Montana

ON ST. MONTANA, VENERATED IN THE DIOCESE OF BOURGES AND FORMERLY IN THAT OF SENS,

BEFORE THE YEAR M.

CRITICAL SYLLOGE.

Montana, virgin, in the diocese of Bourges and formerly in that of Sens. (S.)

BY V. D. B.

§ Sole. The Life of St. Gertrude of Nivelles applied to St. Montana. Whence she was called abbess of Cavense. Her body is translated by theft from the diocese of Bourges to Ferrières in that of Sens. Traditions concerning her and her cult in both places. The origin of Pentecost processions or pilgrimages.

In the year 1653 Father Charles Alexander of Manderscheid, by nation of Luxembourg, [In a codex of the Life of St. Montana, written at Ferrières in the diocese of Sens, that saint is said to have died on the 24th of October;] chaplain of the count of Pimentel, ambassador of the king of Spain at the royal court of Sweden, and then companion of Catherine, queen of Sweden, on her pilgrimage from Stockholm to Rome, sent to our Bollandus the Life of St. Montana. That codex, as is sufficiently established from a note attached at the margin, had been written in

the monastery of Ferrières of the diocese of Sens in the Gauls at the beginning of the XVII century, and it seems to have been carried into Sweden, because, since the title bore this: Life of St. Montana, virgin, from the monastery of Ferrières in the Vastinensis territory, that Vastinensis territory seemed the same as the territory where formerly the celebrated Vadstena monastery of St. Bridget stood in Sweden: but this was plainly erroneous. The codex therefore returned from the northern regions; on which Father Bollandus wrote with his own hand that the feast was kept on the 24th day of October, or that that saint was to be treated on that day; and, as is established from the index of Du Sollier, a place was given in the Bollandian Museum among the monuments reserved for the Lives of the Saints to be illustrated on this day. But although I find nowhere else the memory of St. Montana recorded under the 24th day of October, yet I should not dare to assert that this was done rashly and imprudently by our predecessors; and certainly, although in other codices St. Montana is read to have died on the kalends of October, in that codex it is first said that she gave up her glad spirit under the ninth day of the kalends of November, and with the highest diligence was covered with a marble tomb: where she awaits the resurrection of all the saints. Below indeed, the circumstances of her sickness and death being fully narrated, she is related to have given up her spirit under the day of the kalends of October, as is read also in other codices. But, that the feast was double, one on the 1st day of October, the other on the 24th; without the people of Ferrières knowing on which of the two the pious virgin had departed from this life.

[2] [yet there and in the diocese of Bourges she was venerated on the 1st day of October. The Life of St. Gertrude, abbess of Nivelles, was fitted to her.] No one (unless I am mistaken) before Ménard had brought forward the memory of St. Montana in the martyrologies or calendars presented to the public light; and he in the Benedictine Martyrology brought forward this at the 1st day of October: At Ferrières in the Vastinensis territory, of St. Montana, virgin and abbess; by which words he went before as a guide to Bucelin, Du Saussay, Chastelain and others. And in book II of the Observations he then added this: This holy virgin is venerated in the monastery of Ferrières, situated in the Vastinensis territory, of the diocese of Sens; whose Life exists there in manuscript in a book which the monks of this monastery call the Common; and elsewhere it is called the Calendar: which I have had in my hands. There she is said to be the daughter of Pepin and Monona and to have received the veil from St. Amand, to have been abbess of the monastery of Cava and to have died on the kalends of October. And many other things are narrated there, which apart from the name of the mother, of the monastery and the day of death altogether agree with St. Gertrude of Nivelles, daughter of Pepin, duke of Brabant; as will be manifest to one collating this manuscript book with the Life of St. Gertrude of Nivelles which exists in Surius. So that one might deservedly doubt whether St. Gertrude of Nivelles is venerated by the monks of Ferrières under the name of St. Montana: or certainly whether the Life of this Montana was so faithfully written. The monks of Ferrières venerate her for this reason, that they say her body was translated to their monastery. And thus much Ménard. Surely nothing is more certain than that the Life of St. Montana which is circulated is the pure Life of St. Gertrude, with only very few passages changed on purpose, and others corrupted by the ignorance of copyists. Nor does this thing rarely occur in hagiography, as we have long since observed at the 16th day of October in the Commentary on St. Silvanus of Ahun, and at the 19th day of October in the Commentary on St. Caprasius of Agen (for to both of them the Acts of St. Symphorian, martyr of Autun, were fitted with almost no changes); and indeed there are few volumes in our work in which similar venturings have not been observed.

[3] Whence she was said to have been abbess of Cava. The Life of St. Montana was published by Philippe Labbe from the legendary, as he himself says Bibliotheca mss., vol. II, p. 593, of a village in the diocese of Bourges which from that same St. Montana keeps its common surname to this day, and he prefixed to it the title which he had undoubtedly found in the manuscript codex: Life of St. Montana, virgin, whose feast is venerated every year on the kalends of October. The same legendary, says Le Cointe Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, under the year 659, no. 6, vol. III, p. 469, we consulted through the Rev. Father Nicolas de Gresbemaisnil, a presbyter of our congregation; and that same Le Cointe so edited that Life that in one column he showed the Life of St. Gertrude from the edition of Surius, in the other he set forth the Life of St. Montana from the edition of Labbe Ibid., pp. 470 and following: by which almost a blind man can see that this is a corrupt copy of that one. But that which I myself have before my eyes by the gift of Manderscheid has been taken (as I have said) not from the codex of Bourges, as that of Labbe or Le Cointe, but from that of Ferrières, which Ménard handled, and it scarcely differs from Labbe's, if you remove the passage cited in no. 1. There is here only to be marked the passage from which she was called abbess of the monastery of Cava by Ménard, Du Saussay, Bucelin and their followers. At the end of the Prologue of the Life of St. Gertrude the biographer had said that he would now undertake the writing, chiefly, as he says, at the request of the sacred virgin and abbatissa dominicana * and of the holy congregation of the monastery of Nivelles, over which most blessed Gertrude presided; which things in the edition of Labbe were changed thus: Christ helping, and by the prayers of the holy maiden dominicæ abbatissæ, or at the request of the holy congregation of the monastery where the holy virgin seemed to preside; where, the words abbatissa dominicana having been changed into dominicæ abbatissæ, you have as yet nothing of an abbess of Cava: but do this, change the word dominicana into Domini, Cavæ, and at once an abbess of Cava will come forth. And behold what is read in the Ferrières copy which I have before my eyes: Christ helping, and by the help of the sacred maiden of the Lord, abbess of Cava, or at the request of the holy congregation of the monastery where the holy virgin seemed to preside, etc. So by that division alone of the word dominicana into Domini, Cavæ rests the assertion of the abbatial office of St. Montana in the monastery of Cava. For the rest, at Cava, which was a men's monastery, there was formerly an abbot, by no means an abbess.

[4] [About the year 1000 a monk of Ferrières by theft translates her body to his monastery from the village of Domna Martina among the Bituriges.] Nothing therefore is known of the deeds of St. Montana; and there is not even any certain indication that she was ever a nun, much less an abbess. She very probably lived in the diocese of Bourges, since there about the year 1000 her tomb existed. For Mabillon, when he has recalled that the monastery of Ferrières or Bethlehem had been restored a little before, immediately adds Benedictine Annals, book LI, no. 112, vol. IV, p. 127: A certain venerable monk of that place, Aimo by name, after the brotherly custom of his elders, stayed from time to time with the permission of his abbot in the monastery of St. Benedict of Fleury. For at that time there was such a mutual alliance between the two monasteries, that they visited one another again and again. It happened by chance that the aforesaid brother, smitten by a long-lasting trouble of fevers, heard from common report wonderful things concerning St. Martina the virgin, whose relics were preserved in a village of the district of Bourges called Domna Martina. Setting out there for the sake of a vow, when he had altogether perceived a relief of his sickness by her merits, he took counsel to carry away the relics of the same saint. Wherefore he begged and obtained from the priest of the place leave to pass the night in the church. So with the silence of the night favouring him, he unlocks the tomb, draws out the sacred relics and, wrapped in a bright garment, he carries them by stealth to his monastery; where up to now, adds the excellent writer of the annals, the head of St. Montana is preserved in a silver chest, which Abbot Louis de Blanchefort caused to be made two hundred years ago.

[5] [That village seems to have been the same as the present-day parish of St. Montana.] That Mabillon had a history of that translation before his eyes, although he himself does not indicate it, is beyond doubt; but who can say where on earth it now lies hidden? A village called Domna Martina (which in the common speech would be Dammartin) and situated in the diocese of Bourges I find neither in more recent nor in more ancient polyptychs. I should think, however, that this place, its old name laid aside, is the same as the parish of St. Montana, commonly Sainte-Montaine (dép. de l'Indre, arr. de Sancerre, cant. d'Aubigny). For nowhere in the diocese of Bourges is the cult of St. Montana stronger, and a memory survives that she dwelt in these parts; which indeed has remained so firm that, since in the calendar of the Breviary of Bourges, made in the preceding century, St. Montana is read to have been abbess of Ferrières among the Vastinenses (by which words Ferrières in the diocese of Sens is indicated, of which above), the parishioners of St. Montana transferred this to Vastinum, commonly Vatan, some leagues to the west of the village of St. Montana, and imagined that there was formerly a monastery there, by the name of Ferrières. Hence in the letters which the Rev. Mr. Couppé, present-day parish priest of St. Montana, recently sent to me, it is read that it is carried on the lips of the people that St. Montana came rather often from the neighbourhood of Vatan, even before she took the monastic veil, to the parish of St. Montana, chiefly to the most beautiful spring, now also called by her name and adorned with a chapel and a statue of the patroness. Yet it must be confessed that in the church of St. Montana there do not survive particles or a memory of the sepulchre; and although charters and diplomas survive, written six or seven centuries ago, nowhere there (as far as is known so far) is found a parish there named Domna Martina, but either the parish of St. Montana or St. Germain du Bois, because St. Germanus is the secondary patron; finally that in the whole parish there is neither a corner nor a villa honoured with the name of Domna Martina.

[6] What is told there and in the neighbourhood and painted concerning St. Montana; Whatever then is to be determined about that divination of mine, hear now in a few words what survives there concerning St. Montana. First of all there exists there a reliquary casket, made in the manner of a herm, fairly old and holding some relics of the holy virgin. There are moreover there three painted panels: on one of which St. Montana is represented bidding farewell to her parents and giving notice to the pomps of the world; on the second she is shown adorned with the monastic habit, holding an abbatial crozier in one hand and with the other blessing little boys offered to her by their mothers; the third finally, on which her happy death was shown, has gone to pieces with rot: and on all these there is never lacking a royal crown, because she was of the race of Pepin: so that these panels (as was otherwise to be expected) were painted according to the Life of St. Gertrude of Nivelles, fitted to St. Montana. And these same deeds are painted in the church of St. Genulfus or Selles-Saint-Denis, which stands a few leagues to the west of the parish of St. Montana; and since the blessed virgin is imagined to have received the monastic veil there from a bishop, they will have it that this was St. Genulfus, held to be apostle of the people of Cahors in the III century and in the diocese of Bourges

crowned with a pious end: whose Acts our predecessors gave at the day on which he is chiefly venerated, the 17th of January Acts of the Saints, vol. II of January, pp. 81 and following. But this is a mere popular conjecture, resting on no other foundation than that St. Genulfus is patron there. Nor is it to be doubted that that bishop, inasmuch as he was taken from the Life of St. Gertrude, is St. Amand, bishop of Maastricht and apostle of the Belgians. It is manifest therefore that nothing can be deduced from these things by which the deeds of St. Montana may be brought out of the darkness.

[7] what was formerly told at Ferrières of the same and of the place Glorisa. When, as we have said, the body of St. Montana was carried about the year 1000 to Ferrières in the Vastinensis district, her cult gradually put out roots there too and at the same time the opinion prevailed that she had lived there; which opinion we have seen a little above was admitted by the writers of the Breviary of Bourges. And since in the Life of St. Gertrude it was read that some laymen had wickedly claimed for themselves the property of the monastery, and this like the rest had been taken up in the Life of St. Montana, in the Ferrières codex which I use it is written in French at the margin that those properties, wrongfully seized, were the place called Glorisa, a demesne land and barony of the monastery of Ferrières, and that there, namely in the XVII century, there still existed an oratory, which the mother of St. Montana had built with the plan of leading the religious life there with some girls. But these things need no confutation.

[8] [The body of St. Montana seems to have been placed at Ferrières in a marble tomb; her head in the XV century is enclosed in a silver chest and is carried about by alms-collectors; the rest of her cult there.] That the body of St. Montana, as soon as it was brought to Ferrières, was enclosed in a marble tomb it is natural to believe; since that mention, which is absent from the Life of St. Gertrude, was inserted in the Life of St. Montana in the Ferrières codex, as we pointed out in no. 1. By Louis I de Blanchefort, who in the year 1465 obtained the crozier of Ferrières and in the year 1506 left it together with life in the odour of sanctity New Gallia Christiana, vol. XII, col. 167, the head of the blessed virgin was enclosed in a silver chest, as we learned above in no. 4 from Mabillon, with the agreement of the new Gallia Christiana Ibid., col. 162. At that time it was still in use that sacred relics should be carried about by collectors of alms: a thing surely, as afterwards almost all acknowledged, open to excessive inconveniences and easily strewing the way for deceptions. However that may be, when the excellent abbot had determined to restore his monastery, he obtained from Louis, archbishop of Sens, in the year 1469 the faculty of carrying about a shrine of relics to repair the buildings diminished by long-lasting wars. And among the relics he lists on the 6 * of November of this year the head of St. Aldric, archbishop of Sens, the head of St. Montana, daughter of King Pepin, the head of St. Pavacius, the head of St. Alban, the head of St. Rigomer, etc. Ibid., col. 167. These letters, as Le Cointe informs me Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, at the year 659, no. 7, vol. III, p. 477, William Morin, grand prior of Ferrières, inserted in book six, chapter II, of his History of the Gâtinais: but this History, as the Maurists affirm in treating of the series of the abbots of Ferrières New Gallia Christiana, vol. XII, col. 157, is so stuffed with faults, fables and repetitions, that no credit seems able to be given to it. Yet this note pertains to the narrative of the author, and not to the documents reported. I should add finally that there the feast of St. Montana was celebrated with an octave, as is established to me from the so often indicated Ferrières copy of the Life of St. Montana. But whether the cult of St. Montana has now altogether ceased in the diocese of Sens, I am not in a position to say. Certainly before the overthrow of the Gallic commonwealth, in which the monastery of Ferrières perished with all other institutions of that kind, her feast was not celebrated in the rest of the diocese, as is established to me from the calendar of the reformed Breviary which in the year 1641 Octave de Bellegarde, prelate of Sens, had published; nor do I find it either in the liturgical calendars of Sens of the year 1827 and 1839.

[9] The fortune of Bl. Montana in the diocese of Bourges was better. In very truth in the Breviary which in the year 1625 Roland Hébert, [The cult of St. Montana in the diocese of Bourges; of the Pentecost processions, which there] archbishop of Bourges, published for his diocese, no memory of St. Montana is yet made, neither inside nor outside the calendar. But in the year of the Lord 1734, in which Frédéric Jérôme de Roye de la Rochefoucauld ordered a new Breviary to be published, it was commanded that on the 1st day of October in the whole diocese memory should be made of St. Montana with simple rite. This institution lasted at least up to the year 1849, as I gather from the liturgical calendars of the year 1830 and 1849. But afterwards the people of Bourges seem to have omitted it; seeing that the Rev. Mr. Couppé in his letters sent to me alleges the old breviary of Bourges, excluding the new (very probably brought back to the pure Roman rites). But in the village of St. Montana the veneration of the blessed patroness seems to grow. In very truth the feast seems no longer to be kept on the Sunday after the 9th day of July, which was still celebrated at the beginning of the XVIII century Dictionnaire universel de la France, under Sainte-Montaine; nor are pilgrimages made at all times of the year and chiefly from Easter to Pentecost, as formerly Ibid., in the place cited; but after all these things had been almost buried in oblivion, the former piety revives on other days of the year; so that now on the 1st day of October very many pious pilgrims already gather there; and yet the multitude of pilgrims is far greater on the Monday of Pentecost; for then two and even three thousand may be seen, among whom some have undertaken a journey of ten and even twelve leagues. Some are present on the evening of the very day of Pentecost, others on the morning of the Monday: and what you may wonder at, chiefly in this time, no profane festivities are then held there, no dances are instituted; which neither the civil magistrate nor the inhabitants would bear. And of the pilgrims no one departs, except after all the solemnities have been carried out; among which some special gospels are recited and suffrages made. And cures of diseases of every kind are begged from God through the intercession of St. Montana; nor is this done in vain, the praised parish priest has written to me, as one who has written testimonies, hung-up votive gifts or ex-votos and other things of that kind.

[10] [and which are still commonly made elsewhere and are remnants or imitations of the ban-crosses,] That a pilgrimage or procession is instituted on the Monday of Pentecost is an altogether old manner and custom, still preserved in many places of Gaul and in some also of Germany and Belgium. It is not to be doubted that it arose from the former use of the ban-crosses. Now this consisted in this, that about the feast of Pentecost the filial parishes carried gifts to the mother churches, the parish ones to the cathedrals and the cathedrals also to the metropolitans; in likeness of which thing many and even entire parishes, bound by spontaneous piety or by another's order to pay certain dues to saints or churches or monasteries in which they were singularly venerated, also gradually became accustomed to discharge this at that time. Whence it was natural that by degrees an excellent celebrity should come to those days and that the Pentecost week-days should become days of processions. Yet beware of supposing that the ban-crosses or tribute processions were instituted only within that octave; it is not so; they were instituted through the whole space of the year, but at no time more commonly, none more frequently than within the week of Pentecost. I shall report a few examples. Gualdric, who from the year 918 to 933 ruled the church of Auxerre New Gallia Christiana, vol. XII, col. 280 and 281, instituted in his church this most wholesome custom, that all the diocesan priests of his bishopric with their parishes through the festal days of Pentecost, with crosses and banners, should gather at the principal hall of St. Stephen, having gone round all the abbeys in a circle, and should there be refreshed by the archdeacon with the feasts of the spiritual word, and thence, if the bishop was present, having received the gift of a blessing, should eagerly return to their own homes with thanksgiving History of the Bishops of Auxerre, in Labbe, Bibliotheca mss., vol. I, p. 444. The distinguished Mr. Léopold Delisle Bibliothèque de l'école des Chartes, series II, vol. IV, pp. 347 and following inquired in a singular manner into this matter (as far as it concerns Normandy, where it was most celebrated) and first of all brought forward canon IX of the council held at Lillebonne in the year 1080, by which it is determined that presbyters should come once a year about Pentecost with processions to the mother church, and that from each house a pennyworth of wax or its equivalent should be offered at the altar to illuminate the church Compare Councils of Normandy, part I, p. 68. These things the bishops first exacted from the parishes; but in their time the archbishops summoned the bishops, to exact the Pentecost processions from them. Carpentier, who enlarged Du Cange's Glossary of medieval Latinity, reports this at the year 1191 from the abbot of Peterborough on Henry II Vol. II, p. 716 Supplement to the Glossary of Du Cange, under Processiones: The archbishop of York brought a sentence of excommunication against the bishop of Durham … which same bishop of Durham kept seized the rights of the church of York, namely … the processions of the week of Pentecost. This custom also passed down to churches of lower order, as is clear from the following charter which in the year 1202 Guy, cardinal of Palestrina, discharging the office of legate in the parts of Belgium, gave Du Cange, Latin Glossary, under Cruces bannales: The beloved sons, the brothers of the church of Eyck, have humbly asked of us that we should admonish by our letters the priests and parishioners of certain vills lying around their church within a mile, … that every year with ban-crosses, just as by right and ancient custom the faithful are accustomed to gather at other conventual churches through the bishopric of Liège, they too, going on pilgrimage for the salvation of their souls, should visit the aforesaid church within the four days of Pentecost. This seems to have been an imitation of the offering of the Pentecost first-fruits of the old law.

[11] the origin is explained. Beware of believing that these processions were made by a small number of men; so great was the multitude at the end of the XI century in the cathedral church of Coutances, as is read in the Life of St. Bernard of Tiron Acts of the Saints, vol. II of April, pp. 220 and 221, that that place scarcely sufficed to hold it. Since therefore it had commonly grown in that ban or tribute processions were made about the feast of Pentecost, that time was gradually held opportune for celebrating processions of every kind. Do not wonder therefore if in Johannes Boemus in the book on the customs of all nations, chap. XV, as cited by Martène De divinis celebrandis officiis, chap. XXVIII, no. 20, p. 544,

you read: In Franconia at the time of Pentecost this is done almost everywhere. All who have horses or can borrow them gather and with the Lord's Body, which one of the priests, himself sitting on a horse, carries hung from the neck in a purse, they ride round the bounds of their whole field, singing and supplicating that God may be pleased to preserve the crops from every harm and calamity of the sky. And these things, unless I am mistaken, suffice to understand how it has come about that even now so many pilgrimages or processions are made, not on the days on which the natal days of the saints are venerated, but on the Monday of Pentecost or another next to it. This custom is either the remnant of the former ban-crosses, or of processions instituted in imitation of them. I should not wish, however, to write an entire commentary on processions in general: of these countless writers have spoken; on the other hand it seemed worth while to say something of the Pentecost supplications, because in their writings, of which I have an entire heap before me, there is scarcely or not even scarcely any discourse of these.

* in our work Dominica

* rather 16