ON ST. BALDUS OR BOND, PENITENT, AT SENS IN GAUL,
ABOUT THE YEAR DCXX.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Baldus, penitent, at Sens in Gaul. (S.)
BY V. D. B.
§ I. His memory surviving in three dioceses and in some martyrologies. The documents. The cause of his penitence. His period.
The Yonne, a river which rises in the district of Nevers, St. Baldus, known in the dioceses of Sens, Paris, and Soissons seems to run toward the winter sunset, and pours its waters at Montereau * into the Seine, and about midway in its course flows past Sens; at the approach to which it laps the parish or hamlet of Paradum or Paron, rising on the left bank three kilometers from the city, and at the beginning of this century populated by scarcely two hundred and sixty-eight inhabitants. There formerly existed there a priory of the Order of St. Benedict, called by the vernacular name prieure de Saint-Bond, at first answerable to the archbishop and the treasurer of Sens, afterwards to the abbot of Saint-Rémi of Sens, but then given to the Priests of the Mission: and in this place, before all memory of men, the relics of St. Baldus were preserved and religious veneration was promoted. But the cult of the blessed man did not stop here. Since the diocese of Paris was formerly part of the ecclesiastical province of Sens, it was also for some while spread to Paris; indeed it stole also into the diocese of Soissons in the province of Reims, in which the parish of Pavant honored him as secondary patron for many centuries, not however on this day, but on the 15th of September. And of this saint, whom let no one confuse with St. Baldus, archbishop of Tours, we must speak today, help
being given by the venerable Gouger, parish priest of Saint-Martin de Tumulo *, and the venerable Robin, honorary canon of Sens, who is also about to publish shortly the Life of St. Baldus of Sens.
[2] and praised on this day by some martyrologists, Castellanus, a canon of Paris very well known in our work, was the first of the martyrologists to bring his name into the printed lists of the saints, when in his Universal Martyrology he praised him on this day in these words: At Sens, St. Baldus *, penitent; who is venerated in a church built over his sepulchre; in whose footsteps, omitting only the latter clause, the Parisian Martyrology, published by order of Cardinal de Noailles, retraced its way. Those who in the year 1751 published the Martyrology of Auxerre by the authority of Charles de Caylus praised the memory of St. Baldus a little more fully (for Auxerre was then part of the province, and is now part of the diocese of Sens); and these are their words: At Sens, St. Baldus, whom, a public penitent, blessed Arthemius, bishop of Sens, so formed by pious admonitions that he afterwards attained to extraordinary holiness. In the diocesan calendars of Sens also memory has long been made of St. Baldus; and indeed in the Breviaries of the years 1641, 1702, and 1780 or 1825 there are contained one or two lessons to be recited by the whole clergy: which is not yet to be seen in the Breviary of Sens published in the year 1625 by Nicolas Cardinal de Pellevé.
[3] he is to be illustrated with the help of some surviving documents. In all those places the same things are narrated of St. Baldus, although here or there a little more explicitly. Of all the records the most ancient are eight lessons, which the celebrated Canon Lebeuf copied from a fourteenth-century codex of the priory of Saint-Éloi of Paris and published at the end of a letter to Charles Maurice Fenel, canon and historiographer of Sens, on the Parisian church of St. Columba, virgin, before volume III of the Dissertations on the ecclesiastical and civil history of Paris. Next comes the Prose of Soissons, formerly used in the hamlet of Pavant together with a part of the Parisian lessons: both of which documents we shall publish anew in their place. There follow the lessons of the three Breviaries of Sens which I just indicated. To these is added a French Life, copied on the 22nd of November of the year 1773 by an unknown man, by name Rolland, from the French edition of the year 1685 of the Lives of the Saints of Ribadeneira. Although this Life is not yet found in the Douai edition of the year 1630, it must be older than the year 1638, since in it the monks of Saint-Rémi are still said to perform divine service in the priory of St. Baldus; and finally the historical letter which the venerable Bonnaire, parish priest of Nogent-l'Artaud and Pavant, sent on the 17th of March of the year 1853 to the venerable Cassemiche, parish priest of Saint-Maurice in the diocese of Sens: which letter and French Life, together with the Prose of Soissons, were printed in the first volume of the Historical Studies of the dioceses of Sens and Auxerre [Etudes historiques et archives des diocèses de Sens et d'Auxerre, volume I, page 65 and following].
[4] [He is said to have been guilty of the killing of his father and mother, after the manner of St. Julian.] That St. Baldus was guilty of parricide and matricide is related everywhere. But in the Latin records it is not even hinted how he came to this crime; on the other hand in the French writings it is stated that it was done by our saint in the same way as by St. Julian the Hospitaller [Cf. Acta SS. at the 29th of January. Cf. Lecointre-Dupont, La Légende de S. Julien le Pauvre, d'après un ms. d'Alençon, in the collection Mémoires de la Société des antiquaires de l'Ouest, 1838, page 190 and following]: which however their authors were not the first to devise. For the editor of Ribadeneira openly invokes a manuscript codex of the priory of St. Baldus and the lessons of the Breviary of Soissons, which are sung every year, he says, on the feast day of St. Baldus, the 15th of September. But these things are very suspect to me. For at Sens, and thus in the priory of St. Baldus, no other lessons seem to have been known than the Parisian ones of Saint-Éloi; with which those of Pavant also agreed: for I nowhere find that the festival of St. Baldus was ever kept in the whole diocese of Soissons. However that may be, here in a few words is how the cause of the double parricide is related. From his youth St. Baldus had been warned that his father and mother would be killed by him; and to avert this crime he abandoned his father's house and in an unknown region took a wife. But his parents, in longing for their son, took to the road and discovered their son's dwelling. Their daughter-in-law, her husband having gone out to hunt, received them with much charity and laid them, weary, in bed. Then without delay she set out to her husband to bring him the glad news; but he, having returned home by another way and seeing a man and a woman sleeping in the marriage bed, thought that he had caught his wife with an adulterer, and, roused by anger, cut off the heads of both with an axe. But shortly, on his wife's return home, he learned his error from her, and resolved for the sake of penitence to abandon the conjugal roof and to lead a wandering life. Whence it came about that he at length arrived at Sens. In these things there is surely nothing absurd or surpassing belief; only documents are wanting, to which antiquity might have won greater authority. The Acts to be published below will give the rest.
[5] [He lived at the end of the sixth century and is related to have been a Spaniard by nation.] The period of St. Baldus becomes known from the period of St. Artemius, prelate of Sens and his spiritual master. Since this man is said to have occupied the see of Sens at least from the year 579 to the year 609, he certainly held it in the years 583 and 585, when he took part in the councils of Mâcon, and in the year 586, when he was sent as envoy to King Clotaire Gallia christiana nova, volume XII, column 7. So Castellanus, and those who have followed him, the venerable Pétin Dictionnaire hagiologique, volume I, column 463 and Bonnaire, could not have strayed much from the truth in teaching that Bl. Baldus, certainly after performing the labors of a long penitence, died about the year 620; nor the authors of the Martyrologies of Paris and Auxerre, in relating that he flourished at the end of the sixth century. Yet those for whom it is certain that some relics of St. Baldus were transferred by St. Éloi to Paris about the year 630 should take care not to put too short a space between that year and the most holy man's death. The author of the Ribadeneira writing states that the holy man came from Portugal; the Acts to be published and the Breviary of Sens of the year 1641 say from Spain: from which there is no reason to depart. Someone has been found by Théodore Tarbé [Almanach historique du départ. de l'Yonne et de la ville de Sens, pour l'année 1824], a learned bookseller and archaeologist of Sens, who related that St. Baldus was born in the villa of Rupiscooperta *, which stands at Paron, very close to Sens; that compelled by want he withdrew to Spain, where he took a wife and was recognized by Gauls on pilgrimage to the church of St. James of Compostela; that, this being learned, his parents went to him, were received with hospitality by his wife and laid in bed; and so were killed by their son in the belief of adultery. But these things are singular and of unknown origin; although we do not wish to conceal that some notes have been submitted to us by the venerable Robin in which it is hinted that the blessed man did not come from Spain. These can be admitted if the ancient tradition is set aside altogether as hardly credible, and this new opinion introduced, that St. Baldus was a most pious hermit of Sens; to whom, since his Acts were unknown, were transferred the Acts of St. Julian the Hospitaller: as has been done a hundred times elsewhere. The remaining things, which may be more obscure, we shall try to elucidate in the annotations to the Acts themselves.
Annotations* Montereau-sur-Yonne.
* S. Martin du Tertre.
* S. Bond
* Rupcouvert
§ II. The fortunes of the priory of St. Baldus near Sens and of his relics.
[The little church of St. Baldus, rich in lands, rescued from the hands of the nobles,] As we have already rather often observed of other hermits, St. Baldus was buried in the very place where he had lived, namely in the cell or little hut which he had built for himself on the top of the mount near Sens. This place began to become sacred from his death, and not long after was honored with a church; which preserved both his name and his relics to the end of the last century: earlier however (if credit be given to Théodore Tarbé [Almanach historique du départ. de l'Yonne et de la ville de Sens, pour l'annee 1824 or 1838]) it was called that of St. Michael the Archangel, and was the head of a parish long since destroyed. This church existed, and had probably been renewed rather often already, in the eleventh century, when Richer, from archdeacon archbishop of Sens, a man of a most energetic nature, of lofty spirit, and generous to churches, monks, and the poor, a vigorous defender of the rights of his see, but rather bold against the authority of the Roman pontiff, gave it to William, abbot of Saint-Rémi of Sens, by a solemn diploma drawn up for the purpose, which first the Maurists Gallia Christiana, volume XII, appendix no. XIV, columns 14 and 15 and then more accurately the distinguished Maximilien Quantin Cartulaire général de l'Yonne, volume I, page 195 and following published. Although this record surpasses all the other memorials of St. Baldus in antiquity, I would not wish to put it into print a third time; but I shall excerpt only the principal things which we may learn from it. Formerly, then, this church, like so many other sacred institutions which had lands in abundance, had come into the hands of the nobles; if I am not mistaken, of Rainard, the most wicked count of Sens, with the connivance of Gelduin, who himself in the year 1049 at the council of Reims was deposed from the see of Sens for simony: certainly by his inertia Gelduin allowed other wicked, unjust, and evil customs to be introduced by Count Rainard, as Clarius, the chronographer of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif, witnesses In d'Achery, Spicilegium, volume II, page 475, edition of 1723. But when Maynard, archbishop of good memory, was very powerful both by the strength of his spirit and by the might of his kinsmen, he vigorously reclaimed for the churches their rights Cf. ibid. at the page cited. So he in his solicitude recalled the church of St. Baldus and the goods attached to it from the power of laymen; and since there was ample means for divine worship to be excellently performed, it was in his wishes to establish a number of priests there. But, certain causes afterwards hindering, which it seems of little use to enumerate and which go rather far from the matter, in the year 1081 a single priest ministered in the office of the place.
[7] [in the eleventh century it is given to the monks of Saint-Rémi of Sens, who had suffered many losses;] Meanwhile the monastery of Saint-Rémi, which stood in the suburbs of Sens, had long been oppressed by want. For in the year 1033 it had been plundered and burned by the army of King Henry, who was besieging Sens on behalf of Archbishop Gelduin Clarius, Chronicum S. Petri Vivi, in d'Achery, Spicilegium, volume II, page 475; and about the year 1079 the villa called Scabiæ *, and among the chief
estates of Saint-Rémi, was burned down: whence the abbey suffered so much loss that Drogo, son of Berengar, moved by pity, entirely gave up all the exactions and injustices, which are commonly called justices, and which the same Drogo had been accustomed to usurp in that villa [Charter of Drogo, in Quantin, Cartulaire général de l'Yonne, volume II, pages 13 and 14]. But others who were holding rights or goods of Saint-Rémi were less pious. Since therefore, as is read there, in certain places, justice failing in part, the church of God is laid waste by the onset of evil men, it is necessary, and will be necessary, that it should always be relieved by the diligence of the good. Wherefore, when the abbot of the church of Saint-Rémi, William by name, coming before the presence of Richer, prelate of Sens, earnestly begged him, for the remedy of his soul and also for the salvation of his predecessors, to grant to the aforesaid church of Saint-Rémi the church of St. Baldus, situated beyond the river on the mount, so far from rejecting his prayers, Richer called together into the cathedral church of St. Stephen, in the month of October, in the twenty-third year of the reign of King Philip, the year of Christ 1081, the two canons, the treasurer, and the seven archpriests; and with their common consent and will he gave his assent and granted in perpetuity to the aforesaid place of Saint-Rémi the said church, with everything which it was seen to possess, on this condition, that a number of monks should always remain in it for the service of God. And since that church had from ancient times belonged to the treasury's account, the canon Daguibert, who had earlier received from Richer the gift of the treasury itself, and held a part of the same treasury in the Lord, especially praised and confirmed this with the rest. The public diploma was afterwards subscribed by the bishops Geoffrey of Paris, Geoffrey of Chartres, Philip of Troyes, Walter of Meaux, and Arnulf of Orléans, and likewise by the abbots of Sainte-Colombe of Sens, Saint-Germain of Paris, Saint-Pierre of Melun, Saint-Germain of Auxerre, Saint-Pierre of Ferrières, and Saint-Florentin of Bonneval; yet no provincial council was held at Sens for the sake of this matter, as it has seemed to the writers of the new Gallia Christiana Volume XII, column 39, but the diploma was carried around to each individually.
[8] [whose property and the priory of St. Baldus were rightly administered by Abbot Stephen in the middle of the twelfth century.] But if by this gift the poverty of the monks of Saint-Rémi was somewhat relieved, they did not long enjoy a happier fortune. The citizens of Sens themselves, for fear of certain disturbers of the realm, demolished the newly built church in the year 1123, promising to restore it: which they never performed Ibid. column 119. But Stephen II, who became abbot about the middle of the twelfth century, a nobleman, brother of Geoffrey Bullen and of Milo, abbot of Melun, seems to have labored greatly to raise up, or at least to preserve, the affairs of Saint-Rémi. Accordingly in the year 1159 he obtained from Hugh, archbishop of Sens, a diploma by which all the rights and goods of Saint-Rémi, among them the church of St. Baudus (so the name is written in the diploma), were confirmed In Quantin, Cartulaire de l'Yonne, volume II, page 104, and in the year 1176 another like it from Archbishop William, confirming among many other goods of the church of Saint-Rémi the church of St. Baudus with its appurtenances, which consist in tithes, lands, rent, and woodland, also certain men who dwell in that parish, and a mill Gallia Christiana nova, volume XII, instruments, column 52. The half part of this mill, and other rights, he assigned to two monks who administered the church of St. Baldus. For in the year 1183, with the assent of Archbishop Guy and of the whole chapter of Saint-Rémi, he disposed by a lawful diploma of some of the monastery's goods for the use of the sick, for his anniversary, and for the sustenance of the priory of St. Baldus; in which we read this: We have likewise given also the half of the mill of Paron to the church of St. Baudus, and that half of the offerings which we used to receive there at Pentecost; that in the aforesaid church two monks, continually serving God, may celebrate one Mass for the dead every day for us and for Brother Geoffrey Bullen In Quantin, Cartulaire de l'Yonne, volume II, pages 343 and 344.
[9] A most ancient This last passage we cannot pass by untouched sacred pilgrimage to the church of St. Baldus.. For the offerings received at Pentecost were at that time abundant; so that the half part was a singular support for the two monks. There were therefore popular gatherings there with the banal cross of Paron; and besides there came bands of pious pilgrims: for whom by an ancient custom, after the example of the offerings of first-fruits ordered to be made by the Mosaic law, the season of Pentecost had been as it were designated Cf. Acta SS. October volume X, pages 861 and 862. So the neighbors came together on a fixed day, those from outside at any time, and sometimes indeed in the common name of cities, towns, or parishes: so that in the registers of Auxerre it is read that a certain man in the year 1475 received from the public treasury six shillings, eight pence, because he had gone on behalf of the city to the relics of St. Baldus and had offered a wax finger [Tarbé, Almanach historique du départ. de l'Yonne et de la ville de Sens pour l'année 1824]. But below we shall have to speak again of the concourse of pilgrims and the changes introduced. We return to the history of the priory of St. Baldus.
[10] How the priory of St. Baldus formerly in the hands of the Priests of the Mission This place remained in the hands of the monks of Saint-Rémi until the year 1674, when it passed under the power of the Priests of the Mission or of Saint-Lazare. The cause of this was the following. The monastery of Saint-Rémi (formerly of Saint-Maurice) stood on the southern side of the city, so as to adjoin the walls. Whenever enemies approached, therefore, not only was this religious house open to their devastation, but it created the greatest danger for the town. So when in the year 1567 Reginald de Bezannes was ruling the monks with abbatial authority, and the diocese of Sens was suffering daily losses from the arms of the Huguenots, it seemed good to the citizens that the monastery, already destroyed five times, should be destroyed a sixth time, but for good, lest it should be a harm to the town. From that time the monks lived almost dispersed; some compelled to perform the divine office in other churches of Sens, until Martin Meurisse, bishop of Madaura and coadjutor of Metz, and commendatory abbot of Saint-Rémi of Sens, in the year 1638 arranged that the revenues of the monks, or the conventual portion, should be adjudged to the monks of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif, and that the two abbeys, joined together, should be reformed by the monks of Saint-Maur: which was brought to completion by the king on the 26th of January and by the Parlement of Paris on the 4th of March 1674 Gallia Christiana nova, volume XII, column 119 and following. Meanwhile the title of abbot persisted, customarily given in commendam with revenues of 7000 pounds Pouillé général de l'archevêché de Sens, page 85. But Henri de Gondrin, archbishop of Sens, the last of the abbots, permitted the abbatial mensa of Saint-Rémi to be united to the parish church of Versailles, which the Priests of the Mission were serving, in the year 1662; yet only in the year 1674, on the 6th of October, did the Missionaries obtain a royal diploma, and not until two years later, on the 4th of October, a pontifical bull, by which that union should be confirmed Gallia Christiana nova, volume XII, column 125. The priory of St. Baldus, rich in an annual revenue of 700 pounds, followed the fate of the abbatial title, since the right of collation was in the power of the abbot of Saint-Rémi Pouillé etc. page 91. And hence it may be seen that the sacred building was administered by the Priests of the Mission who directed the Seminary of Sens; to whom it was united Hurtaut, Dictionnaire historique de Paris et de ses environs, volume I, page 635, their colleagues at Versailles doubtless consenting. They had also at Paron the villa of Rupecooperta *, which to this day has retained the name of the villa of the Mission.
[11] [and more recently the sacred building came into the hands of the archbishop of Sens.] The oratory of the priory, which was built about the twelfth century, was publicly sold with the adjoining lands in the deadly times of the French rebellion. Thereafter it passed through the hands of many, until it came into the ownership of the distinguished Lorne the younger; who, changing the tower into a belvedere , dividing the interior space into rooms, but not much altering the exterior form, converted the former sacred building into an octagonal summerhouse . When he had departed this life, the building came into the hands of his father; who gave it to the archbishop of Sens: from whose piety it is to be expected that a place celebrated by the devotion of so many centuries, distinguished by so great a largess of divine gifts, and for many years the constant witness of the harshest penitence and the splendid holiness of St. Baldus, may from profane become sacred anew.
[12] [The relics of St. Baldus, preserved there, are violated in the year 1590 and reverently gathered up again;] In this place, then, whose fortunes we have briefly traced, the relics of St. Baldus were guarded diligently and with much devotion, until in the year 1590 they were violated and cast out by sacrilegious hands. For when the people of Sens, wholly devoted to the Catholic religion and the party of the League, had refused to agree to the compact which on the 26th of April Archbishop Nicolas de Pellevé and other leading men had prepared and on the next day had had carried to King Henry IV, and on the 29th had shut out the Bourbon and his army from the walls, the soldiers, stationed in the suburb, encircled the city in siege until the 3rd of May [Challe, Histoire des guerres du Calvinisme et de la Ligue dans l'Auxerrois, le Sénonois etc. volume II, page 118 and following]: in those four days they burst into the church of St. Baldus, broke the reliquary, and scattered the sacred bones. After their departure the venerable J. B. Macier, vicar of the parish of Paron, assisted by the churchwardens and the larger and sounder part of the people, gathered the sacred remains. All of whom, moved by piety, had a new case made for receiving the relics, the price being paid by Louis Leolland and John Salin. Wherefore on the 20th of September the parish priest requested from the archbishop, for himself or his vicar, license to lay the sacred remains honorably in place. The archbishop's vicar consented; and on the 29th of September of the year 1590 the venerable J. B. Macier enclosed the relics in the new case. The manuscript documents were sent to me by the venerable Gouyer, praised elsewhere.
[13] [in the year 1642, the wrappings being renewed at the expense of the Carmelite nuns, and in the year 1743, the case being renewed at the expense of the major seminary of Sens,] They seem to have lain there quietly until the year 1642; in which, by order of Octave de Bellegarde, archbishop of Sens, some small pieces were given to the Carmelite nuns; who as a sign of a grateful spirit (for so they were confident of escaping the stain of simony) returned waxed wrappings and some ornaments of the altar and church. A century later, namely on the 4th of June of the year 1743, the reliquary was again changed and a solemn translation made, as is accurately set forth in the following diploma: Claude Drouat de Boussey, priest of Autun, Licentiate of the Sacred Faculty of Paris by the royal faculty, a distinguished theologian, canon of the metropolitan and primatial church of Sens, and also vicar general in
spirituals and temporals of the most illustrious and most reverend father and lord in Christ John Joseph Languet de Gergy, archbishop of Sens, primate of the Gauls and of Germany, superior of the royal house of Navarre. To all who shall inspect the present letter, greeting in him who is the true salvation of all. Whereas we have been asked and requested by the venerable François Thibault, priest of the Congregation of the Mission and also superior of the major seminary of Sens, and the other priests of the Congregation of the Mission, that we should transfer the very great quantity of bones, from almost all parts of the whole body, of the holy and most blessed Baldus, penitent, on the mount of the same name beyond the Yonne and near Sens, from the reliquary consumed and ruined by excessive age, into a reliquary newly built of oak wood, carved on the upper side and gleaming with gold, open on either side, namely front and back, and fittingly closed with two crystals, at the expense of the major seminary of Sens, we, assenting, have appointed the present fourth day of the month of June of the current year for making this translation.
[14] they are inspected and listed, On the aforesaid day, therefore, at about the eighth hour of the morning, the old reliquary and the new being brought to the high altar, prepared with most fitting adornment, and a number of lights being lit, before a very distinguished assembly of the priests of the Congregation of the Mission and of the clerics dwelling in the major seminary, the priests vested in surplice and stole, the clerics in surplice, who, a very great concourse of the people of both sexes assisting with us, having poured out prayers before God and after the swinging of the smoking censer, we unlocked the old reliquary, in which we found one whole thighbone, the upper and middle part of the other thighbone, twenty-five vertebræ, two phalanges of the metacarpus, two heel bones, two fibulas divided into six parts, both shinbones divided into five parts, one whole hip bone, two parts of the other hip bone, the whole breastbone, both collarbones, thirty-one fragments of ribs, five parts of the lower jaw, to one of which three teeth adhere, four parts of the upper arm, two fragments of the radius, five parts of the forearms, fourteen of the feet, nine parts of the shoulder blades, and a very great quantity of fragments, which bones and fragments, except for the parts of the head down to the lower jaw, make up almost the whole body of the said St. Baldus.
[15] the ancient documents giving proof, We also found two charters; of which the first, given on the twenty-eighth day of September of the year one thousand five hundred and ninety, sets forth the petition of the lord parish priest and the parishioners of Paron, made to the lord archbishop of Sens or his vicar general, for laying away in a fitting place the relics of the said St. Baldus, scattered here and there by the heretics of the army of the King of Navarre, which the vicar of the said church of Paron with the churchwardens had piously gathered up again, and written on the verso, also the testimony of the said vicar, signed. The other charter narrates the grant made of certain fragments of the body of the said St. Baldus to the lady prioress of the Carmelite nuns of the city of Sens in the year 1642; which charters we laid in the new reliquary, removing the waxed and silken cloths, almost consumed by age, which the said prioress had given. These relics named above we showed for the devotion of those standing by, and afterwards transferred them and laid them in the new reliquary aforesaid, built with elegant workmanship.
[16] and they are piously transferred. These things being duly done, a solemn procession was made around the outside of the church; and in it the aforesaid relics, thus newly translated, were borne by two clerics, with priests assisting on either side. Then we celebrated a solemn Mass at the said high altar. These things were done on the fourth day of the month of June of the year one thousand seven hundred and forty-three, there assisting the venerable persons named above, François Thibault, priest of the Congregation of the Mission and also superior of the major seminary of Sens, and other priests of the same Congregation of the Mission, and all the clerics dwelling in the same seminary: there being present also Lord John Thevard, canon of the metropolitan church of Sens and also superior of the minor seminary, Lord Henry Ballu, parish priest of the church of Paron, Lord Claude Hilaire Jannon, priest, director of the same minor seminary, Master Claude Louis Villiers, a most skilled surgeon, who named all the bones above and attested them, Master Étienne Sulpice Legris, procurator in the royal and ecclesiastical courts of Sens; all of whom signed with us in these original instruments drawn up concerning this matter, which we have caused to be subscribed by Master Sulpice Legris, royal and apostolic notary dwelling at Sens, in this matter our secretary, and to be secured with our ordinary seal. Signed Drouas, vicar general, F. Thibault, Thevard, Ballu, parish priest of Paron, Jannon, Legris. As for the head, which was missing down to the lower jaw, it was devoutly preserved in the parish church of St. Columba of Sens: which fact was added to the lesson of the Breviary in the edition of the year 1780, and wrongly repeated in the edition of the year 1825; at which time there no longer existed at Sens a parish church of St. Columba.
[17] [The concourse of the people to visit them up to the end of the eighteenth century.] As is plain from the French Life in Ribadeneira, the reliquary of St. Baldus was placed above the altar, so that the faithful might the more easily venerate the holy man, for the most part especially anxious either that peace should be brought back among members of a household, or that the pains of teeth or gout should be quieted. The church was visited several times a year in procession, especially however on the Monday of Easter (to which the former Pentecost concourse had been transferred) and on the 29th of October, on which the canons of Sens performed the ecclesiastical office there. On the eve and on the feast day itself the relics were shown; and in the sacred functions the monks of Saint-Rémi, and from the year 1674 the Priests of the Mission, succeeded the canons, an incredible multitude of people from the neighboring places being present. On all the greater feasts the parishioners of Paron had to come there to hear Mass, since St. Baldus was the patron of their parish; or rather by lawful custom, arising from the institution of the banal crosses. There was preserved there in a crypt his stone coffin, on which children used to be placed against colic pains, and from which there flowed a certain balsam or fatty and oily liquid, in the judgment of physicians beneficial to the sick.
[18] [While impiety raged, they are hidden; at the beginning of this century they are placed in the closed church of Paron; in the year 1848, inspected again, they are carried to the church of Saint-Maurice of Sens,] When at the end of the last century impiety was raging in France, a man of splendid holiness, disregarding the danger to his life, hid in a safe place the reliquary of St. Baldus together with many others taken away from the churches of the city; but when religion publicly returned to the churches, the sacred treasure was transferred not to the church of St. Baldus, which had been sold off, but to the treasury of the cathedral church and then to the parish church of Paron, yet not exposed to popular piety, since because of the narrowness of the place it did not seem that a parish priest should be appointed. But in the year 1848 the venerable Frédéric Cassemiche, priest and dean of Saint-Maurice on the Yonne at Sens, understanding very well how disgraceful was that neglect of the relics of the most holy patron, begged Mellon Jolly, archbishop of Sens, to visit the relics and allow them to be carried to the church of Saint-Maurice. So on the 12th of December of that year the prelate opened the reliquary, and the doctor of medicine Lambert, in the presence of Canon Carlier, treasurer of the metropolitan church, the aforesaid Frédéric Cassemiche, and Danjoux, vicar of the metropolitan church, designated by name fourteen vertebræ, four lumbar, six dorsal, and four cervical, among them the axis and atlas; the breastbone; both collarbones; twenty-eight fragments of larger and slighter ribs; three fragments of shoulder blades; the upper part of the left upper arm and two fragments of forearms; likewise two fragments of radii; two phalanges of the metacarpus; the left hip bone almost whole; some fragments of the right hip bone; two fragments of the shinbone; five fragments of the fibula; the right heel bone; two anklebones; the left cuboid bone and four phalanges of the metatarsus: which relics seem fewer in number than those examined in the year 1743; but, besides the fact that many in this interval had gone to ashes, the physician Lambert disregarded the smaller fragments.
[19] by the authority of the archbishop; When this inspection had been finished and recorded in a written report, the archbishop completed the remaining part, as the following diploma will show: Mellon Jolly, by the divine mercy and the grace of the holy apostolic see archbishop of Sens, bishop of Auxerre, primate of the Gauls and of Germany, to each and all who shall inspect the present letter we make known and testify that for the greater glory of God almighty, and assenting to the prayers of the R. D. Frédéric Cassemiche, priest and dean of the church of Saint-Maurice on the Yonne in our metropolitan city, we have visited the old oblong reliquary, made of oak wood, in which the bones of St. Baldus, formerly a hermit of Sens, are devoutly preserved in the chapel commonly called Paron, and we found it well closed and secured with a number of original instruments. The reliquary being opened, therefore, we took out of it and venerated the bones of the aforesaid St. Baldus; and, after they had been examined and named by Doctor Lambert, a skilled physician, charged by us with this office, we transferred them to a new reliquary, more fitting than the former; which we bound with a silken cord of blue color and sealed with our seal. In faith of which things we have commanded this testimonial letter, signed by our hand and confirmed by our seal, to be issued through the canon named below, custodian of the sacred relics. Given at Sens, in the year of the Lord 1848, on the 12th day of the month of December. † Mellon, archbishop of Sens. — By mandate of the most illustrious and most reverend Lord archbishop of Sens, Carlier, canon, custodian of the holy relics.
[20] thence they are brought back in the year 1855 to the restored parish of Paron. Thereafter the new reliquary remained, not in the abandoned and closed church of Paron, but in the church of Saint-Maurice on the Yonne at Sens; until in the year 1855 it was brought back there. For in the previous year *, on the 16th of August, the title of parish had been restored to Paron, and the care of it entrusted to the venerable Boulle, parish priest of Gron; who with every right demanded that the sacred treasure be returned to the restored parish. So when on the 6th of May of the year 1855 he had admitted twenty young people to their first participation in the Eucharist, in the afternoon, with the banner of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the cross, and a pious procession of the people amid sacred songs, he went to the church of Saint-Maurice and was solemnly received; where he also sang Vespers. Then the sacred relics were returned; which the clergy of Saint-Maurice followed to Paron, singing the litanies of all the saints, and the people of Sens in great numbers. They were laid at Paron on the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the newly initiated were led forward to renew their baptismal vows. Then the hymn Te Deum was sung and the benediction of the Most Holy Sacrament was celebrated. At all these things there were present the distinguished Lefort, mayor of Paron, and the distinguished Hally-Perraud, at whose request the sacred order went through the garden of the villa and the very courtyards. A report of that solemnity was written up, from which we have culled these things. In the same diocese of Sens lies Villeneuve-l'Archevêque; and when the venerable Robin presided over this parish, having obtained a small bone of St. Baldus, he it in a case above the altar
laid away. He also informs me that in the Pontigny cloister of St. Edmund a bone of the same holy man is preserved.
Annotations* Sieges
* Rupcouvert
* Belvedere
* Pavillon.
* 1854
§ III. The cult of St. Baldus at Pavant in the diocese of Soissons and formerly at Paris in the former church of St. Bonitus.
The cult of St. Baldus at Pavant in the diocese of Soissons; If from here we proceed twenty leagues to the north, we come to that part of the Marne which lies between Castellum Theodorici and Firmitas ; on whose left bank is situated the parish of Pavant, which together with Novigentum Artaldi * has one parish priest; although each counts more than a thousand inhabitants. The first patroness of Pavant is St. Barbara; the second, but formerly far more celebrated, St. Baldus, whose festival was formerly kept with a great concourse of people for eight continuous days from the 15th of September. In times of epidemics and public calamities there was formerly great devotion here, many crowds coming from the neighborhood; at other times the blessed man was much invoked for the sake of domestic peace, and for quieting pains of the colon and of the teeth, and also for the healing of animals; indeed not so long ago oats were brought, to be given to sick animals. But since in the year 1793, through the fury (as they will have it) of a most perverse man, whose death was full of horror, the sacred relics perished, the former veneration, which revived somewhat at the beginning of this century, could not last; indeed, since a parish priest no longer resided here, from the year 1830 the festival was transferred to the Sunday after the 15th of September. His statue still exists there and a banner, on which he is shown holding in his hand a staff growing green again, with a wicker basket at his feet. In the windows of the choir his whole history is painted. In the first window he goes out to the hunt; in the second, with sword drawn, he stands beside a bed in which a man lies with a woman; in the third, with knees giving way and a sad countenance, he speaks with a lady; in the fourth, with bended knee, he prays to God and meditates, unless rather he is begging at the feet of St. Artemius for pardon of his crime: what these things signify is easily learned from the Life and from what was said in no. 4. Yet, in order that the former piety may be gradually brought back, as if by right of return, the venerable Robin, who is spending his old age on renewing the cult of St. Baldus, used his good offices so that the nephew of the venerable Lequeux should grant a rib of the most holy penitent to the church of Pavant. The translation of these relics will be made solemnly in the present year 1867. In the new Proper of the saints of Soissons an epitome of his deeds has not been received; but at Pavant there still survives the following prose, a distinguished trace of the old piety:
[22] a prose formerly used there. Let us raise our praises to Christ,
And in praising let us call to mind
His patronage.
He wills not the death of the sinner,
But desires the penitent's
Tears and sighs.
To this bears witness the detestable life
Of Baldus, parricide
And also matricide.
Who, changed into another
Man, became thereafter
A praiseworthy penitent.
He first went to Rome,
And afterwards came back to Sens,
Wailing for his crime.
He consulted the bishop;
At whose command he set up
On the summit of the mount
A dry rod, which he watered,
Which bore leaves and fruits,
After pardon had followed.
He preserved from death
A boy, and in place of ashes
He gave abundance of grain.
His spring healed the sick,
And it cured many brute beasts
Through his intercession.
Now he is in glory with Christ,
By whose prayer may there be granted
To us peace and glory. Amen.
The lessons which were formerly recited there no longer exist; but they were the same as those used at Sens and Paris, except that they stopped at the middle, as I shall note in its place: as is established for me from an apograph formerly sent to our predecessors by Fr. James Bernard. But now let us turn our steps to Paris.
[23] Whether in the rue Saint-Bon at Paris If you cast your eyes on the old maps of Paris, as you leave the island or city (la Cite) by the bridge of St. Mary (pont Notre-Dame) for the street of St. Martin (rue Saint-Martin), there meets you first the street of the Pont Milbray, then the street of the Arsiones (rue des Arcis); which not long ago were as it were the head of the street of St. Martin, but recently were in great part leveled to the ground: so that, the name of the street of the Arsiones being suppressed, the street of St. Martin in more recent maps reaches all the way to the new Rue de Rivoli. On the right, then, of the former street of the Arsiones, and at the beginning of the present street of St. Martin, not far from Saint-Merri, there was a quarter which people have held to have been named almost wholly after St. Baldus. For in the book of the tallage imposed on the Parisians for the year 1292 Géraud, Paris sous Philippe-le-Bel, pages 73 and 74 there occur le coste devers Saint-Bon the side toward Saint-Bon, la rue Saint-Bon and la ruele Saint-Bon, afterwards la rue de la lanterne des Arcis; which streets Albert Lenoir diligently set out in the Map of Paris under King Philip the Fair: and even now there survives there a street, commonly called la rue Saint-Bon.
[24] there formerly existed an oratory of St. Columba, The venerable Lebeuf was the first to state [Mémoire en forme de lettre à Fénel, chanoine de Sens, sur une église de Paris peu connue, in the work Dissertations sur l'histoire ecclésiastique et civile de Paris, volume III, page XLIV and following. Cf. Histoire de la ville de Paris, volume I, part II, page 515 and following] that St. Baldus lies hidden under the name saint Bon or (as he likes to write it) saint Bond. For there stands there a most ancient cemetery basilica; for it was formerly both outside the walls of the city and surrounded by plaster tombs Ibidem; which he held to be the same as the basilica of St. Columba which St. Éloi is read to have blocked with thorns on account of a theft [In St. Audoenus, Vita S. Eligii, book I, chapter 30, in Acta SS. Belgii, volume III, page 221], in whose power it was, and who, after adorning the reliquary of St. Columba at Sens, having received relics, built it; that at the same time the cult of St. Baldus, who had died near Sens not long before, was introduced by him, and two phalanges brought, which, because they were long enclosed in a silver arm, were called Bras de saint Bon Arm of St. Bon, but afterwards were enclosed in a gilded wooden chest above the altar: that in time of war both relics were transferred from the suburb to the Parisian monastery of Saint-Éloi, to which that basilica was subject; but that only those of St. Baldus returned to their place; whence, the name of St. Columba being laid aside, the little church was called that of St. Baldus; that a trace of this is the fact that the relics of St. Columba were preserved in the eighteenth century in the church of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, to which they had come from the originally women's monastery of Saint-Éloi or St. Aurea, which in the year 1107 Galo, bishop of Paris, with the consent of king and pope changed into a men's priory and united to Fossés Gallia Christiana nova, volume VII, column 44. Who does not see how acute these conjectures are and how likely an appearance they have? But they rest almost on this single foundation, that in the eighteenth century the relics of St. Columba were in the church of Saint-Maur, brought from an unknown place. Wherefore the excellent Jaillot [Recherches critiques sur la ville de Paris, in Saint Edme, Paris et ses environs, volume I, page 413] is at great length in overturning them; but this controversy, so far as concerns St. Columba, we can omit.
[25] which indeed was long called that of St. Bonitus, That St. Baldus, however, and not St. Bonitus, bishop of Clermont, is the patron of this basilica the canon of Auxerre tries to make manifest by this reasoning: that indeed in the bull by which Innocent II in the year 1136 confirms the goods of the monastery of Fossés, there is listed among the churches pertaining to the priory of Saint-Éloi the church of St. Bonitus beyond the great bridge Gallia Christ. nova, volume VII, column 57; that hence in public acts of the years 1236 or 1237 Guérard, Cartulaire de l'église Notre-Dame de Paris, volume III, page 60, 1270 Ibid. in the volume cited, page 434, and afterwards Ibid. volume IV, page 59 there occur a fief and a house beside St. Bonitus, and indeed of Paris, and also a Thomas of St. Bonitus; that hence in others of the years 1255 Ibid. volume II, page 424, 1274 Ibid. volume III, page 398, 1375 Ibid. in the volume cited, page 393, 1277 Ibid. volume I, pages 208 and 209, 1320 Ibid. volume IV, page 48 and others Ibid. volume III, page 388 there comes the quarter of St. Bonitus; and indeed, because of the multitude of Jews dwelling beside it, in the acts of the year 1262 Ibid. volume II, page 504 the Jewry of St. Bonitus, and in others of the year 1264 Ibid. volume II, page 510 the Jewish quarter of St. Bonitus; but that this is everywhere an error of the notaries, who, not knowing that St. Baldus lay hidden under the vernacular term Sain-Bon, which exists in the acts of the year 1273 Ibid. volume III, page 382. Cf. the same volume, page 362 and is beyond doubt much older, converted Saint-Bon into St. Bonetus or Bonitus; that by the same kind of men St. Priscus, martyr of the territory of Auxerre, was changed into St. Brice, bishop. But more opportunely an example has been added since: namely the man who in the year 1770 made the map of the ecclesiastical province of Sens, inserted in volume XII of the new Gallia Christiana, there turned the vernacular name of the priory near Sens, Saint-Bon, in Latin into S. Bonitus O. B.; so that the error proposed by the abbé Lebeuf is in truth an easy one.
[26] [but it ought to have been called that of St. Baldus. The cult of St. Baldus in the Parisian priory of Saint-Éloi.] But from this it only follows that an error could have been made; wherefore he tries to show from elsewhere that the error was in fact made: namely that before the eighteenth century the feast of St. Bonitus, bishop of Clermont, was not celebrated in that oratory, nor is it indicated in any old liturgical books or calendars of the priory of Saint-Éloi; but that of St. Baldus is, and indeed with more solemn rite, namely in albs, no differently from SS. Columba, Savinian, and Potentian of Sens; indeed that in the legendary of Saint-Éloi, written about the year 1330, eight lessons were read from his Life, which were formerly in use also at Sens. This argument (if it is true that the festival of St. Bonitus was not kept there before the year 1700) is surely very strong. Add that in French in ancient writings there is nowhere found saint Bonet, but always saint Bon. Yet the following things hinder my assent. In the first place, not only in the acts of notaries, but also in the most ancient polyptych of Paris Ibid. volume I, page 19 the church is written
of St. Bonitus. Next, in Latin writings the name of St. Bonitus constantly appears, never that of St. Baldus or Baudus; through which form saint Bon (as at Sens) must have passed. Thirdly, since St. Éloi flourished in the seventh century, the custom did not yet prevail of dividing the bodies of the saints; so that conjectures do not seem sufficient to persuade us that St. Éloi, contrary to the custom of his time, received a few bones at Sens in order to transfer them to Paris; for at that time there were distributed in place of relics brandea, that is, linens hallowed by touching the tomb or the body, dust from the sepulchre, oil from the lamps, and other things of that kind. I am therefore in doubt, not knowing to which side to incline; yet this is certain, that the feast of St. Baldus was formerly kept solemnly in the priory of Saint-Éloi and perhaps also in the oratory of St. Bonitus or (if it is preferred) of St. Baldus at Paris. In the year 1792 this church was suppressed, and changed first into a military post, then into a private house, in the year 1829 marked with the number 8 [Dulaure, Histoire de Paris, volume II, page 55, edition of 1825; S. Edme, Paris et ses environs, volume I, page 413; Lazare, Dictionnaire des rues de Paris, page 81]. In the diocese of Tours there exist two parishes, Saint-Bault and Saint-Bault-de-Verneuil, of which St. Baldus, archbishop of Tours, is patron; but also in the diocese of Moulins there exists a parish of Saint-Bon; and likewise in those of Chalon and Chambéry; and formerly in the diocese of Langres, in the parish of Champcourt, a priory of Saint-Bond. What these have in common with St. Baldus of Sens, or rather with the archbishop of Tours of the same name, or another, let the scholars and parish priests there see. For me at any rate nothing remains but to recite the lessons first published from the Saint-Éloi codex by the abbé Lebeuf Dissertations etc. volume III, page LXII and following, collated with the Soissons or Pavant copy.
Annotations* Chateau-Thierry.
* Ferte-sous-Jouarre.
* Nogent-l'Artaud.
THE MUTILATED LIFE OF ST. BALDUS, PENITENT
from the codex of Saint-Éloi of Paris and that of Pavant.
Baldus, penitent, at Sens in Gaul. (S.)
BHL Number: 0903
[St. Baldus, guilty of the killing of his parents, goes on pilgrimage for the sake of penitence and at length comes to Sens] This man, then, namely blessed Baldus, was a Spaniard by nation; but in his youth he was polluted by most grievous crimes, and, as is said, by parricide and matricide a. In so great a foulness of crimes he could not bear the faces of his fellow citizens; but, leaving all his paternal inheritance, he took up a long pilgrimage. For he is said to have come to the holy places of Jerusalem, and before the venerable sepulchre of Christ to have asked pardon for his guilt. Then, having traveled through many regions, he turned his way to the thresholds of the apostles at Rome b; where in like manner he begged more earnestly that he might be relieved of so great a weight of sin. Having traveled also through Italy and crossed the Alps, he hastily entered Gaul, went to the head of the cities c, and entered the metropolis of Sens, to obtain counsel about the enormity of his crime. In which at that time Arthemius d presided as pastor of the church and of the people e. When Baldus, still a humble sinner, beheld him, he prostrated himself with his whole body before his feet; and beating his breast strongly, he confessed his iniquity and promised that he would faithfully do whatever he should hear from the pontiff; if only he might obtain pardon for his great crime *.
[2] to St. Artemius, by whom he is ordered to water a dry rod; So Baldus is raised up by the command of the most holy prelate; and having received counsel, he is wholly strengthened in the hope of meriting pardon. The prelate happened to be carrying in his hand a rod stripped of bark , bereft of sap, parched by many suns: he holds it out to the penitent, and he received the command to plant it on the summit of the mount that should be shown him: and that he should so long water its foot with waters of the river that flows past the base of the hill, carrying them up on his shoulders, until it should strike root, and, taking on skin again, put forth buds, stretch out branches, and, bringing forth flowers, produce fruit f. The most devout man, thinking little of so great a labor, and placing the whole confidence of his spirit in God almighty, with whom no word is impossible, departed from the saint, and with the greatest eagerness carried out what had been commanded…
[3] he carries to the same saint a dying boy to be healed; One day, as he was passing, laden with waters, along the road which goes by the foot of the mount, he met certain poor women carrying to the bishop in the city a boy near to death; and having inquired about their business, because he saw that they were hurrying, when he had learned it, he himself took up the dying boy and bore him with rapid step to the prelate, and obtained that he should lay his hand on him. This being done, he returned to the wilderness, and nourishing the little one on the harshest foods he brought him in wondrous manner to youth; who, snatched from the jaws of death, passed to a twofold life through the merits of Baldus.
[4] St. Baldus seeks water daily with much labor. Now although God almighty could have ended so great a sweat in a short time, he willed to prove the just man for a prolonged time, so that through the endurance of a long-lasting labor the crown of most just recompense might grow. For, subject indeed to the command of a hard law, he carried water daily on his own shoulders, which was sought from the river Yonne * over the space of almost one mile. He did not however always go by a straight way: but now by the side of the mount, where the way appeared longer and heavier, he chose it, which also was marked by the greenness of its grass down to our times g; but now, vines having been spread on it h, it is wholly covered; now again across the ridge of that mount on whose summit the rod had stood; now indeed through the middle of the very broad valley which opens between the two…
ANNOTATIONS.
* Par. lavaretur
* Par. adds ita
* In place of t. m. p. Pav. has ut peccati
* Par. corio
* Pav. infigeretur
* Yeauna