Salvius

ON ST. SALVIUS, HERMIT IN NORMANDY,

IN THE SIXTH CENTURY, AS IT SEEMS.

SYLLOGE.

The fortunes of the monastery of St. Salvius in Brai. The cult of St. Salvius and his eremitical life.

Salvius, hermit in the diocese of Rouen. (S.)

BY V. D. B.

Where Normandy, Picardy and the Beauvaisis touch one another, there lies a watery and muddy little region Du Plessis, Description de la Haute-Normandie, vol. I, p. 53, [In northern Normandy there stood before the arrival of the Normans the monastery of St. Salvius in Brai;] and hence called Bragum by a Celtic word, by which a spring or stream O'Reilly, Irish Dictionary, under Braga and mud

[Miracles of St. Bernard, in Valois, Notitia Galliarum, p. 94, and in Du Cange, Glossarium, under Braium. Cf. Adelung, Wörterbuch, under Bruch(das)] is signified. In the Norman tract of this marshy land, five kilometres from Neufchâtel , toward the south, is situated a parish, holding at the beginning of this century 800 inhabitants, named St. Salvius in Brai, commonly St-Saire-en-Brai. In the ninth century there stood there a monastery, whose name was St. Salvius in Braga, as is gathered from the Chronicle of Fontenelle; in which In d'Achery, Spicilegium, vol. II, p. 282, edition of 1723 St. Ansegisus, abbot of Fontenelle, besides innumerable gifts conferred on other holy places, is read in the year 831 to have given ten solidi to St. Salvius in Brai. Valois Notitia Galliarum, p. 343, not knowing that there was in Normandy a place by the name of St. Salvius in Brai, believed that Montreuil of the Ambiani was indicated, which was at one time called of St. Salvius, namely the bishop of Amiens, who is said to have founded it; and he drew Mabillon into the same error Annales Benedictini, Book XXX, no. 60, §31. But Montreuil in Picardy was never said to be situated in Brai, but on the shore of the sea. And so it has long been agreed [Cf. Du Plessis, Descr. de la Haute-Normandie, vol. I, p. 114 and following. Gallia Christ. nova, vol. XI, col. 122] that in the diocese of Rouen before the arrival of the Normans there stood the monastery of St. Salvius in Brai, and that it in all likelihood perished by the savagery of the barbarian newcomers. Du Plessis suspects Ibid., p. 115. Cf. Farin, Hist. de la ville de Rouen, part I, p. 23 that the monks in flight stayed for some time at Rouen; and that from this arose the name of the street which lay between the cathedral church and the abbey of St. Amand, by its true name called rue de saint Saire, by its popular name rue des Cinq Cerfs. What remained of the monastery's resources seems to have been transferred to the cathedral church, a prebend of St. Salvius being erected from it Du Plessis and the Gallia christ., places cited.

[2] [to which St. Salvius the hermit is related to have given a beginning in the sixth century, venerated today and on the 14th day of May.] Du Plessis and following him the Maurist writers of the Gallia Christiana suppose that this St. Salvius was the bishop of Albi, with no probability; since St. Salvius of Brai was venerated on the 14th day of May and the 28th of October, on which days the festival of St. Salvius of Albi was never kept. It would be readier to suspect that he is the same as St. Salvius, bishop of Amiens, whose feast-day (as we noted among the things passed over) was formerly celebrated on this day. But if this day suits, the 14th day of May does not suit. Then Châtelain, who in the index of the Universal Martyrology Martyrologe universel, p. 1166 first mentions St. Salvius of Brai, having obtained singular documents, notes that he was a solitary in the diocese of Rouen, by which he is easily separated from the other Saints Salvius. V. V. Petin relates somewhat more: St. Salvius, he says Dictionnaire hagiologique, vol. II, col. 957, whom some hagiographers confuse with St. Salvius of Albi, in the sixth century led the eremitical life in Norman Brai. Over the hermitage of the dead man a chapel was built, to which pilgrims flocked in numbers and where many miracles were done. In a window of this oratory he was painted in the habit of a hermit, with knees bent and hands stretched out. All around arose a village, called from his name of St. Salvius, an estate of the cathedral chapter of Rouen. Yet at the beginning of the thirteenth century the rights of patronage over the church of St. Salvius were in the hands of Robert Porcus and Eremburga, his wife, who in the year 1221 conferred them on the Cistercian abbey of Beaubec * Du Plessis, Descript. etc., vol. I, p. 682: but afterwards the lord of the place got possession of them Pouillé de l'archev. de Rouen, 1648, p. 34, yet not a secure possessor; for in the year 1661 Louis de Roucherolles, performing the duties of abbot of Beaubec and vicar general of Rouen, attacked the former faculty of his church Du Plessis, Descript. etc., place cited. Wherefore, if in reality the chapter of Rouen had an estate there, yet it did not obtain the spiritual rights. That St. Salvius, however, is related to have lived there in the sixth century seems not to be rejected. The Roman name suits, afterwards of rarer use in those parts, although in the seventh and eighth centuries not yet obsolete. Hence it also appears that he was Gallo-Roman by race. This name (as also Valerius and Statorius) the old Romans said was of good omen [Cf. excerpts of Paul the Deacon, Book X, at the end, under Lacus Lucrinus, Lindemann edition, p. 90. Cf. Pitiscus, Lexicum antiquit., under Delectus; Becker, Handbuch der Röm. Alterthümer, vol. III, part II, p. 287]; but, the superstition being neglected or despised, the Christians employed the name itself as good and pleasant; which may have been carried over from the Salvian clan to freedmen and clients in the Gauls. — But as these things must be handed over by me to the printer, I regret that I have received no reply to my letter sent to those parts. For St. Salvius is of the number of those dwellers in heaven whose memory (since they have been confused with others) can most easily of all perish. Gaul has several saints of this kind. In the Sylloge on St. Genesius the Neophyte I indicated St. Genesius of Bigorre, celebrated in the times of St. Gregory of Tours, now altogether unknown; at the next day we shall bring forward St. Majorian of Auvergne, a hundred and fifty years ago still living in the memory of men, now altogether given over to oblivion in the very parish where he was once venerated. Why do those whose interest it is most of all not help us to vindicate from the injury of time these most powerful patrons with God? Why is the invitation, so often renewed, not better answered?

* Neufchatel

* Montreuil

* Beaubec.