ON ST. MAJORIAN, CONFESSOR, AT BROC IN AUVERGNE,
MEMORIAL
Majorian, confessor, not pontiff, in French Auvergne. (S.)
BY V. D. B.
§ Single. St. Majorian, formerly patron of the priory of Broc in Auvergne, now altogether unknown. What he seems to have done. Whether he should be written Mazorianus.
St. Majorian, now altogether unknown at Broc in Auvergne, In all of Gaul perhaps no province has been a land fertile in so many saints as rocky Auvergne, barren of crops. For almost daily, and sometimes more often, we are called there to illustrate the deeds of saints, for the most part with the help of St. Gregory of Tours; who, since he came from there, did not wish to keep silent about the glories of his homeland. But today, when St. Majorian comes before us, we are destitute of all abundance of documents. Castellanus, who first brought his name into the printed calendars, in the Martyrology
of his Universal announces him today in these words: At Broc in Auvergne, St. Mazorianus, confessor; which words are repeated by de Saint-Allais in his Martyrology, by the venerable Pétin in his hagiographical Lexicon, printed by Migne, by the author of the Martyrology, or rather Catalogue, of the Saints of Gaul which has been added to the more recent editions of Longueval's History of the Gallican Church, and finally by Muller in his German Universal Martyrology. When we had searched through our Museum, looking for anything we might find about this man, and our labor had come to nothing, we sent a letter to the venerable parish priest of Broc. He replied to us on the 24th of October of the year 1866 that he had read this name in the Martyrology which is read at the beginning of each day in the edition (which he uses) of the Lives of the Saints of Butler and Godescard; but that otherwise it was altogether unknown in his parish; so that it seemed to him that St. Majorian had never been venerated at Broc: that he had not wished, however, to stop at this, but had consulted a man most skilled in the ecclesiastical affairs of Auvergne and diligently versed in the documents of the provincial archive, and that this man too had declared that nothing about St. Mazorianus or Majorian was known to him; that he had not allowed himself, however, to be overcome by these things, but in the library of the seminary of Clermont had examined a number of episcopal visitations of his parish; in which he had found a good deal about the old relics of Broc, but nothing about St. Majorian. Add that he is not mentioned by St. Gregory of Tours, nor by Savaron, a vigorous investigator of the saints of the diocese of Clermont, nor by Branche, who in the year 1652 embraced in a huge volume the Lives of the saints of Auvergne, nor in geographical books, old and new, on Auvergne or on all Gaul.
[2] [up to the end of the eighteenth century he was there the patron of a priory and was venerated on the 29th of October. Formerly he had probably been a hermit there.] Did Castellanus then err, whose diligence in inquiring into the names of the saints no martyrologist has ever equaled? I could not believe it; and indeed so much the less since, as he went alone in this, that admirable man could admit this name only on manifest testimony. Nor was this confidence of mine in his accuracy excessive. For in the General Polyptych of the ecclesiastical province of Bourges, published at Paris in the year 1648, I found among the priories of the diocese of Clermont Pouillé général de l'archevêché de Bourges, diocèse de Clermont, page 56 Prieure de S. Mazeran de Brocq, 800 livres Priory of St. Mazeran of Brocq, 800 livres. Whence it appears that St. Majorian was the patron of the priory of Broc; that Castellanus, therefore, who in the index of his Martyrology affirms in open words that St. Majorian or Mazeran was the patron of Broc, was preceded either by a calendar or a breviary in use there, or by a codex of Usuard used by the monks of La Chaise-Dieu (for the priory was united to their abbey); that thence he learned both the day of his cult and the title of confessor (for otherwise he would have placed him among the dayless and unknown saints); and thus that in the space of seventy years after the suppression of the priory all memory of the former patron was wholly erased. And with these things we have rescued the memory of St. Majorian from oblivion, as we do daily for the martyrs of the Hieronymian Martyrology. It remains for the people of Auvergne, since it is beyond controversy that St. Majorian is the genuine name and that he was the patron of the priory of Broc, to inquire into his Acts (if any existed) and his cult. If it is worthwhile to disclose my suspicion, I judge that no Life existed (for otherwise his renown would have been greater), but that the office was recited from the common of a confessor not a pontiff; that St. Majorian was more recent than the times of St. Gregory of Tours, by whom he was passed over; that he lived the hermit's life and was buried in his hermitage; that afterwards the church which at some time was converted into a priory was built over his tomb: for this was the condition and fortune of a number of other saints in those parts.
[3] [Little up to now has become known of the history of the priory of St. Majorian at Broc.] Now Brocum (commonly Le Broc) lies in the diocese of Clermont, one league distant from Iciodurum or Issoire, inclining toward the south; and at the beginning of this century it held one thousand two hundred inhabitants. There was a priory there (as we have pointed out) subject to the abbey of La Chaise-Dieu; at what time it was founded, or when it was given to La Chaise-Dieu, I do not find. For although La Chaise-Dieu, begun and founded in the year 1046 by St. Robert, whose Acts were published in our work at the 24th of April Gallia Christ. nova, volume II, column 331, was formerly so renowned and powerful as to be as it were the head of a monastic order or congregation, very little about it has been published. Certainly in the last diploma (that I know of) by which its goods were confirmed in the year 1149 by Pope Eugenius III Annal. ord. S. Benedicti, book LXXIX, no. 71, volume VI, page 464; and page 698, the priory of St. Majorian of Broc is not yet read. This place persisted until it was suppressed in the year 1793: at which time all the charters in the archive are said to have been either torn up or burned; so that there is scarcely any hope that anything about St. Majorian will be found outside the records of La Chaise-Dieu, or the manuscript History of this monastery, which, as Lelong witnesses, was formerly preserved at Paris and very probably is still preserved. There existed moreover at Broc a chapter, founded in the year 1549 by James Pardinel, a priest of Broc, and consisting of four canons and a precentor. As now, so also formerly the church of this chapter was at the same time the parish church, a dean designated by the abbot of La Chaise-Dieu ruling the parish. But this church had nothing in common with St. Majorian except proximity; since he was the patron of the priory alone.
[4] Whether he should be called Majorian or Mazorianus Although Castellanus wrote Mazorianus and in the seventeenth century the vernacular name was Mazeran, I myself have preferred to say Majorian, yet very doubtful in mind, and inclined now to one side, now to the other. In favor of Mazorianus stands the fact that the books seen by Castellanus and the Polyptych of the diocese have Mazorianus or Mazeran; next that in those parts there is a place called Mazoria, where formerly on the 1st of May St. Florina, virgin and martyr, was venerated Acta SS. May volume I, page 47, from which Mazorianus may have been derived. For just as now in France (understand the same of most parts of the world) one man is called l'Espagnol, another l'Anglais, another le Tolosain, another le Parisien, etc., either because they sprang from there or because they formerly dwelt there, so formerly a man born at Rome and living outside his homeland was called Romanus; a Gaul by nation, Gallus or Gallicanus; a German by birth, Germanus: and these surnames gradually became names, so that men by the name of Romanus, Gallus, Gallicanus, and Germanus are not rare. If therefore it is supposed that the patron of Broc was born at Mazoria, he could (when he was cultivating the hermit's life near Issoire) have been called Mazorianus; this name could also have become ordinary in his house because of the migration of his father or forefathers. And these things favor the form Mazorianus. Yet names taken from the term for a homeland are not common enough to be easily admitted; next Majorianus, Majorinus, Majoranus, all of which forms descend from Major, is a name rather frequently used in Gaul and in the rest of the Roman Empire; which could easily be changed by the common people into Mazorianus. Wherefore, although the authority of written books is lacking, it nevertheless seems more probable that Majorianus is the genuine form.