Spanus and Companions

ON SS. SPANUS AND COMPANIONS: SPANUS, LUPUS, BENIGNUS, BEATUS, MESSAPIUS, MARCELLIAN, GENITOR, PRINCIPINUS, AND TRIDORIUS, VENERATED AS MARTYRS IN THE TERRITORIES OF TOURS AND BOURGES,

PERHAPS IN THE 4TH OR 5TH CENTURY.

PRELIMINARY AND CRITICAL COMMENTARY.

Spanus, venerated as a martyr in the territories of Tours and Bourges. (S.)

Lupus, venerated as a martyr in the territories of Tours and Bourges. (S.)

Benignus, venerated as a martyr in the territories of Tours and Bourges. (S.)

Messapius, venerated as a martyr in the territories of Tours and Bourges. (S.)

Marcellian, venerated as a martyr in the territories of Tours and Bourges. (S.)

Genitor, venerated as a martyr in the territories of Tours and Bourges. (S.)

Principinus, venerated as a martyr in the territories of Tours and Bourges. (S.)

Tridorius, venerated as a martyr in the territories of Tours and Bourges. (S.)

BY V. D. B.

§ I. Memories in the martyrologies. The same fabulous passion applied to different saints.

As the deeds of St. Spanus and his companions are obscure, so was their name once most celebrated; and this very celebrity was perhaps the cause that fables were attached to them. [The memory of St. Spanus and of the others who are called his brothers, in the martyrologies.] In the Anchin codex of the Martyrology of Usuard, which is otherwise of the purest, in the Altemps one, which was once used in the cathedral church of Winchester, and similarly in that of Cluny In Sollerius, Martyrologium Usuardi, at 25 October., in that of St. Lupus of Troyes and in another of Montier-la-Celle [In Desguerrois, la Saincteté chrestienne ou les vie, mort etc. des saints de Troies, p. 73.], this commemoration is read at the present day: In the district of Tours, of St. Spanus the martyr. In the edition of Bellini and Molanus: On the same day, of Beatus and Benignus with their companions. In the territory of Tours, of [St.] Spanus martyr; which latter memory was omitted by Greven, Felicius and Maurolico, writing only: Of Beatus and Benignus, martyrs, and others with them. Ferrari, in the general Catalogue of the saints, comes nearest to Bellini and Molanus, except that he has placed St. Spanus in the first place. More explicit is the old manuscript Martyrology of Tours or Usuard with local additions: Of Maura, martyr, with nine sons; among whom Benignus and Beatus rest in the church of Tours, but Spanus in the village of his name. Chastelain sets out the individual names in the Universal Martyrology, in this way: In the territory of Tours, of St. Hispadius (Épain), venerated in the town which has his name, as if he had suffered martyrdom from the Goths, in the time of St. Martin, together with his mother Maura and eight brothers, Lupus (Lou), Benignus (Bereng), Beatus (Bié), Messapius (Messange), Principinus (Principin), Genitor (Genitou), Theodorius (Tridoire) and Marcellian (Marcellien). Cardinal de Noailles in the Martyrology of Paris mentions only St. Spanus the martyr in the territory of Tours; and likewise Pierre de Rochechouart in the Martyrology of Évreux, in these words: In the territory of Tours, of St. Spanus the martyr, slain by the sword by barbarians for the name of Christ, whose memory has also passed to the church of Évreux. With this name alone also the old martyrologist of Auxerre was content, writing Martène, Amplissima collectio, vol. VI, col. 727.: In the territory of Tours, the birthday of St. Spanus the martyr; and a more recent one, who came to light by the authority of Charles de Caylus: In the territory of Tours, of St. Spanus the martyr, whose relics are kept at Chablis on the borders of the Lingones and the people of Auxerre. Now Cablejae, commonly Chablis, is a small town of the former diocese of Langres, four leagues distant to the east from Auxerre, in whose district it is now contained. And by these things, unless I am mistaken, it has been made sufficiently manifest that the memory of these martyrs, especially of St. Spanus, was once very celebrated.

[2] The same Passion applied in different form to two companies of Saints. But why do we not have ancient and good commentaries on the same? Acts of St. Spanus and his companions are indeed not lacking; but these have no other weight than to be an indication to us of the former veneration which was once held for those blessed men. They have never been edited entire, and they are scarcely worthy of being edited; but French versions exist, set in print, or Latin excerpts. Those Acts have been drawn up in three ways; of which I should call one that of Souvigny, the second that of Oblinco, the third that of Tours. You have them, at least in abridgment, according to the Souvigny form in the Antiquities of Souvigny, written in French at the beginning of the 17th century according to the codices of his monastery by Sébastien Marcaille [Antiquités du prieuré de Souvigny en Bourbonnais de l'ordre de Clugni. Moulins, 1610.]. In these the treatment is chiefly of St. Principinus, whose body was kept there; and so Gonon drew from the same Antiquities Vitæ patrum Occidentis, page 223. and edited in Latin the Life of St. Principinus; and Labbe did the same, but more briefly Bibliotheca manuscript. vol. II, pages 438 and 439.; on the other hand Jacques Branche translated Gonon into French and gave the Life of St. Principinus a place among the Lives of the saints of Auvergne La Vie des saincts et sainctes d'Auvergne, page 665.. All these take their origin from the manuscript codices of Souvigny. But the same Acts, though drawn up somewhat differently, existed similarly in manuscript in the diocese of Troyes and in the archive of the cathedral church of Tours, with the title Life of St. Spanus; and from the copy of Troyes Nicolas des Guerrois took the Life of St. Spanus and his companions and inserted it in his French book on Christian holiness, or on the Lives of the saints of Troyes La Saincteté chrestienne, contenant les vie, mort etc. page 97 and following.. From the archive of Tours, moreover, was borrowed the epitome which is read in Jean Maan Sancta et metrop. ecclesia Turonensis, page 18.; likewise

that which was inserted in the diocesan Breviary of Tours of the year 1612 and in the Breviary of the church of St. Martin of Tours of the year 1635. The Oblinco copy was transcribed from an old register and sent to us by the venerable man Mahaut, parish priest of Oblinco. Tillemont Mémoires ecclésiastiques, St. Martin, note 18, vol. X, page 783. and Gervaise, provost of St. Martin La Vie de S. Martin, évêque de Tours, p. 235., have spoken of these Acts so as to reject them outright. Other writers we shall indicate as occasion arises. But now a summary of the first and third kinds is to be presented. We shall take the beginning from the form of Tours or Troyes, the first part of which we shall take from the aforesaid Breviary of St. Martin of Tours, the latter from Nicolas Desguerrois and Jean Maan.

[3] [According to the Breviary of St. Martin of Tours there is set forth the conversion of St. Maura and her nine sons,] Lesson IV. In these times, in which blessed Martin, the excellent prelate of Christ, presiding over the church of Tours, was illuminating the whole world with the rays of his virtues, Maura, of illustrious lineage among the Goths, kindled with love of the Christian religion, and having heard also of the fame of most blessed Martin, leaving behind fatherland, parents and all her goods, came together with her sons to the city of Tours, that, instructed by the most holy prelate in the precepts of the Christian faith, she might be dipped by him in sacred baptism. She had nine sons, namely Lupus, Benignus, Beatus, Spanus, Marcellian, Messarius, Genitor, Principinus and Tridorius. To whom a fast of seven days being proclaimed, and prayers poured out to God with continual tears, blessed Martin baptized them, instructed and strengthened in the faith.

[4] the constancy of the same saint, exhorting her sons, Lesson V. But when an immense light had appeared in heaven, as they gave thanks to God and begged him to deign to confirm them in his holy name, they heard a voice, which exhorted them to follow the precepts of St. Martin and promised future gladness with him without end. When the most impious king of the Goths learned of this, he sent fifty men, who, deceitfully greeting the mother and sons, and removing them from the gathering of Christians, should force them to deny the faith, and kill them if they refused. But the mother with manly spirit exhorted her sons with the Lord's words to constancy of faith and the palm of martyrdom: Do not, sons, she said, fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul: but rather fear him who can send body and soul into the gehenna of fire.

[5] and the martyrdom of SS. Lupus, Benignus, Beatus and Spanus. Lesson VI. The barbarians, hearing these things, striving to overthrow the firstborn, who replied that he was Lupus by name, but a lamb prepared as a victim for the love of Christ, beheaded him; leading the others away for fear of the Christians into a remote forest, they slaughtered Benignus and Beatus, who persisted in their brother's opinion, in the forest called by the inhabitants Tilletum. Having passed by these the persecutors, about to tear apart the rest in haste, found one of the holy brothers, foremost among the rest in the distinctions of the virtues, Spanus by name, weary from flight and journey, sitting on the edge of a well; and inquiring of him about his profession, they found him, as they had the former ones, most prepared to undergo death for the Christian faith. The impious men accordingly began to threaten the young man with death, unless he renounced the sect lately handed down by Martin. But that man, more constant from the threats brought against him, said that he was happy if for the faith and confession of Martin he should merit to be stripped of the wall of bodily mass; for from this he would rejoice the more gloriously with Christ. Him at length, and afterwards the others together with their mother, being able to bend neither by threats nor promises, they cruelly killed.

[6] But according to other documents, of which the source is the same But what is said at the end of these lessons, namely that St. Maura was killed with her remaining sons, does not agree with the Acts themselves, as will be sufficiently plain from the following, which Nicolas des Guerrois and Jean Maan supply and by which the fates of these sons are set forth. [and to the lessons of Tours, the passion of SS. Marcellian, Messapius, Genitor, Principinus and Tridorius, and also the death of St. Maura.] When therefore the soldiers of Agrippinus, Auripinus or Aripinus (this name is given in the Acts to the king of the Goths) had slain St. Spanus by the sword, stirred by new fury they pursued the remaining brothers and at the village named Barrou, situated on the river Creuse, they caught St. Marcellian; whom, when they could not bring him to cast off the Christian faith, they likewise diminished by the head. St. Messapius, whom I also find called Messarius and Messanus, they caught near Turromaicum; whom, for his invincible constancy, they likewise punished with the cutting off of his head. Meanwhile there were continuing their flight St. Maura, St. Genitor, greater in age and stronger in powers than the rest, and the holy young boys Principinus, called by Maan Præcipinus, and St. Tridorius, whom Chastelain in the Martyrology calls Theodorius and in the Hagiological Vocabulary Ménage, Dictionnaire étymologique, edition of Jault, vol. I, p. LXXXIII. Theodorus; but the bloody soldiers were pressing on and the younger ones could not go on with steps swift enough. St. Genitor accordingly counseled his mother that she herself should carry St. Principinus on her shoulders, while he burdened himself with St. Tridorius. And this was done. But in vain. For in a short time St. Genitor was captured and his head cut off; which he himself carried as far as a church dedicated under the title of the Blessed Virgin Mary. When he had arrived there, he knocked at the door and asked Sebastian, the blind custodian, to open to him; and when he did this, he recovered the sight of his eyes. Fearing a similar lot for themselves, Saints Principinus and Tridorius threw themselves into the Creuse; which river they crossed by the same prodigy as the Israelites the Red Sea. They then hid themselves in the neighborhood; but in a short time they were discovered and executed with the sword. Their mother then ran to the corpses of her sons, and sedulously watched them, not being able to depart from there. But at night, while the custodian Sebastian was keeping vigil at the funeral of St. Genitor, he heard the sweetest songs of angels and saw wondrous lights above the hill on which Saints Principinus and Tridorius lay. For which reason, when he had buried St. Genitor in the morning, he crossed the river and made for the prodigious hill; from which, after a conversation with St. Maura, he translated the sacred bodies of the blessed martyrs to the church of St. Stephen. The mother further, bereft of her dearest pledges, lived alone in retirement apart from the sight and society of men and, having at length completed a glorious confession, was buried at the town of Arciacum or Aciacum. But when Gothia had now been afflicted with drought for forty-two months, and the inhabitants had heard something about St. Maura, they sought her body, trusting that by her presence it would come about that they should be delivered from that evil. They accomplished that plan; and indeed, as they were coming near their fatherland, a copious rain fell: on seeing which miracle they renounced their idols and embraced the faith of Christ.

[7] The same history in the Acts of Souvigny is partly applied to other saints. That the Acts of Souvigny do not altogether agree with those of Troyes or Tours we have already taught; hear the chief discrepancies. In the first place St. Maura is said in those of Souvigny to have had not nine sons, but twelve; next those sons were put to death not in the territory of Tours, but through several provinces of Gaul. See how Gonon covers the matter in a few words, with whom Labbe agrees: Meanwhile, he says, the king of the Goths Agrippinus, hearing of this new and wondrous conversion of St. Maura and her sons, greatly angered, at once commanded his henchmen to pursue the aforesaid despisers of his gods, and wherever they should be found, they should be cruelly killed without mercy. Many therefore, traversing many regions, at length killed the first ten in various places, partly among the Bituriges, the Lemovices and the Pictavi; but blessed Principinus, who had embraced the solitary life, was found by the impious henchmen near the river of the Eye in the territory of Bourbon, not far from the city of Ericia . Asked who he was, he boldly replied that he was a Christian, a Goth by nation, and baptized with his mother and brothers by blessed Martin, archbishop of Tours. Then one of the henchmen, goaded by the stirrings of a sharper anger, cut off his head with an impious axe; which, falling to the ground, and wishing to put an end to the praise it had begun, gave back that canticle which every faithful man says after Benedicamus Domino, namely Deo gratias. It is then narrated that St. Principinus carried his head to a church consecrated to the name of God and of St. Peter *, where a certain blind man named Macarius customarily stayed; which Macarius is then said to have done toward St. Principinus all those things which we have read above as carried out by Sebastian toward St. Genitor. The Oblinco form see at the end.

Annotations

* OEil

* Herisson

* Saint-Pierre de Chasteloy near Herisson.

§ II. The origin of that fabulous history. In what places those nine saints are venerated.

[In those Acts, most certainly fabulous, there are gathered into one the praises of saints among whom there was nothing in common.] Now, to open my opinion without circumlocution on the Acts of Souvigny and of Tours, I have no doubt first of all that both are altogether fabulous; then that the exemplar or prototype was first composed in the territory of Tours, and that by it there is represented not the martyrdom of some Christian family, but rather that it is a certain poetic cycle, in which some saints of Tours are praised, having nothing in common among themselves except the glory of holiness and the oblivion of their deeds; and finally that this Passion, with a few changes, was applied to some other saints of Bourges, Limoges, Poitiers, Auvergne, Carcassonne, etc. As to what I said first, that those Acts are fabulous, I am indeed in doubt whether this should be demonstrated; for they teem with that kind of prodigies (I mean the carrying of heads) which cannot but be suspect to any sensible person and about whose origin I have already said more elsewhere Acta SS., vol. VII of October, p. 819.. But let it be granted that this is too severe a judgment; there remains the complete confusion of the times. First of all it seems certain that St. Martin departed this life in the year 396 or 397; and those who make the time of his death latest bring it to the year 402 Compare Gervaise, Vie de S. Martin de Tours, p. 355 and following.. Now the Goths, led by Ataulf, first burst into the Gauls to acquire new seats only in the year 412 Dom Vaissette, Hist. du Languedoc, vol. I, p. 164.; so that St. Martin had long since met his end before the Goths could come from Septimania to him in the territory of Tours. Next Agrippinus, who is also Auripinus and Aripinus, seems to be the same as Count Agrippinus, for whom St. Lupicinus, abbot of the Jura, made himself surety Acta SS., vol. III of March, pp. 266 and 267., and who then in the year 460 handed over Narbonne to the Visigoths, by order (as some would have it Dom Vaissette, vol. I, p. 206.) of the emperor Severus; but he entered into that agreement with the Visigothic people more than half a century after the funeral of St. Martin. I would not pursue other things, since it can now be doubtful to no one that these Acts teem with fables.

[9] [St. Maura, who is said to have been the mother of so many sons, was a virgin and nun;] For the rest, the origin of a great part of the fictions can easily be detected. It is said in them that St. Maura, after the brutal killing of her sons, lived, died and was buried at the town of Arciacum or Aciacum; from which it is established that this is the same St. Maura the virgin whom St. Gregory of Tours mentions in ch. XVIII of the book On the Glory of the Confessors Works of St. Gregory of Tours, col. 906 and following.. Namely, within the very boundary of Tours there was a very small hill, filled with thorns, brambles and wild vines, and woven with such a density of wild vine that scarcely anyone could break in. For fame reported that two virgins consecrated to God rested in that place. Admonished in a vision by these virgins, therefore, an inhabitant was to build an oratory over it, and blessed Euphronius, who then, namely from the year 555 to 572 Hauréau, Gallia christiana, vol. XIV, cols. 21 and 22., ruled the church of Tours, was to consecrate it, and both, after some evasions, carried out these commands. Further, St. Euphronius, who had heard them speaking in sleep, called one Maura, the other Britta, saying that he had learned these names from their mouth. At the end of the 17th century they were venerated under these names among the people of Tours on the 28th of January; and in the town which has from them the name of Sainte-Maure and lies between Tours and Châtellerault *, on the preceding day Ruinart, Works of St. Gregory of Tours, col. 908.. And that nothing may be lacking to this argument, it is established from elsewhere that the present town of Sainte-Maure was once called Arciacum [Compare Guide pittor. du voyageur en Touraine, p. 194, and Lafosse-Touchard, La Loire historique, vol. IV, p. 297.]. I omit further things about St. Maura, since Bolland has already spoken of her at the 15th of January. Nor would I wish in this place to ask whether SS. Maura and Britta of Tours are the same as SS. Maura and Brigitta of Beauvais. Although I incline to the side of those who affirm it, this will be better examined at the 12th of November, at which Chastelain inscribed them in his Universal Martyrology.

[10] St. Benignus seems to have been a pilgrim bishop, If therefore in those Acts a virgin consecrated to God or nun has been turned into the mother of nine or twelve sons, shall we give so much authority to the same Acts as to allow ourselves to be prevented by them from thinking that he who in them is called a martyr, not a pontiff, was a bishop and confessor? I for my part plainly shall not, although Ruinart thinks otherwise Works of St. Gregory of Tours, col. 906.. I have no doubt therefore that St. Benignus, who is called the brother of St. Spanus and son of St. Maura, and who is also venerated on this day, is to be held the same as St. Benignus the bishop, whose rediscovery St. Gregory of Tours sets forth in these words: In another district of Tours, he says Liber de Gloria confess., ch. XVII, col. 906., there was a tomb placed among thorns and brambles, in which a certain bishop was said to have been buried. They did not know the name. It happened that the son of a certain poor man died. Having buried him, when the father could not find a cover for the sarcophagus, he came to this place; and taking away from this tomb the lid, which was so huge that it was drawn by three pairs of oxen, he covered the little body of his son by the theft of another tomb. When he had done this, he was made deaf, mute, blind and weak; and he remained in this punishment for almost a whole year. Then there appeared to him in a vision a certain bishop, saying: What violence, he says, have I done to you and yours, O man, that you have uncovered me, taking away the cover of my tomb? Go now, if you wish to be made sound, order it to be swiftly brought back; but if you will not, you will die forthwith. For I am Benignus the bishop, who came as a pilgrim to this city. And he, signing to his people, went to the monument of his son, and, the stone being raised and placed on a cart, and carried back and restored to the sarcophagus, he was at once made sound. For in returning the stone was so light that that which three pairs of oxen had brought, two oxen then brought back.

[11] [whom some confuse with the bishop translated to Utrecht, others with St. Benignus of Dijon.] This Benignus Baronius thinks to be the same as his namesake, who on the 28th of June is recorded in the Roman Martyrology and whose relics were at one time translated to Utrecht; but the old tradition of Utrecht has it that its Benignus was bishop of Chartres; nor is there anything, as our predecessors remarked in a brief Sylloge at the said 28th of June, why one should depart from this tradition, although the catalogues of Chartres do not contain this bishop's name; since no one would safely affirm that those catalogues are complete. Nothing therefore persuades us to banish St. Benignus, rediscovered in the district of Tours, as far as the Rhine; but rather the error revealed in St. Maura tends to this, that we should boldly say that his body remained among the people of Tours; and that the place where it was found was Tilletum, where the author of the Passion of St. Spanus invents that he suffered martyrdom; and that Tilletum is represented either by the place Teillé in the town of Saint-Épain, or by the village of Thilay, once a parish in the former archpriesthood of L'Île-Bouchard * Compare Pouillé of Tours, p. 60. Paris, 1648.; in which matter, if I err, the people of Tours will easily be able to detect the error, since that same St. Benignus, as I understand from the kalendars, is a parish patron in the diocese of Tours; by which indication they will easily be able to come to the site of Tilletum. In very truth those who once reformed the Breviary and Missal of Tours did not wish this St. Benignus to be proper to the diocese of Tours. For which reason in the Ordines of Tours for reciting the divine office of the years 1830, 1839 and 1844, which I have before me, St. Beatus being omitted, memory is ordered to be made with a simple rite of St. Benignus, priest and martyr; by which words they beyond doubt wished to indicate St. Benignus, priest and martyr of Dijon, who is generally venerated on the 1st of November: but this is most certainly an arbitrary substitution, supported by no likelihood. If anyone nevertheless should think that it is to be retained, there remains nonetheless what I have said, namely that through knowledge of the place where St. Benignus is patron it can come about that one arrives at a more accurate knowledge of Tilletum.

[12] [The cult of SS. Benignus and Beatus and the fortunes of their relics in the cathedral church of Tours and in the diocese of Rennes.] That the body of St. Beatus was dug up from the same old cemetery of Tilletum that same Passion of St. Spanus persuades; for, as soon as we have certainly discovered what its nature is, that thread is not easily to be let go from the hands. Further, that St. Beatus and St. Benignus thereafter rested in the cathedral church of Tours we have understood above from its Martyrology. The memory of this translation was kept each year with a simple rite, as is established to me from the diocesan Breviary of Tours of the year 1612, and also from an old Martyrology of Tours: but nothing at all, not even a proper prayer existed. On the other hand in the same Breviary this was read at the 25th of October: Of the holy martyrs Benignus and Beatus; no mention being made of St. Spanus or others. Double. Prayer. Be propitious, we beseech you, O Lord, to us your servants through the glorious merits of these your holy martyrs Benignus and Beatus, who rest in the (present or Turonian) church, that by their pious intercession we may always be protected from all adversities. Through our Lord. But in the year 1612 this prayer was conformed rather to antiquity than to truth; for on the 1st of April of the year 1562, when the Huguenots at Tours were now daring everything, they pillaged the cathedral church; in which ravaging the relics of SS. Benignus and Beatus perished. Hear Jean Maan on this crime Sancta et metrop. ecclesia Turonensis, p. 199.: Of how much value the booty was let no one estimate. For what each of them seized, this he secretly carried off for himself. The statues of the saints alone, the reliquaries, crosses, taller candlesticks and whatever they could not conceal, these, the bones being burned, they heaped together in the treasury of St. Martin: and these they soon, a collection of the spoils being made, reckoned out to Joan of Albret, queen of Navarre and easily chief of the sectaries, returning from Vendôme, as eighty thousand half-pounds of silver; which she herself carried off in her own name. They also seized and carried off from the sacristy of the principal church four silver reliquary cases: of Gatian the first bishop; of Lidorius the bishop, in which were also the bones of the holy martyrs Benignus and Beatus; of Candidus the martyr and of Arnulf; and Maan then goes on to recount other sacrileges. At Rennes also St. Benignus obtained a singular cult. Yet in the diocesan Kalendar of the year 1627 In Tresvaux, Vies des Saints de Bretagne, vol. I, p. XXXVII. his name is not read. On the other hand in the Kalendar of the year 1831 on the 25th of October his memory is ordered to be made, as of a martyr, with a simple rite. But when in the year 1848 the people of Rennes returned to the Roman rites as by a right of return, the name of St. Benignus was again struck out. I for my part think that the cult of St. Benignus once flourished at Rennes; and that those who adorned the Kalendar, when they admitted new and proper rites, entered his name for no other reason than that they had understood from old books that before the year 1627 the veneration of St. Benignus had been celebrated among them.

[13] [The cult of St. Spanus in the church of St. Martin of Tours and in the village which bears his name.] After SS. Benignus and Beatus comes St. Spanus, whom I find also called Hispanus, Hispadius and Spathus. He is by far the most celebrated of all. That his body was kept in the basilica of St. Martin we have already seen. The casket in which he was enclosed seems to have been exceedingly magnificent, like the other treasures of this church. And when in the year 1453 the golden bier of St. Martin was placed over the tomb on a silver stage, there were placed around it other reliquaries of gold and silver, in which were contained the head of the same St. Martin and the bodies of the holy prelates of Tours, Brice, Perpetuus, Gregory, Eustochius and Euphronius; and even of other heavenly citizens and thus of St. Spanus himself Dom Gervaise, Vie de S. Martin de Tours, p. 328.. But all these things were scattered in the year 1562. For the leaders of the Huguenots, well aware how much contempt from every most honorable person they had won for themselves by the violation of the cathedral church, entered on a way less shameful in appearance to despoil the church of St. Martin of its treasure. They accordingly demanded from the prince of Condé, the chief centurion of the rebels, a decree ordering that that treasure be handed over to be guarded to the knight de La Rochefoucauld, the marquis de Genlis and the lord de Vigent, lest (this honorable cause was alleged) it should become the prey of the ill-disposed rabble. An inventory or small index was begun on the 15th of May; and so great was the precious plate that it was not finished before the 7th of the following month. But this was mere mockery. There were consumed by fire garments of gold and silver; images and reliquaries of gold and silver

were broken and melted down; and, what is most of all to be lamented, the sacred Eucharist was violated, and relics of the saints burned Ibid., p. 340 and following.; and in this way the body of St. Spanus was destroyed Ibid., p. 234.. Yet the canons of St. Martin afterwards continued to venerate the blessed man with a double rite of three candlesticks, as is read in the Breviary of the year 1635. That rite moreover was equivalent to the Roman lesser double. But when at the end of the 18th century the canons were ejected and the basilica turned over to profane uses, the cult of St. Spanus could not but cease there; nor be restored afterwards, since on the 2nd of November of the year 1797 the most august church collapsed Guide pittoresque du voyageur en Touraine, pp. 51 and 52.. Nevertheless not absolutely all the relics of St. Spanus had been consumed by fire in the year 1562; so that in the year 1833, on the second Sunday of October, a solemn translation of his relics could be made to the church adorned with the name of the most blessed man; from which time his birthday is kept in that church on the said Sunday, not on the 25th of October. That church moreover is placed in the very town which bears his name, commonly St. Épain, and it is some miles distant from Tours toward the south, between the town of Sainte-Maure and Chinon. There is shown in the parish of St. Spanus a well, in the place called Teille, where the holy martyr is said to have been killed, and which for that reason is still visited with much veneration. But I do not know that the feast of St. Spanus is celebrated elsewhere in the diocese of Tours. Below we shall speak of the cult once rendered to him in the diocese of Troyes.

[14] [The cult of St. Marcellian near the Creuse, of St. Messapius at Barrou, and of SS. Genitor, Principinus and Tridorius at Le Blanc;] St. Marcellian is said to have been killed at Barrou , where St. Perpetuus, archbishop of Tours, is read to have founded a church St. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc., book X, ch. XXXI, n. 6. Works p. 532., and which place is situated on the right bank of the Creuse and gave its name to the very ancient district of Berravum. In the Ordines of the divine office of Tours of the years 1830, 1835 and 1844 the name of St. Marcellian does not appear, except however in the last, where he is listed among the parish patrons, with his feast day established on the 25th of October; and he is held in singular veneration in the parish of La Guerche on the Creuse. Turromaicum, where St. Messapius is said to have been killed, cannot be far distant from Barrou and must also have been situated on the Creuse: and indeed the Rev. Mr. Damourette informs us that Turromaicum is now called Tournon or Saint-Pierre-de-Tournon, situated on the Creuse, four leagues from Oblincum, of which we shall speak presently. But although Turromaicum is contained in the diocese of Tours, St. Messapius is not listed among the parish patrons of that diocese. It is also easy to find where SS. Genitor, Tridorius and Principinus suffered, or rather were venerated and are still venerated. In the Acts of St. Spanus we have these indications: on one bank of the Creuse stood a church of St. Mary, on the other of St. Stephen; there was also a hill; and above all the very names of the saints are not to be neglected. Now in the Polyptych of Bourges of the year 1648 Pouillé général de Bourges, p. 51. these words are read: The chaplaincy or parish church of St. Genitor of Oblincum, sainct Genitour near Le Blanc. The abbot of Déols, patron or conferrer of the benefice. And below Ibid., p. 52.: Of St. Stephen of Oblincum; which parishes are then again related among the priories of the archpriesthood of Oblincum Ibid., p. 53.. And indeed the town of Oblincum, which is now the capital of a greater and a lesser district (arrondissement and canton) in the province (département) of the Ingeris or Angeris (Indre), was once divided into four communities, of which the first was called the town; the second the castle of Naliacum , in which (unless I am mistaken) was a small shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the third contained the parish of St. Sigirannus, annexed to the church of the Blessed Mary of the Citadel *, and another of St. Stephen, both situated on the left bank of the Creuse; the fourth finally was called that of St. Genitor and was situated on the right bank, in the lower part of the town Compare d'Expilly, Dictionnaire géographique des Gaules, vol. I, p. 647.. Now also St. Genitor is the patron of the town of Oblincum and of the chief church and is venerated with a great concourse of people on the feast of the Body of the Lord. On which matter I shall point out this one thing, that I have discoursed at more length at the 24th of October in the Commentary on St. Montana on the custom of instituting pious pilgrimages around the Pentecostal feasts. The other three saints, by the common name Bons Saints, are venerated with singular veneration in the church of St. Stephen on the first Sunday of September. And indeed in this year (1860) there were present about five thousand people, making (as they say) their journey, leur voyage; all of whom were present with much piety at the sacrifice of the Mass and the solemn procession: very many sick children especially are brought, and garments are customarily applied to the reliquary; so that by the care and solicitude of the present parish priest of St. Stephen, the Rev. Mr. Mahaut, the former piety is gradually being restored. Toward this contribute the old traditions, by which all those things which we have related above at n. 6 are still assigned to their places. (Of the fortunes of the relics I shall speak at the end.) But although Oblincum, formerly and also now, is part of the diocese of Bourges, the names of those saints are nevertheless not inscribed in the liturgical kalendars of Bourges, ancient and more recent; indeed Labbe himself, who gathered so many documents on the saints of the diocese of Bourges into his Library of manuscripts, has nothing at all about these saints.

[15] the two latter translated to Bariacum near Bourges. He does indeed speak of St. Principinus, who was venerated especially in the abbey of Souvigny; but he was not a boy, but a hermit; he did not meet his end at Oblincum on the Creuse, but in the neighborhood of Ericia * in the territory of Bourbon; moreover his body remained at Souvigny, while that of St. Principinus of Oblincum was carried to the neighborhood of Bourges together with the body of St. Tridorius. For in the ancient Martyrology of St. Lawrence of Bourges In Labbe, Bibliotheca mss., vol. II, p. 698., at the 15th before the Kalends of April or the 18th of March, we read this. In the city of Bourges, at the estate of Bariacum, the dedication of the basilica of St. Mary the virgin and of St. Symphorian, and the reception of the bodies of Saints Principinus and Tridorius, martyrs. And Bariacum, as is established from a charter by which Hugh, archbishop of Bourges, restored to Herbert, abbot of St. Sulpicius, many goods once taken away, in the year 983, was a manor with a church in honor of St. Anianus, which is on the rivers Avera and Dadonna Patriarchium Bituricense, ch. 55. Ibid., vol. II, p. 84.. The common name of the Avera is l'Èvre; and it is a stream passing through Bourges, receiving many tributaries; but I see none of these on the maps of Cassini whose name approaches Dadonna. However this may be, Bariacum is Bery or Berry to the north of Bourges, situated on the right bank of the Avera; at which place, since the Avera is divided into two channels, likely the one retains the name of Avera, the other receives that of Dadonna. The Polyptych of Bourges mentions this place Pouillé de Bourges, 1648, p. II. in these words: Of Beriacum or Bariacum, Bery: the abbot of St. Sulpicius, conferrer or patron.

[16] The cult of St. Lupus, to be distinguished from St. Lupus of Angers, near Tours. Up to now I have said nothing of St. Lupus, who is said to have been the eldest brother: for which reason we must return to the territory of Tours. As is clear from the Passion of St. Spanus, St. Lupus must have fallen and been venerated between Tours and the town of St. Spanus, of which see above; nor does he seem by any reason to be confused with St. Lupus, bishop of Angers, whose deeds have been illustrated in our work at the 17th. Yet those who once changed the Breviary and Missal of Tours seem to have done this. For since St. Lupus of Angers was never celebrated among the people of Tours (for neither formerly, nor now, is his name written in the diocesan kalendar) and since on the contrary it appears from the Passion of St. Spanus that the people of Tours had long since been persuaded that a certain St. Lupus suffered martyrdom in the territory of Tours, who would doubt that he who has a place among the parish patrons of the diocese is the latter St. Lupus? Nevertheless they substituted for him that other one; and for that reason, as I understand from the often-cited kalendars, now, where St. Lupus is patron among the people of Tours, the feast is kept not on the 25th, but on the 17th of October, or rather on the next Sunday.

[17] The cult of St. Spanus in the diocese of Langres. Now that we have dispatched all those things which seemed to serve for explaining the Passion of St. Spanus, a few things are to be collected about his cult, spread beyond the diocese of Tours. It flourished once chiefly at Manse of St. Spanus , in the province of the Marne , a league and a half distant from Sézanne. There were preserved there parts of his relics in three reliquaries, of which one had the form of a herm, the second of an arm and the third of a cross. At the beginning of the 17th century, as Nicolas Desguerrois is witness La saincteté chretienne etc., page 73., a very great multitude ran there; so much so that besides other coins there were offered eight thousand doubles of Tours, equivalent to 66 pounds, thirteen solidi and four denarii; which money was to be divided between the parish priest and the church. This matter Desguerrois narrates with the highest admiration. In the anonymous legend of St. Spanus and his brothers, moreover, which in the year 1850 the society of St. Victor caused to be written according to the narrative of Desguerrois, the same relics are said to be still preserved; and others in the chapel of St. Luke near Troyes. St. Spanus was also patron, together with St. Martin of Tours, of the church of the abbey under Plancy *, likewise in the diocese of Troyes. Under the 12th of November, on which the people of Souvigny venerated their St. Principinus, it will be possible to ask what saints lie hidden under the mask of the twelve sons who in the Souvigny Passion of St. Spanus were assigned to St. Maura.

[18] The fortunes of the relics of SS. Messapius, Tridorius and Principinus. And in this place the fortunes of the relics of the Good Saints seem to require explanation: When five years ago I came to this parish, so the Rev. Mr. Mahaut wrote to me in French on the 19th of October of the year 1860, I found two reliquaries, placed at either corner of the altar, in the form of a pyx forty centimeters long and twenty wide: large bones were placed in them, but the wax seals had been removed. There was within a paper containing the names of those who in the year 1689, on the 28th of April, had bought at Poitiers out of their own means three reliquary cases to preserve the pledges of three saints. There was within also another paper, signed on the 25th of August of the year 1795 by the parish priest and vicar, and also by those who had handed over to a certain priest the relics preserved at the end of the past century; and finally a memorandum of the vicar general of Bourges

public, by which he testified that he had visited the relics and had placed with them certain other relics, marked with a wax seal, because the remains of the three patrons had been disturbed by impious men. On the one reliquary were inscribed the names of SS. Messarius and Tridorius, on the other that of St. Principinus. I found moreover other bones, tied with ribbons, with the epigraph: ces ossements sont ceux de saint Principin these bones are those of St. Principinus. The relics which we still have, we owe to some brave women. For when impious men had come to despoil the church of St. Stephen and had discharged this illustrious task; while they were sitting at their midday meal, some women entered the church and in a very short space of time collected all those bones and writings; and indeed, when the same men had burned in the public square the things which had no market price, they collected other half-burned bones with the coals; a great part of which were carried into one house, which became as it were an oratory. Other small particles were in other houses and were transmitted with singular reverence with the rest of the inheritance; so that even in the latest times some have been given back to the church. All these relics I have had enclosed in a pyx, made at Paris in the past year, with the passion of the holy martyrs painted on it. Like those of the Good Saints, so too the relics of St. Genitor were preserved in his church by the like bravery and industry of some of the faithful. It remains that at the end we should give thanks to the Reverend Messrs. Domourette, Mahaut and Bourasse, who did not allow their effort in helping us to be wanting.

Annotations

* Chatellerault

* L'île-Bouchard

* Barrou

* Naillac

* du Donjon

* Hérisson

* Meix-St-Épain

* Dép. de la Marne

* Abbaye sous Plancy

THE PASSION OF SS. LUPUS, GENITOR AND THEIR BROTHERS.

From the register of Oblincum.