Crispin and Crispinian

ON SS. CRISPIN AND CRISPINIAN, MARTYRS AT SOISSONS IN GAUL,

IN THE YEAR 285 OR THE FOLLOWING.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Crispin, martyr at Soissons in Gaul. (S.)

Crispinian, martyr at Soissons in Gaul. (S.)

BHL Number: 1991, 1994

BY B. B.

§ I. The memory of the holy Martyrs in the sacred calendars, with an abridgment of their passion. In what year they obtained the palm. On their coming into Gaul. The age and merit of the Acts.

The memory of SS. Crispin and Crispinian is no less celebrated in the sacred calendars of the West, Memory in the Martyrologies. than that of SS. Chrysanthus and Daria, of whom we have treated above. You will scarcely find any martyrology among the Latins which does not mention them, and this on this 25th day of October Compare Baillet, Vies des Saints, 25 Oct.. They are venerated, says Giorgi Martyrology of Ado, 25 Oct. Rome 1745., on this day by the Hieronymian Martyrologies, Bede, the Gellone Martyrology, Rabanus, Florus,

Ado, Usuard, Wandelbert, Notker, the Franco-Gallican Hagiologium, the martyrology of Fulda, the Ottobonian, that of Reichenau, of Augsburg, Labbe's, the shorter one of Corbie, the Kalendar Palat. Vat. 485 and Vat. 3806. It is thus not worthwhile to set down the elogia of each; it will suffice to have recited what is announced in Usuard, with the Observation of Sollerius added, and in the Roman martyrology. The former has it so: At the city of Soissons, of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, who in the persecution of Diocletian, after monstrous torments inflicted on them, were slain by the sword and attained the crown of martyrdom. On this announcement Sollerius observes Martyrology of Usuard.: Those illustrious twin Martyrs of Soissons are thus recorded by Bede: "At Soissons, the birthday of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian." Florus added an elogium; Rabanus a longer history from the same, I suppose, source; from which also Ado took his own, but in a different and shorter phrasing; from him our author (Usuard) contracted it further; Notker more probably from Rabanus. The memory of these most celebrated Champions is more ancient in the Hieronymian codices: "In the Gauls, at Sessio or Sesso, of Crispin and Crispinian," with companions added who seem to have been torn away from elsewhere. Florentini agrees Vetustius Occidentalis Ecclesiæ martyrologium, p. 934.: The scribe of our codices put Sessonis in place of the city of Suessonis. In this city the memory of SS. Crispin and Crispinian is celebrated in almost all the martyrologies of the Latins (except the Old Roman of Rosweyde, which is silent about them). And below: The Martyrs who, as much in our books as in those of Corbie and Antwerp, are appended under the leader Claudian to Crispin and Crispinian, are certainly not said in their Acts to have been their companions, nor do I see them indicated by those who recall the memory of SS. Crispin and Crispinian. For which reason they are either martyrs of uncertain place, or have been torn away from the Africans by their being inserted here; of which the most abundant harvest of holy Champions in that region would readily persuade me. In the Roman martyrology these words are read: At Soissons in Gaul, of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, noble Romans, who in the persecution of Diocletian, under the governor Rictiovarus, were slain by the sword after monstrous torments: whose bodies were afterwards carried to Rome, and honorably entombed in the church of St. Lawrence in Pane et Perna. But, as Florentini rightly observes In the place above, p. 934., this (the Roman translation) is surely not taught by Rabanus, Usuard, Ado, Notker and the Old Hagiologium of Franco-Gaul when they touch on their contest; rather, du Saussay denies it. On which matter the discussion will return below in set form. Besides the principal feast, which, as we have said, is celebrated today, in the aforesaid du Saussay there is marked on the 6th of March: At Soissons the Finding of the bodies of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, made through divine revelation; in which the most sacred bodies themselves breathed forth the sweetest odors, and gave clear and magnificent signs of the glory which they had merited before Christ by their most noble contest; and again on the 8th of the same month: At Soissons the Triumph of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, when, from the place of their contest, where they had lain hidden and buried for some time, their bodies, found by divine manifestation, and enclosed in precious reliquaries, were carried with flashing miracles and with the solemn ovation and jubilation of the faithful into the basilica built in their honor, for perpetual veneration. Both of these, namely the Finding and the Triumph (the latter is called in du Saussay's Index the Reposition), our predecessors mention among the Passed Over. Baillet also assigns Baillet, in the place above. the 15th of May to the aforesaid Finding, which I find nowhere else; and he asserts in the same place that the principal feast, which is kept on this 25th day of October, is still marked in the Calendar of the Anglican Liturgy, although schismatic and heretical. Laurentius Beyerlinck, moreover, has the following from Polydore Theatrum vita humanæ, letter D., p. 105.: Henry V, king of the English, at that noble battle at Dadingurtum, the French being conquered, prayed on bended knees with many prayers, and gave immortal thanks to God, and held that day, which is sacred to the Saints Crispin and Crispinian, solemn in perpetuity. Thereupon throughout the whole kingdom supplications of many days were decreed at all the churches. At Osnabrück in Westphalia there is venerated another, and a most celebrated, translation, on the 20th of June Acta SS., vol. IV of June, p. 3.; on which we shall treat more fully in this Commentary.

[2] Abridgment of the Passion from Mombritius. We subjoin an abridgment of the acts or passion from Mombritius Vol. I, fol. verso 198., so that we may then more readily dispatch the rest. It is of the following tenor: Saints Crispin and Crispinian, who had come from Rome into Gaul with blessed Quintius (Quentin) and the rest, chose the city of Soissons as the lodging of their pilgrimage; where, following the teaching of the Doctor of the Gentiles, in order to provide for themselves the necessaries of life by the labor of their hands, they learned the shoemaker's art, which can be exercised in quiet. And since they worked more elegantly than almost all craftsmen, they forcibly exacted from no one a wage for their work. Hence, on this account also, pagans, overcome by love of them, came to them frequently, not so much from need of their craft as from love of the word of God, and, abandoning their error, believed in the true God. At length these holy Men, sought out by Rictiovarus, were found mending the shoes of the poor; and after many interrogations he ordered them to be stretched on the pulley and beaten with clubs; then that stakes be driven under their nails, and that strips be taken one by one from their backs. As they were praying amid the sharpest pains, the stakes leapt out from their nails, and striking the attendants, killed some, and tormented others with wounds. Then Rictiovarus ordered millstones to be hung on the neck of each, and that in the time of winter they be plunged into the river Aisne, as if under the ice. But neither could water drown them, nor stone press them down, nor cold bind them; but rather, as though delighted by summer baths, having cast off the burden of the millstones, they came to the other bank of the river. Afterwards they were ordered to be plunged into molten lead. As all were praying in the lead, a drop of the boiling lead leapt out and blinded the eye of Rictiovarus, tormenting him with severe pain. Next he ordered pitch and oil and fat to be boiled together, and the holy Martyrs to be cast down therein. But soon an angel led them out of the fire unharmed as they prayed. Then Rictiovarus, seeing that he had prevailed nothing against the Martyrs of Christ by the punishments inflicted, hastily, in a rage, threw himself into the fire; and thus he was consumed by the worst of deaths, the just judgment of God so acting that he who had killed many martyrs by fire should himself, consumed by the temporal fire, go down to the eternal fire. Here Mombritius stops, from which we see that he used a mutilated codex; nor does he even teach from what source he drew. For the rest, what he has agrees with the Passion to be printed by us below, both in matter and in words, these being, however, much briefer in Mombritius. I set down the end of the Passion from Peter de Natalibus Book IX, ch. CVI. Vicenza 1493., who contracted the Acts in a more correct style: But Maximian, hearing of the death of the governor, on the following day commanded the Saints to be punished by the sword; and they were beheaded on the eighth before the Kalends of November (25 October). Their bodies, left to be devoured by beasts and birds, remained untouched by divine providence. But a certain old man with his aged sister, warned by an angel, carried away the bodies from there; and coming to the river Aisne, they placed them in a little boat, prepared there by divine agency, and against the force of the river, without oar or oarsman, under God's guidance they came to the place shown to them; and carrying the bodies of the Saints without any weight, so that they themselves seemed rather to be carried by the bodies, they buried them in a certain secret hut; where, when the persecution ceased, the honor due to them was paid by Christians, and a basilica built in their name. And this is the sum of the passion, in which there are certainly some things not so readily to be admitted, although the martyrdom itself, as we shall see, is placed beyond all doubt. These things being set out first, we come to the chief question: namely at what time or in what year they attained the palm.

[3] They suffered before the general persecution of Diocletian, Lest the whole sequence of ecclesiastical history be disturbed, we must admit that many martyrs, not only in the Gauls but some also in other regions, suffered under Diocletian at the end of the 3rd century, although the general edict of this emperor against the Christians was promulgated only in the first years of the following century, that is, about the year 303, at which time, moreover, it is established that few in the provinces of the Gauls were given over to death for the faith, because in these parts there ruled Constantius Chlorus, who favored the Church; while Maximian Herculius, so atrociously hostile to the followers of Christ, presided over Italy [Compare Tillemont, Mémoires, vol. V, p. 3. Likewise, pp. 587 and 608. — Histoire des Empereurs, vol. IV, p. 4 and following. Brussels, 1732. — Longueval, vol. I, p. 113 and following. — Baillet, Vies des Saints, 21 Sept., 25 Oct., etc. — Acta SS. Belgii, vol. I, p. 111, etc. — Smet, Heylige en roemweerdige persoonen in Nederland, vol. I, ch. III. — Bucherius, Belgium Romanum, p. 220 and following. — Butler, 25 Sept., etc. — Dr Braun, Zur Geschichte der Thebaischen Legion, p. 16. Bonn, 1855. — Schmitt, die Kirche des H. Paulinus, p. 21. Trier, 1853.]. Hence it would not be understood on what account SS. Crispin and Crispinian appeared before Maximian (as is expressly held in the Acts), if they had shed their blood at the beginning of the 4th century, since he was at that time far from the Gauls. And these are the things that long ago drove the learned to depart from the opinion of those who supposed that our holy Martyrs, like many others butchered about the same time, for instance SS. Macra, Rufinus and Valerius, Quentin, Fuscian, Chrysolius, Lucian, Firminus, Piatus, the boy Justus, and the whole Theban Legion Compare Schmitt, in the same place and p. 31 and following., obtained the palm of triumph about the year in which the general edict of Diocletian came forth. Bolland already hesitated in doubt in the Acts of SS. Lucian, Maximian and Julian, leaving the time of the passion undecided, and concluding § II of his Commentary with these words Acta SS. vol. I of January, p. 460.: Meanwhile, since it is expedient, until we find something more certain, we shall follow the tradition of the Gallican churches, by which, among other things, St. Denis of Paris was confused with the Areopagite. Henschenius seems to have judged similarly when he placed the martyrdom of SS. Rufinus and Valerius, crowned under Rictiovarus, under Diocletian, without any fixed designation of the year. And in very truth he was then reigning, since he put on the purple in the year 284. Afterwards two persecutions were expressly admitted by the learned: one particular, the other general: I judge, says Pagi Annales of Baronius, vol. III, p. 347., that writers have confused the particular persecutions stirred up in certain provinces and cities in the first years of Diocletian and Maximian Herculius with the general persecution which took place in this year (303), as Baronius observed before me. Which opinion commonly prevailed thereafter, though some dissent, among whom Father Jean Clé, our predecessor, since he places the palm of SS. Maurice and his companions under Maximian Herculius between the year 285

and 305; but he was abandoned by the succeeding hagiographers Bue, Perier, Ghesquière, etc., as will be established from what is to be said.

[4] at about the time at which the Theban legion The slaughter of the Theban legion is celebrated in the ecclesiastical annals, which all agree was carried out by order of Maximian Herculius. It is likewise generally assumed that the passion of SS. Crispin and Crispinian took place about the same time, that is, while the same whirlwind of persecution was raging. For this reason we have judged that some inquiry must be made in this place about the year in which cruelty was vented on the most illustrious champions of Agaunum, all the more because not so long ago new light was shed on this question by Francesco Zaccaria, who at the end of the 18th century disputed learnedly on the time of that Martyrdom. He departs not a little from the esteemed Jean Clé, who, as we have already intimated, under the 22nd of September illustrated the Acts of SS. Maurice and his companions and committed them to print in the year 1757; although one may conjecture that Zaccaria did not see them or at least did not consult them, since he nowhere makes mention of them. Now the sum of Zaccaria's opinion is this. He asserts first of all that Herculius came into the Gauls four times [Dissertazioni varie Italiane a storia ecclesiastica appartenenti, vol. I, p. 270. Rome, 1780.], and first indeed when he set out against the Bagaudae, then on three other occasions, as Pagi teaches from Lactantius On Baronius at the year 307, n. 6.; that the slaughter of the Theban soldiers is to be referred to the first, since the three other stays which Herculius made in the Gauls took place after the year 306, when he was trying to recover the empire which he had abdicated a little before. Let it suffice here to have noted in passing that writers (and not undeservedly) mark more stays of Herculius in the Gauls than does Zaccaria, at least in this place. But this matters little or nothing to our subject, as we shall see below.

[5] under Maximian Herculius as Caesar; To prove his opinion Zaccaria assumes from Pagi [Dissertazioni varie italiane a storia ecclesiastica appartenenti, vol. I, p. 270 and following.] that Herculius was named Caesar before Augustus; Caesar on the 20th of November in the year 284; then he holds for certain that the same Herculius was created Augustus on the Kalends of April in the year 286; that as Caesar he moved against the Bagaudae; that the massacre of the Thebans took place at the beginning of this expedition; therefore before the month of April of the year 286, and yet not in the year 284, on the 20th of November of which Herculius was proclaimed Caesar; nor even in the first three months of the year 286, going back from the Kalends of April to the Kalends of January, since at that time the rustic war had already been finished at least for the greatest part, and on the 1st of April Herculius was staying at Nicomedia, where he was named Augustus; consequently the slaughter of the Theban Legion falls in the year 285. Which Zaccaria judges to be confirmed from all the ancient calendars and martyrologies, since they mention that passion on the 22nd of September, on which day Herculius in the year 284, according to Zaccaria's mind, was not yet Caesar, while in the year 286 he had already been proclaimed Augustus. If the things here assumed are indeed so, there will be no doubt that the martyrdom of SS. Maurice and his companions must be attached to the aforesaid day of September in the current year 285. But some of Zaccaria's positions create no slight difficulty, and these must therefore be examined by us more accurately.

[6] [which Caesarean dignity Pagi judges to be proved, first from the testimonies of Eutropius and Orosius,] First of all it is asked whether in fact Herculius, before he was called Augustus, was named Caesar? Baronius, as is found in Pagi On Baronius at the year 284, n. X. Vol. III, p. 231., made no mention of this naming; indeed Cardinal Noris … says that he can scarcely be drawn into the common opinion, which teaches that the same Maximian, before he was created Augustus, obtained the Caesarean dignity. But, in Zaccaria's judgment Zaccaria, p. 271., Pagi elucidated the matter and fully demonstrated it, chiefly by these three arguments. The first is [Pagi, Dissertatio hypatica, part II, ch. VII, n. VII. Apparatus to the years of Baronius, p. 58.] the express testimony of Eutropius and Orosius. The former has it thus [Eutropius, Breviarium book IX, ch. XIII. Historiæ Rom. scriptores minores, p. 318. Zweibrücken, 1789.]: When the rustics had stirred up a tumult in Gaul and had imposed on their faction the name of Bagaudae, and had as leaders Amandus and Aelian, he (Diocletian) sent Maximian Caesar to subdue them, who subdued the peasants in light battles and restored peace to Gaul. And a little below Ibid., p. 319.: Diocletian made Maximian Herculeus Augustus from Caesar; Constantius (Chlorus) and Maximian (Galerius) Caesars. Similarly Orosius, manifestly treading in the footsteps of Eutropius: When, he says Histories, book VII, ch. XXV. Migne, Patrologia, vol. XXXI, col. 1125., Amandus and Aelian, having collected a band of rustics, whom they called Vagaudae, had stirred up pernicious tumults, he (Diocletian) made Maximian, surnamed Herculeus, Caesar, and sent him into the Gauls; who easily restrained by military valor the unskilled and disordered band of country folk. And again Ibid., col. 1126.: Diocletian, moved by this danger, made Maximian Herculeus Augustus from Caesar, and chose Constantius and Maximian Galerius as Caesars. You would certainly call this plain and open.

[7] which yet do not seem equally clear to all. There is, however, something to set against this. Namely, Aurelius Victor, a contemporary of Eutropius (for both flourished around the middle of the 4th century), narrating the same things, calls Herculius imperator: When, he says De Cæsaribus, ch. XXXIX. Hist. Rom. scriptores minores, p. 138., he (Diocletian) learned that, on Carinus's departure, Aelian and Amandus throughout Gaul, having raised a band of peasants and robbers whom the inhabitants call Bagaudae, and having ravaged the fields far and wide, were attacking most of the cities, he at once ordered Maximian, faithful in friendship, though half-rustic, yet good in soldiering and ability, to be imperator. To him afterwards… the surname of Herculeus was added… But Herculeus, having set out into Gaul, the enemy being routed or received in surrender, in short order made all things quiet. And after a few things interposed: For these reasons they call into affinity Julius Constantius, and Galerius Maximinianus, who had the surname Armentarius, created Caesars; they being, namely, Diocletian and Herculius. Eutropius and Aurelius thus disagree, since the former calls him Caesar, the latter imperator. Zaccaria, in the place cited, would have it that the word imperator here means not Augustus but administrator of the waging of war, in which sense, he says, Dio Cassius testifies it was also used after the age of Julius Caesar. It will be useful to have recited the words of Cassius Hist. Rom., book XLIII, p. 235. Hanover, 1606.: But that name of Imperator flowed down from Julius, as did also the name of Caesar, to all the emperors thereafter, as a surname peculiar to the supreme power; yet the ancient account of this name was not done away with, but both remained intact. But the threefold meaning of the word must be noted. Among the Romans, says Eckhel where he disputes at length on the name of imperator Doctrina Numorum, vol. VIII, p. 343 and following., while the republic stood, he was called imperator who held military command… Another meaning of imperator, but only of honor, was when some leader, having won a victory in the battle line, was acclaimed imperator by the soldiers. It is established also that this title was sometimes decreed by the Senate… The third meaning of the imperial name is that by which supreme right over the provinces of the Roman empire was indicated. And in another place, but in the same treatise, Eckhel restricts the cited words of Cassius to the two latter meanings of the word imperator, namely insofar as it is the proper title of the supreme power, and a title of honor on account of a victory: but both intact (that is, IMP on account of victories Ibid., p. 352.). So too Spanheim De præstantia et usu numismatum antiquorum, vol. II, p. 392. Amsterdam, 1717.: The name of Imperator … they know to have been attributed in a double respect to Augusti and sometimes to Caesars, or to princes of the first and second rank … namely in the one, in which, for the most part in place of a praenomen, the power of supreme rule in the Roman world; in the other, in which, in the manner of a cognomen, and indeed often repeated from time to time, the glory of a victory won over enemies … was designated. It seems therefore, according to the mind of Eckhel and Spanheim, that Zaccaria's interpretation must not be admitted. For the rest, the question of the name of imperator is very tangled, as is to be seen in the aforesaid writers. I should not think that even one clear example could be brought forward by which it would be shown that the name of imperator was attributed to an Augustus or a Caesar in the sense that Zaccaria wants. From which it seems to follow that Eutropius and Aurelius are not so easily to be reconciled with one another. But to which of the two is credence rather to be given? I would not myself dare to decide. Orosius follows Eutropius; but since his authority is slight, no great weight accrues thence to Eutropius. Moreover, if his words are taken in their obvious sense, Eutropius manifestly errs in teaching that Herculius was made Augustus from Caesar at the time when Constantius and Galerius were named Caesars, namely about the year 292: for it is established that the dignity of Augustus was conferred on Herculius much earlier, namely on the Kalends of April of the year 286, as Idatius has it. After this it will not seem so surprising that Noris, Tillemont Histoire des Empereurs, note V on Diocletian. and others have hesitated, and in these years also Eckhel, whose words are these Doctrina Numorum, vol. VIII, p. 15 and following.: That Maximian was not at once Augustus, but Caesar in the beginning, Eutropius and Orosius expressly assert… For whose sake the following coin is to be brought forward in this place: VAL. MAXIMIANVS. NOB. CAES… If this coin is of this Maximian, it remarkably confirms the opinion of Eutropius and Orosius. Banduri cites it from the museum of the Grand Duke. But it causes no little disturbance that it is not recorded among the largest-module coins of the Florentine museum, and further that it is perhaps of Galerius Maximian, who was both Caesar and also had the name of Valerius.

[8] next from the years during which Herculius reigned, The second argument of Pagi is drawn from all those writers who testify that Herculius reigned for twenty years, such as Aurelius, Lactantius, etc. Pagi, Dissert. hypatica, p. 58.. There is no need to weigh their texts more diligently, since Pagi is little helped by them: for Herculius was made Augustus on the Kalends of April in the year 286 [Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, vol. IV, page 300. — Art de vérifier les dates, p. 348.], which Pagi also teaches from Idatius; and he abdicated the empire on the Kalends of May in the year 305 Ibid., p. 302., thus when the twentieth year of his reign had begun. Consequently, even in the opinion of those who deny that he was ever Caesar, Herculius is rightly said to have reigned for twenty years; if with Pagi we admit that he was Caesar from the 20th of November of the year 284, we shall find that Herculius reigned, again, twenty years and approximately five months. But one may wholly doubt whether the authors who report that he reigned for twenty years had regard to the Caesarean dignity, and not rather to the Augustan alone, and began to number the years of the Herculian reign from this. For the rest, before the book of Lactantius On the Deaths of the Persecutors was brought to light by Baluze, writers varied on

the year of the assumption and first deposition of the empire by Herculius, as is to be seen in Petau Dissert. hypatica, p. 285., who attaches his imperial dignity (he does not mention the Caesarean) to the year 285; but after the publication of the book almost all the learned agree on the aforesaid limits; namely placing the beginning of Herculius as Augustus in the year 286, the first abdication, of which alone there is question here, in the year 305. And let this suffice on the second argument of Pagi.

[9] [finally because, on the witness of Ammianus, it was the custom that those who were adorned with the Augustan dignity by Augusti should first be named Caesars.] Pagi sets out his third argument thus: Not only was Maximian Herculius named Caesar before Augustus, but also all those who, from Marcus Aurelius to Valentinian the elder, were given the Augustan dignity by other Augusti; and he adds in proof a passage of Ammianus: In this matter, however, Valentinian, passing beyond the custom established of old, named as not Caesars but Augusti his brother and his son; kindly enough. For no one before this took to himself a colleague in equal power, except the prince Marcus, who made Verus, his adoptive brother, without any diminution of majesty, a sharer of the emperors Ammianus Marcellinus, book XXVII, ch. VII, p. 535. Leiden 1693.. Valois notes on this text of Ammianus Ibid.: And did not Severus also name his sons Bassianus and Geta Augusti, on the witness of Herodian, book III? But if someone will quibble that they were called Augusti by the army and not by Severus, as Spartian writes in his Severus; then I shall set against this the example of Diocletian, who joined Maximian Herculeus to himself as colleague of the Augustan empire. But it can be answered that neither Diocletian nor Severus at once took to themselves colleagues as Augusti, but in the beginning only as Caesars, as Spartian indeed writes of Bassianus and Geta, and Eutropius of Maximian. Valois thus remains somewhat doubtful. Nor is the testimony of Herodian decisive, seeing that he asserts only in a general phrase and as it were incidentally that Bassianus (namely Caracalla, not to be confused with Bassianus Heliogabalus) and Geta were made sharers in the supreme power by their father Severus: τούς τε ὑιεῖς αὑτοῦ κοινωνοὺς τῆς βασιλείας καὶ αὐτοκράτορας ἀποδείξαι. According to Herodian, therefore, it is permissible that they had already long since been named Caesars; which the learned also commonly hold. Compare Eckhel, who brings forward many coins in confirmation of this opinion, which he himself holds as certain Doctrina Numorum, vol. VII, p. 227 and following.. Ammianus therefore favors Pagi, and agrees with Eutropius and Orosius, who assert that Herculius was made Augustus from Caesar. I confess that on account of this threefold testimony this opinion seems to me by far the more probable.

[10] Since then Herculius was more probably named Caesar in the year 285, But in what year was Herculius named Caesar? Pagi replied On Baronius at the year 284. Vol. III, p. 232 and following. that this took place on the twentieth day of the month of November, or the twelfth before the Kalends of December, in the year 284, which he proves thus: It is certain from Lactantius that Diocletian celebrated his Vicennalia in the year 303 on the twelfth before the Kalends of December; now feasts of this kind were customarily held on the anniversary day of the accession to rule, which for Diocletian was the fifteenth before the Kalends of October; but he therefore postponed the Vicennalia in the year 303 to the twelfth before the Kalends of December, because on the same day in the year 284 he had adorned Maximian Herculius with the Caesarean power. Pagi thus decided these things from the Canon or Rule IV which he had set down in his Dissertatio hypatica Apparatus to the years of Baronius, p. 33., namely that Quinquennalia and solemnities of that kind were customarily celebrated by Caesars or Augusti on the anniversary day of accession .., or also on the anniversary day of colleagues … but were sometimes transferred to a similar day of another month, so that for example one who had obtained the rule on the fifth before the Kalends of November, if he could not hold those solemnities on that day and month, would celebrate the same only on the fifth before the Kalends of another month of the same year; from which, as he has it a little below Ibid., p. 34., it follows altogether that Diocletian celebrated the Vicennalia on the twelfth before the Kalends of December because on that day in the year 284 he had named Maximian Herculius Caesar. Surely the matter would be so, if the Pagian canons stood firm; but this is far from being the case. To omit others, let us hear Eckhel: I can, he says Doctrina Numorum, vol. VIII, p. 326., the more confidently profess my opinion, which is that nothing is more fluctuating, uncertain, arbitrary than these rules of Pagi, and that historical facts and monuments are dragged in every direction by the learned man, against their will, to confirm his opinion. And again, where he treats specifically of those eight canons, the fourth of which I have recited above: I am entirely persuaded, he says Ibid., p. 486., that the doctrine of Pagi is to be held among the learned fictions. Of which truth if anyone wishes to be convinced at once, let him, I beg, glance if only at the titles of the eight canons on which his whole doctrine rests, and he will then discover immediately how he relaxes or contracts at his pleasure the proper spans of quinquennalia or decennalia, etc. And below Ibid., p. 488.: Let us believe, then, the coins or the writers Eusebius, Marcellinus, Idatius and others, when they tell us a certain year of the vows that were pronounced; but let us not believe Noris, Pagi, Mazzoleni, when, with however great a mass and redundancy of erudition, they promise to prescribe to us a certain account drawn from such great darkness and confusion of things. Nothing can thus legitimately be inferred from the rules of Pagi; and therefore, in this respect, the day and year in which Herculius was proclaimed Caesar remain uncertain. Most decide that this was done in the year 285; both because Aurelius expressly teaches Hist. Rom. scriptores minores, p. 142. that Herculius had power by only one year less than Diocletian, who, according to the common opinion, was saluted emperor on the 17th of September in the year 284 [Art de vérifier les dates, p. 348. Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, vol. IV, pp. 2 and 241.]; and because, on the witness of the same Aurelius, when, Gallus Caesar having been killed, Constantius alone obtained power, almost seventy years had passed since this had last been the case: So, he says In the place above, p. 150., after a long interval, almost after the seventieth year, the care of the commonwealth was brought back to one man. Death was inflicted on Gallus at the end of the year 354 Tillemont, in the same place, p. 164.; therefore the seventieth year from then falls in the year of Christ 284, in which Diocletian accordingly reigned alone. But if this is not admitted, one would have to go back as far as Probus, killed by the soldiers in the year 282; but from him to Constantius, holding the helm of empire without a partner, the seventy-second year will run. Therefore the naming of Herculius as Caesar is more probably put off into the year 285.

[11] [more probably in this same year also the massacre of the Thebans was carried out,] This being admitted, the series of the events in question here can conveniently be ordered in this manner. Diocletian is saluted emperor by the army on the 17th of September in the year 284; in this same current year, or rather in the following one, Herculius as Caesar prepares his forces, moves with the army toward the Gauls; crosses the Alps to act against the Bagaudae; on the 22nd of September of the same year 285 the Theban Legion is slain; in the month of October he arrives at the borders of the Parisii, the Remi, the Veromandui, the Suessiones, etc.; thereafter he subdues the Bagaudae everywhere in light battles, as Eutropius says and, as others say, easily, in short order; and at last, returning to the East to Diocletian, he is named Augustus on the 1st of April 286, not far from Nicomedia. There is nothing in these things which conflicts in the least with the rest of the chronology and history of the reign of Diocletian; rather, nothing which does not agree fully with them. For thus power is found to belong to Herculius by one year less than to Diocletian; and the ALMOST seventieth year noted by the same Aurelius is obtained. For the rest, in my opinion, it matters little whether the Caesarean naming of Herculius is placed as the year 284 was closing or when the year 285 had begun. Rather, even if anyone should deny with Noris that Herculius was ever Caesar, the series of events established above will remain firm, on this condition however, that Herculius undertook the rustic war before he received the purple on the Kalends of March of the year 286; for otherwise both his coming into the Gauls and the passion of the Thebans would have to be put back by at least a whole year, and attached to the aforesaid year 286, which I for my part should not readily admit: for it seems beyond doubt that Herculius moved against the Bagaudae shortly after the departure of Carinus from the Gauls, which took place as the year 284 was closing. For the emperor Numerian was killed not far from Perinthus in the said year 284 before the 17th of September, on which day Diocletian was put in his place [Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, vol. III, pp. 320 and 309. Likewise, vol. IV, p. 3.]. But Carinus, when he had held magnificent games at Rome on the 12th of September of the same year, on hearing of the killing of his brother Numerian and the election of Diocletian, proceeded against the latter [Ibid., vol. IV, pp. 2 and 3. Compare Art de vérifier les dates, p. 347 and following.]. From which it is at any rate plain that Carinus left the Gauls before the month of September of the year 284. And that Herculius moved against the Bagaudae shortly after follows from the words of Aurelius already recited above at n. 7: When, he says, Diocletian learned that, on Carinus's departure, Aelian and Amandus throughout Gaul, having raised a band of peasants whom the inhabitants call Bagaudae… he at once orders Maximian to be imperator, etc.

[12] namely at the beginning of the expedition of Herculius against the Bagaudae; But is the massacre of the Theban Legion connected with the expedition of Herculius against the Bagaudae? Clé calls this into doubt in the Acts of SS. Maurice and his companions. Tillemont and Baillet, he says Vol. VI of Sept., p. 336, n. 174., decide that the Theban martyrs suffered in the first year in which Maximian Herculius bore the purple and set out to quell the tumults stirred up in the Gauls by the Bagaudae, which however does not seem able to be reconciled with the words of St. Eucherius. They drew the foundation of their opinion from the interpolated passion of Surius. Elsewhere, however, the same Clé contends at length that the arguments are futile by which Dubordieu wishes it proved that the martyrdom of the holy men of Agaunum cannot be attached to the expedition against the Bagaudae; so at least one reads in the marginal notes Ibid., p. 334, n. 162 and following.. The aforesaid writers surely admit, and with them also Zaccaria, that from the genuine text of St. Eucherius the martyrdom of the men of Agaunum must be referred to the general persecution under Diocletian, and therefore did not take place before the year 303; but they contend that in this St. Eucherius erred, as also did some other writers, who likewise dragged to this time things that had taken place earlier under Maximian. But, Clé adds Ibid., p. 337, n. 177., I do not know whether this censure of his is not a little too unfair. And a little

before Ibid., p. 336, n. 174.: Since they hold as sincere whatever else Eucherius narrates, and the holy writer must be judged to have learned the time of the martyrdom from the same sources from which he understood the martyrdom with its circumstances, and they ought not to have been more ignorant of this than of the rest, I believe that the same credit is to be given to St. Eucherius here which we do not deny him elsewhere, unless something absolutely persuades us to abandon him, which I am now inquiring into. From which inquiry the learned predecessor surely learned that the authority of the holy writer on this matter is not decisive, since Father Clé vigorously and splendidly defends against Dubordieu all the other things, for instance the martyrdom with its other circumstances, but leaves the time of the passion undecided, setting at the beginning these marginal notes: Under Maximian Herculius between the years 285 and 305.

[13] not however, as has pleased some, in the year 303; For the rest, if the butchery of Agaunum were to be tied to the general persecution, what reason would be available why the other martyrdoms in the Gauls at the same period should not similarly be so tied? Accordingly, against the assertion of St. Eucherius there militate all those things which, as we have explained above, altogether persuade us to admit that many suffered in that region before the edict against the Christians promulgated in the year 303. Zaccaria contends in set form against Father Grazioli that the massacre of the Thebans is to be referred to the expedition against the Bagaudae, and was carried out at its beginning: for St. Eucherius expressly teaches that Maximian came into the Gauls at that time to carry out a grave and difficult business, and that for this reason the Thebans arrived to give aid: There was, says St. Eucherius Vol. VI of Sept., p. 342, n. 3., at the same time in the army a Legion of soldiers who were called Thebans… These, summoned as an aid to Maximian from the regions of the East, had come, men vigorous in matters of war and noble in valor, but more noble in faith; they contended in fortitude toward the emperor, in devotion toward Christ. Yet, Zaccaria continues, you will find no business undertaken by Herculius in the Gauls, except the rustic war, for the accomplishing of which such aid was needed. And then, censuring Grazioli, he adds: Let him show that Herculius came into the Gauls with an army in the year 303 in the month of September. And in very truth no mention of an expedition of this kind undertaken at that period is found anywhere in the writers. Nor surely is this to be judged a light matter, that neither the panegyrists of Herculius and of Constantius Chlorus, nor so many contemporary historians, who pursue at length the events of that time and diligently enumerate the other expeditions of Maximian, are entirely silent about this one, if there had been any in the year 303, which yet would not have lacked importance, since a whole legion would have arrived from the regions of the East to bring help. For the rest, Grazioli himself admits this: That Herculius, he says In Zaccaria, p. 260., while the persecution was raging, was either in the Gauls or within their borders, the histories do not teach. But he retorts: But they do not deny it, however. Which reply Zaccaria judges worthy of Baillet and Launoy and the other hypercritics of that kind. Add that the Gauls, already from the year 292 on, were obedient to Constantius Chlorus, very benevolent toward the Christians, and that accordingly under such a prince there could not readily have been room for so atrocious a butchery. Similarly Zaccaria rejects the opinion of Pingon, who assigns the martyrdom of the Thebans to the year 306; both because in the said year, on the witness of Eusebius, no violence was exercised against the followers of Christ; and because at that time Herculius, who in the preceding year 305 had laid down the purple together with Diocletian, was not in the Gauls, so that the Thebans could not have come to his aid. It will not be out of place here to set before the eyes a brief sum of the matters pertaining to Herculius after he had laid down the purple: Herculius abdicates the empire at Milan on the 1st of May 305 Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, vol. 4, p. 22. Brussels 1732, in folio.. The purple is restored to Herculius by Maxentius in the year 306, and this took place at Rome after the month of October Ibid., p. 255.. In the year 307 Herculius meets Constantine in triumph in the Gauls, and gives him as wife his daughter Fausta, and names him Augustus Ibid., p. 41 and following.; in the same year he returns from the Gauls to Rome, and from there again to the Gauls, whence, departing again, he crosses into Illyricum to meet Diocletian In the place above, and p. 302.. In the year 308, driven from Illyricum, he makes again for the Gauls, rises against Constantine, by whom he is captured and forced a second time to lay down the purple Ibid., p. 45 and following. Likewise, p. 302.. At last in the year 310 Herculius attempts to snatch from Constantine his life and empire; convicted of this perverse will, he is strangled; he was perhaps put out of life at Marseille Ibid.. Thus after the year 306 there seems to be no room for the martyrdom of the Thebans, with Herculius reigning.

[14] nor even in the year 297 or the preceding one, as Baronius holds, Baronius, whom some others also have followed, judged that the holy soldiers of Agaunum suffered in the year 297 Annales, vol. III, p. 277.. But, as Pagi rightly notes Ibid., n. II., the Acts of the martyrs of Agaunum which Baronius borrowed from Surius, and which he believed were committed to writing by Eucherius, bishop of Lyon, are spurious. For in them Pseudo-Eucherius refers the death of the Theban soldiers to the pontificate of Marcellinus and to the setting-out of Maximian Herculius into Gaul against the Bagaudae. And yet that setting-out took place at the beginning of the reign of Diocletian, while Caius was administering the Roman Church, whom Marcellinus succeeded only in the preceding year (that is, the year 296). Pierre-François Chifflet in the Paulinus Illustratus (and after him again Ruinart and our Clé) brought to light the genuine lucubration of Eucherius, in which there is no mention either of the Bagaudae or of Pope Marcellinus, nor finally of Aelian and Amandus, but only of Maximian holding the empire as colleague with Diocletian. Moreover, to omit other things, says Zaccaria Page 269., against this (Baronius's) opinion there fights … the fact that it is altogether certain that from the year 292, in which he was created Caesar, all that is in the Gauls beyond the Alps was committed to Constantius; and that accordingly the Christians enjoyed peace; and that so great a massacre of them was not then carried out. Yet it cannot be denied that Herculius moved his forces up to the Rhine in the year 296, in order to restrain the barbarians while Chlorus was setting out for England, when, as Eumenius says in the Panegyric, he protected that whole frontier not with cavalry or infantry forces, but with the terror of his presence; which words seem sufficiently to intimate that Herculius did not penetrate into the interior of Gaul, but kept himself to the Rhine, and that the administration of the empire in these parts remained with Chlorus, who, as has already been said, showed himself very benevolent toward the Christians. It is not credible, therefore, that Herculius then raged against them and, as one reads in very many acts, sat on the tribunal in various cities. Clé also admits Vol. VI of Sept., p. 334, n. 160. that history does not sufficiently explain what specifically Maximian did at that time in that place, and how long he stayed. And he adds against Dubordieu: Meanwhile this is certain, that again a time lies open for placing the martyrdom of the holy men of Agaunum. Which words, according to the mind of the writer, indicate only that the martyrdom could have taken place at that period, which we also concede; but at the same time we judge that it is to be placed a decade earlier, namely at the rustic war, and indeed more probably, as we have already said, in the year 285.

[15] nor finally in the year 286. It is indeed true that most writers stand for the year 286; but this is because they did not take into account or did not admit the Caesarean dignity of Herculius, and accordingly judged that the expedition against the Bagaudae was undertaken when Herculius had already been named Augustus. This being laid down, however, it is clear that the slaughter of the Thebans could not have been carried out before the said year. In the year 286, says Bue Acta SS. vol. II of October, p. 356., he (Herculius) took up arms to repress the movements of the Bagaudae, and restored the Gauls to Roman laws. In the year 287 he had as enemies the Alemanni, Burgundians, Heruli, Franks and Saxons; in the following year he carried arms against the barbarians beyond the Rhine. About two years later he went off from the Gauls to Milan, but in the winter season, and accompanied by few; he returned from there to the Gauls, having perhaps gathered a greater number of soldiers in Italy. In the year 293 or 297 he led forces into Africa. Finally in the year 296, as Constantius (Chlorus) was setting out for England, he moved his forces up to the Rhine, to deter the barbarians from invading the Gauls in Constantius's absence. All of which the reader will find explained more fully both in Tillemont, volume IV of the History of the Emperors, and especially in volume VI of September, page 332 and following (namely in the Acts of SS. Maurice and his companions). Bue adds that the slaughter of the martyrs of Agaunum took place at about that span of time which elapsed from the year 286 to the year 297; that the earlier appeals to most; which also seems more probable to Bue. But it is otherwise if Herculius moved against the rustic faction as Caesar or at least before receiving the purple, and this, as we have declared above, is by far the more probable to us, both because the Caesarean dignity of Maximian is proved by testimonies not to be despised, and because Aurelius himself, otherwise somewhat adverse to our opinion, expressly reports that Diocletian, saluted Augustus on the 17th of September in the year 284, at once ordered the imperator Maximian to cross into the Gauls. But if he had received this mandate only after the Kalends of April in the year 286, in which he was made Augustus, it would not be altogether true, at least in the obvious sense of the word, that he proceeded at once against the Bagaudae, who we know were subdued by him in light battles, easily, in short order. As regards the intermediate years noted by Bue, the Agaunum massacre could surely have been carried out in them, but is it probable that it was carried out then? I should not think so. We have spoken above about the years 296 and the following. It is certain moreover that the Gauls fell to Constantius Chlorus from the year 292, and that he was at hand there until the year 296, when he crossed over into Britain, and toward the end of which he had returned to the Gauls, since at that time one reads that a panegyric was delivered to him by Eumenius in the city of Autun Tillemont, Histoire des Empereurs, vol. IV, pp. 13 and 301.. What Herculius did in the year 289, and where he mostly stayed, says Clé Vol. VI of Sept., p. 333., is almost unknown. And again, after a few things interposed: The remaining deeds of Herculius are obscure up to the journey into Italy, which he undertook in the year 290 or 291. Certainly in those years no movements are known in the Gauls for the restraining of which it would have been necessary to summon soldiers from the regions of the East. To this latter year Tillemont refers Hist. des Empereurs, vol. IV, page 8. Compare Bucherius, Belgium Roman. p. 225. the transfer of many thousands of Franks within the borders of the Roman empire, carried out by order of Maximian Herculius. Finally, as is found in the Rev. Lord Philipp Schmitt Die Kirche des H. Paulinus, p. 25., this opinion has commonly prevailed, and is founded in the Acts of all the martyrs of that time, that the savagery of Herculius came forth chiefly

in the first years in which he was in the Gauls. And hence it is that the more distinguished critics have more probably assigned the crown of the Theban legion to the year 286, in which they supposed that Herculius first crossed the Alps. But since in our opinion indeed it is very probable that he moved against the Bagaudae in the preceding year, we likewise think it more probable that the martyrs of Agaunum suffered in the same year 285.

[16] More probably in the same year 285 SS. Crispin and Crispinian also suffered. Since therefore, in the common opinion of writers, the martyrs SS. Crispin and Crispinian and the other Saints of the same age in the Gauls are placed under the same persecution stirred up by Maximian Herculius, and not long after the slaying of the Theban soldiers; and since the contest of both the aforesaid Champions is marked in all past antiquity on the 25th of October, it is quite natural to infer from these things that they were crowned in the same year 285. Nor do I see what greatly prevents it from being so decided. We must certainly suppose that Herculius, having carried out the Agaunum massacre, continued his journey straight into the Gauls, in order to scatter and destroy the faction of the Bagaudae (whom he perhaps believed to be Christians, at least in part). And we know from Aurelius Victor that these attacked most of the cities. Specifically, Eumenius reports in the panegyric that Autun was besieged by them and struck with a most grievous disaster. A Fort of the Bagaudae is also recorded in the Life of St. Babilenus, and is related to have been situated on the Marne, between the Parisii and the Meldi, where afterwards the monastery of St. Maur-des-Fossés was to be seen Bucherius, p. 221. Compare Art de vérifier les dates, p. 347.. Further, nothing seems seriously to prevent the Roman army with its commander from having been able, within the space of a single month, to reach the borders of the Parisii, Meldi and Suessiones. But if this is so, the very circumstances of the case will persuade us to assign the passion of SS. Crispin and Crispinian to the month of October of the year 285, whether because Maximian, freshly baited with the blood of the Thebans, was the readier to shed it, or because the mortal hatred with which he was borne against the Christians burned the more ardently and fiercely once a whole legion had resisted his command even to extermination. We admit that there is another opinion, which has prevailed up to now: the critics are almost unanimous in assigning the martyrdom of SS. Crispin and Crispinian to the year 287 or the following. If, says Tillemont Mémoires, vol. IV, p. 461., as one reads in the Acts, the violent death of Rictiivarus occurred before their martyrdom was consummated, the sequence of the narrative persuades us that it is to be placed in the year 288. Similarly Baillet Vies des Saints, 25 October: The palm is referred to the year 287 or the following, in which Maximian and Rictiusvarus chiefly shed the blood of Christians in the two Belgic provinces. And Longueval Histoire de l'Église gallicane, vol. I, p. 131. Paris 1825 in 12mo.: That martyrdom could have taken place in the year 288, in which Maximian was still staying in the Gauls. Chastelain Martyrologe universel, 25 October set in his margin: about the year 287. Finally in the Acts of the Saints of Belgium Vol. I, p. 47.: The Passion of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, says Ghesquière from the commentary of Jean Perier, is attached to the year 287 or 288; because in their Acts… Rictius Varus, who inflicted death on them under the rule of Diocletian and Maximian, is also written to have been snatched from among the living about the same time. It is certainly evident that it took place not long before the said years from the emperors named, who are named also with Rictius Varus in the Acts of SS. Sixtus and Sinicius and always elsewhere. Which things however are not accurate in every respect: for, standing by our Acts, Rictius Varus indeed brought death on himself during the passion, but before the crown of SS. Crispin and Crispinian. But this is a light matter, and contributes nothing to elucidating the question which we are treating here. But this must duly be noted, that the esteemed writers were led to move the martyrdom of the holy Champions to the year 278 or 288 almost solely for this reason, that during their passion Rictius Varus perished by a violent death. But do the Acts both of SS. Crispin and Crispinian and of other holy martyrs shine forth with so great a mark of sincerity that credence is to be given them without delay or doubt? Surely no one would so decide. Add that Rictiovarus has become known only from acts of this kind, of martyrs, not written down before the 6th century, from which his name was then brought into the ecclesiastical calendars. Certainly there is no mention of Rictiovarus among the more ancient and contemporary writers, whether sacred or profane. Nothing certain can thus be decided about his rise or death. Rather, there are those who have doubted whether he ever existed, supposing that the word Rictiovarus should be derived from Rix Var, which in Celtic means a powerful man, and that it is not a man's name, but the name of an office or dignity, etc. Compare Schmitt Die Kirche des H. Paulinus, p. 404 and following. and our Annotations, letters h and i. Moreover, all those esteemed writers assign these years to the martyrdom who judged that the passion of the Theban Legion took place in the year 286, not attending to the Caesarean dignity of Herculius, but assuming that he came into the Gauls only after he received the purple on the Kalends of April of the year 286; and supposing besides that no so small a space of time would have been needed for Herculius, moving from Agaunum against the Bagaudae, to reach as far as the Parisii, Meldi, Veromandui, Suessiones. Nor should I greatly resist if someone, for the reason given in the last place, should judge that the martyrdom of SS. Crispin and Crispinian must be postponed into the year 286, because it would seem not easily admissible that within the course of a single month the Roman squadrons reached the borders of the aforesaid peoples from the roots of the Alps or from the Veragri. I have said in the year 286, because in our opinion the setting-out of Herculius falls in the year 285.

[17] Recapitulation, Thus, to draw together in a few words what has been disputed up to now, it is more probable in our opinion that Herculius, before he was named Augustus on the Kalends of April of the year 286, was called Caesar, and this either at the end of the year 284 or at the beginning of the following; that as Caesar he moved against the Bagaudae, and in the month of September of the year 285 arrived at Agaunum, and there around the 22nd of the same month and year slew the Theban legion; that thereafter, having entered the Gauls, as October was declining he reached the Parisii, Meldi, Suessiones and other neighboring cities; and that many Christians were then crowned with martyrdom in these tracts, among whom SS. Crispin and Crispinian are to be numbered, who suffered at Soissons on the 25th of October.

[18] At what time our holy Martyrs came into the Gauls. In the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoric, edited first by Bosquet and then by our Ghesquière, it is held thus Acta SS. Belgii, vol. I, p. 158.: The holy men of God, therefore, Fuscian and Victoric, gathered in order with a number of twelve companions (of which number they themselves were two), together with the venerable prelate Denis, the other companions being Piato, Rufinus, Crispin, Crispinian, Valerius, Lucian, Marcellus, Quentin and Regulus (Eugenius), proceeding from the city of Rome … arrived within the borders of Gaul at the city of Paris, with Christ as the guide of their journey. Similar things are read in the Acts of St. Piato Ibid., p. 127., of St. Chrysolius Ibid., p. 145., etc. Ghesquière judges Ibid., p. 158 and following. that the epoch of their mission can indeed be fixed without error at about the middle of the third century; but that the year itself cannot be assigned without doubt … yet that it is quite probable that those Saints were sent into the Gauls by Pope Fabian (who was pontiff from the year 236 to the year 250 Art de vérifier les dates, p. 242.) and indeed in the month of June or July of the year 249. If so accurate a definition of time should be judged admissible, our holy Martyrs would have spent about thirty-six or seven years in the Gauls, and would have suffered as sexagenarians, supposing they had passed the twentieth year of their age when they left Rome. Nor do I see why their coming into the Gauls should be delayed solely on this account, that they obtained the palm under Maximian Herculius. For nothing prevents a sexagenarian, or even a septuagenarian or older, from contending bravely for Christ Compare Acta SS. Belgii, vol. I, p. 159, n. 13.. But from another quarter a graver difficulty presents itself. Namely, our Bue, who in the preliminary commentary on SS. Denis, Rusticus, etc. treated this question in set form; nor is it certain, he says Acta SS., vol. IV of October, p. 897., whether Denis, when he proceeded from Rome into the Gauls, had joined to him as Companions on the way, besides some of the priests or bishops of the higher order whom Gregory of Tours … writes were sent with him, SS. Rusticus and Eleutherius, and other Saints besides … whom the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoric commemorate. The words of Gregory, whose authority the same Bue vindicates against François Pagi and Pierre de Marca Ibid., p. 892., are these Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, book I, ch. 28.: in his (Decius's) time seven men ordained bishops were sent to preach in the Gauls, as the history of the Passion of the holy martyr Saturninus narrates. For it says: Under Decius and Gratus as consuls (or in the year of Christ 250 Art de vérifier les dates, p. 330.), as is held in faithful remembrance … These therefore were sent: to Tours Gratian as bishop, to Arles Trophimus as bishop, to Narbonne Paul as bishop, to Toulouse Saturninus as bishop, to Paris Denis as bishop, to the Arverni Stremonius as bishop, to the Limousin Martial was appointed bishop. But I do not see what proof Bue can extract from this passage. Gregory indeed speaks of bishops, but is silent about others; whom however he in no way denies to have come. Bue adds Acta SS., vol. IV of Oct., p. 897. that there are found copies of the Acts which either record that the companions they join to Denis … suffered under Domitian, or make clearly no mention of Denis; and finally he inclines to this opinion, which Tillemont also holds Mémoires, vol. IV, p. 443., namely that the words companions, associates are to be taken in a wider sense, so that they are said to have come with Denis because they landed in the Gauls at about the same time and for the same cause. Ghesquière relies, and not altogether wrongly, on the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoric, which he judges were written in the 6th century, and to which he attributes no common weight and merit Acta SS. Belgii, vol. I, p. 157.. I would not wish, nor would I dare, to settle the question: arguments suited to this are lacking. The reasons brought by Bue, if taken singly, are torn apart without difficulty; but on the other hand the contrary opinion is destitute of certain grounds. For which reason I should not readily admit that all those companions set out together from Rome at exactly the same time or year. But as regards SS. Crispin and Crispinian, their Passion, to be edited below, favors Bue. For it begins thus: Under Diocletian and Maximian … Quintianus (Quentin), Lucius (Lucian), Valerius and Eugenius, born of illustrious birth at Rome, came to preach in the Gauls, and who, consummating the course of their holy labor by martyrdom, the distinguished triumphers

departed to the Lord. Following them, with the same devotion of faith and equal rank of birth, Crispin and Crispinian chose the city of Soissons as the hospitable place of their pilgrimage. Nevertheless they are held to be companions of St. Denis by the Fathers of the second council of Soissons in the year 866, in the Privilege granted by the Synod to the monastery of Solignac. For they write thus Sirmond, Concilia antiqua Galliæ, vol. III, p. 301.: It became known to the synod how the venerable and most blessed man Eligius, bishop of the church of Vermand … that monastery in the Limousin countryside which is called Sollemniacus, in honor of Almighty God and in veneration of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and of the martyrs Denis and his companions Crispin and Crispinian, etc. Compare the charter of St. Eligius on the foundation of Solignac Gallia christ., vol. II. Instrumenta, col. 185..

[19] The age and merit of the Acts. Baillet asserts Vie des Saints, October. Tabula critica, p. XXVII. that the Acts of SS. Crispin and Crispinian were written at the end of the 8th century. It is certain that they were read by Florus, which manifestly appears from his words. Bede has it thus on this 25th day of October Acta SS., vol. II of March, p. 35 and following.: At Soissons, the birthday of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian; but Florus added: Whom the prefect Rictiovarus, arresting them by order of the emperor Maximian, when they would not sacrifice to idols, caused to be stretched on pulleys and beaten with clubs; then stakes to be driven under their nails, and strips one by one taken from the back of each, their necks being hung with millstones, to be plunged into the river; and to be burned with fiery lead and boiling pitch and oil. They, protected by the right hand of Christ in all things, and the prefect Rictiovarus being slain in these things by divine vengeance, were slain by the sword at the command of the emperor Maximian. Their bodies, at an angel's warning, a certain old man, lightly conveying them by night in a little boat against the wave of the river, secretly buried. Whoever compares these things with the Acts printed at the foot of our commentary will have no doubt that they were reduced to an abridgment by Florus. They seem therefore older than the ninth century: for Florus wrote against John Scotus in the year 852. But Cave admits that he does not know how long our author survived after the writing against Erigena. Matthew of Westminster still makes mention of him at the year 883. So Galland Migne, Patrol., vol. CXIX, col. 9.. It may at any rate be inferred from these things that the Acts were both known and used in the middle of the ninth century. Hence Baillet, in thinking that they were written at the end of the 8th century, does not seem to presume too much; others perhaps will judge them much older, since Florus trusts them, a grave and learned man; which he would surely not have done if he had judged them written in a more recent age. As regards their weight and merit, Tillemont, in his manner, holds them of no account Mémoires, vol. IV, p. 461., on account of the prodigies mixed in, as he says, and some other circumstances which are not likely. Longueval Histoire de l'Église gall., vol. I, p. 130. doubts whether they practiced the shoemaker's art, and whether what is reported of the death of Rictiovarus can be admitted, because, he says, the Acts do not seem sufficiently sincere. However this may be, the martyrdom itself is certain to all. See the Annotations, where I shall speak specifically of some things of this kind. The Acts were first edited by Peter de Natalibus, book IX, chapter CVI, but contracted, with the omission of the sentiments and words by which the deeds are commended or the minds of readers roused to piety. Mombritius did the same Vol. I, fol. 198., though not at all in the same words; moreover he passes over some things preserved by Peter. We have given the abridgment of Mombritius above at n. 2. They are found entire in Surius, who, as was his custom, changed the style and in addition somewhat contracted the history, the fidelity and integrity of the matter being kept intact. We present the original phrasing from several manuscripts of which apographs were submitted to our predecessors: one from a manuscript of the Accinct monastery and of La Charité, procured by Father Chifflet; another from a parchment manuscript of Marchiennes, quite old; a third, finally, as it is held and stands in the most ancient manuscript codices. And this one which we have put to the press has been collated with a manuscript of St. Maximin of Trier and also with another of Saint-Omer. It is also contained in our great parchment manuscript codex, formerly belonging to the abbey of Grimbergen near Brussels, in which a great many Lives of Saints are presented; it is of larger format and splendidly written. They differ little from one another. Variant readings of some moment you will find written in the margins or among the Annotations. The style is prolix, and the writer seems to have been wonderfully delighted with transpositions of words.

§ II. On the churches dedicated at Soissons in the name of the holy Martyrs; on their burial there, their translations, and relics.

Situation of the city of Soissons and the various sacred buildings: In order that what will be said about the first burial and the translations of the holy Martyrs may become the clearer, it will help to have given a foretaste about the monuments and places, situated partly within and partly outside the present circuit of the city of Soissons, which are connected with the passion and with the veneration of the relics. To this end we use many documents, and very precious ones, which the Rev. Lord Canon Henri Congnet communicated to us in the name of the venerable Chapter of Soissons. And first of all it should be noted that the eastern side of the city is washed for the greater part by the Axona (Aisne), for the lesser by the Crisia (Crise), a small river which empties there into the Axona. The latter, moreover, so far as it washes the city, flows down from South to North, and then after a mile or two bends toward the West, and this in almost a straight line and as it were perpendicularly, and thus flowing on from there, runs into the Isara (Oise) near Compiègne. Thus the city is washed on the East and girt on the North by the Axona, as it is seen in our days [Compare Notice sur le Château d'Albâtre ou Palais Gallo-Romain de Soissons by M. Jul. de Laprairie. Laon, 1854. Gallia Christ. vol. IX. Map of the province of Reims. Cassini, Carte générale de la France. Paris 1808. Map 44. Marked P. J.]. See the topographical table of the distinguished de Vuillefroy, in which are noted the different circuits of the city of Soissons at different times, as also the places where the ancient monuments of the city stood [Plan de Soissons indiquant ses enceintes successives et l'emplacement de ses anciens monuments.].

[21] the place of the passion and of the prison, etc. From ancient tradition the place of the passion is marked near the left bank of the Axona, in the part where it runs down from East to West, and it is accordingly situated to the North of the city; and there, in memory of the event, a cross was once erected. Coming a little nearer to the city, one finds the place of the prison, in which the holy Martyrs are said to have first been held before the contest; in whose honor a church or chapel was built, which gave rise to the Abbey of St. Crispin in Cavea (St Crépin-en-Chaie). Not far from there was situated the palace in which, in the time of the Romans, the rectors of the province lived and the emperors themselves sometimes stayed Notice, p. 30 and following.; and which for some centuries now has come to be called the Castle of Alabaster (Château d'Albâtre), today utterly overthrown; but very many remains of it, especially in our age, well worth seeing, have been dug up Ibid. p. 7, 32, 38, and following.. Some would have it that the holy Martyrs were imprisoned in this palace. For the rest, the two opinions do not differ much from one another, since the one decides that the prison is to be sought next to, the other within the palace: for it is likely that all that space which lay between the Axona and the building belonged more or less to the palace. Within the circuit of the city, such as it is already judged to have been under the Romans, was found the house or hut of the old man who, together with his sister, is read to have committed to burial, on the day after the passion, the bodies of the holy Martyrs, carried by boat on the Axona and against the river. The names of both are lacking in the Acts; among the writers of Soissons they are called Rogerius and Pavia. In that place there was afterwards founded the church of St. Crispin the less or little (St Crépin-le-Petit). At the end of the 3rd century, and a few years having passed after the passion of the holy Champions, the sacred pledges were translated from the aforesaid hut and again against the river by the Axona to the place where afterwards arose the most celebrated abbey of St. Crispin the greater (St Crépin-le-Grand). This, regarding the inner part of the city, was situated between South and East, and was separated from the present circuit of the city by the Crisia, which pours into the Axona near the abbey. There is marked there a Castle, today indeed levelled to the ground, but frequently commemorated among the historiographers of that region and called Château de Crise, Castrum Crisiæ. Yet where it stood, or rather whether it ever stood, many doubt De Laprairie, Notice, p. 47 and following.. Finally, to omit nothing, there is marked on the bank of the Axona the place at which the sacred bodies, when they were translated at the beginning of the 4th century, first landed, almost opposite the basilica of St. Crispin the greater. You will distinguish these things one by one more clearly, set before your eyes, from the topographical table praised above, which we have thought should be presented in part and reduced to a smaller form.

SMALL INDEX.

g. The river Axona.

h. The river Crisia.

1. Place of the martyrdom of SS. Crispin and Crispinian.

2. Prison of SS. Crispin and Crispinian.

3. Abbey of St. Crispin in Cavea.

4. Place where the bodies of the Saints first landed.

5. Hut of Rogerius.

6. St. Crispin the little.

7. Place where the relics of the Saints landed when they were translated from the hut of Rogerius.

8. St. Crispin the greater.

9. Castle of the Crisia.

10. Castle of alabaster.

11. Cathedral church.

12. Church of the Blessed Virgin.

13. Abbey of the Blessed Virgin.

14. Tower of the counts.

[22] The basilica of St. Crispin in Cavea; And let these things be said in summary about the monuments pertaining to the memory and veneration of the holy Martyrs. But we must treat more broadly of the basilicas, of which frequent mention will recur in this paragraph, in which we speak of the burial and translations. There are, namely, three basilicas or churches or oratories, commonly chapels, founded of old in honor of SS. Crispin and Crispinian by the people of Soissons; one of St. Crispin in Cavea (called St Crépin-en-Chaie), of which the Gallia Christiana has this Vol. IX, col. 464. Dormay, vol. II, p. 108.: In the flourishing of the Roman empire, Augusta Suessionum had its amphitheater on the bank of the Axona outside the walls of the city: for most amphitheaters were formerly outside the cities. And it is established that the Romans often called an amphitheater both the Arena and the Cavea, from the hollow, deep and capacious lower part. In that place tradition reports that Saints Crispin and Crispinian were shut up by the tyrant, in whose honor there was afterwards erected there a chapel, or

church, which gave rise to the abbey. On which words I shall note first that it is not certain to me that most amphitheaters were placed outside the walls of cities. Lipsius in his double writing on Amphitheaters [De Amphitheatro liber. Opera, vol. III, pp. 553–582. De Amphitheatris quæ extra Romam libellus. Ibid., pp. 583–596. Compare Pitiscus, Lexicon Antiq. Romanar., under the word Amphitheatrum.] does not touch on or intimate by even one word whether they were mostly placed within or outside cities; so that it is sufficiently apparent from this that nothing worthy of note on this matter occurred to him. Next it is established that the name of cavea among the ancients, that is, in the free republic, as the same Lipsius says Page 558., clung mostly to theaters; but that under the emperors, when the favor and use of amphitheaters had increased, it migrated by good right to these. Hence Tertullian against Marcion Migne, Patrologia, vol. II, col. 279.: Do you not frequent the so solemn pleasures of the furious circus, and of the savage Cavea, and of the wanton stage? And Salvian Ibid. vol. LIII, col. 120.: Whatever of immoderation in the circus *; whatever of fury in the Caveae. And it was called Cavea from the hollow interior part of the amphitheater. Cavea was also the place in the amphitheater in which the wild beasts were kept Pitiscus, under the word Cavea.. Nevertheless I greatly doubt whether the Suessiones ever had an amphitheater, about which deep silence is kept among the ancients: nor do I see anywhere any certain remains either found or dug up. Did the opinion of an amphitheater of Soissons perhaps arise from the word cavea, under which the abbey we are treating became known? For it is not at all necessary that cavea should say the same as amphitheater. Cavea, as is found in Robert Estienne, properly signifies a place under the earth that is empty and dark. Nothing therefore prevents the holy Martyrs from having been imprisoned in a place of that sort, and in the palace itself. The far more common tradition indeed is that they were held in the amphitheater; but is it also the truer? I should not think so. I have learned moreover that men more skilled in archaeology in our days, among whom I name for honor's sake M. Jules de Laprairie, judge the alleged amphitheater of Soissons to be supposititious. The Monks of St. Crispin in Cavea, when they were building a new house in the year 1706, are said to have thrown down an ancient tower, the prison, as was reported, of the holy Martyrs, placed not far from the stairs of splendid workmanship by which one ascended to the dormitory, and which are still seen today in the surviving part of the buildings. But who would seriously say that that tower already existed in the 3rd century? This alone could be admitted, namely that it was erected in the place where they had been held in prison; which you could refer of itself with equal right as much to the palace as to the amphitheater. For the rest, mention of the chapel which gave rise to the abbey occurs in the eleventh century, if credence is to be given to the instrument cited in Dormay Histoire de Soissons, vol. II, p. 108.: namely in the year 1073 the official of Soissons is read to have delivered a sentence by which it is established that the inhabitants of the village of Froidmantel (Fromentel) acknowledged that they had access to the Fountain of the Valley by the free grant of the church of St. Crispin, to which that spring belonged. The abbey itself had as its founders a certain Guiard or Wiard, who, having restored the oratory about the year 431, gave his house for the building of a monastery, and another named James, who granted for the sustenance of the canons his estate at Pasly, a village situated almost opposite the abbey on the other, that is, the right bank of the Axona: each is said to have embraced the regular life there Gall. Christ. vol. IX, col. 464. Likewise the Rev. Lord Pécheur, in manuscripts.. They assign to the foundation, as the Gallia Christiana has it Ibid., the year 24 of Louis VI and 5 of bishop Joslen; this is the year of Christ 1131. Reinald the leper, count of Soissons, is also styled a founder, either because he gave certain things in the year 1141, or because he confirmed the canonry already founded. There flourished then the foundation of the Arrouaisian order of St. Augustine, from which canons were taken to form the abbey of St. Crispin: which, being thus a daughter of Arrouaise, itself gave birth a little later to St. John of Valenciennes. In the year 1660, moreover, the canons of St. Crispin gave in their name to the Gallican Congregation of regular canons, who reformed not only the buildings but also the morals. At the end of the 17th century the abbey was destroyed during the civil tumults; the surviving part of the buildings is today converted into a private house, which the Marquis de Roualle owns and inhabits.

[23] [the basilica of St. Crispin the little, where was the first burial of the holy Martyrs;] The second basilica consecrated to the memory of the holy Martyrs is called that of St. Crispin the little, erected in the place of their first burial. Namely, after their martyrdom was consummated by the cutting off of the head, the bodies of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, as one reads in the Acts, were left by the executioners to be devoured by beasts and dogs and wicked birds, and they, under the guard of Christ, remained untouched by their bites. But on the following night, a certain old man (so Peter de Natalibus summarily from the same Acts Book IX, ch. CVI.) with his aged sister (the old man's name is reported to have been Rogerius, the old woman's Pavia), warned by an angel, carried away the bodies from there. And coming to the river Aisne, they placed them in a little boat prepared there by divine agency; and against the force of the river, without oar or oarsman, under God's guidance, they came to the place shown to them; and carrying the bodies of the Saints without any weight, so that they themselves seemed rather to be carried by the bodies, they buried them in a certain secret hut of theirs. The Acts add that thereafter a crowd of people ran there, by which frequentation the mean hut of the needy, made an oratory, began to surpass in honor even the palace of the king. From these things we have the first burial or deposition of SS. Crispin and Crispinian in the hut on the day after they had suffered. With the Acts there agrees the common tradition of writers, perpetually consistent with itself, nor seriously called into doubt by anyone, as far as I know. Hence du Saussay in his encomium Martyrol. Gallic., 25 October: Their bodies, left to be devoured by dogs and birds, but in no way harmed under the guard of Christ, were given over to burial by a certain pious old man and his sister. Of which burial it is said in the New Gallia Christiana Vol. IX, col. 394.: They are believed to have been first buried where afterwards the chapel of St. Crispin the little was built, and where now stay the nuns of the Congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, founded by Pierre Furier (Fourier), canon regular, and approved by Pope Paul V [Expilly, Dictionnaire géographique des Gaules et de la France. Under the word Soissons.]. Those sacred virgins came to Soissons in the year 1622; to whom on the 25th of April of the same year Louis XIII, king of France, granted the chapel of St. Crispin Ibid., Compare Dormay, vol. I, p. 105.. I add the following from manuscripts transmitted by the Rev. Lord Congnet. That church stood near the Tower or palace of the counts (which, pulled down in the 18th century, gave place to another building, in which the city magistracy now has its seat), and it had been erected in the year 1184 by Rodulf de Nigella (Raoul de Nesle) in honor of St. Denis. Thrown down by the Calvinists, then renovated by the crossbowmen, it was at last in the year 1622 granted to the nuns of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who, having purchased a garden and some buildings, had laid there the foundations of their monastery. And things remained so until the end of the past century, at which time, as throughout almost all of France, the nuns were expelled, the church was levelled to the ground and the other buildings were converted into private houses, to one of which the site of the destroyed church supplies a garden. But the wall by which that garden is separated from the neighboring plot bears traces (namely one crossed arch) of the gate by which entrance lay open into the church. As one passes this way (that is, before the house to which the aforesaid garden adjoins at the back) in the greater litanies, on the feast days of the Rogations, an antiphon with the prayer of SS. Crispin and Crispinian is sung in our time. The crypt, where the sacred bodies had been laid up from the beginning, was frequently visited by pilgrims and the sick. Today, however, no trace of it is marked, indeed none is even known. Finally we learn from a charter of Albuin, abbot of St. Crispin the greater, given in the year 1236, that the monks of this monastery had a building which they called the house of St. Crispin the little Pécheur, manuscripts.. Did it perhaps come about from this that the church previously dedicated to St. Denis was afterwards named after St. Crispin the little?

[24] the basilica of St. Crispin the greater, The third chapel, finally, was the origin of the abbey of St. Crispin the greater, built over the crypt to which the sacred pledges were first carried under SS. Sixtus and Sinicius; of which translation we shall have to speak more broadly. And this is that celebrated basilica of which most frequent mention occurs among the ancients, which began to be built, as is found in the Acts, not long after the aforesaid translation. The antiquary of Soissons Le Moine agrees: Among the most ancient churches of the city, he says Hist. des antiq. de la ville de Soissons, vol. I, p. 173. Soissons 1663., is to be numbered the basilica of St. Crispin the greater. In the beginning it was a small oratory, erected, as is said, about the year 310, where the bodies of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian were kept, carried there from the hut of Rogerius (this, as I have said, is the name given to the Old Man of whom the Acts speak; by what right I for my part do not know See Dormay, vol. I, pp. 105 and 109.). Afterwards the oratory was rebuilt at great expense by the people of Soissons; but it is not established at what time. Certainly Gregory of Tours reports that Chlodobert, son of Chilperic and Fredegund, was buried there. The words of Gregory are express: But Chlodobert, he says Historia Francorum, book V, ch. XXXV. Migne, Patrologia, vol. LXXI, col. 350., placing him on a bier, they led to Soissons to the basilica of St. Medard, and casting him at the holy tomb, they made vows for him; but in the middle of the night, now gasping and feeble, he breathed forth his spirit; and they buried him in the basilica of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian. Namely in the year 580 Art de vérifier les dates, page 526.. The antiquary of Soissons, relying, as he judges, on solid documents, asserts that the basilica existed long before the age of Chilperic I and even of Clotaire I (who reigned from the year 511 to the year 561 Ibid., pages 522 and 524.), and that it was erected under Constantine, a little before the middle of the fourth century Hist. des antiquités de Soissons, vol. I, p. 174.. This therefore is certain, that at the time of the translation at which St. Eligius was present, the basilica had already long since been built; but whether it was the same one, or one renovated about the time of the translation, remains unknown. Dormay also leaves the matter undecided Histoire de la ville de Soissons, vol. I, p. 263.: A church, he says, had already been built in their honor; what remained, except that the relics should be replaced there? Let others say with what credit Le Cointe has written that Ansericus translated the bodies from the place where for a long time

they had lain hidden after their contest, to the basilica dedicated by him in their name. Nothing of the kind is to be found in the Annals of St. Crispin the Greater, whose history up to the year 862 is almost unknown. Hence the Gallia Christiana Vol. IX, col. 395.: being now about to speak of the abbots and the history of the abbey, we have thought it worthwhile to observe that this is first called an abbey in the Annals of Saint-Bertin at the year 862, in which it was given by Charles the Bald to his son Louis the Stammerer. There is no doubt that before Louis there were many abbots, but in so great an obscurity of things and distance of times it is no wonder that they are unknown Ibid., col. 396.. In the following centuries only these things are reported there about the various fortunes of the church. Hugh the Great in the year 948. Under whose rule fire consumed all the buildings of the monastery of St. Crispin Ibid.. And below: Ansellus … translated the relics of St. Felix the martyr in the year 1054 "on the Ides of May, in the seventh year of the restoration after the burning of this monastery, restored by the aforesaid abbot, burned first in his time," as an extremely ancient schedule enclosed in the casket has it Ibid., col. 397.; by which a second fire after Hugh the Great is indicated. In the year 1118 the venerable Odo … who rebuilt that Monastery from the foundations and illustrated it remarkably with monastic discipline Ibid., col. 400.. Albuin: scarcely made abbot, he undertook the work of a new fabric of the church, for the roofing of which he obtained from Louis IX timber from the Forest of Cuise (of Compiègne) in the year 1235 Ibid., col. 401.. William I, under whose rule, namely in the years 1358 and 1359, while the English were laying waste the whole region far and wide, he fortified the monastery, which a little later was burned and destroyed by the same Ibid., col. 403.. While Louis II held office the church was dedicated by Jacques de Russie, suffragan of the bishop of Soissons, in the year 1548 Ibid., col. 404.. Nicolas Dany, commendatory, in the year 1566, kept the abbey as best he could untouched by the heretics; but he could not prevent the church and monastery from being utterly overthrown by them Ibid.. Finally in the year 1617 the buildings and church were pulled down by the soldiers of the Duke of Mayenne Vol. IX, col. 394 and following.. Thereafter up to the year 1727, at which the catalogue of abbots ends in the Gallia Christiana, I find nothing about the church. From which, although mention is expressly made of only one rebuilding around the year 1235, as also of a dedication in the year 1548, one may conclude that the basilica, repeatedly either restored or renovated, nevertheless persisted in almost the same place in which it had first been founded in the 4th or 5th century.

[25] which some report to have once been the cathedral. And let these things be said about the church of St. Crispin the greater, as to whether clerics or monks first held it, a question keenly debated in the past century, on which see the Gallia Christiana, which favors the monks. Some, says Ruinart in his Notes to the history of Gregory of Tours Migne, Patrol. vol. LXXI col. 350., judge that the episcopal see once stood there. Hence again the Gallia Christiana Vol. IX, page 333.: The cathedral church has been dedicated for many centuries to the Blessed Mary and SS. Gervase and Protase. Some confuse it with the basilica of SS. Crispin and Crispinian up to the tenth century. But many things oppose this opinion, among others that Gregory of Tours, who everywhere understands by basilica a church of monks, mentions the basilica of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, as also the basilica of St. Medard, about the year 587. The rest, if you please, read in the same place cited. I add one thing from the Acts or Life of St. Ansericus, where the basilica of SS. Crispin and Crispinian is plainly distinguished from the mother or cathedral church. I said above that under the second translation a woman possessed was freed. The fact is thus narrated Vol. II of Sept., page 546.: A woman of Paris, whom on account of her crimes a demon so atrociously drove that she tore at herself with her teeth, dreaded not at all the dangers of fire and water, and often fell from dizziness of the head by the epileptic affliction. On this account the wretched woman, bound in iron manacles, was led to the MOTHER CHURCH of the kindly Mother of God IN THE CITY OF SOISSONS; where, standing for nine days with her mother, she obtained nothing, because Christ and his kindly Mother, as became plain, reserved her cure for the translation of the martyrs. For when, as the day of the translation approached, her mother saw all, massed together like bees, flowing to the divine BASILICA OF THE MARTYRS, with the help of dependents she led the possessed woman to the place, to try at least whether Christ, by the grace of the Martyrs, would confer health. As she entered the choir, more cruelly harassed by the demon, she sent forth horrible cries, and vomited bloody foam from her mouth and nostrils, rolling her eyes, bending her limbs round. Astonished over her, the prelates and people prayed the Martyrs to save the sick woman. O honey-sweet goodness of our God! As that woman who touched the fringe of the Lord's garment was healed of her flow, so she, as she touched the bier of the Martyrs, freed from the demon, felt herself entirely sound, and once again blotted out her crimes in the font of confession. A pious closing exclamation is added. What the present state of the celebrated abbey is, and other things pertaining to it, we shall see below.

[26] From these things we step to the Translations, which will be explained more easily from what has been said. The first was made from the place of burial or hut of Rogerius to the place where afterwards was built the abbey of St. Crispin the greater. The first translation toward the end of the 3rd century. This translation probably took place in the 3rd century, since Stilting places the death of SS. Sixtus and Sinicius at about the year 300 (Acta SS., vol. I of September). The Gallia Christiana agrees Vol. IX, col. 394.: From there (from the hut) they were translated above the city to the Axona on the third before the Ides of May, in the third century, as it seems, by SS. Sixtus and Sinicius, to the place in which they afterwards built a great basilica, namely that of St. Crispin the greater. The memory of this translation is held in the Gallican Martyrology of du Saussay on the 6th of March: At Soissons the finding (in the Index, the Unsealing) of the bodies of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, made through divine revelation; in which the most sacred bodies themselves breathed forth the sweetest odors, and gave clear and magnificent signs of the glory which they had merited before Christ by their most noble contest. These things have been drawn from the Life of St. Ansericus, bishop of Soissons, which Stilting, having illustrated it, committed to print on the 5th day of September, where it stands thus at n. 5 Acta SS. Vol. II of September, p. 546.: The prelate Ansericus, joined with a band of pontiffs, on the fourth before the Ides of June, with trembling and tears unsealed the crypt under which the bones of the martyrs (Crispin and Crispinian) rested, where they were once placed by Sixtus and Sinicius… The cement being removed, he uncovered their two tombs, and at once a very great odor of sweetness breathed forth from there. Which things agree in the fullest way with the Acts of our holy Martyrs, in which however no mention is made of SS. Sixtus and Sinicius; in their own Life, moreover, on which the same Stilting has commented on the 1st day of September Ibid. vol. I of September, pp. 118–129., this translation is not indicated by even one word. Yet since the Acts of St. Ansericus, as regards their first part, though sprinkled with errors, are of an authority not to be despised, in the judgment of Stilting Vol. II of Sept., p. 547., the Translation of those bodies to the crypt by Saints Sixtus and Sinicius is very likely, since SS. Crispin and Crispinian suffered at the beginning of the reign of Diocletian, and a little later, when Constantine Chlorus was presiding over the Gauls, Sixtus and Sinicius arrived at Soissons, as has been proved in its place Vol. I of Sept., p. 122.. Dormay Histoire de Soissons vol. I, p. 108. holds the Translation for certain, and judges that the bodies were deposited in the fort or forum called Crise, where a crypt had been prepared, above which a church was then erected, long since destroyed by the onset of war or collapsed from age; but he doubts whether SS. Sixtus and Sinicius were present at the translation; I should think for this reason, that Dormay had not seen the Acts of St. Ansericus.

[27] A second The second Translation was made in the middle of the 7th century, about which, as by far the most celebrated, we must treat more fully. Ansericus, says Le Cointe [Annales ecclest. Francorum, vol. III, p. 240. Compare Gall. Christ., in the place above, col. 337.], bishop of Soissons, in this year (649), having called the most holy prelates Ouen of Rouen, Faro of Meaux and Eligius of Noyon, translated with great veneration the bodies of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, from the place where they had lain hidden for a long time after their contest, to the basilica dedicated by him in their name, on the eighth before the Ides of March, on which day the memory of this translation is celebrated. Hence du Saussay on the aforesaid day, namely the 8th of March: At Soissons the Triumph of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, when, from the place of their contest, where they had lain hidden and buried for some time, their bodies, found by divine manifestation, and enclosed in precious reliquaries, were carried with flashing miracles and with the solemn ovation and jubilation of the faithful into the basilica built in their honor, for perpetual veneration. Du Saussay manifestly errs when he says that the bodies were then translated from the place of the contest; for this in no way agrees with the things done under Ansericus; Le Cointe also seems to indicate that the sacred remains were carried from the place where they had stayed hidden to another, not so near to the former; which however is not confirmed from the Acts of St. Ansericus, where the contrary is rather declared in the prolix description of the Translation, the sum of which we transcribe Vol. II of Sept., p. 546.: The Lord confers on him (St. Ansericus) this grace, that with Saints Eligius of Noyon, Ouen of Rouen, Faro of Meaux and the other bishops worthy of praise, he should merit to translate the most sacred bodies of the blessed brother martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, apostles of the Soissons country… When therefore a vessel worthy of so great a treasure had been made, all about of gold and silver … the said kindly pontiffs, kindled by divine fire, at the persuasion of Ansericus convoked the people of Soissons, and for the holy translation of the Martyrs proclaimed a three-day fast. This being completed, Acts having been issued by the prelates over the bodies of the Martyrs, the clergy praying with the people, the prelate Ansericus, joined with a band of pontiffs, on the fourth before the Ides of June, with trembling and tears unsealed the crypt under which the bones of the martyrs rested, where they were once placed by Sixtus and Sinicius, and with most pure hands, the bishops helping, especially Eligius, who was the chief agent, the cement being removed, uncovered their two tombs, and at once a very great odor of sweetness breathed forth from there, to declare (as we suppose) the merits of the Martyrs and of the pontiffs standing by… Then the holy pontiffs, having kissed the holy limbs of the Martyrs with tearful joy, transferred them into the prepared casket, and honorably laid them up wrapped in a pall of pure silk; reserving only the head of St. Crispin in the archives of the church to be kissed by the peoples. There is lifted up, therefore, on the shoulders of the bishops, the admirable vessel, the vessel containing manna, the vessel, I say, of solid gold, adorned with the precious gems of the virtues, and above the altar

it is placed up on high; so that, set up in the likeness of the bronze serpent, it might heal the languors of all who devoutly looked toward it. Nor was this surely in vain. For in this translation the chains of the guilty are loosed, demons are put to flight, diseases are healed, indulgence of sins is conferred. There follows a sufficiently detailed narrative of the possessed woman freed during the Translation, whom we mentioned above at n. 25. From the passage recited it appears that the relics were translated not from one place to another far removed, but from the crypt into the prepared casket, which, lifted on the shoulders of the bishops, is placed up on high above the altar. Hence Stilting says that they were elevated rather than translated by Ansericus Ibid., p. 545.. It remains in doubt, however, whether the basilica of St. Crispin the greater arises exactly in that place in which the sacred bodies were deposited after the first translation, or rather not far from there, namely within the circuit of the Fort of the Crisia, which is reported to have been granted to the Christians by Constantine when he passed this way making for Trier. Compare n. 21. If this latter should hold, Le Cointe would have rightly said that the relics were translated from the place where they were hidden to the basilica. Compare Dormay in the History of the city of Soissons Vol. I, p. 263..

[28] a little before the middle of the 7th century, On the year of this Translation it is not clearly established. A conjecture can be taken, says Stilting Vol. II of Sept., p. 545., from the Life of St. Eligius compared with other reasons; yet I do not see that the year can be determined with certainty from it, even if we should wish to judge that SS. Ouen and Eligius were certainly consecrated bishops in the year 640, as Le Cointe and Pagi hold, whose opinion our Cuper has meanwhile followed as the more probable in his St. Ouen on the 24th of August: for it is nowhere held by how many years this translation was later than the assumption of the episcopal dignity by Ouen and Eligius. Moreover, some suppose that Eligius and Ouen were consecrated in the year 646. The day of the Translation is equally doubtful, since the Acts note the 10th of June; but Dormay and others would have it that the Translation was carried out on the 6th of March, as du Saussay noted in his martyrology. For which reason I can decide nothing certain about the time of this Translation, except that it took place not long before the middle of the 7th century: for some assign the year 647, others 648, and finally others 649; nor do I find better reasons for any one of these years than for another; or rather, no reason of any moment has been brought forward for one more than for another. To which I also, having obtained no clearer light, have thought it right to subscribe.

[29] with St. Eligius as the chief author. From the Acts of the Translation recited at n. 27 it is clear that St. Eligius was its chief author and also its helper. And this agrees in the fullest way with the Life of the holy pontiff, written by his equal or contemporary, St. Ouen, bishop of Rouen. For he begins thus in book II, ch. VI Migne, Patrologia, vol. LXXXVII, col. 315.: To this most holy man (Eligius), therefore, among the other miracles of virtues, this also had been granted by the Lord, that the bodies of the holy martyrs which for so many centuries had up to now been held hidden from the peoples, should, by his investigation and tracing with excessive labor of faith, be disclosed and brought forth: for some were previously venerated by the people in places where they were not, and yet in what place they were more certainly covered was altogether unknown. From the time, therefore, at which Eligius was consecrated pontiff and given as pastor to the church, some were found by him and declared to the peoples; of whom first and highest, the holy martyr Quentin, sought with great insistence at the beginning of his episcopate, and long concealed, he brought forth openly in public. In the rest of the chapter the finding and translation is described. Then he goes on in ch. VII: After this in like manner with great labor and insistence he found in the territory of Medenantum, in the village of Sacilinium, the holy martyr Piato … the body, at length, as befitted a martyr, he elegantly composed, and fashioned a mausoleum handsomely above it. In the city of Soissons also, he wondrously composed the holy martyrs and brothers Crispin and Crispinian, brought forth from a certain crypt, and decorated their Memorial with distinguished ornament. And also at the municipality of Beauvais, the blessed martyr Lucian … found, he similarly fashioned and composed; but he also spent many other diligent efforts on the memorials of the saints, which the tongue of a narrator does not now suffice to unfold. May it not be inferred with Stilting from this so great diligence of St. Eligius, as also from the very words of St. Ouen, that he was the prompter to St. Ansericus that he should seek and lay up in a precious reliquary the relics of SS. Crispin and Crispinian? And in that it is said in the Life that he decorated their Memorial with distinguished ornament, it is intimated that the reliquary, which is described more broadly above at n. 27, was fashioned by Eligius, since he was a most skilled goldsmith, if not with his own hands at least by his ordering and direction Vol. II of Sept., p. 545.. So much for the second Translation, which, as I have already noted, is by far the most celebrated.

[30] A third translation about the year 1141. The Gallia Christiana records a certain third Translation in the following words Vol. IX, col. 401.: Abbot Ernald arranged for the bodies of SS. Crispin and Crispinian to be transferred into another casket on the Monday after Pentecost, in the year 1141, thus on the 19th of May, since in that year the dominical letter is E, and Easter of the resurrection falls on the 30th of March, and the feast of Pentecost on the 18th of May, as is proved from the Chronological Table and the Perpetual Calendar of the Benedictines Art de vérifier les dates, pp. 23 and 112.. Dormay accordingly errs Histoire de la ville de Soissons, vol. II, p. 115., assigning the 21st of May to the translation, and asserting that Pentecost fell on the 20th of the same month. The same Dormay writes, in the place cited, that the new casket, which surpassed in workmanship and value the old one fashioned by the industry of St. Eligius (see above n. 29), was made at the expense of the monks of the abbey, who used for this purpose their silver plate; Joslen also, bishop of Soissons from the year 1126 to the year 1152 Gall. Christ., vol. IX, cols. 357–360., contributed a great sum of money; the richer citizens also took on themselves a part of the good work. And from all these contributions was produced that magnificent reliquary which is seen up to this day, as Dormay wrote in the middle of the 17th century. And it remained the same up to the last years of the 18th century, as we shall say below, where we treat of the present state of the relics. Dormay in the same place describes at length the solemnity of the translation, at which Samson, archbishop of Reims (from the year 1140 to the year 1161 Richard, Évêchés de France. Gall. Christian., ibid., cols. 84–88.) was present with the abbots of St. Remi and St. John. A very great crowd of people ran there, not only from neighboring but also from more distant places. As is customary at festive ceremonies of this kind, a public procession was held, during which, while the bronze of the bells was incessantly rung, the greater bell was broken by the blow of the clapper, so that a fragment of it was driven headlong with great force outside the tower and fixed in the earth to a depth of two feet, not far from the Count of Soissons, Reginald, who, surrounded by a dense crowd of nobles and attendants, was adorning the solemn procession with his presence. On seeing this, all cried out a miracle, and acknowledged that it was by the powerful patronage of the holy Martyrs that no one was killed, no one injured even in the slightest. Every year, on the Monday within the octave of the Lord's Ascension, the memory of this translation is celebrated, and a solemn procession takes place, the monks of St. Crispin the greater carrying the Reliquary to the cathedral church, the magistracy (the échevins) and the people following. And thus far Dormay, in the place cited. There was found in the bier of St. Bandaridus, bishop of Soissons (whose Acts are in our volume I of August, p. 61), a small document, a witness of this translation, written in the French language. The words rendered in Latin are these: The bodies of St. Crispin and St. Crispinian were translated into this reliquary in the year of the Incarnation of the Word of God 1141, on the Monday after Pentecost, which is the 14th day before the Kalends of June. How it came about that the small document was placed in the bier of St. Bandaricus I have nowhere found. Surely this must have happened by error or negligence. The author of the memorable matters of St. Crispin the Greater testifies, moreover, that the said small document was still in the bier of St. Bandaricus about the year 1664, and it was wrapped in a little silk bag, which was itself enclosed in two others together with certain relics of SS. Crispin and Crispinian Pécheur, manuscripts..

[31] [The relics of the holy Martyrs are said to have been kept for a time at Mons in Hainaut.] In the manuscripts of Soissons, as also in Dormay Hist. de Soissons, vol. I, p. 375., there is marked a translation of SS. Crispin and Crispinian to the city of Mons in our Belgium. Namely, on the onset of the Normans and Hungarians, the monks at the end of the 9th century or the beginning of the following translated the relics of SS. Crispin and Crispinian to Mons in Hainaut; which the count of the city is said to have received with much veneration and to have carried barefoot to the church of St. Waldetrudis. Nothing else is added. It is thus hidden how or when they were brought back to St. Crispin the Greater. The whole narrative is suspect to me. For I do not well see how the sacred pledges would have been safer at Mons than at Soissons; since the barbarians seem to have rampaged in both places. Is there perhaps some confusion beneath this, and does that conveyance of relics regard the Osnabrück translation, held at the beginning of the 9th century, or the Roman one in the same century, about which we shall have to treat more fully in the following paragraph? Let the reader see; I for my part would neither assert nor deny. Compare below, n. 35 and 39.

[32] In the year 1592 they were carried to the basilica of St. Mary, After this, I find no translation properly so called made among the people of Soissons. In the Annals of St. Crispin the Greater only these things are noted in the following centuries. John II, abbot from the year 1362, repaired the casket of the holy Martyrs and died at the beginning of August 1373 Gall. Christ., vol. IX, col. 401.. And under Francis I, who entered into possession of St. Crispin through a procurator on the 11th of November 1558, the casket of SS. Crispin and Crispinian was carried by the bishop of Soissons Charles I Ibid., col. 378. to the abbatial church of the Blessed Mary on the 29th of June 1562, and it could never be drawn out from there Ibid., col. 403.. But in what manner and on what occasion this was done must be explained more broadly. Namely, while, on account of the pestilent doctrine of Calvin introduced into the Gauls, civil war was raging atrociously, there was fear that the heretics would despoil and lay waste the churches Dormay, vol. II, p. 462 and following.. For this reason it seemed good to the people of Soissons that the sacred pledges of their holy Patrons should be carried within the city walls, so that they might be kept more safely. On the aforesaid 29th day of June 1562, therefore, with solemn rite and great veneration, a public procession also being proclaimed, they went from the cathedral church of SS. Gervase and

Protase to the basilica of St. Crispin the Greater, and there a solemn Mass was celebrated, and a sermon was preached on the praises of the holy Martyrs and on the present need. After this the reliquary of SS. Crispin and Crispinian was carried to the abbey of the Blessed Mary, over which there then presided Catherine of Bourbon, kinswoman of the prince of Condé, the leader of the Huguenots Ibid. and Gall. Christ., vol. IX, col. 447.. Hence the Gallia Christiana, where it treats of Charles I, bishop of Soissons Gall. Christ., vol. IX, col. 378.: For fear of these (heretics) he translated on the 29th of June 1562 the casket of the holy Martyrs Crispin and Crispinian into the convent of the Blessed Mary. Nor was the precaution taken in vain. For a little later plague invaded the city Dormay, p. 465.; and then in the year 1567 a far worse pestilence prevailed [Ibid., pp. 466–480. Likewise, Histoire de l'abbaye de N. D. de Soissons by D. Michel Germain, p. 263.], at which time wicked crimes were committed against God and men. To a man, all the Christians' churches were violated and pillaged, as much within as outside the city walls, with the sole exception of the monastery of the Blessed Mary: for the prince of Condé had given his word, and he kept it, to his sister the abbess Catherine, that nothing evil was to be feared from his men for either the church or the other buildings [Ibid. and Expilly, Dictionnaire géographique. Under the word Soissons. Martène, Voyage littéraire, vol. II, p. 19.]. In this way the sacred pledge of SS. Crispin and Crispinian remained untouched. But when matters had been pacified, the nuns of the Blessed Mary refused to restore those relics; and when the monks of St. Crispin the Greater were accustomed each year to carry them about in public procession, they first made their way to the Blessed Mary, and placed the reliquary on their shoulders, but on this condition, that the mayor of the city and the whole magistracy should pledge, by an instrument drawn up before a notary called for this purpose, that it would be restored to the monastery of the Blessed Mary when the procession was finished Martène, in the same place, p. 20..

[33] nor were they ever afterwards restored to St. Crispin the Greater. I add from the Manuscripts of Soissons some things described more accurately and exactly, as those which were rendered by eyewitnesses or taken from public instruments. Bishop Charles de Roucy, who went before the procession together with the clergy, gave his word concerning the restoration of the relics of the holy Martyrs to the monks of St. Crispin the Greater whenever they should require it. Similarly the citizens pledged that they would give back the sacred pledges as soon as the present danger should cease. Moreover, for greater precaution, the casket itself was recognized and described most accurately by several goldsmiths, in the sight of two notaries; it was of gilded silver, two feet wide, two and a quarter feet high, around it were effigies of the twelve apostles, all intact, except that six hands were missing, etc. Almost seven years later the city was captured by the Huguenots and occupied for about seven months; its sacred churches were despoiled, pulled down, burned by them; the monastery of St. Crispin was reduced to wretched ruins Gall. Christ., vol. IX, col. 378.. The prior of the monastery, Dom Lepaulart, at this time arranged for the other relics of the Saints to be transferred to the same abbey of the Blessed Mary, with the silver plate and the charters and public instruments, all of which he had enclosed in empty barrels. Peace having been concluded on the 23rd of March 1568, the abbess refused to restore the casket of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, pleading the iniquity of the times. The monks repeated their petition in the year 1578, when they had restored the choir of their basilica; but the abbess readily indeed gave back the other relics, but not so the casket of the holy Martyrs, which she desired to keep in her possession until the complete end of the civil war. The monks protested, but in vain; since the bishop favored the abbess, and Nicolas Dany himself, abbot of St. Crispin, with the prior François Mosnier. To Catherine of Bourbon, who died in the year 1594, there succeeded Louise of Lorraine, daughter of Claude, duke of Aumale, nearly 33 years of age; nor could she be brought to satisfy the wishes of the monks of St. Crispin. Repeatedly, however, under her rule, there was thought of removing the casket; indeed on a certain day the matter was believed about to be accomplished at once; but the citizens, running together in a tumult, shut the gate of the city (today called that of St. Martin) by which the way lay to the basilica of St. Crispin the Greater. Louise, moreover, alleged that she was retaining the sacred pledge for the same reasons by which Catherine had been moved; namely that civil discords were raging no less than before. Yet the monks did not give up; indeed a graver attempt was undertaken in the year 1614, the kingdom being then disturbed by the killing of Henry IV, slain by an unspeakable crime on the 14th of May 1610. For when the relics had been brought to the cathedral church for the customary procession, after Mass had been sung the doors were shut, with the Chapter's favor, to the end that the monks of St. Crispin might be given the opportunity of removing and secretly carrying off their treasure. But suddenly the people were stirred; the doors were broken down and the canons were forced to let go the relics, which were at once carried back to St. Mary's. Thereafter the abbess refused to permit them to be carried about in the public procession, but only to be exposed in her own basilica before the grilles of the nuns' cloister. But in the year 1617, lest occasion be given for sedition, she granted that they should be carried in the accustomed manner, provided they were surrounded for precaution by a guard of thirty armed soldiers. And since this seemed too violent, a milder counsel was adopted, namely that from their going out until their return one of the échevins should be held as a hostage in the monastery of the Blessed Mary. And thus indeed they proceeded in the year 1617. Thereafter, up to the end of the 18th century, no other precaution was used besides the pledge given by the magistracy of the city (n. 32).

[34] The present state of the Relics of Soissons, What was done thereafter at Soissons with the relics of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, and what their present state is, the Instrument will indicate, given in the very year in which we were writing this, 1860. Namely the Rev. Lord Canon Barthélemy Delaplace, delegated specifically for this (the bishop was absent, who died not long after), in the presence of the Chapter, opened the casket and recognized the relics: then he drew up the aforesaid instrument, which, approved by the unanimous consent of the capitulars, was signed, in the name of the Ordinary, by the Rev. Lord Hurillon, vicar general, and we subjoin it in full. And since the recognition was undertaken to the end that our requests might be more accurately satisfied, may it be permitted here to render due thanks to the venerable Chapter of Soissons as a whole, and by name to the Rev. Lord Canons Barthélemy Delaplace and Henri Congnet, who chiefly gave their effort to promoting and carrying out the recognition. Finally we use this opportunity to show ourselves grateful also to the Rev. Lord Pécheur, parish priest at Fontenoy, a diligent and learned writer, who together with the aforesaid M. Henri Congnet (a man likewise of the highest merit in matters literary and historical) submitted to us a great many very precious documents.

[35] from the instrument of the Rev. Lord de Garsignies, bishop of Soissons. Paul Armand Anaclet Ignace de Garsignies, by divine compassion and the grace of the Holy Apostolic See, Bishop of Soissons and Laon, Dean of the Province of Reims and First Suffragan: To all and each who shall inspect the present letters we make known and testify that We, for the greater glory of Almighty God, providing for the conservation and also the authenticity of the sacred relics of the blessed martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, apostles of the city of Soissons, which still remain in our Cathedral church, having maturely weighed the historical monuments from the earliest times up to the present age, have ascertained first of all the following. The Bodies of the holy Martyrs, hidden and buried from the beginning in a pious house at Soissons, were afterwards translated from there outside the city, toward an almost eastern quarter, into the crypt of the church of the most celebrated monastery which glories in their name, where they were preserved with great honor up to more recent times. In this church, at the middle of the seventh century, they were first elevated by St. Ansericus, bishop of Soissons, with the greatest pomp. 1° The very head of St. Crispin was then laid up in a silver casket adorned by St. Eligius, bishop of Noyon, which then growing worn out, about the year 1300, was translated by abbot Wermond into a new reliquary, gilded, but of copper and narrower, and for that reason it was broken into several parts; from which two fragments of the same Holy Head were extracted by Charles de Roucy, bishop of Soissons, about the year 1578; with which he enriched his Cathedral church. 2° The bodies of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, however, apart from the heads, at the middle of the seventh century the same St. Ansericus elevated and enclosed in a larger silver casket, which St. Eligius had likewise adorned, with which casket they are believed to have been translated, at the end of the ninth century, to Rome, where no small part, on the testimony of the Roman martyrology, was retained. But long after the bringing-back, since that former casket scarcely held together, in the year 1141, on the 19th of May, what remained of the sacred Bodies was translated with solemn pomp by Joslen, bishop of Soissons, into another silver casket, afterwards in the year 1370, under abbot John, again repaired, which, in the year 1792, like the gilded casket of the sacred Head, was plundered by the impious government of that time. But from it the greatest part of a femur, and also certain smaller fragments, extracted, were carefully restored by pious persons, after peace had been given back to the church, to the Rev. Lord Jean Claude de Beaulieu, bishop of Soissons, as also the two aforesaid fragments of the Head of St. Crispin. All of which, their identity being testified by contemporary men most worthy of credit, in the year 1804, on the 25th of October, the same Lord de Beaulieu laid up in the present casket of wood, gilded here and there, and by a solemn Decree declared and determined them to be authentic and to be exposed to the veneration of the faithful. The instrument of this last translation, which, on opening the casket, we found almost obliterated by the injury of time, we supply and renew by the present Rescript. The aforesaid sacred pledges, then, canonically recognized by us, namely two fragments of the very head of St. Crispin, the greatest part of a femur and other smaller fragments, enclosed in three little silk bags of red color, we have had replaced upon a silk cushion of red color, in the aforesaid wooden reliquary, gilded here and there, of oblong form, fitted on the sides with a double fixed crystal, on the upper part entirely closed by a wooden cover adhering to it by iron screws, these being covered on every side with our seal impressed in red Spanish wax. In faith of which we have ordered the present letters to be issued, with the faculty of exposing the said relics to the veneration of the faithful in Our Diocese. Given at Soissons, in Our Episcopal Palace, under the signature of Our Vicar General, and with our seal and the subscription of the Secretary General of our Episcopate, in the year of the Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Sixty, on the Sixth day of the month of March. Hurillon, vicar general. By Mandate of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Bishop of Soissons and Laon: Delaplace, canon, secretary general. Of the Roman translation, of which mention is made in the Instrument, as also of the other, that of Osnabrück, we shall speak in the following §. Here I shall add some things about certain chief parts of the bones; and first about the sacred heads of the holy Martyrs.

[36] The Head of St. Crispin; We have seen above at nn. 27 and 35 that the Head of St. Crispin was deposited apart from the rest of the body in the middle of the 7th century by St. Ansericus in its own reliquary;

that in the year 1141 abbot Ernald translated the bones into another casket, the Head of St. Crispin not having been moved from its place. But the Gallia Christiana notes Vol. IX, col. 401. that Wermund, likewise an Abbot, enclosed the Head of St. Crispin in a pyramid in the year 1303. Namely, as is found in Dormay [Histoire de Soissons, vol. II, p. 295 and following. Likewise Pécheur, manuscripts.], Wermund, created abbot in the year 1303, imprudently lending his ears to a certain goldsmith and others with whom he was familiar, was induced to transfer the Head of St. Crispin from the reliquary in which it had been laid up from the middle of the 7th century into another, of more elegant form indeed but of less value. The said goldsmith accordingly made a reliquary of gilded copper, ornamented with metallic pigments and various figures. On seeing it the abbot was so delighted that he wished a solemn Mass to be celebrated, during which, with the monks standing by, he took the head of the holy Patron from the old reliquary, in order to place it in the new one; which he nevertheless attempted in vain: for the opening of the reliquary was too narrow for the sacred pledge to be inserted. The goldsmith therefore, confused by shame, began to strike the relics, whereby the Head of the holy Martyr was divided into three parts or fragments, which were thus easily replaced in the prepared urn. From the old reliquary, which weighed ten pounds, an abbatial crozier was made for Wermund. But heavenly vengeance soon followed. The crozier was scarcely finished when the goldsmith, seized in his limbs, remained so as long as he lived; while the abbot fell into madness; yet a little before he was altogether deprived of the use of reason, he acknowledged his fault, and confessed it before the assembled monks and some canons, saying that he was unworthy to preside thereafter. He therefore earnestly begged his brethren to elect another abbot. In his place, accordingly, Walter de Bouclanoy was put; while Wermund lived mad for some time in the same monastery of St. Crispin the Greater; afterwards, restored to reason, he presided over the priory of Beaulieu until his death. Dormay does not seem to hold this narrative as very sincere, cautioning that he did not find it elsewhere than in the manuscript of Michel Bertin. Likewise, in the manuscripts recently communicated to us from Soissons, it is noted that the affair is indeed recounted by Dom Lepaulart in his Journal, but without any indication of the sources from which it was drawn [Journal de ce qui est arrivé à S. Crépin lors de la prise de Soissons par les Huguenots, manuscript.]. Moreover, Dom Elie, in his manuscript History of the monastery of St. Crispin the Greater, judges it suspect. Of Wermund the Gallia Christiana reports only this Vol. IX, col. 401.: Wermund, elected in the year 1303 with leave requested by the monks, came to an agreement in the month of May with the abbot of St. Medard concerning the rights of the bank of the river Cesia around the estate of Pernant. He enclosed the Head of St. Crispin in a pyramid. They report that, recalled from the madness into which he had fallen, he abdicated and withdrew to the cell of Beaulieu, where he ended most holily. In Dormay it is said that Wermund resigned his dignity before he became mentally deranged. For the rest, from what has been said it follows that Wermund presided for a brief time, since his election and resignation are assigned to one and the same year 1303. Nor must it be passed over that the aforesaid reliquary lasted until the civil tumults in France at the end of the past century. For that which was then seen was of gilded copper and decorated with various little images. Around the foot, inscribed in vermiculated letters, were read the words: Here in this sacred place, in a vessel, to the glory of the Lord, this Head was placed, Wermond being abbot. Finally it is established from the instrument (above, n. 35) that about the year 1578 two fragments of the Head were extracted by Charles de Roucy, with which he enriched the cathedral church; and that these have been preserved up to this day, the rest having perished.

[37] the head of St. Crispinian. The Head of St. Crispinian is reported to have been handed over by St. Ansericus to St. Eligius around the middle of the 7th century. Compare n. 27 and following. And St. Eligius is said in turn to have given it to the abbey of Solignac, which is about six miles distant from the city of Limoges and glories in blessed Eligius, a Limousin by native country, who was afterwards bishop of Noyon, as its founder… The dedication of the church took place in the year of Christ 631 on the 9th of May, at which twenty-two bishops were present, according to the old Necrology. For the rest, in this dedication, to the chief patrons, namely the apostles Peter and Paul, very many others were added, the martyrs Pancras and Denis with companions, the confessors Martin, Medard and Germanus [Gallia Christ. vol. II, col. 566. Compare St. Ouen in the Life of St. Eligius, Book I, ch. XV and following. Migne, Patrologia, vol. LXXXVII, col. 492.]. It is no wonder that St. Crispinian is not numbered among these, since St. Eligius had not yet been present at the translation of Soissons, which took place many years later. But this would surely be a wonder, if the abbey of Solignac had been enriched with so precious a pledge, namely the Head of St. Crispinian, and no mention was made of this matter in the whole course of its Annals. Certainly in the Series of Abbots, in the collectors of the Gallia Christiana, not even the name of the holy Martyr is marked, although many things are noted here and there about relics of Saints brought to the monastery. For which reason I doubt whether it is anything other than conjecture by which the Head of the holy Martyr is claimed for the basilica of Solignac in the Manuscripts of Soissons. And the conjecture could easily have arisen from this, that since the head of St. Crispin had been separated from the rest of the body by Ansericus and placed in its own reliquary, it would seem not unfitting that the same had been done with the Head of St. Crispinian; namely that it was separated at the same translation from the other bones, and granted to the holy bishop of Noyon, in remuneration for the effort and industry he had applied. Which conjecture indeed is made the more probable in that, at least from the middle of the 7th century, all traces of the head of St. Crispinian have been lost. This is certain to me, that that sacred pledge is to be found neither at Soissons nor at Osnabrück. Mazzolari indeed writes that at Rome in the church of St. Lawrence in Pane et Perna the bodies of SS. Crispin and Crispinian are laid up and the Heads exposed for the veneration of the faithful. But we have said elsewhere that this account is not sufficiently trustworthy, since it manifestly offends in many points. The same is to be said of the two Skulls which are kept today at Osnabrück in the cathedral church with two schedules attached, marked with the names of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, as we shall say below at n. 45 and following.

[38] Parts of the relics kept in various places. One reads among us among the Passed Over on the 5th of April Vol. I of April, p. 397.: The translation of St. Crispin and St. Crispinian, of some of the relics, was made in the year 1621 in the monastery of Lézat in the diocese of Rieux near Toulouse. Consult du Saussay's supplement at the 27th of August; on which day, in the place cited, it stands thus: In the monastery of Lézat … the birthdays of the Saints Calixtus and Cyprian, martyrs,.. Their sacred bodies, from two very ancient caskets in which they had long rested, were in the year one thousand six hundred and twenty-one on the 5th of April translated by the Prior of the place, the cenobites being present, into a new and more ornate reliquary, and honorably shut up within the chapel of St. Anthony, with other venerable remains of the heavenly citizens: namely the body of St. Albinus, bishop; some sacred pledges of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, who at Soissons (where they accomplished their martyrdom) in their own church, preserved by the great benefit of God from the sacrilegious hands of the impious fighters against the saints, who there burned so many bodies of Saints, were most religiously placed. Compare n. 32 and following. Baillet therefore did not rightly understand or read du Saussay Vies des Saints, 25 October, since he seems to suppose that the text recited treats of a translation of the holy bodies; on the contrary, only some pledges are expressly indicated. There is surely nothing which in the slightest opposes these things. Nor is there to be any doubt that relics, whether smaller or more notable, were given here and there as gifts by the monks of St. Crispin. Thus, on the witness of Mabillon Annales Benedictini, vol. III, p. 238., about the year 886, Count Ericius hands over and bequeaths to the basilica of St. Crispin the Greater two farmsteads with some serfs in the estate of Montiniacum, in exchange for a tooth which he had received from the relics of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian. I see moreover in the Manuscripts recently transmitted to us from Soissons that the Rev. Lord Charles de Roucy, who had taken two fragments of the head of St. Crispin from the smaller reliquary, likewise took some small bone from the larger casket and deposited it with the Minim Fathers of Soissons. In the year 1619 other small particles were granted to the canon D'Orleans (this was his name). Finally Charles II (de Hacqueville) in the year 1622, on the Sunday in the octave of the Ascension, opened the casket of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, and gave two ribs extracted from it to the cathedral. So the Gallia Christiana Vol. IX, col. 379.. It is added in our Manuscripts that on the same occasion an ankle-bone was also extracted, and handed over to the secretary of the same prelate, named de Courtonne, who afterwards became canon and cantor of St. Gervase, that is, of the cathedral of Soissons. His successor in the office of cantor was still keeping that part of the sacred treasure, received from his predecessor, in the year 1664. Yet the proceedings of the aforesaid Visitation make no mention of the ankle-bone, nor likewise of certain other fragments which seem to have been taken away during this Visitation. Which indeed would be a sign that they were only tiny particles.

* Others read circis.

§ III. On the Roman translation and that of Osnabrück.

The Roman translation, Of the Roman translation mention has already occurred several times in what precedes, but here we shall treat of it in set form. Baronius passes it over in the Annals, but he asserts it in the Martyrology on this 25th day of October: Whose bodies, he says, were afterwards carried to Rome, and honorably entombed in the church of St. Lawrence in Pane et Perna. But indeed du Saussay altogether denies this: For, he says Martyrologium Gallic., 25 Oct., their precious remains were never conveyed to Rome, which, preserved through so many centuries, were by divine help withdrawn from the profane claws of the fighters against the saints even while these were raging at Soissons, but, deposited for protection in the basilica of the most holy Virgin, in their reliquaries (rather, in their reliquary), have persevered undamaged up to now, as they are seen. Baillet subscribes to du Saussay Vies des Saints, 25 October. Certainly before the edition of the Roman martyrology, by order of Gregory XIII, no one had mentioned the Translation of SS. Crispin and Crispinian to Rome; neither Florus, nor Ado, Usuard, Rabanus, Notker, as neither Maurolico, Galesini, Bellini, Molanus, nor finally other martyrologists, whether better known or more obscure. For which reason the Note of Baronius on the announcement of our holy Martyrs is not accurate in every respect. For he writes thus: Bede, Usuard, Ado and the rest; who indeed all celebrate the martyrdom at Soissons, are silent about the translation. It is not difficult, however, to discover the source of the Baronian assertion. Namely, at the very navel of the summit of the Viminal hill there rises the church and monastery of St. Lawrence in Pane et Perna, commonly

Panisperna (the origin of which word is variously given by various people), in that place, as is reported, where the baths of Olympia were found in antiquity, in which the most blessed Levite is believed to have obtained the palm of martyrdom [Beschreibung der stadt Rom, von Platner etc. vol. III, part II, page 348. Edition of 1838. — Descrizione di Roma moderna by Mich. and Vinc. Rossi, p. 655. Rome 1697. — Tesori nascosti dell' alma citta de Roma, by Ottavio Panciroli, p. 271 and following. Rome 1625. — Eorterologio overo le sacre Stationi Romane, by Abbot Carlo Piazza, p. 119 and following. Rome 1702.]. The monastery is inhabited by the nuns named after St. Clare, among whom are many distinguished for nobility of birth, and this abbey was once of the number of the twenty privileged ones of the City. At what time the church was built is unknown Beschreibung, p. 348.. About the year 1300 it was rebuilt by Boniface VIII, adorned with a cardinal's title by Leo X, restored and consecrated anew under the pontificate of Gregory XIII Descrizione, in the place above, p. 655.. Here, as Father Giuseppe Mazzolari S.J. testifies in the Diario Sacro at the 25th of October Vol. IV, p. 117. Rome 1819., the Bodies of SS. Crispin and Crispinian are laid up under an altar dedicated in their name, and the heads are exposed for the veneration of the faithful. Similarly the Rossi, Panciroli, Piazza and others. But when, on what occasion, and in what manner they were conveyed to Rome I have nowhere found. Panciroli also asserts Tesori nascosti, page 594. that he inquired of the nuns about the time of the Translation, but learned nothing at all, although they brought forward many very accurate things about the affairs of their church, and he adds that he has up to now found nothing in any writer. Dormay suspects that perhaps part of the sacred treasure was once carried to the City; and, on the occasion of this (third) Translation, he judges it necessary Histoire de la ville de Soissons, vol. II, p. 116. to inquire whether the two bodies are intact with us, and whether no bones are lacking in the reliquary. The reason for doubting is that Baronius asserts in the Martyrology that they were translated. Dormay then adds what we recite in full below at n. 50, that both heads are lacking in the casket, and that one only is in the possession of the monks of St. Crispin the Greater. Moreover, that there are not found as many bones as would suffice to make up two whole bodies. From which it is made probable, as some would have it, that the Romans, when they sent to Soissons the body of St. Sebastian (about the year 826 Gall. Christ. vol. IX col. 411. — Dormay, vol. I, p. 338 and following.), received in remuneration a part of the relics of SS. Crispin and Crispinian. And this Dormay offers by conjecture. The Rossi agree in the Description Page 655.: Among other relics there is found (in St. Lawrence in Pane et Perna) an arm of the holy Levite and part of the bodies of SS. Crispin and Crispinian. Piazza, in the Hierarchia Cardinalitia, published at Rome in the year 1703, has this, under the Title of St. Lawrence in Panisperna La Gerarchia cardinalizia, page 594.: This church glories that there are still preserved there the bodies of the two most noble Romans Crispin and Crispinian, the Lord permitting that their bodies, restored to the City, should be honored with so much the greater veneration. Finally the Rev. Lord Lequeux, today a canon of Paris, formerly superior of the major seminary at Soissons, when asked about the Roman relics, replied on the 5th of December 1859 in this manner: It is certain that for a long time now there have been at Rome certain relics of those holy Martyrs, in the church of St. Lawrence in Pane et Perna, as is proved from the Roman martyrology. These I, together with the Rev. Lord Legrand, your colleague (the letter was given, I suppose, to the Rev. Lord Congnet or at least to another of the Chapter of Soissons), visited in the year 1831 in the aforesaid church, very celebrated for the martyrdom of St. Lawrence. There we found a tiny casket (tres-restreinte) which manifestly could never have contained any but a very small part of the holy Bodies. Hence these Roman pledges prove nothing against the sincerity of the relics of Soissons. For this tiny part of the sacred bones could have been carried to Rome by abbot Hilduin, who in turn desired to bring relics of Saints with him from Rome to Soissons, and in fact asserted that he had brought to the basilica of St. Medard the remains of St. Sebastian and St. Gregory; which is at any rate to be understood not of whole bodies, but of fragments only. In this way all things seem easily to be reconciled with one another. I for my part willingly assent to this surely prudent conjecture (for, suitable documents being lacking, no other word may be used); yet I do not altogether well see how Hilduin, since he was abbot of St. Medard, could have obtained, for carrying to Rome, relics belonging to St. Crispin the Greater, and held in value there above all others. These things being so, it might perhaps occur to someone that the pledges of another St. Crispin (for many of this name are celebrated) rest in the City, which by lapse of time, as happens, were assigned to our holy Martyr, to whom St. Crispinian was then joined on account of their partnership in the passion. But the opinion of the Reverend Lord Lequeux is by far the more probable to me.

[40] as it is announced in the Roman martyrology, For the rest, from what has been said up to now, it follows that the Roman translation rests on these two foundations: The Tradition of the church of St. Lawrence, in which they are venerated with public veneration; which tradition however can in no way be referred to the whole bodies of the holy Martyrs, but only to a part, and that not a very notable one. But as regards the head of St. Crispin, it is certain to me that this has been perpetually kept at Soissons, and accordingly could never have been shown at Rome; that it is therefore wrongly reported by Mazzolari that the heads of both Martyrs are exposed for veneration; nor do I think this has been proved even of the head of St. Crispinian; both because, besides Mazzolari, no other of those who have more deeply examined the matter asserts any such thing, rather they affirm the contrary, as is established from the testimonies recited above; and because, although that part of the holy Body has been in exile from Soissons from time immemorial, yet it is not shown by any sufficiently suitable reason that it was brought to Rome. The other foundation of the Roman translation is the authority of the martyrology edited and corrected by order of Gregory XIII and other Pontiffs. But this is not so great that it is not permitted to depart from it. Let us hear Benedict XIV De Servorum Dei beatificatione, book IV, ch. XVII.. He notes first of all that the martyrology of Usuard so prevailed that at the end of the 15th century it was read generally in all churches, even of the City, with the exception however of the Vatican basilica; that many editions of it were made about that time; namely in the year 1498 at Venice by Bellini; around the middle of the 16th century by Maurolico, but the more learned think that Usuard was disfigured by him; for which reason Molanus, doctor of Louvain, spared no labor to bring Usuard back to his true state, the last edition of which work was made at Louvain in the year 1583. At the same time Pietro Galesini, apostolic protonotary, composed and edited his martyrology. Martyrologies having been multiplied in this way, which were not free of errors, the supreme pontiffs judged it necessary that an edition of a corrected martyrology be made, to be read in all churches. This charge was entrusted by Gregory XIII to Silvio Antoniano, then canon of St. Peter's, afterwards cardinal; to Robert Bellarmine, then priest of the Society of Jesus, and Caesar Baronius, then priest of the Oratory, afterwards cardinals; to Ludovico de Torres, then archbishop of Monreale in Sicily, afterwards cardinal under Paul V; to Giovanni R. Bandini, canon of St. Peter's, Michele Ghislieri, Theatine, and Bartolomeo Gavanti, Barnabite. The correctors used chiefly Usuard. In correcting the errors which had crept in, they used the Martyrology which was then believed to be Bede's, likewise the Martyrology of the ancient church of St. Cyriacus in Via Lata; likewise one of the Greek Menologies rendered into Latin by Cardinal Sirleto. They also had before their eyes the Martyrologies of Bellini and Maurolico, and also of Molanus and Galesini; but they deferred more to Bellini and Molanus, as was proper, than to Maurolico and Galesini. Finally, at the urging of Baronius, there were added Saints taken from the Menology who were venerated by the Greeks before the schism, and some others from the Latins, of whom praiseworthy commemoration was made by the Fathers, and notably by St. Gregory in the Dialogues. Three editions of the corrected martyrology came out; of which the third, on the witness of Baronius, is purer and more sincere, made in the year of the Lord 1584: for to it alone, as legitimate and genuine, were joined the apostolic letters, given on the 14th of January of the same year.

[41] whether and how it can be admitted? Two years later there came to light another edition with the notes of Baronius, namely in the year 1586, of which Carlo de Aste, archbishop of Otranto, writes: There is no doubt that martyrologies have often been varied, since that which was approved by Gregory XIII and fortified by his apostolic letters was afterwards, on the occasion of the notes of Baronius (who had suggested that he had found some errors in it), changed in some part, not only with certain things altered, but with some things also added and removed, as will clearly be established for one who compares the two editions, old and new, namely the Gregorian with the Sixtine. Although this latter is not called Sixtine, though made under Sixtus V; for it seemed good, since the change made was not so great, that the bull and the name of Gregory XIII should be left. But now usage has almost prevailed that that last edition, made under Sixtus V and illustrated with the notes of Baronius, should be called the Martyrology of Baronius. For the rest, in the very first edition of all of the corrected martyrology (which I have in hand, and which was printed at Rome in the year 1583 by the press of Domenico Basa) the same announcement or elogium of SS. Crispin and Crispinian is read as in today's. Which will surely seem surprising to no one who recalls to mind what we pointed out above, that the church of St. Lawrence in Pane et Perna was restored and consecrated anew under the pontificate of Gregory XIII, who was the author of the correcting of the martyrology. For the rest, from the sketch given as it were of the genesis of the new martyrology it is sufficiently apparent that its authority, whether in names or in matters, is not decisive. For, as Papebroch rightly remarks Responsio ad exhibitionem errorum, art. XVIII, n. 47.: It was necessary that there should remain even in today's new Martyrology the ancient errors, if any had crept into Usuard; and then that new ones should creep in among those Saints who were newly added; since these were to be taken partly from the Menology of the Greeks, rendered in Latin with a very light hand by William Sirleto, partly from the additions of Jan Molanus to Usuard, partly from other more recent aids submitted from everywhere; to examine and correct all of which one by one was a work of far greater effort than could be completed in that short time which was allowed by those eager to see as soon as possible the new Martyrology, which the church might use thereafter, weary of the old on account of its commonly vaunted imperfection.

Hence Benedict XIV expressly has it In the place above, n. 9 at the end.: Lastly we assert that the apostolic see does not judge that whatever has been inserted into the Roman Martyrology is of unshaken and most certain truth… Which is also best gathered from the changes and corrections ordered by the holy See itself. For indeed, besides the things set out above, we know that Cardinal Leandro Colloredo prepared many things for a new expurgation of the Roman Martyrology; but, carried off by death, he could not complete the work and publish it in print. More severe certainly, and excessive and indeed shameless, is the critique of Dom J. Bouillart, monk of Saint-Germain. The Martyrology of Baronius, he says [Usuard's Martyrology edited according to the faith of the autograph and vindicated from the observations of Rev. Fr. Sollerius. Page XXIII, in the Letter to Sollerius. Paris, 1718.], teems with errors. Whoever has touched the ecclesiastical calendars even with the tips of his lips sees them. And let these things be said about the Roman translation, which I do not hold as proved. Yet I would not deny, rather I assume as certain, that some parts of the holy Bodies were carried there, in whatever manner and at whatever time this may finally have happened. Compare the Acts of SS. Chrysanthus and Daria, in this volume nn. 26 and 74.

[42] On the relics which are said to have been translated from Rome to Fulda; Henseler writes [Dissertatio critico-historica de diplomate Caroli M., p. 66. Münster in Westphalia, 1721.]: It is established from the Acts of Blessed Rabanus, written down by Rudolf, priest of Fulda, that part of these holy Bodies (of Crispin and Crispinian) was translated from Rome to Fulda and laid up in the church of St. Boniface. Those Acts were edited by our Christoph Brower, book III, chapter XIV, of the Antiquities of Fulda. Rudolf reports Fuldensium Antiquitatum, p. 248.: But on the following day (that is, the 3rd before the Kalends of October 838), by the hand of the aforesaid chorbishop, namely Reginbald, chorbishop of Mainz, Rabanus placed the relics of the holy bishops Cornelius, Calixtus, Sixtus, Sinisius, Nicasius and Felix; also of the presbyters Stacteus and Pamphilus; and of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, Nereus and Achilleus; also of Sebastian, Castulus and Romanus; of Papias and Maurus and Valerian, and of the holy virgins Cecilia, Eugenia and Anastasia, martyrs of Christ, in the church of St. Boniface, in the place where his holy body had previously rested. For he built there a stone tower behind the altar, in the upper middle of which tower he laid up the bones of the aforesaid Saints, diligently enclosed in a stone chest; above which, erecting a wooden gable supported by four columns, he adorned it with gold and silver. Within this he placed an oblong chest made in a quadrangular form; which, adorning it also with gold and silver and stones, he decorated with images of each of the Saints fittingly portrayed; and he wrote around it verses, uttered as it were in the person of the same chest, in this manner:

Those whom by a known name this place and image mark, Behold, the illustrious servants of God the Christ, Who with fearless heart grew red with sacred blood, And laid down now their souls for Christ.

From these things it is altogether clear that only some parts of the holy bodies are in question, which there is at any rate no objection to saying were taken from other parts likewise, once translated from Soissons to Rome. But if this should hold, it would follow that the relics of SS. Crispin and Crispinian were carried to the City from the beginning of the 9th century, and thus that it is wrongly assumed by most that this took place at the end of the ninth century. Compare n. 31.

[43] [it is not sufficiently established whether they are altogether sincere, both on account of the manner in which they were brought to Fulda,] But indeed it may be doubted whether the sacred pledges of Fulda, of which there is question, are altogether sincere. Surely the Acts of Blessed Rabanus, brought to light by Brower, are of an authority not at all to be despised, seeing that they were written by Rudolf, a grave and contemporary man (for Rudolf calls Rabanus his abbot and teacher Fuldenses Antt., p. 225.); but his very narrative will be able to make the truth of the translation suspect to someone: for the manner is not always found to have been such as to shut off all approaches to fraud. In the times, he says Fuldenses Autt., p. 224., of the emperor Louis, who after his father the emperor Charlemagne held the rule of the Franks for twenty-seven years, the relics of many Saints were carried from the city of Rome into Francia; of which some indeed were brought by those who set out for Rome at the order of their lords so as to accomplish this (and the presumption of every kind of sincerity favors these pledges); but others were brought by clerics of the holy Apostolic See and citizens of the city of Rome (and to these less credit is to be given). Now of the latter kind are the aforesaid relics of the holy Martyrs of Soissons: for Rudolf says Ibid., p. 240.: After this there were brought to him (Rabanus) relics of the holy bishops Cornelius and Calixtus; and of the holy martyrs Agapitus, George, Vincent and Maximus; also of the holy virgins Cecilia and Eugenia, Digna and Emerita and Columbana. A certain Italian cleric named Felix brought them, in the year from the incarnation of the Lord 838, on the fifth day of the month of April; after whose return, not many days intervening, Theodore, brother of Deusdona, of whom mention was made above, with a certain companion of his, Sabbatinus, setting out from the city of Rome came to Alamannia, and, as he had long since promised the abbot, brought relics of the Saints with him: namely bones of St. Quirinus … relics of Urban, pope and confessor … bones also of St. Cecilia… of SS. Tiburtius and Valerian and Maximus… of SS. Agapitus, Januarius and Magnus, deacons, of Blessed Sixtus the pope… also of Zeno and Hippolytus… also of Aquila and Priscilla. And in this place those indeed are enumerated; but from the course of the narrative it is established that other pledges of other saints, among whom Crispin and Crispinian, were brought to Fulda on the same occasion. The sincerity of those relics thus rests solely on the credit of both men, namely Theodore and Sabbatinus, who handed them over to Rabanus. Sabbatinus is unknown; Theodore was the brother of Deusdona, who had translated the relics of St. Alexander the martyr to Fulda, and of whom Rudolf speaks thus elsewhere Ibid., p. 226.: It happened that a certain deacon of the Roman church, named Deusdona, came into Francia, under appearance indeed of imploring the king's help for certain necessities of his, but in very truth in order to give the relics of Saints which he had with him to one of the religious men in Francia, by whose aid he could obtain some relief of his poverty; so that accordingly every appearance of making gain does not seem to have been foreign to Deusdona. Moreover, whether Theodore his brother was a cleric or a layman, Rudolf does not say.

[44] [and on account of the frauds which in the 9th century were not rarely used in translating parts of holy Bodies of this kind.] To be read on this subject is the dissertation of Muratori in the Antiquities of the middle age Vol. V, col. 2 and following.. And surely, he says Ibid., col. 9., so great a lust for obtaining sacred relics (which, he had noted a little before Ibid., col. 8., had prevailed in those iron ages especially among the Germans) sank even to this, that uncertain ones, and indeed sometimes false ones, were formerly offered, and were seized by pious but insufficiently cautious lovers without any hesitation. And below Ibid., col. 11.: Indeed I think there is no one who does not of himself understand that fraud at times and excessive credulity thrust themselves into so great a seizing, clandestine translation and multiplication of sacred pledges. Finally Muratori adds Ibid., col. 12.: Which things however I recall not with the intention of disturbing the rites of piety or the possessors of sacred bodies; but to intimate the carelessness or dishonesty of the ancients, from which it is right that we should shrink. For in these things also good faith, long possession and prescription have a place; nor does any detriment flow from them to holy religion, since in the believing of relics it demands no divine faith from us; and we do not venerate their earthly matter, nor their uncertain origin; but we venerate the true Saints reigning in heaven, or, to speak more correctly, the gifts of God and God himself, our common king, in the saints. But the good ancients for the most part, without any examination, without any doubt, received with both arms, as they say, whatever bore the appearance of the sacred. Which surely everyone skilled in ecclesiastical discipline will admit is neither to be praised nor to be tolerated, as Amulo, archbishop of Lyon, also remarked in the ninth century of Christ in his first letter. Rabanus was certainly a holy man and as prudent as he was learned, and erudite as few were, so that the things so sharply and yet truly reproved by Muratori do not fall upon him; but in so great an abundance of relics as is marked by Rudolf, it could not be that he should duly inquire about each; which chiefly holds for the smaller pledges, such as were those of SS. Crispin and Crispinian. Hence it does not seem to me that any great weight accrues from the book of Rudolf to the Roman translation (which can be understood not of whole bodies, but only of parts of them).

[45] The Translation of Osnabrück It is otherwise with the Translation of Osnabrück, which, resting on strong monuments, it is not permitted to deny. For which reason we must here inquire into it diligently. It is agreed among all that the episcopate of Osnabrück was founded as the 8th century was closing, under Charlemagne, the Saxons having already been repeatedly conquered; but in what year is not clear; some assigning the year 774, others other years, namely 775, 776, 777, 780, 781, 788 and even 803. In that contention of writers, says Johann Itel Sandhoff [Antistitum Osnabrug. ecclesiæ res gestæ, vol. I, p. 24. Münster in Westphalia, 1785.], you may refer the beginnings of the episcopate to the year 777, by the better judgment of several authors, namely Krantz, Schaten, Henseler, Lodtmann, Möser and others, not unfittingly. Further, Charles himself, in two charters addressed to Wiho, the first bishop of Osnabrück, professes that he founded this, the first of all the churches in Saxony, in honor of St. Peter the apostle and the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian; and that he translated their bodies there. The relics which Charles had collected from Palestine, from the East, from Rome, from Italy, Spain and elsewhere, he used to endow the basilica of Aachen, churches and monasteries. From this sacred treasure also he bestowed upon the church of Osnabrück, the first founded by him, for greater heavenly protection, the pledges or bodies of these titular Saints (Crispin and Crispinian). So Sandhoff Ibid., p. 25.. Then he adds in brief the passion of Saints Crispin and Crispinian; and he adds Ibid., p. 27.: Besides St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, the cathedral and diocese thereafter venerate these holy Martyrs. And although indeed not the whole bodies of these Saints were translated to Osnabrück; and to this day some parts of them are found among the Suessiones, at Rome and elsewhere; yet we know that the better or greater part was translated to the church of Osnabrück. For in the cathedral, in the chapel called pastoral, there are found two chests or reliquaries, which

enclose this sacred treasure. The two chests I have named, covered with silver plate, were opened and inspected in the year 1721 with the reverence that befits them, and it was found that, besides relics of various saints, more notable parts of the bodies of these holy Martyrs are contained in them. Not only has the church of Osnabrück been accustomed up to now to keep in choir the 25th of October as a feast in honor of these holy Patrons, but also to celebrate the feast of the Translation of the sacred relics on the twelfth before the Kalends of July (20 June). Further, by bishop Adolf, on the 12th before the Kalends of June 1218, an altar was consecrated in the cathedral church in honor of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, which was remodelled and consecrated anew in the year 1401, in the time of Dietrich von Horne, by his vicar in Pontificals, Anthony, as letters testifying of this matter are preserved with the relics of these holy Martyrs in the high altar. Finally the cathedral chapter, although in matters that concern the diocese it uses the seal which shows St. Peter, yet in other matters of the chapter it uses the Seal for causes, on which SS. Crispin and Crispinian are engraved. Thus far Sandhoff, in whose words the sum of a perpetual tradition is declared and built up, which we shall explain part by part in what follows.

[46] it is proved from the charter of Charlemagne of the year 803 To this point there refer chiefly two charters of Charlemagne; about which the sharpest contention has arisen among the learned; one given in the year 803, the other in the following year. Of the former, which is by far the chief for us, Le Cointe writes thus Annales ecclesiastici Francorum, vol. VI, p. 824.: The emperor Charles returned to Aachen in the month of December of the year 803. There on the fourteenth before the Kalends of January (19 December) he issued this precept for the church of Osnabrück, over which Wiho presided as bishop: "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Charles, most serene Augustus, crowned by God, the Great, the Peaceful emperor, governing the Roman Empire, who also by the mercy of God is King of the Franks and of the Lombards. Whatever we cede or give to the venerable places of the saints for love of our Lord Jesus Christ and reverence of the saints, we trust that this pertains in the name of God to the increase of our reward and the stability of our kingdom. Let it therefore be known to all the faithful, that is, both present and future, how we give to the basilica of St. Peter, prince of the apostles, and of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, which we have built in the place of Osnabrück, and of whose bodies we have translated thither, where the venerable man bishop Wiho presides, all royal or secular jurisdiction." The rest we pass over as having nothing to do with our question.

[47] Surely if this precept is sincere, great weight accrues from it to the Translation of Osnabrück; and by a second of the year 804; nor do I see what would now oppose it, the interpretation of Sandhoff being admitted, namely that only the largest or chief part of the holy bodies is in question. But before we proceed further, it will help to have recited the beginning of the second charter, in which the Greek and Latin Schools of the church of Osnabrück are treated, from the Annals of the same Le Cointe Vol. VI, p. 826.: In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Charles, emperor Augustus, governing the Roman Empire, who is also King of the Franks and of the Lombards, and now also ruler of the Saxons. Let it be known to all the faithful of the holy Church of God and to our own, that is, both present and future, how we, for the increase of our reward, to Wiho, bishop of Osnabrück, and to his church, which we built, the first of all in Saxony, in honor of St. Peter, prince of the apostles, and of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, etc.

[48] of which the former is certainly sincere; Le Cointe holds the first charter to be sincere, the second rather spurious. On the first precept, he says Ibid., pp. 826 and 827., we have already agreed; on the second a difficulty remains; … this precept, if not fabricated, is at least corrupted. Nor did Papebroch at first think altogether otherwise in the Propylæum Antiquarium Acta SS. vol. II of April, page VII, II. 28.: At the foot, he says, of the Monuments of Paderborn, one Monument is placed, given to the church of Osnabrück, under a seal worn away with age and "given on the 14th before the Kalends of January in the year III of the empire by the favor of Christ… Done at the palace of Aachen…" But another, which is subjoined there, under the date of the following year, "at the palace of Aachen," with the invocation "of the Holy and undivided Trinity" set first, if compared with the former, displays in many ways the style of a later age and comprises remarkable trifles; but afterwards Papebroch changed his opinion, namely upon inspecting the autograph, when, summoned by Ferdinand von Fürstenberg, bishop of Paderborn, he went to Neuhaus together with Conrad Janning, and not, as Eckhart falsely writes Diploma Caroli M. de Scholis Osnabrugensis ecclesiæ critice expensum, p. 4., with Henschenius Acta SS. vol. VII of May, p. IX.. Nor does Eckhart err any less when he asserts that Papebroch did indeed change his opinion, but did not publicly retract it; so that whatever he finally decided would seem to have been decided as a favor to the prince. But indeed Papebroch expressly confesses that he erred, in the preliminary commentary to the Acts of St. Boniface Ibid. vol. I of June, p. 460.: That I also erred, he says, (is plain) when I condemned as forged a certain charter of Osnabrück edited among the Monuments of Paderborn: which their author, as our Maecenas (Fürstenberg), wishing to justify it, made me see in its original, and received without hesitation a testimony of the truth contrary to my former judgment; and this I also make public here not unwillingly, desiring that the word given to him living be kept also to him dead. And what of the fact that Eckhart himself, who in several writings had attacked the credit of both charters by fair means and foul, also changed his opinion after he had been reconciled to the catholic church, as Baring Clavis diplomatica, p. 19. and Heumann Commentarii de re diplomatica, p. 155. assert. Mabillon recites the first charter entire and without an asterisk De re diplomatica, p. 390.; of the second, which with Le Cointe he holds suspect, he transcribes only the beginning De re diplomatica, p. 74.. Henseler, who composed a very learned Dissertation in which he vindicated against Eckhart the precept on the schools of Osnabrück, speaks thus of the first precept Dissertatio critico-historica de diplomate Caroli M. p. 34.: Which, because it is not so much venerable by its antiquity as approved as legitimate by the vote of all the learned, I subjoin here emended from the archetype. Of this most splendid writing of Henseler S.J. frequent mention will recur with us. To our Schaten likewise both charters are genuine: This (the first charter), because we have received it as saved from the shipwreck of the others, and because, by the zeal of Ferdinand von Fürstenberg, prince and bishop of Paderborn, it was rendered entire from the autograph of the archive of Osnabrück, as Charlemagne signed it with his own hand, and it was at the same time granted to me to inspect it, this year (803) and the desires of many demand that it be set down here. So Schaten Historia Westphaliæ, p. 412. Edition of 1773.. The other he likewise praises as a Gem of Antiquity, published by the same Fürstenberg in the Monuments of Paderborn from Charles's very archetype Ibid. p. 416.. To pass over others, Justus Möser in his excellent History of Osnabrück, written in German, uses and recites both precepts as sincere Osnabrückische Geschichte, vol. I, p. 405. Edition of 1819..

[49] the latter vehemently attacked by certain learned men. From what has been said up to now it follows that those charters were not equally attacked; and that the first, in the judgment of critics, is of a better stamp than the second; this latter being rejected by many who rather approve the former. Sandhoff accordingly spoke wrongly Vol. I, p. 23.: Against both Caroline charters many writers (and at the foot of the page he cites Le Cointe, Papebroch, Henschenius, etc.) have exercised a rather grave censure, as adulterine and supposititious. That is at any rate false. Sandhoff then adds: A certain critic who signed himself A. J. (this is none other than the aforesaid Johann Georg Eckhart), with bitter sarcasm and empty conjectures, strove to overthrow it (namely both charters), but Father Henseler refuted him and by manifest reasons held him so shut in and bound that no one of the critics thereafter for a long time dared to call into doubt the credit and authority of both charters or to place them before his tribunal. But very recently this literary war has been revived by Grupen, a man learned indeed but too peevish, who thought to render suspect or destroy both charters by these considerations: That the beginning of the charter is altogether unusual for Charles; that the title of ruler of the Saxons is likewise most unusual; that Greek and Latin schools were not founded by Charles at Osnabrück; and finally that he could not have been at Aachen at the time when the Osnabrück charter was given, in the year 804, on the 14th day before the Kalends of January. But none of these things regards the first precept of Charles: for in this the invocation is different, and no mention is made of the title of ruler of the Saxons, nor of Greek or Latin schools; the year, finally, is another, namely 803. Hence if the second charter is rendered suspect by these things (which I here leave undecided, as having nothing to do with our purpose), the credit of the first would nevertheless stand firm, whose invocation is the very one which Charles was accustomed to use after he obtained the empire: In his charters, says Mabillon De re diplomatica, p. 72., three periods are to be considered. The first from the beginning of his reign over the Franks to the Lombard kingdom, namely running from the year 768 to 774. The second from the same year to the year 800, in which he was crowned emperor. The third from then to the end of his life. In that first period he used this formula: "Charles, by the grace of God king of the Franks, illustrious man," such as Carloman his brother also used. In the second interval he used this formula: "Charles, by the grace of God king of the Franks and of the Lombards and Roman patrician," very often adding "illustrious man." In the third, "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Charles, most serene Augustus, crowned by God, great and peaceful emperor, governing the empire of the Romans, who also" (in others "nay also") "by the mercy of God is king of the Franks and of the Lombards." Sandhoff notes moreover that Grupen's proofs or doubts are so far-fetched that, if they stood, Charles would seem to have founded the episcopate of Osnabrück and its cathedral church too late or never; which is surely repugnant to all history. Finally Sandhoff concludes: Let it suffice us that both charters have been confirmed by the authority of so many emperors and kings, and that the former, when the successor bishops Egbert, Egilmar and Benno, the first tablets being lost, exhibited it before the emperors in synods, in the cause of tithes against their adversaries, the abbot of Corvey in Saxony and the bishop of Herford, was not at all attacked in these sharpest disputes. There has been added the sounder judgment of the most exalted and most learned prince Ferdinand von Fürstenberg, bishop of Paderborn and Münster, and of other literary men (namely Schaten, Turck, Nünning, Lodtmann and Möser), by which they pronounced it genuine and authentic. Finally that Papebroch, together with Eckhart, the things which against

the Caroline charter they had written, retracted, is well known.

[50] It is proved that not the whole bodies were carried to Osnabrück, However it may be with the second precept, in which the Latin and Greek schools are treated, there seems to me to be nothing which forces or seriously induces us to accuse that first one of falsity or interpolation. Nor is it easily conceived how it came about that both together were assailed by many with the same censure, since most, indeed almost all of the things opposed to the one do not at all affect the other. But the sincerity of the charter being admitted, the translation of the Relics of SS. Crispin and Crispinian to the church of Osnabrück is placed beyond all doubt: for Charles says in the same place: We give to the basilica of St. Peter, prince of the apostles, and of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, which we have built in the place of Osnabrück, and we have translated their Bodies. But what are the relics then translated? The whole bodies, or only notable parts of them? I have no doubt that more notable parts are in question: for the word their in the obvious and natural sense is referred equally to St. Peter and to the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian: but it is clear that the whole body of St. Peter was not carried to Osnabrück by Charles. Why not say the same of the relics of the holy Martyrs? The usage comes into play here which Baronius notes at the year 841, n. VII, where, speaking of the relics of the abbey of St. Medard of Soissons: From these, he says Baronius, Annals, vol. XIV, p. 257. Lucca, 1743., you again perceive the usual custom, that those relics of Martyrs which were placed there are named Bodies of the Saints. Certainly indeed (to omit speaking of others), that the bodies of the Roman martyrs numbered there were not whole there, the things said above about the same Saints sufficiently show. And this is indeed confirmed both from the recognition made at Osnabrück in the year 1721 (on which see the following number), and from the visitation instituted in this very year in which we are writing this, 1860, by the Rev. Lord Bishop of Soissons, Paul Armand de Garsignies; for from both it follows that only more notable parts are to be found, whether at Osnabrück or at Soissons; the Rev. Lord Bishop of Soissons indeed supposes that the casket of SS. Crispin and Crispinian was conveyed to Rome in the ninth century, and was not brought back from there to Augusta Suessionum without no small part being retained. But this Roman translation rests, as we pointed out above, on testimonies not sufficiently suitable, and moreover we know from the testimony of the Rev. Lord Canon Lequeux that only a tiny part of the holy bodies exists and has existed at Rome. Dormay also, in the history of Soissons, where he discourses on the third translation (compare above, n. 30), expressly declares that it is doubtful whether the whole bones of each body are found in the reliquary. The reason, he says Histoire de Soissons, vol. II, p. 116., for doubting is that, on the report of Baronius, the bodies were translated to Rome to the church of St. Lawrence in Pane et Perna. It would be easy to resolve the doubt if one could inspect the instruments inserted in the reliquary. But since I cannot hope for that, I shall candidly render what I have heard. They say that the heads are lacking in the reliquary, and that one of them is in the basilica of St. Crispin the Greater. Moreover I have learned that in that reliquary there are not as many bones as would suffice to make up two bodies. Whence it becomes probable, as some suppose, that the Romans, when they granted to the people of Soissons the body of St. Sebastian, in turn reserved for themselves a part of the relics of SS. Crispin and Crispinian. Finally, men advanced in age and worthy of credit, who had been present at the visitation of the relics made in the year 1622 by Charles de Hacqueville, testified to the author of the manuscript book on the memorable matters of St. Crispin the Greater Recueil des choses mémorables sur S. Crépin-le-Grand, p. 84. that all the relics contained in the casket were wrapped in a reddish silk cloth and placed in a little chest of green velvet, adorned with silvered nails, and provided with a silver key which stayed in the lock; but that the bones collected together scarcely sufficed to make up a fourth part of a human body, lacking the head. They were moreover so mixed together that it could hardly be distinguished which belonged to which holy Martyr. So the Rev. Lord Pecheur in his manuscript documents.

[51] from the instrument of recognition of the year 1721; I said above that the relics of Osnabrück were recognized or visited in the past century: and on this occasion an instrument was drawn up, about which Henseler, who, as will be seen, was himself present at the visitation, says Dissertatio, p. 149.: But what parts of these holy Bodies were translated by Charlemagne to Osnabrück, and are still preserved there in the cathedral church, is established from the following notarial instrument, which, as it was recently communicated to me, I exhibit here entire. And we from him: In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity. Amen. To all and each whom it concerns, by the present public instrument let it be known and evidently manifest that in the year of restored salvation one thousand seven hundred and twenty-one, in the fourteenth Indiction, the holy See being Vacant through the death of our most holy Lord Clement XI, on Thursday, the eighth day of the month of May, around the tenth hour of the morning, in the presence of the most reverend and most illustrious lord Hugo Gottfried Adam von Korff, canon of the cathedral church of Osnabrück and provost of the collegiate church of St. John, before me the apostolic notary written below, there being likewise present in the same place the Rev. Lord Albert Matthias Pielsticker, vicar of the same cathedral church, Rev. Father Ludwig Henseler S.J., Lord Franz Philipp Arnold Hesselmeier, secretary of the most reverend chapter, Lord Raban Heisterman, steward of the same chapter, Lord Franz Heinrich Hesselmeier and some other honest men, before witnesses specially required for this, Bernard Wieman, citizen and goldsmith, Ferdinand Niewedde and Johann Georg Albers, in the cathedral church of Osnabrück, in the chapel called Pastoral, there were inspected two caskets in which the relics of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian are deposited; and it was found that they had been so fastened, iron nails being driven on all sides through copper plates, that they could not be opened unless these were removed. Those plates being therefore taken away by the aforesaid goldsmith, each casket was placed upon the altar of the same chapel, and an inspection being made, in the first casket, on whose outermost surface these verses are read engraved:

CRISPINUM. CAPSA. TENET. HEC. ET. CRISPINIANUM. QUORUM. SCIR. MANUS. MEREANTUR. CRIMIME. LA This casket holds Crispin and Crispinian, whose hands may merit … of crime …

the following relics were found wrapped in clean linen. First, four whole bones of the arms or shins, second one shoulder blade; third a sacrum; fourth two smaller little bones; fifth some smaller fragments of other bones. In the other small casket, on which this distich is read:

✠ LAUREET HOC OB OPUS HERMANNUM GRATIA XPI. UT FIERET SUMPTUS CAPSE QUI CONTULIT ISTI. [May the grace of Christ crown Hermann for this work, who contributed the expense that this casket might be made.]

these relics were found. First, wrapped in linen, ten larger fragments of various bones, one vertebra of the spine of the back, two hip-bones, and one whole bone of a shin or thigh, with certain smaller fragments and a piece of lead. Second, wrapped in figured silk, two little bones with this schedule: Relics of the holy confessors Sixtus and Sinncius. Third, certain relics of St. Regina, virgin. Fourth, various relics wrapped in linen with this schedule: Relics of St. Marcellinus. Relics of St. Tedulf, confessor, from his own body and garment. Relics of St. Lambert, martyr, from his garment. Relics from the garment, of the time of the memory of St. Victor, martyr, from his own body. The aforesaid relics having been diligently inspected, they were reverently replaced each in its own casket. These being thus replaced and enclosed, the same caskets were closed, a seal being impressed by me the undersigned notary, and afterwards were well and securely fastened by the said goldsmith with new copper plates and iron nails. In faith and testimony of the truth of all which, I, Andreas Hubert Loyer, public notary by sacred apostolic authority, have drawn up the present instrument upon this, have written and subscribed it with my own hand, and have fortified it with my accustomed sign, being specially required thereto. Andreas Hubert Loyer, Notary as above.

[52] but more notable parts. From this instrument and from what was said in the preceding number, as also from what we disputed above about the Roman translation, it follows that only parts of the holy Bodies are preserved, both in the City and at Osnabrück and Soissons, and that those to be found at Osnabrück were more notable than those at Soissons (I do not speak of the head of St. Crispin), as is clear from a comparison of the aforesaid instrument with the letters of the Rev. Lord Armand de Garsignies recited above at n. 35. Hence we subscribe to the words which Father Henseler wisely added Dissertatio, p. 151.: From this most trustworthy report it is certain that not the whole Bodies of these Saints were translated to Osnabrück; but only a notable part of them. For which reason, although today other parts of the same bodies are found at Rome, among the Suessiones and elsewhere, it cannot on that account be denied that these sacred remains were transported to Osnabrück by Charlemagne. For the rest, that some small particles of these remains were translated by Benno II to Iburg to the church of St. Clement built by him is established from the manuscript Life of the same Benno written by abbot Norbert, ch. 24. Besides those parts which are deposited in the two larger caskets mentioned, there are also some small particles in a special reliquary case which is in the tabernacle of the high altar, as the attached schedules teach: Of St. Sinnitius, Crispin and Crispinian… In the same tabernacle is preserved a small leaden casket, in which is enclosed a parchment written in the year 1218 (in which St. Adolf, bishop of Osnabrück, dedicated an altar in honor of SS. Crispin and Crispinian) of this tenor: "Relics of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian… In the year of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 1218 this altar was consecrated in honor of the blessed martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, by bishop Adolf, Hermann, priest and vicar, promoting it, and then serving at the altar. On the 12th before the Kalends of June, feria uu. (21 May, feria two) these things were done. At the Translation of the martyrs Crispin and Crispinian." On the same parchment in a more recent hand these words are subscribed: "In the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 1401 this altar was consecrated and remodelled in honor of St. Mary the Virgin and of Saints Crispin and Crispinian as before, by bishop Anthony, then vicar in pontificals of the reverend father in Christ the lord Dietrich von Horne, bishop of Osnabrück." And let these things be said about the parts of the holy Bodies preserved at Osnabrück, and brought there by the emperor Charles. Now we shall pursue the other things that serve to establish this translation.

[53] Nor is it an obstacle that the Acts of the Translation are lacking. The Acts of the translation are missing. But we have the charters of Charles, and moreover many other testimonies very suitable on the same matter are available. For we know that the pious emperor, when he set out for war, was accustomed to take relics of Saints with him. In book I of the Miracles of St. Denis, ch. 21, of Charles against

the Saxons as he set out, one reads: He had had the pledges of the blessed Martyrs carried with him, and had appointed as guardians clerics who set out with him, so that, succeeding each other in turn, due religion might be shown Du Cange, Glossarium, under the word Capellani.. And Charles himself in the capitulary of the year 769: We altogether forbid all servants of God in all things to carry arms or to fight, or to proceed into the army and against the enemy; save only those who, for the sake of the divine ministry, namely for fulfilling the solemnities of Masses and carrying the protections of the Saints, have been chosen for this Ibid. Compare the Patrology of Migne, vol. XCVII, col. 123.. It is no wonder therefore if Charles in the Saxon war wished himself and his men to be fortified with relics of the Saints, and among others had with him a part, not to be despised, of the remains of SS. Crispin and Crispinian. For the rest, it is known with what great desire and greed sacred pledges of this kind were sought in those times by princes and kings, and even, if there was need or occasion offered, were carried off by force or stolen secretly. Compare the Acts of St. Minias, above, p. 421, n. 13. And hence it comes about that acts of translations are very often lacking, and sometimes not even any memory of them survives in the places from which relics were carried away to distant regions of the earth. Which also seems to hold here. Certainly I have found nothing anywhere in the writers of Soissons by which it is indicated even in the slightest that the pledges of our holy Martyrs rest, at least in part, at Osnabrück. I shall add one more thing from Mabillon De re diplomatica, book III, ch. 3, number XVII, p. 230., who, writing against Conring in a similar cause, declares that nothing can be concluded from a lack of acts of this kind. Conring would have it that the finding of the head of St. John the Baptist among the monks of Angély was supposititious. It is altogether uncertain, Conring said, on the witness of Aimar, how that head came here, even if it had been altogether the Forerunner's. Therefore abbot Alduin, its finder, is not beyond all suspicion. But Mabillon retorts: Nor surely is he beyond the suspicion of slander who argues in this manner, not only against Alduin, but against the whole order. It is uncertain how a great many relics came to most churches. Are they therefore forgers who exhibit them?

[54] The translation is vindicated from the gibes of Eckhart, For the rest, there are in the following centuries testimonies so many and so great, confirming the translation of Osnabrück, that one would strive in vain to prove it supposititious. Hence even Eckhart in his Diploma critice expensum Page 34., although he denies, certainly for futile reasons, as we shall soon see, that this took place under Charlemagne, nevertheless admits that it was done not so much later. Nor, he says, could Charlemagne have translated those relics, for the very reason that he never stayed in the city of the Suessiones, but only passed through it on one occasion, when at the end of the year 804 he accompanied Pope Leo, as we understand from the Annalist of Metz. Let it be so: for there is no leisure to investigate these things more diligently; but was it at all necessary that the emperor should open the tomb with his own hands, or at least be present when this was done? Could he not, in his absence, have committed that business to his servants? Eckhart adds: The translations of the lesser saints Vitus, Pusinna, Liborius into Saxony, in those first times, have found their own particular describers; nor would they have been lacking to Crispin and Crispinian, if these had been transported by the greatest emperor. Everyone sees that an argument of this kind, which is commonly called negative, can be set against any historical fact, however well proved from elsewhere, and even against Eckhart himself, who continues in this manner: Nor after Charlemagne did an occasion offer itself of translating them from Soissons, except that which Gosbert obtained (who comes fourth in order among the bishops of Osnabrück, although he does not seem to have been properly such, and for this reason is named vicar bishop by Sandhoff, and flourished up to about the year 860 or 864 Antistites Osn., vol. I, p. 30 and following.), when he took part in the deposition of Louis the Pious together with Ebbo, his kinsman. They then held that emperor captive in the monastery of St. Medard among the Suessiones, as we have already pointed out, and Gosbert, then present there, could conveniently, after the manner of that superstitious age, steal the bodies of Crispin and Crispinian and put in their place any other skeletons whatever. For I conjecture that they were stolen even from this, that no history of their translation is held, and that they seem to have been carried to Osnabrück thus secretly. And the people of Soissons have believed, and perhaps even now believe, that the true relics of Crispin and Crispinian are with them. Insipid conjectures indeed, which to have set down is to have refuted. So far, namely, is the mind, bound by prejudged opinions, carried away, that, rejecting strong testimonies with disdain, it dashes against the vain dreams of a raving mind. For the rest, Henseler vindicates Gosbert at length against Eckhart; and asserts that he was altogether a stranger to the conspiracy against Louis the Pious, and was not at all at Soissons at the time of his deposition, since from the year 831 to the year 845 he stayed in Sweden, intent on propagating the doctrine of the Gospel Henseler. Dissertatio, p. 60 and following, likewise p. 67.. From this digression let us return to more serious things, namely the various facts and writings by which the translation of Osnabrück is not a little confirmed.

[55] and it is confirmed from various charters, and from the testimony of Thietmar; In the year 864 King Louis the German gave to Egibert, bishop of Osnabrück, a privilege or charter on tithes and immunity. Now in this privilege it is held thus among other things: In our presence and that of our other faithful men, the aforesaid bishop openly brought forth letters of the great and admirable Charles, our grandfather, emperor augustus, marked with his own seal… For which cause, for love of our Lord Jesus Christ and of St. Peter, prince of the apostles, and of the most precious martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, whose bodies were translated thither, etc. Henseler. Dissertatio, p. 107.. Something similar occurs in the precept of King Arnulf given in the year 895 to Egilmar, bishop of Osnabrück, concerning tithes and the benefice of count Allo. Father Henseler recites both charters in full Ibid., p. 117.. Thietmar, commonly Dithmar, who died in the year 1018, relates in his Chronicle that Saints Crispin and Crispinian, at the end of the 10th century, under Dodo, bishop of Osnabrück, appeared to a certain Gunther, asking him whether he wished to receive their episcopate? They call it theirs, certainly because the cathedral church was dedicated to their name, and their relics were deposited in it. The whole passage of Thietmar you will find below, where we shall treat of the veneration of the holy Martyrs outside the borders of Soissons.

[56] likewise from the carrying of the holy Relics to the monastery of Iburg, The often-cited Sandhoff writes in the bishops of Osnabrück Vol. I, pp. 92 and 93.: But a far more deadly evil struck Wido (who sat from the year 1092 to 1101); for the cathedral basilica and the bishop's court burned down in a wretched fire in the year 1100. The hidden relics of SS. Crispin and Crispinian could for a long time not be found; at length, under the high altar, which had sunk into rubble, they were found in a small vault; and Wido then, in order to place them in safety, had them conveyed to the monastery of Iburg, and enclosed and kept there in the church of St. Clement, and in a cavity which Benno (the second bishop of Osnabrück of that name) had caused to be made; where they lay hidden for the space of six years, until, a new cathedral church having been built, they were carried back to Osnabrück with the greatest solemnity and restored to their former veneration. And again in John, who was chosen in the place of Wido in the year 1101 Ibid., p. 95.: Among his first or chief works comes the construction of the new basilica, which he caused to be raised from the foundations, more probably in another place than the one that was burned, in the form in which it is now seen. When this had been brought to the gable and roof and so finished that sacred rites could be carried out in it, he caused the remains of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian to be translated from the church of the monastery of Iburg to the cathedral church; yet he first gave some part of the relics to the abbot. Of all these things faith is given by the charter of the monastery of Iburg, which Möser edited among the Documents attached to the first volume of his history of Osnabrück. This document, moreover, is of the year 1110, and of the following tenor Osnabrücksche Geschichte, vol. II, p. 276.:

[57] on which there stands a splendid document. In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Let it be known to all the faithful of Christ, as well present as future. That when, our sins so demanding, the church of Osnabrück had been utterly burned in the year of the Lord's incarnation 1100, and bishop Wido, who then presided there, had the greatest care for the martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, whom the great emperor Charles had brought there when he founded the episcopate, since, though long sought, they were in no way to be found; for they were known without doubt by all who dwelt there to be there, but where so precious a treasure was hidden was utterly unknown. At length under the principal altar, which had partly fallen, damaged by fire, a short wall with a very firm vault being found, the bodies of the Saints were discovered with many other relics. But the same bishop, fearing to keep them there on account of the desolation of the place, thought that they should be translated into this our castle of Iburg on account of the service of God which was then vigorously being done here by those who soldiered for God, and diligently enclosing them in the altar of St. Clement, which is hollow behind, he left them to be guarded with all zeal by the abbot and brethren. When they had enjoyed hospitality there for six years or more, until the church was restored at Osnabrück, bishop John, who had succeeded Wido, brought them back to Osnabrück. But on the very day of their being brought back, when something of their relics was urgently requested by the abbot, one rib and another small bone being left, the same bishop handed over to our monastery one pound of tithe in the estate which is called Zwiveltem, out of reverence for the Martyrs and for the honor of Blessed Clement and for the memory of his soul, which he appointed to be disbursed on this condition, namely that a fourth part of the same pound should be distributed each year on his anniversary to the brethren and the needy. Likewise five solidi should be divided on the anniversary of the Lord Benno, who had originally promoted him. Likewise five should be held on the anniversary of bishop Wido, and the remaining five should be faithfully spent on procuring wine for the daily sacrifice. And so the church of Osnabrück being consecrated, the holy relics being laid up with due honor in the principal altar, the bishop, having returned to the castle, gave to St. Clement the Vorwerk at Line, which he had acquired from Rothward, a nobleman, by precaria, through the hand of abbot Norbert, for his own burial, when he should have departed this life. But after his death, when a tomb ought to have been prepared for him in the castle, the guardians of the castle, fearing lest the multitude of people flowing together to bury the bishop should contrive some ambush against the place through faithlessness and fraud, took counsel and with the abbot's leave transferred the corpse of their bishop to Osnabrück to be buried; who nevertheless left to the castle, with a blessing, an everlasting memory of his name by the aforesaid and very many other offices of charity. This was done

in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1110. Indiction III. Other things pertaining to these relics you will find below, where we shall speak of the veneration shown to our holy Martyrs both in the city and in the district of Osnabrück. One thing only I shall add here, namely that it is surely a wondrous and altogether unusual matter that among the Suessiones all memory of this translation, proved by so many and so great documents, should have utterly perished: no mention of it is made anywhere by the writers of that country, and the Rev. Lords Henri Congnet, Delaplace, Gobaille, canons of the venerable Chapter of Soissons, and with them the Rev. Lord Pecheur, all learned men, admit that they had neither read nor heard anything about the translation of Osnabrück before this. Since, however, as we have seen in § II, the relics of SS. Crispin and Crispinian are related by Dormay and others to have been carried either to Rome or elsewhere, may it not be conjectured that this arose in part from a vague and confused recollection of the Saxon translation?

[58] The present state of the relics of Osnabrück From the letters of the Rev. Doctor Heuser, reader of theology in the Seminary of Cologne, we learn that the old silver reliquary containing the relics of SS. Crispin and Crispinian still exists in the cathedral of Osnabrück, and that it is exposed each year above the high altar on the more solemn days. On either side of the same altar very many holy relics are also deposited, which may be seen through a glass barrier; among these are found two skulls, namely of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, if credence is given to the inscription. And the aforesaid Herr Heuser communicated these things to us in the month of July of this year 1860 from a rescript of the Rev. Lord Bishop of Osnabrück. In the following month, namely on the 27th of August, we received another letter, in which the same Herr Heuser informs us that he had recourse again to the Rev. Prelate so as to obtain clearer indications on these matters. The Rev. Lord Bishop deigned with his accustomed kindness to reply in this manner: The names of each holy Martyr are written on two small schedules, attached to one and the other skull; each schedule is neatly written, but not before the past century (the eighteenth). Both skulls, with many others, are enclosed in two transparent reliquaries which are seen in the high altar. This is singular, that the two aforesaid skulls are almost bare, while the other things enclosed in the same reliquaries are decorated with precious ornament. Finally the year 1752 is inscribed on the high altar; from which it follows that the present arrangement of the sacred pledges could have been made after the recognition of the year 1721 reported by Henseler. Compare n. 51. Since therefore no mention is made of the heads in this recognition, and the schedules were written by a recent hand, and since moreover the tradition of Soissons of the perpetual preservation there of the head of St. Crispin is confirmed by the strongest testimonies and facts, I should think there will be no one who would readily admit that the skulls placed in the high altar of the church of Osnabrück belong to our Saints Crispin and Crispinian.

§ IV. The perpetual veneration of SS. Crispin and Crispinian among the people of Soissons is proved. Confraternities. The Shoemaker Brothers.

[of the veneration shown to the holy Martyrs at Soissons: in the 9th century, a passage of Paschasius Radbertus.] From what has been said and proved up to now, it will be doubtful to no one that the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian have perpetually been in the highest honor among the people of Soissons, and that they have fled with great confidence to their protection, chiefly in public necessities. It will help to have set down some testimonies of veneration and pious cult, keeping the order of the centuries. Let us begin from the distinguished passage of Blessed Paschasius Radbertus, by which is also proved the preservation of the relics in his time in the monastery of St. Crispin the Greater. He composed an Exposition on Psalm 44: My heart hath uttered a good word, which he addressed to the sacred virgins living at Soissons in the monastery of St. Mary; whence there is very much discussion there in the individual books (they are three in number), both of the aforesaid monastery and of the city, which he sometimes calls Vesona. In the third book, around the middle, he has it thus Migne, Patrologia. vol. CXX, col. 1047 and following.: Vesona, which you inhabit, … shines entirely filled with churches and has been made the possession of the most gracious Savior, which had been a daughter of perdition and the prey of the destroyer. For it has to the East of it now the camps of Monks with their holy confessors and martyrs (namely the monastery of St. Medard, enriched with many relics of Saints); but to the West, as if behind your back, the trumpet of the holy Gospel resounds in the voice of one admonishing, that is, in the cathedral church of St. Gervase. But you, placed as it were in the middle, have chosen just one corner of Suessio Augusta… You have therefore also, to the South, in view of the East, the holy Martyrs of God, your patrons, namely Crispin and Crispinian, reddened with their own blood and whitened in the blood of Christ, who founded this city in the faith and rescued it from the precipice of death. A splendid testimony indeed, if anywhere. From which we learn in what great veneration our holy Martyrs were held in the ninth century, since they were held to be the patrons of the city and of all the monasteries. And it is the more worthy of credit in that it was written by a holy man, most learned as few were, and born and brought up at Soissons: for since, says Mabillon Acta SS. Ord. S. Ben. century IV, part II, p. 122., he was consecrated to God as a boy in the monastery of the Blessed Mary of that city, this is an argument that he was a native of Soissons. While still a little boy he was marked with the clerical crown; but afterwards, as he himself testifies of himself Migne, in the place above, col. 1040., having left the monastery, long in exile in the world, he lost it, defiled by many worldly acts. Afterwards, weary of secular life, he withdrew to the monastery of Corbie, into which he was admitted by the abbot St. Adalhard, whom he accompanied when he went into Saxony in the year 822, for the sake of founding New Corvey Gall. Christiana, vol. X, col. 1269.. When he was already of advanced age he was elected abbot of old Corbie in the year 844. Six years later, disturbances having arisen among the monks, he took himself to the monastery of Centula, and finally in the year 851, having abdicated his rule, he returned to the interrupted studies of sacred letters, and died most holily about the year 865, as the Gallia Christiana has it Ibid.; to Mabillon the year of his death is uncertain, but it certainly did not take place before the year 860 Acta SS. Ord. S. Ben. in the place above, p. 128.. I said above that Paschasius sometimes writes Vesona in place of Suessona, as holds in his passage recited above. On which matter Mabillon notes Ibid. p. 131.: The word Vesona is not the proper name of the nunnery of Soissons, but of the city itself, which is called Vesona and Suessio interchangeably by Radbert. Nor is it likely that Vesona was written by a scribe's error for Suessona. For besides the fact that Vesona is read in two manuscript codices in which that lucubration (namely, the one inscribed On the Childbearing of the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the same Nuns) is contained, the same word is also found in three places in the Exposition of Psalm 44, and indeed joined with the word Suessio. And from the context itself it is manifestly clear that by that name is signified the city of Soissons, not the monastery of virgins. How truly these things have been noted by the learned man, everyone will recognize from the words of Paschasius recited by us. But what Mabillon adds: Certainly Ptolemy calls the people of Soissons Vesones and Strabo Vesiones; is less approved. Strabo, edited at Oxford in Greek and Latin at the beginning of our 19th century, has: Σουεσιῶνες, Suessiones, and indeed in two places Strabonis rerum Geographicarum libri XVII, pp. 270 and 273. Oxford, 1808.; in the latter place there is added below this variant reading: Οὐεσίωνας, and Όὐεσσίωνας, which could be rendered in Latin Vesiones and Vessiones; but this reading seems less accurate and is not admitted in the Oxford text. The editions of Strabo, says Cellarius Notitia orbis antiqui p. 315. Leipzig 1773., vary; yet he cites none which omits the sibilant or the letter σ. Ptolemy without the sibilant Οὐέσσονες, Suessones, the middle syllable shortened. If the sibilant is suppressed in Latin, one will have to read Uessones, which is what Conrad Mannert in fact has Geographie der Griechen und Römer, vol. II, p. 181. Nürnberg 1789.. But enough of these things.

[60] The Precept of Carloman of the year 884; Toward the end of the year 884 Carloman, son of Louis the Stammerer, on the second day after he was struck by a boar, and the fourth day before his death, gave a Precept by which he gave to the basilica of St. Crispin the Greater of Soissons two farmsteads at Verberie Annales Bened., vol. III, p. 230.. We wish it to be known, he says Ibid., p. 637., … that our faithful and illustrious Erifonnus, approaching the knees of our serenity, humbly asked before the throng of our nobles and chief men that, for the remission of the guilt of our crimes, we should grant to Saints Crispin and Crispinian something from the things of our own property, to be held for all time under the authority and power of Hermoin, our faithful priest. It has accordingly pleased our highness to assent to his most salutary requests, and to the already mentioned martyrs of God Crispin and Crispinian, situated in the suburb of Soissons, under the power, defense, authority and protection of the already mentioned Hermoin, our faithful man, two farmsteads from Verberie, where Richold and Gerard were seen to dwell, with the vineyards and all lands and serfs belonging to them … on this condition, namely that each year on the day of our death the church itself should receive lights and the brethren of the same place a fraternal charity, such that it may delight them to implore the mercy of the Lord for us, etc. The whole charter is held in Mabillon, in the place cited, from the Authentic copy, with this note added: This charter was corrupted by a second hand, as regards the day of the month on which it is said to have been given (the fourth before the Ides of December), as will be easy for anyone inspecting it to notice: for in the year 884, before the fourth before the Ides, that is, before the tenth day of December, Carloman had departed from among the living, who met his death on the sixth day of December of the aforesaid year Art de vérifier les dates, p. 540..

[61] likewise the gift of Heric. In the same year there occurs another gift of two farmsteads in the estate of Montiniacum, made by Count Heric in exchange for a tooth; likewise of another farmstead in the estate of Saviacum, etc. Mabillon also recites the whole charter from the Authentic copy Annal. Benedict. vol. III p. 637., where among other things we read: I therefore desire the mercy of God and of all the Saints and for the most venerable martyrs Crispin and Crispinian… I, Count Eric, have handed over and bequeathed to the parts of the aforesaid holy Martyrs … in the district of Soissons, on the boundary of the estate of Motiniacum, two farmsteads with all their appurtenances, together with four serfs by these names, Ragener, Angelbert, Teutberga and Edelsidis, in honor of the already mentioned Martyrs, and in exchange for the tooth which I, unworthy, received, I have handed over and bequeathed for their lights and ornaments, to be held perpetually in the name of God. In like manner in the same district or estate which is called Saviacum, a farmstead

one, together with two serfs, for the remedy of my soul and that of my wife Bertana, to the altar which is built in their basilica in honor of the Lord and the holy Savior. That farmstead I have handed over for making our accounts or for furnishing ornaments; so that the priest himself may daily minister service for the salvation of my soul at that altar… Accordingly now also know that to the part of those brethren soldiering there for God in the aforesaid place, I have granted and bequeathed in the same district and in the estate of Alta-Fontana, 2 bunuaria of arable land, a vineyard of 20 modii, and also in another district, the Ormensian, in the estate which is called Vincella, half a farmstead with its appurtenances, and we grant it, together with serfs, from our right into the right of ownership of those brethren, that on the 7th before the Kalends of November they may hold it firmly for a refection or commemoration … they may in all things for their use or profit enjoy free choice of doing whatever they shall elect; so that from this present day and time the custodian of that church may receive those things and serfs for the lights, as we have divided, decreed and confirmed; and whatever they shall decree to do for the profit of those holy Martyrs and of those brethren, they may have in all things free and most firm power. The usual anathemas follow. Done at Soissons in the atrium of the blessed Martyrs on the 8th day before the Kalends of November (25 Oct.), in the second year of the reign of the lord emperor Charles the Fat, that is, the year of Jesus Christ 886 Art de vérifier les dates, p. 434.. Now Count Heric comes in second place, about the year 877, among the abbots of St. Crispin the Greater in the catalogue of the Gallia Christiana Vol. IX, col. 396., where the following are added: He gave the monastery land within the castle of Soissons, as is gathered from a charter of Charles the Simple of the year 898. He is perhaps the same as Count Eiric who made an ample gift to the monastery on the 25th of October of the 2nd year of the reign of Charles the Fat, 886. In the times of Heric, Carloman gave in the month of December 884 to SS. Crispin and Crispinian two farmsteads, etc. And again of Heric's successor: Heribert I, count of Vermandois, also held this abbey, which in his times the monks had already recovered, having been restored in the place of the canons, perhaps under Heric his predecessor. Heribert died about the year 902. Mabillon speaks less distinctly at the year 886: At Soissons, he says Annal. Ben., vol. III, p. 238., the monastery of St. Crispin, which has been ours for many centuries, was then occupied by secular clerics. The affairs of that most disturbed age are very obscure. Heribert I, count of the Veromandui, is placed at the same time in the catalogue of the abbots of St. Medard Gallia christ., in the place above, col. 413.. And Dormay notes Hist. de Soissons, vol. I, p. 369. that from about the year 866 up to the year 976, or for a space of altogether one hundred and ten years, secular men or princes held the abbey of St. Medard. Why might the same not have been the case with the monastery of St. Crispin? Elsewhere the Gallia Christiana has this Vol. IX, col. 395.: Let it stand therefore, if not as ascertained, at least as the more likely, that the basilica of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian was first inhabited by monks …; that, the monks having lapsed into slackness, canons succeeded them and counts the abbots. Certainly in a charter of Charles the Bald of the year 864 they are expressly called canons. The charter stands in Dom Bouquet, vol. VIII, p. 594 and following. And we have seen above in the charter of Carloman, in the year 884, that the church of St. Crispin was then under the power, defense, authority and protection of Hermoin the priest; by which word monks seem to be excluded, as the collectors of the Gallia Christiana judge probable; who then add: but a little later, namely in the year 898, a flock of the monastic order of the monastery of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian is recorded in an instrument of Charles the Simple, and thus it has persevered thereafter up to our own age, and abbots, at least in the following century, took the place of the counts. What that Instrument of Charles the Simple may be I for my part do not know; for it is not found among the charters of this king edited whether by Bosquet or by Mabillon and others whom I have been able to see; nor is it even indicated in the Index of Bréquigny. Let it suffice to have touched briefly and incidentally on these things about the fortunes of the monastery, which it is not for this place to trace more diligently.

[62] In the 10th and 11th centuries the monastery was burned and restored. In the 10th and 11th centuries the monastery is recorded to have been ravaged and burned more than once. Namely, about the year 945 it is reported in the manuscripts of the Rev. Lord Pécheur to have been laid waste by the faction of Heribert III, count of the Veromandui; and again in the year 948 by Hugh the Great. These things are presented a little differently in the Gallia Christiana Ibid., col. 396.: Heribert II, son and heir of Heribert I, obtained both the county and the abbey … he died in 943. Count Ragenold, after the death of Heribert and the restoration of the abbey of St. Crispin by his sons, was proclaimed abbot by King Louis; he plundered the abbey of St. Medard, because the sons of Heribert had plundered the abbey of St. Crispin. But Hugh the Great in the year 948 consumed with fire all the buildings of the monastery of St. Crispin. In the year 1047 mention occurs of another fire: for, as is held in the Gallia Christiana, in the place cited, abbot Ansellus enclosed the body of blessed Bandaridus, bishop, in a reliquary in the year 1044. Ten years later he translated the relics of St. Felix the martyr in the year 1054 "on the Ides of May, in the seventh year of the restoration after the burning of this monastery, restored by the aforesaid abbot, burned first in his time," as an extremely ancient schedule enclosed in the casket has it. But Melchior Regnault, a writer of the history of Soissons, brings forward a fragment of an old Calendar of St. Crispin the Greater, from which it would seem that the monastery was burned down in the year 1057 and restored by Louis the Fat, who reigned from the year 1108 to 1137. Whether a double and different fire is in question is doubtful. This further appears certain, that the basilica, though perhaps not finished in every part, was dedicated by Ansellus in the year 1044, and that the bier of St. Bandaridus was then placed beside the relics of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, as being a secondary patron Rev. Lord Pécheur.. But if this is so, it will follow that three years after the dedication the church burned down in a fire; unless the burning of the monastery of which the aforesaid schedule speaks is to be understood of the other buildings, and not of the basilica. I have nothing else to say in so obscure a matter, lest darkness be added to darkness.

[63] [In the 12th century: in the year 1123, the testimony of Lisiard, bishop of Soissons;] In the 12th century richer testimonies are available of the veneration shown to the holy Martyrs. Lisiard de Crespi, bishop of Soissons from, as it seems, the year 1108 to the year 1126 Gall. Christ., vol. IX, cols. 355–57., testifies about the year 1123 that, for love of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, who planted the church in this city (Soissons) and in all the neighboring regions, which they also watered with their blood, kings and peoples conferred many estates on the abbey. The Rev. Lord Pécheur found these things in the memorable matters of St. Crispin the Greater Recueil de choses mémorables sur S. Crépin-le-Grand, p. 95, manuscript.. Indeed in very truth there is marked in this year in Bréquigny Table chronologique des diplomes et chartes, vol. II, p. 517., a Charter by which Lysiander, bishop of Soissons, gives to the church of St. Martin des Champs the church of Lerniacum, which a lay hand had long held. "Done at Soissons in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1123, Indiction I, in the reign of Louis, king of the Franks, in the 16th year of his reign, in the 15th of the episcopate of the Lord Bishop Lysiard." The document is recited in full by Marrier in the history of St. Martin des Champs, p. 530. I should think the words cited above are to be found there, but I would not dare to affirm it, since the work of Marrier is not at my disposal. The Gallia Christiana mentions the same charter where it treats of Lisiard, in these words Vol. IX, col. 356.: In the year 1123, the 15th of his episcopate, he granted the church of Lerniacum free to the monks of St. Martin des Champs.

[64] [While the pestilent contagion rages, the protection of the holy Martyrs is sought;] Joslen de Vierzi, bishop of Soissons, is read in the year 1133, which was the eighth of his episcopate, to have dedicated in the church of St. Crispin the altars of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, of SS. Simon and Jude, etc. Ibid., col. 357.. There was raging in those times the plague of the groin, which writers commonly call the sacred or divine fire. In this year (1129, says Anselm in the continuation of Sigebert of Gembloux Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ, vol. VI, p. 381.) the plague of divine fire wondrously spreads through Chartres, Paris, Soissons, Cambrai, Arras and many other places, but more wondrously is extinguished through the holy Mother of God, Mary. For young men, old men with younger ones, even tender virgins are burned in the feet, in the hands, in the breasts, and what is graver, in the cheeks, and are swiftly extinguished. Anselm adds healings obtained in various places. After this he continues thus: Let us pass to the city of the Suessiones. There more especially above all places the Mother of God becomes known to the nations through miracles. There the mute, the blind, the lame, the paralytic were cured, a dead man raised. We have seen something horrible. The divine fire had burned off the nose, lips, chin of a certain poor little woman, and a stench and horror filled those who perceived and saw. Expelled from the house (the abbey) of the virgin Mother, she returned to her own home… She prayed, and was heard; on the night leading into Saturday, she recovered health. Other things of that kind are added; but the author makes mention only of those which took place in the basilica of the Blessed Mary. From elsewhere, however, we learn that the patronage of other Saints was also invoked by the people of Soissons, chiefly of St. Gregory the pope and SS. Crispin and Crispinian. For an anonymous writer says in the miracles of St. Gregory Acta SS., vol. II of March, p. 750 and following. Among the Addenda.: When Joslen was bishop in this city (Soissons), by divine judgment the city was struck by the wrath of God from above. For that plague which they call of the groin, and a sudden plague, raging through the whole city, gripped all with fear. They fled to St. Gregory. The Saint being requested was granted by the brethren, that is, the monks of St. Medard, to be carried through the walls of the city. Miracles immediately took place, and it came about that wherever the Saint was carried, the plague at once was put to flight and subsided. And below Ibid., p. 751.: The body of this Saint on one occasion went out according to custom, as need demanded, and around it a crown of brethren, as well clerics as monks, and a copious multitude of the people: but the bishop of the city, the aforesaid Joslen, could not run there because he was sick in his shins (perhaps seized by the sacred fire); and he sent a messenger to the church of Saints Crispin and Crispinian to say that the brethren, taking the Martyrs with them, should meet the Saint at the bridge, where he too was likewise going to meet him. They, indignant, replied that they would indeed carry the bodies of the Martyrs to the city, but by no means

that such great Martyrs ought to go to meet a Confessor. But he, wishing to break the zeal of those who sometimes have it not according to knowledge, went to them and gave them reasons thus: While you believe you are honoring your Martyrs, you are doing what surely does not please them, nor will it profit you in the future, etc. With these and such things the tongue of the wise adorned knowledge. Yet the man, prudent, lettered and with the word sufficiently at hand, could not bend men so wise and not in wisdom. They persisted therefore in what they had begun, walking apart, and passing by singly in the company of others. The bishop, returning from them, went as he wished to meet the Saint, conducting the most holy body around and leading it back to its place, rejoicing humbly and devoutly in his vows with all the people. All then departed, having gained and obtained the vow for which they had asked. But behold, after a few days the arrows of the Lord were sent upon the opponents, whose indignation, first drinking up the spirit of the Prior, suddenly extinguished him first; and consequently, the abbot being punished as author of the matter, it struck ten of the brethren with a swift and unexpected death. Stupefied therefore and fearful, as many of them as escaped the disaster, confessing that they had sinned in all these things, commit this memorial up to this day to everlasting generations. The author of this narrative, who was a monk of St. Medard of Soissons, is proved to have been contemporary with the event from the words with which he begins: Now, he says, let us be silent about more ancient things … and let us describe what took place in our times in this city. And the abbot who is here said to have been punished seems to have been Teulf, who presided over St. Crispin the Greater from the year 1118 at least to the year 1136; a man otherwise praised for his deeds Compare Dormay, vol. II, p. 103 and following.. As regards the body of St. Gregory the Great, carried, as is reported, to the monastery of St. Medard from Rome in the 9th century, together with the body of St. Sebastian, see among our predecessors on the 12th of March in the Acts of that holy Pontiff.

[65] a certain contention between the canons and the monks of St. Crispin. In the year 1141 there took place the third translation of the holy Relics, of which we have spoken above at n. 30. But in the same 12th century another testimony of veneration is available Rev. Lord Pécheur.. Namely it was the custom that the canons of the cathedral church on the vigil of the holy Patrons should betake themselves to St. Crispin the Greater, and there celebrate the first vespers of the feast, and on the following day assist at the solemn Mass; on which occasion, when they entered the refectory, wine and cakes were set before them. But since this was a burden to the monks, and there was moreover some contention between them and the canons as to which should go before which in choir, abbot Leonius (from the year 1181 up to the beginnings of the 13th century) attempted to settle the dispute, and he is said to have had recourse to the Holy See, and even to have obtained two bulls in the year 1188 from Innocent III; which is certainly quite otherwise: for Innocent first ascended the pontifical throne in the month of January of the year 1198. Thus if (which is hidden from me) any bulls were signed ten years before, they are to be assigned to Clement III. For the rest, peace was not then made firm, except perhaps as regards the wine and cakes: for as the Gallia Christiana teaches Vol. IX, col. 399., in the year 1196 Leonius agreed with the Chapter of Soissons that the canons, coming to the feast of St. Crispin for vespers on the vigil and for Mass on the following day, should hold the right side, and the monks the left.

[67] In the 13th century, another similar contention. In the 13th century we read of Albuin that, scarcely made abbot, he undertook the work of a new fabric of the church, for the roofing of which he obtained from Louis IX timber from the Forest of Cuise (today called that of Compiègne) in the year 1235 Gall. Christ., vol. IX, col. 400.. The same man, having appointed silver plate, both his own and his predecessor's (Rainold's), for adorning the caskets, and having bequeathed to the monastery 160 pounds for buying an estate, died in the year 1239 or at the beginning of the following Ibid.. Crispin succeeded, of whom I find nothing pertaining to our purpose in the Gallia Christiana. Elsewhere, however, it is reported that in the year 1242 it was decreed that henceforth two candles should burn in perpetuity before the relics of the holy Martyrs day and night Rev. Lord Pécheur, manuscripts.. Finally under abbot Simon, in the year 1298, the controversies between the monasteries of St. Medard and St. Crispin were so settled by arbiters that each year the monks of St. Medard, on the vigil of the feast of St. Crispin, were bound to pay to that church at the canonical hour two candles of three pounds of wax, a censer of incense and half a sextarius of oil Gall. Christ., vol. IX, col. 400..

[67] [In the 14th century the head of St. Crispin was translated, and the casket restored.] In the 14th century, about the year 1303, abbot Wermund enclosed the head of St. Crispin in a pyramid. Of this we have treated more broadly above at n. 36. William I, abbot, in the years 1358 and 1359, while the English were laying waste the whole region far and wide, fortified the monastery, which a little later was burned and destroyed by the same Gall. Christ., vol. IX, col. 401., and was never afterwards fully restored Rev. Lord Pécheur, manuscripts.. John II, abbot, repaired the Casket of the holy Martyrs, and died at the beginning of August 1373, and was buried in the chapel of St. Crispin Gall. Christ., in the place above..

[68] [In the 15th century: in the year 1414, the foul devastation of the monastery and city;] In the 15th century Victor of Camerino, bishop of Soissons, confirmed on the 26th of February 1407 a confraternity in honor of SS. Crispin and Crispinian in the church of the holy Martyrs, and laid down statutes for the confraternity members Ibid., col. 374.. These confraternity members are different from the shoemaker brothers, who became known only two centuries later. But in the year 1414 there occurred an impious disaster of the monastery, when the city of Soissons was stormed by the Armagnacs (Armagnacs), by which name those were called who adhered to King Charles VI; Burgundians (Bourguignons), those who adhered to John, duke of Burgundy. Of this storming, as also of the disaster of Agincourt in the following year, I shall speak a little more broadly from the Annals of Jacob Meyer and Charles de Sponde, because there is contained in them an excellent testimony of the veneration of SS. Crispin and Crispinian among the people of Soissons. Meyer therefore writes [Annales Flandriæ, book XV, at the year 1414, page 277. Frankfurt edition. By the care of Sigmund Feyerabend, 1580 and following.]: Compiègne having surrendered, they went to Augusta Suessionum, where the commander of the garrison was Enguerrand de Bournonville, a man most distinguished in war. The citizens and garrison were at odds with one another. The citizens would surrender, the garrison wished to resist. The town was sharply attacked. The walls were broken and laid low by engines and ballistas. The greatest assault of all was on the twenty-first day of May, that is, the twelfth before the Kalends of June. There were in the city with our men some Englishmen. Their commander, the gate nearest the river being broken open, let in the Armagnacs, and joined himself to them. So the city was taken. Citizens and garrison soldiers were killed indiscriminately; no one was spared, nor were the churches spared. Whatever was precious in them was plundered. Gold and silver were torn from the biers of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian and of other Saints, matrons were ravished… Since men were born none have ever borne themselves as victors so enormously and foully… Nor was all this enough, unless they should also set fire to the wretched city, packed up and plundered. He then adds the words of a certain anonymous Latin historian: for, he says Ibid., p. 278., the manuscript copy which I saw lacked a name. Yet he testifies in his book that he was familiar with King Charles VII. And that anonymous writer concludes the narrative of the capture of the city thus Ibid.: And such a blow that noble and ancient city of the Suessiones received in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and fourteen, on the day of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, whose bodies rest there in a solemn monastery, inscribed under that title and dedicated by God (sic). A sufficiently manifest prodigy of this blow had in fact preceded by forty years, when the same city was then overflowing with an exuberance of the greatest riches, wantonness and luxury, and a certain tablet of metal was found by one of the boys of the city (who, with other boys of the place, had been brought out to the fields by the schoolmaster for the sake of solace and relaxation) on the bottom of the river flowing by, on which there was found written this in ancient Roman characters and letters: Woe to you, Suessio; you shall perish like Sodom; which then indeed terrified all the inhabitants of that city and led them to do penance. But after a short time, the memory of that prodigy being overlaid, they relapsed into luxury and their former morals. Yet divine justice did not leave the authors of such monstrosities and sacrileges without a recompense worthy of such great excesses. For a great part of them, when the year had come round, on the very day of the holy Martyrs paid the deserved penalties, as we shall presently relate more opportunely in its place. So far the anonymous writer, wrongly assigning the storming of the city to the feast of the holy Martyrs, but rightly the disaster of Agincourt, as will soon be seen. Of the prodigy there is nothing that I should say; let the faith in it rest with the author. Nor does Meyer either praise or blame it. Compare Dormay Hist. de Soissons, vol. II, p. 377 and following..

[69] [in 1415 the victory of Agincourt attributed to the intercession of the holy Martyrs;] Of the battle of Agincourt Sponde writes at the year 1415 Annales eccl. vol. I, p. 755.: Henry (king of England, fifth of this name) crossing the sea … having made a landing at the town of Auriflorium (Harfleur) in Normandy, besieged it, and after a strong defense of the besieged for nearly forty days, took it by surrender. After which, when, some thousands of the English having been lost as much to arms as to disease, which invaded the camp, he was hastening his return through Picardy toward Calais, in great scarcity of all things, on account of the French following and hindering his supplies, who far surpassed the army of the English in number and strength Compare Histoire de Bourgogne.. The French awaited the English between Thérouanne of the Morini and the town of Hesdin near Agincourt, not far from the village of Blangy, where on the following day their passage lay toward Calais Meyer, p. 281. Compare Lingard, vol. V, pp. 19–29. Louvain 1828.. In so great a danger the English king ordered them to pass the whole night in vigils, prayers and mutual confession of sins, and also (as Nauclerus narrates from Aeneas Silvius [De dictis et factis Alphonsi regis, book III at the end. Works of Aeneas Sylvius, p. 491. Basel, 1551.]) to hold out a little earth one to another in memory of the Sacrament of the Eucharist (the observance of which custom we have seen elsewhere already); the battle being joined on the 25th of October, the French (who had spent the night far otherwise, trusting beforehand in their strength, and whom Meyer, not sufficiently fair to them generally, would have it were blinded by pride and by all evil things, and were ignorant of what it was to ask victory from God Meyer, in the place above.), the divine Power exacting penalties for the manifold vices of the nobility and common people of France, most shamefully

were conquered. Then King Henry, making again for Calais, returned to England … giving great thanks to God everywhere for the victory gained over the enemy almost by a miracle; so much so that, because it took place on the feast day of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, who are venerated in those parts, he ordered their memory to be made at every Mass as long as he lived Sponde, in the place above.. This latter Sponde took from Nicholas Harpsfield, archdeacon of Canterbury, who at the 15th century, ch. III, in his Historia ecclesiastica Anglicana writes in these words Page 589. Douai edition 1622.: And since this victory had fallen on the day sacred to the martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, he took care that their memory should be sprinkled in at every Mass he afterwards attended, daily, as long as he lived. Meyer relates something further, but is it also truer: This battle, he says Annales Flandriæ, p. 282., so called of Agincourt or of Blangy from the neighboring villages, was fought out on the feast of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, that is, on the 8th before the Kalends of November, on a Friday; which feast of the Martyrs the English thereafter held each year as most celebrated. Finally Sponde adds: This disaster inflicted on the French is thought by most to have been in vengeance for the most foul violation of the sacred relics of those Saints in the occupation, the past year, of the city of Soissons, which followed the party of the rebel Burgundian. Similarly Meyer, but in his manner, more bitterly Ibid.: This disaster was received on the feast of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian; so that the impious might pay the due punishments who had so foully violated with sacrilegious hands, in the previous year, the ancient places, old monasteries, venerable monuments and holy bones of the same Martyrs. I see also in the manuscripts that the people of Soissons, on learning of the slaughter of Agincourt, said: The executioners have paid the penalty to the holy Patrons, namely the French or Armagnacs, who in the preceding year, the Burgundians being ejected, had laid waste the city. Did there perhaps arise from this piety of King Henry toward the holy Martyrs the tradition among the English which Camden mentions in the description of Kent? Toward Gaul, he says [Britannia (in English), vol. I, p. 223; likewise (in Latin) in Joan Blaeu's Theatrum orbis terrarum, part IV, page 164.], near Romney on the extreme promontory which they call Denge-Ness, where there is nothing but gravel and shingle … among those shingles, however, near Ston-end, a heap of larger stones is seen, which the neighbors would have to be the tomb of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, who they say were cast up on this shore by shipwreck and called here to the heavenly fatherland. Whence and when this popular tradition was born I am not able to say, unless, as I have noted, it is to be referred to the times of the battle of Agincourt.

[70] in the year 1421 a procession for the king and for peace; In the year 1421 a public procession is recorded as held at Soissons for the recovery of the king's health, for peace and for the goods of the earth. The magistracy of the city accordingly asked the monks of St. Crispin to carry the casket of the holy Patrons to the cathedral church, to which likewise those of St. Medard were to come with their relics of a great many Saints. The abbot of St. Crispin assented to the petition, on this condition however, that it should be established in writing that no prejudice would ever be inflicted on the rights of the monastery by this liberal grant Rev. Lord Pecheur, manuscripts.. The discourse here is about King Charles VI, who labored under almost perpetual madness, and who on the 20th of May 1420 had entered into an agreement with Henry V, king of England, by virtue of which the administration of the kingdom of France was committed to the latter while Charles survived, and the royal right and authority when he died. Both kings met their last day two years later; Charles on the 22nd of October in the year 1422, at 54 years of age; Henry on the 31st of August of the same year and at the age of 36 Art de vérifier les dates, p. 561..

[71] in the year 1466 the Relics carried to Paris. In the year 1466 there was at Paris so great a pestilence that the cemetery of the Holy Innocents did not suffice for burying the dead Meyer, p. 388.. The contagion seems to have arisen from a very burning sky, by which all things had been scorched through in the months of August and September. Public processions were therefore proclaimed through the city with the relics of the holy Patrons, namely St. Marcellus and St. Genevieve. The people of Soissons also brought the casket of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, to whose protection the Parisians confidently fled; and hence gifts and alms by no means small were given to the monks, by which they were able to restore the roof of their basilica, thrown down by the wind [Histoire de Paris by DD. Félibien and Lobinau, vol. II, p. 857, in folio. Compare Dormay vol. II, p. 398 and following.]. Others add Rev. Lord Pécheur, Manuscripts. that there was then established under the invocation of SS. Crispin and Crispinian a confraternity in the metropolis of Paris; and that the same sacred relics were exposed in the chief cities of Picardy and the Île-de-France, which also appear to have been infected with the plague.

[72] [In the 16th and 17th centuries, with the doctrine of Calvin gaining strength, processions, etc.] In the year 1561, on the 22nd of June, Charles I, bishop of Soissons, proclaimed a general procession to the church of St. Crispin the Greater for preserving the faith against the heretics. For fear of these he translated on the 29th of June 1562 the casket of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian into the convent of the Blessed Mary, as we have said more fully above at n. 32. And certainly in the year 1567 he saw with grief the city captured by the same and occupied for about seven months, its sacred churches despoiled, pulled down, burned by the same; the monastery of St. Crispin reduced to wretched ruins, and he himself strove to restore things out of his own means. The other things pertaining to this century as also to the following 17th century we have rendered for the greatest part at n. 33, where we were speaking of the various attempts or arts by which the monks of St. Crispin the Greater tried to bring back the pledges of the holy Patrons to their basilica. We shall add only these few things from the Manuscripts submitted to us from Soissons by the Rev. Lord Canon Congnet. Although the sacred relics were kept at the Blessed Mary, yet their proper seat was judged by all to be at St. Crispin the Greater. For which reason they were sometimes carried there to be exposed, with the use of the precautions of which mention has been made above; or if at any time they were carried about elsewhere in solemn procession, the members of the aforesaid abbey followed them in the first place, as happened in the year 1611, in which, since on account of the killing of King Henry IV all France seemed about to be turned upside down, a public procession was instituted: the bishop went before, behind him followed those of St. Crispin together with the canons, each carrying in his hand a reliquary. But when in the 18th century, namely in the year 1765, prayers had been proclaimed for the Dauphin, son of Louis XV, who lay gravely ill, on the 21st of November and the 1st of December the casket of SS. Crispin and Crispinian was exposed in the basilica of the Blessed Mary; the bishop, coming there, carried it to St. Gervase's (which is the cathedral church); and then, contrary to custom, those of St. Crispin were not present at the procession, from which they are never read to have been absent before this Rev. Lord Pécheur, Manuscripts..

[73] Description of the annual procession. It will help to have set down the order of the procession customarily held from time immemorial each year on the Sunday and the following Monday after the octave of the Ascension. To this procession a numberless people flowed together. Some days before it was to be held, there were sent in the name of the city to St. Crispin the Greater two candles and as many torches, to which were added twenty-five pounds of wax; by which it was signified that the whole city was commended to the patronage of the holy Martyrs. On the Sunday all the relics were carried around, and they went to the meadows beside the bank of the Axona (and hence this procession was called that of the meadows), in memory of the first translation, at which SS. Sixtus and Sinicius received the sacred pledges, which are reported to have landed in that place, conveyed against the river. On the following feria II or Monday the provosts of the city and of the abbey betook themselves to the basilica of St. Crispin; and from there the monks both of St. Crispin and of St. Medard, together with the secular clerics who were accustomed to run there in great number, came in procession with the relics to St. Gervase's. The casket of the two holy Martyrs was carried by workmen of the shoemaker's art, with whom there walked together four young men clothed in white garments, their heads garlanded with flowers. After these came in fine order the clergy, adorned with chasubles or copes; whom two monks of St. Crispin followed, clothed in dalmatics, carrying the head of the holy Martyr, between two candle-bearers on either side and as many thurifers. Behind followed the abbot with deacon and subdeacon, carrying relics in their hands. The procession was closed by the magistracy and a dense multitude of the people. As they entered the city there came to meet them, with banners unfurled, various confraternities, thereafter to accompany the pious column. Where they passed, the bells of the churches were rung, and their rectors gave incense. Here and there through the streets were seen resting-places, decorated with hangings and garlands of flowers. When they had arrived at the cathedral church, amid the ringing of bells, the Chapter with the rest of the clergy came forward to escort the procession. During the Mass, which was celebrated by the abbot with a most solemn rite, the first stalls were granted, for honor's sake, to the monks of St. Crispin. Mass having been sung, the return was made through the greater street of the city, to the end that they should stop at St. Crispin the little among the nuns of the congregation, who sang in harmony in honor of the holy Martyrs, whose bodies had rested in that place for some years. Compare n. 23.

[74] Churches dedicated to SS. Crispin and Crispinian. A splendid argument of perpetual cult and veneration toward the holy Patron martyrs is also supplied by the many churches in the diocese of Soissons dedicated in their name. Of the three basilicas within or beside the circuit of the city we have treated in set form elsewhere: St. Crispin the Greater, St. Crispin the Little, and St. Crispin in Cavea, today destroyed. Besides these, nine others are numbered, namely: at Castrum Theodorici (Château Thierry), a town which is about seven leagues distant from Soissons, and there is among other parish churches one consecrated to St. Crispin; likewise at Saint-Crispin-in-the-Wood (St Crépin-aux-Bois, today of the diocese of Beauvais in the district of Compiègne Almanach du Clergé de France, p. 145. Edition of 1854.) there is a large and beautiful church, built in the 15th century. Similarly in the villages of Algusiacum (Aiguisy), Buxeria (Bussiares), Cugniacum (Cugny), Vici-Cella (Vichelles), Serchia (Serches), Venisella (Veniselles), which six churches belong to the diocese of Soissons. There is also another at Verdelotum (Verdelot), today subject to the bishop of Meaux. I should not doubt that other sacred buildings of this kind existed elsewhere.

[75] Confraternities; No one is unaware, nor will anyone be surprised, that the holy Martyrs were taken as patrons of the workmen of the shoemaker's art: for it is a most ancient tradition, resting on their very Acts, that they devoted themselves to this art, so as to seek their living by the labor of their hands, and not be a burden to anyone. Confraternities are recorded almost everywhere in the lands of the Christian world, commonly pious confraternities of shoemakers, formerly established under their invocation, some of which have without doubt lasted even to our times. Panciroli relates Tesori Nascosti, p. 594., where he treats of the churches in Region VIII, or Trastevere, that in the year 1549 there was granted to the confraternity of the Roman shoemakers by the Canons of the Blessed Mary in Trastevere a church, first

dedicated in the name of St. Blaise and then of SS. Crispin and Crispinian; that this was afterwards restored by the confraternity members for the use of the faithful, and that at its side an oratory was built, prepared for their own meetings. On the feast of the holy Patrons they dower certain girls of their order and grant freedom to one captive. They are clothed in a white gown. I doubt whether this church survives today, of which no mention occurs in the Itinerary of the Marquis Giuseppe Melchiorri, in which the sacred buildings of the City, altogether all of them, are accurately enumerated and described Guide méthodique de Rome (from the Italian). Rome, 1837–38..

[76] The origin and institute of the Shoemaker Brothers; More celebrated is the confraternity of Paris, on which there is much in Helyot [Migne, Dictionnaire des Ordres Religieux, vol. I, col. 1139 and following. — Likewise Butler at 25 Oct. Lyon, 1818.], the sum of which it will suffice to have presented here. Namely Michel Henri Buch, commonly called good Henri (le bon Henri), born in the village of Erlon in the duchy of Luxembourg, as a young man had learned the shoemaker's art. Being very pious, he began to think about procuring the salvation of the workmen his equals, whom he saw laboring in a lamentable ignorance and for the most part immersed in the mire of vices. In a short time he had many attached to him. He then made for Paris, perpetually applying the same way of life. At forty-five years of age he became known to the Baron de Renty, a most religious man, whose life our J. B. de St Jure wrote. By his help Henri was able to establish his own workshop, and to have not a few workmen under him, whom before all things he was solicitous to form to virtue and holy discipline. From these took its origin the confraternity or, as they say, Community of the Shoemaker Brothers (Communauté des Frères-Cordonniers), living according to a rule handed down by the parish priest of St. Paul, and a little later approved by the archbishop of Paris, Jean François de Gondi; it was inaugurated on the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the year 1645, Henri being elected provost. The brothers rose at the fifth hour; they gathered for the first prayer; during the day they devoted themselves to prayer separately, each at appointed hours; they attended Mass daily; they kept silence, to be interrupted however from time to time by pious canticles; before the midday meal they held a meditation; on Sundays and feasts, morning and evening, they were present at the divine office, they visited the sick, prisons, etc. Henri died at Paris on the 9th of June 1666, and was buried in the cemetery of St. Gervase. Vachet published his life.

[77] their seat at Soissons. The confraternity spread swiftly, and good Henri himself betook himself to Soissons, in order to found it in this city. It was established with the consent of Bishop Charles Burlonius in the year 1661, and under the invocation of SS. Crispin and Crispinian. Under a master as president they lived as celibates, yet bound by no vow; inhabiting the same house, they devoted themselves in common to workmanship and prayer according to the rule prescribed for them. The master prescribed a task to each, and from the fruit of their labor provided for the sustenance of all; whatever money remained was distributed to the poor. There was however a chief man elected by common vote, to whom they were bound each year to render an account of what was given and received, and accordingly they were subject to him in temporal matters; for spiritual matters they were subject to the rector of the parish in which they resided. The brothers of Soissons possessed nothing besides the proceeds of their labor. Their number was fixed, which it was not lawful to exceed. The community of Soissons, united to that of Paris, was dissolved by royal edict in the year 1778. And let these things be said briefly: for more about these brothers is held here and there in the writers of Soissons Pécheur, Manuscripts..

[78] The present veneration of the holy Martyrs in the aforesaid city. It remains that we should indicate what the veneration of the holy Martyrs is today among the people of Soissons. Their memory (so from the letters of the Rev. Lord Canon Congnet) is today also in great veneration among the faithful. The casket is carried around in procession on their feast day and again in the general procession of the Holy Relics, on the Sunday after the Ascension. On the Monday following the feast also, a Mass is celebrated for the confraternity (confrérie) of shoemakers, during which the masters of the shoemaker's art have by privilege the right of carrying on their shoulders the casket of the holy Martyrs, which is carried around within the precincts of the cathedral church. It is also the custom among the people, for devotion's sake, to pass under the sacred relics.

§ V. The Office of SS. Crispin and Crispinian from the breviaries of the church of Soissons.

The Office from the older breviaries. I add a double office of SS. Crispin and Crispinian: one from the breviary of Soissons, drawn up according to the norm of the Roman breviary by order of Charles Burtonius, bishop of Soissons from the year 1655 to the year 1685. But, as the Rev. Lord Congnet, who communicated it to us, rightly notes, the breviary edited by Charles is several centuries older than that prelate, at least for its greater part; which for the rest follows to some extent from the form of the office which we subjoin: for the antiphons and responsories are mostly drawn from the Acts and legends. The other office is of a more recent age, and its form is far different. It is found in the breviary printed under the auspices of Bishop François de Fitzjames, in the year 1742. These things being noted beforehand, we set down in full the former office.

[80] First Vespers On the 25th of October. On the feast of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, martyrs. Greater double. At Vespers. Antiphon. Rejoicing, the holy Martyrs said, with the rest from Lauds. Psalm. The Lord said, with the rest from Sunday, and in place of the last, Psalm. Praise the Lord, all ye nations. Chapter. The souls of the just. Hymn. By the merits of the saints. ℣ Rejoice in the Lord, from the common of many martyrs. At the Magnificat. Antiphon. The just stood before the Lord, and they were not separated from one another: they drank the chalice of the Lord, and were called friends of God. Prayer. We beseech you, Almighty God, that we may be received by the doubled gladness of today's festivity, which proceeds from the glorification of your blessed martyrs Crispin and Crispinian: whom the same faith and passion truly made brothers. Through our Lord.

[81] Matins At Matins. Invitatory. Let us praise the Lord: * Who gave to his saints crowns of victory after labors and contests. Psalm. Come, let us exult. Hymn. By the merits of the saints.

[82] I Nocturn In the first Nocturn. Antiphon. The saints of God Crispin and Crispinian were born at Rome, they came into Gaul for Christ, and under cruel Maximian they fought a strong contest. Psalm. Blessed is the man. Antiphon. Replying fearlessly to the impious king, they said: we confess that we have come from Rome for love of Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is one God, whom we serve in spirit and truth. Psalm. Why have the nations raged. Antiphon. The honors which you promise to give us, give to your own: for us to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Psalm. When I called upon him he heard. ℣ Rejoice in the Lord. Lessons: Brethren, we are debtors. ℞ I. The saints of God Crispin and Crispinian were born at Rome, they came into Gaul for Christ, And under cruel Maximian they fought a strong contest. ℣ These are two Men of mercy, who came from Rome to preach for the name of Christ. And under. ℞ II. The most blessed Martyrs, replying to Maximian, said: You will not terrify us with your threats, For whom to live is Christ, and to die is gain. ℣ But your money and the honors which you promise, give to your own: these we confess that we once, rejoicing, left behind for love of Christ. For whom. ℞ III. I saw Men joined together having splendid garments, and the angel of the Lord spoke to me, saying: * These are holy Men, made friends of God. ℣ I saw an angel of God flying through the midst of heaven, crying with a loud voice and saying. These are. Glory be to the Father. These are.

[83] II Nocturn In the second Nocturn. Antiphon. When the Martyrs of Christ were in torments, contemplating heavenly things they said: Help us, O Lord, that we may complete your work without stain. Psalm. Give ear to my words. Antiphon. The holy Martyrs, rejoicing in hope amid the sharpest pains, prayed to the Lord in tribulation, and said: Judge, O Lord, our judgment, and deliver us from the unjust and deceitful man. Psalm. O Lord, our Lord. Antiphon. As they were praying these things, a drop of boiling lead leapt out into the eye of Rictiovarus, and blinded him, tormenting him with severe pain. Psalm. Lord, who shall dwell. ℣ Let the just exult… Lesson IV. Crispin and Crispinian, brothers, noble Romans, in the time of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, setting out from Rome into Gaul with ten companions from zeal for propagating the Christian religion, some going to one place and some to another by agreement, came to Soissons. There, so as to seek their living by the labor of their hands after the manner of the apostle, exercising the shoemaker's art, they attracted a frequent people to themselves, both by the elegance of their work, in which they excelled the other craftsmen, and by the smallness of their wage, with which they were content however little it might be that was offered, and by the wondrous gentleness of their manners: and preaching Christ to them as occasion arose, they converted very many to him. Learning of this, Maximian ordered them to be arrested and brought to him. Then, having tempted them in various ways to fall away from the faith of Christ, when he understood that he was accomplishing nothing, kindled with anger he handed them over to Rictiovarus to be tormented with exquisite punishments. ℞ When the martyrs of Christ Crispin and Crispinian were in torments, contemplating heavenly things they said: help us, O Lord, That we may complete your work without stain. ℣ Look upon your servants, and upon your works, O Lord, and help us. That we may complete. Lesson V. He carrying out the emperor's command the more exactly, stretched on the pulley they were first beaten with clubs; then, strips being torn from the skin of the back, they were pierced with sharp stakes between the nails and the flesh of their fingers, and these, leaping out by divine power, killed some of the executioners and wounded others. Then, with a millstone hung on the neck, thrown into the Axona at that place where there is now the little shrine of St. Lambert, they swam most easily to the other bank of the river. Afterwards, cast into lead melted by fire, while, unharmed in anything, they were singing divine praises, they were sent into a frying pan boiling with pitch, fat and oil; from which also they escaped unharmed. ℞ Judge, O Lord, our judgment, and deliver us from the unjust man: Then as they prayed the stakes leapt out from their nails and striking the attendants killed them. ℣ Help us, O God our savior, and for the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us. Then. Lesson VI. Then Rictiovarus, driven by fury, one of whose eyes a leaping drop of boiling lead had already blinded, casting himself into the fire perished by a most unhappy death. When Maximian learned of this, he ordered the Brothers to be struck with the axe on the bank of the Axona in the place which is now called St. Crispin in Cavea. Their bodies, cast out to wild beasts and birds, but in no way touched by them, a certain old man, whose name was Rogerius, and his aged sister named Pavia, at the admonition of an angel, and with God wondrously assisting, carried off by night and buried in their own house, where now stands their church in the city. Then, when they had long lain hidden, found by divine prompting by St. Ansericus, they were translated into their suburban basilica. Afterwards, deposited in the church of the Blessed Mary, they were laid up most honorably, where they are venerated with great veneration of the people. ℞

The holy Martyrs said in prayer: You are able, O Lord, to deliver us from impious torments, and to lead us unharmed out of this fire. ℣ Soon, the prayer being finished, the angel of the Lord led them out together without pain from the fire . You are able. Glory be to the Father. You are able.

[84] III Nocturn In the third Nocturn. Antiphon. The holy Martyrs said in prayer: You are able, O Lord, to deliver us from impious torments, and to lead us unharmed out of this fire. Psalm. Preserve me, O Lord. Antiphon. Soon, the prayer being finished, the angel of the Lord led them out together without pain from the fire. Psalm. The earth is the Lord's. Antiphon. Impious Maximian ordered the heads of both to be cut off. Psalm. O God, the nations have come. ℣ But the just. Homily on the Gospel: When you shall hear of battles. ℞ VII. The holy bodies of Crispin and Crispinian, cast out, * Under the guard of Christ remained untouched by the bite of beasts. ℣ Whose souls were translated into heaven by angels, but their bodies were left by the executioners to beasts and birds. Under. ℞ VIII. This is the true…

[85] Lauds, etc. At Lauds and through the Hours. Antiphon. Rejoicing, the holy Martyrs said: We give you thanks, O Lord, who, snatching us from this world, command us to come to you. Psalm. The Lord has reigned. With the rest. Antiphon. By order of the king the heads of both were cut off. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints. Antiphon. The saints of God Crispin and Crispinian gave up their bowed necks to the slayers, they rendered up their holy souls to the Lord their creator; therefore they were crowned, receiving palms, and they live forever. Antiphon. The holy bodies of Crispin and Crispinian, cast out, under the guard of Christ remained untouched. Antiphon. The old people hasten to the place where the holy Martyrs lay beheaded. Chapter. The souls of the just. Hymn. O glorious King of martyrs. ℣ They shall exult. At the Benedictus. Antiphon. By divine inspiration they buried the bodies of the Saints with joy, where today the people adore the majesty of God. Alleluia. Prayer. We beseech you. At Second Vespers. At the Magnificat. Antiphon. These are two olive trees, and two candlesticks shining before the Lord: they have power to shut heaven with clouds, and to open its gates: for their tongues have become the keys of heaven. Alleluia. Prayer. We beseech you… See at First Vespers.

[86] likewise from the more recent one. The title of the other office is: On the 25th (of Oct.) on the feast of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, martyrs of Soissons. Triple of the second class. The Antiphons at Vespers, Lauds and at the Nocturns are proper; likewise the Chapters and Responsories are proper. They consist mostly of words or sacred texts of both testaments. The Lessons of the I Nocturn are taken from I Thessalonians, ch. I. We give thanks to God; of the III Nocturn from a homily of St. Gregory the Great: By the name of every creature can, etc. On the Gospel: Going into the whole world, etc. We set down the Lessons of the II Nocturn and three hymns, because they are proper. The same Rev. Lord Congnet notes, moreover, that in the new Proper of Soissons, approved at Rome, the form of the office is the same as in the breviary of the year 1742.

You who once lay in deadly shades Of death, now for you, Gaul, The dawn rises, soon to bring forth The conspicuous light of day.

Crispin, you put to flight the night In our regions: your voice, bearing before it A saving torch, with new light Drove away the deep darkness.

That equal companion, equal to so great a work, A Brother not unequal to his Brother; where they Set foot on these lands, error yields, Furious impiety yields.

Where they were preparing for themselves their living By assiduous labor, the people went to their humble Cottage: the first house for Christ Was a workshop of craftsmen.

Hither every citizen burns to run, And amid tears, hanging from the eloquent Mouth of the pious Master, They drink in salvation with eager ear.

They taught men to live for Christ; now they teach Faithful disciples to die for Christ: And, death being scorned, the firstfruits Of the victims go back to heaven.

By the way on which the Fathers go before with shed blood, Grant, O Christ, that their sons may willingly follow: If it is not given by death, ah! let us offer To you, O Christ, an innocent life.

Highest praise to the Father, and highest to the Son, And equal glory to the Holy Spirit, By whose breathing the world is made fruitful, A new people is created for you, O Christ. Amen.

[88] Lessons of the II Nocturn. Lesson IV. Crispin and Crispinian, brothers, from zeal for propagating the faith came into Gaul together with blessed Quentin and companions. While the others were dispersed into other regions, Crispin and Crispinian with Valerius and Rufinus came to the borders of the Suessiones, and there preached the salvation brought to men by Christ Jesus. Afterwards, having entered the city, so as not to be a burden to anyone, they determined to provide their living by the labor of their hands, just like Paul the apostle. Accordingly they at once learned the shoemaker's art, which they thought more suited to their ministry as being humble and quiet; and since they excelled the other craftsmen in it, and were content with a light wage, they gradually attracted a frequent people to themselves; and to those who came they announced the word of God as occasion offered. Their house was therefore not only a workshop of labor, but also a school of doctrine and salvation. God giving power and blessing to their voice, they persuaded very many that, leaving behind the worship of idols, they should serve the true God. Meanwhile Rufinus and Valerius, who, having taken on the care of the royal granaries, had settled at the sixth milestone from the city, conspiring to the same end with Crispin and Crispinian, vigorously promoted the work. Thus the number of believers was increased from day to day; and while there was peace and tranquillity from the princes, the neophytes were confirmed in the faith. Lesson V. It was already long since Crispin and Crispinian, spreading the light of the Gospel, had been driving off the darkness of error, when the peace which they enjoyed together with the new offspring gained by them for Christ was disturbed by the coming of Maximian Hercules (sic). This cruel Emperor, who, wherever he passed, left bloody traces of his hatred against Christ and Christians, staying in the Gauls, came to Soissons. There, while he was preparing war against the barbarians, he ordered in his manner that Christians be diligently sought out, whose destruction and extermination he desired more than that of the enemies most hostile to the Roman empire. To the fury implanted in his mind, fire and torches were applied by the wondrous freedom which the Theban soldiers had displayed in professing the Christian faith. Crispin and Crispinian were reported to him as Christians; whom he at once ordered to be arrested and brought to him. When they had been led to the tribunal, he tried to deter them from their purpose as much by promises as by threats and fear of punishments. But since the holy Brothers fearlessly confessed Christ, and constantly spat out the profane sacrifices, he determined to attack and overcome them by a more effective method. There was present at that time Rictiovarus, an all too faithful minister of imperial cruelty, still bloody with the Christian blood which he had shed here and there in the Gauls: he ordered Crispin and Crispinian to be handed over to him, to be tortured with all the most savage punishments and slain by the foulest death. Lesson VI. And so Rictiovarus turned in all directions his ingenuity, already exercised by long practice in inhumanity, to invent new torments against Crispin and Crispinian. He ordered them to be stretched on pulleys and beaten with clubs, awls also to be inserted between flesh and nails, and skin to be pulled from their backs. But although the bodies of the Martyrs were now nothing but a wound, they abated nothing of their freedom in confessing Christ. The governor's defeated rage therefore had recourse to other tortures; but from the tortures themselves those being tormented drew new spirits and new strength; so much so that all the savagery of the judge and the torturers was forced to yield to their patience. For which reason, when they had exhausted in vain every kind of punishment, they at last cut off the heads of the most valiant Champions of Christ. Under the invocation of Saints Crispin and Crispinian three churches were consecrated at Soissons: one on the bank of the Axona near the place where they suffered; which in the twelfth century was raised into an abbey, commonly called Saint Crispin in Cavea: another, which now belongs to the nuns of the Congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, where the bodies of the Martyrs were first hidden and buried: the last, finally, which now rejoices in the title of the abbey of St. Crispin the Greater, and which already stood in the sixth century; since Chilperic willed that Clodobert his elder son should be buried in it. The relics of the blessed Martyrs, translated into this basilica and laid up in the crypt, were brought forth in solemn procession in the seventh century by Ansericus, together with certain other Bishops. Their memorial, on the witness of Ouen, Eligius of Noyon decorated with distinguished ornament. On the same day, in a castle of the diocese of Soissons which is called Negoliacum, there is celebrated the memory of St. Fronto, who, when there were few Christians there, is said to have preached the Gospel. In his honor a parish church was consecrated there, which is frequented by a great concourse of peoples; whence the Castle of Negoliacum received its surname from St. Fronto.

To the holy ashes (these pledges of the Martyrs Are full of God) run, O city: Here is the cradle of faith: in the bosom of death We have drunk in life more fully.

Here by how many prodigies God asserts himself! Here the deaf hear with open ears: Here to the blind their light is given back, and its Vigor to contracted limbs.

Here let the city groan in supplication: whether the crop perishes With drying stalk, or floats in the wet; The compliant sun will soon grant rich showers, Or drive off the harmful ones far away.

For God the avenger repays with sacred honors The reproach of an undeserved death: He makes illustrious with prodigies and venerable Even their very tombs.

To the Father greatest praise, greatest to the Son, And greatest to the sacred Spirit of both, Upheld by whose aid the Martyrs sustain Their battles, death being despised. Amen.

From the time when the Master, hanging on the cross, God, gave birth to salvation for the lands, Disciples, powerful with effective word, Subdued the lands.

Founded on the blood of Christ, fruitful Faith grew by the punishments of Martyrs; And the noble death of the Parents Sprouted a manifold offspring.

So while the impure hand of the savage executioner Reaps your rich harvests, Religion, increased, sees a thousand fruits Born from your blood.

The ancient shrines of the gods fall; a frequent crowd Is now washed in sacred waters; And the people itself burns with pious fire The oaks adored for so many years.

Tyrant, to what does your mad fury fall back? As many victims as you slay with the sword, O impious one, So many patrons, favoring from heaven Where they are received, do you supply to the Faith.

You therefore, chosen firstfruits of the flock, You therefore, Apostles of our people, Be present, brothers, bring, bring To God the pious prayers of your offspring.

* Servavit? He preserved?

§ VI. On the veneration of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian among the Saxons. The Office from the monuments of the church of Osnabrück.

10th century. One testimony of Thietmar A splendid testimony to the reverence to be shown to SS. Crispin and Crispinian is found in the chronicle of Thietmar, bishop of Merseburg, who wrote at the beginning of the 11th century and departed this life in the year 1018 Pertz vol. III, p. 727.. He has it thus in book IV, n. 47 Ibid. p. 787 and following.: But the reverence of the aforesaid martyrs

(of SS. Crispin and Crispinian), shining sufficiently in the older books, so that you, reader, may recognize it from me, I bring forward one matter, which my brother Brun, brought up in New Corvey and a servant of the same altar, indicated to me from the report of his elders. In the time of the aforesaid abbot Liudulf, very memorable in all good things, there was a certain young man, his confrere and a regular monk; who, when he was staying at that time in the office committed to him, and was carrying with him in the accustomed way the relics of the above-named Martyrs and handling them carelessly, perceived, in a punishment quickly following, that he had sinned against the Martyrs of Christ. For he dies in the flesh who neglected to serve the Saints of God in the spirit. And in order that this might become known to the aforesaid abbot, they met him as he was going out before the doors of the church on that night. As soon as he saw them, struck with great fear he stood still and kept silence. To him they at once said such things: Why do you not ask, father, who we are or for what reason we have come here? When he had replied to them that he did not dare, he soon heard from them their name and the cause, and that this would not be left unpunished. When these had departed, the abbot indicated these things to his confreres, saying: That young man is dead who was just now under our obedience, for the unguarded reverence of the Saints whom he had with him. Woe is me for ever consenting to such things! And not long after there came a messenger, to affirm that these things were true, and to intimate that the body of the same was being brought. But the venerable man neither wished to go out to meet it, nor did he allow his brethren to receive it in the accustomed way; but in anger he spoke thus to the trunk: Why, you insolent man, did you dare negligently to take with you those who are held in great honor with the only-begotten Son of the living God, or after such a crime to come here in any way without suppliant intervention? The dean, excusing the deceased brother as far as he could, received such an answer from his father: My beloved brother, you know what this eye-servant did in your sight; but what he did in absence you do not know; but I weigh it very well, who now understand him to be in grievous torments. And now I as a suppliant ask the intercession of our Patrons, that through them the divine goodness may make known to me when, he being released by it, it may be permitted to me a sinner to give him absolution and communion. It is too harsh to kick against the goad (spur), and unbecoming for men to show indulgence while the Majesty is angry. After this speech the pious abbot came with bare feet to the oratory, his special asylum in anxious matters, and, in his accustomed way bewailing in himself human frailty in others, he appeased God and freed the guilty one; and at once rising with many thanksgivings, by the divine power before all the brethren he remitted the crime of the deceased, and gave the body the communion of the church and burial. Liudulf presided over New Corvey, a monastery in Westphalia, from the year 965 up to the year 983, under the emperors Otto I and Otto II Codex traditionum Corbeïensium, p. 643. Leipzig 1752.; accordingly, since the things narrated by Thietmar took place under his (Liudulf's) rule, they are to be assigned to the closing 10th century. Thus Thietmar was not far distant from that age, of whom Fabricius reports this Fabricius, bibliotheca med. et inf. latinitatis vol. II, p. 37 and following.: Dithmar (for so he is commonly, though less correctly, called) wrote a distinguished Chronicle in eight books on the deeds of five emperors over 107 years, from Henry I to Henry II. Heinrich Reineck first edited it, but maimed and gaping, in the Scriptores rerum germanicarum; then separately Mader; finally Leibniz restored Dithmar, his whole context being almost entirely emended from the manuscript which Papebroch had communicated to him. At last, in these days, the Chronicle of Thietmar has come forth from the autograph codex of Dresden among the Monuments of Germany collected by Pertz. This passage of Thietmar the Annalista Saxo inserted in his book, with the words slightly changed Pertz, vol. VI, p. 635., at the year of Christ 990; certainly wrongly, since abbot Liudolf, under whom the event took place, did not prolong his life beyond the year 983.

[92] and another. The same Thietmar relates something not unlike that took place not so much later. In the reign, he says Ibid., vol. III, p. 787., of the third Otto (crowned in the year 983, died in the year 1002 Art de vérifier les dates, p. 439.), Albi, son of Guncelin, was killed in a certain forest by his retainer for a useless cause. His county, with a benefice lying next to the Milda (the Mulde, a river in Upper Saxony), Archbishop Gisiler received. His chamberlain and my confrere Gunther, on the death of Dodo, bishop of the church of Asanbrun, dear to the emperor and often faithfully serving, came to Italy. And when he was graciously received there and heard in all things, on the following night he saw the martyrs of Christ Crispin and Crispinian coming to him and asking whether he wished to receive their episcopate. And when he replied to them: If God wills and it pleases you; he was pierced by them with two spears, and soon awaking could in no way rise by himself. On the morrow, the emperor, when he learned of his infirmity, fulfilled the faithful promise. After this the same man, recovering, returned home, and having received consecration, he lived in great pain for nearly 4 years, on the 8th before the Kalends of December exchanging these temporal things for those remaining eternally. I do not know whether anything in him displeased God or his holy Martyrs. This I have seen and have heard from others, that he was a just and well God-fearing man, gentle and chaste, and, as those with whom he now rests assert, that he now has very great power with God, as is proved by signs in many things. I truly know this, that God does not punish a guilty man twice for the same thing. Bishop Dodo is noted to have died in the year 996 on the 12th of April; he was the second bishop of this name of Osnabrück [Sandhoff, Antistitum Osnabrugensis ecclesiæ res gestæ, vol. I, p. 54. Münster in Westphalia, 1785.], which word is here corruptly rendered Asanbrunensis. And SS. Crispin and Crispinian are said to have called this episcopate theirs, because in the cathedral of Osnabrück their relics were venerated, indeed their bodies rested there in great part. See above, n. 55. Gisiler was archbishop of Magdeburg, who died in the year 1004 [Chronicon Magdeburgense, in Meibom, rerum Germanicarum vol. II, p. 281. Richard, Bibliothèque sacrée. Under the word Osnabruck.].

[93] The Office from the Proper of Osnabrück of the year 1652. We add the office of the holy Martyrs according to the rite of the church of Osnabrück, in which their feast is kept on the 25th of October, while on the 20th of June the memory of the Translation is celebrated. It is found in the Proper of that diocese committed to print in the year 1652 under the following title: Proper offices of the saints of the church and diocese of Osnabrück, drawn up in the form of the Roman breviary, by the authority and order of the Most Reverend and Most Illustrious Prince and Lord, Lord Franz Wilhelm, bishop of the churches of Osnabrück, Regensburg, Minden and Verden, committed to print at Cologne at the house of Cornelius ab Egmond, 1652. There accordingly at page 48 and following it is held thus: On the 25th of October. On the feast of the holy patrons Crispin and Crispinian, martyrs. Double. This feast is celebrated in the diocese of Osnabrück, as that of its principal Patrons, under the rite of a double of the first class with an octave. It is to be noted that what has been omitted is to be supplied from the common of many martyrs.

[94] Vespers At Vespers. Antiphon. Of impious Maximian, with the rest from Lauds. At the Magnificat. Antiphon. O King of glory, who has magnified Crispin and Crispinian through the triumph of martyrdom, have mercy on us, and through the suffrages of the Saints give us everlasting joys. Prayer. We beseech you, Almighty God, that we may be received by the doubled gladness of today's festivity, which proceeds from the glorification of the blessed Crispin and Crispinian, whom the same faith and passion truly made brothers. Through our Lord.

[95] Matins At Matins. Invitatory. Let us adore the Lord, who conferred on Crispin and Crispinian through martyrdom the prize of eternal life. In the I Nocturn. Antiphon. Natives of Rome, Saints Crispin and Crispinian devoutly came into Gaul, who under Maximian contended in a cruel trial. Antiphon. But the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian boldly replied to the impious king, saying: We confess that we have come for love of him who is the true God, one in Trinity, whom we serve devoted in faith and love. Antiphon. The most blessed Martyrs, replying to Maximian, said: The honors which you promise to give us, give to your own; for us to live is Christ, and to die is gain. ℣ Rejoice in the Lord and exult, you just ℞ And glory, all you upright of heart. — Lessons of the I Nocturn. Brethren, debtors, from the Common. ℞ I. The most blessed Martyrs, replying to Maximian, said: The honors which you promise, give to your own. For us to live is Christ, and to die is gain. ℣ But your money, and the honors which you promise, give to your own: for these we confess that we once, rejoicing, left behind for love of Christ. For us. — ℞ II. These are men, precious martyrs; because they came from Rome to preach for the name of Christ. And under Maximian, the cruel prince, they determined to undergo a glorious death. ℣ Born at Rome of noble stock, they came into Gaul to preach for the love of God. And under. — ℞ III. Natives of Rome, the saints of God Crispin and Crispinian devoutly came into Gaul, * who under Maximian contended in a cruel trial. ℞ Having gone out from Rome, the saints of God came into Gaul to preach. Who.

[96] II Nocturn In the II Nocturn. Antiphon. When the Martyrs of Christ were in torments, contemplating heavenly things they said: Help us, O Lord, that we may complete the work. Antiphon. The holy Martyrs said in prayer: You are able, O Lord, to deliver us from impious torments and to lead us unharmed out of the fire. Antiphon. As they were praying these things, a drop of boiling lead leapt out into the eye of Rictiovarus, and blinded him, tormenting him with severe pain. ℣ Let the just exult in the sight ℞ And be delighted in gladness. (The Lessons are taken from Surius with a few words altered). Lesson IV. Under Diocletian — the offices of humanity were forbidden them (Surius, edition of 1580, vol. V, page 1057, line 12 from the end). ℞ When the martyrs of Christ, Crispin and Crispinian, were in torments, contemplating heavenly things they said: Help us, O Lord, that we may complete your work without stain. ℣ Look upon your servants and upon your works, O Lord, and help us. That we may complete. Lesson V. But wishing — they should covet (in the place cited, line 12). ℞ The holy Martyrs of Christ said in prayer You are able, O Lord, to deliver us from torments, and to lead us back unharmed from the fire. ℣ Soon, the prayer being finished, the angel of the Lord said to them: Rise without pain. You are able, O Lord. Lesson VI. When he perceived this — and to remain in service (in the place cited, from line 3 at the end

of page 1057 — line 8 in the same, page 1058). ℞ Judge, O Lord, our judgment and deliver us from the impious man. * Then as they prayed the stakes leapt out from their nails and striking the attendants killed them. ℣ The holy Martyrs, amid the sharpest pains of punishments, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation. Then.

[97] III Nocturn In the III Nocturn. Antiphon. The holy Martyrs, amid the sharpest pains, rejoicing in hope, prayed to the Lord in tribulation, and said: Judge, O Lord, our judgment and deliver us from the unjust and deceitful man. Antiphon. The bodies of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, left behind, remained untouched under the guard of Christ. Antiphon. The old people hasten to the place where the holy Martyrs lay beheaded. ℣ But the just shall live forever. ℞ And their reward is with the Lord. Lessons of the homily on the Gospel: When you shall hear, from the Common. ℞ VII. O how just and wondrous the judgment of the divine equity. That he who had killed by fire many Martyrs of Christ hastening to the kingdoms of heaven, should himself end his life in fire and come to the fire of eternal torment. ℣ Seeing these things the devout Martyrs of Christ poured out prayers to the Lord, that, snatched from the struggle of their contest, he would graciously order them to come to him. That. — ℞ VIII. These are two men, precious Martyrs, who stand before the throne of God and serve him day and night. And he who sits on the throne dwells above them. ℣ They shall not hunger nor thirst any more, since the Lamb of God shall rule them. And.

[98] Lauds, etc. At Lauds and through the Hours. Antiphon. By order of the impious king Maximian, the heads of both were cut off; precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints. Antiphon. The holy Martyrs prayed, saying: We give you thanks, O Lord, who command us to go out from this world. Antiphon. O how just and wondrous the judgment of the divine equity, that he who had killed by fire many martyrs of Christ hastening to the kingdoms of heaven, should himself end his life in fire and come to the fire of eternal torment. Antiphon. But the most blessed Martyrs imitated the hymn of the three boys amid the Chaldean flames, saying: Help us, O God our savior. Antiphon. Today two lights have fallen for Christ the Sun of justice, that they might shine at the end in the splendors of the Saints. At the Benedictus. Antiphon. The saints of God Crispin and Crispinian gave up their bowed necks to the slayers: now crowned they receive the palm; they live forever with Christ; blessed be the Lord, who has raised above the stars the horn of his Martyrs. At II Vespers, at the Magnificat. Antiphon. From generation to generation the Lord has shown mercy: who led Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and from the furthest bounds of the earth called Crispin and Crispinian, that in this land of ours they might be pilgrims and strangers, but in that heavenly fatherland fellow citizens of the Saints and of the household of God: there, given to us by God as Patrons, may they continually intercede for this holy people and for all the faithful. Alleluia.

[99] Through the octave, on the days on which no feast occurs to prevent it, The Office through the octave namely, as commonly holds, the 26th, 27th, 29th and 30th of October, the same office is recited, except that the Lessons of the II Nocturn on each day render a part from the rest of the Passion, as it stands in Surius. Moreover on the 30th of October in Lesson VI, after a few words pertaining to the passion, a mention of the translation is added. It will help to have set it down in full. Lesson VI. Then the bodies of the Martyrs were laid up in two tombs; in which place Christians afterwards built a great church. A quite great part of these bodies the emperor Charlemagne translated to the cathedral church of Osnabrück, when he founded it and caused it to be dedicated in honor of St. Peter the apostle and of these holy Martyrs in the year of Christ seven hundred and seventy-two: where they are still venerated with a great frequentation of the people.

[100] On the feast of the Translation. On the 20th of June. On the feast of the Translation of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, martyrs. Double. All as on the feast itself, which is celebrated on the 25th of October, apart from those things which are proper here. (The Prayer is the same; but in place of festivity, translation is put.) Lesson IV. The sainted Charles, king of the Franks and emperor, among the very many distinguished churches, as well cathedral as conventual, which he founded in the province of the Saxons, and copiously established with relics, estates and revenues, built also, in honor of the prince of the apostles, and also of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, in the year of the Lord seven hundred and seventy-two, the church of Osnabrück, the first of all in Saxony, to which he translated the bodies of the aforesaid Martyrs, with many other relics of saints, and precious gifts, as a devout offering. When further, after the courses of many years, the fervor of charity among the persons of the church was growing tepid from day to day, and honor and guard were being paid more sluggishly to the temple of the Lord, it happened that the church itself burned down in its vaults and workshops. Lesson V. At the time of which fire, the said bodies, being in a certain casket under the high altar, were hidden in such turbulence with very many other relics of saints; where for a long time afterwards, whether by the unforeseen death of those who laid them up, or by negligence, or by the incursion of enemies (it is uncertain), they lay hidden unknown: until at length the divine goodness should see fit that so great a treasure be manifested again to his faithful. Lesson VI. Then, accordingly, on a certain solemnity, the dean of the church being warned in sleep by a wondrous vision, common counsel of the whole chapter being taken upon it, and with the authority of their bishop, opening the said place, closed by long negligence, they found in it the bodies of the aforesaid Martyrs, laid up in separate reliquaries, with many other holy Relics, with leaden plates on which the names of each were written. Hence, bathed in devout tears, both clergy and the people of both sexes being solemnly called together to so devout a spectacle, the bells rung according to custom, humbly resounding with devout harmony in the praises of God, they placed the bodies of the said ones, enclosed in their own silver reliquaries, to be preserved perpetually in a more celebrated place. These things are more briefly in the breviary of the church of Osnabrück, printed with the consent of Lord Eric, bishop of the churches of Osnabrück and Paderborn and duke of Brunswick, and with the consent of the venerable chapter of the said church, at the house of Johann Schöffer at Mainz in the year 1516. In this also is marked at the aforesaid 20th of June the Office of the Translation of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, in whose second lesson it is held thus: Charlemagne erected in the province of the Saxons many distinguished churches, as well cathedral as conventual, and copiously established them with relics, estates and revenues. Among which, in honor of the Prince of the apostles and of the holy martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, in the year of the Lord seven hundred and seventy-two, he built the church of Osnabrück, the first of all in Saxony, to which he brought across the bodies of the aforesaid holy Martyrs, with many other relics of Martyrs and of holy Virgins, as a devout offering; as is shown brilliantly by his letters, confirmed by his gold seal hanging from them, and sealed, and by the impression and inscription of his own hand, preserved at the aforesaid church Compare Henseler, p. 68..

[101] The Office in today's Proper; And these things are thus found in the Proper edited in the year 1652. The esteemed Herr Heuser informs us moreover that he has received from Osnabrück today's Proper together with the breviaries printed in the year 1489 and the year 1516. The Proper was committed to print in the year 1768 under the title: Proper offices of the church and diocese of Osnabrück … newly printed by order of the Most Reverend and Most Illustrious chapter of the cathedral church, in the year 1768 at Osnabrück. For the rest, the office both of the feast and of the translation is altogether the same as in the Proper of the year 1652. Nor do the two breviaries, which we have mentioned above, differ much, except that they have at Lauds a proper hymn, which we set down:

Avete nobiles martyrum flores Crispine cum sancto Crispiniano, Audite supplicum preces servorum.

Qui vitæ speculum Patremque rerum Videntes, animo fortes, duello Contra multimodas stetistis pugnas.

Hoste superato, heu! bis mortuo, Et pugnæ stadio jam transmeato Sumpsistis bravium dominum Christum

In choro martyrum est lumen vestrum, Ut sydus splendidum quod implet mundum Illud quod poscitur, dabitur nobis.

Precamur cernui, o vos Patroni, Subvenite clero vobis devoto In regno Judicis pro quo certastis.

Laus æterno Patri, vitæ datori, Una cum filio, Domino nostro, Atque paracleto Spiritui sancto Amen.

[Hail, noble flowers of martyrs, Crispin with holy Crispinian, hear the prayers of your suppliant servants. You who, seeing the mirror of life and the Father of things, strong in spirit, stood in the duel against manifold battles. The enemy overcome, alas! twice dead, and the stadium of battle now crossed, you took as your prize the Lord Christ. In the choir of martyrs is your light, like a splendid star that fills the world; that which is asked will be given to us. We pray, bowed down, O you Patrons, come to the aid of the clergy devoted to you in the kingdom of the Judge for whom you contended. Praise to the eternal Father, the giver of life, together with the Son, our Lord, and the holy Spirit the paraclete. Amen.]

The hymn, as is clear, consists of verses or lines of eleven syllables; but it is far from Hendecasyllabic verse, which proceeds by fixed feet and measure, and the hymn cited above has nothing in common with this except the number of syllables. On the feast of the Translation see a little above, n. 98.

THE MARTYRDOM OF SS. CRISPIN AND CRISPINIAN,

as it is held in several, and those very ancient, manuscript codices

Crispin, martyr at Soissons in Gaul. (S.)

Crispinian, martyr at Soissons in Gaul. (S.)

BHL Number: 1990

FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS.

SINGLE CHAPTER.

Brought from Rome to Soissons, they practice the shoemaker's art, and convert many to the faith. Through the agency of Rictiovarus, they are brought before Maximian Herculius, who orders them to be savagely tortured. Rictiovarus, driven to fury by the constancy of the holy Martyrs, throws himself into the fire. Then they are slain by the sword. Their burial and translation.

The holy Martyrs practice the shoemaker's art and convert many. When under Diocletian and Maximian ^b, who, having obtained together the power of empire, strove with the same soldiery to overthrow the church of Christ, a savage persecution was raging through almost the whole world ^c; Quintianus , Lucius , Valerius and Eugenius, born of illustrious birth at Rome, came to preach in the Gauls; and who, consummating the course of their holy labor by martyrdom, departed to the Lord as distinguished triumphers. Following them with the same devotion of faith and equal nobility of birth, Crispin and Crispinian ^d chose the city of Soissons ^e as the hospitable place of their pilgrimage; in which the error of the pagans had so prevailed that lodging, because they were Christians, and humane treatment were forbidden them. But they, having learned of the cruelty of the pagans, in order that, following the teaching of the Doctor of the Gentiles, they might by the labor of their hands provide for themselves the necessaries of the present life, learned the shoemaker's art ^f, which is customarily exercised in quiet; in which work divine grace so made them surpass all the craftsmen of this art, that many, namely, both wondered at and loved ^g their works, since they, while they worked more elegantly than almost all craftsmen, exacted from no one by compulsion a wage for work completed; moved by which admiration, namely, they were soon so bound fast * by love of them that some of them came to the holy Martyrs more frequently, not so much from need of their craft as from love of the word of God; and thus, heavenly grace working through them, many, abandoning the error of paganism and renouncing idols made by hands, began to follow, loving with their whole heart, the true God, whom they had come to know through the preaching of the Saints.

[2] They are brought before Maximian But the impious Maximian, hearing these things, hastily dispatched Rictiovarus ^h, the administrator of his impiety, to search them out; and being sought by him, they were found in the aforesaid city mending the shoes of the poor. Being summoned

and addressed by their own names, he said: Crispin and Crispinian, of what god do you profess yourselves worshippers, and of what religion venerators? Do you worship Jupiter or Diana, Apollo or Mercury or Saturn? But Saints Crispin and Crispinian, who had the foundation of faith placed immovably upon the most solid rock, most constantly professing themselves worshippers of the one true God, said: Jupiter and Apollo, Mercury or Saturn, or any of those whom you pagans, deceived by error, believe to be gods, we neither worship nor adore. Hearing these things, Rictiovarus ordered them to be bound in chains and presented to Maximian, the impious commander. He (Rictiovarus), on arriving, being asked why he had not brought to be presented to him Crispin and Crispinian, despisers of the imperial precepts, replied that both were at hand . When they had been led in, Maximian said to them: Of what race are you, or to which of the gods do you pay service? But the holy Martyrs, supported by the protection of the supreme King, boldly answered the impious king: Born at Rome of noble stock, we confess that we have come into the Gauls for the name and love of Christ; who is the true God, Creator of all, reigning with the Father and the Holy Spirit in Trinity; whom we have served devoutly in faith and love; in whose holy service we also desire to persevere to the end. At these words Maximian, filled with anger, said: By the powers of the gods! If you persevere in this folly, I shall destroy you wretchedly, afflicted with many torments, that you may be an example to the rest, consumed by an evil death. For if *, coming to your senses, you sacrifice to my gods, I order that you be enriched with much wealth and be distinguished with lofty honor. The holy Martyrs also, replying, said to Maximian: You cannot terrify us with your threats, for whom to live is Christ and to die is gain. But your money and the honors which you promise, give to your own: for we confess that we once, rejoicing, left these behind for love of Christ; whom if you yourself, knowing him, would leave these things, you would renounce not only riches and empire, but also the vain worship of demons; and you would submit yourself most devoutly to him from whom, as your rewarder, you would receive the prize of everlasting life: for if you persist in these vain things, you will be plunged into hell, like the idols, to be tormented with the devil. Maximian said: Let it suffice that thus far many have perished by your evil deeds. The renowned holy Martyrs said: You do not know, impious man, the merciful God, who has permitted you, impious, to reign undeservedly, whose kingdom on earth, contending vainly, you strive to destroy.

[3] and they are tortured by Rictiovarus, Hearing these things, Maximian with indignation handed them over to Rictiovarus, under the hard bond of an oath, to be dreadfully tortured, saying: By the power of Diana, who has subjected the world to her sway, I adjure you to afflict these gallows-birds with various punishments and consume them by the worst of deaths. Then the impious minister ⁱ of the impious prince, obeying the commands of impiety, ordered the illustrious Martyrs to be stretched on the pulley ^k and beaten with clubs. But they, set in torments, contemplating heavenly gifts, prayed: Look upon your servants, O Lord, and upon your works, and help us, that we may complete your work without stain. But Rictiovarus, hearing praying in their torments those whom he believed to be wailing for pain, took it vehemently ill, and ordered stakes to be driven under their nails and strips one by one to be taken from their backs ^l. While the attendants were striving effectively to carry out this order, the holy Martyrs, amid the sharpest pains of the punishments, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, prayed to the Lord and said: Judge, O Lord, our judgment, and deliver us from the impious and deceitful man. But as the Saints prayed the stakes leapt out from their nails, and striking the attendants, killed some and tormented others with wounds. Then Rictiovarus, insane with fury, ordered millstones to be hung on the neck of each, and that in the time of winter ^m they be plunged into the river which is named Axona [n], as if under the ice. But they, protected by the shield of divine power, said joyfully to the Lord: You will lead us out, O Lord, upon the water of refreshment. But the creature serving God its creator, water could not drown his Martyrs, stone could not press them down, cold could not bind them; but rather, as though refreshed and delighted by some summer baths, having cast off the burden of the millstones, they came swimming to the other bank of the river. On seeing this miracle, Rictiovarus, at the devil's instigation and with anger heaped up, ordered them to be bound and kept under guard ^o until lead should be melted, into which he might plunge the holy martyrs of God to be consumed. But since the right hand of the Lord protected them, the fire rendered them unharmed. The holy Martyrs also, imitating the chosen boys amid the Chaldean flames, singing a hymn, prayed and said: Help us, O God our savior, and for the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us, and be merciful to our sins for your name's sake, lest perhaps the nations say: Where is their God? As they prayed these things, a drop of the boiling lead, leaping out into the eye of Rictiovarus, tormenting him with severe pain, exercised * him in his affliction [p].

[4] [who, driven to fury by the constancy of the Martyrs, throws himself into the flames.] But he, raging with insanity, when he ought to have implored a remedy for body and soul, in his insanity brought death upon himself. For he ordered pitch, fat and oil to be boiled together, and the holy Martyrs of God once more to be cast down into them, as if he commanded them to be consumed by the punishment. But when the attendants, obeying, had carried out all that had been commanded them by the impious Rictiovarus, the holy Martyrs, leaning immovably on their hope, eager and trusting, said to God in prayer: You are able, O Lord our God, to deliver us from the torments inflicted by the impious man; and as you have willed that we should suffer for the confession of your holy name, so, to the confusion of the devil and of his henchman, deign to call us back unharmed from this punishment. Soon, the prayer being finished, the angel led them out without pain from the fire. Then Rictiovarus, seeing that he had prevailed nothing by the punishments inflicted against the Soldiers of Christ, the wicked man, hastily in his rage threw himself into the fire [q], and thus by the worst of deaths ended his unworthy life. O how just and wondrous the judgment of the divine equity, that he who had killed by fire, after torture, many martyrs of Christ hastening to the kingdom of heaven, should himself, consumed by fire, be cast down into the perpetual tortures of eternal fire [r].

[5] By order of Maximian they are slain by the sword Seeing this, the holy victorious Martyrs of Christ devoutly poured out prayer to God, that, snatched from the struggle of their contest, he would graciously order them to come to him. To them on the same night it was shown by revelation that when day dawned they would, as renowned triumphers, be received by the Lord, about to obtain the reward of their labor * and confession. This vision was at once fulfilled by the showing-forth of the event. For Maximian, hearing of the destruction of his henchman Rictiovarus, ordered both, namely Crispin and Crispinian, to be punished by the sword. They, with the sword now hanging over their necks, gave thanks to the Lord, saying: We give you thanks, O Lord, who, snatching us from this world, most mercifully command us to come to you. And these words said, their heads being cut off, by a death precious in the sight of the Lord, breathed upon and strengthened by the protection of Christ, on the eighth before the Kalends of November they happily consummated their martyrdom [r]. Their souls were carried by angels into heaven, but their bodies were left by the executioners to be devoured by beasts and dogs and wicked birds; and these, under the guard of Christ, remained untouched by their bites.

[6] their bodies are committed to burial And so, on the night suddenly after the slaughter of the holy Martyrs, a command is said to have been given by a holy angel to a certain poor old man [s], who had an aged sister sharing his little cell, that he should with diligent care collect their bodies for burial. The old man, delayed by no doubt, but rather secure about the angelic revelation, taking the said sister to himself as a solace in the holy labor, they hastened to the places where the holy Martyrs lay beheaded. And since it was near the bank of the river Axiona (sic) that they had received capital sentence for the name of Christ, the bodies of the same Martyrs could most easily be conducted by boat to the little cell of the aforesaid poor people [t]. But what should the poor and infirm do, who neither had a boat at hand, nor skill in sailing, nor any confidence, wearied as their strength was with age, against the river ? Why do I delay, saying more? Arriving at length by night at the place shown to them by the holy angel, having found on the ground the corpses of the beheaded, untouched by beasts and birds, at the prompting of divine clemency they also found an empty little boat. Then, raised up in confidence from the infirmity of their trepidation, each lifting one of the bodies of the Martyrs, as if free of burdens, they walked with so unstumbling a step that you would think they were not bearing burdens, but were borne by the burdens. Entering therefore the little boat they had found, the eager old people proceeded swiftly against the wave of the river, with an unseen pilot and oarsman, with the bodies of the Martyrs. And when they arrived, exulting from this miracle, at the bank near their little cell, namely of the said aged man, they buried with joy in their hut the limbs of the holy Martyrs that they had carried there. Who would doubt that Christ gave such power to the old people in the glorifying of his Martyrs, he who was the cause of death for them in the world? Who willed that those to be kept for the patronage of future faithful peoples should for a little while be hidden by the ministry of old people? But as, at his command, the storm of persecution ceased, their honor soon lay open to devout peoples. For thus the aforesaid old people most devoutly disclosed to the peoples of pious faith the treasures they had hidden, saying that they had the bodies of the martyrs Crispin and Crispinian hidden in their hut *

[7] and then they are translated to a more fitting place. Hearing these things, the faithful people began to frequent the little cell of the poor with a concourse of pious devotion. By which frequentation the mean hut of the needy, made an oratory, began to surpass in honor even the palace of the king. Then, counsel being taken, priests, clergy and people, devout with one accord of vow, decreed to translate the bodies of the aforesaid Martyrs for entombment *. These, a gathering of immense people being collected, honorably placed on boats, they conducted (rowed), chanting psalms with the greatest exultation, to the tombs long since prepared. And in order that the faith of the devout people might be strengthened and the joy of those rejoicing increased, as the boat which carried the holy bodies touched the land at the stroke of the rowers, a boy was offered by his parents afflicted with various infirmities, namely blind, deaf, mute and lame. When therefore those who were carrying the holy bones lifted the bier, the sick boy, faithfully touching the cover of the bier, at once, by the gift of Christ, recovered sight, hearing, speech and walking through the prayers of the Martyrs; and joined to the company of the faithful he praised God, walking sound. And thus the devout people, dancing with joy, carried the limbs of the Saints to where they had decreed they should be entombed, and they buried them there in two tombs, as afterwards, the truth being inquired into, became plain [u]. In this place Christians afterwards built a great church; in which Christ the Lord, the Son of God, faithfully invoked by the prayers of his Martyrs, receives the vows of suppliants, bestows health on the sick; to whom is honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

The city of Soissons, surely most celebrated and very ancient, whose beginnings are wrapped in dense darkness, and hence ample material for fable-tellers. A certain Regnault, a man otherwise grave, would have it founded about the three-hundredth year from the flood, thus almost two thousand years before the birth of Christ Antiquités de la ville de Soissons, vol. I, page 5 and following.; others descend to the times of Priam; which opinion Dormay follows and defends Histoire de Soissons, vol. I, p. 19 and following., and thus supposes that the foundations of the city were laid in the 11th or 12th century before our era. Others again would have it founded by the Suevi almost six hundred years before Christ Antiquités, vol. I, p. 11 and following., who, captivated by the pleasantness of the place, settled there, and called the town they had begun Suessio, as if Suavis sessio, perhaps Sueva (Suevorum) sessio. Hence William the Breton Gallia christ., vol. IX, col. 333.:

An ancient city sits in the lap of rich earth, Populous with warlike men, and fruitful in vines and fields… Which, since on the witness of fame it was founded by the exiled Suevi, has by merit been allotted the name of Suessio: Which with gently flowing, fish-filled waters the Auxona Enriches and adorns.

But from trash of that sort let us come to serious things. There is no doubt that the city of Soissons is to be numbered among the most ancient of the Gauls Antiquités, vol. I, p. 13.. It was called Augusta Suessionum from Augustus; what name it had before, and in the times of Julius, is not plainly certain. Yet the opinion of those is not improbable who are persuaded that Noviodunum was the old name of Augusta Suessionum Cellarius, Geographia antiqua, vol. I, p. 316. Leipzig, 1773.. So also in our days Walckenaer in his excellent work on the ancient Geography of the Gauls [Géographie ancienne, historique et comparée des Gaules cisalpine et transalpine, vol. I, p. 485. Paris, 1839.]. Whom Caesar manifestly seems to favor. Commentaries, book II, ch. XII: On the next day, he says, Caesar led the army into the borders of the Suessiones, who were next to the Remi, and having completed a long march he pressed on to the town of Noviodunum. He tried to storm it from the march, because he heard it was empty of defenders, but on account of the width of the ditch and the height of the wall, though few defended it, he could not take it. Meanwhile the whole multitude of the Suessiones gathered from flight into the town the next night. The mantlets being swiftly brought up to the town, a mound thrown up, and towers set in place, moved by the size of the works, such as the Gauls had neither seen nor heard of before, and by the speed of the Romans, they send envoys to Caesar concerning surrender, and, the Remi asking that they be preserved, they obtain it. From these things, as Cellarius rightly remarks, and with him Walckenaer, in the places cited, it is declared that there was among the Suessiones a town strongly fortified, as the first cities and capitals of peoples were wont to be; finally preserved through the prayers of the Remi, whom Caesar elsewhere, book II, ch. III, calls their brothers and kinsmen; so that it cannot readily be doubted that this is the town which Augustus afterwards willed to be called by his name. For no other town is held in that tract to which either the situation, or the size and fortifications described by Caesar correspond, except Augusta Suessionum, of which express mention is found in the ancient Itineraries, commonly called Soissons, which new name is from Suessiones, by a designation common to the people and the town, as custom had it. Conrad Mannert thinks the same: Caesar's Noviodunum, he says Geographie der Griechen und Römer, vol. II, p. 181. Nürnberg, 1789., "a town quite well fortified," is surely the same as Augusta Suessionum. Yet Marliani, Brower and many others contend that Caesar's Noviodunum was indeed bordering on the Suessiones, but not among the Suessiones themselves: and they interpret it as Noviomum (Noyon). But, as Cellarius again has it, that Noviomum the ancients called not Noviodunum, but Noviomagus, situated between Durocortorum (Reims) and the Ambiani… Nor does Noviomum, if you look closely, agree with Caesar's march, since he, advancing from the Remi into the borders of the Suessiones, came by a long march to Noviodunum: but Noviomum or Noyon is reckoned not among the Suessiones but among the Veromandui. Compare Walckenaer, in the place cited, Dormay Hist. de Soissons, vol. I, p. 25 and following., Le Moine Antiquités, vol. I, p. 31., the Gallia Christiana Vol. IX, col. 333., where these things are then added: It was at one time a royal seat, in which there was a palace and an amphitheater; for there were kings of the Suessiones, Gauls indeed, Divitiacus and Galba; Romans, Aegidius and Syagrius; and Frankish princes of the Merovingian stock had their royal seat and palace there, for instance Clovis, before he chose Paris as his royal seat, Clotaire the elder and Chilperic his son. Pepin afterwards and Carloman his son received there the insignia of kingship, as also Rudolf was established king in place of Charles. To the kings there succeeded counts about 740 years ago, and thus Augusta Suessionum was the capital of an old county, which at length in the 15th century, at least in part, passed to our kings. Today the city is distinguished by a bailiwick, a generality of finances, a royal provostship and an election, and also by an Academy of Sciences erected in the year 1674. In our age the city has fallen from its former glory, as may be inferred even from the number of inhabitants alone, which, on the witness of Guibert Dictionnaire géographique, under the word Soissons., in the year 1846 reached only about eleven thousand. Its episcopal see, whose beginnings are referred to the end of the 3rd century Gall. ch., vol. IX, col. 334., survived after the concordat of the year 1801.

In French the Aisne, of which a certain poet of Soissons [Dormay, vol. I, p. 32. Compare J. E. G. Roulez, Mémoire sur les magistrats romains de la Belgique, p. 34. Nouveaux mémoires de l'Académie royale de Bruxelles, vol. XVII.]:

A city built to the sky, deep in a green valley, Sees grain and wine on every side; Through it the clear Axona glides in a hollow channel, Rich in various fish, and able to bear ships; Not far from Reims it gushes from a mountain spring, And enters into the Oise and the Sequanian strait.

p. Codex of Grimbergen: he blinded him in his affliction.

q. Compare the Preliminary Commentary, § I, n. 16. One reads in the Acts of SS. Fuscian and Victoric Acta SS. Belgii, vol. I, p. 169. that Rictiovarus (after the heads of the holy martyrs had been cut off by his order), the most wicked persecutor, as if applauding some victory, entered the city of the Ambiani with savage heart; and soon, struck by divine vengeance and filled with an insane spirit, he began to cry out through the whole city and say: Woe is me! What shall I do, or what shall I do, for through the saints of God Fuscian and Victoric, on whom I have inflicted dreadful punishments, I am tormented with an intolerable pain! On this passage Ghesquière notes from Malbrancq Ibid., p. 172.: That Rictius Varus was indeed tortured for some time with the highest pains at that time, but preserved into the following year for a greater butchery. Further, Ghesquière refers the passion of SS. Fuscian and Victoric to about the year 287. See the Preliminary Commentary, § I, on the age of our holy Martyrs.

r. There are said to have suffered with our holy Martyrs five others converted by them to the faith: Claudian, Papirius, Mercurius, Carisius and Rogatian; they add that their bodies were translated by SS. Sixtus and Sinicius together with the holy remains of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, and deposited in the same crypt, where the abbey of St. Crispin the Greater was afterwards built. The relics of the martyrs, companions of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, seem to have remained in their coffins under the altars, or perhaps partly in the crypt, up to the year 1000, in which the basilica began to be rebuilt after the first ruin, and to have been then lifted and meanwhile fittingly deposited, and afterwards exposed in reliquaries for public veneration. Yet this should not be passed over, namely that in the 17th century no proper casket was found containing the relics of the companions of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, which indeed would be a sign that they had never been elevated, as is held for certain of the bones of St. Edibius, bishop of Soissons, and of St. Godfrey, bishop of Amiens, who died in the 12th century in the monastery of St. Crispin the Greater. So the Rev. Lord Pécheur wrote back to us from the manuscript book entitled: Recueil de choses mémorables sur St-Crépin-le-Grand. In another place are named SS. Quadratus, Claudian, Rogatus, Carisius and Mercurius (except for Quadratus they are the same as above), together with Rogerius, of whom there has been repeated discussion in the Preliminary Commentary. All these, converted with many others by SS. Crispin and Crispinian, and encouraged by their fortitude in enduring martyrdom, are said to have shed their blood also for Christ. Let it suffice to have indicated these things in passing, as they rest on testimonies not sufficiently suitable.

s. The old man's name in Dormay Vol. I, p. 105. is Rogerius, his sister's Pavia. Both surely from common report or tradition, but not a little ancient.

t. On the burial I have spoken in the Preliminary Commentary, n. 2 and 21.

u. See the Preliminary Commentary, § II, where this, as well as the other translations, has been treated.

* malitia malice

* Quintinus

* Lucianus

* prædicaturi about to preach

* paresque and equals

* potest can be

* ut cum so that when

* licet coacti although forced

* devicti overcome

* præsentari to be presented

* an whether

* utrumque both

* pessima the worst

* Si vero but if

* furens raging

* corrigias singulas strips one by one

* molas millstones

* ferventis boiling

* reliquit left

* laborum of labors

* solatium solace

* locum the place

* fluminis impetum the force of the river

* repertis, repererunt having been found, they found

* cadaveribus. corpses.

* de from

* jam [now]

* sæpe often

* recondita laid up

* una eademque conspiratione devote inmulanda with one and the same accord, devoutly to be entombed