ON ST. HILARUS OR ILERUS, BISHOP OF JAVOLS, IN THE DIOCESE OF MENDE IN GAUL,
ABOUT THE YEAR DXL
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Hilarus, bishop of the Gabali, in the diocese of Mende in Gaul. (S.)
BHL Number: 3912
BY V. D. B.
§ I. The body of St. Hilarus carried in the year 636 to the monastery of St. Denis in France and brought back there, after it had rested for some years in the new monastery of Salonnes. Relics given to the people of Mende.
Since the affairs of St. Hilarus, bishop of the Gabali, are involved and obscured in many windings, [When in the year 631 Dagobert I had occupied the provinces of his brother Charibert, Barontus was sent to carry the treasures away from there;] it seems that one should for a while depart from the customary order and make a beginning from the translation of his body; from which his name doubtless became illustrious through all the Gauls. It is manifest from most certain documents, which we shall forthwith bring into the open, that the remains of the blessed bishop were already in the 8th century in the possession of the monks of St. Denis in France. They are recorded to have come into their hands about the year of Christ 636. For when in the year 628, Clotaire II having died, Dagobert had taken the entire monarchy of the Franks under his authority, he shortly broke the strength of his brother Charibert II, who was reaching for the paternal inheritance; but in the year 630, when no one any longer resisted him, Dagobert held it useful to grant his brother in benefice Novempopulania or Gascony, and in Aquitaine the districts of Toulouse, Cahors, Agen, Périgueux, Saintes, Poitiers, Angoulême, Arles, and that part of Provence which depended on the kingdom of Neustria; reserving to himself in Aquitaine the districts of Bourges, Limoges, Auvergne, Albi, Rodez, Velay, Gévaudan and Uzès D. Vaissette, Histoire du Languedoc, vol. I, page 682 and following.. In the IXth year of Dagobert, of Christ 631, I use the words of Fredegar D. Bouquet, Recueil des Hist. de France, vol. II, page 439., "King Charibert dies, leaving a very small son, by name Chilperic, who likewise died not long after; he is reported to have been killed by the faction of Dagobert. All the kingdom of Charibert, together with Gascony, Dagobert at once brought under his authority: he also directed Duke Barontus to bring the treasures of Charibert to him and present them to him. Whence Barontus is known to have made a grave loss, acting together with the treasurers, and fraudulently withdrew too much from them."
[2] [And on that occasion the body of St. Saturninus was translated from Toulouse into the monastery of St. Denis; which was afterwards returned in exchange for others, among which was the body of St. Hilarus of the Gabali:] Now since Dagobert joined the greatest devotion toward the church of St. Denis with unspeakable crimes, and loved that monastery not only by great estates, but also by the
relics of the saints to enrich it, he ordered the body of St. Saturninus, bishop of Toulouse, to be conveyed there by Barontus, as Doublet read in the old Chronicles and Legendaries of St. Denis Histoire de l'abbaye de S. Denis, bk. I, ch. 42, page 305.. And he, where he relates those things, recites in Latin the following fragment from an old codex Ibid., page 306.: "The body of St. Saturninus was carried to the church of blessed Denis the Areopagite; in its absence the province of Toulouse, by the hidden yet just judgment of God, was struck by so grave a plague that neither their women nor their animals could give birth. Whence the people of Toulouse, compelled by necessity, humbly approached the monastery of Blessed Denis, suppliantly beseeching that, to mitigate the misfortune of so great a plague, they should not delay to restore to them the body of their first pontiff, a most just recompense being then rendered for it. The abbot and community, moved by mercy, most kindly gave assent to their petitions. And they, having received the body of their most holy pontiff, returned home with joy. When it had been restored in its see, by the mercy of God, that plague was healed, and their women and animals began to give birth. But the people of Toulouse, not unmindful of their promise and detesting the vice of ingratitude, are said to have transferred, by way of recompense, to the aforesaid monastery the body of Blessed Patroclus, martyr and bishop, of St. Romanus of Blaye, presbyter and monk, and also the body of the most holy Hilarus, bishop of the city of the Gabali and confessor." To which, in the copy that gave light to Catel Histoire des Comtes de Tholose, page 174., these words are added: "This most holy translation was made in the XIVth year of the reign of Dagobert," that is of Christ 636.
[3] [In vain has Le Cointe attempted this translation, established by monuments of St. Denis, of Toulouse and of Mende,] In very truth this writing is not contemporary, seeing that it is later than the year 835, in which Hilduin, abbot of St. Denis, began to write his Areopagitica Gallia Christiana, vol. VII, col. 354.. It has no force, therefore, for persuading us of the miracle of the impeded childbirth; but it most certainly has its weight for indicating how those three bodies of saints came to the church of St. Denis. Le Cointe indeed cries out Annales ecclesiastici Francorum, at the year 638, num. 13.: "King Dagobert both enriched the church of St. Denis with great estates and made it most illustrious with the remains of the saints; but he took nothing wickedly from the other basilicas of the Gauls." But truly I do not understand why Le Cointe pursues Dagobert with such clemency; whose piety, if it was great, certainly was neither wise nor a bridle on his monstrous vices. Then these things agree with what Fredegar reports in general of the orders of Dagobert and the deeds of Barontus in the domain of Charibert. Moreover that history is found not only in the monuments of St. Denis, but also in those of Toulouse and even in those of Mende. Those of Toulouse Catel will give Compare Catel, Histoire des comtes de Tholose, page 171; those of Mende have been sent to us by the venerable man Baldit, head of the archive of the province of Lozère, and much to be commended by us for his singular diligence. Receive this old writing: "Of the holy confessor bishop Hilarius, for the praise of him and of blessed Saturninus, bishop and martyr. That the most holy Saturninus was sent into Aquitaine to preach the word of God by blessed Denis, apostle of the Gauls, the history of his life and passion testifies. Who at Toulouse, which is known to be the head of Aquitaine, also consummated a glorious martyrdom. Whose body long afterwards is said to have been translated to the church of blessed Denis in France. In whose absence the province of Toulouse, by the hidden indeed but just judgment of God, was struck by so grave a plague that neither their women nor their animals could give birth. Whence the people of Toulouse, compelled by necessity, humbly approached the monastery of blessed Denis, suppliantly beseeching that, to mitigate the misfortune of so great a plague, they should not delay to restore to them the body of their first pontiff: a most just recompense however being rendered for it. The abbot and community, moved together, most kindly gave assent to their petitions. And they, having received the body of their most holy pontiff, returned home with joy. When it had been restored in its see, by the mercy of God, that plague was healed, and their women and animals began to give birth. But the people of Toulouse, not unmindful of their promise and detesting the vice of ingratitude, are said to have transferred, by way of recompense, to the aforesaid monastery the body of blessed Patroclus, martyr and bishop, and the body of St. Romanus of Rama, presbyter and monk, and also the body of the most holy Hilarius, bishop of the city of the Gabali and confessor. All of which is believed to have been done when, Sadrosilus having died, whom King Clotaire had set over the duchy of all Aquitaine, King Dagobert retained the entire duchy in his own authority. Dagobert himself is said to have held the body of blessed Hilarius in such great veneration that, as often as the necessity of waging war threatened, he commanded it to be carried with him on expedition with honour, hoping by his suffrage to obtain victory over his enemies. So many and such great relics of the saints, moreover, not only from those parts but also from others, Dagobert is said to have transferred into his beloved church, that he was called by the men of his time the robber or plunderer of holy relics and of the bodies of the saints. For he did not reckon that he was doing wrong if he stole from other churches what he might place in this one with due honour." Add that in that age such deeds were not held in the place of thefts, but rather as services rendered to the saints, who were judged to prefer to rest in proud churches rather than in common ones.
[4] [To call into doubt, alleging the Life of St. Hilarius, written in the 14th century by Guy de Châtres.] Le Cointe also objects that Guy, abbot of St. Denis, records nothing of this translation. Namely Guy de Châtres, who ruled the royal monastery from the year 1326 to 1350, transmitted to those who were to follow, as Bucelin relates in the Benedictine Annals under the year 1302, rather great volumes on the deeds of the saints, whose Lives he wrote out as diligently as possible; which volumes were once kept in the library of St. Victor at Paris, and were called the Sanctilogium of Abbot Guy Gallia Christ., vol. VII, col. 399.. But in truth Guy never thought of recounting how the relics of St. Hilarus came to St. Denis; but only of saying very briefly that they had been carried away there. Here is the passage set forth by Le Cointe, which is also read in the codex of Mende, whose copy has been sent to us by the venerable man Baldit, to be often commended: "On the 8th before the Kalends of November he (St. Hilarus) left human things and passed to the eternal. Distinguished by his sacred body, the city of the Gabali for many courses of years rejoiced in his presence and was consoled by the frequency of his miracles. But after much time had rolled by, the sacred limbs of the same blessed pontiff were translated to the basilica of the most blessed Denis the Areopagite, on that very day, namely, on which the 11th before the Kalends of September (the 22nd day of August) the octave of the Assumption of the blessed and glorious ever-virgin Mary is celebrated. Finally they were placed in one of the apses of the aforesaid basilica, where the merits of blessed Hilarius are venerated by the faithful and his suffrages are sought, and his benefits are proved, with the help of the holy of holies, our Lord Jesus Christ." Guy omitted much in these words which is most manifest from elsewhere; so that, since it cannot be asserted that Guy could, ought and wished to explain all the fortunes of the body of St. Hilarus, the negative argument which Le Cointe uses is plainly unarmed. Le Cointe has however drawn to his opinion the writers of the History of Languedoc Hist. du Languedoc, vol. I, page 336.; but others have not so easily departed from the ancient traditions of St. Denis and Toulouse; at which point I shall name only de Rozoi Annales de la ville de Toulouse, vol. I, page 74 and 75. and Cayla with Perrin-Paviot Hist. de la ville de Toulouse, page 112 and 113..
[5] [In the year 777 Bl. Fulrad, abbot of St. Denis, translated the bodies of St. Hilarus and St. Privatus] Now when in the year 775 Charlemagne had given "to the house of St. Denis and St. Privatus, where those precious ones rest in body, Eadallogo and Salona, in the district of Salminseres, of his property in Wastingas, which Adalbaldus had handed over to his father" [Autograph diploma in Félibien, Hist. de l'abbaye de Saint Denys, proofs, num. LIV, page XXXVII.], forthwith Bl. Fulrad, abbot of St. Denis, built a cell or priory with a church there and translated to it in the year 777 the body of St. Privatus, which, as Charlemagne has just taught, was two years before still lying in the monastery of St. Denis, and also the body of St. Hilarus; surely with this plan, that he might win veneration for the new church and stir the people toward it. Hear Bl. Fulrad himself in the testament which he made in the year 777 Autograph, ibid., num. LVI, page XXXVIII.: "To the churches and to the places of the holy martyrs Denis, Rusticus and Eleutherius, where those lords rest in body …, I wish to be given and granted in perpetuity …, Salona, where I have built a church in honour of St. Mary, where rest St. Privatus, martyr, and St. Hilarus, confessor, whatever was given there from the contribution of the people and what the people themselves handed over to me; all and out of all, as I have confirmed by my testament, that cell ought to look to the party of St. Denis, both those exchanges which I made with bishop Angilram, and also the other exchanges." Since then it is established clearer than the sun from the diplomas of Charlemagne and of Fulrad that the body of St. Privatus was translated from the church of St. Denis into that of Salonnes, it is strange that Félibien, historian of the monastery of St. Denis, did not see that on that occasion the body of St. Hilarus was carried there; and moreover that he gathered from this that the remains of St. Hilarus did not arrive in the monastery of St. Denis before the Normans had ceased the devastation of the Gauls Ibid., page 19 and 20.; as if, after the priory of Salonnes had passed into the possession of others, or on some other occasion too, the most blessed bones of St. Hilarus could not have been brought back to the monastery of St. Denis.
[6] [Into the new monastery of Salonnes, where however it does not seem to have stayed long.] That these things may become clearer, receive in brief the history of the little monastery of Salonnes. It lay at the confluence of the Salia and the Bralia a league below Vic DD. François and Tabouillot, Hist. de Metz, vol. I, page 534., formerly in the diocese of Metz, now in that of Nancy or the province of the Meurthe . Its origin we have already seen, and we have heard something of the exchange or rather settlement made with Angilram, bishop of Metz. More on that matter Charlemagne related in a diploma given in the month of December of the year of Christ 777, the tenth of his reign. "Fulrad," he says Mabillon, De Re diplomatica, page 499 and 500., "chaplain of our palace and abbot of St. Denis, reported to us the privilege on the part of St. Denis, which the synodal council in the ninth year (of Christ 776) at Patris-Brunna , from what was promised to bishop Angilram
and Wilhar, archbishop (of Sens), they established concerning the matters of his property, in the place which is called Salona, which is built in honour of the holy Mother of God and of the blessed martyrs and confessors and virgins: where St. Privatus the martyr and St. Hilarius the confessor are seen to rest: and we have found inserted in my privilege that neither bishop Angilram, nor his successors, nor the archdeacon, nor any envoy of his church of Metz ought to have pontifical authority there in that monastery, unless the abbot of St. Denis should request the making of ordinations, the giving of chrism and the blessing of altar-tables." Since Angilram did not deny that these things had been so ordered by synodal constitution, King Charles confirmed the same, and ordered that it should remain under the royal protection and defence of St. Denis for all time, "that that congregation of St. Denis, and of St. Privatus, and of St. Hilarius might be the better pleased to beseech the mercy of the Lord more attentively on behalf of himself and his wife."
[7] [When in the year 815 the monastery of Salonnes, destined to experience varied fortunes thereafter, was given to the monks of St. Michael, the holy body seems no longer to have rested there,] Afterwards no further mention is made there of St. Hilarus; and the priory of Salonnes was called the cell of St. Privatus; under which name it comes in the diploma by which Louis the Pious in the year 822 confirmed a certain exchange of goods which the venerable man Hilduin, abbot of the monastery of St. Denis, martyr of Christ, and chief chaplain of his sacred palace, or of the cell of St. Privatus, had made with a certain man, by name Hildulf Félibien, Hist. de l'abb. de saint Denis, proofs, num. LXIX, page XLVII.. Nevertheless at that time the cell of Salonnes was no longer in the possession of the monks of St. Denis; for there still survives a diploma, by which the same Louis the Pious in the year 815 had given to the monastery of St. Michael on the Meuse the cell of Sallone … which cell of Salonnes indeed his father Charlemagne had founded, that is by giving the land, in honour of SS. Denis and Privatus [In the Chronicle of St. Michael, in Mabillon, Analecta, edit. de la Barre, page 356.]. This injury was repaired in the year 896 by Zwentibold, king of Lotharingia, who, heeding the complaint of the monks of St. Denis, on the intervention of his faithful men Odoacer and Reginhar, gave back to them a certain little abbey, situated in the district of the Seille, Salona by name D. Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, vol. II, proofs, col. CLXII.. But the priory of Salonnes afterwards returned under the authority of the monastery of St. Michael, on condition that five marks of silver should be paid yearly to St. Denis Félibien, Hist. de S. Denis, page 101.. At the opening of the 12th century immense goods depended on this priory; which see listed in the bull by which Bl. Pope Paschal II confirmed to the monastery of St. Michael its possessions In D. Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, vol. III, proofs, col. LVIII.; although those of St. Denis had often protested, and were afterwards to protest, that an injury had been done them Suger, De Administratione sua, ch. 21, in Félibien, proofs, page CLXXX.. But in the year 1602 Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, abbot of St. Michael and apostolic legate through Lorraine, united it to the primatial mensa of Nancy, after namely the last prior, Peter of St. Vincent, doctor of theology, had met his day in the year 1598 François and Tabouillot, Hist. de Metz, vol. I, page 535.. And from these things we think it has been made plainly manifest that the body of St. Hilarus was after the year 777, and very probably in the year 815, when the cell of Salonnes was first given to the monks of St. Michael, brought back to the church of St. Denis; so that, even if it were not established that it was afterwards in France, it could be concluded from the recited diplomas alone that after this year it was no longer in Lotharingia.
[8] [Having been brought back to the basilica of St. Denis; where in the year 1340 it was laid up in an oratory dedicated to his name.] Since we have already discoursed at length on the fortunes of the body of St. Hilarus, it is pleasing to pursue that argument down to the end. Above at num. 3 we learned from Abbot Guy that at the opening of the 14th century the limbs of St. Hilarus were placed in one of the apses of the aforesaid basilica of St. Denis. Namely the high altar or chancel of that church has been built over the crypt and is surrounded by an ambulatory, from which there was an entrance to ten chapels or apses, now only to seven, fifteen feet wide and sixteen long. This structure had been built by Suger in the year 1140 and finished within four years: wherefore he set up this title or, as he himself says Suger, De Administratione sua, in Félibien, proofs, page CLXXXII., epitaph:
The year of the Word was the thousandth and the hundredth and the fortieth
And fourth, when it was consecrated.
The dedication was then performed with the greatest celebration on the 11th day of June by several bishops, each of whom consecrated a separate altar; so that the altar of St. Hilarus fell to Rotrod or Rotroc, bishop of Évreux Ibid. Dedication of the church of St. Denis, page CXCIV.; who a little later set out for England with Himerius, bishop of Tusculum and legate of Lucius II. The sacred relics of Bl. Hilarus were lying there when Aldebert III, who occupied the see of Mende from the year 1151 to 1181, visited the monastery of St. Denis, as he himself is witness in a work which the venerable man Charbonnel has recently uncovered. But not in this place either did the bones of the blessed man obtain rest. For the structure of Suger had to be renewed a century later. Hence in the Lesser Chronicle of St. Denis Ibid., proofs, page CCV. one reads: "MCCXXXI. In this year Abbot Odo began to renew the capitulum (le chevet) of the church of Blessed Denis the Areopagite and completed it as far as the end of the choir." The chapel of St. Hilarus was finished in the year 1239 or the following one, and the following title was set up in memory of the consecration Ibid., page 535.: "This altar was consecrated by the venerable father Hemericus, bishop of Tiberias, in honour of the blessed and glorious Mother of God Mary and of blessed Hilarus, bishop of the city of the Gabali and confessor, whose body rests in this oratory, and of Blessed Mark the evangelist and of the holy martyrs Demetrius and Leodegar, Apollinaris, Gervasius and Protasius, Gorgonius, and of the holy confessors Nicholas, Julian, Maglorius, Mamertus and Majolus, Benedict, Maurus, Bernard, Maximinus, and of the holy virgins Scholastica, Juliana, Prisca and of all the Saints of God. In the year of the Lord M.CC.XL, the 7th before the Kalends of January." So in each of the other chapels one or more sacred bodies were laid up and the altars were dedicated to the names of the saints whose remains were laid away there. There fell to St. Hilarus the second chapel on the right (it is now called St. Gregory's); where his body, enclosed in a painted and gilded wooden chest, was kept above the altar [Doublet, Histoire de l'abbaye de S. Denis en France, page 306; Millet, le trésor sacré… de l'abbaye royale de S. Denis en France, page 59.], until in the night between the 11th and 12th days of November of the year 1793 it was carried off with other relics of the saints, and on the next day conveyed to the palace of the convention; where innumerable monuments of piety collected through so many centuries perished.
But let us return to earlier things. In the year 1625, when Doublet communicated his History or antiquities of St. Denis to the public, there were read over the door of the chapel (for those chapels were closed with gratings and doors) the following verses; which, since similar ones were not affixed to most of the other chapels, seem to be an indication of the singular veneration shown to St. Hilarus:
Passant, ce petit lien comprend très-grande chose,
Le corps de sainct Hylare sainctement y repose,
Qui fut de Gruodan indis pasteur esleu.
Par le temps change tout de siecles revoln:
Ce tiltre maintenant à Mande on atribuë.
Donc viateur Chrestien, si tou ame est imbuë
De celeste liqueur, et si tou cœur non feint
Croit qu'il y a ceans quelque chose de sainct,
Prosterne-toy denot, et de louange belle
Honore ce corps sainct, dont voicy la chappelle;
Invoque sa favear humblement en ce lien.
Qui fait honeur aux Saincts, il fait honeur à Dien.
[Passer-by, this little place contains a very great thing: the body of St. Hilary rests here holily, who was once elected pastor of Gévaudan. With the turning of the ages time changes everything: this title is now given to Mende. Therefore, Christian wayfarer, if your soul is steeped in heavenly liquor, and if your unfeigned heart believes that there is something holy within, prostrate yourself devoutly, and with fair praise honour this holy body, whose chapel this is; humbly invoke his favour in this place. He who honours the Saints honours God.]
[9] [In the monastery of St. Denis the relics of St. Hilarus of the Gabali were kept altogether distinct from the relics of St. Hilary of Poitiers,] In the things we have related so far the reader has the means of passing judgment on these words of the V. V. Pasculis Gabalum Christianum, ou recherches sur l'Église de Mende, page 169.: "In some books it is read that the relics of St. Hilarus, bishop of Mende or of the Gabali, were translated to the celebrated monastery of St. Denis near Paris. We have before our eyes the index or inventory of the relics of the treasury of St. Denis, and in it we read: 'A bust of gilded silver, in which is contained the head of St. Hilary of Poitiers, father and doctor of the church … In this reliquary is a bone of the arm of the same St. Hilary, which is seen through a crystal from the front part. This reliquary was made by the monks of St. Denis after the disturbances of the League. *' In the rest of the inventory no mention is made of any relics of St. Hilarus, bishop of Mende. According to this document, therefore, it would seem certain that in the possession of the monastery of St. Denis there were never relics of any other St. Hilary than him of Poitiers." But the venerable man did not attend to the fact that the treasury of St. Denis was distinct from the chapels, and that the inventory of the treasury was one thing, that of the chapels another. D. Germain Millet Le trésor sacré de S. Denis, page 99. among the relics of the treasury lists the bust of St. Hilary of Poitiers; but in his review of the chapels Ibid., page 53 and 54. he speaks at length of the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of SS. Patroclus, bishop and martyr of Grenoble, and St. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers; which was the sixth, or behind the high altar, and is even now called the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In it, above the altar, there lay within a gilded wooden chest the bodies of SS. Patroclus and Hilary of Poitiers. But that same Millet Ibid., page 59., who relates these things, mentions the body and chapel of St. Hilarus, bishop of the Gabali, which he himself calls the ninth, the circuit being made from left to right. Similarly, in Félibien's description of the church of St. Denis Hist. de l'abb. de S. Denis, page 430, 531, 532, 535, 536, 538, etc. and in a brief little book on the precious things of St. Denis, published in the year 1783 [Le trésor de l'abbaye royale de S. Denis en France, qui comprend les corps saints et autres reliques précieuses qui se voient tant dans l'église que dans la salle du trésor, page 4, 9, etc.], there are duly distinguished the bodies of SS. Hilarus of the Gabali and St. Hilary of Poitiers, the chapels in which
they lay, and the single relics of St. Hilary of Poitiers, which were guarded in the treasury. And we have judged that these things should be remarked, because by so weak an argument the historian of the church of Mende has called into doubt whether the relics which the canons of Mende received in the year 1608 from the monks of St. Denis were truly those of St. Hilarus of the Gabali; adding that in the diploma of donation, which he found in the archive of the province of Lozère *, nothing occurs to establish that the remains were those of the bishop of the Gabali rather than of the prelate of Poitiers.
[10] [And so in the year 1608 the people of Mende received from there the true relics of St. Hilarus, their bishop.] But neither are these things correct. A summary of this diploma was given by Millet Le trésor sacré de S. Denis, page 59 and 60., the whole by Doublet Hist. de l'abbaye de S. Denis, p. 307.; and in it it is splendidly declared that relics of St. Hilarus, bishop of Mende, were sent. Receive some fragments of the instruments, turned by me from the French into Latin. When at the opening of the year 1608 Charles de Rousseau, bishop Matropolitanus in partibus infidelium and coadjutor of his uncle Adam de Hurtelou, bishop of Mende, had asked the monks of St. Denis for something of the relics of St. Hilarus, bishop of the Gabali, by a capitular act of the 23rd day of March, the answer was given him by those monks that they promised that his wishes would be satisfied and that they would give and hand over relics of the venerable body of the glorious confessor St. Hilarus, formerly bishop of Mende, resting in one of the chapels of the celebrated church of St. Denis in France; but that it was necessary that a solemn petition be made, written on parchment, in the name of the bishop and canons of Mende and sealed with their seals, to be kept in memory for posterity. These conditions were fulfilled on the 12th day of September of the same year by Charles the bishop, who, his uncle having died on the 26th day of June, had become bishop of Mende, and by his canons, who to the number of nine set their name to the petition. When this charter had been brought to St. Denis, the venerable religious, the grand prior and community of St. Denis in France, on Saturday the 11th day of the month of October after Vespers, brought down from the altar the casket in which rests the body of St. Hilarus; and from it, by the venerable men the brothers Nicholas de Hesselin, doctor of theology and grand prior, the Rev. Father in God Adam Brisset, abbot of St. Mary of Brignon, subprior, Augustine de Valles, cantor, James Disque, third prior and grand pantler, James Doublet, fourth prior, refectorer and keeper of the charters, James Colletet, fifth prior and official, there was extracted the great bone of the leg, called the lesser tibia, commonly l'esperon, and it was handed over to the venerable and learned men A. de Rousseau, canon provost of Mende, and Pilot, archdeacon and canon of the said place, to be carried, and to be kept with all reverence, to the cathedral church of Mende; which, demolished by the Huguenots, has been built anew.
It is therefore not to be doubted that the people of Mende received in the year 1608 a relic of their most blessed prelate. Formerly the people of Mende seem to have possessed other relics of St. Hilarus, which perhaps Aldebert III, or the venerable bishop, had brought with him from the monastery of St. Denis about the middle of the 12th century, and which the Calvinists scattered in the year 1562, despoiling the cathedral church of Mende. Certainly a missal of the 16th century on the feast of the Holy Relics of Mende contains a Mass in which God is prayed to through the intercession of the blessed Privatus, Firminus, Fredaldus, Ilerus, Severian, Hilary and Lupus, pontiffs of this church Charbonnel, Origine et Hist. de l'Église de Mende, page 94.
Annotata* la Seille the Seille
* la Petite Seille the Little Seille
* dép. de la Meurthe department of the Meurthe
* Paderborn
* de la Ligue of the League
* dép. de la Lozère department of Lozère
§ II. The memory of St. Hilarus in the martyrologies. Feasts. A Life written shortly after his death, afterwards applied to St. Ilerus, whom the people of Mende venerate on the 1st day of December.
The Life of St. Hilarus has all the marks of a contemporary Life; Before the people of Toulouse obtained the body of St. Hilarius, probably by theft, and sent it with the remains of SS. Romanus and Patroclus into France in exchange for the bones of St. Saturninus, his Life had already been written and published in letters; nor is this different from that which we shall give below from the codices of Rouge-Cloître in Brabant and of the Queen of Sweden, of unknown origin, and which must be distinguished from that which, copied from the codex of Mende, was sent to us by the V. V. Baldit. For this is the same as that which Guy de Châtres, abbot of St. Denis, wrote in the 14th century, as was related at num. 4 of this Commentary. For it has at the end that whole passage which we gave from Le Cointe at that same number, as you will see if you compare it with annotation X, subjoined below to the Life. Beware, however, of thinking that there is a huge difference between the original Life and the composition of Guy. It is not so. For Guy for the most part merely copied the ancient Life, abridged it in a few places, unfolded it somewhat more fully in others, and here and there bound the phrases together with somewhat better connections; in a word he performed the task which Surius performed three centuries later, somewhat correcting the style of ancient Lives. Moreover he took away nothing, and added nothing except that passage on the translation of the relics; which (as I have warned) you have at num. 4 of this Commentary from the Paris codex according to Le Cointe, and at annotation X from the codex of Mende. But these things in passing. That the anonymous Life is ancient and contemporary it is now my business to demonstrate. Examine it, namely: neither at the end nor anywhere else is any mention made of the translation of the body. Then manifestly it was composed in the territory of the Gabali by a man most knowledgeable of the places. Moreover the biographer does not neglect the circumstances of events, nowhere covering his ignorance with declamatory or rhetorical forms. Furthermore he mixes in nothing that savours of more recent times. But what is chief, he speaks throughout as if the men with whom St. Hilarus dealt were still known; and so the things he relates of Martianilla the virgin and of Leo the tribune could not have been written except when the names of the virgin and the tribune were still in the mouths of all. Against these things this one point seems able to be opposed, that the miracles contained in those Acts are not to be approved. And indeed I myself will not deny that all those prodigies do not please me, especially that one which consists in a storm partly driven off. But if this reason suffices for denying that that Life was committed to letters a few years after the death of St. Hilarus, you will have innumerable reasons for denying that the books on the Ecclesiastical History of the Franks and on the Glory of the confessors and martyrs were written by St. Gregory of Tours; innumerable ones for adjudging all the older Lives to a more recent time; innumerable ones for overturning all literary history. For this was once a common fault, that fancy added greater splendour to things that seemed wonderful, until at length they had the appearance of a true miracle; from which blemish St. Jerome himself, that prodigy of knowledge and erudition, was not immune. Recall what he consigned to writing about the camel in the Life of St. Hilarion, and about the satyrs in the Life of St. Paul. Assuredly it is necessary that these false miracles be separated from the true and duly examined; but nothing can be concluded from this against the antiquity of old books.
[12] [Through this and through the translations of his body it came about that his name was inscribed in those of Wandalbert, Usuard and other old] Since therefore the Life of St. Hilarus existed in the remotest times, and since his body had been carried first from the mountains of the Gabali to Toulouse, thence to France, thence to the ecclesiastical province of Trier, and from this again to France before the middle of the 9th century, I for my part wonder that most learned men are troubled in mind as to how the name of St. Hilarus penetrated long ago into the martyrologies. It was certainly easy for this to happen. The first of all the classic martyrologists to mention St. Hilarius is Wandalbert, deacon and monk of the monastery of Prüm in the diocese of Trier; who, as we have shown elsewhere Acta SS., vol. IX of October, page 271 and 272., finished his metrical Martyrology about the 5th day of April of the year 847. At the 25th day of October he sang this In Du Sollier, Martyrologium Usuardi, page 627.:
Here too Hilarus, the prelate, shines with ample honour;
whose name could not fail to become known in the diocese of Trier, since about the year 775 his body was brought into the neighbouring diocese of Metz and carried away from there at the beginning of the 9th century. When twelve years after Wandalbert, Usuard sent forth into the light the first edition of his Martyrology Compare Acta SS., vol. VIII of October, page 85 and 86., he recorded the blessed man at the same day in these words In Du Sollier, page 626.: "Likewise, in the city of the Gabali, of St. Hilarius, bishop and confessor." Du Sollier suspected that Usuard, when he wrote this, had before his eyes some Hieronymian codex, such as the Corbie one of the 11th century, published by d'Achery Spicilegium, edit. de la Barre, vol. II, page 20., in which on the present day one reads: "Among the Gabali, the deposition of blessed Hilarius, bishop and confessor." I would not deny it; although it could have happened that Usuard had in his possession the Life of St. Hilarus, and certainly nothing prevents his having known the name of the blessed man from elsewhere; seeing that he then had rest and veneration in the neighbouring monastery of St. Denis. In his three copies of the Martyrology of Ado, of Cologne, Averbode and Scriverius, Rosweyde found nothing of St. Hilarus; but in the codices of the Queen of Sweden, now Vatican, marked numbers 511 and 512, the former written in the 11th century, the latter in the 12th, Giorgi found at this day Martyrologium Adonis, page 545 and 546.: "In the city of the Gabali, the deposition of St. Hylarus *, bishop, illustrious in life and miracles"; but these words, which are also read, with the particle "in" prefixed, in the Martyrology of Auxerre, written at the end of the 11th century Martène, Amplissima collectio, vol. VI, col. 727., do not belong to the genuine text of Ado and were doubtless added by a man who knew the Life and miracles of St. Hilarus.
[13] And in more recent martyrologies. Galesini and Maurolico also ascertained that on this day the birthday of St. Hilarus or Hilarius, bishop, was kept among the Gabali or in the city of the Gabali. Baronius in the first edition of the Roman Martyrology, which came out in the year 1583, wrote: "Among the Gabali, of St. Hilarius, bishop and confessor"; which last words, "and confessor," he undeservedly removed in the following editions. And in all these books no mention is made of St. Ilerus, bishop of the Gabali, about whom many things will have to be remarked below. Du Saussay under the 25th day of October unfolded in the Gallican Martyrology some deeds of St. Hilarus. Cardinal de Noailles with full right kept at the same day in the Martyrology of Paris the memory of St. Hilarus, since his bones were resting in his diocese. Because in the ancient fasti of Auxerre the name of St. Hilarus was celebrated, Charles de Caylus kept it in
his new diocesan Martyrology the praises of St. Hilarus, and indeed in these words: "In the territory of the Gabali or of Mende, of St. Hilarius, bishop, illustrious in life and miracles, who sat in the first council of Auvergne."
[14] [Chastelain seems to have inscribed his memory by mistake at the 25th day of September, on which there was no reason for keeping his feast.] It vexes me greatly, however, that Chastelain, a man so prudent and accurate, not content with praising St. Hilarus at the 25th day of October with the Roman Martyrology, commended the same at the 25th day of September in these words: "In the district of the Gabali, the death of St. Chelirus , bishop of the Gabali , whose relics rest in the great church of St. Denis in France, where he is called St. Hilarus *." What then? In the ancient Life the day of his death is not indicated; but in the codex of Rouge-Cloître our predecessors found this Life under the 25th day of October, and similarly in the codex of the Queen of Sweden, which is now kept at Rome in the Vatican library, marked num. 528 Giorgi, Martyrologium Adonis, page 546.. Now in the Life which Guy de Châtres, abbot of St. Denis, wrote about the beginning of the 14th century, and of which we made mention above at num. 3, St. Hilarus is said to have left human things and passed to the eternal on the 8th before the Kalends of November. Was there then, besides the birthday celebrated on the 25th day of October, another feast kept in his honour by those of St. Denis? It does not appear. His sacred bones were carried away there, on the witness of that same Guy, on that very day, namely, on which the 11th before the Kalends of September, that is the 22nd of August, the octave of the Assumption of the blessed and glorious ever-Virgin Mary is celebrated; but this is far distant from the 25th day of September.
[15] [In the monastery of St. Denis on the anniversary of his translation, that is the 22nd of August, nothing was done in his honour; but on the 25th day of October there was a great celebration.] Moreover I do not find that anything was done by those of St. Denis on the 22nd day of August for the memory of St. Hilarus. Martène, who in composing the Treatise on the ancient discipline of the church in celebrating the divine offices used, as he reports in his List of authors, the Sacramentary of the monastery of St. Denis near Paris, written by hand about the times of Charlemagne and kept in the renowned treasury of the same monastery, has nothing of St. Hilarus, neither under the 22nd day of August nor under the 25th day of September, but only the following De antiqua ecclesiae discipl. in divinis officiis, page 586.: "On the 8th before the Kalends of November, in a very old Dionysian sacramentary: DEPOSITION OF HILARUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR"; which was kept with singular celebration not only in the choir but also at table. Hence in the diploma by which Charles the Bald in the year 862 confirmed the distribution of goods made by abbot Hilduin and more recently by abbot Louis, we read this Félibien, Hist. de l'abbaye de S. Denis, proofs, page LXXI.: "Likewise we decree that the annual refections, which Abbot Hilduin of good memory ordered from the goods of the treasury, that is, at the Purification of St. Mary, at the anniversary of the Lord Louis the emperor our father, at the Mass of St. Peter the apostle, at the Assumption of St. Mary and her Nativity, at the festival of All Saints, and on the day of his own deposition, are to be furnished to the brethren; and also from Superioricurtis * at the anniversaries of Charles of divine memory, the emperor, our grandfather, and of Bertha, our aunt, and of Hildegard, the queen, our grandmother, on the part of the brethren, at the festivals of St. Hilarus and of St. Sebastian, likewise from their goods." In the choir, moreover, the celebration of SS. Crispin and Crispinian being transferred to the following day, they performed a proper solemn office in copes of St. Hilarus, as on the feast of the Holy XI thousand virgins, that is, with ℞ at first Vespers and with the Invitatory at Nocturns by four in copes, ℞ by two, IV by two, VIII by four, XII by five, and with three cantors and IV going forward to the mass. These things Martène found De antiquis monachorum ritibus, bk. IV, ch. 8, page 634. in a Colbert codex, formerly of St. Denis, written about the year 1300 Ibid., preface, page V.. What I shall note again here is that the same man gathered nothing from that or from other manuscript codices of St. Denis, either at the 22nd day of August or at the 25th of September, that pertained to St. Hilarus. Nor do I find that any solemnity was ever kept by the people of Mende in his honour in the month of August or September. Wherefore it seems it must be ascribed to inattention, from which no one is always immune, that Chastelain, probably making excerpts from the books of Abbot Guy, wrote that St. Hilarus died on the 25th day of September in place of the 25th of October, and then confidently brought this into his universal Martyrology.
[16] [In vain do some of the people of Mende deny that the Life of St. Hilarus, who is venerated on the 25th day of October,] I come now to another much graver controversy. In the Office of the particular saints of the distinguished church of Mende, published in the year 1619 at Lyon by the authority of Charles de Rousseau, the bishop, I find at the 25th day of October that the office of St. Hilarius, bishop of Mende and confessor, is performed with double rite, with a prayer in some sort proper, but with all the rest from the common. But on the 1st day of December, on the double feast of St. Ilerus, bishop of Mende and confessor, lessons are ordered to be recited which are nothing other than a summary of the Life of St. Hilarus. Our predecessors have already warned of this in the commentary on St. Enimia Acta SS., vol. III of October, p. 409.; but since it has pleased the V. V. Pascal Gabalum Christianum, p. 173 and following. to call their assertions into doubt, I shall take care that they are printed below at the end of the Life of St. Hilarus: so that no one can doubt further. These things having been laid down, a double question rises, namely of which of the two the deeds are contained in those documents, whether of St. Hilarus, who is venerated on the 25th day of October, or of St. Ilerus, who is venerated on the 1st of December; and then whether St. Ilerus is truly distinct from St. Hilarus. What I think on the former question there is no need for me to say; for I have spoken above throughout of the Life of St. Hilarus as of a truly genuine monument. The same was felt by our predecessors, who declared that the deeds of St. Hilarus had been falsely attached to St. Ilerus Acta SS., vol. III of October, p. 410.. But since the V. V. Pascal protests Gabalum Christianum, p. 173 and following. and the people of Mende persist in despoiling St. Hilarus of his praises and ascribing them to St. Ilerus, it will be worth the trouble to call back that whole argument to the anvil.
[17] was applied to St. Ilerus, whom they venerate on the 1st day of December. That it may appear that the Acts of St. Hilarus were transferred to St. Ilerus, it must first of all be remarked that St. Hilarus was celebrated and praised in many and most ancient sacred fasti; but that St. Ilerus was plainly unknown, seeing that he found a place in no printed martyrologies before the Gallican one of Du Saussay. Which matter is of the gravest importance; so much so that it is a common indication that a Life of some saint once existed, if his name is read in the classic martyrologies. Whence conclude that the Life is of him whose memory is kept by Wandalbert, Usuard and so many others, by no means of him of whom they did not know that he existed. Then a passage from the Life of St. Hilarus has been transferred into the lessons on St. Ilerus with manifest corruption: and that this may be understood more thoroughly, I shall warn in advance that the name of St. Ilerus has been mixed into the affairs of St. Enimia. Here is the passage:
LIFE OF ST. HILARUS.
On the estate of the virgin Martianilla, a spring flowing with abundant water suddenly dried up for seven years, all moisture being altogether taken away. To which place, the virgin accompanying him, the father came and, being entreated, poured out prayers to the Lord: soon its course being restored, the water returned and served the uses of men with rich bounty.
LESSONS OF ST. ILERUS.
At his (St. Hilarus's) prayers, the virgin Enimia accompanying him, God restored abundant waters to the Margavillaean spring, dry for seven years.
For it will never come into the mind of anyone free of preconceived opinions that the words of the Life are not the genuine text, but on the contrary those of the lessons on St. Ilerus. Other arguments remain, mixed with general history and more laborious; and since these depend at the same time on some deeds of St. Hilarus whose time is well known, it is pleasing to set them out in a separate paragraph. I shall take up the matter a little further back, that at the same time it may be more easily understood in what circumstances St. Hilarus moved.
Annotata* Cod. 512 Hilarii
* Chelirs
* Javouls
* Hilare
* Consevreux
§ III. The political and ecclesiastical fortunes of the district of the Gabali while St. Hilarus was living. He takes part in the council of Auvergne in the year 535. He receives St. Leobinus.
[Under the rule of the Visigoths, who especially in the time of Euric spread their domination in the Gauls,] In the year 412 the Visigoths, under King Ataulf, crossed the Rhône and occupied the First Narbonensis; but two years later they had passed over into Spain. In the year 418, however, they returned to the Gauls, where they received from the emperor Honorius the districts of Toulouse, Agen, Bordeaux, Périgueux, Saintes, Aunis, Angoulême and Poitiers, the royal court being established at Toulouse. Afterwards they experienced varied fortune; yet for the most part favourable. Thus in the year 472 Euric subjected to himself the districts of Velay, the Gabali, Albi, Rodez, Cahors and Limoges; and in the following year, having occupied the districts of Bourges and Tours, he spread his dominion as far as the Rhône and the Loire; to which about the year 475 he added the district of Auvergne. In the year 477 all Spain, except however Galicia and Navarre, was compelled to acknowledge his authority. And at last in the year 480 he gained possession of Arles and Marseilles and all Provence. A great prince certainly and to be praised on many counts; but to be blamed in this, that, wholly devoted to Arian doctrines, he forbade new catholic bishops to be created in his kingdom and even cast some into exile.
[19] [The wretched face of the church of the Gabali, widowed of its pontiff and partly of its clerics,] Hear on this matter, which most nearly pertains to the church of the Gabali, St. Sidonius Apollinaris, bishop of the Arverni, writing to Basil, prelate (as it seems) of Aix, about the year 477 [Letters, bk. VII, letter 6, in Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. LVIII, col. 570 and 571.]: "What must be admitted, I dread that the aforesaid king of the Goths, although he is terrible by the merits of his strength, will lie in wait not so much for the Roman walls as for the Christian laws. So sour (as they report) to his mouth, so sour to his breast is the mention of the catholic name, that you might doubt whether he holds the leadership more of his nation or of his sect. Moreover, mighty in arms, keen in spirit, brisk in years, he suffers this one error, that he thinks that the management and success of his counsels is granted to him for his legitimate religion, which he rather attains through earthly felicity. On which account learn quickly the hidden ill health of the catholic state, that you may hasten to apply an open medicine. Bordeaux, Périgueux,
Rodez, Limoges, the Gabali, Eauze, Bazas, Comminges, Auch and a now much greater number of cities, their chief priests having been cut off by death, and no bishops having thereafter been substituted in the offices of the dead (by whom certainly the ministries of the lesser orders were supplied), have drawn a broad track of spiritual ruin. Which is well known to advance so, by the failing of the fathers dying day by day, that it could have bent not only any heretics of the present time but even the heresiarchs of earlier times: so does a sad despair of the interrupted faith press upon peoples bereaved by the passing of their pontiffs. There is no care in the desolate dioceses and parishes. You may see in the churches either the rotting collapse of the roofs, or, the hinges of the doors torn away, the approaches to the basilicas blocked with the bushes of bristling brambles. You may see, for shame! the very herds not only lying in the half-open vestibules, but also grazing on the grassy sides of the greening altars. But now the solitude is not only through the rustic parishes; moreover the very assemblies of the urban churches grow thin. For what solace remains to the faithful, when not only the discipline but even the memory of the clergy is perishing? Indeed when each cleric dies, if by a succeeding blessing he does not receive an heir of his dignity, in that church the priesthood dies, not the priest. And so what hope would you declare remains, where the term of a man makes the end of religion?"
[20] And similarly the temporal state in the district of the Gabali. For only five years had the district of the Gabali been obeying King Euric when its spiritual condition was so sad; but its temporal state was no better. For Euric not only used arms to subject the provinces to himself, but he also employed the service of certain Romans or Gauls who did not hesitate to prostitute to the enemy of the empire the authority which they had received from the emperor. Among these stood out Seronatus, who seems to have been prefect of the Gauls. Understand again from St. Sidonius how about the year 471 he prepared the way for Euric into the mountains of the Gabali. "Seronatus," he writes Letters, bk. V, letter 13, in Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. LVIII, col. 543. to Pannychius, an illustrious man of Bourges, "Seronatus you know is returning from Toulouse, the seat of Euric … He, as swift to anger as he is slow from his bulk, like a dragon scarcely unrolled from his cave, is now being borne from close at hand upon the Gabali, already bloodless with fear: whom, scattered singly, unwalled, he now exhausts with unheard-of kinds of levies, now nets about with the winding fraud of calumnies; not even then permitting the labouring men to return home when they have paid the annual tribute. This too is a sure sign of his impending arrival, that wherever he has turned, men in troops are dragged along in chains, dragging their chains: at whose pain he rejoices, on whose hunger he feeds: thinking it especially fine to disfigure those to be condemned before punishing them: he makes the men grow their hair, and cuts it off the women: of whom, however, if a rare pardon has regarded some, venality frees these, vanity those, mercy none." When the wretched peoples were experiencing these evils, it was natural that they should rush into the arms of Euric, hoping better from a barbarian king than from a Roman magistrate.
[21] [Under Alaric II ecclesiastical affairs are restored; in the year 506 a council is celebrated by 36 bishops; in the year 507 the empire is overturned; and in 508 nearly all the provinces are occupied by Clovis.] When at the end of the year 484 Euric met his day and Alaric II succeeded, better times shone on Aquitaine and the neighbouring churches: for new prelates could be given to the widowed sees, who, thirty-four in number, whether present in person or having sent legates, celebrated the council of Agde in the year 506. Here are the names of the sees, from which you may recognize the extent of Alaric's kingdom in the Gauls: Arles, Bordeaux, Eauze, Bourges, Toulouse, Agde, Nîmes, Rodez, Albi, Cahors, Aix, Auch, Comminges, Béarn, Oloron, Lectoure, Lodève, Palatium, Couserans, Périgueux, Uzès, Antibes, Senez, Digne, Narbonne, Fréjus, Bigorre, Auvergne, Avignon, Bazas, Aire, the unknown see of bishop Pappolus, the Gabali and Tours [Sirmond, Concilia Galliae, vol. I, p. 173 and 174; D. Bouquet, Historiens de France, vol. IV, p. 102 and 103.]. But in the following year there fell what seemed so robust an empire. For Clovis came out victor from the battle of Vouillé, fought at the stream Clain, ten miles from Poitiers, and Alaric lost his life with his kingdom. The king of the Franks forthwith subjected many provinces to himself, and in the spring of the year 508 he penetrated as far as Toulouse, leaving to the Visigoths only the Narbonensian province, or rather its chief parts.
[22] [Clovis having died in the year 511, the district of the Gabali with several neighbouring provinces seems to have returned under the authority of the Visigoths, until in the year 533 Theodebert I recovered them. St. Hilarus took part in the council celebrated in Auvergne in the year 535.] The district of the Gabali then obeyed the Franks. But when Clovis met his day in the year 511, it seems to have been taken back by Theodoric the Great, who was planning to add the former domains of the Visigoths to the kingdom of the Ostrogoths. "What places," says D. Bouquet Vol. II, p. 198., "Theodoric, king of Italy, acquired after the death of Clovis cannot be defined with certainty. This only is certain, that he added to his empire the Ruteni, the Gabali, the Vellavi and perhaps the Albigenses"; nor did D. Vaissette think otherwise Hist. du Languedoc, vol. I, p. 669, col. 2.. But all these things Theodebert I, son of Theodoric I, recovered in the year 533; nor thereafter was the district of the Gabali ever free of the rule of the Franks. Of all these things Bl. Hilarus was witness and, as may be gathered from the few indications that appear in his Life, in the midst of its calamities he was the strength and pillar of the people of the Gabali. And indeed it would be worth the trouble to select passages from the Lives of the holy bishops and abbots, by which it might be plain that God everywhere provided for the faithful through holy men, lest, while barbarians invaded and occupied their lands, or some expelled others from them, they should utterly perish. Nowhere is this more manifest than in St. Severinus the abbot; whom they are accustomed to call the apostle of Noricum, but would with stronger right call its father: which praise that blessed man owes to his disciple Eugippius Acta SS., vol. I of January, p. 484 and following., who pursued the deeds of his master with the greatest accuracy, and perhaps much more to the distinguished man Amédée Thierry Récits de l'histoire romaine au Ve siècle, p. 141 and following., who, by the help of topography, contemporary history and archaeology, has so explained the words of Eugippius that now for the first time the saviour of the Danubian settlers seems to have revived from the tomb: so plain and clear is everything now. The distinguished academician has by a happy name called the authority which St. Severinus exercised in the colonies or municipalities of Noricum the kingdom of God; and in very fact his power had no human origin, nor was it governed by human reasons or counsels; but it rested on the sanctity of his life and was helped throughout by the glory of miracles and by the prophetic spirit: so that it was a certain image of the Mosaic dominion over the people of Israel. But, as the same recent historian shrewdly remarks, that was not then the only kingdom of God, but rather an illustrious example of that divine institute; of which now, especially since the Narratives from the Roman Annals of the 5th century have appeared, it is right to say what Sallustius Crispus once finely wrote of the affairs of the Athenians Bellum Catilinarium, ch. IV.: "Because great talents of writers arose there, the deeds of the Athenians are celebrated throughout the world as the greatest. Thus the virtue of those who did them is held to be as great as illustrious talents have been able to exalt it by words! But the Roman people (think the same of St. Hilarus, if you wish to compare him with St. Severinus) never had that abundance." When, however, the catholic princes had at long last placed the Gabali and other districts under their permanent authority, thought had to be taken for settling public and private affairs; and indeed Bl. Hilarus thereafter had no small part in repairing the evils which from so many wars and so prolonged an occupation by the Visigoths could not fail to arise. To the most blessed man and his colleagues no remedy seemed more opportune than the celebration of a council. It was held with the consent of King Theodebert in the city of Auvergne on the 6th before the Ides of November, after the consulship of Paulinus the Younger, V. C., that is in the year of Christ 535, of Pope Agapetus I, of King Childebert the XXIVth, of the same Theodebert the IInd; for he had succeeded in the year 534 his father Theodoric I in the kingdom of Austrasia. There took part in it (and from this we learn what districts Theodebert ruled) Honoratus, bishop of Bourges, Gallus of Auvergne, Gregory of Langres, Hilarius of the Gabali, Ruricius of Limoges, Flavius of Reims, Nicetius of Trier, Deuterius of Lodève, Dalmatius of Rodez, Lupus of Châlons, Domitian of Cologne, Venantius of Viviers, Hesperius of Metz, Desideratus of Verdun and Gramatius of Windisch.
[23] The best counsels were there given to the king, and the best canons were framed. With a truly apostolic spirit were matters carried out in this assembly. Read the preface Sirmond, Concilia Galliae, vol. I, p. 241 and following.: "When in the name of the Lord, the Holy Spirit assembling us, and our most glorious and most pious lord King Theodebert consenting, a holy synod had met in the city of Auvergne, and there with knees bent to the ground we were beseeching the Lord for his kingdom, for his long life, for his people, that our Lord who had granted us the power of assembling might raise up his kingdom with felicity, rule it with empire, govern it with justice, we sat down in the church according to custom; and the canons having been examined, it seemed reasonable to us that, although the ecclesiastical rules comprehend nearly everything, nevertheless certain things should either be added anew or repeated from of old." And indeed in the place of the first canon the fathers set forth a most wise decree, by which it was provided that in councils time should chiefly be spent on the treatment of business and that the last place should be given to ecclesiastical discipline. "Wherefore it has first of all pleased that, as often as according to the statutes of the fathers a holy synod is assembled, none of the bishops should dare to suggest any cause before those things which pertain to the amendment of life, to the severity of the rule, and to the remedies of the soul are finished." The summaries of the following canons, from which you may recognize the chief calamities of that age, are these: II. The honour of the pontificate is to be sought not by votes but by merits. III. The corpses of the dead are not to be wrapped in consecrated palls. IV. That clerics should not be raised up by secular men against their bishops. V. Those desiring to obtain ecclesiastical property from kings are to be excommunicated. VI. It is permitted neither for a Christian man to be married to a Jewish woman, nor a Jewish man to a Christian woman. VII. That the body of a deceased priest should not be covered with the covering of the Lord's body. VIII. The sacred furnishings of the church are not to be used for the adornment of weddings. IX. Jews are not to be set as judges over Christians. X. No bishop is to invade another's parish. XI. A bishop should not receive or promote another's cleric. XII. On incestuous unions. XIII. Continence from their wives is to be observed by presbyters and deacons. XIV. Gifts conferred on the church are for no reason to be defrauded. XV. The principal festivals are to be kept with the bishop in the city. XVI. That bishops, presbyters and deacons should not have strange women with them. What is singular in these has already been explained by my colleague in the commentary on the two SS. Ruricius, bishops of Limoges Acta SS., vol. VIII of October, p. 71..
[24] [The bishops warn the king not to allow the property of foreigners situated in his domain to be adjudged to the fisc.] What causes were decided in this council has not been handed down to memory, or at least preserved in letters. But there survives the synodal letter which the bishops brought to Theodebert; and since some light seems to be shed by it on the journey which blessed Hilarus is read in the Life to have made to Theodebert, it is pleasing to quote it entire Sirmond, Concilia Galliae, vol. I, p. 245.: "To the illustrious lord and most excellent lord and son, King Theodebert, Honoratus, Hilarius, Gregory, Ruricius, Nicetius, Flavius, Domitian, Deuterius, Gallus, Dalmatius, Venantius, Gramatius, Lupus, Hesperius and Desideratus, bishops. While in the city of Auvergne, in order to go over the institutes of the canons, or in the zeal of elucidating the ecclesiastical law for those who were perhaps pressed by doubt about the ruling of their own life, your worshippers, the bishops of your churches, sat together, a crowd of very many flowed to us, begging a remedy for their desperation, hoping that our humility would entreat your piety no less for the felicity of your kingdom than for their consolation, and that it might be intimated through our suggestion to the ears of your justice and piety that your piety should allow no one to be made a stranger to his own property or small possessions, and that, while each is subject to the power and dominion of one king, he should not lose, by anyone's attack (as commonly happens), the means placed in the lot of another. Which we, trusting in the justice and piety of your height, do not believe will be denied: so that, while by a just (as we believe) and God-pleasing suggestion we take thought for the necessities of very many, you may increase prosperity to your kingdom and the favourable regard of the heavenly Lord through the granted grace of piety. Wherefore, most reverently (as is worthy) supplicating, we beseech that your piety not deny this to our petition, in divine regard, that both the rulers of churches and all clerics and also seculars remaining under the rule of your kingdom, and also belonging to the dominion of the lord kings your fathers, you do not allow to be strangers to what is in your lot, of what they have always been seen to have as their own; so that anyone, securely possessing his property, may pay the due tributes to the lord into whose lot his possession has come. Which we judge to be altogether more useful for your treasures too, if a possession preserved by your piety should bring in the customary function; and your clemency consoles us more particularly, if by the obtaining of this kind of petition your highness should cause us too to rejoice."
[25] St. Hilarus is there reckoned among the older bishops; The reader will doubtless have noticed that the same order was not kept in both places in the series of bishops. Hence it follows that scarcely any account could have been taken of the time at which each had come to the episcopate; and in fact (if any was taken) it is neither accurate nor continuous. Honoratus of Bourges comes first, as being president; Gallus of Auvergne, though consecrated only in the year 527, has the second place, because the council was being celebrated in his church. Gregory was made bishop of Langres in the year 506; Ruricius the Younger of Limoges about the year 507; Flavius of Reims perhaps in the very year 535 or the one before; Nicetius of Trier in the year 627; Dalmatius of Rodez in the year 524; Venantius of Viviers before the year 517; and Hesperius of Metz and Desideratus of Verdun about the year 525: the time of the ordination of the others is very obscure. Metropolitans also come there indiscriminately with suffragans, if indeed the one prelate of Bourges was not held as metropolitan: for at that time this custom flourished in the Gauls, that the whole ecclesiastical state was reduced to the political; so that nothing was less fixed than the circuit of the ecclesiastical provinces. Moreover, at that time there was almost no order of sitting in councils. Binterim inquired diligently into this matter, as was his way, and it seemed to him that he discovered that down to the 9th century the times of consecration were observed; then that down to the 9th century archbishops came in first place, then bishops, the order of seniority being neglected; and that afterwards to each province its own bench was assigned, so that the first place was the metropolitan's, and then the bishops' according to the years spent in the episcopate. Nevertheless one may not trust too much in these things either, since the order which is here indicated as second, and is reported not to have begun before the 9th century, is found to have been already observed at the council of Chalon, celebrated about the year 650 Labbe, collect. concil., vol. VI, col. 391.. However that may be, since Bl. Hilarus occupies a distinguished place both among the subscribers of the council and among the senders of the letter (who are arranged a little better by order of seniority), he will not seem rash who gathers from this that he was among the older bishops.
[26] [And certainly in the year 520 he was already a bishop, since about that time he was visited and consulted by St. Leobinus. By the year 541 St. Evanthius had already succeeded him.] Certainly in the year 520 he was already a bishop, as is established from the Life of St. Leobinus, then a monk, afterwards bishop of Chartres. For he, as is read in his Life Acta SS., vol. II of March, page 350., "wishing to reach Lérins, found a certain brother of Lérins, saying that he could not bear the inconvenience of the climate there; at which word he was called back from the journey he had begun. Then, making again for the city of the Gabali, when he had been received in priestly fashion by the most blessed Hilarius, bishop of the same city, and had stayed with him for a while, the brother began to complain that the place did not seem suitable to him for dwelling. Whence, when blessed Hilarius had noticed these same brothers quarrelling among themselves, he began to exhort that wandering brother not to depart from the company of Bl. Leobinus; lest perhaps by withdrawing he should lose the grace of obedience which he had obtained so far by following him. Withdrawing from there, then, and hearing that the fame of Bl. Lupus, an anchorite in the Isle of Barbe and afterwards taken up to the archbishopric of Lyon and venerated with yearly veneration on the 25th day of September, was spreading far and wide, they betook themselves humbly to him." These things must have been done in the year 520 and the following, as Le Cointe has made manifest [Annales ecclesiastici Francorum, at the year 520, num. 18, and 521, num. 2, vol. I, page 324 and 326.]. Down to what year St. Hilarus ruled the church of the Gabali is nowhere handed down. This only we know, that by the year 541 he had already departed from life; seeing that St. Evanthius, who succeeded him, subscribed to the IV council of Orléans Sirmond, Concil. Galliae, vol. I, page 620. I see everywhere historians affirming that a very brief poem of greeting was sent to our St. Hilarus by Bl. Venantius Fortunatus, which is read in book III, chapter 21, of his works; from which opinion I greatly wonder that our predecessors Acta SS., vol. III of October, page 407. did not depart; for Bl. Venantius, born in the territory of Treviso about the year 530 [Luchi, Life of Venantius Fortunatus before his Works, in Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. LXXXVIII, col. 25.], did not come to the Gauls before the year 565 Ibid., col. 28., thus long after the death of St. Hilarus.
§ IV. Whether St. Ilerus is the same as St. Hilarus. Whether his festival arose from a confusion with St. Eligius. The most ancient cult of St. Hilary of Poitiers in the diocese of Mende.
[To St. Ilerus, known from the lessons on St. Enimia, the Acts of St. Hilarus were applied; but neither the name of St. Ilerus nor of St. Hilarus appears in the older Acts of St. Enimia.] Now we must turn to St. Ilerus; of whom, if the Life of St. Hilarus does not pertain to him, nothing at all is known, except that in the Lives or lessons of St. Enimia it is related that he consecrated this virgin abbess. Let us weigh, therefore, what is to be thought on this matter. First of all it must be noticed that the name of no bishop appears in the ancient Life of St. Enimia from Mende; provided that the copy which the venerable man Baldit sent to us is entire. Since this Life has not yet seen the light and is rather brief, I shall give it here.
"Here begins the life of St. Enimia, virgin. — St. Enimia the virgin, then, sprung from the province of Germany, which is called France, and nourished in the same, had as father King Clovis, son of Dagobert. Yet of the same name was that Clovis who, first of the kings of the Franks, assented to the Christian faith. The name of the queen her mother was Eustorgia. In the way of life of this virgin, according to the increase of the body, the signs of spiritual grace, fitting to her ages, shone forth augmented; so that a pleasing simplicity adorned her childhood, a gentle innocence her adolescence, a fervent devotion her youth, and the examples of her whole early age wondrously harmonized with the coming glory of the virtues. For in her own field the Spirit marked out beforehand, by the preceding pleasantness of flowers, the future abundance of holy fruits. For she did not turn, as often happens, from iniquity to justice, from luxury to continence, from the world to God; but she ascended, God leading her, from innocence to purity, from sobriety to perfection, from the high to the highest. While yet a young girl in body, she equalled in her manners the aged maturity of a matron. Virtue grew with time, and it seasoned the inflaming looks of youth, generosity her hand, gravity her movement, piety her mind. She was cautious in her speech, severe among the wanton, tranquil among the disturbed, modest in public, studious in private. Indeed, forgetful of her royal dignity and covered among the courtiers with moderate clothing, she subjected herself to the service of the poor; to whom she not only paid out the supports of food with kind generosity, but, also washing their feet and preparing their beds, she ministered relief to their ulcers and various infirmities. She was familiar only with those men toward whom chastity would not blush, or with whom she might worthily condole in wonder. Let others wonder at the enlightening of the blind, the curing of paralytics and other things of the kind: do you wonder more at a poor woman amid riches, a humble woman amid proud honours, and that a virgin destined under youthful years to lawful embraces should remain perpetually so; wonder, I say, at continence amid the overflowing sweetnesses of delights, at chastity amid the dissimilar manners and the smeared forms of youths, at her ignoring the incentives of the flesh and the wantonness of age.
[28] Which are here recited, "The fame of the virgin, then, for the elegance of her manners and the grace of her beauty running through all Germany, counts and magnates send envoys, bring gifts with prayers, promise abundance of wealth and honours, seeking marriage with her. At length she is proposed to be married to one; and the royal servants preparing the expenses of the wedding, the day is awaited with joy by the peoples. Meanwhile, asked by both parents, she confidently refuses the consent of matrimony; she urges, putting forward Christ as bridegroom, to whom she had vowed herself from infancy; scarcely from her parents does any free exit of escape lie open. But the wise virgin took refuge in heavenly help; and while others were at rest, she, wide awake, poured out prayers as defenders of her integrity; nor were those prayers of slight faith and sincerity, as the outcome of the matter shows. For her body is struck with leprosy, and the beauty of her desirable flesh is darkened by the disease of elephantiasis. Thus * with sad
friends all too sad, exquisite physicians assemble; they spend the remedies of the physician's art on the sick girl; and they vainly apply human medicine to the medicine of God. For who can weaken the counsel of God? The attempt of the physicians being thus frustrated, happy Enimia gives thanks, rescued not only from the corruption of her integrity but from the fear of corruption. But after some courses of time had rolled by, she is admonished by an angelic vision that, making for the parts of the Gabali, she should search out a Spring by name Burla; washed in whose waters she would recover the beauty of her former health. Hearing these things her parents exult; they prepare expenses sufficient for so great a journey and number off companions. Having gone forth from her homeland, then, after long spaces of lands she enters the borders of the Gabali; she seeks the spring; she goes round various places of health. Then a matron of a certain place, asked about the spring, answers that she does not know. And yet she reports that not far off there are baths healthful for the diseased. While she doubted whether she ought to go in, an angel announces in the night that she should not delay there. In the place of the angelic vision, after her passing, a church built in her name stands to the present. The queen finally with her companions, while she was making her way surveying the craggy byways of the places, reaching the bounds of the Tarn and the Burla, by the will of God hears shepherds speaking of the Burla; one of whom, going ahead to guide the virgin, shows the long-desired waters. Having first prayed, then, she dips her limbs and health returns.
[29] Provided that these "After thanks had been given to God, her companions urging her, as she was returning to her homeland she had already gone out of the valley, and behold, the leprosy recurring occupies entirely the flesh it had let go a little before. Accordingly she seeks the streams again, is washed and made clean. Wishing a second time also to go back, she is pressed down by the same infirmity. She is healed by like medicine. Happy Enimia considers the counsel of God and casts off all hope of returning. Nor, as I think, did the censure of the Almighty oppose her going back because he did not wish and was not able to keep his temple inviolate everywhere, but that he might make habitable a land almost impassable and uninhabitable through its precipices and slight fruitfulness; forming for those who enter it also an example of virginity and giving them patronage. Meanwhile the handmaid of God, addressing sweetly the companions she had called together, unfolds the purpose of her will and grants to them in common the free choice of going back or departing. Of whom some, strengthened by love of her and her exhortation, agree to remain, giving themselves to divine religion; but others propose to return, carrying to the homeland the outcome of events and the commands of their lady. To those going back, then, she designates places to stay; she orders their manner of life; she instructs them with fitting admonitions and precepts; but she herself, thirsting to cling more closely to God and to subject thoroughly to the spirit her flesh mortified with vigils and abstinence, keeping with her a little god-daughter virgin alone, chose a narrow seat in the heights, so that by the very harshness of the dwelling might be weighed the harshness of her way of life, the cleanness of the abode, set apart from the common contamination of filth, agreeing with the purity of her life, and the height of the rock also with the eminence of her contemplation: for how harsh, how steep, and how difficult in ascent or descent that place is, is not easily known except by one who has tried it. Truly a prudent virgin, who established her house on the solidity of rock, whose foundations neither the blast of winds nor the flood of waters could move. There she meditated on the law of the Lord, seizing the sweetness of the heavenly word, ready to run to the coming of the bridegroom, adorning her lamp with light and oil. For collecting herself to the one thing, lest she be disturbed about many, she sat at the feet of Christ in the school of virtues, under the guardianship of the Holy Spirit; she macerated herself with frequent labours of fasting, content with the vileness of herbs and with a little bread; she repressed whatever titillated in her, chaste in eyes, tongue, work and mind.
[30] [Be entire. In the Life of St. Enimia, written in the 13th century in the Provençal tongue by Bertrand of Marseilles, there is found the name of St. Yles or Ylis;] "You might see the virgin so in harmony with herself in all things that the traces of a clean mind appeared in the gesture and bearing of her body. For the interior ornament of the house of God shone out through the very vestibule. She pressed on daily toward the things that are before, and from day to day, nourished from on high, she advanced better than herself, renouncing pleasure, utterly abdicating wantonness, trampling on the pittance, she expanded greatly in heavenly love. She was clean in her thoughts, serious in her works, compunct in meditation; she lived intent on discerning the movements of the soul, assiduous at the praise of God, devout in silence, learned in word, solid in adversities, not lifted up in prosperity, fearful in joy, secure in fear; she strengthened her spirit by reasoning, dashed superfluous affections against Christ, fighting naked with the devil, she preached by her example true contempt of the world; anxious with desire of heaven, she deplored the exile of the world; and, indignant at fault, she stood patient under the scourge of fault; nor did she give hands to impatience, hemmed about by temptation, commanding the movements of anger, not yielding to weariness, circumspect in all things; she had in her the breasts of the church, a friend of compassion and of shared rejoicing; she burned more and more, bound by the chaste embraces of the bridegroom, the left hand placed under her head, the right hidden in those who fear; she tasted, led into the king's cellar; she was fed with the bread of tears, protected from the disturbance of men under the hiding place of the divine face." In this Life, then, no mention is made of any bishop of the Gabali; nor do I know that the name of St. Hilarus or Ilerus is found in any Life of St. Enimia which is older than the poems on that saint, written (as it seems) in the 13th century in the Provençal tongue by Bertrand of Marseilles and first published by the distinguished man Raynouard Raynouard, Lexique roman, vol. I, p. 549 and following.. In this poetic composition, however, full of anachronisms, there is much speech of Sanz Yles, Sainz Yles, Sainchz Ylis, Sanhz Yles (for the name is written in those various ways); which St. Yles or Ylis is not to be called in Latin Ilerus rather than Hilarus. That a serpent infesting the cave of St. Enimia was expelled and killed by him is narrated at length in the same place: which miracle (to note it briefly) could surely rest on better authority.
[31] But whether St. Enimia is said to be the daughter of Clovis I, or of Clovis II, In the same Provençal writing the mother of St. Enimia is called Astorga; who in that Latin Life and elsewhere has the name Eustorgia. And this woman indeed, like St. Enimia herself, does not come into the census of the royal race of the Merovingians; but the reader should be little moved by this, since kings and sons of kings, even adolescents, commonly had concubines or made furtive marriages; so that that first stock of the kings of the Franks seems to have perished through luxury. But now of the father; whom it is of much more interest for us to know, since on this depends the reckoning of the times. Further, in Molanus's additions to Usuard St. Enimia is said to be the daughter of King Clovis; which, if it pleased the people of Mende, the reckoning of the times would be easy, and it would be plainly manifest that St. Ilerus was most certainly the same as St. Hilarus; but they plainly deny this. But in the Life which Mabillon handled Acta SS. Ord. S. Benedicti, century II, page IX., she is said to be born of a father who was king, by name Clovis, son of Dagobert, whose ancestor of the same name, Clovis, was the first among the kings of the Franks to receive the faith; with which agree the Latin Life recited above and the Provençal one of Bertrand of Marseilles [Raynouard published part, Lexique roman, vol. I, p. 549 and following; Sachs the whole, La vie de sainte Enimie, von Bertram von Marseille, in provenzalischer Sprache zum ersten Male vollständig herausgegeben, Berlin, Weidmann, 1857; and more correctly Bartsch, Denkmäler der provenzalischer Literatur, page 215 and following.]. But Clovis II (son of Dagobert I, son of Clotaire II, son of Chilperic I, son of Clotaire I, son of Clovis I) was born in the year 633, was set up as king of Neustria and Burgundy in the year 635, succeeded his father in both kingdoms in the year 638, was made king of Austrasia in the year 653 and met his day in the year 656; so that if St. Enimia was his daughter, she could not have been born before the year 648 and could not have been granted abbatial consecration by St. Ilerus except after her father's death, although in the Provençal Life her father is said to have still been living at that time. But if this is held, how could St. Ilerus have gone to Theodebert I, king of Austrasia, who met his day in the year 548, or to Theodebert II, who obtained the same kingdom in the year 596 and lost it by a savage death in the year 612? With full right these things do not please the people of Mende.
[32] Or of Clotaire II, the Acts of St. Hilarus cannot In the Office of St. Enimia, then, printed in the year 1619, the pious virgin is called daughter of Clotaire the Younger, and Dagobert the brother of the virgin, and the same opinion is defended by Modestus of St. Amabilis, agree with St. Ilerus, as distinct from St. Hilarus. interpreter or author of the Monarchia sancta, in which the Lives of the saints of the Merovingian stock are contained, and by the Rev. man Jerome Charbonnel, who has recently published, not without praise, the origin and history of the church of Mende Origine et histoire abrégée de l'église de Mende, p. 108 and 109.. But since Clotaire II or the Younger was born in the middle of the year 584, St. Enimia would not have been born before the year 600. But hear: after St. Enimia had rejected marriage and been freed from the leprosy which she had contracted, and for some time, indeed perhaps for many years, had led an eremitical life, there is bought by her father Clotaire and her brother Dagobert a whole region in circuit in the district of the Gabali, and a monastery of virgins is made over to God through the virgin. Two churches, one to the Mother of God, the other to St. Peter, Enimia as abbess and her virgin disciples, the prelate of Mende, blessed Ilerus, being summoned, consecrates with solemn rite. I know that young girls were once created abbesses; but certainly no one will expect that two churches were finished and a monastery founded by St. Enimia until she was at least twenty-five years old; especially since in the older Lives it is said that she led an eremitical life for some time with her little god-daughter before there was any talk of building a monastery. But here we strike on another rock. For in the year 625 St. Ilerus could not have been bishop of Mende or of the Gabali, since at that time Agricola occupied that see, seeing that he took part in the council of Reims, which Le Cointe has splendidly shown to have been celebrated in that year Annales ecclesiastici Francorum, at the year 625, num. 14, vol. II, p. 751.. In vain, therefore, does the V. V. Pascal protest Gabalum Christianum, p. 176. against this historiographer, in vain against the Gallia Christiana, in vain against our predecessors, who were persuaded that, if St. Ilerus existed as distinct from our St. Hilarus, he must have sat in the see of Mende after Agricola. But if it is so, St. Ilerus could not, after obtaining the episcopate, have gone to Theodebert II, king of Austrasia; seeing that he, as we have already warned, was killed
in the year 612. It is manifest, therefore, that the Life of St. Hilarus, in which he is related to have hastened to Theodebert, king of the Franks, for remedies for the province committed to him, was originally written of our St. Hilarus, and by no means of another St. Ilerus, who dedicated churches of Blessed Mary and St. Peter and consecrated St. Enimia as abbess, whether she be called the daughter of Clovis the Great, or of Clovis II, or finally of Clotaire the Younger or II.
[33] [Many things urge that there never existed a bishop of the Gabali by name Ilerus, distinct from our St. Hilarus.] But since the Acts of St. Enimia, which Mabillon handled to the number of three different ones, are everywhere stuffed with faults and errors Acta SS. Ord. S. Benedicti, century II, p. IX and X.; since St. Ilerus is not known from elsewhere than from similar Lives; since in the territory of the Gabali, besides the town of Saint-Chély-d'Apcher, to the north, another village, Saint-Chély-du-Tarn, is situated to the south, not far from the town of St. Enimia; and since at all times the common people have been prone to mixing the acts of saints who were venerated in the neighbourhood (although otherwise their ages might be separated by a long space), and accordingly the opinion could easily have gained strength that St. Enimia was consecrated by St. Hilarus; and which fiction having been received, it would have been necessary to set up a St. Hilarus in the 7th century, distinct from the St. Hilarus of the 6th century; the doubt comes up whether it is in fact so at this place; or even whether those who patched together the Acts of St. Enimia reckoned that they would increase the glory of this virgin if they said that she had received abbatial blessing from the most celebrated and most holy man St. Hilarus, who was venerated close by. To this opinion our predecessors inclined Acta SS., vol. III of October, p. 410.: for which reason they were roughly handled by the V. V. Pascal Gabalum Christianum, p. 173 and following.; but with the good leave of the friends of that most pious writer (for I seem to have read that he has met his day), he brought forth not even the shadow of an argument by which to show that their sayings were imprudent. What of the fact that he called into doubt whether the lessons on St. Ilerus were a summary of the Life of St. Hilarus, by a surely strange decision, seeing that he had never seen this Life, knew that grave writers had affirmed it and had read a very conspicuous passage produced by them? That the names Hilarus and Ilerus are the same too did not please him at all. First of all, however, it is undoubted that the bishop of the Gabali who is venerated on the 25th day of October is called Hilarus in some monuments, Hilarius in others; as the reader may have discovered who has surveyed with his eyes the things we have adduced here and there. Which is the true form of the name, since both were in use among the Romans, is difficult to know. Yet since Hilarii among Christians (so far as is gathered from surviving stones, the subscriptions of councils and other monuments of the kind) seem to have been more frequent than Hilari, it was more natural that copyists should change Hilari into Hilarii than that they should substitute Hilari for Hilarii; wherefore the less common the name Hilarus is, the more genuine it seems. Then in the most ancient diplomas of St. Denis, which we have quoted above at numbers 6 and following from Félibien according to the autograph copies, he is constantly called Ilarus and Hilarus; in only the diploma of Charlemagne, written far from the monastery of St. Denis, is he called Illarius. The remaining documents in which he is called Hilarius are copies; accordingly they are to be held of lesser moment, as being easily corrupted through the fault of copyists.
[34] Whether Ilerus and Hilarus are two forms of the same name. In the proper office of Mende of the year 1691, in the lessons both of St. Enimia at the 6th day of October and of St. Ilerus at the 1st of December, he is constantly called St. Ilerus; in the Lives of St. Enimia which Mabillon saw, Hilerus and Ilerus; in the Gallia Christiana of Claude Robert P. 443., by a manifest fault of the typesetters, Iserus; and likewise in the Gallican Martyrology of Du Saussay, who had read nothing but Robert. Le Cointe followed Du Saussay alone, and wrote Iserus too Annales ecclesiastici Francorum, at the year 628, num. 11, vol. II, p. 794.. The brothers de Sainte-Marthe, who had seen Robert and the Office printed in the year 1619, wrote St. Ilerus or Iserus Gallia Christiana, edit. 1656, vol. III, p. 727.; and the same was done by the author of the Catalogue of the bishops of Mende; which the V. V. Pascal calls ancient indeed Gabalum Christianum, p. 177., but which in fact is more recent than the printed edition of the works of Flodoard of Reims, probably not different from the writer of the catalogue composed in the 18th century, whose copy the so often cited V. V. Baldit sent to me, and who splendidly allowed himself to be imposed on by Robert. That elsewhere too than in the Lives read by Mabillon he is called Hilarus and Hilarem, the cited V. V. Pascal is my witness Ibid., p. 173.. Nor can I doubt that this is the true form of the name. Open the books containing old inscriptions: you will everywhere see written, or rather carved on marbles, Ilarus, Ilarius, Ilaritas, etc., in place of Hilarus, Hilarius, Hilaritas; for nothing is more common than that aspirates should be omitted. But who does not know that the Latin a, especially if it forms part of the last or next-to-last syllables in French words, is changed to e or ai? This holds above all in almost all French words which end in aire, aile, ain, etc.; then carus becomes cher; amarus, amer; mare, mer; alacer, alegre; acer, aigre; macer, maigre; clarus, clair; par, pair; caro, chair, etc. It was thus natural that Hilarus should be changed by the people into Ilair or Iler; nor is it any wonder that from the vulgar name Iler the Latin name Ilerus was afterwards fashioned. A thousand examples of similar conversions of names are met with everywhere, both of recent times and of the middle age. I shall give some below in the Commentary on St. Fructus; and I have warned above that St. Spanus, whose genuine name seems to have been Hispanus, was fashioned from the vulgar Saint Spain. Such things meet us continually. But, as nothing forbids that Ilerus be the same name as Hilarus, so in fact the law and condition of names urge that it is; which were either borne earlier by eastern saints (a rare example at that time in the Gauls), or have a Greek, Latin or Germanic origin. But St. Ilerus was never among the eastern saints; and such a word neither the Greek, nor the Latin, nor the Germanic tongues have known: it remains therefore that it was twisted from Hilarus.
[35] [Whether it is an obstacle that St. Hilarus and St. Ilerus are venerated on different days.] So far we have struck nothing to forbid us from holding St. Hilarus and St. Ilerus to be one and the same man. But the fact that each has his own feast seems to be an indication of distinction. As we have already shown, the birthday of St. Hilarus is ordered to be celebrated in the proper Office of the year 1619 on the 25th day of October; likewise in the edition of the year 1720; similarly in the Breviary and Missal of Mende according to the Parisian rite; which order was still being observed in the year 1853, as the V. V. Pascal is witness Gabalum christianum, p. 297.; nor was a change made in the new Proper of Mende, approved by the S. R. C. on the 29th day of April of the year 1858. Guillaume Catel Histoire des comtes de Tolose, p. 174., who published his Counts of Toulouse in the year 1623, relates that the feast of St. Hilarus was kept by the people of Mende and noted in their Martyrology on the 26th day of October; but although it is not established to me that Catel used the proper Office of the year 1619, and although in the Usuard codex of Hagenoy the feast of St. Hilarus is indeed announced on the 26th day of October, I cannot persuade myself that the feast of St. Hilarus was not at all times celebrated on the 25th day of October, on which it is announced in the genuine Martyrology of Usuard; and certainly in the manuscript calendar of Mende of the year 1323, and in another of the 15th century, which is now kept there in the public library, the feast of St. Ylarius is indicated on the 25th day of October; and under the same day in the Necrology of the 16th century, deposited in the archive of the province of Lozère, one reads: "Of Ylarius, bishop of Mende, a feast founded by D. Gilbert de Cénaret"; because namely he had supplied the money necessary for procuring the annual festivity. St. Ilerus is more difficult. Claude Robert had written in the catalogue of the bishops of Mende, pursuing perhaps too great a brevity Gallia christiana, edit. 1626, p. 423.: "St. Iserus * 1 December and 6 October"; by which he had wished to indicate that in the Office of the year 1619, which he cites at the end of that catalogue, mention is made of him at both days; namely at the 1st day of December, on which his feast is kept, and at the 6th day of October, on which he is praised in the lessons on St. Enimia, honourably celebrated on that day. Du Saussay did not understand this, lacking that Office, and rendered it thus: "Not only on this 1st day of December is his blessed memory celebrated there, but again on the sixth day of October"; and he added, in his way selling conjectures for certain facts: "Of which the one is that of the deposition, the other of the translation." These things Le Cointe received without scruple Annales ecclesiastici Francorum, at the year 628, num. 11, vol. I, p. 794.; similarly Denis de Sainte-Marthe Gallia christiana nova, vol. I, col. 88.. And in that way Claude Robert became the innocent cause that he is not only called St. Iserus, but is also reported to have once had two feasts. St. Ilerus then among the people of Mende (as the venerable man Baldit also wrote back to me) once had only one feast day and still has, namely the 1st day of December; which is held by them to be the day of his death or deposition, so that at the end of the lessons there is added: "On the Kalends of December, leaving human things, he passed to the eternal." If this were established, the Gabali would certainly have had two bishops St. Hilarus, or, if they prefer, one St. Hilarus and another St. Ilerus. But before this seems to be granted, the reader will certainly wish to know from what time St. Ilerus, plainly unknown to the martyrologists, has been venerated by them on the 1st day of December; what was the origin of this cult; whence they knew that he ended his life on the 1st day of December: whose deeds, moreover, they were so ignorant of that they despoiled St. Hilarus of his Life and adorned St. Ilerus with it. On this matter I gave letters to those parts; to which the venerable man Baldit replied that at the 1st day of December in the Calendar of Mende of the 15th century, indicated above, neither the name of St. Hilarus nor of St. Ilerus nor any other like it appears; that in the Book of foundations for the dead of the 16th century, now kept in the library of the city, one reads: "The Kalends of December, St. Ilerus of Mende"; and in the Necrology of the same century, likewise mentioned above: "December
I, of bishop Ilerus, a feast founded by Dalphine Parlieyro." Much more copiously, and no less learnedly, the venerable man H. Charbonnel, then a member of the seminary of Mende, wrote to me on the same argument, who for many years taught the humanities with the fathers of our Society in our college at Mende. He shows namely that already in the 14th century the memory of St. Hilarus was celebrated on the 25th day of October and of St. Ilerus on the 1st of December; that both are found indicated in the Calendar of Mende of the year 1323; in the Directory of the choir, which saw the light under bishop William Durand, nephew of the most celebrated William Durand the Speculator; in a manuscript Missal of Mende of the 14th century; in another Missal, printed in Gothic letters and in use down to the beginning of the 17th century; in the Obituary or Necrology of the chapter, on which the year 1528 is inscribed; and in all the other subsequent liturgical books of Mende; so that it seems it should not be doubted that the feast of St. Ilerus, distinct from that of St. Hilarus, is older than the beginning of the 14th century, and has always persisted thereafter. But the authority of this matter is much lessened by the fact that already at that time the Life of St. Ilerus was deemed to be none other than that of St. Hilarus. For, as the same V. V. Charbonnel warns me, in the rubrics of the Directory of the choir of the 14th century proper lessons of St. Ilerus are ordered to be recited, but on the feast of St. Hilarus the office is to be of the common of a confessor pontiff. Nor can it seem strange to anyone that St. Ilerus was held to be different from St. Hilarus in that age, since long before, in the Provençal Life of St. Enimia by Bertrand of Marseilles, there was celebrated a St. Hilarus or Ylis and Yles, who (if that name had rightly come into that Life) could not but be other than the St. Hilarus honoured on the 25th day of October. The origin of the feast is thus perhaps to be referred to this; whence St. Ilerus cannot but seem difficult. But if I am now asked to say my opinion more openly, I shall plainly profess that I am sorry that no one of Mende has gone before me; meanwhile it seems to me that the Gabali had one bishop St. Hilarus, and that St. Ilerus, commonly Saint Chely, whom they celebrate on the 1st day of December, is no other than St. Eligius; who is everywhere in the Gauls venerated on the 1st day of December, and who, as the reader will presently understand, is also called Saint Chely in those parts.
[36] [Since St. Hilarus and St. Eligius are both commonly called Saint Chely, hence it seems to have arisen that St. Ilerus obtained a cult on the 1st day of December,] Chastelain in the hagiological Onomasticon published before Ménage's Etymological French Dictionary, and also in the universal Martyrology at the 25th days of September and October, teaches that the French name of St. Hilarus is Saint Chelirs; but that he is also called Saint Gely by the people of Mende; and in neither work did he wish to know of St. Ilerus as distinct from St. Hilarus. But the Saint Gely, or rather Saint Chely, of the people of Mende is held by Simon de Peyronet to be St. Ilerus; so that to him he refers the distinguished cult which Saint Chely once obtained in the district of the Gabali, and still obtains. Read his commentary Catologus Sanctorum ac Sanctarum, p. 280 and 281.; in which observe at the same time what he mixes in on the alteration of the name of St. Eligius: "Chely," he says, "Ilerus, otherwise Iserus, bishop and confessor, in the vernacular called St. Chely. Since this French word corresponds so little with the Latin, some have suspected that it is supposititious; yet we must acknowledge it as genuine. For St. Ilerus is so called among the Gabali, of whom he was once bishop, as may be seen in the published catalogues of the bishops of Mende; and even now in the tract of the Gabali there is a town, four leagues distant from the episcopal city of Saint-Flour, called St. Chely from St. Ilerus; whose inhabitants accordingly call themselves Ilerienses. Since therefore the fact is established, the cause of so great a change must be investigated. I think it happened thus: first the people of the Gabali used to call their beloved Ilerus Iler; then, the last consonant being omitted (as commonly happens among the French), it was pronounced Ilé; which word by long use, through a transposition of the vowels (as we see manifest in six hundred other cases), passed over into Ely. But how were the two letters C and H added at the beginning? The reason must be sought from the proper dialect of the people of the Gabali and of the neighbourhood; for even now in many places in the word Sanctus they substitute H for the letter T, and in their idiom for Sanct or Sonct they say Sanch or Sonch; as I was taught by a learned man, P. Portalier, theologian of the Society of Jesus, himself a Gabalitan. Whence it finally happened, by the ignorance of the people, that the last letters of the preceding adjective were added to the beginning of the following noun: so among the same Gabali for St. Amantius one somewhere says San Chamans or Son Chomons; and among the Ruteni St. Eligius, S. Chely; in whose name they have a town so called, commonly named S. Chely; and among the Segusiavi or people of Forez the town of St. Annemundus is called S. Chamond. The same is to be said of St. Anianus, commonly S. Chinan. To which add S. Chimas or Chamas, fashioned from St. Amandus; S. Chapte from St. Agatha; S. Chipar from St. Eparchius; and, with the first syllable removed, S. Châfre from St. Theofredus and S. Cherf from St. Theuderius." See others below, page 643; and in the Commentary on St. Fructus, which I have already indicated, I shall point out that something similar exists among the Spanish.
[37] On which St. Eligius is everywhere venerated. From these things we must conclude that nothing at all stands in the way of the Saint Chely venerated by the Gabali on the 1st day of December being the most celebrated St. Eligius. But the venerable man Jerome Charbonnel, diligently versed in the affairs of Mende, to recall me from this opinion, warned that in actual fact men learned in French letters are accustomed to pronounce Sain-Tchély, but that the rustic commoners say Sen-Tchâgué, by which the French words Saint Hilar are represented, the letter l being changed according to custom into the very hard aspirate gh; that so St. Eulalia is called Sento Ougâjo, a candelabrum tchandagabre, publicly in the district, and in the common proverb: Per sent Agari tous mulatiers dison pa plus arri, that is: After the feast of St. Hilary, or the 14th of January, mule-drivers no longer say: Go on ahead. These things I shall not plainly deny; but everyone will agree that the name of the village or little town Saint-Chely is an old rustic word; likewise Sainch Ylis, the name of St. Hilarus which we have met with in the poetic Provençal Life of St. Enimia: whence gather that formerly the rustics had not yet changed the liquid l in the name of St. Hilarus into the aspirate gh, but that they did so later; which kind of successive changes, moreover, is commonly found in all idioms. I hear moreover those who chant at me that St. Ilerus and at the same time St. Eligius are venerated by the people of Mende on the 1st day of December, and that they are accordingly distinct. In fact, from the time when the Parisian rites were substituted for the Roman rites there, the cult of St. Ilerus being reduced to the semidouble rite, a commemoration of St. Eligius was added; but before it was not so. In the Office of the year 1619 the feast of St. Ilerus is ordered to be kept with double rite and there is nothing of St. Eligius. I hear others warning me that Peyronet does not affirm that St. Eligius is called Saint Chely by the Gabali, but by the neighbouring Ruteni; but since in corrupting the word sanct the Gabali follow the same law as the Ruteni, the name of St. Eligius could not fail to be turned by them too into Saint Chely; and as soon as St. Hilarus and St. Eligius lay hidden under one common name, Saint Chely, it was natural that they should be confused and that St. Hilarus should in time have two feasts, one genuine on the 25th day of October, the other adulterine on the 1st day of December. If these things please the Gabali, they will be able to define whether the town of Saint-Chely-d'Apcher and the parish of Saint-Chely-du-Tarn truly have St. Hilarus as patron or St. Eligius. If the inhabitants keep the feast of their patron chiefly on the 1st day of December (and this from the most ancient times), it must be pronounced that St. Eligius is the patron; if on the 25th day of October, St. Hilarus. Yet I scarcely doubt that the latter is patron of the parish of Saint-Chely-du-Tarn.
[38] [St. Hilary of Poitiers is also venerated in the territory of the Gabali on the occasion of a suppressed superstition,] Care must also be taken that St. Hilarus not be confused with St. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, who has now for thirteen hundred years been venerated with singular veneration in the territory of the Gabali. Certainly before the year 588, in which St. Gregory of Tours wrote his book on the Glory of the confessors, a church was built there in his honour: whose origin must be narrated, both because some would have it that St. Hilarus of the Gabali was to be written by St. Gregory, and not St. Hilary of Poitiers; and because a kind of superstition is declared in that place which St. Hilarus of the Gabali also attacked not far from Marseilles; so that a mutual light is shed on those narratives De gloria conff., ch. 2.. "For there was a mountain in the territory of the Gabali, surnamed Helanus *, having a great lake: to which at a certain time a multitude of rustics, as if presenting libations to that lake, cast linen cloths and rags, such as are furnished for the use of men's clothing; some, fleeces of wool; very many also forms of cheese and of wax, or of bread, and different kinds of things, each according to his means, which I think it would be long to enumerate. They came, moreover, with wagons bearing drink and food, slaughtering animals and feasting for three days. But on the fourth day, when they were to depart, a storm anticipated them, with thunder and strong lightning; and so great a rain came down with such violence of stones that each of them scarcely thought to escape. So it happened every year, and the foolish people was entangled in error. After a long time, however, a certain priest from the city itself, having taken up the episcopate, approached the place, and preached to the crowds that they should desist from these things, lest they be consumed by heavenly anger: but his preaching was by no means received by the crude rusticity.
[39] Which St. Hilarus also destroyed near Marseilles. "Then, divinity inspiring him, the priest of God built a basilica in honour of Blessed Hilary of Poitiers at a distance from the shore of the lake, in which he placed his relics, saying to the people: Do not, little sons, do not sin before the Lord; for there is no religion in a lake. Do not stain your souls in these vain rites; but rather know God and pay veneration to his friends: adore St. Hilary, the bishop of God, whose relics are laid up here; for he can stand as intercessor for you before the mercy of God. Then the men, compunct in heart, were converted: and leaving the lake, they brought forward to the holy basilica all the things which they had been accustomed to cast there; and so they were released from the error by which they had been bound. And the storm too was thereafter kept from that place; nor any more at this solemnity,
which was God's, did it do harm, after the relics of the blessed confessor were placed there." Because Hilarus and Hilarius are nearly the same names, and it is not easily understood that relics of the bishop of Poitiers existed in the midst of the mountains of the Gabali, some have judged that St. Gregory slipped, and that the basilica was consecrated in memory of St. Hilarus of the Gabali. But from the former reason it indeed follows that a confusion was possible, but by no means that it happened. The other argument is plainly none at all, since relics at that time were cloths consecrated by the touch of a tomb, oil from lamps burning before altars, and other things of the kind, which were carried around everywhere. Which the mountain Helanus is, also called Helarus or Elarus, has long been unknown; but in the southern part of the district of the Gabali, which is especially mountainous, in the district of Florac, there lie two parishes having St. Hilary as patron, one to the east of Florac, Saint-Hilaire-de-la-Parade, formerly a priory, the other Saint-Hilaire-de-Lavit; of one of these two the writers of the history of Languedoc would have it that the matter is treated Compare D. Vaissette, Hist. du Languedoc, vol. I, page 281.. On the contrary the distinguished man Cayx Compare the Map joined to his commentary on the district of the Gabali. reckons that the mountain Helanus was on the western bank of the stream Bessa, and that the sacred lake was placed at about that spot at which on the maps of Cassini a collection of waters is seen between the villages of Marcastel and St. Salvator. But these things are wonderfully uncertain.
Annotata* nomen
* illicitas
* Itaque
* Ilerus
* otherwise Helarus, Elarus, Hilarius.
§ V. Of the former extent of the district of the Gabali and of the site of the city of the Gabali.
In the life of St. Hilarus four distinct periods. All those impediments having been removed from the way, a few things remain to be observed concerning what is related in the Life of Bl. Hilarus. Four periods are to be distinguished: first, what he spent in the world; second, what he spent in a cell, about two thousand paces from the village of Mende, with three brothers joined to him; third, what he spent in a monastery, built near the river Tarn with wondrous work and costly labour; fourth, finally, what he spent as bishop of the city of the Gabali. Of the first there is nothing for me to say. Of the second I shall remark this one thing, that the Gauls were then full of cells, having three or four brothers joined together: which institute was very much to be lamented. Wherefore St. Carileffus, or whoever is the deacon called Nileffus in the manuscript Lives of St. Leobinus, warned this blessed man not to associate himself with a small cell, because, "while each desired to set himself over the others, obedience was given to none" D. Bouquet, Recueil des historiens, etc., vol. I, p. 71.. Who could say whether St. Hilarus experienced the same difficulties? He preferred however to leave this cell, which has left no memory of itself, and to found a great monastery on the bank of the river Tarn; which (unless I am mistaken) he did in the village which is still called Saint-Chely-de-Tarn. Although that monastery was built with wondrous work and costly labour and held a multitude of brethren, it is not even mentioned in the catalogue of the destroyed monasteries of the diocese of Mende which is read in the new Gallia Christiana and in the Gabalum Christianum of the V. V. Pascal; nor do I think its memory is found elsewhere: so have all traces perished!
[41] [The opinions of the distinguished men Walckenaer and Cayx on the bounds of the former district and diocese of the Gabali and on its principal city.] Since St. Hilarus was made bishop of the city of the Gabali about the beginning of the 6th century, it must now be inquired where he established his see; seeing that we cannot omit an argument which pertains so closely to St. Hilarus and which has often in this century been handled with much diligence; with which is connected a controversy on the extent of the district of the Gabali. Ptolemy, who under Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus wrote his Geography, consigned this to letters Ibid., p. 113.: "Under them (the Vasarii) are the Gabali and the city of Anderidum"; whence it appears that this was the capital of the district of the Gabali. Its site is indicated on the Peutinger tables, in which we read this [Étude de géographie ancienne du pays de Gabalum ou Gévaudan, in Mémoires de la soc. d'agriculture du dép. de la Lozère, July and August 1852, p. 122 and following.]: "Sigod [un] um. XXIV. Ad Silanum. XVIII. Anderitum. XXII. Condate. XII. Revessione." But since it is only known for certain that by Sigodunum the city of the Ruteni is represented and by Revessione the town of St. Paulien , and since the hesitation which arises from ignorance of the intermediate places cannot be removed by the knowledge of the miles alone (for the mountainous condition of the district did not permit the roads to be straight), hence some have gone off into some opinions and others into others on the position of Anderitum; and since the bishops of the Gabali doubtless had their see in the city that was capital of the district, hence nothing can be inquired about Anderitum without inquiring at the same time about the episcopal see of the Gabali; and since some have moreover wished Anderitum to have been situated outside the diocese of the Gabali, such as it was in the century just past, there also come into question the boundaries of the diocese or district of the Gabali. On all these matters several have written, among whom the distinguished men Walckenaer, Cayx and the V. V. Pascal [Walckenaer, Mémoire sur l'étendue et les limites du territoire des Gabali et sur la position de leur capitale Anderitum, in Mémoires de l'Institut, nouvelle série, vol. V, p. 398 and following.] have become chiefly known to me. The last of these thought almost only of showing from the Propempticon of St. Sidonius Apollinaris that in the 5th century Mende was the capital of the district of the Gabali; but this writing is so light that it is not necessary to institute an examination of it. Both the others published a dissertation on the size and boundaries of the district of the Gabali and on its principal city, the one among the Commentaries of the French academic institute Compare the Map joined to his commentary on the district of the Gabali., the other among the Commentaries of the archaeologists of France. The distinguished man Walckenaer reckoned that a great part of the diocese of Saint-Flour, namely the lesser district of the Planitia , was once enclosed within the bounds of the district of the Gabali, and that the city of the Gabali, Anderitum, was placed in this part between the rivers Bessa and Triobris *, that it is represented by the present village of Anterrieux or Antérieux, and that it was accordingly situated outside the bounds of the former diocese of Mende or district of the Gabali. The distinguished man Cayx by no means amplifies the former district of the Gabali so greatly; he would have it, however, that the angle at the confluence of the Bessa and the Triobris, contained in the diocese of Saint-Flour and holding four communities, was before the erection of the see of Saint-Flour a part of the district of the Gabali; that the old name of the village of Anterieux was not Anteritum, but Ante rivum, namely before the Bessa; that Anteritum lay in the middle of the district of the Gabali, and that the village of Mont-Rodat succeeded it, placed half a league from Marvejols towards the east on the former road of Lyon [Cayx, Nouvelles recherches sur l'étendue du pays des Gabali et sur la position de leurs villes antiques, Mémoires de la société des antiq. de France, vol. VI, p. 80 and following.]. The same argument was afterwards reworked by the distinguished man Walckenaer Géographie ancienne des Gaules, vol. I, p. 345 and following., departing from his former views so far as to say that in the 3rd century Anteritum was destroyed, and that then the place now called Javouls, Javous and Gavous became the capital of the district of the Gabali and of the diocese long since called that of Mende. But it is far from being the case that those alone are the opinions that have been fought for; others have others of their own: so that the Gabali will easily suffer me too to set forth my own.
[42] [The district of the Planetia was not formerly a part of the diocese of Mende, nor is it established that the angle between the Bessa and the Triobris belonged to the same.] First of all it cannot be granted to the distinguished man Walckenaer that the lesser district of the Planetia, which has been wholly (unless I am mistaken) absorbed by the diocese of Saint-Flour, was taken by Pope John XXII, who established this new episcopal see in the year 1317, from the diocese of Mende and the district of the Gabali. For, to omit the more remote parts, I shall hold myself to a few places. First of all Piperacum , where St. Peter of Chavanon established about the middle of the 11th century an abbey of canons regular, was most certainly of the diocese of Clermont, as is clear from the acts of Durand, bishop of Clermont, in erecting this institute Acta SS., vol. III of September, p. 464 and following.. The monastery of St. Peter de Casis , which the same St. Peter ruled for a while, was similarly within the diocese of Clermont; so that in a diploma of the year 1277 Margaret, humble abbess of Casae, of the diocese of Clermont, makes known that she holds from the Reverend father in Christ the lord bishop of Clermont the monastery and estate of Casae Gallia christiana, vol. II, instrum., col. 158.. The church of St. Flour, "which lay together in the county, in the country which is called Planetia, on Mount Judiciacus," was equally within the circuit of the diocese of Clermont; wherefore, when at the end of the 11th century it was given to the Cluniacs, Stephen, bishop of Clermont, confirmed the donation with his mark Ibid., instr., col. 127 and 128.. But why do I pursue these things? Denis de Sainte-Marthe saw the pontifical diploma by which the diocese of Saint-Flour was created, and he calls it the bull of division of the new episcopal see from that of Clermont Ibid., col. 421 and 422.. Let it then be certain that the Planetia was not a part of the diocese of the Gabali or of Mende. Whether a part or angle of the former diocese of Saint-Flour, lying between the Bessa and the Triobris, was, before the decree of John XXII on dividing the diocese of Clermont, of the diocese of Mende and the district of the Gabali, as the distinguished man Cayx would have it, is a more difficult question. To urge this, he alleges a charter Baluze, Histoire généalogique de la maison d'Auvergne, vol. II, p. 50. in which Pontius, count of the land of the Gabali and also of the country of Forez, in the year 1010 gave back to the Lord and the martyr Julian of the church of Brioude the church of Langat, "and in the county of the Gabali another church which is called Favairolas." It is manifest therefore that the village of Favairolas, situated in that angle, was of the county of the Gabali; but since counties were bounded by the jurisdiction of the counts Guérard, Essai sur le systême des divisions territoriales de la France, p. 53. and this was often changed, county and district did not always agree with each other: so that that argument is less firm than it seems at first sight, nor is anything perhaps more prudent than that we should judge that the boundaries of the former diocese of Mende, which doubtless corresponded to the primitive district of the Gabali, were unmoved.
[43] [The arguments by which the distinguished man Walckenaer has tried to establish his opinion,] Since Antérieux, however, was held within the diocese of Saint-Flour, it follows that this village is not the old Anderitum, capital of the district of the Gabali and first see of the bishops of Mende, as the most learned man Walckenaer, whom I cannot mention without praise, has tried to persuade. It will be worth the trouble to
weigh briefly the reasons which he brings both for amplifying the bounds of the district of the Gabali and for confusing Anderitum with Antérieux. St. Sidonius Apollinaris, in the Propempticon to his book, or Poem XXIV, sending his book through ten halts and lodgings, designates among these the following In Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. LVIII, col. 745 and 746.:
From here kindly Brioude * will receive you,
Which cherishes the bones of holy Julian …
From here you take now the fields more to the right,
And having crossed the ridge * in a single day,
On the morrow you look upon the yellow Triobris *.
Then the land of the Gabali, snowy enough,
And, as much as the natives wish it to be thought,
You will see a city lofty in a well.
Whoever reads these lines with no prior thought will doubtless interpret them as if the land of the Gabali began near the stream Triobris; but quite otherwise the distinguished man Walckenaer, who judged that the bounds of this land to the winter sunrise are the Margaride mountains; relying on which interpretation he reckoned that he could ascribe a great part of the diocese of Saint-Flour to the district of the Gabali, and accordingly that nothing prevented Antérieux from being the capital of the Gabali or the city which Bl. Sidonius jokingly calls lofty in a well; that the shape of the village of Antérieux, built on a small hill rising in a very deep valley, favours this, and also the distances of the places indicated on the Peutinger table; that by these are designated Gallic leagues, of which two are equivalent to three Roman miles; that the distance, however, between Segodunum and Ad Silanum is indicated in Roman miles; that one must go from Sigodunum to Ad Silanum, which he says is Castrumnovum , through the villages of St. Bonitus and St. Cosmas; from Castrumnovum to Antérieux through the towns or villages of St. Hilarus , St. Ursitius and the valley of the stream Bessa ; from Antérieux to St. Arcontius ; and from here by the road of Costaros to Revessio *.
[44] are very uncertain. These things having been laid down, with the help of the topographic maps of Cassini he made his thinking manifest with the following diagram:
But what is certain in these things does little to discover the site of Anderitum. It is certain, as we have said, that Sigodunum is the city of the Ruteni and Revessio the town of St. Paulien; I do not know whether Condate, by which name a town in a wedge at the confluence of two streams is designated [Du Cange, Glossarium latinum, under Condate; Ménage, Dictionnaire étymologique, under Condé; Valesius, Notitia Galliarum, under Condate; D'Anville, Notice de l'ancienne Gaule, p. 235 and following.], is rightly represented by Cantogilum to the west of St. Arcontius, although some prefer that the village of St. Privatus D. Vaissette, Histoire du Languedoc, vol. I, p. 16., some the village of St. Desiderius Astruc, Mémoires pour l'hist. nat. du Languedoc, part I, p. 125., others Monasteriolum on the Elaver D'Anville, Notice de l'ancienne Gaule, p. 238., others Conat Cayx, Mém. des antiq. de France, vol. VII, p. 104., some miles farther on, occupied the place of Condate. But by these things nothing at all can be determined, since the village of Javols, which we shall say much more probably was placed on the seat of Anderitum, is nearly the same distance from Cantogilum and from the little town of St. Paulien as is Antérieux. It is plainly uncertain, however, what the station Ad Silanum is; and since some tavern seems to be signified by that name, d'Anville Notice, p. 607. believed it was Stabula *; Vaissette Hist. du Languedoc, p. 62. a halting place near Treslans; Jean Astruc Mémoires pour l'hist. nat. du Languedoc, part I, p. 125. a place near the town of St. Cosmas; and finally the distinguished man Cayx Mém. des antiq. de France, vol. VII, p. 102 and 103. the village of Auxillac; which name he deduces from Ad Silanum through Aou-Sillac, the last letter n being changed into c. But what seems much more uncertain is that assumption of the distinguished man Walckenaer that miles and leagues are mixed in that place; nor is it accordingly to be admitted that Sigodunum or the Ruteni were only 24 miles distant from the station Ad Silanum, since on the Peutinger Table the same number of leagues is read. Which last remark, if it is joined with the site of Antérieux, placed outside the diocese and district of the Gabali, certainly suffices to demolish the whole system of the most celebrated geographer. Add that the most learned man is not consistent with himself, since on the one hand he would have it that St. Sidonius Apollinaris at the end of the 5th century sent his book to Antérieux, as if it were the city or capital of the Gabali; and on the other that at the end of the 4th century or the beginning of the 5th the episcopal see had already been transferred to Mende Mémoires de l'Institut, nouv. sér., vol. V, p. 409 and 410.. I do not think it necessary to show that there is nothing solid in the opinion of the distinguished man Cayx, who places the seat of Anderitum on Mont Rodat: it is a mere conjecture, relying on no foundation: for I would not call it a foundation that old rubble was found there: for similar things have been uncovered in six hundred places of the district of the Gabali.
[45] [That Anderitum or the capital of the district was placed in the village of Javols or Javous is urged by the name, by the singular ruins uncovered, by an inscription] Moreover it is sufficiently established from elsewhere that the little village of Javols is the old seat of Anderitum. We have already shown that the site of this place agrees as well with the Peutinger table as the position of the village of Anterieux: indeed even better; for that the distinguished man Walckenaer may defend his opinion, he must take away twelve miles from the road laid between Segodunum and Anderitum; which, since Javols is so much farther distant from Segodunum, we need by no means do. Then it must be considered that the name Javols or Javous is such that by it the principal city or capital of the Gabali is represented; in which matter it agrees with Anderitum. For the letter g, where a vowel follows, is frequently changed to j in French names derived from Latin: thus Gamba becomes Jambe; Gaudium, Joie; Gemelli, Jumeaux; Genae, Joues; Gemeticum, Jumièges; Gargolium, Jargeau; Gaudiosa, Joyeuse; Mons Gaudii, Montjoie; and these occur spontaneously. But when I open the Glossary of Du Cange at the letter i, I fall upon innumerable words which begin now from g or c, now from j: Gardinum becomes Jardinum; Gaola, Jaola; Chable, Cable, Jaable; Jacca, Cocca; Jactus, Gettus; Jarria, Joria, Gerria; Jarrigia, Garrigia, etc.; but these things are clearer than the noon light; and thus the distinguished man Cayx Mém. des antiq. de France, vol. VII, p. 105. warns that in the district of the Gabali g is everywhere changed to j; which you may understand even from the name of the village of saint Jueri, situated on the Bessa, since St. George lies hidden under that unaccustomed form. It is not then at all to be doubted that the name Javols is the same as Gabalum; which we shall soon see to be worth as much as the city of the Gabali. The singular ruins uncovered no less favour this. They had long ago been found; and it was commonly reported that the earth could not be moved there without ancient monuments appearing; but since no examination had ever been instituted by learned men, one could certainly believe that there were no more remains of old monuments there than in many other places of the territory of the Gabali. And matters were in that condition when in the year 1815 the distinguished man Walckenaer publicly read his commentary on that district and its city Anderitum. But afterwards, especially from the year 1829, endless ruined walls of ancient buildings and other testimonies of the kind to the former magnificence were dug out. I shall designate only the walls, built in a circle, which seemed to be a circus and in whose midst there was a stone column, dedicated to Postumus by the city of the Gabali [Ph. Lebas, France, Dictionnaire encyclopédique, vol. IX, p. 696; A. Hugo, France pittoresque, vol. II, p. 198.]. The entire inscription was sent to me by the venerable man Baldit, often mentioned by me. For the sake of brevity I shall insert the suppressed letters in smaller type:
IMPeratori. Cæsari. Marco. CASSi
ANIO. LATINIO. PO
STVMO. INVICTO
Pio. Felici. AVGusto. PONtifici. MA
XIMO. Tribunitia. Potestate. Patri. Patriæ. COnSuli. IIII
CIVitas. GABalorum
[To the Emperor Caesar Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus, the Unconquered, Pious, Fortunate, Augustus, Supreme Pontiff, with tribunician power, Father of the Fatherland, Consul for the fourth time, the City of the Gabali.]
This then was the seat of the city of the Gabali when in the year 265 Postumus went forth as consul for the fourth time in the Gauls, who, set up by Valerian as prefect of Gaul and guardian of its frontier against the Germans, in the year 257 (as we shall shortly see) had, not without perfidy, assumed the imperial dignity in the Gauls. Nothing clearer can therefore be devised than that title for establishing that Anderitum or the capital of the Gabali was truly situated there.
[46] And the law of the change of the names of the principal cities in the Gauls. City, you see, while the republic stood, signified an entire people; in which sense Caesar everywhere speaks of the city of the Remi, of the Bellovaci, of the Nervii, etc.; yet he himself among the first, though more rarely, used city for the principal town in his Commentaries [Nic. Bergier, De publicis et militaribus imperii romani viis, bk. IV, sect. VII, num. 5.], though Ennius had long before preceded him, of whom is this verse In Nonius, ch. V, num. 27.:
And I see the city of the Argives set on fire;
and there followed Valerius Flaccus, Petronius, Seneca, Quintilian, Suetonius and Aurelius Victor, reviewed by Forcellini Lexicon totius latinitatis, under Civitas.. Similarly Ptolemy in his Geography very often wrote, in place of ἀστεως, which is town or city, πολιν, whose meaning is the same as civitas; and everywhere too in the Itinerary of Antoninus towns and cities are called civitates Bergier, in the section cited and sect. VIII.. Yet that word was not used indiscriminately; but only those cities and towns were named civitates which had their own magistrates, laws and civil institutions, in a word the capitals of districts, which reproduced the form of the Roman republic Ibid., in the place cited.. Whence it is manifest that the city of the Gabali was the capital of the district and the principal town. Afterwards, however, when the Roman empire declined in the Gauls, the word civitas was commonly suppressed, and old Durocortorum, which had first become the city of the Remi, received the bare name of Remi; similarly Lutetia, city of the Parisii, was called Parisii and Parisium; in no other way Avaricum, city of the Bituriges, is found called Bituriges and Bituricum; and by no other reason Anderitum, city of the Gabali, Gabali and Gabalum: but rather Belley Mémoires de l'Académie des inscript., vol. XIX, p. 495 and following. should be seen, who exhausted the argument on the fortunes of the names of Gallic cities. So far then from the similarity of the names Anderitum and Antérieux urging that the same place is designated by them, it holds rather on the contrary side, since Anderitum must first have been called the city of the Gabali and then Gabali and Gabalum, its former name being lost; and in fact at the beginning of the 5th century, in the Notitia of the provinces and cities of Gaul In D. Bouquet, Recueil des historiens de France, vol. I, p. 123., it is no longer called Anderitum, but the city of the Gabali; indeed even in the year 314 Genialis, a deacon of the city of the Gabali, in the province of Aquitaine, took part in the I council of Arles.
[47] To this the distinguished man Walckenaer afterwards partly consented; And these things are so manifest that the distinguished academician Walckenaer in the year 1839, in which he published at Paris his Ancient Geography of the Gauls, partly changed his former opinion, reckoning that after the middle of the 3rd century Anderitum was destroyed by the Alemanni and that then the present village of Javols became the city of the Gabali or Gabalum Géographie ancienne des Gaules, vol. I, p. 347 and 348.; but since the most learned man did not even show that Antérieux was situated within the bounds of the district of the Gabali, much less that it was ever the capital of this region, nor taught by any testimony that the genuine Anderitum was overturned about the middle of the 3rd century, there is no reason for us to believe that in the 3rd century the honour of chief city was transferred from one place to another.
[48] [Part of this new opinion cannot be reconciled with a milestone set up while Postumus ruled in the Gauls.] But that new opinion of the distinguished Walckenaer can be directly attacked. Let us grant, namely, that about the times of Valerian and Gallienus, when the Alemanni were bursting into the Gauls, St. Privatus, bishop of the city of the Gabali, beaten with clubs, breathed out his spirit St. Gregory of Tours, Hist. eccl. Franc., bk. I, ch. 30 and 32, p. 25 and 26.; and that on that occasion the chief city was overturned. But no one will say that this was done as long as the emperor Postumus lived, seeing that it is the opinion of all writers that by his virtue alone the Gauls were saved from perishing by the invasion of the Germans, just as most of the other provinces of the empire did. But that at the beginning of his reign the capital of the district of the Gabali, its primitive name Anderitum having been laid down, was already called Gabali or Gabalum is established from the inscription which I have reported above, and from another, which I wonder is neglected by nearly all those whom I have seen disputing on the old seat of Anderitum or the position of the city of the Gabali. This is a round milestone, found in the field, eight feet high, which is still extant, says Bergier [De publ. et milit. imperii romani viis, bk. IV, sect. 39, num. 10, in Graevius, Thesaur. antiq. roman., vol. X, col. 505.], in the place which is called Fligei, where the boundaries are of the Arverni and the Gabali, or to use our dialect, d'Auvergne et du Gévaudan. The inscription is this:
IMP. CAES
M. CAS. LAT.
POSTVMO
P. F. AUG. COS
M. P. GABALL. V
[To the Emperor Caesar Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus, Pious, Fortunate, Augustus, Consul. From Gaball., V thousand paces.]
In very truth neither on the maps of Cassini nor in the census of the district of the Gabali do I find a place called Fligei; and the distinguished man Ignon testifies, in the Commentary on the antiquities of the province of Lozère [Mémoires de la société d'agriculture du département de la Lozère, vol. XII, 1840–1841.], that he has discovered no similar place in those parts; and the most illustrious bishop of Mende, whose most kindly recommendation prevailed that the V. V. Baldit should render me so outstanding a service, has deigned to write to me that in going through the mountains of his diocese no similar village has ever met him; so that it seems it should not be doubted that an error lies in the name. And so my cited guide the V. V. Baldit suggests to me that it very probably concerns the milestone which (as the distinguished man Ignon is witness) the distinguished man de Belviala saw on the Roman road not far from the old bridge of the parish of St. Abundius on the Alevarus *; which place is situated on the bounds of the Arverni and the Gabali; that another column exists in the forest of Acher near a rock called Banc de Mazieu; but that this, placed more to the south, is too far distant from the bounds of the two districts. And I too think the same. In very truth the bridge of St. Abundius is more than five thousand paces distant from Gabali or Javols; but it seems one should read M. P. GABAL. LV, not M. P. GABALL. V, since nowhere is it found written Gaballi, Gaballum, Gaballitanus, etc.; but everywhere Gabali, Gabalum, Gabalitanus. And, to remark this in passing, the question can be solved from this stone whether Postumus came forward as emperor in the year 257 or 258; which Eckhel affirms is not clear Eckhel, Doctrina numorum, vol. VII, p. 446 and 447.. For from this monument, in which his first consulate is joined with the imperial honour, it seems it must be decided that he was in fact raised to the empire in the year 257, in which he was first made suffect consul. But what is chiefly to the purpose at this place, we gather from this stone that the capital of the district was then called Gabalum or Gabali, seeing that miles were accustomed to be counted from the principal city [Bergier, De publicis etc. viis, bk. IV, sect. 40, num. 9, in Graevius, Thesaurus antiquit., vol. X, col. 511.]: which alone suffices us here. Let it stand then that Anderitum is the same town as Gabalum or the city of the Gabali; and that this place is now called Javols.
[49] St. Hilarus had his see in the place now called Javols. St. Hilarus is related in his Life to have been bishop of the city of the Gabali; whence it might seem to be concluded that he had his see at Javols. But this conclusion is not certain to all: for, to use an example from my homeland, down to the end of the 11th century those were called bishops of Tongres who from the 7th century had their see at Liège Acta SS. Belgii, vol. I, p. 348.; and similarly it may be asked, and in fact it is asked, whether St. Hilarus, bishop of the city of the Gabali, did not stay at Mende. For the V. V. Pascal Gabalum Christianum, page 35 and following. and Charbonnel Origine et histoire de l'église de Mende, page 97. teach that already in the middle of the 3rd century the see of the Gabali was transferred to Mende, and that thus St. Privatus sat at Mende, and that for that reason a woman vexed by a demon, at the funeral of Bl. Aredius, who ended his life in the year 591, exclaimed St. Gregory of Tours, Hist. eccles. Franc., bk. X, ch. 29, col. 525.: "Behold, here is Julian from Brioude, Privatus from Mende, Martin from Tours, and Martial from his own city. Here is Saturninus from Toulouse, Denis from the city of Paris, and some others whom heaven retains": but that is a laughable argument, since it plainly concerns the places where the relics of the saints were kept, nor would anyone doubt that the relics of St. Privatus were kept at that time at Mende. So far is it from being possible to decide from this that St. Privatus had his see at Mende, that the contrary should rather be gathered from it, since bishops at that time were not accustomed to sit in cemetery or monastic basilicas (for the cemetery basilica of St. Privatus shortly became monastic). Nor am I more moved by the fact that St. Gregory of Tours, who also reported the words of that woman, called St. Lupentius abbot of the basilica of St. Privatus, martyr of the city of the Gabali St. Gregory of Tours, Hist. eccles. Franc., bk. VI, ch. 37, col. 314.; since these words are not to be interpreted as if Mende had become the city of the Gabali (for it was certainly still a village [Ado, Martyrology at the 21st of August. Compare Acta SS., vol. II of September, page 253.] in the 9th century), but because St. Privatus was martyr and bishop of the city of the Gabali. There is no reason, therefore, why St. Hilarus should not be held to have placed his see at Gabali. Much later, namely in the 9th century and thereafter, Mende gradually grew, and so in the year 951 Stephen calls himself bishop of the church of Mende Mabillon, De re diplomatica, page 569.; so that it is not to be doubted that before this year the see of the Gabali was transferred there. It seems more space should not be given to this argument, since our predecessors have already handled it at the 21st day of August in the Commentary on St. Privatus and at the 4th of September in the Commentary on St. Fredaldus, bishop and martyr of the Gabali or Mende. There follows the Life, concerning which I have in § II of the present Commentary warned of what seemed fitting. [In the Preliminary Commentary, in the first 27 numbers, I have written Gaballi, Gaballitanus, etc.; let Gabali, etc., be read everywhere.]
Annotata* Rodès
* Saint-Paulhien
* Planèse
* Bèse
* Truyère
* Pibrac
* Les Chases
* Brioude-glise
* le Mont-Margéride
* la Truyère
* Castelnau
* S. Bonaiac
* S. Chely
* Urcise
* la Bèse
* S. Arcons
* S. Paulhien
* Chantenge
* Monistrol d'Allier
* Étables
* St Ahond-sur-Allier.
LIFE OF BL. HILARUS, BISHOP OF THE GABALI OR OF MENDE.
From the manuscript codices of Rouge-Cloître and of the Queen of Sweden, collated with the Life by Guy de Châtres from a manuscript codex of Mende of the 15th century, and with the same distributed into nine Lessons on St. Hilarius from a codex of the 16th century of the archive of the prefecture of Lozère, and with a lesson on St. Ilerus from the Office of the particular saints of the church of Mende of the year 1619.
Hilarus, bishop of the Gabali, in the diocese of Mende in Gaul. (S.)
BHL Number: 3910, 3911
FROM MANUSCRIPTS.
[St. Hilarus, while still a layman, undoes the work of a storm-raising magician, using the letter of Christ to Abgar.] And so blessed Hilarus , bishop of the city of the Gabali, born not ignobly according to the dignity of the world of his parents, in the first years of his infancy, in the gladness of a most sweet pleasantness, was named Hilarus: which name, as he also received it in sacred baptism a, he at once took up by the profession of religion . For he macerated his body with incredible fasts and afflicted it with the heats of panting thirst . Meanwhile , as he was afflicting his body with incredible torment and was disturbed by the heats of panting thirst, he applied to his breast a linen cloth wet with water, that this refreshment brought to it might comfort his failing body, macerated by the fasts of abstinence. But by what great merits he shone in the world , the following page will show. A certain minister of demons [b], running through everything man by man, was demanding that grain be given him c; and, unless he received the price of his crime, he threatened that perils of his power would come. This man Hilarus restrained with an avenging lash and drove off with the rigour of his virtue . For he testified that demons were horrible and to be routed, and that the Lord alone was to be served. That wicked man , threatening cruel things and roaring savagely, went away. And so about two months later, when Hilarus at the sixth hour of the day had relaxed in sweet slumber his limbs weary from the cross , he saw himself in sleep struck by the angry tooth of a serpent and obtaining the remedy of health by the touch of blessed oil. Soon he was shaken from sleep; the day was suddenly covered with clouds, and a tempest raging far and wide arose. Hilarus wrote out the letter of the Redeemer, directed to Abgar d; he took blessed wax, went round the crops chanting psalms, and rescued them from the neighbouring peril; yet a small field, sown in the space of about one arpent e, which the care of his skill would not go around, the force of the tempest carried away. For the neighbouring and surrounding crops were destroyed by a horrible slaughter. So with twin virtue the force *
of rigour restrained the guilty man, and the merit of sanctity preserved the sown fields.
[2] [He builds a cell near Mende, where he often visits the tomb of St. Privatus by night, not at all terrified by will-o'-the-wisps; then he founds another great monastery near the Tarn. Among other prodigies he makes a spring, long dry, watery again on the estate of Martianilla. He scatters the superstitions of January.] Meanwhile Hilarus, about two thousand paces from the village of Mende, with three brothers joined to himself , sets up a cell f. Often by night as he hastened to the basilica of the most blessed Privatus the martyr g a fire was thrown in his way: a rolling flame was poured out over the space of a pool, and the present conflagration threatened danger: which Hilarus, impressing the sign of the blessed cross, in the name of Christ , passed over. Once when at dead of night he was returning from the basilica of the martyr to his little cell, he was raised into the air, and, set down in a forest horrid with thorns and surrounded with dense brambles, he was found after three days by the brothers singing psalms : and that a free way out might lie open, a road was opened with axes. And so, fervent in the ardour of faith, he built a monastery near the river Tarn with wondrous work and costly labour, in which he placed a copious multitude of brothers h. On a certain estate, as the father was arriving, an unexpected dog gripped his calf with its bite: the father asks vengeance from the Lord. On the night that followed, in a multitude of dogs one, who seemed to have inflicted the injury , was torn to pieces by wolves. While he was making his way along the bank of the river Tarn through a sloping place, his foot suddenly slipping, he was rolled into a whirlpool of wondrous depth: and for a space of about two hours , while a boat was being brought down, he stood in the river, the water scarcely touching his knee . On the estate of the virgin Martianilla i, a spring flowing with abundant water suddenly dried up for seven years, all moisture being altogether taken away. To which place , the virgin accompanying him, the father came and, being entreated, poured out prayers to the Lord: soon its course being restored, the water returned and served the uses of men with rich bounty. When according to custom, in the month which the gentiles called January from King Janus, the ignoble crowd was exercised in games, songs or banquets, that ancient serpent poured out the poisons of death under the appearance of gladness; he feigns a game that he may overturn hearts with sacrilege. With the head of a stag set on in front, the crime of diabolical persuasion bends the human condition to imitating the form of a wild beast. The father learned that these evils were being carried on not far from his monastery: and taking two brothers, he went forth to correct the unhappy people with holy exhortation . And so, as St. Hilarus hastened on, the rustics saw a line of a numerous people rushing upon them. The game in which they were raving being thrown into confusion, then, and cast aside, they fled in different directions and were placed in the bosom of mother church. So divine power, at the prayers of its Hilarus, terrified , checked and called back a company near to death.
[3] Since undivided concord always remains among holy men, [He often makes for Lérins; near Marseilles he removes a superstition concerning water, and heals a disease of the groin with his cappa.] and each is called there by his wishes where he is called by his merits , the father often came to the island of Lérins k, that he might enjoy the silences of laborious equity, the good of charity and the exercises of the cross. While the father was returning from the island to his little cell, he came on the borders of the city of Marseilles near the estate of a certain high-placed man: who invited him to sanctify his very ample house by a blessed visit. Going there, he beheld beside a certain shrine a band of unhappy men raving in a sacrilegious game and paying the vows of their perdition to a most savage serpent . The father rebukes the possessor of the place, why in the presence of so great and so faithful a man sacrifice was being offered to the atrocious demons with the deaths of the gentiles , since he had both the authority of warning the sacrilegious and the power of restraining them. He testifies that they could more easily be laid low in death than be called back from their monstrous crime. The father, joining a company of men, and a few monks following him, made for the shrine. Forthwith, by a divine gift, in the whole multitude courage fled away *. The banquets and wines prepared for the sacrilegious were thrown into disorder. He warned that no one should touch the condemned offerings; and that his warnings might be plain in truth, he threw the breads and cheeses to the dogs l; rabid madness, forgetful of hunger, closed its gaping jaws; and even the unclean demons, polluted by the contagions, fled away.
On a certain day, then, when he had reached the city of Marseilles, and had stayed there held for the space of a few days by the zeal of charity, he testified, the Holy Spirit revealing it, that a very grave pestilence was impending over the city. And when he was departing from the city, the cappa (as the custom is to call it), with which the old man was seen to cover his head for the necessity of cold, was presently let go in the bedchamber of the monks. Meanwhile, not long after, the city of the Marseillais was vexed by a disease of the groins and of pustules m, nor did the speed of those perishing allow anything of a remedy to be sought or applied *. For, scarcely three days intervening, whole bands were collapsing into dire slaughter by the deadly pestilence. The host of the most blessed Hilarus, kindled with the ardour of faith, brought out the cappa from the little cell; he applied it to the limbs of one of his servants who was on the point of rushing into death. At once, by the healing touch of the holy covering, health being restored, he rose up. Then the whole household, as this medicine came upon them, was snatched from peril and restored to health. The brother of the host also asked for the benefit of the covering and merited it: and one power healed the brother's house. Then he who had given the covering sought it back: the other pleaded that this benefit ought to be common to him with his brother.
[4] [At the beginning of the 6th century he frees many captives from the servitude of the Franks and denies eulogiae to a most wicked man.] When the nation of the Sicambri had covered the province of the Gabali with the cloud of war n, the father, shut up in the fortress of Melena o, where he lay under a prolonged siege, knew in spirit that he and the weary citizens would be released by the speedy departure of the enemy. Forthwith he went out, in order that, paying ransom, he might restore to liberty the freeborn whom the yoke of servitude had oppressed. There was in the enemy's column a certain man, a Christian by profession, in atrocity far more monstrous than the sacrilegious. For he constantly fed with deadly rabidity on the blood of the innocent. The father , the opportunity being granted by the enemy, and the price paid, released from the bond of servitude those free by nature. He was led by a certain faithful leading man to the tents, and most courteously invited to refreshment. And so that wicked man, by his turn as due, prepared the meal for his comrades, joined the table, and demanded eulogiae from the father [p]. The father refused to be joined with the lost by sharing in communion. That madman was kindled with fury; he threatened present destruction, binding himself with the bond of an oath that the father should by no means return home safe. While he raged and heaped wood on the hearths, and bent forward insisted on the work he had begun, a bronze vessel suddenly moved and overturned, the enemy was flooded with boiling water , fell headlong in the midst of the flames, and paid with the penalty of death for the wrong conceived in his mind. So by divine judgment the one was laid low by punishment, the other was freed from danger.
[5] [About the year 533 he goes to Theodebert, ruling in the district of the Gabali after the expulsion of the Visigoths, and obtains his requests. Being bishop, as he had long since been made, by night he calls the brothers to the office with a prodigious light. He dies piously.] When the most blessed Hilarus was hastening to Theodebert, king of the Franks, for remedies for the province committed to him [q], and had arrived at the place whose name is Arisencus [r], at dead of night Leo the tribune [s], as he was lying with a boy near his tent, beheld with stunned wonder a globe of immense light rise from his bed, cleave the air and reach to the heavens: he also heard certain men speaking with the blessed father. After some little delay blessed Hilarus warned Leo to keep silent about the things seen; he announced the prosperity of the coming journey and the speed of a favourable return. Meanwhile he reached the king; he was received with the highest veneration ; the things hoped for were furnished ; he returned to his homeland having attained his wish . So, glorious Hilarus, what he had foreseen as future were fulfilled by speedy effect. At a certain time, when the middle of the night was nearly rising, the blessed father, now a pontiff, ever intent on vigils [t], was shaken from sleep; he roused the brothers ; and no one at all answered [u]: at first indeed a sweet and deep quiet had overwhelmed their limbs relaxed in slumber. He rose from his couch, seized a wax candle; soon, by divine power, light being cast into the candle , the little cell shone with clear brightness. So the light of faith, flashing, poured light into the wax, and divine power showed the merit of the father [x]. Shining with these merits, famous for these miracles, glorious Hilarus left human things and passed to the eternal ; with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, whose kingdom is through * the eternal ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATA.
This place concerns a magician called a tempestarius; which kind of men was very well known to the Greeks and Latins and still exists in Africa. Ovid mentions it (to omit others Du Cange, Glossarium latinum, under Tempestarius.) Bk. I, Amores, Elegy 8.:
When she wished, clouds gather in the whole sky,
When she wished, day shines in a clear circle.
Many civil and ecclesiastical laws were brought in against them, not because tempestarii in fact brought rains and hailstorms at their pleasure or made the sky clear, but because by threats (as is had at this very place) or promises they milked money from credulous men. St. Agobard, bishop of Lyon, wrote an excellent treatise against the foolish opinion of the people concerning hail and thunder In Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. CIV, col. 147 and following.; than which I do not see what better we could say now. How common that credulity was he discloses from the beginning of the book: "In these regions," he says, "nearly all men, noble and ignoble, townsmen and rustics, old and young, think that hail and thunder can be made at the pleasure of men." To tear up this error the blessed man used theological and philosophical reasons and also experience: "Frequently," he says, "we have certainly heard it said by many that they knew such things done in certain Note: Certis places; but we have not yet heard anyone testify that he saw these things." With no lesser wisdom that Greek writer attacked the same error, whose homilies first Cardinal Mai, then the Rev. man Migne published under the name of Eusebius of Alexandria. "Who," he says In Migne, Patrologia graeca, vol. LXXXVI, col. 455., "can turn aside the command of God by any trickeries? Now since the clouds at God's command pour out rains upon the earth, how will a man be able to hinder the mandate of God?" And he then goes on to show that this power attributed to magicians conflicts with God's dominion over created things. Yet faith in the
power of these magicians St. Hilarus may have given while he was still in the world, and that is no wonder at all; and that the outcome of the matter, which is related here and is perhaps to be explained by chance, seemed prodigious to the biographer is no greater wonder.
p. Of eulogiae so many and such great men have spoken, and so great a multitude of old writers has mentioned them (as may be seen in the Latin Glossary of Du Cange at this word), that I should have plainly abstained at this place from every remark, had not the passage in the codex of Mende been so corrupted as if St. Hilarus had been asked for a mere blessing. Eulogiae were thus of a twofold kind, some public, or consecrated and distributed in church, and others private. These too were distributed in two classes: some, bishops and other pious men sent to one another as a token of communion and friendship; others were breads blessed at the beginning of a meal by bishops, presbyters or abbots. Of these last eulogiae it is said at this place.
q. These things must have been done about the year 533; when St. Hilarus had long since been a bishop. See the Preliminary Commentary, n. 22. On the words "the province committed" the V. V. Charbonnel relies Origine et hist. de l'église de Mende, p. 74 and following., in order to show that already at that time, indeed from the times of St. Severian, who lived in the 1st century of the Christian era, secular power was in the possession of the bishops of the Gabali or Mende. Most certainly before the middle of the 12th century it was already believed that the bishops had always used both swords; nor is it to be doubted that in the age of the Visigoths, and while the district lay open to the invasions of the barbarians, St. Hilarus ruled the people by his counsels; which voluntary authority could easily be confirmed thereafter; but more could not be affirmed without rashness.
r. There are two places in the district of the Gabali called by this name, Arzenc de Randon and Arzenc d'Apcher. From the remains of ancient roads the Gabali will perhaps be able to understand which of the two places is indicated.
s. "What the dignity of tribune was," says Du Cange Glossarium latinum, under Tribunus., "in France under the first kings is not at all established … They are placed after the Counts in the law of the Visigoths … That the guarding of camps and prisons was in the possession of the tribunes may be observed from Fortunatus." That the tribune Leo was by nation a Gaul or Roman is indicated by the name itself: a less common example in that age. Whether the biographer accuses Leo of the worst crime is not plainly manifest. Already before the arrival of the Romans the Gauls were given to it Diodorus Siculus, bk. XIII, in D. Bouquet, vol. I, p. 310.. Afterwards, however, when through the Christian religion new morals were introduced, that vice seems to have become less common: for Salvian, although he so harasses the unchastity of the Gauls, especially of the Aquitanians De gubernatione Dei, bk. VII, in Migne, vol. LIII, col. 129 and following., nevertheless does not charge the Gauls with unspeakable lust, but only the Africans Ibid., col. 140 and following.. Perhaps boy has been written for son, that every evil suspicion may be absent.
t. Everywhere in that age bishops rose by night in order to fulfil the nocturnal vigils: on which matter let Ruinart be consulted in the Preface to the works of St. Gregory of Tours, nn. 38 and following.
u. It is clear from this place that the presbyters or canons of the Gabali were then living a common life, after the example of those of Vercelli, Hippo and others.
x. In
the composition of Guy de Châtres, or the codex of Mende, it is related that this miracle was the indication of his approaching death. Receive the entire end of the Life, as it is read in that codex: "For he who was truly full of the light of faith, and who had illuminated the minds of unbelievers with the rays of holy preaching, was rightly worthy to be gifted with this miracle, that namely, the day of his death being imminent, he should illuminate a candle divinely with a fire, not taken from sleeping ash or struck from flint, but cast visibly by a certain invisible power into the visible wax. For he who illuminates every man coming into this world, and who had made his faithful servant blessed Ylarius worthy by the light of heavenly grace, himself through this same man illuminated the candle too by his grace, thereby making it plain that he was to be admitted by the approaching death of the flesh to perpetual charity and to be joined to the heavenly citizens according to his worthy merits. Shining therefore with these merits, famous for these miracles, the glorious confessor Ylarius, on the eighth before the Kalends of November, left human things and passed to the eternal. Distinguished by his sacred body, the city of the Gabali for many courses of years rejoiced in his presence and was consoled by the frequency of his miracles. But after much time had rolled by, the sacred limbs of the same blessed pontiff were translated to the basilica of blessed Denis the Areopagite, on that very day, namely, on which, the eleventh before the Kalends of September, the octave of the Assumption of the blessed and glorious ever-virgin Mary is celebrated. Finally these same limbs, worthy of angelic visitation, were placed at the right hand in one of the apses of the aforesaid basilica. There the merits of blessed Ylarius are venerated by the faithful and his suffrages are sought, and his benefits are proved, with the help of the holy of holies, the Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto ages of ages. Amen."
* Ylarius L.
* monstravit M. L.
* turbabat R. S.
* vero supp. L.
* madidum M. L.
* refoveret M. L.
* B. Conf. Ylarius sanctitate et magnificentia insignis ad M. L.
* subsequentium ejus signorum pariterque virtutum series
* itaque R. V.
* certamina R V.
* autem impium ad. M. L.
* rig. vir omit. R. V. et R. S.
* Et sic. i. s. quamvis c. minaretur M. L.
* tandem ad. M. L.
* cruce om. M. L.
* rep. om R. V.
* datam R. V.
* maximo R. V.
* jus R. V.
* om. R. S. et R. V.
* beati R. V.
* R. V. om. i. n. C.
* R. V. om.
* propter R. S.
* Tarni M. et Of. M. Tarne R. S.
* inopis R. V
* quidam ad M.
* inj. R. V. om
* Tarnis R. V.
* aqua submergitur. Sed ad. M.
* pollicem M.
* quo in loco R. V.
* precem R. S.
* ludificantibus R. V.
* sanctamque concionaturus exortationem R. V.
* innumerosi R. V.
* trivit R. V.
* multis R V.
* propter R. S.
* igni M.
* felicis R. V.
* gentilibus R. V.
* auc. om. R. V.
* monte R. V.
* virisque R. V.
* immensa multitudo diffugit R. S. universa populi m. d. M.
* adhibere R. S. et R. V.
* Sigambrorum R. S.
* diurnæ R. V. divina M.
* Tunc tutus R. V.
* Pastor R. V.
* restitutionem immanissimam R. V.
* benedictionem
* prædictis R. V.
* infunditur R. V.
* Hilarus om. R. V.
* Animi sensus R. V. Arzencus M. Aresenti Of. M.
* trib. Leo R. S. et M.
* beato om. R. V.
* est. om. R. V.
* parantur R. V.
* v. c. a. p. R. V. v. c. in p. Of. M.
* suscitat
* ceris R. S.
* a terra R. V.
* qui cum Patre et Spiritu dominatur ac regnat in R. S.
LESSONS OF ST. ILERUS, BISHOP OF THE GABALI,
from the proper Office of Mende of the year 1619.
Hilarus, bishop of the Gabali, in the diocese of Mende in Gaul. (S.)
aFourth lesson. Ilerus, bishop of Mende, born of noble family, refreshed his body macerated by incredible fasts, and his breast afflicted by the heats of panting thirst, with a linen cloth wet with water. A notorious magician, running through the whole diocese, was demanding that grain be given him; and, unless he received the price of his crime, he threatened perils of his power to come. This man Ilerus restrained with an avenging lash and drove off with the rigour of his virtue. After two months, when he had given his weary limbs to sleep, he saw himself struck by the tooth of a hissing serpent and obtaining the remedy of health by the touch of blessed oil. On Ilerus's awakening, the day was suddenly covered with clouds, and a tempest raging far and wide arose. Then the holy man, bringing the letter directed by Christ to King Abgar, took blessed wax, and going round the crops chanting psalms he rescued them from the neighbouring peril. Yet a small field, which he could not go around, the force of the tempest carried away; and the neighbouring crops were destroyed by a horrible slaughter.
Fifth lesson. Ilerus, about two thousand paces from Mende, with three brothers joined to himself, set up a little cell. By night, as he hastened according to his custom to the basilica of the most blessed Privatus, a fire, herald of a present peril, was thrown in his way: which he, intrepid, fortified with the sign of the saving cross, passed through. At dead of night, returning from the same place, he was raised into the air; carried into a forest horrid with thorns and hedged about with dense brambles, he was found after three days by the brothers singing psalms: and that a free approach might lie open, a road was opened with axes. Fervent in the ardour of faith, he applied very great vigilance to constructing with wondrous work a monastery near the river Tarn. This man God, after he had been immersed for two hours in the waters of the Tarn, restored unharmed to the shore. At his prayers, the virgin Enimia accompanying him, God restored abundant waters to the Margavillaean spring, dry for seven years. When he had heard that not far from his monastery the people were revelling in the month of January in pagan manner, with only two brothers accompanying him he hastened there in haste, to correct it by sacred exhortation: and he struck such fear into the raving peoples that they at once took refuge in the church. For they saw at the side of Ilerus numerous lines of men, threatening them with death.
Sixth lesson. Thus, returning from the island of Lérins, in the neighbourhood of Marseilles, he put to flight gentiles offering to the gods breads, cheeses and other things. When he had offered to the dogs the things offered to idols, they, forgetful of hunger, abstained from the immolated things at the command of Ilerus. The city of Marseilles, devastated by a disease of the groins and of pustules, was restored to health by the cappa of the holy pontiff. As he was hastening to Theodebert, king of the Franks, for certain affairs of the province committed to him, at Arcsenti at dead of night Leo the tribune beheld with stunned wonder a globe of immense light rise from his bed and ascend to the heavens: he also heard certain men conversing with the same most holy father. Which the blessed pontiff foreknowing by prophetic spirit, he warned the tribune to keep silent about the things seen, and announced to himself the prosperity of the coming journey. In a short time he reached the king; he was received with the highest veneration and, having attained his wish, returned to his homeland. There, many labours having been exhausted, illustrious in merits and famous for miracles, on the Kalends of December, leaving human things, he passed to the eternal.