who at that time was ruler of the Aquitanians, who restored Branziacum to them with all its appurtenances: and at the request of Landric, who had up to then been beneficed with these properties, he commanded a precept of royal authority to be made concerning it; and he sent to the count of the Poitevins commanding that the monastery of Ension be restored to them, and that * those of the canons who wished for the monastic habit should remain, and those who did not wish should be expelled. Made more contented by this authority, the brothers return to the district of Poitou, bringing back with them the holy bones of their pious patron; on which journey what or how great things the clemency of Christ wrought our tongue does not suffice to set out: of which we shall tell at least one, from which we may be able to establish faith in the rest.
[13] A miracle concerning the healing of Bodilo's wound. So while the brothers were carrying the saint from there with precious array, and had sat down in a certain forest-pasture for the sake of refreshment, suddenly twelve little robbers bursting forth seized their horses. When Bodilo their advocate noticed this, leaping forth from the midst of the brothers, snatching up arms, he fiercely met the robbers, of whom he laid some low and drove the rest to flight: and, gravely wounded in the side, he nevertheless recovered all that the thieves had plundered. And as his blood flowed down in a great stream, a piece of fat was placed on the wound by the weeping monks, and so it was bound up with a tight bandage. They asked him then to take some food. And as he refused, with mourning and tears they passed the whole night awake in that place. For they loved him greatly, and for his goodness he was an object of reverence to all. So when the dawn of the day broke forth, they placed him half-dead on a horse, and sadly took up their journey. And when they had come together at a slanting place of a certain valley, as the horses bearing the saint stumbled, the chest nearly fell, had not that same wounded man, riding up, forgetful of himself, put out his hands. And when they had escaped the unevenness of the place, he dismounted, and tightening the girth of the horse more strongly, he undid the bandage with which he had been bound: and understanding nothing of this he mounted his own horse, and he perceives that the piece of fat which had been placed on the spot of the wound was warm in the fold of his garment: and thinking himself empty of bowels, he feared to die forthwith, and with a great cry he indicated this to the brothers. They hastily took him down from the horse, and looking at the place of the wound they found him most sound, as if he had been unhurt, and altogether entire. There was to be seen, however, a track, as it were of a very fine thread, of the colour of blood, through that place which the blow of the iron had opened: and he, rising at once most sound, extolled Blessed Martin with countless praises, and brought to all the brothers the gladness rushing in from his safety. So coming to the monastery of Ension, they entomb the body of St. Martin next to the limbs of the man of God Jouin: whence not long afterwards he was taken up, and into the church of St. Peter, of which we have already spoken, on the IV of the nones of December, with the Lord's assent, he was venerably translated f. What and how great things Christ wrought there for the praise of his energetic warrior, the following discourse will partly declare, as he himself has given.
[14] Of a brother sinning with no evil mind. A certain man, Sicbrannus by name, coming to conversion in this place, brought eight hundred solidi to the brothers, and secretly reserved two hundred for himself: he brought his wife with him, and compelled her, not greatly resisting, to take up the laws of religious life, and, separated apart, they were fed like the rest of the brothers from the alms of the monastery. And that man conducted himself simply, and on account of his gentleness was reverently regarded by all. But what he had done no mortal knew, nor did he himself think this to be wrong. And when he had lived in the monastery five years or more, a trouble of the body coming upon him, he lay for almost two days lifeless. And when the brothers were now at the point of carrying out his body to the sepulchre, by an immense sigh he compelled the eyes of all those present to turn to him. They, coming up and uncovering his face, find him living, and, greatly astounded, inquire the causes of so great a change. And he with great groaning answered that he was guilty, and he said that he had been led to the places of hell and had there seen horrific torments and the dread faces of the torturers. And when he himself was being led to this by certain persons, in order to be delivered into their hands, there stood by two men wonderful in venerable garb and venerable with white hair, saying: Where are the coins which you hid? Why do you not now offer them for your redemption? He understanding, and saying that he had done it unknowingly: In this, they say, it will appear that you did not do this out of malice, if, returning to those above, you drive away all hope of earthly things. Left upon this pledge, under the leading of the same men he passes beyond the places of torments, and is ordered to take up his body again. And when he asked who they were who had such clement care of him: We, they say, are Martin and Jovinus, under whose wings you have fled, and whose patronage you, faithful enough, have sought. See then to yourself, and do you yourself consider how you must act. When he had related these things to the brothers: Go, he said, pointing out a place: there you shall find two hundred solidi; take them, and do what shall please you. When he had said this, he both recovered from his sickness, and remaining long in this life he afterwards conducted himself most devoutly. And when after a long time he had come to death, he bound his wife, she who had been so, by an oath that she should never depart from that place; nor should she try, from the fifty solidi which at his order she had received from the brothers, to make anyone's profit but that of the saints. When he was dead, and she tried to break this (for she had a daughter, who wished to tear her away from the monastery for the sake of the solidi), on a certain day when Rainald the monk was standing by her, the bell of the sixth hour sounded, and that same brother turned to go to the church. Almost before he passed the threshold of the house, she fell to the earth, and gave out a howl with a dreadful voice. Summoned by the cry, the monk returned, and raising her he inquired the causes of that clamour. Lord father, as you were going back from me, a certain wrathful abbot, coming in like fire, who * with a cruel rod striking on the head blinded my eye. And I know the cause of my punishment, for I was thinking of breaking the agreements made with my husband. Saying this she both gave back the solidi and remained blind until the end of her life.
[15] Of him who fell from the church and was not hurt. Again, through a fault of negligence pressing on, a certain house contiguous to the basilica began to burn with a strong fire. Then as Boreas blew, the raging fire crept into a very ancient raven's nest, placed on one of the pyramids, which, stretched out in the four corners, supported the church on all sides. So as everyone strove in rivalry to restrain the strong force of the inexhaustible fire, a certain man, Martin by name, climbed a ladder that was not sufficient, and with wonderful speed mounted the roof, and striving to tear away the coverings of the building and being unable, he tried first to loosen the capital, and so afterwards to apply himself to the rest. And when he felt that all held fast, he turned his back, and bracing himself with his feet began to thrust sharply: and tearing away the capital, with it and the timbers fixed in it he fell upon the house placed below. And since that also had been uncovered for fear of the fires, he rolled down to the ground, the others growing faint. And when all, in the deepest grief, were saying that he was now dead, suddenly leaping out of the house he began to reprove the others, why they stood astounded, and did not come to the help of the church. Saying this he began to press on most fiercely: and in all the assistance that day he went before all. So the church having been snatched from the fires, as all praised God and his servant Martin, he himself returned home most sound: and he lived happily very many years afterwards. Now we have told these things meanwhile in proof of the blessed man's affection toward the devout: something is to be touched on by which it may appear how severe he sometimes is, and how clement toward those less cautious.
[16] Of a servant struck and healed. There was a certain cook of our monastery, Aldrincus by name, whose son still survives, and performs that same office and bears that same name g: who for fear of the Bretons, who at the sending-in of Savaric were hostile to the people of Thouars, left his house in the suburb, and with his household slipped into a certain house placed near the crypt of the blessed man: and remaining there some days, he by no means spared games and laughter. So on a certain day, when he was returning from his office, and already as the shadows pressed on the night was arriving, he hastened to that same house, where his wife and household were: and he found a certain abbot, venerable with white hair and wonderful in habit, sitting on the base of the wall to the right of the wall. Who, calling him by his name, began to ask where he wished to go. I am returning, he said, from the office of my lords, and I hasten to my little household. Leave this road, he said, and seek another lodging for yourself. But he, trying to pass and thrice forbidden, while he does not acquiesce to words, is driven by blows: and struck heavily on the head he is punished with a cruel rod, and forthwith falling he spread abroad from his bloodied mouth a huge stream of blood. Whence, lifted by the hands of others and carried to his house with body most black, and all the brothers having been summoned, when he had recovered his breath he explained everything, and marked with the Lord's standard, which in that same place was most precious, by the brothers, he both left the house and, all infirmity having been driven away, remained a long time in this life.
[17] Of the Lord's standard. Indeed since we have made mention of the Lord's standard, it seems that something should be added by us. For it is said that Blessed Martin put this together, and hastened to store up in it whatever precious thing he could find. This, bright outwardly with golden bands, and crowned with noble gems, has given many and countless proofs of its inward power. For if anyone with fever or burning with any kind of disorder should be marked with it
or had drunk wine in which it had been dipped, it is wonderful to tell with how great an efficacy health would follow. Beasts of burden also, labouring under any diseases, when it was brought to their head, at once gained complete health. Of how great efficacy is it for checking the rushing of fires? You would see the fire either die at once, or as it were flee back in great fear. Finally, when a certain great house was now almost consumed by the fires, the others acting in vain, a certain monk, Lambert by name, with most rapid running brought up the standard, and having placed it on a long rod he set it out above the balls of flames: as the others ran about, the monk was pushed, and the saving sign fell in the midst of the blasts of heat. The anxious monk leaped into the midst of the fires, and carrying it out he himself, with all looking on, appeared burnt in hair and clothing. This sign certain worthless little men carried off by theft, and have left us up to now a cause of great grief.
[18] Of a woman struck and wonderfully healed. A certain noble matron, Rainsoindis by name, who is still alive and vigorous today, was living next to the church in which the buried limbs of the man of God Martin are venerated. She laboured gradually and at intervals of time from that disease which they commonly call dragunculus h. And when on a certain night she was disquieted by this same trouble, she sent one of her maidservants at the dead hour of the night: Go, she said, behind the crypt of Blessed Martin, bring me maurella i, which as I passed I saw to be there in abundance. The maidservant, obeying the precepts of her mistress, went in silence, plucked the maurella, and wishing to return, she saw herself heavily struck on the head by a certain abbot of inestimable reverence: and out of her wits she returned to her mistress, showed the blow, and her eye now of such great swelling that it did not appear what it had been. Now that night was venerable and festal, being the annual passing of the holy Man of God Martin: and the brothers rising prepared themselves for the office of Matins. With many people standing by, the whole building was illuminated with the shimmering brightness of diverse lights, when behold the mistress brought forward the blind maidservant: and she gives her to Blessed Martin, that he might be a kindly possessor, who had chosen to be a severe striker. She, placed by the Brothers between the altar of St. Peter and the sepulchre of the holy man, there lying over in tears begged the help of the heavenly physician. Then they came to the reading of the Gospel according to the regular custom: and this was the Gospel: See, watch, and pray. And when the priest had pronounced Watch therefore, so great a light suddenly slipped down from heaven that all were held astounded in immense amazement. And it remained until the Gospel was ended, with the hymn following: and soon sight was restored to the woman, and she, rising most sound, made great joy for all the brothers. Now that woman is called Gauzberga, and she furnishes sufficient testimony of this matter.
[19] Of a demoniac healed. There is also a certain little vill across the river Dive which is called Aestivalis k, in which a certain hired reaper (for it was the time of the wheat harvest) was invaded by unclean spirits. He, being caught with great labour and with difficulty, and being asked what he had: We are seven, he said; two will go elsewhere, five will endure the command of that old Martin (looking at the church). So he was bound, and set on a two-wheeled cart, and with shrieks and excessive clamours was brought to the monastery of the saint as the sabbath day was drawing towards evening, and led before the holy altar he began there with much prayer to ask for lodging for that same night. As this was as it were not obtained, at once assailing the holy man with abuse, he slipped down between the hands of those holding him, and relaxed in sleep, was freed from all infestation of unclean spirits. And the wicked spirits, not bearing their expulsion, fleeing through the neighbouring village which is called Marnes, overturned houses, and penetrating the contiguous forest, tore up by the roots a very great part of it. The man, having gained health, stayed some days with the brothers. And he was called Tetbaldus, who after he had stayed some time with us returned to his own home.
[20] likewise another miracle concerning one who did not wish to become a monk. To this indeed another miracle is joined, in which human solicitude receives a wholesome counsel, and the devilish dart is greatly spurned. For not much later, when those serving the Lord and St. Martin there, in an overflowing abundance of great wealth, left the decree of the monastic way of life, they came to the habit of canons, choosing to love the world rather than the Lord. And staying long in this, when now all monasteries, and chiefly those of Blessed Martin, because they are surrounded by the Ocean sea, seemed to be being brought to nothing by the devastating barbarian tempest, twelve of them, with the divine mercy's help, decided to become monks with three pupils whom they were bringing up, that they might be joined in the heavens to their fathers who had gone before, and that, if perchance the place should be abandoned, they might be received more religiously by the people. Which, some accepting and some refusing, the number of the dozen, divided by a reckoning not of the quarter but of the third, with not the three-quarters but the half remaining irreligiously, was by God's assent converted into the monastic habit. Nor is it a wonder if the eight of the twelve perished, the four being converted to religion, although it is established that it consists of the four twice multiplied: since also one of the two, although it is not completed except by two unities, at the beginning of the world, the other being chosen, was made a fratricide and perished. But with God as helper let us return to that from which we have turned aside. Now the twelfth of these, by whom this wholesome decree had first been sanctioned, was called Raimboldus, whose nephew also was of the same name, but for the sake of distinction was commonly called Corda: for he had a sonorous and harmonious voice. For he, when at the dead of a certain night, before the bed of his uncle, who was exhorting him and many times beseeching him to become a monk, he was weighed down by sleep, cried out that he was being dragged by the hair by demons, and driven out of the house through the chimney, and that if the opportunity of returning were given he would very quickly be made a monk. When his uncle heard this he got up from his bed trembling, and running about here and there seeking him, took the garment which we call a cowl, and throwing it in the direction from which he was heard, he laid it upon him. In this way, immediately snatched from the demons and having returned home, he was made a monk. Hence undoubtedly, with the Lord's assent, the cenobitic flock in the monastery grew up, and was often at quiet, always solicitous that the enemy's incursion should prevail no further among them. Meanwhile we beseech the minds of our hearers to judge that what is said is true: and that it was not composed for any cause of flattery or imagination. But with this same man as witness it was revealed to us through spaces of a great many times: and also several with me knew the same man, and that much later he suffered adversities from the pagans.
[21] Duke Rainold is beaten for invading the monastery's estates. Nor among very many is the greatest miracle to be passed over, in which greed could not obtain the force of possibility. For Rainold l of noble lineage, who was duke of the region of Francia, supported by the honour of the city of Le Mans, inflamed by the visage of nefarious iniquity, wished to snatch from Blessed Martin what he had acquired over a long time. So seeing that the properties of St. Martin had a common boundary with his own, he began to claim them for himself with the revenues of the several years. And when an immense rumour of the people announced this to the monks of kindly Martin, they sent to him some of their number to implore that so great a wrong should not be done. He, refusing to grant at his hands what they had requested, not only did not give back what he had usurped, but also promised that he would take away other things, if life should attend him. But almighty God put off its being done. They indeed, departing with sad heart, reported to the others that he would give up nothing of what he had decided in his mind to do. And with one mind, taking up their accustomed arms, namely those of prayer, prostrate in body on the ground, they sought help from the Lord, by which they might be able to serve Blessed Martin in that same monastery. And the hearer of all, unwilling to frustrate the prayers of his servants, sent to them for their assistance his saints, namely Peter and John the Baptist and also the aforesaid Martin. So coming before him as he lay on his bed on a certain night, they asked whether he was asleep. And when he inquired for what reason they came, John said: We are sent by God indeed to know why you dare to invade the estates of the saints, or of God: since they themselves now reign with him without end: since neither this man nor others have done you any harm: why have you so vehemently dishonoured this man who is here present? Then, he said, turning his face to him, command, Peter, master of the heavenly gate, what punishment he ought to endure. And he, with the heavenly key unlocked, ordered him to be presented with three blows. Then indeed, obedient to the apostolic order, they made three scourges as it were of little cords: and Peter, the first of them, striking with a single blow, left him to be beaten by the two, of whom John first, and then the other, Martin, last, struck with a single blow like Peter. Scourged indeed with three blows, there is no need to say whether he was chastised by the blow, who not only gave back what he had taken away, but also offered what he justly possessed. We therefore, since we have discoursed of a few of the mighty works of this saint, let us be silent meanwhile on the rest, leaving to those wiser than ourselves what remains, that these things may be written down for the knowledge of those who come after.
ANNOTATIONS.
* S. Gohard
* infensiores
* ut ii
* delete qui.