Foillan

ON ST. FOILLAN, MARTYR, AT FOSSES IN BELGIUM,

ABOUT THE YEAR 655.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Foillan, martyr in Belgium. (S.)

BY R. D. B.

§ I. Of the manuscript and printed Lives of St. Foillan.

Mention of St. Foillan already occurs in the Acts of St. Fursey, whose brother and companion he was. Indeed his deeds, shortly after his death, in writing

were set down, The Life of St. Foillan was written Cornelius Smet Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 14. thinks is to be gathered from the fact that Bede, pursuing the praises of St. Fursey, says: These things concerning the incorruption of his body we have touched upon briefly, that the sublimity of the man might be the better known to readers. All which, in HIS BOOKLET, MORE SUFFICIENTLY, and concerning his OTHER FELLOW SOLDIERS (of whom St. Foillan certainly was one), whoever shall read will find Hist. eccles., lib. III, cap. 19.. This booklet Bolland Acta SS., tom. II of Jan., pag. 36. conjectures to be the very Life of Fursey published by him Ibid.; but at the same time that it cannot be called complete, since it reports very little of his fellow soldiers. Of St. Foillan himself, however, we have before us five different longer Lives. The authors of only two are known, of whom a little below. Of the rest, one was written or polished by a certain Brother Paul. This is presented to us by a manuscript of the twelfth century, once of the Benedictine monastery of St. Laurence at Liège, now num. 9742 of the royal library of Brussels; from which we publish it First Life., with variant readings added from manuscript 7483 of the same library, of the thirteenth century. That this was formerly a book of the convent of Bonnefontaine in the diocese of Reims, although it is by no means indicated in the manuscript itself, we nevertheless certainly gather from the fact that the Passion of St. Foillan, bishop and martyr, preserved in the Brussels manuscript 8928, and, as is said there, copied from a manuscript of the monastery of Bonnefontaine, has wholly the same words and the same gaps as those found in manuscript 7483; except that some omitted words are indicated or supplied by conjecture, and that in those places where something is lacking in the same manuscript 7483: from which, namely, the larger ornamented letters had been cut out by a barbarous hand: along with which those things too that had been written in the same space on the verso of the folio were removed. Finally we add variant readings from the Brussels manuscript 18654; of which we shall have to speak at num. 4.

[2] by a certain Brother Paul, The author's name is given in the very opening, conceived in these words: In the name of the Lord begins the description of blessed Foillan the martyr, first composed in a rustic style, afterwards written out by a certain Brother Paul. That this Paul, and indeed the author of the original Life, now lost, which lit the way for him, wrote in Belgium seems manifest: for of Ireland, in which the holy man was born, and of Gaul, in which he preached the gospel, he has hardly a word; and England too, where St. Foillan presided over a certain monastery, he passes over altogether. On the other hand he hands down not a little of his residence at Nivelles, of the convent of Fosses begun by him, of the other things he did in Belgium, and finally of his martyrdom. But at what time, or in what place of Belgium, both these writings were produced, and the other matters of this kind which would have force for establishing their authority, are altogether hidden.

[3] and by another, unknown author. The same ancient Life as Paul had before his eyes an anonymous writer, whose booklet, copied by our Rosweyde from a very old manuscript of Saint-Bertin, is preserved by the already cited Brussels manuscript 8928; and which we shall publish below, in second place among the Lives of St. Foillan, from that same manuscript of Saint-Bertin, today lodged in the public library of Saint-Omer, and assigned by experts to the eleventh century Num, 791. Cf. Catalogue général des mss. des bibl. des départements, pag. 360.. Certainly he himself says at the opening of his writing: The series of whose Foillan's life, once indeed set down in a not sufficiently polished style, now, as your charity asks, and rather commands, Brethren, we are compelled to write out with our pen, humble though it be, and, as is plain to all the learned, unskilled. Then he relates wholly the same things as Paul and in the same order, except that he uses other words, and intermixes for the adornment of his speech, as seemed good to him, many eulogies and exhortations written in an oratorical style. He is also far longer in recounting the discovery of the bodies of St. Foillan and his companions, yet in such a way that, as regards the matters themselves, he adds nothing of any moment. We publish this Life from three manuscripts of the eleventh century: the Saint-Bertin 791 indicated above; that of the seminary of Namur, 21 (which you may see accurately described in the proem to the contemporary Life of St. Hubert [Bulletins de la Commission royale d'histoire, tom. V, num. 3, ser. IV, pag. 217, Brussels 1878.] published by our colleague Fr. Charles De Smedt); that of Metz, 395, in which there were many errors, but mostly removed; certain things, however, have been restored or corrected by another hand, and in such a way that the original reading cannot be discerned. Some numbers, for distinguishing the lessons of the Office, were written in the margin both by the first and by the second hand, but not in the same order by each. We have also used the Trier manuscript 965 (otherwise 1151), of the thirteenth century, on parchment, in folio, which contains the Acts of the Saints of October. It formerly belonged to the monastery of St. Maximin at Trier. We have moreover added variant readings from the manuscripts Douai 838, of the thirteenth century Catalogue général des mss., tom. VI, pag. 577.; Brussels 7460, formerly Vallicelliano, likewise of the thirteenth century; Mons 8439, of the thirteenth century, in which we find certain passages of this Life; and finally, as regards that part in which the discovery of the bodies of St. Foillan and his companions is narrated, from Brussels 18654, according to what is presently to be said Num. 5..

[4] Whose writings a third biographer employed, The third of the Lives of St. Foillan which we publish is presented to us by another manuscript, formerly of the Liège convent of St. Laurence, now of the royal library of Brussels Num. 18654., written, as it seems, in the twelfth century. Its author drew the narrative chiefly from a fourfold source. From the second Life of St. Fursey, printed by our forebears at the 16th day of January Acta SS., tom. II of Jan., pag. 45 et seqq., he took what he narrates of the origin, birth and infancy of St. Foillan Num. 1 – 4.; from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Lib. III, cap. 18 and 19., what regards his journeys into England and Gaul Num. 5 – 12., namely by accommodating to Foillan what is read there of St. Fursey, and adding of his own or reporting from tradition (of which no trace otherwise occurs) a Roman pilgrimage undertaken by SS. Ultan and Foillan, and the latter's episcopal consecration by Pope Martin I Num. 13. Then, after a few things on the state of religion in Gaul at that time, he copied the remainder of the Acts of the holy martyr up to his murder word for word from the first Life, composed by Paul. Finally the history of the revelation of the bodies and of their translation to the monasteries of Nivelles and Fosses Cap. II, num. 12 – 16. he took from the second Life.

[5] using also the Life of St. Fursey. Of this third Life, besides the complete text which the Brussels manuscript 18654 contains, we have again in manuscript 8928 of the same library a double apograph, the one Fol. 62 r° – 65 vo. from a manuscript of the convent of Fosses, the other Fol. 7 r° – 10 r°. from a manuscript of André Duchesne; but each stops at the ninth chapter (according to the Saint-Laurent manuscript): indeed in the Duchesne manuscript this composition was entitled Life of St. Fursey and joined with book II of the same Life, or on his miracles. Whence it is excellently confirmed that it was written to supply the silence of both earlier Lives on the deeds of St. Foillan before his arrival in Belgium. And so we have judged that this part alone, which the author did not borrow from the earlier Lives, should be published from the cited apographs. As for the two remaining parts, from manuscript 18654 we shall add variant readings to the two earlier Lives. But that no great authority is to be attached to the first part itself will easily be established for anyone who weighs that its anonymous writer has accommodated to Foillan what is read of Fursey, both in the latter's Life and in Bede; while of the Roman pilgrimage of St. Foillan and his ordination by Pope Martin I there is complete silence in both earlier Lives, and accordingly in that older one which the writer of each followed; although these are things of the kind which the hagiographers of that time were least of all accustomed to pass over in silence.

[6] He wrote a metrical Life of St. Foillan and his miracles about the year 1100 From no other source than the complete text of the third Life just indicated (namely with the supplements from Lives I and II) does that Hillinus seem to have drawn his lengthy poem on St. Foillan, whose composition some judged to be wholly lost [Cf. Hardy, Materials relat. to Great. Brit. and Ireland, tom. I, part. I, p. 254.], and which we here publish for the first time from an apograph, which our forebears once transcribed from a manuscript of St. Foillan's at Rœulx * and bound together with other documents on St. Foillan in the manuscript already often cited, now Brussels 8928. Nor do we know any other copy or apograph of this Life. What it has been possible to discover about its writer we now subjoin. He himself discloses his name in the first verses of his poem:

His Ita Litterulis Libet Insinuare Notatis Veraci Specie, quo nomine censear ipse: Si primos apices ex partibus octo retractes, Carminis auctorem noto…

[By these little letters thus marked it pleases me to intimate, in truthful guise, by what name I myself am to be reckoned: if you draw back the first tips from the eight parts, I mark the author of the poem…]

Then a little below he dedicates the work to Sigebert, once his master. Now that the same Hillinus was also the author of the book on the Miracles of St. Foillan we learn from the Prologue of this book, where he says: Now that the passion of blessed Foillan the martyr has been prepared in metrical arrangement, with my pen turned, we have determined to disclose also some of his miracles. Then: Your humility, most familiar master Sigebert, confers no small boldness of writing in this little work: for since you did not once reject the little sheet of our verses, we trust that you will not take it ill that this small page too should serve the holy martyr, especially since at your prompting I have devoted myself to this labor, and have confidently inclined myself to your favor. Nor is it less beyond doubt that this series of Miracles was written after the year 1086: for in it, at num. 28, the translation of St. Foillan carried out in that year is treated. It is however older than the year 1125, since at num. 1 one reads: In the territory named Hainaut, in the forest called Charbonnière, in the place which is called Ampolinæ, bordering on the parish of the village which is called Sterpeis, where the innocent blood of blessed Foillan the martyr and of his attendants was shed, an enclosure being made, a churchyard was marked out, in the midst of which a wooden structure of a little church was set up, and an altar raised to the praise of God in honor of the martyr himself; without a single word being brought forward of the excellent gifts made by Burchard, bishop of Cambrai, in the year 1125 for the increase of divine worship in

the chapel of Senophe, or of the college of canons of Fosses that had been begun, for which a Premonstratensian monastery was shortly afterwards substituted; but rather it indicates that no trace of a convent was to be seen there. Moreover since the author says at num. 18: RECENTLY, when the emperor Henry was going up against the Menapii in defense of the people of Cambrai, whom part of the army of the Teutons was attacking, passing through Pongeiæ, a village belonging to the uses of the church of Fosses, and adds that a benefit was then conferred through the intervention of St. Foillan, it follows that his writing is to be referred to the time when war was carried on against the Menapii, that is, against the Flemings, by the emperor Henry. Now since Henry IV in the year 1102, and his son Henry V in the year 1107 and 1108, waged war against the Flemings on behalf of the people of Cambrai [Gesta pontificum Cameracensium, pag. 67 and 91, ed. Charles De Smedt, Paris 1880. Mon. Germ. hist., tom. VII, pag. 505 et seq., 518 et seq.], and it cannot be certainly discerned whether Hillinus is making mention of the father or the son, it must be said that he published his writing either shortly after the year 1102 or shortly after the year 1108.

[7] Hillinus, Now it must be inquired who Hillinus, St. Foillan's biographer, was. Our Possevino speaks of him in these words: Hillinus, monk of Corbie in Gaul, of the Congregation of Fleury, wrote in verse and in prose the martyrdom of St. Foillan, bishop and martyr, in two books, which are preserved in manuscript in the convent of St. Foillan outside Rodez, in the district of Toulouse [Apparatus sacer, tom. I, pag. 761. Cf. Vossius, De Historicis latinis, lib. III, part. IV, cap. 11. Fabricius, Bibl. latina mediæ et infimæ ætatis, tom. III, pag. 270, edit. 1754.]. Instead of Ruthenæ (Rodez) there should have been written Rhodium (Le Rœulx) in Belgium. Next, that Hillinus composed a Life of St. Foillan in prose is less certain; he would have said more correctly the Miracles of St. Foillan. Finally Dom Rivet Hist. litt. de la France, tom. VIII, pag. 592., reproving Possevino because he had called Hillinus a monk of Corbie in Gaul or Old Corbie, himself also fell into error, judging him to be the same Hillinus who in the year 1106 was lector at New or Saxon Corvey, and from there passed in the year 1110 to rule the monastery of Oldisleben Annales Benedictini, tom. V, pag. 499 and 555.. The matter does not stand so: for the one who praised St. Foillan was a canon of Fosses, as will shortly be made plain. But first some have thought it is to be gathered that he was educated at Fosses as a boy from what he himself reports at num. 30 of the Miracles: When I was still under the school discipline, he says, I was in debt to a certain lender for a boyish matter for three obols, but I could not have the means to satisfy his will in repaying… One day, entering the church, I began to invoke the aforesaid martyr by name. But from these and the following words nothing can be concluded. For it will appear to one who reads the entire text that Hillinus does not declare these things of himself, but of his cousin and foster-child, a certain John, whom our author introduces speaking. And if he himself learned his letters at Fosses, certainly he afterwards went out from there in order, under the master Sigebert, to give his effort to higher studies; for in the Prologue to the metrical Life he addresses his master thus:

You had been accustomed (I well remember, you yourself recall) Amid various matters to inquire of me Whether anything of the Life of Foillan the martyr, beyond What we read, was to be found in our book-chest. When you learned through me that nothing more was known there, at our Sloth in these matters you took offense.

[8] canon of Fosses Finally, that he shut himself up in the college of Fosses he both signifies in his writings and himself openly professes. Nor would there ever have been any controversy, if authors had remembered that not only the name of HILLINUS is figured at the beginning of the poem, but also his monastery and office. For when the first letters of the single words are placed in their order, there results from the fourth verse CANTOR, from the fifth LEVITA, from the seventh FOSSENSIS, from the eighth CENOBII Metrical Life, beginning.. But it is also plain from the series of Miracles that he was co-opted among the canons of Fosses. For he says: The provost of our church (of Fosses). Afterwards he narrates at num. 32 how ST. FOILLAN was at hand for a certain brother, by name Rothardus, with whom Hillinus indicates quite openly that he lived; then at num. 33 he says: TO OUR CHURCH (of Fosses) came two men, one a priest, the other a layman, and offered at the altar (of St. Foillan) gifts, namely a silver thread measured to the height of a man's stature. When certain of the BRETHREN spoke with them, inquiring whether it was by their own vow or that of someone else that they were bringing this gift freely to the church, they answered that in this matter nothing was of concern to them, but that they had been sent as legates under this vow of a certain freeborn man. Hillinus was therefore a canon of Fosses, and was wrongly taken for a monk of Corbie, Old or New.

[9] and a disciple, as it seems, of Sigebert of Gembloux. We do not doubt that Sigebert, the master of Hillinus of Fosses, was that monk of Gembloux, celebrated for very many writings and especially his chronicle. And in fact this opinion was put forward by Colgan in his notes to the narrative of the Discovery of St. Foillan Acta SS. Hib., pag. 103.. It would be by no means strange that Hillinus betook himself from Fosses to the neighboring monastery of Gembloux, to be instructed there by Sigebert in divine and human sciences. For in many monasteries of the Order of St. Benedict, besides the schools erected for instructing the younger monks, there flourished also schools which clerics and others, coming even from distant places, were accustomed to frequent [Bulæus, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, tom. I, pag. 79 et seqq. Historia rei literariæ Ordinis S. Benedicti, tom. I, pag. 190 et seqq.]. Now at Gembloux, from about the year 1071, Sigebert taught [Cf. Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ historica, tom. VI, pag. 268. Cf. ibid., tom. VIII, pag. 550.], who found there not a few hearers outside the monastic discipline: for one of his disciples, a monk of Gembloux, recounting the Deeds of the abbots of Gembloux, writes of Sigebert at the year 1112: He contributed many things for the use and adornment of the church of the convent of Gembloux, which he had acquired by the voluntary liberality of those whom he had instructed Ibid., tom. VI, pag. 269; ibid., tom. VIII, pag. 550.. Among these hearers who were not monks is probably to be numbered Hillinus, who first wrote the Life of St. Foillan, then his Miracles, between about the years 1086 and 1102 or 1108: and accordingly could have devoted himself to literary studies at the time when Sigebert was promoting them at Gembloux.

[10] Whose writing, to be published by us, The writings of Hillinus, as Cornelius Smet notes Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 15., are not much to be commended either for style or diction. The poems indeed are often intricate and difficult to understand: and the matters themselves are mostly taken from older Lives. Nor does the series of the Miracles of St. Foillan please much more: its author (to leave aside the awkwardness of his speech) sometimes incautiously believes less likely things, or takes unusual things for miracles. Since however he reports a good many things which pertain to explaining the old geography of Belgium, and its usages and customs, we do not wish this booklet, hitherto unpublished, to be absent from our Work. It is also our pleasure to publish the metrical Life, because it seems not foreign to the plan of our Work, but indeed most in keeping with it, that ancient Lives of the Saints, even when derived from others (yet not merely abridged), should be added to these, since they are of much value for the literary, as they say, history of hagiography, and not rarely there is found in them the source of some tradition, of which you would otherwise seek in vain the origin.

[11] Philip of Harvengt turned into prose. For a similar reason, namely that none of the documents on which the more recent biographers of St. Foillan may rely should be lacking, we were led to print anew (the only one among those brought forward so far which is not unpublished) the Life of St. Foillan by Philip of Harvengt, although it accomplishes nothing else but to turn the metrical Life composed by Hillinus into prose. He himself affirms this in the Prologue in these words: You ask, and ask insistently, that I should run through in another kind of writing the Life of the holy martyr and bishop Foillan which you have described in verse, and bring it, released from meter, down to the plain of prose freedom, as one likely to please religious ears a little the more by the grace of a mature novelty. But since I have long been unable either to dictate or to write out what is dictated, I also refused for a long time a business of this kind, and, delaying to take up again the pen which I had laid down, I quite often excused my leisure. Since I perceive that an excuse of this kind does not sufficiently please your love, I have thought it right to wrest from myself, contrary to my purpose, that I should rather impart my attention to undertaking this business than, offending you, not serve the aforesaid martyr. Now Philip of Harvengt, as is known, was admitted among the Premonstratensian canons of the convent of Bonne-Espérance in Hainaut about the year 1130, and created abbot about 1152 Cf. Lepaige, Bibliotheca Præmonstrat., pag. 508 et seqq.. He wrote many works, which Balthasar Bellerus published at Douai in the year 1621, under the care of Nicolas Chamart, abbot of Bonne-Espérance, and which the venerable priest Migne printed again at Paris in the year 1855 Patrol. lat., tom. CIII.. Among these one reads the Life of St. Foillan, which we shall give both from that edition and from the Mons manuscript 8439, of the thirteenth century, which formerly belonged to the convent of St. Foillan near Le Rœulx Cf. Biblioth. Bruxell., ms. 8928..

[12] Several Lives have already been printed. Those five Lives of which we have spoken so far will be followed by a far shorter one, which we find written out in our Brussels manuscript 8928 Fol. 66 r° and v°., without indication of the manuscript from which it was taken. It is thought, however, that it was customarily recited among the divine offices in the convent of Fosses: certainly in our manuscript it immediately follows the Fosses Life mentioned above Num. 5., and was written by the same hand. It contains some things which are not found in the foregoing. But we have thought it right to omit both the Acts from the manuscript of Rouge-Cloître near Brussels, once published by Cornelius Smet Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 16 et seqq., and those which were more recently brought forward Analectes pour servir à l'hist. eccl. de la Belgique, tom. V, pag. 414 et seqq. by the venerable Joseph Barbier from a manuscript of the thirteenth century, now at Namur, formerly of Saint-Hubert in the Ardennes. For the former of these contains nothing other than a brief summary of the Life recognized above in the third place. The other is our second Life itself, with the exhortations and the rhetorical colors cut away which the author had woven into the narrative. Finally we find a eulogy of St. Foillan among similar ones of other Irish saints in the Brussels manuscript 4241, written at the beginning of the seventeenth century Cod. 4241, fol. 86.. Which

since it contains nothing new, it seems beside the point to insert it in this place. Three rather lengthy Lives of St. Foillan, written in French, have been committed to print. For Sebastien Bouvier published at Liège in the year 1657 and again in the year 1674 Miroire de saincteté en la vie, mort et miracles de S. Fuellien evesque et martyr [Mirror of holiness in the life, death and miracles of St. Foillan, bishop and martyr]; likewise at Liège in the year 1739 J. Rousseau, La vie de saint Feuillien, évêque et martyr The life of St. Foillan, bishop and martyr; and more recently at Namur in the year 1861 E. C. Delchambre, Vie de S. Feuillien évêque et martyr Life of St. Foillan, bishop and martyr. Moreover what has been brought to light by more recent writers concerning St. Foillan the curious reader will find diligently enumerated in the excellent Bio-Bibliographical Index of the learned priest Ulysse Chevalier Répertoire des sources hist. du moyen âge, pag. 751.. To be added are what Alban Butler and Adrien Baillet published in their collected Lives of the Saints, Bartholomew Fisen in the Flowers of the Church of Liège, Molanus in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium and the Indiculus of the Saints of Belgium, Miræus in the Belgian and Burgundian Fasti, and Hugues Ménard in the additions to the Martyrology of the Order of St. Benedict.

* Le Rœulx in Hainaut

§ II. Of the time when St. Foillan lived and died.

St. Foillan made for Gaul about the year 650, First of all let us draw out what is to be held more certain on the age of St. Foillan from the two older Lives (the first and the second), made from the original one, which we regret still lies hidden Cf. above, num. 2 and 3.. These offer no notes of time as regards his birth and the years that next followed. But they teach only that St. Foillan came from his homeland into France after the death of his brother St. Fursey, when Sigebert was king of the Franks, Grimoald mayor of the palace, Erchinoald as it were patrician, and when there was living not only St. Gertrude of Nivelles but also her mother Bl. Ituberga, once the wife of Bl. Pepin, who is commonly distinguished by the surname of Landen. Now St. Fursey died about the year 650 [Mabillon, Acta SS. O. S. B., sæc. II, pag. 314; Annales O. S. B., tom. I, at the year 650, num. I, pag. 409, edit. 1703. Cointe, Annales eccl. Franc., tom. III, pag. 262. Bouquet, Recueil des hist. des Gaules, tom. III, pag. LXIX.]. St. Sigebert died in the year 656 Richter, Annalen der Merovingern, pag. 167, Halle, 1873., after he had reigned for more than twenty years. Grimoald was mayor of the palace in Austrasia from the year 642 to about the year 656 Ibid., pag. 167 et seq.: Erchinoald likewise mayor of the palace in Neustria from the year 640 to about the year 658 Ibid., pag. 165 and 168.. Finally Bl. Ituberga departed this life in the twelfth year after the death of the most illustrious man Pepin her lord Acta SS. Belgii, tom. II, pag. 430 et seq. Cf. pag. 363; tom. III, pag. 642., that is, in the year 651 or 652, since Pepin himself departed this life in the year 639 Richter, Op. cit., pag. 164. or, as others are of the opinion, in the year 640 Acta SS. Belgii, tom. II, pag. 363; tom. III, pag. 642.. From all of which it may be inferred that St. Foillan made his journey into Gaul about the year 650.

[14] and he died about the year 655. It does not appear so clearly from the same two Lives when he was slain. But certainly not after the year 657. For it is known by the testimony of the biographers that on the day before the solemnity of Quintinus the most blessed martyr, or on the 30th day of October, he fell among robbers and on the next day was killed by them Life I, num. 5 and 6. Cf. Life II, num. 15.; and that his body, about the seventieth day after his murder, in the middle of the month of January, was found by St. Gertrude Life I of St. Foillan, num. 8. Life II, num. 15., still, as it seems, abbess of Nivelles. She resigned this function three months before her death, or about the 17th day of December of the year 658 Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 6 and 154., since indeed she died on the 17th day of March of the year 659 Ibid., pag. 141.. Indeed, according to the Surius edition of the Life of St. Gertrude At the 17th day of March, num. 6., a space of nearly three years intervened between her resignation and her death. Relying on this foundation Cointe determined that St. Foillan perished in the year 655 Ann. eccl. Franc., tom. III, pag. 417., and others followed him, even Cornelius Smet himself Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 6., since nothing, he says, urges a departure from that opinion, though not, as the same says, on account of the reason produced by Cointe. For in the Surius edition too TRIMESTRI is substituted in the margin for the word TRIENNIO, and so also it is read both in the Life of St. Gertrude published by Smet and in other very ancient manuscripts. Among these the best manuscript of the Brussels library, 7882, written in the tenth century, is to be mentioned above others; for it has: within about three months' space. Moreover Smet argues excellently that this sincere reading is confirmed by the fact that St. Gertrude thought of resigning her function then, when she learned by divine revelation that her passage from this light had drawn near Ibid.: which, he adds, cannot be understood of a term still three years away, in so brief a course of life (less than thirty-three years) and of office as St. Gertrude's was. Nevertheless there is another reason why St. Foillan is said to have died not after the year 655. For at the translation of the martyr, already seventy days slain, there was present, in the month of January, Grimoald, mayor of the palace: and he, as most now consider, was seized and put to death already in the year 656. Nor can it be concluded that the holy man died much before the year 655, because, since he first approached St. Gertrude in the year 650 or 651, and founded the monastery of Fosses, it is read that he then spent a very great deal of time in ruling the convent of virgins of Nivelles in spiritual matters Life II, num. 8..

[15] He does not seem to have been taught by St. Brendan. These things are more certain. Nor are we delayed by what is stated in the third Life, that St. Foillan did not depart from England until after the death of King Anna; whose murder the Author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to the year 654 Monumenta historica Britannica, tom. I, pag. 312., and following him Florence of Worcester Ibid., pag. 531. and Henry of Huntingdon Ibid., pag. 707.. For on the one hand it is known that the author of the Chronicle, although he is a historian not to be despised in narrating the matters themselves, nevertheless noted the times less accurately Ibid., pag. 117 et seqq.; on the other hand the third Life itself, as we said before, does not seem to win so great a credit for itself. Whence also what is narrated in the same place of the Roman journey of St. Foillan to Pope Martin (who sat at Rome Jaffé, Regesta Rom. Pont., pag. 161 et seqq. from the year 649 to the year 652 or 653) is to be held as less certain: although these things agree very well with the chronology thus far established. But what that third biographer reports of St. Foillan's boyhood does not likewise agree. For he states that he was instructed in letters by St. Brendan of Clonfert Life III, num. 4., who departed this life before the year 578 or 579 [Annal. quatuor magistrorum, at the year 576. Acta SS., tom. III of March, pag. 600.]. From which it would follow that St. Foillan was born before the year 570, and had already passed his eightieth year when he came into Gaul and into Belgium: and that such a journey, such labors should have been undertaken by him at that age does not seem very probable. More probable is that our writer, when he read in Bede that St. Foillan was the brother of St. Fursey, attributed to St. Foillan what he found in the latter's Life; and not only what pertains to family, but also what pertains to year of birth and instruction: not attending, namely, to the fact that Fursey perhaps preceded Foillan by much in age, and that accordingly those things were not common to both.

[16] He presided over the monastery of Cnobheresburg in England. From the most ancient Acts of St. Fursey Acta SS., tom. II of Jan., pag. 41. it may be certainly gathered that St. Foillan lived under his brother's instruction in the monastery of Cnobheresburg; over which he was also placed after St. Fursey withdrew into the hermitage. The latter, having spent a year there Ibid., made for Gaul, and shortly afterwards, having founded the convent of Lagny, died about the year 650. From which it follows that St. Foillan was abbot at Cnobheresburg about the year 648. But when he came into England is uncertain, unless that third Life can be stood by, in which he is stated to have set out from Ireland together with St. Fursey, and to have been strong in favor with Sigebert and Anna, kings of the East Angles. Now Sigebert entered upon his rule in the year, as it seems, 630, and left the throne in the year 634 Ibid., tom. XII of Oct., pag. 899 et seq.. When Sigebert and Egric his brother, his successor, had been slaughtered by Penda, king of the Mercians, probably in the year 637, then Anna, a most religious king Ibid., tom. II of Jan., pag. 41 and 55. and himself most friendly to Fursey, obtained power. But concerning that setting-out of St. Foillan with his brother into England, concerning his favor with Sigebert and Anna, concerning the foundation of the monastery of Cnobheresburg, there is again cause for doubt: all these things are read in the contemporary Life of St. Fursey of him alone Cf. ibid., pag. 41, num. 35 and 36., and were quite manifestly purloined from it by the writer of the third Life of St. Foillan.

§ III. Of the homeland and family of St. Foillan.

St. Foillan an Irishman In the Ecclesiastical History of the English of the Ven. Bede Lib. III, cap. XIX, col. 146. we read that St. Fursey was of the most noble race of the Scots. Of the same race, therefore, was St. Foillan, whom he there calls the brother of Fursey. Now Dempster Hist. eccl. gentis Scotorum. and Camerarius De pietate Scotorum, lib. III. (men, that is, who were British Scots, or of that region which, called today Scotland, lies adjacent to the north of England) claimed for their homeland all the saints whom they found marked with the name of Scots in the old Acts. These were long ago refuted by Colgan Acta SS. Hiberniæ, Append. to the Life of St. Fursey, cap. III, p. 93 et seq., by our Stephen White *, in a manuscript dissertation, an apograph of which once in the Bollandian museum, but now in the royal library

of Brussels exists at shelf-place 7658 Vindiciæ Scotorum veterum et sanctorum indigenarum Iberniæ, etc., by Cornelius Smet [Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 2 et seqq. Cf. Acta SS., tom. I of Jan., Preface, pag. XXX.], and others: showing quite clearly that, up to at least the eleventh century, those were commonly called Scots who inhabited that island which from ancient times down to our own is named Ireland. Indeed (as has already been noted in earlier volumes of our Work) the learned Pinkerton, himself also a British Scot, confirms that the matter is by now generally admitted among more recent Scottish writers [An enquiry into the history of England, tom II, pag. 223, Edinburgh 1814. Cf. Varin, Etudes relatives à l'état des Iles Britanniques, etc., pag. 5 et seq., in Mém. présentés à l'Acad. des inscript., series I, tom. V, part. I.]. It would be superfluous to repeat here the decisive arguments for this assertion brought forward by the cited authors: especially since, as regards SS. Fursey and Foillan, Bede himself removes room for doubt, writing of the former Hist. eccl. Angl., lib. III, cap. XIX, col. 145.: But while Sigebert still held the insignia of the kingdom, there came from Ireland a holy man, by name Fursey. And a little below: Now this man was of the most noble race of the Scots. And that he was not sprung from those Hiberno-Scots who already had long held a seat to the north of England, but from the island of Ireland, appears from what Bede adds: When therefore Fursey … for many years in Scotia announcing the word of God to all, could not easily bear the tumult of the crowds rushing in, leaving behind all that he seemed to possess, he departed even from the very ISLAND OF HIS HOMELAND, and with a few brethren came through the Britons into the province of the English Ibid., col. 148 Cf. Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 3.. Fursey, therefore, and accordingly his brother St. Foillan, were born in the island of Ireland: of what parents must now be inquired.

[18] he is said by some to come from Munster, Besides what is established from Bede, that the holy brothers were of the most noble race of the Scots, we read in the Life of St. Fursey that their father Fintan and their mother Gelgehen were children of kings. But it will be better here to place before the eyes of readers what Colgan gathered in his book, now very rare, on the Acts of the Saints of Ireland Tom. I, pag. 94.: for there is nothing else that can be brought forward. He says then as follows: In his proper Acts the father of St. Fursey (and accordingly also of St. Foillan) is said to have been Philtan or Fintan, son of Finnloga, king of Munster. And the same is handed down not only by the lessons of the Breviary of Lagny, by Desmay in his Life, and by other foreign writers, but also by the Irish Menology which we call the genealogical one, and by other Irish writers to be cited below: in which his paternal line is traced by degrees to Lugus Laga, a chief man and a celebrated one of the stock of Emerius in Munster. And indeed that he himself was a Munsterman by home, or at least dwelt in Munster, is indicated by the Lives of SS. Barreus, cap. 24, Molagga, cap. 19, and Cronan, cap. 16.

[19] by others from Ulster: But elsewhere the holy man is said to have come from the Ulster region of Magh Murthemne, or Conaille Murthemne; as in the metrical Martyrology of Marianus, abbot of Louth: 16th of January, the natal day of St. Fursey, of the region of Conaille Murthemne. The same, says Colgan, is handed down in the same words by Aengus the Augmented at the same day. The Martyrology of Cashel, however, has this pedigree: 16th of January, St. Fursey, son of Finnloga, son of Dergroga, son of Locan, s. of Laga, s. of Conall, s. of Eochaid, coming from Ulster, rests at Péronne. The name of his mother was Gelgesia: and he had bound to him St. Magnennus of Kill-Magnenn, and St. Meldan, son of Hua-Kuinn of Inis-mac-hychuinn in the lake of Connacht, called Loch Oirbsen, but now Loch Coirb. The same pedigree, but brought down to the stem, is presented by the genealogical Menology: St. Fursey, son of Finloga, son of Deghrogha, s. of Lochan, s. of Kierus, s. of Laga, surnamed Leathanglass, s. of Conall Anghonnach, s. of Eochaid, s. of Feghius, s. of Rossius, s. of Fachtna, s. of Senchad, s. of Alildus, s. of Malcrocius, s. of Roderic the great. Colgan also read, in a certain marginal gloss on the Martyrology of St. Aengus and in the Annals of Roscrea at the year 652, a certain old poem by which the father (rather the grandfather) of St. Fursey is said to be Locinus of Dalaradia (which name Dalaradia is here taken not for a family, but for a region so called), and his mother Gelgesia, daughter of the king of Connacht.

[20] which is less probable. These pedigrees, contrary to one another, keep Colgan in suspense, and it seems to him that of two saints of the same name, one of whom is from Ulster, the other from Munster, the Acts or family and homeland are confused by … authors in certain places. But Fursey, the brother of our St. Foillan, he judges to be the son of Fintan, son of Finloga, king not of all but of South Munster: first, he says, because so teach the foreign authors cited above, who could not take this except from old monuments… Second, because the aforesaid genealogical Menology, compiled by four antiquaries far expert in our antiquities, at cap. 37 traces the genealogy of St. Fursey to Loga surnamed Laga Alilly olum, brother of a most celebrated king of Munster… Third, because with these agrees the old Book of Lecan in Connacht, in which … at cap. 21, num. 1, one reads: St. Fursey, son of Finntan, was of the seed of Loga Laga, who was the son of Eugenius Taighlech and brother of Alilius Olum… Fourth, the same is attested by Severinus Keating, … in the History of the kings of Ireland… Fifth, this is evidently proved by the differing genealogy of these men adduced above… The sixth and principal argument proving that these were different saints of the same name is that they had not only different fathers, but also different mothers and brothers. For the mother of St. Fursey of Péronne was Gelgesia, daughter of Ædhfinn, prince of Hi-Briuin, of the stock of the kings of Connacht … and his brothers according to all were SS. Foillan and Ultan. But the mother of St. Fursey of Ulster … was Bronachia, daughter of Milco, petty king of Dalaradia in Ulster … and the brothers of the same saint were Mochaius, Macercyus, Colman, Camrarensis, and Columbanus Mulensis. These flourished in the fifth century or at the beginning of the sixth; but our Fursey in the seventh century Acta SS. Belgii, tom. I, pag. 95.. To settle this dispute, then, it seems to us with Colgan closer to credibility that the holy brothers Fursey and Foillan sprang from the petty kings of Munster. It is well to add this one thing, that of the same stock as our saints were St. Brigid the virgin, daughter of Lenenus, St. Colman, brother of St. Brigid, SS. Drughenia, Lugenia, Lucella, Macha, Rinthacha, sisters of SS. Brigid and Colman, and St. Mothemnogus or Temneogus, cook of St. Molvanus of Clonfert. And these things again are from Colgan Ibid., pag. 104..

[21] He was not a disciple of St. Livinus. St. Foillan is sometimes taken for Foillan the disciple of St. Livinus the martyr: but wrongly; for first neither in the Life of St. Fursey, nor in the Acts of St. Foillan the martyr himself, is it signified in any way that he attached himself to St. Livinus or ever lived with him: indeed it is quite openly indicated that he was subject to no man in Belgium. Add that that Life of St. Livinus in which his companion Foillan is treated is of lesser credit and was written several centuries after his death. Nor is there in it the slightest mention of the birth of St. Foillan, martyr of Fosses, or of his distinguished deeds: which surely would have been no small honor to St. Livinus, who would have numbered so excellent a man among his disciples Cf. ibid., tom. III, pag. 96 et seqq.. For these and other reasons, although SS. Foillan and Livinus arrived in Belgium at about the same time, the reader will without doubt judge that St. Foillan of Fosses is another than that Foillan who is read of as the disciple of St. Livinus Cf. Mabillon, Acta SS. Ordinis S. Benedicti, sæc. II, pag. 308..

* White

§ IV. Of the monastic life of St. Foillan in Ireland and in England. Was he a Benedictine monk?

Following St. Fursey, Gelgehes, mother of SS. Foillan, Fursey and Ultan, because she had gone into marriage without her father's knowledge, was by his command, while bearing in her womb her firstborn Fursey, to be publicly burned. But when she had been freed by a miracle from so great an ignominy [Acta SS., tom. II of January, pag. 45 et seq. Cf. Life III of St. Foillan, num. 3.], she did not hesitate to give over to divine service forever her firstborn and her other sons, whom she had already vowed to the Lord. Fursey, Foillan and Ultan, being informed of this matter, formed the resolve, from which no one could ever move them, of obeying their mother's vows. Hence St. Fursey, whom St. Brendan as a boy instructed in monastic learning Ibid., tom. II of January, pag. 46., embraced the monastic life, first in Ireland, then in England: which the very ancient or even contemporary biographer of St. Fursey hands down in these words: Full therefore of the fruits of good works and of grace, leaving his homeland and parents, he devoted some years to the studies of sacred Scripture: and being sufficiently instructed he built a monastery in a certain place, where, religious men flocking together from all sides, he took care with pious solicitude to call forth also some of his relatives Ibid., pag. 37.. And below: When ten years were completed, announcing the word of the Lord to all without respect of persons, not bearing the multitudes of the peoples rushing in, and perceiving too that the minds of some had been stirred against him by the goad of envy, leaving behind all that he seemed to possess, he set out with a few brethren to a certain very small island in the sea. And not long after, from there, seeking foreign shores from Ireland, he was carried across through the Britons into Saxony, where, honorably received by Sigebert, king of the East Saxons, he softened barbarous hearts with the word of the Lord. And when twelve years were completed … he hastened to build the site of a monastery delivered to him by the aforesaid king Sigebert. This monastery was called Cnoberesburch, built in a certain fort, delightful for the nearness of woods and sea Ibid., pag. 41.: it is now called Burghcastle, situated in Suffolk, at the mouth of the river Yare Acta SS., tom. XII of October, pag. 898..

[23] St. Foillan was a monk in England Now St. Fursey had St. Foillan and his other brother St. Ultan, and likewise a good many other men distinguished in holiness, as imitators both of the monastic and of the apostolic life; which is clear also from the following words of his biographer: These things having been duly done, the holy man, desiring to withdraw himself from all care of the world and of the monastery itself, conferred with wise brethren. For he had

with him most reverend and spiritual men, who by the example of so great a man, both in the testing of the monastery and in the various labors of life, had advanced to the grace of humility and charity: among whom he had also his own brothers Foillan, a very holy man; to whom, a priest, with the holy priests Gobbona and Tibulla, he left the care of the monastery and of souls: and the other, Ultan the anchorite, prepared for the eremitical life by long testing in the monastery, and many years since chosen by the same man. Leaving behind, therefore, all cares and affairs, stripped of everything, he set out alone to his brother Ultan, who was now feeding on the contemplative life. Devoting themselves to daily labor and continual prayers, they lived the life of philosophy there for a whole year Acta SS., tom. II of Jan., pag. 41..

[24] and in Ireland. It is known by the testimony of a good many authors that St. Foillan lived the monastic life both in Ireland and in England, and the apostolic life at the same time. In England indeed, as we saw, in the Suffolk convent of Cnobheresburg, he exercised himself for some time in the monastic disciplines under the guidance of St. Fursey. There, when the latter crossed into Gaul, he was established as superior. But in what places SS. Fursey and Foillan lived as monks in Ireland before this the contemporary biographer omitted to hand down to posterity. Yet from another biographer we learn that St. Fursey was instructed in monastic learning in the monastery of Clainfurt by his paternal uncle St. Brendan Ibid., pag. 46.. Afterwards, to escape the darts of the envious, having received leave from the blessed bishop Brendan, and using his own counsel and that of his people, he crossed to another island named Rathmath *, on which, beside a place called Ebren, he built a venerable monastery with its necessary cells, and established there, by God's bounty, a great congregation of religious monks Ibid., pag. 47.. To which he took care with pious solicitude to call some of his relatives, and also his own brothers Foillan and Ultan, and to imbue them with heavenly teachings Ibid..

[25] He lived according to the institutes of the Irish, Of their monastic exercises the writers are wholly silent: but, since SS. Fursey and Foillan do not seem to have differed so much from other Irish monks, we shall sketch their kind of life by reporting in what manner the Venerable Bede extols with praises the ways of the monks of Lindisfarne (who themselves also followed the Irish institutes). Of how great frugality, says the holy man, and of what continence Colman, bishop of Lindisfarne, himself was with his predecessors, was attested even by that place which they ruled, where, when they went away, apart from the church, very few houses were found, that is, only those without which civil life could in no way exist. They had no money, only cattle. For if they received any money from the rich, they at once gave it to the poor… Whence also the religious habit was in great veneration at that time; so that wherever any cleric or monk arrived, he was joyfully received by all as a servant of God. Even if he was found going along the road, they ran up, and with bowed neck rejoiced to be signed by his hand or blessed by his mouth; and they diligently gave a hearing to their words of exhortation. And also on Sundays they flocked eagerly to the church or the monasteries, not for the sake of refreshing the body, but of hearing the word of God: and if any priest happened to come to a village, at once the villagers gathered together took care to seek from him the word of life. For neither had the priests themselves or the clerics any other reason for approaching villages than to preach, to baptize, to visit the sick, and, to say it briefly, to care for souls; and they were so far chastened of all the plague of avarice that no one would accept territories and possessions for building monasteries unless compelled by the powerful of the world [Bede, Hist., lib. III, cap. XXVI, in Migne, Patrol. lat., tom. XCV, col. 164. Mon. hist. Brit., pag. 204.]. So far the Ven. Bede. He, although an Anglo-Saxon and a nursling of the Benedictine Rule, could not refrain from praising the Scottish priests, who, no differently from the Britons, were hostile for various reasons to the Roman monks and their disciples [Ibid., lib. II, cap. IV, col. 87; lib. V, cap. XXI, col. 271 et seqq. Works of St. Aldhelm, Letter to Geruntius, pag. 86, Giles edit.].

[26] and he preached the gospel to the Anglo-Saxons. But it appears also from Bede's words that the monks of Ireland, as we indicated above, devoted vigorous effort to apostolic labors, and were wholly given to the ministry of the churches. But perhaps a good many will be less ready to approve that St. Foillan and his brothers, when going outside their homeland to preach the gospel, went to none other than the Anglo-Saxons, since these peoples do not seem to have had a shortage of apostolic men, seeing that they had their seat beside the Britons; of whom many priests brought countless men to Christ, not only in Britain but in other regions. But this observation is not right: for the Anglo-Saxons lacked a supply of heralds of the divine word: nor were the British priests at their disposal [Bede, Hist. eccl., lib. I, cap. XXII, col. 52; lib. II, cap. XX, col. 115, Migne edit.], seeing that, ever mindful of the calamities inflicted on their countrymen by the Anglo-Saxons, they were unwilling to explain the true religion to them. But the Irish, holding every people, as redeemed by the blood of Christ, fit for the kingdom of heaven, did everything to open the sheepfold of Christ to all peoples, even the Anglo-Saxons; indeed they clothed them with the monastic habit in their own convents Colgan, Trias thaumaturga, Third Life of St. Columba, cap. 24, pag. 328.. God so blessed their good will that they joined the greatest part of the Anglo-Saxons to the faith Les Moines d'Occident, tom. IV, pag. 127.. This praise pertains also to St. Foillan.

[27] He was not a Benedictine monk. To no one, I believe, will the opinion readily commend itself of Wion and Bucelin, who, following Trithemius [De viris illust. Ordinis S. Benedicti, cap. 86, in Busæus, Opera spiritualia Trithemii, pag. 80.], make St. Foillan and his brothers Benedictine monks. For neither does Bede, who himself professed the institutes of St. Benedict, narrate anything of this kind, nor is it likely that the monastery of Cnobheresburg was established according to the norm of the Benedictine Rule: for the Irish monks of this age were most tenacious of their customs, nor is any argument proposed why St. Foillan and his brothers, the first inhabitants of the monastery of Cnobheresburg, should be said to have turned aside from this path. Add that St. Fursey, following the example of his brother St. Ultan, leaving the monastery, entered upon the eremitical life, and abandoned it after a year; then passing into Gaul, laid the foundations of the monastery of Lagny. These various journeys and various forms of the religious life accord little with the Benedictine law of stability, and by no means persuade us that St. Fursey is to be numbered among them. And the reader will easily see that what is said here of St. Fursey can be said likewise of St. Foillan. Indeed it is easy to object Colgan, Acta SS. Hiberniæ, pag. 96. that the monastery of Fosses, of which St. Foillan was the founder, admitted the Rule of St. Benedict, since St. Ultan, who first ruled it, afterwards making for Gaul, presided until his death over the Benedictine monastery of Péronne. But that seems no argument; for besides the fact that no one has ever shown, and probably never will show, that the monks of Péronne at that time were enrolled in the Order of St. Benedict, it is manifest that the discipline of the Irish monks was practiced in the convent of Fosses, and that it was for that reason numbered among the monasteries of the Scots. This appellation, either because it was so called from remote times, or even perhaps because it had held to its original regular discipline, it had not yet laid aside in the ninth century. For Einhard, notary of Charlemagne, describing the miracles performed at the relics of the holy martyrs Marcellinus the priest and Peter the exorcist at Maastricht, when he narrates that a certain man was suddenly restored to health, says: This man said that he had come from the monastery of the Scots, which is called Fosses, and that he was called Dothius [Acta SS., tom. I of June, pag. 203; cf. ibid., tom. II of Feb., pag. 362. Ward and Sirinus, Acts of St. Rumold, etc., pag. 298 et seqq.]. But so much for this. For by these things it has been sufficiently shown that St. Foillan was a monk not according to Benedictine but rather according to Irish institutions. Whether he was ever also advanced to the episcopal dignity must now be inquired.

* now Kill-Fursa.

§ V. Various opinions on the episcopate of St. Foillan. Of apostolic men called bishops in the seventh and eighth centuries, although they were only priests.

That St. Foillan was a bishop is easily understood, That St. Foillan was raised to the rank of bishop is altogether credible. Cointe Ann. Franc., tom. III, pag. 388., Mabillon Acta SS. Ordinis S. Bened., sæc. II, pag. 308. and others are of another mind, both because Bede and the martyrologies of Centula, of Rosweyde, the Great one of Antwerp, of Utrecht, and of Leiden are silent on an episcopate, and because in diplomas Burchard and Nicholas, bishops of Cambrai, of whom in the Posthumous Glory, give him no other title than martyr Cf. Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 5., and also because he is numbered among the abbots, not among the bishops, who were present at the translation of St. Fursey Acta SS., tom. II of Jan., pag. 41.. For the blessed man's body, four years after his death, was translated, borne up by the most reverend bishops, namely Eligius and Aubert, and by FOILLAN and Emianus, ABBOTS. But those who think this a great reason do not attend to the fact that Foillan and Eminianus are passed over in some manuscripts Acta SS. Ordinis S. Bened., sæc. II, pag. 309. (as in the manuscript which Mabillon used; and in that of which an apograph, once sent by Fr. Chifflet to our predecessors, is preserved in the Bollandian museum), and that it is nowhere said that the Foillan of this passage is the holy martyr whose Acts we are illustrating. We are surprised too that Mabillon thought so, who certainly was not unaware that his arguments are only negative, and that in martyrologies martyr-bishops, the designation of bishop often being omitted, are for brevity's sake called only martyrs: likewise he knew very well that the blessed martyr was called bishop by the authors of the first, second and third Lives, by Hillinus in the metrical Life, by Philip of Harvengt, abbot of Bonne-Espérance, by the biographers of St. Madelgarius Acta SS., tom. III of July, pag. 671. and of St. Etto Ibid., pag. 60. (although these are not to be esteemed very highly) and by a good many others.

[29] although some authors contradict it. But the most learned man was less moved by these things, because it had occurred to him that many priests in the middle age were designated by the name of bishop, even if they had not obtained this office; namely when they had devoted vigorous effort to evangelical preaching. Certainly Ansgar, says Mabillon in disputing the present question, in the Life of St. Willehad, bishop of Bremen, presented in this (third Benedictine) century, observes that he, seven years before

he was a bishop, was called bishop. "For seven years before, he says, he stayed in the same parish as a Priest, yet called Bishop, and as far as he could ordering all things with the authority of one presiding." Nor for any other reason was Gregory, priest and abbot of Utrecht, called bishop by some, than because after the murder of Boniface the martyr he administered that Church. From this I form the conjecture that a good many were granted the name of bishop for the same reason. So St. Richarius, abbot and founder of the convent of Centula, in the Martyrology of Notker on the sixth before the kalends of May, and Vulmarus, abbot of Silviniacum, in Ado on the fifteenth before the kalends of July, are called bishops, because they fulfilled the parts of a bishop in spreading the gospel. I judge also that this name was perhaps for that reason carried over to those who are found to have subscribed the synod of Ingelheim in the cause of Ebbo, bishop of Reims, in this manner: "Ratoldus, priest, called bishop, Amalricus, called bishop," in Flodoard, in the second book of the History of Reims, chapter twenty [Acta SS. Ord. S. B., Pref. to the third century, part. 1, num. 37, pag. XXIII, Paris edit. 1672.]. Then in illustrating the Acts of St. Willehad, he takes an argument from this as to why very many saints, especially in Belgium, are called bishops, who however were nowhere consecrated bishops Ibid., part. II, pag. 409..

[30] Many bishops in Ireland without see or title: But everyone sees that Mabillon advanced much too far, if he is so understood, as if the title of bishop did not commonly signify the episcopal character: for unless weighty considerations urge one to think otherwise, where we find someone distinguished with the name of bishop, it may be concluded that he was in fact a bishop. Now here, as we have seen, no contrary arguments are brought except merely negative ones. Moreover, from beyond the memory of men, at Fosses, at Liège, and elsewhere, St. Foillan has been painted and represented with episcopal ornaments, and in the liturgy and other prayers of the Churches he is invoked as a bishop. Nor does it create difficulty that he was attached to no see, since this was by no means repugnant to the rites of the Irish Church. Among the Irish not only were episcopal sees very frequent, but many who were to preside over no fixed Church were also raised to the order of bishop; so much so that Sirinus, in the Historical Disputation on St. Rumold, affirmed in the middle of the seventeenth century that in the most ancient Litanies of the saints of Ireland, attributed to Aengus, who … lived (in the ninth century) as their author, he had read a hundred and fifty different named churches or sanctuaries, in each of which seven holy bishops are invoked, as being namely buried there, or at some time placed in charge, or staying there, or certainly held in veneration Acts of St. Rumold, pag. 160.: which great number of bishops St. Patrick seems to have introduced into Ireland. He, as many writers narrate, is reported to have consecrated in Ireland with his blessed hands three hundred and sixty-five bishops, and to have founded as many basilicas Ibid., pag. 161.. That many of these were created bishops without see or title, a discipline of which a good many councils afterwards greatly complained, has been said more than once in this Bollandian Work Cf Acta SS., tom. XII of October, pag. 624, 690 and 888.. Sirinus adds indeed Acts of St. Rumold, etc., pag. 161. that there were many bishops who personally carried out the function of lower priests.

[31] of which kind were many of those who preached the gospel. Moreover it is known that from Ireland only monks, and those frequently bishops, went forth to preach the gospel. Now they were very many in number throughout the whole world. For (besides the fact that they had an inborn inclination to go to foreign nations, and were held by no law of stability, as not yet being in force at that time) burning with the desire of publishing the doctrine of Christ throughout the whole world, they passed into Belgium, Gaul, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Iceland; indeed some, making for Italy, were incardinated there in episcopal sees [Gratianus Lucius (John Lynch), Cambrensis eversus, tom. II, cap. XXV, pag. 638 et seqq., Matthew Kelly's edit. Vernulæus, De propagatione fidei christianæ in Belgio per sanctos ex Hibernia viros.]; so that St. Bernard said of them in the Life of St. Malachy: Into foreign nations also, as if a flood had come, those swarms of saints poured themselves forth [Life of St. Malachy, cap. VI, col. 1082, Works of St. Bernard, tom. I, Migne edit.], and to those words Charles de Montalembert could add Les moines d'Occident, tom. II, lib. IX, cap. I, pag. 467, edit. 1863.: Since they are unknown in their own homeland, their names must be sought out in the primitive annals of all the European peoples, which, for the most part made Christian by them, religiously preserve their sacred bodies. But of that incredible ardor of the Irish for propagating religion we shall treat again below, in the place on the monasteries of the Scots. I will add one thing here. Against a good many Scottish bishops the councils of Chalon II of the year 813 Labbe, Concilia, tom. VII, col. 1281., and of Celichyth (Cealchyte) in England of the year 816 Ibid., col. 1486. Cf. Acta SS., tom. XII of Oct., pag. 889. made decrees, because, setting territorial jurisdiction aside, they attended only to personal jurisdiction; and accordingly they judged it permitted to them, by a certain general or apostolic authority, to preach the Catholic religion to all non-Christian peoples, as being nowhere subject to the Church, and indeed to Christians scattered through the whole earth; or even because they did not fear to criticize bishops publicly. Yet no one has ever denied that many of them shone with holiness of life, and were of the greatest benefit to the Christian cause. And if anyone objects that the Scottish bishops, no differently from chorbishops, were once held by a good many synods not to be genuine bishops, I would have him consider that this dignity was often denied them for the reason that they had received the imposition of hands from one consecrator only: but this opinion, brought in through the false decretals of Mercator, is less firm, seeing that it agrees neither with the primitive nor with the later ecclesiastical discipline [Cf. V. De Buck, in Forbes, Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern, pag. 336 et seqq.].

[32] In the most ancient monuments St. Foillan is quite openly called a bishop. If they had duly weighed these things, some authors would not have denied so confidently that St. Foillan was ever advanced to the episcopate. Indeed, Mabillon would have held our side, had he not beyond measure preferred the manuscript of Compiègne of the Life of St. Fursey to the manuscript published by Bolland, although the hagiographer used a manuscript which wholly agrees with the narrative of Bede. Now it seems to be quite openly signified by the most ancient biographer of St. Fursey, and indirectly indicated by the Ven. Bede, that St. Foillan was inaugurated bishop before he passed into Gaul. For the former, after he narrated the beginnings of the monastery of Cnobheresburg, as we said before, adds: The holy man, desiring to withdraw himself from all care of the world and of the monastery itself, conferred with wise brethren. For he had with him most reverend and spiritual men, who by the example of so great a man, both in the testing of the monastery and in the various labors of life, had advanced to the grace of humility and charity; among whom he had also his own brothers Foillan, a very holy man; to whom ALSO, A SACERDOS, with the holy PRIESTS Gobbona and Tibulla, he left the care of the monastery and of souls: and the other, Ultan the anchorite… Leaving behind, therefore, all cares and affairs … he set out to his brother Ultan Acta SS., tom. II of January, pag. 41.. Likewise Bede: These things having been duly done, desiring to withdraw himself from all the business of this world, and of the monastery itself also, he left the monastery and the care of souls to his brother Fullanus and to the PRIESTS Gobban and Dicull, and himself, free from all the things of the world, resolved to finish his life in the anchoritic way of life Ibid., pag. 55.. Now no one with this before his eyes will deny that in the view of Bede and especially of blessed Fursey's biographer St. Foillan and SS. Gobban [Cf. Acta SS., tom. IV of June, pag. 23; tom. II of January, pag. 199. O'Hanlon, Lives of the Irish Saints, tom. I, pag. 313.] and Dicull or Tibullus were priests under a different name; that is, that the first was a bishop, the other two only priests: for otherwise they would have named these three holy men, without any difference of appellation, either sacerdotes or presbyters: and this is made clearer from the fact that, although, as our Petau says, the name SACERDOS was afterwards given both to the supreme one, that is, the bishop, and to those of the second order, and simple ones; yet for the most part, placed absolutely, it designates that singular one who was called bishop. Indeed everywhere in the Latin canons sacerdos is used for the bishop alone; the rest are named not sacerdotes but presbyters [Eccles. Hierarch., lib. I, cap. XII, §14, in Dogm. theol., tom. VII, pag. 536, Fournials edit.]. This opinion of Petau Ludovico Nardi, reciting many canons of councils and sayings of the holy fathers and ecclesiastical writers, excellently shows to be most true [Dei Parochi, tom. I, cap. IX, pag 208 et seq. Cf. Du Cange, Gloss. latinitatis, under Sacerdos. Zaccaria, Onomasticon rituale, under Sacerdos, pag. 129. Ruinart, in Migne, Works of Victor of Vita, lib. V, cap. XIX, col. 257, annot.], although in the much more general rule handed down by him exceptions are not rare.

[33] He does not seem to have been consecrated by St. Martin I. Mabillon, in a note attached to the Life of St. Fursey, says that Bolland indeed added: To whom also, a sacerdos, with the holy priests Gobbona and Tibulla, of the monastery, etc., and that nearly the same is read in Bede, but that it is lacking in a very old apograph. But this lacuna is without doubt to be filled from that biographer of St. Fursey who lit the way for Bede himself. Nor do I doubt that Hillinus and Philip of Bonne-Espérance and other biographers who proclaim St. Foillan a bishop borrowed this from Bede and the most ancient biographer of St. Fursey. In this however nearly all who formerly treated of St. Foillan's episcopate seem to be mistaken, that they report he was consecrated by St. Martin the pope, whereas Bede and the first biographer of St. Fursey indicate that he was a bishop before St. Fursey's departure into the hermitage, that is, before about the year 648. I believe they fell into error for this reason, that they had learned that many Irish priests Cf. Lynch, Cambrensis eversus, tom. II, cap. XXV, pag. 620 et seqq. and also Anglo-Saxons, heralds of the divine word in ancient Belgium, on meeting the Roman pontiff at Rome, were admitted by him into the order of bishops: such as were SS. Wiro, Plechelm, Willibrord and Boniface. The episcopate of St. Foillan having been explained, it follows that we should discuss his coming to our people.

§ VI. Of the coming of St. Foillan and other apostolic men into Belgium. The bond of the Irish with the family of Pepin.

St. Foillan, brought into Belgium, There has been much dispute among the learned why so many holy men, originating from Ireland at about the same time, migrated into Belgium; among them SS. Foillan, Ultan, Fursey, Eloquius, Etto and Adelgius. The oldest historical monument indeed, namely the Life of St. Fursey, besides the natural ardor for travelling abroad, indicates no other cause of the coming of those men into Belgium than an untiring zeal for preaching the gospel everywhere; from which they were not rarely hindered in their homeland or in Britain by dissensions or wars. But in the Lives of St. Madelgarius or Vincent Acta SS. of July, tom. III, pag. 671., count in Hainaut and afterwards monk of Hautmont *, and of St. Etto Ibid., pag. 60., and in the third Life of St. Foillan to be published below, we read that they were brought into Belgium from Ireland by St. Madelgarius. The same opinion was put forward by Vinchant and Aubert le Mire.

[35] as it seems, by St. Madelgarius, But to explain this course of conduct of Madelgarius different people have taken different paths. That pious count, if the biographer of St. Foillan is to be believed, is said to have been the greatest cause of the pilgrimage of the Irish …, who encouraged many to go abroad for Christ and supported them with his help. The matter is set forth a little differently in the Life of St. Madelgarius: He had long had St. Foillan the bishop… Ultan and Fursey, Eloquius and Algisus, Etto and Aldegisus and others as companions in Ireland, and on his return to his homeland he wished to have them as comrades of the journey and most faithful associates. The biographer of St. Etto, however, narrates that Madelgarius came from Ireland, his native soil, into France, and having taken St. Waldetrudis as wife, served as a soldier under Dagobert; then that he made for Ireland, thinking to take another wife there; but that St. Waldetrudis betook herself there also: that from there at last both returned into Gaul, leading with them Foillan the bishop, and his brothers Ultan and Fursey, Eloquius, Algisus, Etto and Aldegisus. He adds that they undertook this journey knowing that rarely can anyone be perfect in his own homeland, and that they came by ship into France with the said Madelgarius and blessed Waldetrudis, desiring from there to go to the thresholds of the apostles at Rome for the sake of prayer Acta SS., tom. I of June, pag. 223.. Vinchant [Annales de la province d'Haynau, Mons 1648, lib. III, cap. VIII, pag. 91; Annales Hannoniæ, tom. VII, lib. X, cap. XXI, pag. 98 et seqq., Paris edit. 1829.], who lived in the seventeenth century, followed the three biographers listed, reporting in the Annals of Hainaut that SS. Eloquius, Fursey, Ultan, Etto, Wasnon, Adalgisus and afterwards St. Foillan, at the request of St. Madelgarius, sailed into Belgium. But most authors are deceived both in that they wrongly take Adelgisus and Algisus for two men, and in that they state that SS. Foillan and Fursey set sail from Ireland at the same time. There is the further point that it is not credible that St. Madelgarius, whose excellent praises are proclaimed in the sincere Lives of St. Waldetrudis Acta SS. Belgii, tom. IV, pag. 441. and St. Aldegundis [Ibid., pag. 316. Cf. Acta SS., tom. I of April, pag. 838; tom. II of Jan., pag. 1036.], wished to stain himself by an illicit divorce, and even adultery.

[36] yet not in the times of Dagobert II, Finally Aubert le Mire Fasti Belgici et Burgundici, pag. 402., going astray in his conjectures, is of the opinion that St. Madelgarius was either an Irishman or at least lived for some time in Ireland, perhaps with Dagobert, son of Sigebert, king of Austrasia, who had been banished there by Grimoald, mayor of the royal palace: and that coming from there into Gaul he brought with him many apostolic men, among them Foillan, Fursey, Ultan, Eloquius, Etto and Adalgisus. But this view must be wholly abandoned, as being in conflict with the certain order of the times. For St. Foillan came into Gaul in the year either 650 or 651, and died in Belgium, before the year of St. Gertrude's death, 659 [Cf. above num. 14. Acta SS. Belgii, tom. II, pag. 232, 234; tom. III, pag. 141. Acta SS., tom. III of April, Diatribe on the Dagoberts, pag. VII, num. 15.], indeed before the year 656, as we have shown. Now St. Sigebert, king of Austrasia, died in the year 656, and shortly afterwards his son Dagobert was sent into exile in Ireland by Grimoald: returning from there into Gaul about the year 661, he was saluted king of all Austrasia in the year 674 Ibid., pag. IV, VII et seq.. All of which by no means agrees with the opinion of le Mire.

[37] [he was received by the family of the Pepins: which had a great bond with the Irish.] Now, having weighed the testimonies of the biographers, we cannot deny that the coming into Belgium of St. Foillan and the other saints of the same race is surrounded with darkness. It seems however very probable that the tradition which was strong among the monks of Hautmont, of the dealings of St. Madelgarius with St. Foillan and a good many other saints, of his exile in Ireland, and of the excellent offices he held there, is not altogether empty Acta SS., tom. III of July, p. 657.. This opinion will not appear so light to one who observes that a great bond existed between the Irish and the Pepinid family, to which St. Madelgarius was tied by blood or marriage. Certainly St. Gertrude, daughter of Pepin of Landen, having received SS. Foillan and Ultan into her monastery, committed to them the care of her soul, and gave as a gift the estate of Fosses, that a convent of Scots might be made there. Then it is frequently noted that Dagobert II, son of St. Sigebert, thrust from the kingdom by Grimoald, son of Pepin, was banished among the Irish. Likewise although Pepin of Herstal held St. Lambert, bishop of Liège, his fellow countryman, in great honor, yet his confessors were the Irishmen SS. Plechelm Acta SS., tom. IV of July, pag. 59. and Wiro Ibid, tom. II of May, pag. 313, 317.. And that intercourse of the Pepins with the Irish people lasted indeed for two centuries, so that Irish magnates boasted of calling themselves the subjects or even servants of Charlemagne. Of which matter Einhard is witness in the Life of Charlemagne: He also increased, he says, the glory of his kingdom by winning over certain kings and peoples to himself through friendship… The kings of the Scots too he so inclined to his will by his munificence that they never declared him otherwise than lord, and themselves his subjects and servants. There exist letters sent by them to him, in which such affection of theirs toward him is indicated Pertz, Monum. Germ. hist., Scriptt., tom. II, pag. 451..

[38] He departed from England for the sake of propagating the faith. What wonder, then, that St. Foillan, departing from England in most unfavorable times, made for Belgium rather than Italy or any other region whatever, rightly hoping that by the aid of the family of the Pepins he would easily gain the idolatrous Belgians for Christ? This cause of the journey is reported by the author of the third Life, and many others with him, since they say that the holy man, having left East Saxony, crossed into Gaul for the sake of propagating religion, because, King Anna having been killed, Penda, king of the Mercians, was laying waste East Saxony, and ruining ecclesiastical affairs there. These things please us the more because St. Fursey migrated from England for similar causes: for he, seeing the province already disturbed before by the incursion of the heathen, and foreseeing that danger also threatened the monasteries, having dismissed all things in an orderly way, sailed to Gaul, and there, honorably received by Clovis, king of the Franks, or the patrician Erchinoald, built a monastery in the place Latiniacum. So far Bede Acta SS., tom. II of January, pag. 55., for whom the most ancient writer of the Life of St. Fursey lit the way Ibid, pag. 41.. Now we must explain what functions St. Foillan discharged in the double monastery of Nivelles.

* Haumont

§ VII. Of double monasteries and especially that of Nivelles.

Double monasteries existed from ancient times in the East, That double monasteries existed from the remotest times, although in different ways, is certain. And in fact, although to certain writers it is not wholly clear that the therapeutæ and therapeutrides (of whom Philo, Eusebius of Cæsarea, St. Jerome and others speak) were Christians, it can nevertheless be said that they were to some extent the first originators of double monasteries [Cf. Examen histor. et canon. libri Mariani Verhoeven de regularium et sæcular. clericorum juribus et officiis, cap. II, pag. 38 et seqq.]. Of St. Pachomius too his biographer reports that he built, not so far from his monastery, on the other bank of the Nile, a convent for his sister, which he himself also ruled Acta SS., tom. III of May, pag. 304.. After him again some others wished convents of men to be built next to the monasteries of women founded by them, for carrying out the sacred ministry in them [Cf. Works of St. Basil, tom. III, col. 998, Migne edit. Cf. Works of St. Eulogius of Toledo, Memorialis SS., lib. III, cap. X, in Migne, Patrol., tom. CXV, col. 807.]. In these ascetic houses of the East women were ruled by men. Justinian, wishing every occasion of depravity to be absent from monks and nuns, sought in the Code, lib. I, tit. III, cap. 41, to do away with double monasteries. These were also condemned by the second synod of Nicaea, canon XX [Labbe, Conc., tom. VII, col. 614. Cf. Gregory the Great, Epist., lib. XI, epist. 23.].

[40] and in the fifth century perhaps also in Ireland. But whether they were instituted in the West before the fifth century has so far been shown from no historical monuments. Certainly this discipline was strong among the Irish in the fifth century, or in the time of St. Patrick, if credit is given to Ussher's Triad [Ussher, Britannicarum rerum antiquitates, cap. XVI, pag. 473 et seqq. Cf. Varin, Mémoire sur les causes de la dissidence entre l'Eglise Bretonne et l'Eglise Romaine, in Mémoires présentés par divers savants à l'Acad. des Inscriptions, etc., ser. 1, tom. V, part. II, pag. 176 et seqq.]: although St. Patrick, as his biographer Jocelin narrates, decreed that men should be separated from women, and that distinct buildings and oratories should be built for each sex Acta SS., tom. II of March, pag. 562.. These things wholly agree with canon IX of the Irish council over which St. Patrick is said by many to have presided [Cf. Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and documents rel. to Great Britain, tom. II, part. II, pag. 328 and 331.], and the words of which are these: A monk and a virgin, one from here, the other from elsewhere, in one lodging

should not dwell together, nor run about in one carriage from estate to estate, nor continually carry on conversation with each other Labbe, Concilia, tom. III, col. 1478.. But in these decrees double monasteries, that is, monasteries of women founded next to monasteries of men, are not strictly forbidden, but rather too familiar dealings between monks and nuns, or even dwelling under one roof.

[41] They were forbidden in southern Gaul. In southern Gaul the ecclesiastical law long forbade double monasteries to be created. For the council of Agde, celebrated in the year 506 under the presidency of St. Cæsarius of Arles, had prescribed in canon XXVIII that: Monasteries of girls should be situated at a greater distance from monasteries of monks, either on account of the snares of the devil or on account of the slanders of men Ibid., tom. IV, col. 1388.. This law seems to have been very well observed in that part of Gaul for which it had been passed; for writers afterwards say no word of double monasteries established there, although not a few convents of women took their beginning in these parts in the sixth and seventh centuries. I am of the opinion that the monks and nuns of northern Gaul for a long time did not depart from this path. Certainly in these regions, about the middle of the sixth century, double monasteries were instituted. But this innovation is to be attributed neither to Gallic bishops nor to priests, but to Irish and British monks, or their disciples. They, since in Ireland and Britain the civil and ecclesiastical laws were for the most part personal, hardly cared for the territorial laws of the foreign nations among whom they lived, nay rather despised them. This course of conduct sufficiently explains why these newcomers, although no priest or bishop of Gaul dared to violate the canon of Agde, judged it permitted to themselves.

[42] Many were instituted by Britons and Irish. Among these were St. Fridolin the Irishman [Acta SS., tom. 1 of March, pag. 432, 439. Hist. litter. de la France, tom. III, pag. 297.] and St. Martin of Vertou, instructed in the disciplines of the Britons Ibid., tom. X of Oct., pag. 794, 798, 800., founders of double monasteries in Gaul. For St. Fridolin founded in the sixth century a monastery of this kind at Säckingen near Basel, which is rightly and deservedly judged the most ancient of all Gaul, and at about the same time St. Martin of Vertou that of Durin in the district of Nantes. They were followed in the next age by St. Radegund the queen, who established the monasteries of Poitiers, named after the Holy Cross and St. Mary Ibid., tom. III of Aug., pag. 55.. In their footsteps, above many others, there followed both the disciples of St. Columban, St. Eustasius taking care to have built the monastery of Faremoutiers about the year 614 in the territory of Brie Annal. Benedict., tom. I, pag. 305, Paris edit. 1703., St. Waldebert that of Laon in the year 640 Ibid., pag. 379., St. Amatus that of Remiremont about the year 620 Ibid., pag. 315. Acta SS., tom. IV of Sept., pag. 105., Ado that of Jouarre about the year 634 Annal. Bened., tom. I, pag. 364.; and St. Amandus, bishop of Maastricht, who himself also, probably taught the monastic disciplines by Britons on the island of Oye, was the founder of those of Maubeuge, Marchiennes and Nivelles Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 171 et seq..

[43] There was a double monastery at Nivelles, We hold it as certain too that the monastery of Nivelles was double, in which there were men and women; for there St. Gertrude, as the author of her Life says, stood as ruler of the men-servants and women-servants of Christ who lived under her authority Acta SS., tom. II of March, pag. 596.: and she, near death, called one of the brethren and commanded him, saying: "Go quickly to that pilgrim who is called by the name Ultan" … and a little below: Gertrude … on the sixteenth day before the kalends of April, giving thanks to her Creator, who deigned to call her without corruption to his kingdom, gave back her longed-for spirit to God. While I and another brother, by name Rinchinus, had been summoned to that place for the consolation of the sisters, she called me … Ibid.. Add that in Life II of St. Foillan, which we subjoin, where his journey to Fosses is described at num. 9, we read: Having duly celebrated the solemnities of the Mass, bidding farewell to the most holy virgin Gertrude and to the BRETHREN and NUNS, and commending himself to their holy prayers, he also by a certain perspicacity of soul commended to them more earnestly the burial of his poor body. After this taking to the road, content with the company of only three BRETHREN… These monks of Nivelles were some of them pilgrims, others natives; for St. Gertrude through messengers … called in from overseas regions men expert in teaching the songs of the divine law: which expert men are said in a good many manuscripts to be of the race of the Scots, and in the longer Life of St. Gertrude to be SS. Foillan and Ultan Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 151 et seq.. Then the blessed virgin, speaking to a monk of her convent, names St. Ultan a pilgrim: by which it is sufficiently indicated that not all the monks of Nivelles were Irish Ibid., p. 154..

[44] over which an abbess seems to have presided. But there was at one time a controversy whether there (as afterwards among the Anglo-Saxons Bede, Hist. eccl. Angl., lib. IV, cap. 23. and in the convents of Fontevrault) women presided over men; and they disputed at the same time whether St. Gertrude was the superior of St. Foillan. Mabillon, in the Preface to the second Benedictine century, num. 32, affirms that a certain abbot presided over the monks of Nivelles, and not a nun. Certainly St. Gertrude's contemporary biographer reports that there was at Nivelles, ten years after the blessed girl's happy death, a man to whom the care of ruling the monastery had been entrusted Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 157.. With this writer accords the contemporary biographer of St. Aldegundis of Maubeuge, who died about the year 684, writing: The aforesaid handmaid of God Aldegundis narrated in order and handed down in writing, of the visions and revelations which Christ her spouse revealed, to a certain religious man Subinus, abbot of the monastery of Nivelles Acta SS. Ordinis S. Bened., tom. II, pag. 812.. Whence Mabillon gathered that in the monastery of Nivelles, besides an abbess who presided over the nuns, there was an abbot of the monks living there Ibid., Pref., num. 32.. But, unless I am mistaken, not accurately enough: for on the one hand St. Gertrude, as we have seen, is said to have stood as ruler of the men-servants and women-servants of Christ, and to have commanded one of the brethren to go to the brother of St. Foillan; on the other hand we easily understand that the care of the monastery's possessions was entrusted to a certain brother, since in the Life of St. Gertrude we read that she committed the domestic care outside to good and faithful stewards from among the brethren, and within the enclosure of the monastery to spiritual sisters Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 151. Cf. pag. 187.; and also that Subinus was placed over the other monks, yet in such a way that he himself was subject to the abbess. But if it is established that St. Foillan obeyed St. Gertrude the abbess, it must be asked whether he at least was the superior of the other monks of Nivelles. This is not discovered from ancient historical documents, unless perhaps from the Life of the holy man published by Cornelius Smet, where it is read that he had as companions in martyrdom THREE OF HIS DISCIPLES Ibid., pag. 18.. What St. Foillan's functions at Nivelles were we learn from a good many manuscripts of the Life of St. Gertrude, where brethren of the race of the Scots, and also SS. Foillan and Ultan, are said to have been called in by the blessed abbess to teach the songs of the divine law. Likewise in the Acts which we shall now publish, or Life I, St. Foillan is stated to have refreshed her daily with spiritual foods Num. 4.. Finally why our saint is venerated as a martyr we shall explain in his Posthumous Glory.

FIRST LIFE OF ST. FOILLAN

BY PAUL

from Brussels manuscripts

Foillan, martyr in Belgium. (S.)

BHL Number: 3070

BY PAUL.

God, the distributor of heavenly gifts, In Num. 1 om. B. numm. 1, 2, 3 om. C. the name of the Lord begins the description of blessed Foillan the martyr, first composed in a rustic style, afterwards written out by a certain brother Paul ^b. The miracles of the divine working, although before the ages they are unchangeably fixed in the reason of the maker, and in the very beginnings of the times have been set apart through certain principal matters by an ineffable governance, nevertheless, to exercise the wills of the rational creature, have always been distributed by him to the ages as they arise, in a dispensing order, and the holy and undivided Trinity in a certain manner does not cease to work them today. This is clearly declared by the testimony of the truth, saying: My Father worketh until now, and I work. The Father works, in short, through his Word, that by his ineffable mediation they may be drawn to him. He works through the Spirit, that by his invisibly passing through subject creation all things may be joined to him with perpetual love, so that, the changeableness of passing things being set aside, the faithful soul may be satisfied with the sweetness of the Lord's charity alone, and God may be all in all. Now the Spirit himself, coeternal with the Father and the Son, and of one essence, has poured out the gifts of this indivisible Trinity through the members of the Church according to each one's capacity, giving the greatest things to the greater and lighter things to the lesser. Moreover, the same things are useful to all, so that in the distribution of graces neither is the capture difficult for mortals, nor is the intention of those possessing them thrown into confusion by divisions. Whence it comes that our blessed mother has some evangelists and some apostles, others shining in doctrine, others devoted in the humility of learning, some renowned in the knowledge of prophesying, a good many proved in the learning of words, some very eager in the attainment of the hundredfold fruit, and some flashing in the perfection of sacred martyrdom. But all these things one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each as he will. And this diversity of gifts, although it tends to one compendium at the end of the roads, nevertheless does not possess the same praise among mortals.

[2] has given us as a patron For among all om. B. things by which in this pilgrimage one hastens to the heavenly fatherland, nothing is believed more precious than martyrdom. Nor should human opinion judge existimat B. itself deceived in this, since the mediator of God and men says: Greater love no one hath than that one lay down his life for his friends. O truly worthy praise of this most happy virtue, of which he himself is the praiser who is also the rewarder, he the venerator who is also the glorifier, the same the palm who is also the crown. We have therefore patrons to come to the aid of our infirmity, distinguished by a spiritual variety, so that if there are those who cannot altogether abolish the miseries of our frailty, there are sunt B. yet those who may intercede for them confidently before the merciful judge. Now we trust that this faculty of obtaining pardon of our sins has been merited above others by those who, despising everywhere the business of the life of the flesh, were so taken by the desire of the divine promise that they did not refuse with magnanimous constancy to have even their life wrung from them by their persecutors in such a hope.

[3] St. Foillan, This the most blessed and excellent preacher of the orthodox faith, Foillan, did, who rising together with the sun from the very bounds of the Ocean, not without the light of the virtues, illuminated the provinces of Gaul with the examples exemplo B. of true religion as with certain rays. His holiness indeed and the surpassing glory of his venerable merit before God a tongue foul with the rust of vices is not sufficient to unfold. But whence so great a man vir add. B. shone forth for us, whom we know quamvis corr. add. A. licet add. B. not to have been of our family non fuisse de nostra fam. B. in the flesh, although unpolished speech fears to recite it, yet for the sake of the faith of the hearers we have judged it should be told. And so, as far as can be found amid the obliterated deeds of this most holy man, he springs om. B. from Ireland, an island of the Gauls, which is surrounded by the boundary of the British sea, and distinguished by royal offspring ^c, endowed also with brothers Ultan and Fursey, cultivators of the heavenly field, at the impulse of the Holy Spirit, who had revealed to him that he should preach to foreign nations, he with his brother Ultan, confessor of the Lord, sought by ship that part of Gaul which is called Francia. Now his brother Fursey had gone before him into the same bounds: the praise of whose life, in whatever way the license of writers has written it out, does not incur the judgment of our temerity prius occurrit A.. For the rest, of so great a man we judge æstimamus B. nothing else than what befits a citizen of the heavenly fatherland.

[4] founder of the monastery of Fosses. Now St. Foillan of the Lord, when by the divine will he could not find where his foot might rest hanc add. C., went to the true ark of God, which was borne above the storms of this world, namely the most blessed virgin Gertrude Geretrudem et sic deinceps C., by whose most dutiful probity the Church in those days was flourishing greatly. She, seeing a dove bearing in its gentle mouth a branch of green olive, at once opened the window of her piety and eagerly let it into the ark. And having discovered that Foillan was a bishop ^d, she thereafter cultivated him with kindly familiarity, providing with all devotion for him and his brother Ultan whatever the necessity of the flesh required. For her part, she was refreshed daily by her guest Foillan with spiritual foods. And the more these filled replebant B. the mind, the greater was the hunger they nourished, not because prius qua A. they brought the injury of famine, but because prius qua A. they renewed the desire to take such banquets frequently. And when such an exchange was growing with untiring increase, it seemed to the most prudent virgin that so great an eloquence of the man neither could nor ought to be confined. Whence at once, having consulted her nobilissima add. B, C. mother Ituberga, she delivered to him from her own property the place which the natives call Fosses, by perpetual right; so that, having placed there cultivators of the heavenly vine, he might be able more freely to carry out the work of pruning the branches, whose luxuriance was very harmful to the grape-clusters prius botriis A.. This gift he received with great alacrity of soul, as jam add. B, C. marked out beforehand by the Lord. And having built there a church and a dwelling for the brethren divided into cells, having delegated also to his brother Ultan the custody of the Lord's domini B. flock, he returned to the aforesaid ark of the Holy Spirit; into which qua B. thereafter he gathered, through the increases of good works, the manna of the virtues.

[5] Who, after he had raised his companions by exhortation, These things having been thus done, the king of kings and lord of lords, disposing to reward the service of his soldier with eternal remuneration, and not bearing that he should any longer be wearied by the labors of this world hujus mundi B. whom he had mercifully adopted as a coheir om. C. with his son, moved his spirit to go to his brother Ultan for the sake of visiting visitandi B, C. him, so that he might both show him the affection owed by charity, and might render ministraret B, C. to the brethren living under his rule the service of a twofold liberality. And when the illustrious bishop, on the day before the solemnity of Quintinus the most blessed martyr, having carried out the office of ecclesiastical religion, had set out, having three disciples in his company, in the wood adjoining the convent of St. beatæ B, C. Gertrude, which is called ^e Sonefia Soneffia C., deceived at a certain fork in the road, he fell among robbers. Their most wicked chief, having received the man of God in a false hospitality of humanity falsa humanitate quasi C. falsa humanitate B., the wolf plots against the lamb, and, cruel toward another, and much more cruel toward himself, turns the virtue of hospitality, in a perverse perversissimo B. om. C. order om. C., into the vice of slaughter. Then indeed the most valiant athlete, being full of the Holy Spirit, foreknowing that the time of his passion was at hand, passed that night sleepless in the zeal of vigils and prayers, and in the midst of praying restrained his disciples from the fear of the worldly tempest with a word of instruction mansuetudine B, C., saying: "Do not be terrified, brethren, by the persecutions of the world, which are sometimes inflicted to prove the patience of the faithful; and do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. For what if the satellites of darkness rave in momentary fury, or even if they inflict the sentence of bodily death: can that which is done in a point of time be equated with goods that remain without end and with joys to be altered by no disturbance? But if anyone is so foolish as to assert that bodily torments are to be preferred to everlasting gladness, he is restrained by the apostolic authority which says: I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not sunt B. worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us. Rather each one is to be struck by the sword of his own conscience, placing himself as a witness or executioner sic B, C. artificem A. against himself, which he may not fear will be condemned at the last. For we must stand before the judgment seat of Christ, that each may receive the proper things of the body, according as he has done, whether good or evil."

[6] he is killed by a robber. As he was saying these things that robber, for whose most atrocious madness vesaniæ C. hardly can a fitting pen be found, entered the house with his colleagues, the ministers of the devil. There first the head of the venerable bishop Foillan having been cut off amp. cap. ven. pr. F. B., they struck his disciples likewise with the edge of the sword. O robber truly wretched in such great cruelty! O audacity of his companions, to be punished with eternal burning! Who, by no means content with the immensity of one crime, perpetrated three monstrous things at once: for they fattened a most false humanity with homicide *, and in both utraque C. by dread greed they imitated the betrayer of the Lord. They will therefore have a portion of punishment with him, to whom they had habuere B, C. a like form of sin peccanti C.. Taking therefore the bodies of the saints, they hid them in the shady lairs of wild beasts. And the spoils which they had obtained by so unspeakable a gain they divided among themselves to the detriment of their souls hactenus pars hujus Vitæ in cod. 18654..

[7] St. Gertrude Meanwhile the most holy virgin Gertrude was troubled by frequent dreams, because she was suffering the absence of her patron for longer than she had thought. And immediately, having sent horsemen equitibus B. to blessed Ultan, who presided over the convent of Fosses, she inquired why his brother was delaying his return. Answering them, he said: "As I was praying in the church, a dove ^f of snowy whiteness appeared to me, with wings full of blood: by which sign I judge that my brother has passed to the Lord by the triumph of passion. But where and how this happened is to be sought from him to whom the divine clemency has specially delegated the care of us." When they had heard these things, the messengers of the precious virgin returned, announcing all that they had received from the holy man.

[8] she finds the body of St. Foillan, Then Tunc B. she, being of a zealous mind, seeking her patron all around and not finding him anywhere usquam B., taught that what is hidden latebat corr. A. from men is now to be sought from the Lord. And at once illo B. proclaiming a three-day fast for herself and all her people, she admonished beforehand that God must be entreated by the sacrifice of a contrite heart and abstinence of the body, and also by a diligent fountain of tears, that he might deign to show to his faithful what could not be discovered by human ingenuity. And when they had carried out the duties of the three-day offering, there was revealed to her by an angel the order and place of the passion of her dearest one, and she saw a fiery column reaching up to heaven from the place in which the body lay lifeless, and immediately calling together the clergy and the faithful people, and showing that sign also to many, she went on to that place with the melody of heavenly hymns. There by the favoring mercy of the Saviour, on the seventieth sexto add. B. day after the passion of the most glorious martyr, his venerable body and those of his disciples were found.

[9] and, in the presence of most noble men, At that time a certain Dido ^g worthy of memory, bishop of Poitiers Pictaviensis corr. A., had gone with Grimoald sic B. Grialdo A. ^h, a certain patrician, to the holy places for the sake of visiting them. When, as the body was passing by, after the night offices, he was held for a little by the slumber of the flesh, by an angelic response he was commanded to rise and hasten to meet Elijah the prophet. Awakened, he heard the voices of singers, and asking his boys what this might be, he learned along with the melodies he had heard that sacred obsequies were being borne. Having summoned to him, therefore, the aforesaid patrician, he hastened to meet * the holy corpse. Both of them with most devout minds carried that sweet burden on their own shoulders as far as the convent of the most noble virgin. And it is not doubtful among the faithful that all these things happened through the merit of the holy martyr. But what do we suppose was the cause that so great a man went astray on the road of this passing world? But if we attend to the manner om. B. of this straying, we consider that he did not stray in vain. For he strayed indeed quidem B., but on the road of the feet, not on the road of morals, not by deserting justice, but by exercising doctrine; and perhaps the just man had contracted from his earthly dwelling a fault, for which he might depart from the line of the right path prius viam A. om. B.. But he who judges equity, who crowns in mercy and compassion, permitted his servant to incur a fleshly separation, that he might possess the triumph of a most glorious gloriosi B. martyrdom. Whence too that tetrastich is solemnly recited by the Church in memory of the blessed man:

Foillan, bishop, a man pious and just, with open Mouth taught Perdocuit B. beforehand the ways of the right path. Yet he himself, wandering a little in the woods in the flesh, Bore the palm of martyrdom from the same place as his death.

[10] he lays him in a sepulchre. And so the body of Foillan, the martyr worthy of God and to be venerated, illustrious men coming together from every side for that service, and especially the most noble of the Franks, with the rest of the assembly of the faithful, but chiefly with blessed Gertrude dutifully managing the care of hujus add. B. the ministry, was brought to the convent of Fosses, and there, the divine presence mercifully smiling on all, was buried, where through his patronage marks of the Lord's kindness frequently occur, bodily weakness is restored, the pledge prius pignum. A. of the Holy Spirit is received by the devout, through the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the same Holy Spirit through all

ages of ages. Amen Explicit passio sancti Foillani episcopi et martyris add. B..

ANNOTATIONS.

* corr. A sanguinaverunt.

* ire add. corr. A.

SECOND LIFE OF ST. FOILLAN

from the Saint-Bertin manuscript 791 collated with others.

Foillan, martyr in Belgium. (S.)

BHL Number: 3071

FROM MSS.

CHAPTER ONE.

The origin of St. Foillan, his journey into Belgium, his residence at Nivelles.

HERE BEGINS THE LIFE OR PASSION OF ST. FOILLAN, BISHOP AND MARTYR, WHICH IS CELEBRATED ON THE DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF NOVEMBER [Passio S. Foillani egregii martyris quæ est II kal. novembris B. Passio S. Foil. episcopi et martyris C. Incipit Vita vel passio S. Foil. præsulis quæ est kal. (corr. add. prid.) nov. D. Inc. Vita vel p. S. Foil. præsulis E. Incipit Vita beati Foyllani F. Item tractatus in Vita beati Foil. (post Expliciunt miracula beatissimi præsulis Foillani) H.].

God is to be praised in his saints. We are admonished to praise the kindly Lord our God om. H. in his saints by the voice voce monemur C, F. of the psalmist saying: "Praise the Lord in his saints." Who, although in himself he is great and exceedingly to be praised, yet in those same saints of his he is glorious and wondrous, and through all things worthily to be praised. For what is more worthy for our God from the worthy ab indignis F., or what is more justly to be repaid to him by us a nobis om. F., or what can be more salutary for us, than that to his ineffable mercy mis. ej. B., which we can in no way requite, we should render due praises and thanks with heart, mouth and deed, according to that word of the Apostle: "Giving thanks to God and om. F. the Father, who has made us om. sed add. alia manu in margine nos dignos F. worthy of a share in the lot of the saints in light, who has rescued us from the power of darkness, and has transferred us into the kingdom of the son of his love corr. manu post. claritatis A. claritatis D, E, F., in whom we have redemption through his blood et add. H. the remission of sins." Since therefore by the grace of God alone we have been rescued from the power of darkness, that is, of the devil and his angels ang. ejus B, F., and have been transferred into the kingdom of his beloved son, namely that we may be a chosen race et add. B, C, H., a royal priesthood, let us offer to him the sacrifice of due praise, announcing the powers of him who has called us from darkness into his wonderful light, and into om. A, D. a share in the lot of the saints. Of this holy calling he appointed as ministers first indeed the apostles; to whom he also said: "You are the light of this om. D, E, H. world." Then, as the light of the same om. F. faith grew strong and bright, he added the splendid pastors of the Churches far and wide, whom he also advanced to such a glory of grace that, the flocks over which they presided præerat D. of diverse order, sex and age being joined to them, they led with them an innumerable army exerc. duc. E. of noble warfare, fighting even to a precious death for love of their king gregis F. supra lineam al. man. vel gregis C.. For the merit of this faith, patience and victory they deserved to receive the palm of heavenly glory and the crown of everlasting beatitude.

[2] St. Foillan, an Irishman, As one to be in their sacrosanct company there was foreknown from the beginning and predestined the gracious boy Foillan, who om. B, C, F, H. sprang om. B, C, F, H. in Ireland from a royal stock progenie F.; who ennobled the nobility nobilitate F. of his race by the nobleness of an excellent mind. For from the very years of boyhood he continually gave himself over to divine services. And although he seems not to be ours, but a foreigner by nation, yet he has been directed to us as our own by the gift of divine providence dono div. prov. om. H., when he was sending the ministers of human salvation to all parts dum ob salute (sic) humanam cunct. mun. destinatus est H. of the world divisio capit. indicatur add. II E.. This Sic C. holy man, then, growing to adulthood through the increases of age and of uprightness, while he passed his sojourn in the present life, showed himself in om. H. all things an example of good works. But after, those same works acting as his patrons, he was transferred to the kingdom of heavenly life, he supports suffragatus F. us with the merits of his intercessions prius intercessionibus; corr. al. man. C..

[3] whose Life is here reworked, The series of whose life, once indeed set down in a not sufficiently om. H. polished style, now, as your charity asks and rather commands, brethren, we are compelled to write out scribere F. with our vestro A. pen, humble though it be, and, as is plain to all the learned, unskilled. Yet that all who wish to read or hear these things may know what sort and how great this same man was; to the praise of the name of the Lord, by whose gift he was such and so great isdem vir-tantusque om. D, E., and om. E, H. for seizing capensanda F. the examples of his praiseworthy life, recalling to the faithful prius commemoranda; corr. B. a few things out of many, we briefly set them before proponimur H. your holiness, as you have commanded.

[4] having gone out of his homeland, Of very many saints, indeed, whom divine grace has granted to its Church to be imitated mirabiles H., the earnestness of life was such that from lesser to greater things, from lower to loftier excelsiora F., from the imperfect they tended tendens F. to the perfect summits of the virtues. But this blessed father Foillan, as though it irked him with a slow effort of steps gressuum F. [prius Foillanus quasi firmo passuum conamine; sed recenti man., in textu deletis vbis firmo et quasi, in marg. script.: quasi pigeret eum lento H.] to climb the rungs of ladders stretching prius tendens; corr. H. to higher things, carried up by divine grace gratia se D., with an eagle's flight, so to speak, made for the highest pinnacles of virtue virtutum D, E, H., and with the most blessed patriarch Abraham, on hearing the voice of the Lord: Go out from thy land and from thy kindred, most willingly obeyed as an imitator of his faith and work. He left therefore his kindred, he left also his homeland, and undertook a voluntary pilgrimage. And therefore the blessing of the sons of Abraham, namely the land of promise, which is most rightly called the land of the living, because there all live without fear of death, he rightly inherited III add. E. as his son. How wondrous in action this saint appeared, who in one and the same thing imitated the chief fathers of both testaments, namely old and new. For not only was he a follower of Abraham, in that at an angelic admonition he forsook homeland and kinsmen, but also of the apostolic footsteps, in that at the admonition of the Lord he left all that he had prius habitu; corr. H. along with the will to have. While he thus fulfilled what is highest in the precepts, he acquired what is also om. F. highest in the rewards, namely a hundredfold in this world, and eternal life and a judicial throne in the world to come. O how precious is om. B, C, F, H. the trade that is made with God without comparison of price! O how happy the merchants of so happy a merchandise! They give temporal things, they receive eternal. They leave perishable things, they receive things strong with immovable stability. They leave transitory things, they receive things that will remain without end inverso ordine Relinquunt-mansura. Relinquunt-vigentia F.. Who quid F. then would not seek expectat C, H. prius exspectant vel exspectantur; corr. exspectat F. with all eagerness so great a merchandise, by which quod B. gold for mud, heavenly things for earthly are acquired? Let us run therefore, brethren, let us all run, let us hasten with our whole affection, let there be no delay in hastening; while there is time, while there is leisure, while our merchant waits; while without distinction of person he calls all om. F. to himself ad se omn. vocat B. ad se omnes advocat C, H., while also to the hungry and thirsty through the herald of his om. H. grace he cries daily ad se-clamat om. F.: "All you that thirst, come to me, and you that have no silver, hasten, buy and eat. Come, buy without silver, and without any exchange, wine and milk;" while he himself

also by his own self invites to him those who labor and are afflicted: "Come, he says, to me ad me, inq. C, F. all you that labor and are burdened honorati C., and I will refresh you." And again: "Let him that thirsts come and drink." These things having been received by the ears of hearing which are in the interior man, let us not neglect them, brethren, having before our eyes as a pattern and mirror of all holiness this most blessed patron of ours nostr. patr. E. Foillan, who did not pass by the Lord calling him vocante F. with a stopped-up obturavit B. corr. obdurato C. obdurato F, H. heart and with a deaf ear, but followed him as quickly as possible with the hurrying foot of obedience. If we follow the examples of his actions with a prompt and eager mind, we shall deserve to be made sharers of his rewards also. But now let us return to proclaiming his praises as they deserve.

[5] and made a bishop, IIII add. E. The aforesaid man of God, therefore, beginning, as has been said, from perfect things, and daily striving toward better things, and desiring to cleave more freely to God alone, and reckoning this also to be his only good, put aside corr. in marg. postposuit F. all worldly desire, and resolved to make his soul a seat of wisdom. And since, being made himself a throne of God, he chose delegit B, C, F, H. to have so great a sitter, he was rightly worthy to receive with the senators of heaven the throne of judicial power. Of this matter, while still dwelling bodily on earth, he held as it were a most firm pledge, when the honorable man, raised to the pontifical honor, obtained with blessed Peter the apostle the pontificate of binding and loosing, so that whatever he should establish on earth should be ratified also om. F. in heaven.

[6] he makes for Gaul and is received at Nivelles Wherefore et add. C. in meriting this, in the times of Sigebert Sigiberti H., king of the Franks, when Grimoald ^b was prius etiam; corr. rec. man. H. mayor of the palace, and Erchinoald Herch. A, D. ^c as it were patrician, after the departure from life of his most holy brother Fursey, who once, coming into Francia according to an angelic revelation, when he was shining with distinguished virtues, had been received and held by the aforesaid Erchinoald Herch. D. Arch. F. with great honor, and also buried ^d, as befitted so great a man; with their elder brother Ultan ^e qui add. F, H. as companion, he too went to Francia for the sake of his beloved pilgrimage; and when they had traversed very many places evangelizing, at last, the Lord leading them, they obtained the holy companionship of Ituberga Ytubergæ H. ^f, a matron matronæ A. most noble at that time tunc temp. om. H., and of her daughter Gertrude [prius Gerethrudis; corr. eraso e et sic deinc. A. Geretrudis B, C. et sic deinc. Gertrudis E, F, H. et sic deinc. Gertrudis D. sed deinc. Gerthrudis.], a most holy virgin, many of whose monuments of holiness shine among us cujus-monimenta om. H..

[7] by St. Gertrude. Truly worthy and exceedingly welcome was the fellowship of such persons, and lovable to God, that to the venerable bishop Foillan there should be divinely joined and commended commodaretur F. Gertrude, a most sacred virgin sacrata F.. In short, there is represented to us here prius isti cum; dein delet. a corr. H. a gospel image depicted with the most beautiful flowers of the virtues, when, as once to John the beloved of Christ Chr. dil. C. Christus dilectæ F. Christo dilecto H., evangelist and apostle, and his vicar in keeping his mother servanda D. apostolo ad servandam mater vic. H., Mary was commended, a virgin most holy and most pure above what can be said; so now to this Foillan, truly beloved of Christ and evangelist and apostle ipsiusque-apostolo om. F., and moreover a most pure virgin, there is commended Gertrude, his corr. ejus comm. Gert. C. Gert. ejus comm. F. dear virgin, to be protected by sacred admonitions and add. rec. man. A. om. B, C, F, H. exhortations, examples, prayers and merits. For that virgin, our most blessed lady, became a mother by hearing the words of the angel evangelii F., by believing, and by conceiving and bringing forth the very Word of God: but this virgin deserved to be a mother by hearing the word of God with the ear, by believing it with the heart ipsumque Verbum-credendo om. F., by conceiving it with the mind, by nourishing it with the memory memoriæ dando H., and by bringing it forth in the senses of whomever she could by the word and example of good conduct, and by fulfilling and keeping it in all things. But the recognition also of the vicars of Christ himself is not in all respects dissimilar, so to speak. That one an apostle of Christ, this one an apostolic man; that one called evangelist by the grace of gospel writing, this one by the grace of gospel preaching. Each one, however, prius utero; corr. rec. man. H. endowed with the holiness of virginity, obtained ministries befitting himself. For that one om. F. received the virgin mother of the Lord as his own corr. sua C., this one received the virgin spouse of his Lord, and, as has been said, mother as his own corr. sua C.. In the chalice too of Jesus to be drunk potando C., which that one professed that he drank posse add. B, F, H., this one had no less a share prius exorsus; corr. exors H., which will be clear in the course of our discourse.

ANNOTATIONS.

The manuscripts according to which we publish the other Life of St. Foillan [Cf. Prelim. Comm., num. 3. S. Bouvier, Miroir de sainteté, etc., pag. 273, edit. 1674.] we have distinguished by these letters:

A The Saint-Omer or Saint-Bertin Cod. 791, 11th cent.

B That of Namur (formerly of Brogne), 11th cent.

C That of Metz 395, 11th cent.

D Brussels 7460, 13th cent.

E Douai 838, 13th cent.

F Trier 965, 13th cent.

G Brussels 18654, 12th cent.

H Mons 8439, 13th cent.

Lessons taken from this Life, or rather panegyric, were recited in the Office of St. Foillan on the octave day after the feast of the finding of his body.

CHAPTER TWO.

A monastery is founded on the estate of Fosses. The death of St. Foillan. His body is found and translated to Fosses.

A convent is founded on the estate of Fosses, given by St. Gertrude. V add. E. But Rerum A. in the most fitting ways, blessed bishop Foillan, having become the companion of the gracious virgin Gertrude, continually implanted in her senses the fervor of faith, the long-suffering of hope and the sweetness of charity; that she might love God with her whole heart, and with her whole soul, and with all her mind, and atque B, C, F, H. her neighbor as herself. The holy virgin, moreover, recognizing the holiness both of him and of his brother Ultan, offered to God through their hands eorum man. F. obtul. Deo B. part of her inheritance, namely the estate commonly called Fosses ^a, which she delivered to them for the sustenance of the servants of God, that they might build in that place a monastery as a perpetual hospice for pilgrims, so that those arriving from distant regions might there obtain the solace suited to them. And indeed the holy men, the grace of God reliqua desunt, excisis foliis sequentibus H. providing the effect, fulfilled as quickly as possible the sacred virgin's wish, and having built the monastery [atque servientium Deo delegato ministerio add. B, C. atque serv. Deo deleto minist. add. F.], Ultan indeed settled as superior in the same convent cœn. res. F., while St. Foillan gave himself back to his duty ^b in the companionship of the blessed virgin.

[9] Going there St. Foillan fell among robbers, When he had carried this out for a very long time temp. per. C, F., and had striven to raise the devout minds of the faithful to the summit of the virtues and to rouse them to the pinnacles of perfection, God cooperating in all things for good, now his call to sacred martyrdom was at hand. There came upon him then, flowing proflens F. from the fountain of charity with which he continually overflowed, a thought of this kind, that he should show his presence, for the sake of consolation and exhortation, to his like-minded brother Ultan, and to the servants of God om. F. living in the aforesaid convent. Having duly celebrated, therefore, the solemnities of the Mass, bidding farewell to the most holy virgin Gertrude Gert. virg. F. and to the brethren and et D, E. nuns, and commending himself to their holy prayers, he also by a certain perspicacity of soul commended to them more earnestly the burial of his poor body. After this taking to the road, content with the company of only three brethren, while, ignorant of the way, he was wandering through a certain woodland, there attached itself applicuit B, C, F. to him the attendant band satellitum B, C, F. of diabolical temptation, which however was turned to the increase of virtue for the holy man. For there was suddenly present a diabolical minister full of serpentine fraud and wickedness, who, simulating the false humanity of hospitality, but an abominable

inhumanity of cruelty to all mortals, was meditating against them, having led them by byways to the estate which is called Sonefia ^c, these men upright and simple in soul and deed, he was preparing parat D, E. death for them, like a most savage wolf for harmless sheep. Nor indeed could the deceitful machination of Satan's satellite be hidden from the most prudent man, full of the spirit of knowledge and atque F. foreknowledge. Whence, bearing by the virtue virtuti A, E. of fortitude a soul most steadfast and most patient toward all adversities, passing the night, as was his custom sol. pernox. E., in a continuation of psalms, hymns and spiritual canticles, from which the man free for God alone did not cease by day or by night, committing himself and his companions more earnestly to him, he awaited the outcome of the matter undismayed ^d.

[10] and having exhorted his companions to meet death fearlessly; VI add. E. Therefore after the completion of the morning lauds, when the holy man saw his fellow soldiers fearful pavidus B. of the end of a death now imminent, being most eloquent, powerful in the work pro in opere: incipere A. of the virtues and in the speech of exhortations, he brought forth to them, with a placid countenance and a serene mouth, an address of this kind: "Do not, I beg you, brethren, be troubled; do not be shaken by the fear of death; do not be terrified: these things hoc D, E. must indeed happen; we must [nos mortis debitum pati; sed mementote quia oportet add. B. F. nos debitum mortis oportet in marg. add. C.] stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Remember memento D., dearest sons, the words of the Lord: Do not, he says, fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. But if our time has drawn near, and therefore now the Lord by his just judgment, though hidden from us, has delivered us into the hands of the wicked, praising him in whom there is no iniquity, because he is just in all his ways, let us say, humble and undaunted, in the words of those who gave up sua add. A. their bodies suam F. to death for his covenant: Let us die also in our simplicity, and heaven and earth will be witnesses over us that they destroy us unjustly. For we unprofitable servants, why should we greatly fear to enter the way of death, without which the passage to true life cannot be made, when we truly believe that our Lord and God has traveled the same? Rather prius quia; corr. qui D. blessing him, let us humbly pray with the psalmist: Blessed be the Lord day by day: may God of our salvation make our journey enim add. B. prosperous faciet F.. For our God is the God of saving. Nor let us forget what follows, pertaining to our consolation: And to the Lord, the Lord, belong the issues of death. And let us turn over with a diligent mind that saying of the apostle: That the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us." With such addresses he soothed and et F. refreshed the terrified and frightened hearts of his nimis B, C, F. people.

[11] he is killed; and his martyrdom VII add. E. Meanwhile, driven by the furies already conceived in his mind, that wretch, but not to be pitied, rushed in, no longer a pretended host, but a most openly savage trunculentus A. enemy, attended indeed by no large band of satellites, because there was no need of it, but full of many a demon, and attacking with drawn sword the most holy man as he intrepidly awaited death, he defiled his sacrilegious hands with his sacrosanct blood. Then the venerable venerandi B. priest's head having been cut off, he raged also against his companions with his comrades crudeli add. E. in like om. D, E. fury. And when this ergo E. very great crime had been accomplished, the sons of darkness, thinking that what they had done could be concealed filii-posse om. B., made for the hidden places of the woods, and there, most dishonorably, they cast away rather than laid up the honorable treasure, namely the naked bodies, despoiled of every covering, of the holy men. And lest perhaps they should be caught in any suspicion by their neighbors, they took pains to sell ven. stud. F. in distant parts the sacred garments with the horses and the clothing taken from their bodies, and with a small gain indeed to win the greatest loss of their souls. O detestable crime of avarice, O ardor of greed and one una quæsitis E. insatiable thirst, inebriated inebrietati F. with whose poison wretched men, no longer depressed by sleep but by a most grievous death in the living body, cannot hear with a stopped obdurata B, F. ear that terrible thunder: "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his own soul?" or: "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" and also that which follows, exceedingly dreadful est add. F. for the wicked: "For autem F. the Son of man shall come in his glory with his angels, and then he will render to each according to his sua B, F. works." Alas! how wickedly om. F. wretched misers and robbers hold their souls for sale, and like hell, to which they are held similar, and to which they strive to hasten properare B, C, F., ever insatiable, they know no measure, and though they tear apart discrepant A, E. discerpunt B, F. prius discerpent C. all things with deadly teeth, they are wholly ignorant of satiety, but they always hunger, they are fiunt B. always needy. Indeed, wanting in all humanity, they cannot be sated even with blood: and therefore deservedly without limit, without measure, they will be subjected to eternal torments: where their worms shall not die vermis … morietur B, C, F., and the fire shall not be quenched, and they themselves ipsi F., unhappy men, will not be allowed to die; because death coming upon them will itself not die, and perpetual pain will not destroy those it afflicts, nor will it itself om. F. be ended. While they, then, in eternal death without the power of dying, as has been said, endure unhappily, the just in eternal life without the fear of dying, ignorant of all misery omni add. B, C, F., filled with delight, will rejoice happily. With whom also our blessed father and martyr Foillan, as a good soldier, after the labors of his contest, after the sweat which he has laid up in heaven, now discharged from service, reckoning the abundant rewards merita F. of his merits, enjoys unfailing joys, beholding with the angels the desirable face of the heavenly Father. The merit of whose holiness, even after the laying down of the sacred body, was disclosed by an angelic revelation shown from heaven to St. Gertrude the virgin, as sicut E. the following page will declare.

[12] is revealed to St. Ultan, who sees a dove stained with blood; VIII add. E. So then, after such a departure from life of the blessed patris et add. F. bishop Foillan, a great many days were now rolling by during which the gracious virgin Gertrude Geretrudis et sic deinc. G. was awaiting the longed-for return of her patron, greatly wondering why, in returning, he had passed beyond the time of the appointed agreement. At length she sent messengers to the convent to which the holy man had set out to go, that she might know prius possit A. possit B, C, F, G. the causes of so long a delay. They on coming, when they had not found the man they desired vir. min. E., went to Ultan, his brother fratrem ej. E.; they asked what he knew about him. But that holy man, greatly wondering at these things and made curious by the shrewdness of a certain vision shown om. C, F. to him beforehand, and at G. having meditated in his own heart, gave back to the sacred virgin in these words as if oracles: "Let your discerning diligence, most prudent virgin, see what these signs portend portentant A. prius portentant D., not without the cause of a certain presage shown beforehand to me in this way. In short, in the watchful earnestness of prayers, there seemed est visa D. to me to be present a dove, white beyond snow in its whole corp. quid. F. body, but with its wings suffused with flowing fulvido D, E. and rosy blood, and climbing to the heights with gentle flight. To what end these things looked perspexerint D., let your all-seeing skill, blessed virgin, perceive. For of my dear brother's presence no signs appear elsewhere." After the ears om. F. of the sacred virgin had drunk in these things, they goaded her mind with the solicitude of a sharper care prius vitæ G., and soon she directed swift dir. nunc. F. messengers far and wide, who however brought back to her answers of no certainty. What was the anxious virgin to do; whither was she to turn, bereft of so great a father et add. D, E.; of whose counsel was she to take the benefits, widowed of such a counselor as of her own husband? But by no means was the grace of the heavenly regard wanting to her, breathing into her soul illius-animo om. G. that what seemed hidden to men she should seek to have made known by him from whom nothing is hidden, and with whom there is no shadow of change. And since she did not trust sufficiently suis sat. C, F. in her merits, although they were outstanding, knowing that the assiduous prayer unius add. B, C, G. of a just man avails much, but still more the frequent earnestness in prayer of many just men mult. just. or. freq. inst. E., she gathered with her assemblies of the faithful, namely of clerics of different orders, and of nuns, and of lay people of either sex, to accomplish this; a three-day observance of vigils, fasts and litanies was proclaimed and devoutly fulfilled. But the venerable virgin herself, whom a greater care was gnawing in this hæc B, C, F, G., afflicted herself beyond pro se præ: semper A. all with the greatest profigat G. fasting, and asked with assiduous prayer that certain indications of her guide should be given to her by God. And behold, the Lord had regard to the prayer of the humble, and did not despise their petitions precem B, D..

[13] and to St. Gertrude, to whom it is shown in what place the sacred body lies In short, before dawn lucinium F., when the virgin had completed her accustomed sibi virgo D, E. office of vigils implesset G., and her mind was still intent on heavenly things, according to the psalmist, in the mornings she meditated on God, to see his power and glory, she was held est habita F. worthy, as a cultivator of the life of fellow angels angelicæ G., although still placed on earth in body, to be visited, consoled and gladdened by angelic company and address. For there stood by her an angel sent from God from heaven de cœlis ei F., who with serene countenance and friendly voice thus spoke to her est illam F.: "Virgin, he said, Gertrude, devoted to God, chosen beforehand and loved by him, whom you om. B. also continually love with sincere mind om. C., accept these answers of his, given back to your petition, which is very dear to him, and directed dir. tibi B. to you through me. The ears of my excellence, says your spouse, are at hand for the prayers of your humility; and ad C. I have seen the tears flowing from the inmost fountain of charity, outwardly watering the rosy cheeks of your face, which into joy

you will presently om. F. actum A, D, E. consider perpendis A, D, E. to be turned versas F. for you. For my faithful servant Foillan, about whom you are held excessively anxious, whom for a time I willed to be needful to you and a minister of your salvation and of the increase augendi F. of your grace, after faithfully feliciter F. carrying out the office committed to him, has also happily finished by martyrdom commissum-martyrio om. F. the course of temporal life vit. temp. D, E. and has merited the prize of everlasting life. And since he has fought the good fight, finished the course, kept the faith, he has rightly received the crown of justice laid up for him, with the palm palmam B. of martyrdom VIII add. E.." On hearing the words of the angel the blessed virgin, greatly rejoicing in the Lord, as was fitting, exulted in the grace of a threefold gift, namely of the angelic visitation, and om. G. of the divine consolation, and de add. B, C, F, G. of the glory of her patron. And therefore she paid magnificent duties to the holy Trinity. Now the angel added addidit F. these things: "Lest you be moved by any scruple about the body of your patron, not yet patr. nond. om. G. made known, going out, attend diligently om. G. to the signs signo B, C, F, G., that it may be sought there quær. il. F. where I shall show you." When this had been done esset B, C, F, G., he showed her illi ost. B, C, F, G. a fiery column of the greatest splendor, stretching from et C. the earth, where qua B, C, F, G. the bodies of the saints had been laid, even to heaven. More gladdened therefore by the indication of this sign, she also brought a great many to behold prospic. F. this, for the sake of a certain report and of credit. And so all, assured of this miracle certif. mir. F., going by a direct recto D, E. route, arrived at the place marked beforehand for them præmonstratum F. from heaven, and having sought them the more quickly they found the bodies of the just, on the seventy-eighth day after the day of their death om. F., which is the 17th septimo decimo F. before the kalends of February februarium B., on which also blessed Fursey, his own brother, made the end of this life, and acquired the gain of one never to be ended. O glorious bishop Foillan, the pure simplicity of whose soul and the happy gore of whose martyrdom a snowy dove attests with wings suffused with blood, the merit of whose holiness an angelic vision discloses to Gertrude the blessed virgin, the cave of whose hidden body a fiery column reveals to the height of heaven!

[14] This, Grimoald and Dido being divinely admonished, is translated to Fosses. Now indeed, that he who was renowned with God for his merits might be celebrated in fame and venerable in honor with men, it happened at that time that Grimoald Grimualdum G., who was mayor major erat F. of the palace regiæ add. E., and Dido, bishop of Poitiers corr. Pictaviensem C., were staying innotari F. in those parts. And when in that place verbi F. for the sake of prayer they were frequenting the thresholds of the saints of God, on that day on which the bodies of blessed Foillan and his companions were being borne for burial, when the aforesaid bishop, after the offices of vigils, had given his limbs to sleep, he received om. G. such admonitions through a vision, that he should take care to hasten as soon as possible to the obsequies of the body of Elijah the prophet. He soon, driving off the heaviness of sleep, rising hurriedly, drank in with his ears the voices of various psalms and the melodies of hymns resounding together [prius melodiæ; corr.: melodiam A. melodiæ B, C, F, G. melodiam? D. melodiam; forte prius melodias vel melodiæ E.]. And asking what these prius hæ A. might be, he discovered that they were serving the obsequies of men of God, and thus understood what had been fuerit E. commanded him about the body of Elijah the prophet. Nor undeservedly was blessed father Foillan after his death worthy to be declared under the figure of so great a prophet, the merit of whose holiness, while he lived adhuc viveret C, F, G., he himself om. F. strove to imitate. Having summoned, therefore ergo D, E., Grimoald, then steward of the royal palace and of the whole kingdom of the Franks, they rushed forth to pay the due service to the venerable funeral funeris C., and putting their shoulders to the carrying of the pious burden, they rejoiced to have sweated in bearing it. Therefore in the monastery of blessed Gertrude and the sacred virgins the three bodies of the holy man's disciples having been committed to the earth, and om. E. countless in muneris B. crowds flocking from all sides to the obsequies of so great a bishop, of priests, clerics and nuns, and also of lay people, both noble and common plebeiorum D, G. plebium F. plebebeium C., eagerly paying their vows and gifts, with the greatest honor in psalms and om. D. hymns, the choirs of the faithful resounding on this side and that, there was carried to the monastery already mentioned, which he and his venerable brother Ultan had built ædificaverunt F. above the little river which is called Bervenna Beverna B, F, G. prius Berverna; corr. Beverna C. Hervenna D., and which from prius exitu; corr. ex exitu A. exitu C. ex exitu D, E. the situation of the place is called Fosses, and there was buried, the venerable pledge of his body. Where even up to now usque nunc D, E., to declare the merit of his holiness sanctis G., through the intervention of his prayer, the petitions of the humble and of those devoted to God are heard, who ask for salutary things, through the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ præstante-Christo om. F., who with God om. E. the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, through all ages of ages. Amen [Explicit passio sancti Foillani præsulis add. D. Explicit vita vel passio sancti Foillani add. E.].

ANNOTATIONS.

THIRD LIFE OF ST. FOILLAN

from the Brussels manuscript 18654, collated with others.

Foillan, martyr in Belgium. (S.)

BHL Number: 3073

FROM MSS.

CHAPTER ONE.

The homeland, origin and education of St. Foillan and his brothers.

Philtan, son of a king of Ireland, I. Of the nobility of the race of SS. Fursey and Foillan, bishop and martyr [Hic titulus et sequentes literis rubris exarati; numeri vero iis præfixi atramento postea sunt additi in A; tituli et numeri om. B, C.]. About the times in which there reigned in Francia the sons or grandsons of Clovis Cludovici regis B., whom St. Remigius baptized, there reigned in the island of Ireland Fundloga Funologa et sic deinceps B. ^b, whose brother was Brendan ^c, who illustrated fundavit C. the island of Esbrem ^d with the episcopal office. Now in Scotia Scotia et sic deinceps B. ^e, which is contiguous to Ireland, there reigned regnavit C. Brendinus Vren et sic deinceps B., whose elder brother om. B. was called Feradach, and the younger minor C. Adelfius Adelphius et sic deinceps B. This Adelfius had a daughter by name Gelgehes Gerges B.. King Fundloga had a son by name Philtan Filtanus et sic deinceps B.. From these, united in flesh and spirit carne B., a great light shone forth, which with rays spread far and wide illuminated the circle of the earth. For Philtan, eager to exercise himself in the first apprenticeship of youth, betook himself to Brendinus, king of Scotia, and there distinguished himself om. C. by the first displays proludiis A. of a good disposition: departing from him too, he sought out his younger brother Adelfius, either because he was of greater name, or (what is om. C. more probable) because the grace of the divine dispensation directed him there.

[2] He takes Gelgehes as wife, without consulting her father Adelfius. Since no elegance of body, no grace of soul was lacking to Philtan, and since all beauty honestas C. of flesh and heart corporis C. was present in Gelgehes Gergi B. Gelgehi C., daughter of Adelfius, mutual familiarity easily brought it about that he was loved by her from the heart. It came to the point that, united even by the priestly blessing, they carried out the marriage. The matter seemed lawfully arranged according to the ecclesiastical rule; but it could not be valid according to worldly law, because it was not permitted to children to enter the bond of marriage with fathers unconsulted or unwilling.

[3] She, condemned to the fire, escapes unharmed by a miracle. Adelfius, having learned of his daughter's union, of which her now swelling tumescens B. womb accused her, blazed with intemperate anger against his daughter, and without any hearing decreed that she should be cast into a burning furnace. All ran together to the sad spectacle. There ran up also Brendinus himself, king of Scotia Scotiæ C., as if to mitigate the intemperance iracundiam C. of his brother. While all were astonished at the new harshness of the affair, suddenly a clear voice was heard by all: "O Adelfius, do not become a parricide. What God has joined, let not man put asunder." All were dismayed consternuntur corr. B. with stupor, uncertain whence this voice had come forth. Some thought that this voice was esse C. angelic, others thought that the infant itself, by a new miracle, had given this voice from the womb of the mother standing stantis C. there. Adelfius alone was terrified at nothing, moved by nothing; but reckoning these words to be fantastic, he commanded præcipit C. three pyres to be kindled. No sooner said than done. The expectant mother was led to the fire. While all, therefore, were weeping, she, with hands stretched out to heaven, said: "Fountain of goodness, God, who wast born for us of ex C. the virgin Mary, free me from this burning of fire, as thou didst free the three boys from the furnace of burning fire. And quod B. if I am to perish in this fire, let at least om. C. this fruit of my womb ventris C. not perish. For when I joined myself to a lawful legitimo B. husband, I vowed to thee the fruit of my womb quando-mei om. C.." While she was praying, from the earth moistened by her tears a fountain of water leaped up, and put out the fires of the pyres. All, weeping for joy, cried out together clamabant B. in praise of God, and rescued the expectant mother from the hand of her raging father. Adelfius, moved by no affection of piety, no regard for God, did not even so cease from vexing his daughter, but ordered her to withdraw across the sea, with the set condition of never returning.

[4] Her sons, SS. Foillan and Fursey, instructed by St. Brendan. II. Of their birth and infancy. Philtan rejoiced at the deliverance of his wife, but neither did he dare to return to his father Fundloga, because he feared the offense of his mind, in that he had taken a wife without consulting him. To such a degree the rigor of paternal

censure toward sons was strong vigebat in fil. C. among them. Directed, then, by sound counsel, he turned aside to his uncle patruum C. et corr B., Brendan the bishop, and disclosed his case to him. And because he spoke to the ears of a wise man, he found a remedy for his calamity, being received by him with all his people. There, the time of childbearing being fulfilled, Fursey was born, and after him Foillan Fullianus, et sic deinceps B.. And because their infancy was often made illustrious by sacred eorum add. C. presages of miracles, the holy sapiens C. bishop gave them om. B. over to the divine office according to their mother's vow pro voto eos C., instructed them in letters ^f, and imbued them with ecclesiastical religion. You might believe that Brendan said to his nephew Philtan what the patriarch Jacob said to Joseph his son: "Your two sons, who were born to you in the land of your sojourn, shall be mine; the rest whom you beget shall be yours, and shall be called by the names of their brothers in their possessions." Who would not believe that Brendan too, with a prophetic spirit, preferred Foillan the younger to Fursey the elder, as Jacob preferred the younger Ephraim to the elder Manasseh? For Fursey himself was indeed multiplied into peoples through the grace of confession, but Foillan the younger was to be greater than he through the glory of martyrdom. Already from the flower of their boyhood fragrance fraglantia A. was spreading everywhere: whence their maternal grandfather Adelfius ^g, at last moved, hastened to visit them with his brothers suis add. B., namely King Brendinus and Duke Feradach, and through their mediation he asked pardon from his daughter Gelgehes Gerge B. for the things he had done against her; and having obtained this, he joyfully brought her back with him, along with her spouse. Not much later Fundloga the king too, their paternal grandfather, put off the man, and Philtan his son ejus add. B. succeeded him in the kingdom Credas-successit om. C..

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER TWO.

St. Foillan and his brothers proclaim the gospel in Ireland, in Scotland and in England. The beginnings of the convent of Cnobheresburg. The piety of St. Sigebert the king. King Anna slain by Penda. St. Foillan's journey to Rome.

SS. Foillan and Fursey, renouncing the kingdom, evangelize Ireland III. That they went out from the land of their birth. Fursey igitur add. C. and Foillan, a noble pair of brothers, not valuing highly this om. C. pomp of earthly nobility reliqua pars hujus num. et totus num. 6 om. C., sought nothing of the pride of an earthly kingdom. For since they knew that from their mother's womb they had been assigned to the lot of God Domini B., they rejoiced that their inheritance had fallen to them in goodly places. For what can be more goodly than that the Lord himself was the portion of their inheritance? Casting aside, then, the ambition of reigning, they applied themselves to the office of preaching, and wherever opportunity offered they built churches, in which, by gaining the souls of the faithful, they might double the talents committed to them by God. Ireland gloried, and Scotia rejoiced, to have reared nurslings of so good a disposition, and that they had arrived at such a pitch of virtues that through them the power of the kingdom might flourish and the religion of the Church might advance.

[6] and England. When therefore for many years they had illuminated their native lands by word and miracles, it seemed to others that they were esse B. already perfect, whom they had seen observing all the precepts of the law from their youth. But they, forgetting what was behind and stretching themselves toward what was before, recalled what the Lord said to the young man who was boasting of the observance of the whole law: "One thing, he says om. B., is lacking to you: leaving all things, follow me." Those therefore who already long since had despised the royal pomp of their father's court, and in a certain manner had denied that they were the sons of a king, animated, I believe, by the example of Moses Moysi exemplo B., whose faith the apostle Paul praises, because he denied qui negaverat B. that he was the son of Pharaoh's daughter, they themselves now animated also by the example of Abraham, went out from the land of their birth, taking with them their third brother Ultan. And first entering Brittany, they left there too a memorial of their labor, because, sowing the word of God even in passing, they brought back to God with exultation many sheaves of a great harvest.

[7] There Sigebert, king of the East Angles IV. Of their coming to England and of the state of England. Going out from Brittany prius Britannia; corr. Hibernia B., they came to England, which is also called Saxony. Why Et cur B. it is called vocatur C. Saxony, this is the cause ^a. When the Britons were once long and greatly harassed by the peoples neighboring them, namely the Britons, Picts and om. C. Scots degentes in Saxonia add. C., they invited to their aid the Angles dwelling in Saxony. The Angles inv. Anglos ad aux. suum. Degentes in Saxonia Angli C. came into Britain and rendered the Britons indeed safe from the incursion of the enemy; but a little later, understanding the weakness of the Britons, whom they had undertaken to defend, they subjugated them to themselves: and claiming Britain for themselves, they called it English Saxony. Now England was divided into many peoples, into the Mercians Martios B., into the South Angles, into the West Angles, and om. C. into the East Angles: each of these peoples was under its own king. Among the East Angles there reigned sic C. regnabant A, B. at that time Sigebert, who was a lover of piety and religion: for he himself, once in exile in Francia for fear of his enemies, received from the bishops of that region the rudiments of the Catholic faith and ac C. was brought ductus C. by them to saving baptism, and restored to om. B. the kingdom of his fathers, he decreed that the rite of religion in which he had been imbued in Francia should be held in England.

[8] he founds a convent, over which St. Foillan is placed; Taking this opportunity of circumstance and time, Fursey and Foillan preached the word of God Domini C. more freely, and because a great and evident door of preaching was opened to them, they built by gift of the king a monastery in a place delightful on the one side for the nearness of the sea, on the other for the density of the woods, which was called in the English tongue Cnoberisburch ^b Enoberisburg C., which is interpreted the city of Cnoberus Enoberi C.. As many flocked from every side to this monastery as to a harbor of salvation, Fursey, that he might devote himself more earnestly to the zeal of preaching, freed himself from the burden of rule, and committed all the care of the monastery to Foillan, assigning to him as partners of the labor the priests Gobban ^c and Diculfus ^d, and with the Holy Spirit speaking in him, he foretold to him that grave danger was hanging over the kingdom and the Church, warning him to cast the anchor of faith against all the storms of evils ^e.

[9] and he, having become a monk, V. Of the holiness of Foillan and the devotion of King Sigebert. St. vero C. Foillan therefore, chosen by God as a vessel of election, that he might bear his name before peoples and kings, gave heed to himself and to his flock, showing forth in om. C. his deed whatever he taught with his mouth. For God, who works all things in

all, had gathered in this hocin C. one man the divisions of graces et add. B., the divisions of ministries, the divisions of operations, which he divides to each as he will. There was present in Foillan a faith made solid in the Holy Spirit. With the speech of worldly knowledge there was present in him the speech of spiritual wisdom; with the grace of healings there was present the discernment of spirits. Enriched with so manifold a grace, he had become all things in add. B. to all, that he might gain all. What could he do without good result, who had ascended to the height of perfection by so great an advance provectu B. in virtues? In one matter it can be seen how effective the labor of the holy man was Aderat fides-sancti viri om. C.. King vero add. C. Sigebert, worthy of the diadem of the kingdom, cast himself wholly upon him, ever hung on his lips, placed him familiarly at his ear eum ad-ponebat om. B., opened aperuit C. his heart to him confidently fideliter B.. The matter went so far that et eo B. the king, laying aside royal pomp, intended to become a soldier of Christ. Why say more? Having committed the care of the kingdom rei B. to Egric Egerico et sic deinceps C., prince corr. participi A. participi C. of the same kingdom, he cast off his arms; he cast off also the insignia of the kingdom; tonsured as a cleric, a new recruit of Christ, he subjected himself to the yoke of monastic discipline. It seemed to him that he reigned more powerfully then, when he ruled himself by rule, and terrifying no one with royal censure, restrained corr. exhilarabat C. all by the example of humility alone.

[10] shortly afterwards he is killed by Penda, king of the Mercians. VI. Of the murder of King Sigebert and the disturbance of England. As the faith of Christianity christianorum C. was thus flourishing in England, idolatry had now been almost overthrown fuit idolatria C. erat idolatria A.; yet its traces still appeared. For om. B. the race of the Mercians, hardened by the vice of unbelief, was still in rebellion reb. adh. C. against Christ, and was harassing those who believed in Christ with frequent war. Nor did this happen without the disposition dispensatione B. of God. For as God, when he overthrew the Canaanites before the sons of Israel, was unwilling to overthrow certain peoples, that in them he might test the Israelites: so he had not yet drawn back the race of the Mercians from idolatry idolatria A., that through their rebellion he might prove the good and condemn the wicked Nec hoc fiebat-malos om. C.. Penda was king of this race, who had killed two Christian kings reg. christ. C. of the English, Edwin Edwinum B. and Oswald Osualdum B., defeated in war. He, attacking in war the East Angles also, whose king Sigebert had been, was gravely harassing England. The English girded themselves to subdue bellandos B. the Mercians Anglos C.; but having less trust in Egric Egricio B., who was reigning in the place of Sigebert, they went to Sigebert, once their king, begging him to go forth with them to war; and, though he resisted, they dragged him out of the monastery and led him with them. He, instructed by Foillan what he owed to God, and what he owed om. C. to his neighbor, girded himself with the sword of faith alone, and bearing only a rod in his hand, stood unarmed in the battle line. They clashed on both sides: the army of the Christians was crushed, King Egric was killed, King Sigebert Sigibertus C. himself too was martyred, and all England was disturbed.

[11] Anna imitates St. Sigebert; VII. Of the succession of King Anna and his familiarity with Foillan. Foillan, seeing that the prophecy of his brother Fursey concerning the disturbance of the kingdom had been fulfilled, feared also a disturbance of the ecclesiastical order and the om. B. desolation of his monastery, and therefore he was already deliberating on withdrawing from England; but because he placed his hope in him suam spem in Deo C. who said: In the world you shall have tribulation; but have confidence, I have overcome the world qui dixit-mundum om. C.; he felt that he had not hoped in God Domino C. in vain. For Anna ^f, a man of royal race and a lover of religion, succeeding to the kingdom of the East Angles, held the life of Sigebert as an example, so that he too om. C. clung to the mastership of Foillan and directed himself in all things by his counsel. Foillan honored the religious dignity of the king: the king honored the noble holiness of Foillan, and that the testimony of his faith might be plain, he, and by his example all the nobles of the English, adorned his om. B. monastery with more august buildings and gifts domiciliis C..

[12] he too is killed by Penda. VIII. That on the killing of Anna Foillan departed from England. As variable corr. instabilis B. as is the quality of the air hominum B., so variable is the quality of the time temporum B.. Under King Sigebert serenity smiled on the world Sub Sig. rege videbatur undique ser. B.: when he was killed, a sæva add. B. tempest bristled up pro inhor. temp. voces indistinctæ, sine sensu C.: under the reign of Anna, serenity was thought to have returned, but it was not lasting. For a violent whirlwind shook England, when the king of the Mercians, Penda, again [pro rediisse ser. rursum: posse possessione regni diutina frui. Sed commovens Angliam contra eum, rex Merciorum Penda exercitum duxit C.] defeated the East Angles in war, and slew vicit C. their king Anna. Then, the state of the kingdom being shaken, ecclesiastical religion too began to be shaken. Foillan igitur add. C., seeing that what he feared had come to pass, cast his thought upon the Lord, because he was in doubt whither to turn: and with the angel of great counsel inspiring him, his intention came out at this, that by the example of his brother Fursey he should carry out the Lord's precept: "When they persecute you in one city civitatem unam A., flee into another quia quo se-aliam om. C.."

[13] St. Foillan, ordained bishop at Rome, makes for Gaul. Having therefore Et communicato consilio C. shared his counsel with his brother Ultan prius Furseo A., and having taken him as a companion in his pilgrimage, leaving England, he sought expetunt B. first Rome, that, directed by the counsel om. B. of apostolic authority, they might seek also Gaul, already illuminated illuminatam B. by the preaching prædicationis A. of his brother Fursey. There presided over the apostolic see fidei B. at that time Martin ^g, who resisted the enemies of the true faith even to blood. Foillan, opening his heart to him, poured himself wholly into his heart. The pope, perceiving that Foillan was burning with the desire of preaching, consecrated him bishop and ei add. C. enjoined on him the office of preaching prædicationis B. Going out from Rome egressus C., Foillan and Ultan came to Gaul to seek Lagny, where their brother Fursey had founded a convent. There hearing that he had already died, they were sad indeed at his death; but om. C. they rejoiced at his eternal glory. From there to Péronne ^h, where they had heard that their brother was buried, they ran not so much with the foot as they flew with the soul, that the brothers might in person pay absolvant C. the just rites to their brother ut fratris sui B, C..

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER THREE.

St. Foillan preaches the gospel in Gaul.

St. Foillan comes into Gaul, which then flourished with many holy men. IX. That Foillan preached in Gaul Galliam A.. Foillan, carrying out the office of preaching enjoined on him by Pope Martin, traversed Gaul, and ac B. cultivated the hearts of his hearers with the mattock of the word. It was surely delightful at that time to dwell in Gaul Gallias delect. C., or to traverse it preaching, because through the valor of the Franks all things were at peace, or, what was greater, Gaul was filled with holy men; by whose zeal the Christian religion was everywhere om. C. fervent. Among whom were pre-eminent præeminebat B. præminebat C. Amandus of Elnone ^a and, not inferior vel et inferior B. to Amandus, Eligius of Noyon, Aubert Aubertus B. of Cambrai, Cunibert of Cologne, Theodard of Maastricht, under whom there was now growing up coalescebat C. Lambert Lambertus B. Lantbertus Chr. mart. C., the future om. B. martyr of Christ. To list all those who illuminated Gaul by the merit of holiness their multitude forbids eorum prob. C.. But how much Scotia Scotia C. and Ireland abounded quod superabundaverint B. in holy men is sufficiently apparent from this, that their pilgrimage prædicatio C. still sanctifies Gaul: of this pilgrimage the greatest cause is said to have been Duke Madelgarius ^b, also called Vincent, who, powerful in Francia, and, as they say ut dic. om. C., powerful also om. B, C. in Ireland, encouraged many to go abroad for Christ and supported them with his help quæ sequuntur in cod. C, pertinent ad solum S. Furseum.. There were many also of the female sex ^c, through whom the name of God was blessed in the world; who brought forth from the good ground of their heart, some the thirtyfold fruit of conjugal chastity, others the sixtyfold fruit of widowed continence, others the hundredfold fruit of virginal glory. Among all these there shone St. Gertrude of Nivelles Nivellensis B. like the moon among the lesser fires Cætera desunt B. ^d.

ANNOTATIONS.

What next follows in manuscript 18654 was copied, as we indicated before, both from the first Life (num. 4, 5 and 6) and from the second Life (from num. 12 to the end), with no other distinction interposed than that the writer of the third Life added titles, written in red letters. It has seemed good to add them all together here:

X. That St. Gertrude received Foillan (Life I num. 4).

XI. That wishing to return to Fosses to his brother Ultan, for the sake of love and consolation, he fell among robbers; and of the consolation which he addressed to the brethren (Life I num.5).

XII. How he received the crown of martyrdom (Life I num. 6).

XIII. Of the revelation of his body through a column of fire (Life II num.11).

FOURTH LIFE OF ST. FOILLAN

BY HILLINUS

from the Brussels apograph 8928.

Foillan, martyr in Belgium. (S.)

BHL Number: 3076

BY HILLINUS

Hillinus dedicates his work to Sigebert his master. His Ita Literulis Libet Insinuare Notatis Veraci Specie, quo nomine censear ipse. Si primos apices ex partibus octo retractes, Carminis Auctorem Noto. Tritures Operis Rem: Lex Et Veracis Infra Titulabitur Artis, Ordine primitiis de partibus hisce relatis: Fulget Opus, Sensus Sed Erit Nota Simplicis In Se. Cordis. Eo Nodos Oculis Bene Jecimus Istos, Quos leviter solvi cognoscas, lege priori.

[By these little letters thus marked it pleases me to intimate, in truthful guise, by what name I myself am to be reckoned. If you draw back the first tips from the eight parts, I mark the author of the poem. Thresh out the matter of the work: the law of a truthful art will also be entitled below, the first-fruits from these parts being brought back in order: the work shines, but the sense will be the mark of a heart simple in itself. Therefore we have well cast these knots before the eyes, which you may know are easily loosed, by the earlier law.]

PROLOGUE.

You under whose dictation the master's anger was gentle to me, And the rod ^b often drawn back from my spine; To whom nature first, then practice, gave of study, So that you, reading much, are strong in mind and pen; From these things on which you are bent, relaxed perhaps for an hour, To this brief work, Sigebert, I pray, give your leisure: To draw breath under such solicitude It will be right for you, apart from your accustomed cares. Nor will you lose time, for you will rise more ready To your serious things when the little letters have been read through. So the soldier, cherished by a modest rest, keener at his arms, Lays low the hostile lines as he advances; So one taking his path, recovering strength by pausing, Rises the swifter for going on the way begun. You had been accustomed (I well remember, you yourself recall) Amid various matters to inquire of me Whether anything of the life of Foillan the martyr, beyond What we read, was to be found in our book-chest: When you learned through me that nothing more was known there, at our Sloth in these matters you took offense. And since you read many things, and pondering store up many, We beg you to spare our sloth; Not to speak of how, drawn through a thousand affairs, A light * life harasses us with various cares: Say what glory remains in art, or what, I ask, is the fruit? Rare is the honor attaching to the studies of this art, And because the fruit of this art is called base, So much the more does art grow cool in our minds: Honor nourishes the arts, from which the ardor for learning comes, Of which glory is the principal fruit. If besides anyone becomes more capable in art itself Under discipline by his own energy, Though he try to explain it in polished words, What he rightly perceives he often cannot express in speaking. On which account if this age, delighting in mellifluous words, Less attracts anyone as a reader, Let what an unpolished art has fittingly gathered from various pages Yet be suited to be read, at least by its brevity. Leisure from biting care, levities of heart, Vain glory, softness of a wandering mind, Have made my intellect lose the habit of its accustomed study: Whence the labor in meditating remains the greater. Nor is it strange: a horn loses the habit of its former use When it lies idle and does not resound with its accustomed sound. What is less than right or more, let your solicitude Correct, that you may be the whole glory of my small notes.

ANNOTATIONS.

* brevis?

CHAPTER ONE.

The origin, homeland and education of St. Foillan. His brothers Fursey and Ultan. The marriage of their parents. The wondrous birth of St. Fursey. The parents flee to St. Brendan and are created kings. St. Foillan and his brothers leave the court.

St. Foillan Foillan, bishop and venerable martyr of God, Brings me matter worthy of writing. Gracious Spirit, breathe, I beseech, upon my beginnings, That strength may suffice our pen, And in telling to all that the general beginning Of salvation is the bosom of holy Church: Of this mother the womb, fruitful with progeny, conceiving Until the world shall be consummated, Will bring forth happy pledges to Christ the spouse, Whom she may destine as citizens of the ethereal court. This pious mother from the twice two parts of the world Gathers a people to be saved as her offspring. These she causes also to be adopted, and to be called heirs Of him whose members we are for this, with Christ as mediator; And while she bears the baptism of salvation to two peoples, She gladdens her figured spouse with new offspring. Exalting herself under the apostolic system, She is spread through the whole expanse of the lands. Her the saints raise up and adorn with shed blood, With garlands for merits by martyrdom. By her stand confessors strong with inward vigor; They praise her, go about her, and love her. To enter her bosom, filled with heavenly offspring, The virgin choir rejoicing continually dwells there, Holding forth, with gifts of the virtues, the splendid Insignia of virginity, bearing them immaculate. Citizens of holy Jerusalem we believe this * to be, Which will always be a dwelling of peace for the just. Examples of this belief are for us The just who have placed their hope in heaven. born of a noble race, piously and liberally educated, Among whom, by merits, soon from his boyish years Foillan shone forth in many indications; Who, sprung from noble birth, strove To ennoble his race through the pledge of faith. The care of his parent knew to hand him over with his brothers To be instructed in the little letters to be learned. The boy, formed in the very rudiments, Strives to go with an unstumbling foot of mind. He becomes a recruit from boyhood, growing too with Christ as his leader; By the steps of age he advances to the better. Of excellent disposition, while still in his earliest age, levity Put aside, he vows himself to the Church. A herald of the virtues conforming to the future life, He deserved to become so by heavenly gift. His serene countenance gives to know what he bears within, And the force of his eloquence proves the ways of his soul; And to the degree that he strives in many ways to surpass All his contemporaries in uprightness of manners, The bitter enemy of the human race prepares for him arguments For harming, devised in a thousand ways. But with the sign of the cross set against them the phantasms perish, Nor does the harmful cause take its effect. he was born in Ireland Enriched with this man Ireland rejoices together in Christ, Glad indeed of such a monitor of herself, Who, though she has borne very many upright men Bright with the light of doctrine, cherished this one the more. Happy that bosom, though girt by the vast sea, Though it be situated at the end of the western world, And saw not Christ, nor was illustrious With apostolic teachings: yet it has so shone forth, That it merits to beget so many, so bright, through whom

The offspring of the Catholic Church may spring forth. From there, holding the Scots ^a, it stretches as far as the Britons, An island confining itself in no ample space. The British tide also separates it from the world, And allows it not to be called a Gallic part. Into the North from the warm South pours itself A river notable for its springs and clear waters, Of which parts extend to the western Iberians, And part is closed by the Cantabrian Ocean ^b. where St. Celestine and others spread the faith. Pouring first the apostolic light upon peoples Twice blind with the darkness of unbelief, Pope Celestine ^c, the apostolic teacher, Restrained every error of worship by the winds. After him Bishop Patrick deserved to be for them The road of salvation, and a wondrous herald. To this one also, by command of the occupant of the apostolic see, Gregory, bright with the light of doctrine, The sacred Augustine, coming down to convert the English, Contributed that God is one. Compelling them to cease from vain superstition, He united them to Christ under the laver of faith. To these too he went beyond to the bordering regions, Whom * one faith to be cherished makes of one mind: For the Picts and Britons were brought together To bear the yoke of the Lord under the worship of faith, Whose posterity, begotten through the flesh, The holy bosom of the Church still nourishes. By this too salvation grew through doctrine for the Scots and Irish No less, and gave profit. For although they had been washed in the baptism of Christ, Doctrine enabled them to strengthen their unformed minds. Thence Ireland excels her allied lands in faith, And what she drew from apostolic teachings She scattered to the peoples, drawing them back from the shadows of death, Doubling her gain for Christ through a twofold mina. Whom, ordained bishop, St. Foillan imitated In which, excelling the long-lived and the eloquent By the pleasing eloquence of doctrine, Foillan, As the morning star by its light above all the stars, So stands out above all in word and merit: For through assiduous practice of divine doctrine His mind, cherished under gospel eloquence, Whatever spiritual grace suggested to it, Strove to share with all according to his measure, And many times the herald doubled * his talent, Heaping up abundant usuries for his Christ. And because he was of wondrous virtue and piety, He is compelled by the diligent judgment of his elders To take up the pontifical lot before all, For the further extending of the Church. Soon the bishop of the Hesbreni consecrated him, To bind and loose, to preach and teach. But of this gift divinely granted him He is free of ambition, nor does he lack reason. For made a bishop he is exceedingly pierced within, And gives himself to tears and very many prayers, Lest freely he take away the conferred gift His former life retained, the pontifical honor. And lest it creep in, or lest boasting injure him, The man of pure mind fears not moderately. Girded the more for this, in gaining souls Sweating, he seeks not the things that are his own; But struck with the zeal of heavenly love, He stands to the work of piety like a good herald; And his mind, knowing through the inner master To observe the time in pious eloquence, Forethinks that the word of life is to be unfolded, As his own spirit moves, ruling each one, And premeditating the grave and holy government of souls The bishop holds teachers of life as his companions, Through whom the dishes of the divine table may be carried To those who desire to be fed on the riches of the Lord. his brothers SS. Fursey and Ultan assisting him. Of these two were brothers from the same womb, Clear with the light of the same faith. The one Furceus, of whom we know a great deal, The other Ultan, also a magnificent man. Sustained by these, although he worthily bore The heavy weight of the honor, and ruled it as was fitting, By his own example the bishop, and by his salutary word, Became a pious pattern of salvation for countless ones. As the sun illuminates the whole world with its rays, So he drives out blind darkness from these parts, Through the true sun happily irradiating This zone, the darkness of unbelief being driven off. By these three, and with the pruning hook of the word too, is cultivated Especially the broad vineyard of their lord, That bearing grapes, by swallowing up the wild ones, it may store Spiritual wine in the divine pantry. It is worthwhile, what and of what sort the race of these men is, To bring by writing to your knowledge, And because on their account, though not yet born in the world, A thing quite wondrous and new took place. His mother for her clandestine marriage is sentenced to the fire; A son of a certain Irish prince ^d, beloved Of his father, and the hope of the father's household, Began to be the whole glory of his blood, and no virtue Was lacking to the young man of body and soul. This man, while as a recruit he seeks to be praised in his arms, Puts himself under the service of the king of the Scots. Him, for the energy he was found to show in warfare Much pleasing to the royal house, A virgin exceedingly comely, daughter of the king of the Scots, In the manner of girls began to love for herself. To her as she loved the young man responded with equal love. Yet that it might lie hidden, he so dissembles. Through certain persons in secret, however, they were bound to each other Unknown to her father by a lawful covenant. It was lawful, because God wished it so to be, Although it did not seem valid to the fathers. Equal love felt its effect under the will of the two; She submits to her husband, conceiving in her womb. So her swelling belly was the informer of this deed. Thence the father was sad, and the father's house itself. Why do I delay? The father himself, vehemently indignant, Ordered his daughter to be burned in the fire: While he wants vengeance, he does not examine the matter itself, Stern * beyond the human measure. but having prayed to God, she is freed by a miracle, So the furnace being kindled, she is sent for. At her presence the royal house gives forth groans. They come to look on, and the whole crowd says The father is inhuman, as he rages against his offspring. The king also is present, to order his child given over to the fire, Not sparing his anger, nor checking his rage. But here the sound of a vehement voice terrified The crowd present, thus approaching the father: "King, it said, do not be called thus a parricide. Examine the matter, forbear to burn your daughter. Let not man separate what by a sanctified covenant The counsel of the Lord appointed to be joined." While all together were stupefied in amazement of mind, The anger and fury of the father blazed the more. And scorning it to himself, reckoning it was a phantasm, He himself commands three pyres to be kindled. The daughter, terrified at the father's rage, trembling, Lies prostrate, praying and vowing vows to the Lord: "Highest power of God, by which, at the king's command, the furnace When kindled did no harm to the three boys, Rescue me, wretched, as you will, from these flames, Nor let my father's anger, I pray, be a cause of death to me; Or if a deserved punishment remains for me, those whom I vowed to you, At least the fruits of my womb, I beg you, protect. I vowed indeed when lately joined in marriage, Now also I vow at the moment of death." And while she was praying, from the dew of her tears A fountain (new thing) leaped from the moistened earth. Swelling up with its waters it flows into the furnaces themselves, Extinguishing the strong pyres as the fire falls. The king's brothers and servants being stupefied at these things, The daughter is rescued from her father's savage hands. From the people's mouth praise resounds to the Lord in pious odes At the pious signs of the saving prodigy. Not yet wholly checking his savage anger, the father Threateningly asks that his daughter depart from him. [and as a fugitive in Hesbren she bears St. Fursey, afterwards St. Foillan and St. Ultan,] The young man, thus rejoicing over his spouse's being saved, Knows that Christ is a sweet protection to the pious, Nor does he know what to do, but he too feared his father, Without whom he had been bound in lawful marriage. Turning this over for a long time, at length by the divine will He consulted Brendan his paternal uncle across the sea. He was his father's brother: he adorned the land of Hesbren With the office of bishop, and no less with merit: He, learning the matter, praises the heavenly decrees, And receives the outcasts with pious hospitality. Hence at the hour of her first childbirth the woman, knowing That a boy was born to her, glorifies the Lord: The name Fursey was given to the boy, one day to be Great with the Lord through the merit of faith. After him is born Foillan, the gracious boy, To be presented with garlands for merits by martyrdom: At this * boy too born to her the mother rejoices, Whom she calls Ultan, and gives thanks to God. whom St. Brendan gives over to the divine offices. How great an advance through them was to be in the world Began to appear by new indications; And because their infancy shone with wondrous acts, These he cherishes , these he nourishes, these * he loves, these he honors, And from the mother's vow and blessed desire The bishop gives them over to the divine offices. The boys grow used to being the sincere odor of Christ, And what they always are, this they wish to breathe forth: As a vessel displays the odor of what it first drank in, And is fragrant with the kind it once absorbed. The report of them went out to the neighboring lands, And the pious thing moved the heart of the maternal grandfather. For leading with him his brothers and faithful servants, He hastens to see these, a shipwreck being achieved, And adding the first signs to the new, and things heard to things seen, Which had shone forth to the peoples as exceedingly wondrous, He grows mild, sparing his daughter, believing his son-in-law too That no such thing is done without heavenly power. Soon he asks pardon for what he had done, and brings them back, And after himself gives them to have the right of his kingdom. Hence no long interval of time having passed, A messenger came to the young man that his father had died. He, as soon as he returned, took under himself his paternal realms, And holding two sceptres, thus ruled two kingdoms.

ANNOTATIONS.

* read hos

* quas?

* multiclabat cod.

* doubtful word

* Hoc?

* foves cod.

* hoc cod.

CHAPTER TWO.

St. Foillan's withdrawal into England. Sigebert, king of the East Angles, builds the monastery of Cnobheresburg. St. Sigebert's monastic life.

St. Foillan migrates into England Foillan, begotten of this father among brothers, Refused to be enriched with his ancestral kingdoms; For he resolved to merit kingdoms of greater price, Subjecting himself with all zeal to the Lord, And at length the clamor of the people coming to him, Unwilling to bear it, rather, to flee it. He deserved to learn beforehand, by an angelic warning, That he could not long remain in his native land. This matter is treated with his companions, with his gracious brothers, And the man obeys the will of the Lord. So Abraham, first patriarch, leaving his homeland, Obeyed as a stranger the divine command. Then setting before himself the naked cross to be carried, Naked now he loves to become a poor man of Christ.

The matter being arranged, the ship being duly prepared, Bound to Foillan by a steadfast resolve, A good many, freely leaving the places they had built, Go up on the timbers of the stern with their companions, The three brothers, and others filled with equal probity, Exiles, not without reason, at the Lord's command. O land long to be remembered through the age of life, In which for his merit he pleased the Lord; Which, for a great harvest to be gathered by many a reaper, Seeing that it lies ample in its spread-out spaces, Sends reapers, by whom granaries may take in the fruits, That may heap up the true feasts of life. O ship, slip through the straits with safe sails, Fearing no shipwreck with this weight. When you are carried across the sea driven by favorable winds, All Gaul is enriched with your treasures. Then for the sake of gain the English land pleases them, The gain by which they may save wretched souls. to the eastern king Sigebert, As Bede ^a relates, and as is found in the histories, England is divided into four parts; And the part called the East Angles Obeyed your sceptre, King Sigebert ^b. This man, baptized, and at the same time a religious man, Had compelled those whom he ruled to believe, And to be happily signed in the cross of Christ, By establishing churches in his kingdom. He rejoices to have received the men mentioned, That through them he may provide for holy Church. While under him they rejoice to serve in the blessed warfare, Drawing each one to their own pattern, Without delay, by constant word and salutary persuasion, The hearts of the barbarian people being subdued, The title taken from the name of Christ is fitted To be ascribed * to a good many in the doctrines of the faith. and with his help he erects a monastery, Behold, a place is given them for building a church, Near the sea, planted with trees, Where stood the fort called by the name of Cnoberisburc, From which the king was safer in his homeland. The place soon felt the first-fruits of the converted people, Both in gifts and in zeal for the work, And the structure of the whole church is shortly completed According to the people's vow, God so bringing it about. A good many whom the abundance of human things had enriched, Their mammon foul with the stain of sin, Redeeming the times of a neglected life, Shut themselves * with their property within the hedges of the Church. Here the pious form of religion for some years Shone and flourished by the merits of these men. So while with pious mind he strove toward things ahead, A small place pleased Ultan, Where he might lead a contemplative life And be free for God, confining himself in a hermitage ^c. over which he presides. Hence so strongly, by reason of the two brothers, Flourished the summit of holy Church in these parts, That the king, taking on himself as a suppliant the monk's tonsure, Cast away his accustomed sword of warfare, And, made a soldier of Christ, subjected himself to him Who gives a kingdom without end to his servants. And because Foillan was seen to be the more skillful there, The public charge of the place fell to him to protect. So this chosen and skillful guardian of the flock Opens to them the pastures of the heavenly life. No carelessness of a wavering mind presses him, Nor does it delay him sluggish from useful things. So in his wisdom he takes care of the things within, that outside He may dispose all things in the just way for each. Reverence is ever kept for him by the whole Assembly under him with good love of heart. For so great a grace suffuses the blessed man That the flock fears, loves and honors him. But Galbanus and Disculfus are sharers Of the whole care, and pious companions.

ANNOTATIONS.

* ascriptis?

* Se claudunt?

CHAPTER THREE.

St. Fursey's journey into Gaul. The beginnings of the convent of Lagny. King Penda brings war on the East Angles. The murder of King Anna. St. Foillan makes for Rome.

St. Fursey founds the convent of Lagny in Gaul. Afterwards Fursey, following the sacred footsteps Of Ultan, stayed with him, loving the hermitage. When with him, deprived of all care of the world, He resolved to be free for God with his whole heart, A spiritual vision showed him from heaven That his homeland would soon be troubled by the sword, Alas * for grief! and that great danger would everywhere Come upon the monasteries lately built *. When as though prophesying he had disclosed this to Foillan, By the counsel of the brothers he consulted the Lord, At whose prompting, carried across the sea with a few, With pious vow he sought the Gallic realms. Him the excellent king Clovis soon receiving As was fitting, began to love so great a man: To whom he also grants, in the village * named Lagny, To lay the foundations of a sacred convent. Him also the patrician, and second from the king, Archenaldus ^a, loving, and venerating as a father, Treated worthily, and subjected himself to him As a man desirous of all justice. He, at Fursey's urging, in a not unknown small place, Had built a church at his own expense. The place's name is Péronne, where the Somme ^b makes A marsh, and from it forms a safe spot. King Penda seizing East Anglia and Sigebert being killed, What more? After the departure of the aforesaid Fursey The English soon endured a grievous plague. For a savage king, called by the name of Penda, Scorning to be a son of pious Church, Accustomed to dominate the fourth part of the English, Was trying to enlarge his peoples: And already two kings subject to Christ's religion He had conquered with the pestilent sword. Yet this did not suffice him as he rushed about everywhere; But that a broad empire might be broader, He fell upon the harmless East Angles, Whom he knew to serve pious Church. They, subdued by great terror, began To ask with one counsel what they should do. At length, the leading men being disturbed and stupefied, It pleased the people gathered together To beg King Sigebert, long since converted, To take up arms now for his homeland: Who was living under Foillan ^c in a sacred order, To whom was the care of the affairs of the brethren of the church. Him, as he stood against them, and refused to go out, They soon drag to the wars, and supply him with arms. But the soldier of Christ, unwilling to be a fighter any longer, Changing not his habit, obeys them in tears, And, with bare hand, a rod only being taken up, He casts himself as a suppliant wholly on the Lord. By God's permission, King Sigebert being slain, A most terrible slaughter falls on the whole people. Egric is killed, whom King Sigebert had caused To rule in his stead over his dominion. St. Foillan weeps for the slaughter of the people, After these Anna too took up the sceptre to protect it, And subject to God he was washed in the laver. Yet he fled, thrust from the kingdom he had gained, Which was plainly done by the judgment of the Lord. Hence a band of pirates rushed in to plunder, Ready, violating the place and recklessly spoiling it. And a pious throng of brethren with the people being dragged off, The father was almost led into wretched exile, Had not rumor persuaded the wicked race to hasten flight, And shown the people's delay to be evil, Which, growing by conjectures, said there was at hand The attack of King Anna and his soldiery. So the divine piety provided for the safety of the excellent father At so critical a moment of time. After these disasters Foillan, having spoken with his brother Ultan, weeps that such men have fallen. That the affairs of the church, and at the same time of the beloved region, Should be so wasted, he grieves as though he were the cause: That a good many are taken captive ^d moves him to pity, For whom the man himself is willing to give his life; If it could be, he would wish to be dissolved from the body, And so to live perpetually with the Lord. Since he knows that each is put off to a hidden time, May God himself, he says, direct the steps of the heart. And may he grant me to complete the number of my * days, May he so grant that he may reckon me among his members and, an angel warning him, he goes to Rome with his companions. After this sorrow, lament and excessive grief An angelic address soothes the bishop: "Simple man, rarely has the judgment of the Lord Been able to be disclosed to man, in view of its own reason. On the present matter, as to a light breeze passing, Let it suffice to have given way to your tears. With mind, hand, tongue, press on with divine uses, Yield the place, you will be a cause of salvation to many. And though the time be short, there still remains for you a great Work of usefulness, exercising your course. To whose commands you have clung with vehement desire, Follow your Christ to the end." The sadness of his mind being wiped away by so great a solace, The man's spirit began to return to him; He rejoices that he has merited so great a solace, Not ceasing to pour forth vows to God in his soul. And so proving that what his brother Fursey had, like a prophet, Foretold by heavenly will was coming to pass, Warned from heaven to avoid excessive tumults, He wishes here to yield his hateful homeland, And leading away with him the monks of the place, ransomed By way of a price, he deserted the small place. Now a hired ship, loaded with rare books, And sacred vestments, and pious pledges, Carries off the brothers with a few from those very bounds, God being the arranger in this counsel. Thence, the Pyrenean ^e hills overcome on foot, While through a long route they traverse vast trackless places, They enter Rome, for so long now desired, To pay gifts and prayers to the places for their vows. And they beg the saints, where their monuments rest, That through them there may be access for worthy prayers.

ANNOTATIONS.

of postponement he drew out further, the wretch suddenly breathed out his spirit Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 277 and 281.. The author of the Miracles of St. Fursey names Erchinoald the Lord's chosen and blessed Acta SS., tom. II of January, pag. 42 et seq. Likewise Fredegar calls him patient and full of goodness, wise, cautious, humble and kind toward priests, a pursuer of peace, pleasing to God Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules, tom. II, pag. 445.. These praises are repeated by the Anonymous of Saint-Denis in the Deeds of King Dagobert Ibid., pag. 594. and by Aimoin Ibid., tom. III, pag. 136.. One reads also in the Deeds of the abbots of Fontenelle Mon. Germ. hist., Scriptt., tom. II, pag. 272.: Now the prefect Erchinoald, mayor of the royal palace, was distinguished in goodness and most lavish in almsgiving. This variety of opinions perhaps arose from the fact that Erchinoald in some places showed himself pious and munificent toward the poor and the churches, and in others avaricious and careless of eternal salvation. For the rest, the same befell Ebroin, who slaughtered some of the holy bishops, and is stated to have held others joined to him in friendship Cf. Acta SS., tom. I of Oct., p. 382, 383, 392, 423, et seqq. 470 et seq., 476..

* cod. proch

* cod. constrictis

* invito cod.

* let vitæ be understood.

CHAPTER FOUR.

St. Foillan is ordered by Pope Martin to make for Gaul. He knows his future fate. He announces the gospel in Gaul. At Nivelles he is received as a guest by St. Gertrude.

At St. Martin's order, St. Foillan, foreknowing his martyrdom, makes for Gaul, He who then presided over the pontifical see at Rome, Martin, began to love such men, And greatly wonders at the system of religion Which he learned from them in a good many discourses. The secret of a sincere heart Foillan entrusted to him, Given over to him with his whole soul. Searching into his life and his order, the pope, Not moderately glad, honors him: And, as promoted to the pontifical lot, Ordered him to fulfill the office enjoined, To press on with what he had begun, and to mark with the character of faith Unknown nations, and those empty of faith. Hence a heavenly vision, when he was relaxed in sweet sleep, Admonished him from heaven of many things. First he is instructed not to proceed farther, But to return to the Gauls, empty of God's law; And since he must gain the worthy fruit of his sweat, He is assured of it there. Afterwards also what small place should fall to him to be cherished, The man merits to know, with its name marked: And the place of martyrdom, and the tomb of his earth, The gracious piety of God designates by name ^a. Rejoicing because his vows and prayers were able to merit Being admitted to the divine ear, He inscribes the mystic oracles on the tablets of his heart, Rejoicing with cheerful hope in the goodness of God. Then, having gone round * the churches with humble breast, With knees bent and prayers given, The desired leave for the path is asked of the saints. he goes to Lagny and Péronne, Hence through the permitted route he takes up his step, And with the gospel book gives many seasonings Of the heavenly life in each of the places. Finally entering according to his wish the kingdom of the Franks, Where he thinks his brother Fursey to be, He arrives at the recently built Lagny. There he learned that his brother had died. Hastening from here also to reach the estate of Péronne, He visits the bones of his aforesaid brother. Where with his brother Ultan grieving at his brother's death, He groaned with poured-out tears. But certain from this that Fursey lives to his Christ, He moderates his funeral lament and groaning. Archenaldus there, while the wealthy man provides For the advantage and profit of his soul, Conferred on the sacred church very many gifts To be kept always for the use of the brethren; And that the celebrated place might be ever more celebrated, He resolved to lay Fursey ^b there after his death. For no long time, the man mentioned compelling him, The gentle man lived in that small place. Untiring there, with the nectar of the heavenly word He waters the squalid hearts of the neighboring people, And according to the measure of his life he is treated with great honor, And a countless crowd often visits him. and from there to Nivelles, But afterwards, causes intervening, he went out From these bounds, his brother following his steps, Whether because he avoids empty and fleeting honor, Or because he knows that a new patrician ^c has come in, Or because from on high there arises a not futile Counsel of mind that was clear to him; And as if gathering them to the folds under one shepherd, He opens to them pastures on the fertile hills. He desires true salvation to grow as much for all as for himself. Thence he piously presided over countless small places; He knew the sentence of the salutary book; And because the earthly dwelling is not stable, Thence the things to come are searched out from his acts, Where he knows there is a state that will remain without end. With a good many of these begotten to Christ by the teaching of faith, Gaul deserved to know who he was to them. So the pious virgin, the chaste, receives the pious man, the chaste, Happy Gertrude, in her hospitality. She was noble, she had freely dedicated herself to Christ, The written bond of the veil being placed on her head, And Pepin was her father's name, and her mother's Itta, a light of pious life and of the Church. where St. Gertrude, She, for the praiseworthy life which she perceives in her guest, Ever clings to him in the hope of improving. Him from a pious heart more and more the pious virgin Loves, often refreshed with eternal food; For a living fountain flowing from his discourses Feeds the heart of the thirsty with sweet waters of life, And the constancy of the virginal mind, watching in pious studies, Languishes with love of her spouse, And she seeks not to be nobler than her companions, Burning rather to enjoy the nobility of faith. And of mingling herself with the perishing world She was the more afraid, because she was high-born: She scorned to trust herself to fleshly nobility, In which man prides himself with presumptuous heart. For she wishes to appear less than all her contemporaries, Lest vain glory stain her pure state. So humble, her vices driven off with freedom, The virgin becomes free under her own judgment; And in the house of the Lord she so merited to be multiplied With eternal fruits as an olive tree with its own. The man, a friend of simplicity, from the keenness of his mind Rejoicing that the virginal heart strains upward, At fixed times and suitable hours Resolved to set forth to her the doctrines of life. taught by him, He inculcates that God is three, and yet one, Pious hope, highest salvation, life, everlasting glory. Then he teaches that the strong vigor of faith is to be retained, By which he who strengthens himself puts to flight all harmful things; And always to rejoice in the hope of good things to come, Which whoever retains dwells in mind in heaven. Afterwards he discloses that love is strong as death, Through which man's heart is joined ever to God. He tells her also that there are eight things by which she can Be blessed, which Christ shows and enumerates, And, the ten commandments being inserted, he compels the virginal Mind to burn with love of the God on high. He urges that heart and flesh should exult in the living God. Nor should the head be made fat with evil oil. Because the renowned virgin advances by the bishop's word, She honors him; he becomes as it were a guide to the eternal homeland. She commits her inner self to God with her whole breast, And counts as nothing whatever shines in the world. she lives most holily, She cherishes her mind with doctrines, and for herself Prepares from them a spiritual table, so refreshing her soul. Twice-dyed scarlet, the bands of a mitre, fine linen, The pomp of soft clothing, neatly dressed hair, Cannot add beauty to the appearance of the virgin Who is adorned with the appearance of an angelic girdle. A virginal mind, refusing to gird herself with soft Ornament or feminine finery, Shuns precious clothing as a ruin, Having taken a hair shirt to her tender limbs. Her skin, hardened by very frequent bending of the knees, Testifies how much she has been poured out toward the Lord. With gifts of the virtues she prepares herself by gracious acts: To the very * poor her hand is generous, She prays, she fasts, and labors to please Christ, And exercises her talent in pious studies. She crucifies her flesh with its vices by keeping vigil, And makes her heart the house of the virtues. With sincere breast the most chaste virgin keeps, As she vowed, the cloisters of holy chastity. With bright light she desires to meet Christ, In countenance * unlike the foolish virgins. The virgin shines like a gem in refined gold, Made a daughter of Sion by outstanding merits. And she was a squared stone in the high mountains Of justice * set in, which God himself rules. The most chaste woman is deservedly delivered, in Christ, to the chaste Man, to be instructed in mellifluous doctrine. To so great a watchful one from heaven to commit yourself, virgin, Discuss diligently with him what you are to do. [and she deals with St. Foillan no differently from the Mother of God with St. John.] Here * the mother of the Lord had been committed to John, And the virgin subjected to virginal offices: I judge him equal in part to the merits of John, Since with him there fell to him an equal glory of office. He indeed lived chastely, under the guardianship of Mary, Who as mother remained the virgin she had been before: So too Gertrude, who by her gracious manners brought forth, Though she be a virgin, pledges pleasing to God. He was a virgin beloved of Christ the master, This man also lived chastely, and pleased God. The apostle pours out by mouth the word of the Lord to the world, So the apostolic man brought forth the work of the mouth. One of them suffered the exile of Patmos, The other of his own accord gave himself to exile from these. The one wrote the very many mysteries he saw; But the other read them not unprofitably. What you sow, pious virgin, with the gracious waves of tears, Gladdened you will reap, gladdened you will gather. You will be enriched with hundredfold fruit in paradise: Virginity claims this figured number. Royal purple is the possession of virginity; He who clothes himself with it is brighter than the rest. Virginity therefore is held to be the treasure of Christ, Whose highest gift also we believe this to be. This is the integrity which, whose breasts it strengthens, It carries them, pure, to the angelic life.

ANNOTATIONS.

* regi ratis cod.

* read Ipsis

* perhaps Multum

* perhaps Muris

* perhaps Sic

CHAPTER FIVE.

St. Gertrude gives St. Foillan the estate of Fosses. The convent of Fosses. Its first abbot St. Ultan.

On the estate of Fosses given him by St. Gertrude, At last under so great a master of the virtues the virgin, Passing to the mountain, wholly longing for the heavens, Began to carry out a plan for increasing the glory Of Christ's churches, by which she might retain him; Hence, having consulted her blessed mother Ituberga, Whose pious mind was desiring this same thing, Of her own accord Gertrude the virgin, as a firm pledge of love, Holds out a gift to the excellent man. The natives have established the name Fosses for the place, Such a name as the place's situation bears for itself. He accepts it, asking with vows that the place itself May, being fertile, beget fruit in heaven. What the usefulness in the gift might be, a very great will To know came upon the man, and he arranged to go. After this matter became known, the most placid virgin Gertrude approves it with a glad soul. Then he says farewell to those whom he had strengthened in Christ, To the people with the clergy, and the virginal choir, And takes with him a few men for the time being To be companions of the path and guides. They go, and the greater part of the day being spent, A small place girded with hills is sighted: Where with thistles, with woods, with brambles and thickets A village was enclosed, with well-watered springs; Where the way led through wooded valleys, Beneath which meadows are watered by continual streams. Not a large stream flows from here, called Bebrona, Below which the Sambre increases its bulk with its waters; And the stony field yielded rare fruits, For a very rare care of oxen tilled the field. Lodging is sought, then what is to be prepared is prepared; In the stable fodder is given to the horses that were put there. As custom has it, after supper a hymn is said; Then the rest prepared cherishes the weary bodies. Hence rising at the cock-crow, and knocking at the heavens With secret prayer, he becomes a victim to the Lord, For whom surely there is no holocaust richer Than a contrite heart, mild, strong in faith. St. Foillan builds a hospice and a church, And now at midday, the praise of the Mass being carried out, And the Psalter's pious chants being finished, The holy man, led through the surrounding places, By measuring the place, builds a hospice, Where all wanderers, or the needy, or weary pilgrims Might gather, and might take food. He himself knew that Christ was pious with the poor, Through whom he drew him to this very hospice. And the place being built, and with a glad column of brethren as well, Whose service might be pleasing to the Lord, He dedicates the built church to Peter, to whom Christ Gave the right of loosing and of binding, Whom the divine word calls a rock, upon which Rests the weight of the starry Church. The bishop instituted the life of monks to be held, And what was necessary he himself brought to the brethren. And treasure and property having been contributed to the honorable place, He makes them the common goods of holy Church. Hence the assembly of brethren takes food, and clothing too, Applying itself to Christ with sleepless zeal. Hence the woods being uprooted, for an agreed wage of labor, That the land may be fruitful, many an inhabitant ploughs. The fields being thus vigorously tilled for human uses, Soon the multiplied crop brings forth fruits. over which he places Ultan. At the exhortation of the virgin after this, and her very great entreaty, Arranging * holily he prepares the affairs of the Church. To his brother Ultan he entrusts the care of the gracious flock, Whose life becomes the rule for the new small place. He had resolved to lead a contemplative life for himself, Wishing to have a secret place alone; But coming, at a figured warning, with his blessed brother, He feeds the sheep of the Lord with the heavenly word. The matter being thus arranged, the bishop with the sacred virgin Is free in heart for God all night and day. You might have seen two companions from virtue to virtue Rising through the strength of the mind, And as though they were not of the world, they strive so to live In the world, the handmaid flesh long since being tamed. An example of all religion to all, They shoot the heart upward, to see the Lord.

* Disponsens cod.

CHAPTER SIX.

St. Foillan goes to see the monks of Fosses. He passes through the convent of Hautmont. He is slaughtered with his companions near Seneffe. His slayers will pay eternal penalties.

St. Foillan, setting out for Fosses on the 30th day of October, Behold, the next-to-last light of the month of October had shone, And Scorpio had drawn down the plunging sun: When the father, pondering what belong to the inner man, Presents himself in tears to the virginal eyes, Declaring that he wishes to see the brethren placed far off, Whom he had advanced by his accustomed word. After he asks that this be permitted him, he does not cease From weeping; she, her soul soon moved concerning him, Both because he had been a burden to no one, and because by him The place itself seemed the worthier; So her pious mind neither wished nor was able to resist What the gracious bishop put forward to be done. But giving assent she asked him with the brethren To delay nothing there, but to return to her. Hence too he invokes a road of peace and salvation, And fixes a certain time for his return. And then the pious guest speaks to the spiritual flock, Weeping and praying all to be mindful of him. Alas! the mild man seemed by his tears to foretell To all a journey without return. For he acted as though he were soon to be dissolved, Having a mind ever anxious about the end. Behold, with farewells said and the brethren blessed, The office of the Mass worthily completed, Carried on a horse he goes, and a few accompany the man, To stand by him in gentle service. He plans to see the assembly of the brethren * at Fosses, Whether the small place flourishes within and without. he passes through the house of St. Vincent, But yet he says he wishes first to enjoy the discourse Of the blessed and very lofty man Madelgarius, Who had the surname Vincent, and he shone Then in the mirror of a bright merit of name. Whom each, by his turn, the throng of either sex Soothed often with salutary words, That, as if converted through the doctrines of life, bearing Fruits in heaven, he might gather them in the Lord. That the Scots or Irish came to us, Of this he, as the matter has been plain, was the greatest cause. For a man of great fame known in the equestrian art, Renowned for the nobility of his stock, For his manly energy to the king of the Franks Renowned * above his servants and princes, A prince placed over the western Irish ^a, He gave laws of peace to the neighboring peoples. Hence the duke, returning with the praise of a magnificent trophy, A good augury from heaven favoring, Led out a good many with him, and cherished them with goods, By whose help all Gaul grew in faith. His wife Gualdedrudis was his helper, And * cherishing the needy and drawing them to hospitality. This Madelgarius, a precious soldier of the Lord, Preserving his vow and purpose By which he lived holily, drew back very many from there From the ancient manners of old savagery. who with a good many other saints spread the faith in this region. There many were scattering the seeds of life, Quite often coming together from various places, Etto ^b, Ghislain, and the kindly bishop Amandus, Eloquius, endowed with an angelic life, Ausbert of Rouen, great for his merits, Given over to pious exile at Hautmont; Here Theodard from Maastricht and from Cambrai Aubert, the splendid * staff of the Church; And Eligius, who for the probity of his pious life Presided over the holy Church at Noyon, Foillan the bishop, made a happy exile, Gertrude the virgin, a shining gem, and among these Gualdetrudis and Aldegundis of Maubeuge, And those whom I cannot enclose in number: Striving to add hundredfold, thirtyfold Or doubled fruits to the starry heaps. O this time foreordained, but blessed by the Lord, Holy, sweet, salutary! In which the Gauls are wholly restored to the spiritual law, Their old folly cast away, Who after the disasters of the Huns raging everywhere, Alas for grief! the churches overturned from the foundation, So many gracious heralds having been sent to us together, Were restored to the Catholic faith. St. Foillan in a pleasant place of the Charbonnière Forest Foillan the bishop, entering the forest of Charbonnière, While he wishes to go on the way begun, Finding a level ground once fenced all round with shrubs, Notes it to be a beautiful place. He therefore at once takes back the loose rein for himself, And dismounts, intending a brief rest. All the neighbors sent out shepherds of their flocks To this place, as was the old custom here. In the space of which, so bright and so comely, The level pastures swelled with every flock. In the middle a mound had stood, moderately high, Where a wood had been placed as a theatre: From whose watchtower each discerned all the places, Recognizing his own flock of cattle. There the boys had been accustomed to exercise their games, Coming together from the villages, And the songs of the shepherds to resound with their muses, And to weave their things of gathered lime-bark; And at the same time, the fruits of the woods being brought, The whole crowd seated walled the said stadium. Nearby there flowed a most clear stream of a spring. A little gracious channel was formed, From which there was a sweet drink for the shepherds themselves, With whom also the thirst of the cattle was taken away from the heat: Which the inhabitant calls the Fountain of St. Foillan ^c, Because the weary man of the Lord rested there. near Seneffe he is led off the road by robbers. The sacred man sees certain men passing through the same path From an estate by name Sonephia, Whom, to inquire of the path, he waits for, pausing: The sun was setting, and evening was near. Behold, greeting given and received, the pious bishop Asks first where the path begun leads. Afterwards he takes care himself to know what name This place holds, level to view and comely in appearance. This way, they report, leads to the estate of Sonephia, This place is called Ampolines by the natives: And this stopping-place is thought of by a worthy name, For the ever-thriving ring of this is in it. As he perceives the name long since intimated to him from heaven, He knows that his martyrdom is near. The flesh feared the sudden torment of martyrdom; But what the flesh feared, this the spirit willed. And since the last day of life is hidden from all, And Christ himself warns each to be watchful for himself; For the observance of this hour the vigilance of the bishop Was attentive, as if death were imminent. This his watchful soul, fervent, and never relaxed,

Halted in the small place now known by name. And though he burns with desire to live to Christ, He is a little troubled, yet not crushed. He is silent, and does not reveal the cause to his companions, But with the zeal of his heart is fixed on the Lord. With vows he asks that Christ be his strength in adversities, Christ the hope, head and throne of the saints. Behold, the men, various discourses having been held there, Their heart now already conceiving a new deceit, Pretend to lead the bishop, who was preparing to go, To a lodging placed not far off to the left. It was night, and, as if for shortening the path, They traverse the trackless wilds through hiding places. Afterwards, a moderate interval of the night being spent, When as if astray they were going through trackless places, Turning aside more briefly through the short cuts of a valley, They come together under the mean roofs of shepherds. Having exhorted his companions to martyrdom, The kindly herald summons the heaven-dwellers by prayers, And asks the choir of the saints for help. Through the whole night he runs down the times of the night in psalms, Anxious for the end, and fearing for his companions. He speaks also to his comrades, fearful of the last end, Giving them solace with sweet addresses: "Be steadfast toward all dangers, brethren; Let not the penalty of the frail flesh trouble men. Shedders of human blood and proud men, Who have no care for the fear of the highest Lord, Destroy bodies, they cannot destroy souls: For it lives to Christ when the flesh itself falls. A law is fixed for creatures under the Creator's right, From which the very term of one's being cannot slip away. And though death may seem to the living empty of goods, It ever becomes good to the good, though it be bitter to the wicked: The constant inconstancy of the human lot has given That the useful right of death is always at hand to the pious. Far be it that the strong be terrified by the dread of death: From where it is established that we are born, from there too that we die: But constancy of mind will make the lot * of death More readily a way to life for us. Before the judgment seat of Christ after all things We shall stand, that the covered things of the heart may be made open, And that a generous reward may be worthily given to each By the weight of the hidden judgment. Brethren, let us hold in our hearts inwardly, And let the spirit itself be strengthened by the pious God; Nor let the efforts of the wicked move us, whose Heart changes friendship into avarice: For by whatever death just men are dissolved, They will find Christ, a sweet refreshment. The suffering which passes in a moment will compel us To live to Christ in the eternal homeland." he is slaughtered with them by wicked men. These things being barely finished, the enemy, harmful to himself, rushes in, Stretching out his sword against the bishop's face: And the neck of the sacred head being cut through, lying down Upon the shed blood, the bishop dies to the Lord. Here too, this man's accomplices burning with the sword *, His companions lie cut down by a like death. The bishop, by habit (a thing wondrous to relate), What ways he had living, showed dead. For frequently returning thanks to God after the slaughter, He terrified the breasts of the daring executioners. Soon therefore, lest he make known the bitter case, That the crime committed might thus become open, Fearing in the deed the rumors of the crowd more Than the right of judgment of the ethereal judge, They assail him again, as if he lived, as he lay on the ground, And rush again at the bishop's throat. But the rage of the crime by no means suffices them By which they destroyed him once, they stab him a second time. O exceedingly mad presumption of so great a fury, A thing too exceedingly foul in human hearts: To tear apart with iron the bloodless flesh of the martyr, Whom death had long since made cold. Woe to you wretches, to be marked by the novelty of your crimes, Made diabolical members by this fault. When you wish to restrain the gracious tongue of the martyr, Through the swords you bear the burden of a double crime. Violating also the holy right of hospitality, While you draw off the innocent with signs of peace, You will take penalties with Judas in a malign lot, To be shut in the prison * of the terrible pit. Then the sacred body having been carried down into a dense cave, Covered with branches and light leaves, The garments and various ornaments having been seized for themselves, The avaricious enemy scatters, leading off the horses. From what he thinks is gain, he knows not that loss grows for him, And he is enriched more with crime than with spoils. He was led into heaven by angels. The holy athlete * to be set in paradise The angelic choirs with Michael lead; And he who merited to be cut twice by the savage sword, Soon has the laurel of martyrdom doubled for him. Who *, since a judicial seat in heaven falls to him, The apostolic assembly rejoices in this companion. Him also the pious glory of the truth-telling prophets Burns to glorify with its gladness. To him too gives a place the bright confession of the pious, Who by shed blood pleased God. He clings also to the confessors of the eternal court, His state is now where God is the true light. Here too above the integrity of the virginal band He exults, joining himself to the pure choir; And happy he merited to be blessed on every side, A citizen joined to the angelic citizens. His slayers will pay the penalty in hell. O crime to be detested and head of the vices, Avarice, ever the more grievously inborn! Which, a bosom of envy, and the lap of greed, drinks all things Into itself by devouring, and yet thirsts from it. Which the whole race of wicked men follows, And it chokes its own soul with so many vices. From the human senses there perishes thereby the glory of reason, And it comes about that the image of God is not the image of God. So is born to the author of death the offspring of perdition, Laid up under eternal darkness. Ah! * why did you thus make yourself a sharer of a wretched begetting, Robber, by killing a just man? Why have you, wretch, submitted yourself to so great a crime? Behold, the plunder perishes, does the crime then flee? You will be able to lose the goods, do you believe the crime can lose you? The twin guilt remains, wretch, for you when you are lost. You with the sacrilegious, with murderers, the ever avaricious, Hell itself will burn with its flames. But pious men will be presented with an eternal reward. But the firm constancy of the pious, a heavenly gift, Ever drawing the virtues with it as comrades, Which faith, hope and love burn to serve, And the steps of the virtues, hastening with these as leaders; The lofty house of this, propped by these columns, Firm in its strength for perpetual time, On no side of itself can slip in any whirlwind, Its conspicuous top fixed against missiles; From which it sees Christ standing, and guarding the saints Who seek the kingdom by votive martyrdom; In whose sight a venerable gift is wept, Souls of the saints, allies to the heaven-born, Among which it offers the soul taken from the precious soldier, Christ, heavenly king, to your eyes. A golden crown pressed on circles his head with a sacred sign, Whose peak bears a shining stone: By which, since you are enclosed in the starry court, pious martyr, Obtain, I beg, that we may live to the Lord.

ANNOTATIONS.

* fratrem cod.

* for Charus?

* perhaps Usque

* nititus cod.

* cod. fortem.

* gladios cod.

* cod. Parcere

* cod. Alletam

* perhaps Cui

* Vach cod.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

The murder of St. Foillan is revealed through a vision to St. Ultan. The grief of St. Gertrude. St. Foillan lies unburied. The finding of his body.

St. Gertrude through St. Ultan This is a glad thing: no lament sounds from the bishop, The funeral is attended with no obsequies; But although they lie hidden in a mean pit, the angelic lords, Psalming around, guard the bodies, And for the shed sacrosanct blood of the just The small place is made celebrated by wondrous prodigies. Why do I delay * with many words? As we said, these things being thus done, The time of the agreed return passed. But after one and another, and likewise the course Of many days goes by, into a span of time, The long delay of the holy priest not returning Makes the heart of sacred Gertrude groan: Anxious, what is she to do? where is the virgin to seek her father? Foreboding enough that the delay produces some new thing, She is at a loss, and inwardly, when the weight of cares Presses her feeling too hard, doubtful what to do, She swiftly directs legates to the aforesaid holy abbot Of the church of Fosses; And the road finished, the reason for their coming disclosed, Ultan is loosed into sudden tears. When reason returned, the grief a little removed, He restrained himself, and kindly says to them: "When standing at the altar I serve the Almighty, Offering to God, by custom, with heart and hand, I saw a snowy dove flying before my face, Whose wings (a new thing) were bloody. Simplicity is thus shown through the bird: the blood I judge to signify a pious martyrdom. How or when the thing happened, or where, let the virgin Seek from the Lord by the diligence of prayers." informed of his martyrdom, she learns from an Angel So the legates returning, and having related The signs which the mild man had disclosed to them, The anxious virgin was in amazement of mind, Who was already lamenting him as if a brother had suffered. Soon as if bereaved of a pious father, or widowed of a husband, She is troubled, mourns, groans and grieves. As the honor of reason restored her accustomed sense, She resolved to seek from the Lord what lay hidden. For on this matter with the clergy and the virgins She soon entered, fervent, on a certain plan, To explore the new case through pious fasts To be proclaimed for three days to the pious people. People, clergy, virgin ask with tears, prayer, vow That God would make known the bishop's fate. Nor in vain is Christ's door knocked at with prayers, And with tears of the clergy, the virgin and the people. For the morning hymns being said there appeared An angel to her praying at the time of dawn. While, wondering at the bright appearance of his countenance And his chaste face, the virgin is stupefied with fearful heart, A gentle voice sounded: "He whom you seek, virgin, has received At the end of his course the rewards of martyrdom." The pious virgin learns also these things greater than her wish, The finger of the heaven-dweller truly stretched out: A fiery light was shown under the appearance of a column, Marking where the bodies to be found lie hidden. where St. Foillan lies, whose virtues the dove figures, The virgin with a great throng of either sex

Burns to go to the place shown from heaven. O by how wondrous a sign, pointing the way to those who sought, Did the place when found give back the holy bodies! The virgin exults in the threefold gift of signs, More certain by this number that the matter pleases God. For she herself considers within her that the snowy dove Is the pure soul of the aforesaid martyr, Whose happy simplicity of merits The simple appearance of this bird expressed. Since this bird is the mildest among mild birds, By the fact that it lacks gall it can be milder. It brought to Noah the branch of the olive growing green again, Messenger at evening of the ceasing of the flood. And in its appearance also the Holy Spirit was seen To be present to Christ from the laver of the flood. The angel whose address the pious virgin enjoys Presided, as I think, over this sincere soul, That he might be in life a companion and firm guard, Lest the envious enemy should circumvent her. He, since he was a true witness of his life, Himself first announces the martyr's outcome. Tell me to whom better than Gertrude might he disclose The bishop's death, and the place of his martyrdom? For she too was a faithful witness of the bishop's life, And one who herself knew the measure of his ways: Through a chaste one to a chaste one concerning a chaste body, rightly The matter long closed was opened, as God willed. Moreover the column stretched from earth to heaven Marked the summit of the apostolic life. In which, to be imitated by doctrines and by examples, This father of the Church sustained the burdens. That its appearance was fiery, the gracious Spirit Was the one illumining the heart, and taming the soul. So he came to the disciples in fire to teach them, Purging, irradiating, giving life to the inmost parts. That column was in harmony with the ancient column, This one was the virgin's guide, that one Israel's. So the dove, or the angel, or the fiery column Are fitted to the merits of the gracious bishop. To the honor of the one and threefold God is reckoned The vision of the three signs made known. and who for seventy-eight days lacked burial, Behold, the bishop lay hidden long in the woods unburied, Yet neither beast nor bird touched him. But while for ten times seven and eight suns The flesh itself rotted in the corrupting spring, It freely poured forth on all who stood by with odors As if incense were thought to be burned there. For this space of time, that after death the holy man Lacked a tomb, there was a mystic cause ^a. For, the numbers being numbered together from the beginning, The number twice six ends this sum. And so number the numbers, lest perhaps I go astray: Know that one, two, three straightway make six together. Adding four, remember to recite ten. So this reckoning is made also with the remaining numbers. Reading five, six, seven, and eight, and nine, and ten, Number them for forty-five. But adding to these eleven as well, and twelve, You will make up seventy and eight. So, twelve being divided by an easy reckoning, Three times by even numbers or four by odd, There is indicated the simple glory of the threefold faith, and Thence the four equal kinds of virtues. And since four and three make up seven, By that number the gracious Spirit is signified. Whom he has imbued he renders teachable, and stable too, In the true simplicity of the threefold God, And strips from vices, that it may please them With the highest zeal to be clothed with the virtues themselves. Whence it is clear that the martyr so exercised his life That he should pass into the angelic assembly. Again, if you divide the number itself by seven, Take out one from the sevens composed: You would see, indeed, that there will be a heap * of seven there, Where one too grows in the number ten. Nor without reason does seven signify for you the sacred Spirit, And ten itself denotes the ten precepts. So when one is joined with seven to ten, One strains toward the highest and perpetual good. How? I answer the one who asks: the life-giving power Of the gracious Spirit fulfills the work of the law. For whatever right, whatever good or honorable thing Is written, man fulfills in the Holy Spirit. Hear how grave it is for anyone to offend * against him: For the guilty man can rise no further. By this sins can be forgiven the sinner, By this too neighbor and God are loved: And he whom this grace suffuses with seven gifts Is united to Christ, and gathered to God. These things signify that, if the man drew any harm in the course of life, It is released, and so too he enjoys peace. from a mystic cause. Or if you wish, the number seven signifies the time That rolls round continually by seven days, Because that which follows is said to be the eighth day, At whose shining the night perishes in its hiding places. For sending the rays of unfailing light, It continues the joys of perpetual life. That this same thing is signified through seven and eight Solomon attests in a figured doctrine; So persuading, give a portion to seven and also to eight, Noting that the times are closed by perpetual light. That the happy bishop so passed the whole time Of the perishing life, these times signify, That it may be plain that he has taken up the blessed life, Which no term closes or covers, Hence the mangled body of the martyr, covered only with branches, Is seen in a cast-off pit. With hair clotted with mud and much gore, And his long hair removed from his shoulders, The precious treasure itself so lay hidden, Whose merit with the Lord is no less for this: For neither garment nor gold makes the worth of merit, But faith alone is glory, praise, honor. On seeing the wounds of the slain head the most gentle Virgin gave herself, groaning, to tender lament. What grief, or how great the lament for the bishop was, What piety in the people, what reasoning of the matter, Or what words well suited to so lofty a case, Though it try, the tongue cannot relate. They cry out together: since he died without cause, He is added to the pious in the kingdom of peace.

ANNOTATIONS.

* remor cod.

* perhaps congeries

* ostendere cod.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

The translation of the body of St. Foillan to Nivelles. Dido, bishop of Poitiers, and Grimoald, mayor of the palace, accompany the obsequies. The translation to Fosses. The glory of St. Foillan in heaven.

St. Gertrude and the people, At the virgin's command the blood is collected into one ^a, And the bishop's limbs are washed, as was fitting. And the holy bishop being clothed in a fitting garment, And raised from the ground, the virgin goes under the bier. At once the humble people carry the three bodies of the holy Companions on alternating shoulders. From so great a cause a very great fame, growing, Rouses the neighboring peoples hither from all sides. Eagerly the peoples rush to bear the holy body, The venerable weight of the excellent martyr. From the reason of the matter, salutary piety being born, With alternating choir, praise resounds to the Lord. This generous remedy of salvation flows among the sick; To many outwardly, to many inwardly. To the crowd it was as glad to have merited this patron, As it was grievous when they mourned that so great a man had died. accompanied by Dido, who saw St. Foillan as like to Elijah, Then the bishop of Poitiers in those very regions Had been present, Dido, a man known by name, A suppliant visiting the saints to be prayed to for ages, Who might bear his vows to the propitious Lord; He and the pious prince and mayor of the palace Grimoald * Were resting * together by chance under one lodging: To the bishop, while he relaxes his limbs in sweet slumber, There came from the Lord on high a messenger. Go forth to meet Elijah, he says, the prophet. This the angel warned three times, and returned. In the secret of his heart what such a vision might signify The bishop ponders with himself, was at a loss, and stupefied, When suddenly voices, sounding praises and hymns He took in with his ears, and learned what it was. When * he perceived that the thing which he saw through dreams Signified the holy man as Elijah. Why is the name of so great a prophet written under this man? Was it because his life was quite like in merits? Though you may see that their ways were in part quite like, The one lives apart from these, the other died apart from these; The one to suffer, yet to be victor thereafter, The other, having now suffered, falls no further. Though Elijah shone more illustrious to the world, Yet this man too shone to the world from the Lord. Great and useful among the people was that priest, This one too discharged the office of priest. That one prophesied, so this one too saw presages, By what death, or in what place he should pass hence to the Lord. That one scorned a house, and gladly dwelt alone, This one left his homeland, deserted his own. That stronger one could endure heavy labors, This one too bore to suffer many troubles. That one abstained from food for how many days, We know that this one too abstained from lawful foods. That pious one brought the dead back to the practice of life, This one merited to give life to many souls. Fire bore that one from the earth above the ether, Over this one fire flashed, where he lay. So to be reckoned by the name of a person so worthy, So venerable, pious man, you were worthy. and Grimoald, they carry the sacred bodies to Nivelles. Without delay the bishop informs * the religious patrician, And narrates what had happened and what he had heard. With him he leaped forth, weeping fell down and blessed The king of the saints for the piety of the matter; And with his toga girded up, the crowd yielding to him, He put his neck under the holy bier. For whom nobles, clergy make the weight light, And what he gladly carries, this ever burdens him less.

They strive insistently to carry the holy corpse; Such a burden is thought to be much salvation. And at Nivelles with great honor the body Is placed in the midst of the holy church, Which, consecrated to the blessed key-bearer of heaven ^b, Had stood celebrated among the neighboring peoples. With psalms there they celebrate the funeral of the gracious father, The religious of the clergy, and of the virginal choir. Here Dido to Gertrude, the virgin Gertrude to Dido, Relate each to the other the things they know: Whence the salvation of the inner man also may be handed on. Afterwards they go away each in the prayers of the other. From there the body of St. Foillan is translated to Fosses by the river Sambre, When it is discussed there whether it pleases that he be buried, Or that the body be carried back to Fosses, for love of the place, Ultan, the man often mentioned before, standing by, Discloses, groaning in heart, what he wishes concerning his brother. Namely that the bishop be carried back to his beloved small place, And that his familiar things should follow him after death. Hence the pious man discloses to Gertrude and the holy company His serious wishes in secret address. And the matter quickly being taken care of, things suited To such obsequies, the virgin's care being applied. When the body is carried, a company of nobles follows, And with the people sweats in pious obsequies. The bodies of the rest are laid in worthy tombs By the permission and counsel of the holy man. It was the time when the sun was in the tropic of Capricorn, And winter was hindering all the roads: And the kids, shining together, had made the clouds Thoroughly rainy, light with falling shower. Hence the river Sambre being swollen with winter rains, The very crossing seemed grievous to all: For the very great onrush of the swollen water prevents The crowd hurrying through from wishing to cross. Yet when the venerable funeral touched the shore, The wave grew thin, the waters turned back. With no goader the bullocks being set under this load, The whole wheel is hardly wetted by so much water. From there nobles, horsemen and footmen go in throngs: Hardly was the step wet in so great a river. And the ford of Gertrude ^c lies open, so called up to now, Which they say is safer than the other fords. all proclaiming his virtues. At last when the martyr had been carried to the convent he built, The piety of all soon renews its tears. For the monks stand firm, and a greater throng of the crowd, To weep the father's funeral with mournful words. Whose gracious virtues and salutary warnings, And holy ways are commemorated there. And because he had been a solicitous guide to all, Here piety commemorates amid tears, And the movements of his soul, not varied by adversities, Nor swollen by gladness, mild and ever good. And by what law he warned that care of the flock was to be held, Suppliant, gentle, just and harmless, Through strong lament the pious assembly of brethren recalls, And the father's obsequies resound with these elegies. Why do I delay? Lo, they commit the bones to a worthy sepulchre, Nor do their laments lessen the funeral honor. Since the spirit of the sacred bishop reigns among the stars, The angelic choir sings together with wondrous praise; And since on earth we embrace the bones, In his merits we rightly sing to God, Where we retain the pious pledges of so great a patron. Whose protection sustains this small place; Where by the vows and prayers of the contrite who groan, The heart is opened and gathered up. The sick are healed, by whatever evil they are held, Who * had their former state by the giving of salvation. Which up to now the piety of God with potent power Comes to the aid of the afflicted, the feeble and the wretched, And the place, propped by the protection of Christ, Continues the work of religion by the prayers of Foillan. And a greater crowd flocks to the small place for the holy martyr, Pardon being sought for crimes. St. Foillan in heaven O martyr, whose departure from life was a rising, With whose honor heaven, with whose praise earth resounds, Whom the glory of a double temple adorns; for here the bones hold That made with hands, the spirit the ethereal one. To whom fitting glory falls among the stars, Join us, Christians, in heaven to the Lord, Where there is sweet rest, and tranquil times of peace, And no setting, but a state without end; And to your servants devoted to you, from the material temple, Open the spiritual one: In which the sight is not fed by a wall which color Itself has varied in various appearances. Nor do lofty ceilings hold cooked metals, And the craftsman's labor brings them no glory; Nor does stone that will fall, or pavements poured With polished marbles add the glory of images; Nor is anything that can be corrupted, or varied, Or anything vain to be seen there. This is Jerusalem, which the host of the saints dwells in, Never withering, ever delightful and green. Which the just are said to hold by faith, by hope, By the sweet love of the heart, under this frail flesh. Which, brilliant in the appearance of natural beauty, Never loathes those whom it receives in its bosom. For God is peace to those admitted, and everlasting life, By whose vital light they are blessed there. he enjoys eternal delights. For no one has seen, and no one's ear has drunk in, Nor indeed has it been opened to the depths of the heart, At what cost the pious summits of the eternal kingdom stand, How great the vengeance for the wicked, how great the glory for the good. For with the diadem of the bright morning star They are joined to Christ, bright stars of God, Restored together to life in the form of the age of Christ, To cling to the highest and perpetual good. When the eighth age of the world shall bring the two robes, And a double palm shall bless those glad ones, The flesh will live, the worldly figure passing by, Glorified, reigning together with its soul. Now that all created things have been consumed by fire, There is then only the angelic kingdom. And a new earth and a new frame of heaven will remain; And the pious will shine there like the sun, And the sight of the pious will rejoice to be fed on the nectar Of him who is beauty, glory, life, rest. Hearts will be able to speak to one another, and all things be known; For the time of night will be no more. So let our action pass through the active life, Lest the life to come sow its entrance. So with the saints, where the martyr rejoices among the stars, Let the man of the heart adore the Son with God the Father. To whom is equal majesty in the same, and equal power With the Holy Spirit in perpetual time. O Foillan, martyr of God, citizen of paradise, Ever protect your place, we beg you, gracious one. Grant by your merits and prayers that the holy state of this Church may flourish, and may the pious Lord grant it.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Gimoaldus cod.

* pulsabant cod.

* for Tunc?

* perhaps cit

* perhaps Quos

* cod. pasci

FIFTH LIFE OF ST. FOILLAN

BY PHILIP OF HARVENGT

from the Mons manuscript 8439 collated with the Paris cod. 5371 and with the edition of Nicolas Chamart.

Foillan, martyr in Belgium. (S.)

BHL Number: 3077

BY PHILIP OF HARVENGT.

PROLOGUE

Having been asked, I write the Life of St. Foillan. I have been asked Rogatis B, C., and insistently asked rogatis B, C., that I should run through in another kind of writing the life of the holy martyr and bishop Foillan Foillani et sic deinc. B, C. which you have described in verse, and bring it, released from meter, down to the plain of prose freedom, as one likely to please religious ears a little the more by the grace of a mature novelty. But since I have long been unable either to dictate or to write out scrib. jam C. what is dictated, I also refused for a long time diu quoque C. a business of this kind hujusce B., and, delaying to take up again the pen which I had laid down, I quite often excused my leisure. Since I perceive that an excuse of this kind does not sufficiently please your love, I have thought it right to wrest from myself, contrary to my purpose, that I should rather impart impartire B, C. my attention to undertaking this business than, offending you, not serve the aforesaid martyr. First therefore igitur B. I humbly om. C. commit myself to your prayers, and trusting in them I put my hand again to the labor, hoping that quod C. if any difficulty delays me from om. C. the completing effect, yet your devotion and the martyr's intercession will help me to obtain it.

HERE ENDS THE PROLOGUE. HERE BEGINS THE LIFE OF THE AFORESAID MARTYR [Explicit-mart. om. C.].

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER ONE.

The royal race of St. Foillan. His mother, sentenced by his grandfather to the fire and freed by a miracle. The journey into England, Italy and Belgium.

CHAPTER I.

That the life of the martyr of whom you wish me to speak may become known to you more pleasingly, His mother, on account of a clandestine marriage, I have thought it right that the series should grow clear, drawn back as from the twin egg; because sometimes nunquam C. following things draw praise, or perhaps blame, to themselves from their origin or primitive form. In the parts of the West, at the bounds of the earth, the sea going round circuiens C. the province of Ireland proviam B. reduces it to an island, which, drawing near on one side to the Scots Schotos et sic deinc. C., on another to the Britons, is confined on another by the ocean meeting it, and, as far as the circuit of the sea permits, is extended from south to north. In this a prince by name Funologa, ruling, reared the son born to him with great care, until he distinguished him by the sword and in the manner of nobles with the titles of knighthood. Made a knight, the young Philtan, no longer content with his ancestral hearth, betook himself to the king of the Scots, that there he might both be rendered more careful of honorable conduct corr. in A. conversionis C. and by the zeal of probity might be held the brighter in fame. When in the royal house the new recruit bore himself energetically, and his energy strenuitatis C. deservedly pleased both King Agiulfus Agiulpho C. and all the Scots, the daughter of the same king, Gergehes, embraced Gergebes amplexa B. him with a special love, wishing him to be joined to her, God however willing, by a nuptial covenant. But he, a virgin comely of face, modest of speech, chaste of manners, did not despise with presumptuous pride, but understood that both the present love and the future nuptials were pleasing to God a Deo gratum am. A. a Deo amorem B. Deo et amorem C.. But fearing the king, they did not make such a plan manifest prius manifesti; corr. manu recenti manifestari A. manifesti B., but through certain persons familiar to them sibi C. ei sibi B. they carried through the whole series of the matter, and with equal consent and due law they came together in marriage, God so arranging it, whom they also found a propitious father.

[3] condemned to death, but freed by a miracle, The accomplished matter lay hidden from the king just so long until, in the process of time, the belly of the new bride swelled up; on the discovery of which the father's savage anger blazed beyond measure, and he arranged for his daughter to be burned as one guilty of debauchery. A pile of wood being put together, the fire set under it burns, and rumor, forerunner of evil malorum C., rages desævire B.: the city hastens to come together. Whoever is present weeps abundantly, and shudders at the father's deed; the father alone, tenacious of his anger, does not grow mild at the tears of others. The pregnant bride is brought forth, ordered to be burned more quickly; as a harmless sheep she is led to be immolated. Looking no longer to men, she chooses to imitate Susanna, to groan with a contrite heart, to entreat God more devoutly. And behold, a voice from heaven shows to all who stand by that the king rages unjustly, does not rightly trouble his daughter, denies necat non C. that the pregnant woman is guilty, ascribes the guilt to the homicide: it refutes, but does not change, the anger or purpose of the parricide: he thinks that the voice of the Lord sic corr. A. enim B, C. he has heard has come by the trickery of a phantasm et in auribus populi dolo gratiam invenisse add. B., and thinking it unworthy that the royal majesty could be deceived by trickery, ignorant of piety, he exercises a heavy power against his daughter. But she, not ceasing from prayers and tears, says: "God, who didst soften the flames of the fires for the three boys, who didst free Susanna from the hands of her false accusers, defend me, wretched, trusting in thy mercy alone, soften my father's anger, raging more cruelly than the fire. But if perhaps I am not worthy to be rescued from a C. the present flames, at least protect with thy strong hand, and seal, the burden of my womb: and what vowing I have vowed to thee from the very begetting, keep safe for thee, that it may not perish with me by an untimely death." Her tearful prayers the divine goodness heard, and from the earth watered by her weeping at once a very abundant fountain issued, whose flow powerfully annulled the threatening flames, and by a wondrous miracle changed the burning into refreshment. And on seeing this add. rec. man. A. om. B., all his relatives prox. ejus C. confidently rebuked the king, and as it were violently snatched his daughter from his hands, crying out and praising the mercy and power of God, who consoles those who mourn, and gives salvation to those who hope in him. The father, bent, now withdraws from the desired fury of parricide, but yet does not yet come to love his daughter, nay he orders her to be removed quickly from his house and from all Scotia Schotia et sic deinceps C., and having once hated her he does not bear to look at her any more ^a.

[4] she flees to St. Brendan, who instructs St. Foillan, The young Phyltan Philtanus C., rejoicing that his wife was given back to him, went out of Scotia, yet did not return to Ireland, whence he had come, thinking that he would be regarded as grievous, even to a slight degree, by his father Funologa, quia add. B. because even without consulting him he had been joined in marriage as if by stealth furtivo C.. Therefore igitur B., entering the land of the Herbrenii with a few attendants, he confidently approached his uncle Brendan, who at that time presided over that land from the episcopal chair, and pleased both God and the people by the merit of his life. Now when that bishop had kindly taken in his suum add. C. nephew, and the nephew had spent a modest time with him, Gergehes Gergebes B. his wife tempus add. B. reached the term of childbearing, and was made mother not of one only but of three together ^b. The first she wished to be called Fursey, the second Foillan, and the third Ultan, in whom (as it seems) nature wished to work a mystery, since in as many persons the highest Deity is made known to us, and according to Solomon a threefold cord does not know how to be broken. And if it has anything aliquid prorsus C. that Foillan is found to be born in the middle, who is fortified on either side with manly strength, in whom discolored conduct works nothing soft, nothing womanish, whose life is proclaimed as the holier, whose death as the more glorious; holding his brothers on this side and that, he binds them to holiness, nor do they disagree with one another, joined by a middle nail; one Lord, one faith, one baptism joins and unites them bapt. eos C., one profession also, and death alone at last separates. Now when they were born and grown, Bishop Brendan instructed them in letters, and in the process of time divine grace distinguished them with holy manners, and according to the measure, nay beyond the measure of their age, they proved to be of good disposition, and with diligent zeal ever pressed on corr. insisterunt A. with increasing the merits of the virtues; for they did not seek the kingdoms of the earth or royal wealth, but by the love of poverty they despised the abundance of what was promised, and when their paternal inheritance seemed to smile upon them, they chose rather not to have potius in ea C. a hereditary right in it.

CHAPTER II.

[5] Agyulphus Agiulphus C., then, king of the Scots, hearing both that his daughter was fruitful, and he consecrates him bishop. and that so splendid was the appearance of her sons, led by repentance, bent by the counsel of very many, taking friends and relatives, visited his daughter by ship; and calling back both her and his son-in-law to Scotia, he assigned to them his realm. And a little time afterwards the death of his father Funologa was announced to the same Philtan: on whose decease he was raised by the royal sceptre over both Ireland and Scotia. To these glad and prosperous things the humility of the sons did not attend, but rather stretched itself toward the narrow prius angusta; corr. augusta A. and arduous merits of religion, knowing and recalling that whatever transitory thing the world promises to its lover does not correspond prius respondit A. in fitting balance to the lover of heavenly things. When their religion was being increased from day to day by worthy advances, and their fame or repute was held far and wide as celebrated and commendable, Foillan, whom grace had raised up in greater prudence and knowledge, with both clergy and people acclaiming, a bishop ordained as bishop. Ordained, he did not swell, but feared the burden and the honor, lest the prelacy assumed should disturb his desire and love, loving, nay desiring rather magis add. a corr. A. om. B. to live in this life humble and private than to turn aside from his purpose in the office of the prelacy he had assumed.

[6] He, warned by an angel, migrates into England, Whence also he began to pray God more devoutly and more frequently that he would deign to reveal to him his good pleasure placitum C., that he might rule and direct his steps in the path of his chosen poverty, that he might hold and increase in him the desire of holiness alone. Nor was there wanting to his just prayers a most merciful hearer, who taught the holy man, and warned him through an angel, that leaving house, homeland and parents, he should go out and cross to unknown regions, and should bear fruit by both pattern and doctrine among other nations. This Foillan quickly cereliter B. announced to his brothers Fursey and Ultan, and taking both them and others who had attached themselves to him for the sake of religion, with God as guide, he sailed into England ^c. In which quæ B. King Sygebert Sigebertus C., devoutly receiving them and hearing from them the word of life, strove to be advanced to so great a contempt of the world that, having assumed the habit of religion and the tonsure, he would not delay to profess himself a monk. He, building in his land a monastery, suited in the situation of the place, he adorned it with great care with convenient buildings, a sufficiency of possessions, and religious inhabitants, and casting away the royal power, gave himself over in it to the order.

[7] and is placed over a monastery founded by King Sigebert. The care and custody of this monastery is delegated chiefly to Foillan, because among great men he seemed of the greater prudence and knowledge. He, when

living there holily and piously he showed himself imitable se imit. C. to all, and his repute breathed forth more sweetly and fruitfully for imitation invitandum C. by the rest, both the conversion of King Sigebert and the prelacy of Foillan made that place commended, many flocking there to render to God devoutly the service of religion. Not much later a divine revelation prius relatio A. made known to Fursey that a hostile incursion would devastate that place, nay the whole province, and that he proinde add. C., leaving England, should depart into Gaul for the sake of dwelling there. When he announced this to Foillan and the other brethren, taking a few and bidding farewell to England, he came into the parts of Gaul, and found no moderate favor with King Clovis and his princes.

CHAPTER III.

[8] But Foillan, wishing to console in their tribulations the religious men whom he had gathered in unoquoque add. C. the monastery, But England being disturbed by the Mercians, chose to await with them the evils coming upon them, lest, the shepherd being struck, the sheep should be found to be disturbed sooner than was right, and to wander the more freely not so much by the presence of the attacker as by the absence of the consoler. England therefore was disturbed, when a king by name Penda, accustomed to preside over the fourth part of it, aimed to exercise power and powerful malice malam add. C. in the remaining three, and while he was raging, King Sigebert was compelled to be called back from the cloister, and to fight with those who called him back not with hand and sword, but with a word of consolation. When he bore himself in the battle religiously and energetically, and, unconquered in spirit, endured death for his homeland, so many and such great princes were laid low in that same destruction that I judge it long and superfluous to write out in series the manner or order, or to bring them forward deducere C. by name. And the defenders being laid low, a crowd of pirates raged freely through the province, and rushing in et C. upon the convent over which Foillan was said to preside, it led off abducit B. adducit C. the captive brethren, and plundered their money, nor did it spare the holy man, yet he was kept safe by divine counsel. He, attending to the province depopulated, its princes fallen, the monastery despoiled, the religious men come into the hands of the enemy, speaking to his brother Ultan, showed himself so given over to grief that for the life of the others, if it pleased the divine counsel, he would wish to die. So both pray together, they press on diligently with prayers, they confidently desire that divine help may be at hand for them, they hope that God's good pleasure may be revealed to them more certainly, and that the just prayers of the just may not be defrauded correctum A. fraudari B. of their just desire.

[9] he makes for Rome. Nor did God delay to visit Foillan by sending an angel, and to change his sad tears with a new solace: "Do not, he said, be crushed more than is right by present evils, nor grieve more, but be prepared rather to bear whatever the world brings upon you. God has for the present set this place aside, by the counsel he himself knows, and has arranged for you to set out elsewhere and to profit many; for he does not grant you in the present the due end, but a time of laboring and no moderate labor remains for you." Warned by such an address, the man of God made those who were with him comforted reddit C., and redeemed the captive brethren whom he could, either by prayer or by price; and leaving the place which the importunate rage of war had disturbed, and taking the furnishings suited to the divine ministries, he trusted both himself and his people to prosperous winds and to the keel, and with a happy use of navigation parts beyond the sea received him. Coming out of the sea he formed the plan of going to Rome, that he might merit to find the favor of Peter and Paul; him he who then presided, Pope Martin, devoutly honored, and heaped with the gift of his blessing one distinguished in religion. And because he knew novit B. that he had received the pontifical order, and had left the place itself both by the grace of humility and by divine warning, he enjoined on him that, although he did not hold his former see, he should yet exercise the office of bishop, namely, by ordaining, confirming, preaching, he should be held to the salvation of his hearers, and that as once in his own country, so now in exile, he should discharge the pontifical ministry.

[10] Afterwards a heavenly vision strengthened him in sleep, and from there to Gaul. He is received as a guest by St. Gertrude. which diligently commanded him to return to Gaul, foretelling to him both the series of his life and the outcome of his future death, naming to him also the place of martyrdom, and the place of burial. Taught by that oracle and retaining the vision in memory, he venerated the prophecy and now desired the foreknown passion, and having bidden farewell to the holy apostles, whose patronage he had begged to be at hand for him, he returned into Gaul ^d, accompanied by his brother Ultan and certain others. When he had come to the monastery which his brother Fursey had built at Péronne Petronæ C., and had learned that he had already died and been given to burial there, moved by the affection of humanity, he could not but grieve, and was compelled to show him eisque B. suæque C. the service of devotion with shed tears. After the mourning and service he dwelt there some days, and ministered to the peoples who flocked there the spiritual nourishment of the word, but since his soul could not yet find rest there, leaving the province of the Vermandois Germanorum C., he wished to pass through to the parts of Hainaut Haynonii C.. Him, as he came out of Hainaut Haynonio C., Gertrude the virgin gladly receiving, and finding in him the word of doctrine and the pattern of living, seemed to embrace him with so great a desire that she made him as it were her father by a singular love ^e.

ANNOTATIONS.

given. And in the Acts of St. Mombolus [Mabillon, Acta SS. O. S. B., tom. II, pag. 625, edit. 1724. Cf. Hist. litt. de la France, tom. VI, pag. 90.]: In the reign of Clovis, Mumbolus is said to have come from the island of Ireland into Gaul with certain venerable men, Fursey, Ultan, Foillan, Eulogius, Adadgisus (sic) and Cobanus; and finally in the biographer of St. Eloquius: Eloquius with Blessed Foillan (whom the writers of ancient reports state to be his brother), and with Blessed Fursey … came to our parts Ibid., pag. 625.. But in these things very much displeases, since (to omit others) St. Fursey did not cross into Gaul together with his brothers; nor did he come here at once from Ireland, but first dwelt in England, nor had he other brothers than St. Foillan and St. Ultan Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 667 et seq.. But even if those Acts are to be stood by, from which learned men long since have withdrawn credit, it could still by no means be inferred that SS. Eloquius, Etto and Adalgisus made for Nivelles. Of the other saints cited above it can be said, in sum, that the older reports themselves are suspect; that hardly anything is found in them by which credit may be joined to the tradition of the journey to Nivelles; that the notes of time sometimes conflict with one another; indeed that most of those men are stated to be companions not of St. Foillan, but of Fursey; finally, that in so great an obscurity of things, documents being lacking, it is not easily determined, among those who in fact accompanied our saints, who migrated into Gaul with St. Foillan, and who with his brother some years before [Cf. Corblet, tom. II, pag. 252; tom. IV, pag. 136 et seq. Cf. Acta SS., tom. VI of May, pag. 393; tom. I of June, pag. 121, 123; tom. II of Feb., pag. 53.].

CHAPTER TWO.

His association with St. Gertrude. The monastery erected at Fosses and administered by St. Foillan. His return to Nivelles.

CHAPTER IV.

That virgin indeed, noble in race, distinguished in manners, was reported rich in patrimony, whose religion was held devout and her repute worthy of proclamation; whose zeal from childhood had been for the virginal life, with no will, no affection, no purpose of conjugal marriage. And because she had already laid aside the kingdom of the world and all its adornment, and to show this had placed the veil on her head, desiring Christ alone, she clung to him with all her strength, and in the convent of Nivelles served with a good many of the same purpose; burning with holy love ardore C., she rejected whatever the world loves, and abstained not only from all things unlawful, but also from a good many lawful ones, she wore down her flesh with fasts, vigils and roughness of clothing, and beyond the custom of her age or race she appeared despised and contemptible. When Foillan understood and loved her, so devout, clinging to spiritual things, so removed from fleshly ones, he thought it right to remain with her for some time, that through her he might be advanced to better things, and perhaps advance her. He wonders indeed at so devout a youth of years in the virgin, he wonders at a gracious morum gratuitam A. morum gravitam B. old age in the young, he wonders at so robust a fortitude in the frail sex, at so charming a beauty of mind in one despised and neglected. For the virgin's face, by native benefit, was bright, but muddy with the dust of labor and tears poured over it; the rank of her race, the law of nature, strove to honor her, but there prevailed, resisting it, contempt of perishing parituræ A. beauty. And over the virgins, widows and continent women over whom she presided, she showed herself not greater, not equal, but as it were subject, since what she commanded others to keep for holding the rigor of the order om. C., she herself first, she herself more strictly, mindful of her charge, forgetful of her race, observed.

[12] she desires to learn perfection from the man of God, She who was held so great and supported by such merits wondered not moderately at the holy man, the great bishop, at his angelic countenance, his mouth mellifluous in doctrine, his manners worthily composed, endowed with wondrous discipline. The virgin wonders at him, not swelling with pontifical insignia, reporting nothing of a supreme supino A. Mæcenas, of a royal stock, in exile with house, homeland and parents left behind, strong in his purpose, reckoning every soil as his homeland. For she hears eum C. and approves him discoursing excellently on the Scriptures, speaking most profoundly, as if returning from the third heaven, bringing forth, concerning God, things new to the unlearned and unknown, of One so far from new, and obtaining much grace for these things in the ears of his hearers. The virgin therefore desires the holy man to stay with her longer, and lest perhaps he should go farther into exile, to be bound by whatever means; and having formed a plan by which he might be more firmly called back from the journey, she seeks a place in which he may be able to serve God more devoutly and more secretly. For she knew that the bishop did not love the gathering and tumult of the people, and not unwillingly and frequently ran back to quiet and silence, and therefore she seeks to find a suitable and solitary place; she seeks, I say, and when it is found she rejoices that it agrees with such a desire.

CHAPTER V.

[13] Now that place was at that time a wooded valley, fenced round with hills, abounding in springs, not abounding in grain, but fruitful for om. B. feeding cattle, pleasant with adjoining meadows and a rivulet flowing past. In this valley a wood set round about concealed a certain small village, which from ancient days a rare and very poor inhabitant dwelt in incolabat B., because the multitude of people does not much love a sterile or uncultivated place, nor does a rough place and vast solitude gather many fellow citizens. This place or small village those who first dwelt in it, imposing a name from the fact, named properly Fosses, because the situation of the place, by the work of nature, low and sunken, is beset by the height of the hills as by a surrounding rampart. And because as tumult is familiarly granted to a populous city, so solitude is friendly to the religious fewness of men, the holy virgin wished to present this place to the just man, that, betaking himself to it, he might be able to absent himself from the tumult of public matters, that when he was tired with weariness, when he was afflicted by the labor of preaching, here he might breathe, here refresh his spirit, in the pleasing rest of contemplation. The place presented and offered Foillan with those who were with him proceeded to view, and going round it when found and diligently looking at it he accepted it, and indicated that it suited both his purpose and that of his people. Moreover considering that the inhabitants name nominarent C. the place (as has been said) Fosses, he recalled to mind that vision, which, when he was placed at Rome, had named for him the place of martyrdom and likewise of burial. The place of burial being then known, he did not delay to give thanks, and there celebrating Masses, he asks God to preside both over himself and over that place, and admonishing his brethren at length to reside there stably, he loves to sit beside them as they reside and are free for God.

[14] A monastery having been founded there, St. Foillan presides over it; For very many, called together, hastened with great zeal to cut down the wood, they rooted out shrubs with the axe, and willows silices A, B. with mattock and spade, and they stripped the raw and unordered land of rubble and trees, and in a short time rendered it arable and fit for rendering fruits. The repute of this place and of the bishop himself, who dwelt in the place religiously, spreading its fragrance far and wide, drew very many to it; of whom some conferred generous benefits for its uses, others transferred themselves to live together with them. So in the process of time the number both of possessions and of possessors is increased, and the devout assemblies convenas B, C. Foillan deinceps Foyllanus B. the more devout embraces with tenderer arms, so among them as it were one of them he rejoices not to preside but to be, nay so among them that he is held abject and humble far beneath them. As many as he understands to please God he loves, and gathers with spiritual affection. His brother according to the flesh also he receives with no fleshly love, he loves to rejoice with the advances of all diligit et affectu-profectibus om. C. as his own, to suffer with those who suffer, to grieve with the sad and the failing. Made all things to all, he longs to be free for God alone; forgetting what is behind, he wholly faints into the courts of the Lord; pressing on with devout prayers, he is hidden in the hiding-place of the divine face; passing beyond faith and hope, he seems to cling to sight.

CHAPTER VI.

[15] Now the holy virgin Gertrude, seeing that Fosses had advanced not moderately, who shortly afterwards substituted St. Ultan for himself, and had raised its head caput velut C. from the depth and de loco hum. C. lowliness as it were to the eminence of the virtues, rejoiced, and strove anxiously to exhort the holy man Foillan that, returning to her, he should not delay to console her with his presence. For she did not bear with a sufficiently even mind that he should be continually present among the gathered brethren, so bearing their care as not to benefit others also who were in need, but she desired that he should be at hand for their necessities at Fosses in such a way as also not to be lacking to the virgin herself and her virgins at the proper time. The holy desire of whom Foillan neither could nor wished to oppose, since he knew that God himself sometimes obeys a virgin's prayers; and not delaying to meet his brother Ultan diligently on this matter, he imposed the care on him, and arranged all things as he knew to be expedient for the monastery. That Ultan indeed had chosen to remove his dwelling farther longiuscule B. from the assembly ^a, and to sit there, solitary, free for God, and to be silent, suspended from earthly things, to dwell in the heavens with Paul, to press on with continual praises, to delight in the angelic ministry. For the rest, warned by his brother, he does not follow what was more pleasing with his affection affectum C. sibi add. C., but setting aside quiet and leisure, he takes up care and labor, fearing lest he should be found to stray far from the path of uprightness, if he should presume even in a small degree to oppose Foillan's command.

[16] he himself about to return to Gertrude. Matters having thus been arranged, and Ultan presiding over the brethren, the bishop returned to the virgin, God sweetly arranging all things, and with her he is free for God, applies himself to the zeal of holiness; he teaches those who stand by him the rule of religious truth. Those who stand by, those who hear, those who worthily consider the bishop and the virgin, who gladly obey their precepts and examples, rejoice in their company, in their social life, they are glad of their mutual affection, of their spiritual love. So indeed the bishop and the virgin together run the way of God's commandments, so prius si; corr. sic A. si B. they contend together in the contest, so they watch over the care of souls, the suffering of their bodies being despised, that they seem to rival each other, and to hasten eagerly to the desired jam diu add C. prize, and they make the spectators doubt who should be preferred to whom. From their conduct, then, from their life together, from their manners and doctrine so great an odor tantus odor om. C., so great a fruit, so great in short bene add. C. a discipline of living is fragrant, that not only do those who serve under them imitate them more eagerly,

but also those placed far off venerate their celebrated celebrent A, C. fame, their distinguished testimony.

ANNOTATION.

CHAPTER THREE.

St. Foillan's journey to Fosses. He is slaughtered by robbers. Miracles after his death. His body found and translated to Fosses.

CHAPTER VII.

Going to visit his brother Ultan, While Cum C. they lived thus, while they advanced thus, while they were thus held useful to very many, Foillan arranged to revisit the brethren who were held under the mastership of Ultan; first, however, Maldegarius, who was called by another name Vincent, who was held as known and familiar to him and most dear by the merit om. C. of religion ^a. On hearing this, the virgin Gertrude Gerdrudis et sic deinc. B., although she bears it ill for him to be absent even to a small degree, yet cannot fittingly resist this purpose; this alone she diligently requires and begs of him, that when the business is finished, delay being set aside, he should return more quickly. Bidding farewell, then, the holy man humbly commended himself to the prayers of the holy assembly, and he repeated this very thing with such devotion tanta devotione om. C., with such weeping, so many and so many times, that from this he seemed as it were in a certain manner to foretell that he would not return, although he believed that he would return.

[18] he passes through the Charbonnière Forest, and deceived by robbers, And taking a few, he set out, and intending to go to Sonegiæ, he entered the Charbonnière Carbonariam C. Forest, passing through which he found a spacious level ground, enclosed by trees, beautiful with its grassy surface, in which was a mound somewhat eminent and lofty, and an unclouded spring bringing forth a rivulet with pleasant murmur, to which place the neighboring shepherds very often flocked, and refreshed both their cattle with pastures and themselves with games and talk, and de add C. from a watchtower, which they had fixed on the aforesaid eminence of the mound, they looked out over the surrounding places, and watched their cattle dispersed quite far for the sake of pasturing. The holy man coming there, and attracted by the pleasing face of the place, stopped for the sake of resting, staying there for a little, and seeing certain men passing along the public road, he wished to approach them in this way with peaceful speech: "You, he said, who pass by the road, tell where you are going, what is that village to which you hasten to go, or perhaps return; and since the appearance of this place in which we stand seems to be of some moment, tell if it is reckoned among you by any name." But they said: "The place in which you stand the neighborhood calls Ampolines; but the estate to which we are going is called Seneffia; and since the sun is thinking of setting, and evening hastens to draw near, it is good for you to turn aside with us for the sake of lodging." And rightly that place is named Ampolines, that is, a thriving ring, because that which the wood set round naturally surrounded excelled in its spread-out plain and pleasing surface, and its pleasant fertility smiled on men and cattle alike; which both the fruit of the pasture abounding and the vein of the spring murmuring beneath showed fertile and pleasant. And the estate to which those most wicked men proceed to go is rightly called Seneffia, because without faith, without covenant, without peace between, they turn the holy man off the track and lead him away, and under the appearance of hospitality, they promise a benefit and seduce. For when they promise that they are leading him as if through certain quendam B. short cuts, they bring him into certain mean huts casulas B. of shepherds, and with deceitful malice, the right being violated by which host diligently gathers in guest, they deal and fraudulently murmur about killing the man.

[19] by exhorting his companions he raises them up. Now the holy man, considering the name of the place which long before he had anxiously committed to memory, namely from the time when the divine vision named for him the place of burial and the place of martyrdom, understood that death was truly close at hand for him, which, although the spirit is willing, the weak flesh yet could not but fear. This fear he forbears to show to his companions lest they be disturbed, but he orders and admonishes them to be strengthened in the Lord, to recall and hold that they would obtain an unfading life, if they suffered the imminent death with strong constancy: "Brethren, he says, these wicked men, who had promised and ought to have lodged us, in reverse seem to be plotting a ruinous plan, and as far as I understand are driven by anger, nay by furies, and with faith broken are meditating not a benefit but homicide. Pray State C. therefore and persist, while space is granted you; while the wicked wickedly murmur, let your devotion work more anxiously, that when their malignity has been confirmed by its execrable determination, your firmness may be found prepared for suffering." These and such things Foillan speaks and stands firm insistit C., and he himself nonetheless watches and persists in praying, and both superior and subject do not cease from watchful solicitude, until the malignant executioner comes upon them menacingly and stands by ^b. He, finding the holy men anxious and sleepless in prayer, consigns those guilty of no fault to the sentence of the sword, and, the innocent being slain, the wretch rejoices in triumphal malice militia A..

[20] He, his head cut off, does not cease to pray. But the holy man Foillan, just as he was wholly in devotion and prayers, so, killed by the sword, he perseveres in the same purpose, and by a thing worthy of miracle, his head being cut off, he as it were knows not death, since, while the others are silent, he does not rest from the prayers he has begun acceptis B.. On hearing this the executioner, beyond what can be said, is stupefied, and shudders wondrously at the thing beyond anything heard of, and fearing lest the homicide committed should be revealed by the speaking dead man, rushing upon him again, he does not shrink from adding wounds to wounds. Him, killed anew and limb by limb more cruelly mangled, he hid in a trackless place, shaded with branches and leaves, and him whom the bestial inhumanity of men om. C. did not spare, the natural ferocity of beasts and birds reveres and protects; nor do I think it is to be doubted that the holy man, afflicted by a second death, by a repeated martyrdom repetiti martyrii C., by a double passion, now rejoices in the doubled benefit of reward or crown, and him whom the savage executioner, dead by death, caused to die again, that highest maker glorifies, glorious, with a brighter gift. For if star is truly proclaimed to differ from star a stella om. C. in glory, it stands that martyr too likewise differs discernatur C. from martyr, and over whom a twin death as very powerful holds temporal dominion, for the same in the reward the crown is without doubt doubled.

CHAPTER VIII.

[21] Now at their killing no one was present to report it, The martyrdom is divinely signified to St. Ultan no one offered the funeral lament or the obsequies according to custom, no one with human care buried their corpses, no one chanted at the tomb prayers, psalms, or any funeral rites, finally no one immolated a saving victim for the slain. For a long time, then, the homicide committed lay hidden, until the day fixed for his return passed by; which having passed, when the bishop did not return to Gertrude the virgin, the piously anxious virgin, sending a messenger, inquired of Ultan what he thought about so long a delay of the bishop. But he said: "When lately, celebrating Masses, I was at the altar, and offering the sacrifice, and as usual was mindful of the same bishop, a dove seemed to me to have flown before my face, showing a snowy body indeed, but bloody wings; whence groaning I conjecture and am affected by a conjecture of this kind, that he is overwhelmed with blood shed by an untimely death, and since, my brother being taken away, I deservedly grieve over the loss, to heap up the grieving, I fear lest perhaps he lacks burial." On hearing this the holy virgin was inconsolably saddened, and tearfully exhorted those who were with her, clergy as well as people, not to delay to entreat God privately and publicly, that he would not permit this matter to be concealed any longer.

[22] and to St. Gertrude, who, the sacred bodies being found, At the virgin's command clergy and people hasten to pray to God, to press on with vigils, to fast with devout spirit, and they do not rest from the enjoined prayer and fast, until the truth of the matter becomes known to the virgin herself. For one dawn, the morning synaxis being completed, there stood by the virgin at prayer an angel shining with sudden light, and spoke to her familiarly in the accustomed way, and refreshed her sad ignorance with gentle speech: "Virgin, he said, that father of yours most beloved to you, about whom you ask, about whom you grieve, about whom you fear, about whom you are held so anxious, with those who had gone with him, slain by the sword of malignant men, having obtained what he desired, has been received in the heavens." By such an address the holy virgin is not moderately strengthened, rejoicing that the desired truth is at length more certainly declared, and om. C. taking there a great many of either sex om. C., she proceeds to go, hastening to find him whom she had loved, though dead. And when they had together arrived where they were heading, and had found the bodies of the deceased by a leading light, piety outran religion, humanity outran faith, and the psalms being put off, the chant set aside, an excessive outcry intervened; the outcry being moderated, fitting psalms and funeral canticles followed; the devout clerics carried out the due of religion, they commended the souls, asked the angels to come to their aid, although it is not doubtful that praises rather magis add. C. than prayers befit holy martyrs.

[23] takes care that they be translated to Nivelles. Now the virgin, gathering the bodies of the saints ^c, the wounds being dried, the blood wiped, washed diligently, clothes them in a clean shroud, and while the others carry out the solemn office of souls, she herself waters the bishop's body with an abundance of tears. And it is to be wondered at that the same bodies lay under branches, or under the open sky, for a long series of days corr. supra vocem dierum add. 78. A., and were already injured by neglect, by rain, by corrupting air, yet beyond the custom of bodies long lacking burial, they smell nothing at all harsh, but far and wide are fragrant like balsam or incense. Washed therefore, as has been said, and wrapped in linen, the bodies are placed on biers, and with a great concourse both of singers and of mourners they are carried to Nivelles; and it is doubtful whether they grieve more over those unjustly and wickedly slain, or, grief being wiped away, at length rejoice over those found. The virgin herself also puts herself under the bishop's bier to carry it, and having taken it up does not put it down, except with her body wearied, and strong love gives progress to the infirm body, and with strength wearied, love nevertheless knows no weariness or failure.

CHAPTER IX.

[24] When they come to Nivelles, they place the bodies of the deceased in the church, In the presence of Dido, bishop of Poitiers and celebrate Masses with very much devotion of the peoples, and while they are in doubt whether they should bury them there or elsewhere alibi., the abbot Ultan is present, thus approaching them to address them: "From divine counsel, he said, it was the will of the bishop, a fixed purpose, a great care, that after his death burial should gather him at Fosses; if anyone intends and contends conderit B. to bury him elsewhere, he will be seen to oppose the will both of God and of the bishop." The virgin consents, the multitude of the people also consents, Dido, bishop of Poitiers, also consents, who at that time

had come there for the sake of prayer, and, warned by a divine vision, had gladly gone to meet the dead Foillan. "Rise, said the angel, and quickly meet Elijah Helias et sic deinc. C. as he comes," and this very thing he impressed three times on him as he listened, and this warning suddenly broke his sleep, and he, waking, soon burst out into words of this kind: "What, he said, does such a warning about Elijah mean? Is it frivolous, as is usual in dreams, or perhaps a prophecy? Whence does Elijah, the most ancient prophet, have to come here, that I may be able to go to meet him as he comes?" While Bishop Dido turned this over and over, and could not wonder enough, behold there were those present who announced that Foillan, dead, was being brought, and hearing the lament of the people, the mournful melodies of the clerics, he hastened to meet them and said: "This, as far as I judge, is Elijah. As far, he says, as I perceive, and as this man's fame or repute testifies, as far as his age proclaims, which is passed through wholly without stain, as far as the purity of his heart holds, the course of his manners, the order of his life, who from boyhood, renouncing the flesh, passed through the world unencumbered, just as, on account of some likeness, John son of Zechariah deserved to be called Elijah, so truly this man has not the person, but the likeness, of Elijah."

[25] the body of St. Foillan is translated, a miracle being performed Attending to this Bishop Dido devoutly venerated Foillan, and conferring with Gertrude, he gladly accepted what was so solemnly proclaimed about him; concerning whose burial, seeing how great was Ultan's devotion, how great his care, he held as ratified whatever pleased him regarding his burial. So the holy virgin and a countless number of clergy as well as people, hindered neither by domestic care nor by business, did not delay to carry back the body, placed on a vehicle, to Fosses; very many of them run ahead to announce the arrival of the funeral. When these had arrived with quick step at the river Sambre [in margine e regione Sambræ fluvium add. man. rec. apud Aytblot aut Aylblot A. in apogr. Brux., 8928 Ayvblot.] and had found it, swollen by winter rains, to have gone far beyond its channel, willingly or unwillingly they stopped from the course set, and both they and the rest halted until the vehicle arrived. But the yoked beasts of the vehicle, coming, were moved by no herdsman, no goad, as was customary, but fortified by a certain confidence they did not fear to enter the swelling waters, and they were kept back from entry or progress by no obstacle at all relæsi A., because they trusted more manifestly in the burden they were carrying. For as soon as the hooves of the young oxen touched the waters, by a wondrous thing, the swollen waves subsided, and that former swelling was seen to be annulled so suddenly that now that ford could be easily forded not only by horse, but also on foot. Whence too that ford is called the ford of Gertrude from then on and thereafter, which indeed is proclaimed better and safer totius A. than the other fords, because the prayers of the virgin and the merit of the martyr seem to obtain that what they themselves crossed with easy step may be crossed more easily.

[26] into the monastery of Fosses. Having crossed this, they soon arrived at Fosses, where they were heading, and there they found many religious as well as ordinary people coming to meet them. As these ran together with them the intolerable grief was renewed, and the whole crowd lamented lamentatur C. the bishop as if recently dead. They, devoutly celebrating his obsequies with lament and chant, and burying him tumulate A. in a suitable place with the greatest honor, the solemnities of Masses and psalms being completed, bid farewell to Ultan ultimum A. tumulato ultimum B., and all with one voice, rest being implored, bless him. He seems to be present not only to those standing by him and ministering there, but deigns also to be at hand for all who worthily seek him; nay whoever in whatever place loves to frequent his memory feels him propitious to himself, feels his patronage salutary. Whence I too, who have labored in whatever way in writing the things said above, who when I began them asked him to be at hand for me, now also commend myself to his prayers, to his merits, that by his intervention I may be able at some time to obtain what I intend. For he so rejoices in heaven, so among the angels, in desired rest, in the divine face, that he is held mindful of his own who labor on earth and a merciful helper; so he has mercy on his own with that benevolence which is his that, free from all misery, he may be glorified eternally with him and in him, who is over all God, blessed for ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

We commonly read in more recent writers that the head of St. Foillan was found separately from the body, and that in the place where it lay a fountain sprang forth by miracle from an oak [Vinchant, Annales d'Haynau, lib. III, cap. XIV, pag. 110. Bouvier, part. II, cap. I, pag. 136 et seqq.]. There in the year 1141 a chapel was founded in honor of the holy martyr, which about the year 1640 Philippe Malapert, abbot of Le Rœulx, restored. Near the fountain these words were inscribed on a stone: The place of the fountain shows the privilege of martyrdom; and below:

Foillan, the fountain marks the sand of your martyrdom, Which, a sacred one, sprang up suddenly, a man Th. Lejeune, L'ancienne abbaye de S. Feuillien, pag. 169 et seq..

LESSONS CONCERNING ST. FOILLAN.

Foillan, martyr in Belgium. (S.)

The journeys of St. Foillan, Lesson IV. Fullian, born of his father Filltan, a prince of Ireland, and of his mother Gerge, daughter of the king of the Scots, was instructed in sacred and humane letters by Brendan, bishop of Esbren. And as the fame of his holiness spread widely, he was summoned as bishop of the Irish. When he was discharging this function, and had now stirred the applause of all, fearing to stain his life by the famous glory of his name among those who knew him, he withdrew, and preferred, more unknown, to carry out the apostolic function among the English and to act as a teacher of salvation. But afterwards, England being laid waste, and the monastery destroyed which he had built there by the shore of the sea from the gift of King Sigebert, he made a pilgrimage to the city of Rome. Pope Martin, kindly receiving him, destined him for Gaul for the sake of preaching. In which also he brought forth many sons to Jesus Christ.

his residence at Fosses, his death, Lesson V. And when he had stayed some time with the virgin Gertrude, the liberal virgin gave to the holy man from her patrimony the place named Fosses: where, a monastery being built, he resided for some time; and at length, that it shining with excellent disciplines, he might press on * more freely with the dispensing of the word of God, he left the care to his brother Ultan. Meanwhile, called back by Gertrude, he showed himself to very many as an example of good works. And one day, about to set out for Soignies, taking three companions, entering the Charbonnière Forest, he was brought into the mean huts of shepherds by wicked men, under the pretended name of hospitality, promising that they would lead him through certain short cuts. And there, the right of hospitality being violated, like wolves covered with sheepskin, they began to deal among themselves about killing the man. Wherefore when Fullian, after the completion of the morning lauds, was exhorting his brethren to be strengthened in the Lord, and to pray while it was granted, the bloody executioner stood by; who finding the saints anxious and watchful, consigned them to capital sentence. And by a thing worthy of miracle, the four heads of them all being cut off, the bishop Fullian alone does not rest from the prayers he had begun. On the executioner's hearing this, and being stupefied beyond what can be said, he feared lest the crime committed should be revealed by the speaking dead man, and rushing upon him, he added wounds to wounds anew, and hid him, limb by limb more cruelly mangled, in a trackless place shaded with branches and leaves. But indeed, him whom the bestial cruelty of men thus did not spare, the natural ferocity of beasts and birds reveres.

and his translation. Lesson VI. But when the bodies had long lain unburied, St. Gertrude, warned by an angel, and also blessed Ultan, having seen, as he stood at the altar, a dove suffused with blood, by the sign of a fiery column, stretched from the earth, where the bodies of the saints had been placed, even to heaven, finding them after seventy-eight days of neglect smelling of nothing grievous but sweetly, the blood being diligently wiped, gathered them to Nivelles. Then too Dido, bishop of Poitiers, who was at that time at Nivelles, warned three times by divine command to meet Fullian under the name of Elijah, rising from his bed, hastened to go at once. And immediately afterwards they translated the body of the blessed martyr, placed on a vehicle, to Fosses by divine counsel. For when many running ahead had found the river Sambre, swollen with winter rains, to have gone far beyond its channel, and had stopped there on that account; it happened that as soon as the yoked beasts of the wagon following, not urged on, as was usual, but hastening with their own rush, touched the waters, a ford passable not only by those going by horse but also on foot was made.

ANNOTATIONS.

* instarent cod.

MIRACLES OF ST. FOILLAN BY HILLINUS

from the Mons manuscript 8439.

Foillan, martyr in Belgium. (S.)

BHL Number: 3078

BY HILLINUS.

Pious men delight in the miracles of the saints. Here begins the prologue to the miracles of Blessed Foillan the martyr. Human piety is accustomed most diligently to embrace the deeds of the saints, and to take the greatest delight in the miracles which merciful Jesus works through them: because, when through that which is shown outwardly it weighs their merits, advancing in a certain manner from virtue to virtue, it pants * more vehemently for the things above. Wherefore, the passion of blessed Foillan the martyr being now prepared in metrical arrangement, with my pen turned, we have determined

also to disclose some of his miracles, passing over those by which, with God's help, he shone on the road of this pilgrimage, or which by God's grace happened to appear in wondrous ways at his sepulchre; or by what signs, or by what revelation, or by what persons his body was raised from the place of burial. Your humility, most familiar master Sigebert ^b, confers no small boldness of writing in this little work: for since you did not once reject the little sheet of our verses, we trust that you will not take it ill that this small page too should serve the holy martyr; especially since at your prompting I have devoted myself to this labor, and have confidently inclined myself to your favor. For as a ship is directed amid the waves without danger by the helmsman: so, supported by the hand of your authority, the foot of him who dictates goes without stumbling. HERE ENDS THE PROLOGUE.

ANNOTATIONS.

* hanelat cod.

CHAPTER ONE.

Of the holiness of the place in which St. Foillan died. Violators punished. The blood of the holy martyr bubbles up.

Ampolines, the place of St. Foillan's martyrdom, illustrious for prodigies, Here begin the miracles ^a. In the territory named Hainaut ^b, in the forest called Charbonnière ^c, in the place which is called Ampolinæ ^d, bordering on the parish ^e of the village which is called Sterpeis ^f, where the innocent blood of blessed Foillan the martyr and of his attendants was shed, an enclosure being made, a churchyard was marked out, in the midst of which a wooden ^g structure of a little church was set up, and an altar raised to the praise of God in honor of the martyr himself. Where on Sundays and feast days ^h the dwellers of the adjacent villages flocked to ecclesiastical service ⁱ. The small place therefore began to be held celebrated among the neighboring nations, on account of the countless prodigies of signs that took place there by the grace of the divine will. For frequently lights, as it were, were seen by the natives at night, and melodies, as it were, of singers were heard. Moreover also the sick, warned by various and wondrous visions, by whatever disease of body or soul they were weighed down, brought to the place, prayers being poured forth, were freed by the intervention of the blessed martyr.

[3] even now it is held sacred and inviolable. For the province being stirred, whenever the harshness of wars came on, the whole neighborhood gathered their necessary goods in that place, bringing them by wagons, to be kept under the protection of the pious martyr: on account of the venerable memory of whose holiness, the piety of God shows its benefit there up to the present day, and a miracle worthy of memory: namely that the place has so far remained free and inviolable from every hand of plunderers, thieves or robbers. They assert also that if it should happen at any time that not only a man, but some brute animal, flees there for fear of death from the wicked speed of pursuers, it will be safe as in a stronghold: since in view of the dignity of the place those who dwell there fear, up to now, either to ride within the fence of the churchyard, or to bring in animals, except in time of sedition ^k.

III & IV

[4] There happened there recently, among very many things which we pass over, a new thing and quite worthy of admiration: There the martyr's blood bubbled up. namely that from the place where the martyr Foillan suffered, blood bubbled up ^l and wondrously * flowed, in the sight and to the stupefaction of very many, men as well as women. When this was reported to the custodian of the church of Soignies ^m, who presided over that parish, as one unbelieving of so unknown a thing, he did not cease to question very many who came from those parts whether these things were so. When they testified the same, he still did not sufficiently believe: but he promised that he would come there, as one to refute and reproach the things said. He came, he saw, he believed and was stupefied: and he gave thanks to God and the holy martyr. Finally with great veneration he collected that Liquid in a pyx: and within the sanctuaries of the church of God, where the body of the blessed confessor Madelgarius, surnamed Vincent, rests, he honorably placed it with certain memorials and relics ⁿ of the saints found there. What shall we judge, dearly beloved, such a sign to be: except that the blood, which the earth received into itself at the time of his passion, it displayed, God granting it, to human eyes, in testimony of the bishop's martyrdom?

[5] In our times also, in the same churchyard, by chance on a Sunday, a woman was lying in the lap of another woman, that her combed and finely dressed long hair might be smoothed under the summer shade. A woman injured in the head, St. Foillan being invoked, is freed. Now it came about that when she had fallen asleep, from the middle of her eyebrows to the end of her occiput, the crown of her head was as it were split through the middle, and for the space of more than three moments her brain lay open within, with danger to her life. And the other, who shuddered at this as at a sort of monster, at once began to invoke the name of the Lord, and to beg the help of the blessed martyr: and at once, the head being solidified as before, as if a witness of the wondrous thing, there appeared whiteness on the right side of her hair, the former color suited to her age no longer showing. And not long afterwards, when she had awakened, she groaned with much lament as if gravely afflicted: and to her who had seen so great a thing, and who asked if anything out of the ordinary had happened to her in sleep, she reported that she had been gravely injured in the crown by the stroke of a sword: but had been freed from the injury by the hand of the martyr.

VI & I

[6] Once within the boundary of the same churchyard the house of a certain farmer was situated, A thief, loaded with stolen goods, to which there was attached a garden sufficient for planting vegetables; whose extent, according as it could be measured by estimation with the eyes, had stretched half of itself within the churchyard, and half outside the churchyard. Now that part of the garden which was more subject to the churchyard, sown with legumes, comforted the hope and labor of its cultivator with the abundance of its fruit ^o. But a certain man, for whom his own was not enough, climbing the hedge by night, secretly entered the garden, and desiring to delight himself in the unlawful first-fruits as if lawful, he tied up a bundle of beans, and in his recklessness placed it on his neck to carry away. But, God so acting, it did not succeed according to his unlawful will. For as if bearing the care of the gardener, in frequent repetition, as if measuring the space of the churchyard, he walked around the corners and circuit of the small place through the night without ceasing, and wandering with his burden, thinking he was going back to his own, greatly tired, the rest of sleep lost, his belly empty, scorched by the cold, shut in only by a frail hedge, he could in no way return or go out.

[7] The countryman therefore, rising at dawn, going round his house, God so acting, he is caught. discovered the thief in the garden with his burden, and the matter being learned, with as great an admiration as he was soon inwardly stupefied, with so great an exasperation of words he rebuked the man guilty of theft, and him, penitent and ashamed of the deed, and therefore unpunished, he let go free; and he perceived that such a miracle had taken place through the blessed martyr. O inestimable reason of God's mercy! that the wretched little man, constrained by divine justice, unknowing wandered through the garden nearly the whole night, did penance as it were for the unlawful will by which he had coveted his neighbor's property, and had not completed the commission of the theft, and in this, that he was ashamed to have wished to perpetrate such a thing, and not to have been able, he was beautifully corrected and lost the mind of stealing further. The pious matter, the man himself confessing it, became known to all the neighbors, and the place, inaugurated by the martyr's blood, began to be held more venerable and to be frequented more devoutly.

III & IIII

[8] Likewise recently in the same neighborhood there lived by chance a knight who, A knight, rushing into the churchyard of St. Foillan, is punished. as is the custom of most of the military order, to seek for their gain causes of hatred against the rustics, extorted from a good many by threats and frequent insults the things he found necessary. This man, while on a certain day he was traversing woodlands and fields for the sake of gain, saw passing far off a man who had once refused him, when he asked for something, either what he could not do without or what he did not have at hand. Wishing to seize him and torment him by choking, urging his horse with his spurs, he began insistently to chase him. But the countryman, circumspect for himself, recognized the horseman hurrying after him, and fearing for himself, arrived fleeing with exceedingly swift feet at the aforesaid churchyard, and for his protection invoked the help of the pious martyr. Now the horseman, while with heated course he was treading * the footsteps of the fleeing man, as if about to seize him at once, burst into the churchyard. To have presumed this the wretch at once repented. For his horse, snorting with sudden rage, threw his rider off, and wretchedly disturbed himself, wandering here and there. So it happened through the martyr's merit that he who without cause inflicted injury on a simpler man suffered more troublesome injuries, and he who, fined in none of his goods, wished to inflict loss, not undeservedly incurred a more grievous loss.

[9] When the Hungarians [p] or barbarians were once laying waste parts of our Gaul, A woman of Fraxinus recovers the use of speech at the body of St. Foillan. because the place had not yet been surrounded with ditches, by the counsel of laity as well as clergy the venerable body of the holy martyr was carried into the neighboring town, which is called Fraxinus [q], conveniently situated on the bank of the Meuse among the rocks. When many had gathered there for the sake of prayer, and each had sought the mercy of God in his necessities through confidence in the martyr, a woman destitute of hearing, and lacking the function of the tongue, followed the rest, to beg pardon by address of the heart, not of the mouth. When, together with her pious desire, she placed her offering on the bier, loosed from the hidden chain of her binding she spoke suddenly, giving thanks to God, by whose ineffable clemency she had felt so great benefits of the blessed martyr. Then after the jubilation of hymns, after the prolonged crying out of praises, she vowed a yearly tax of herself to be paid to the holy martyr: which, God permitting, she fulfilled for a good many years.

[10] A blind girl and many plague-stricken are healed. But we have also seen that a girl had been long held in the darkness of blindness, and yet afterwards saw; who, as she herself confessed, recovered her sight by the help of the blessed martyr. In the year too when the pestilent fire [r], by the hidden vengeance of God, crept into the limbs of men, the feet and legs especially rotting, some destitute through the ineffable plague being brought into the oratory where the venerable body of the bishop rests, the mercy of God checked the most foul plague in many, and, the pestilent fire being extinguished, kept them for life [s].

ANNOTATIONS.

of Bavay, Mons, Maubeuge or Hautmont, and Lobbes; and the territory of Famars, namely the county of Godfrey, in which lay Vuambia (Wambaix) in the district of Cambrai, the vicariate of Valenciennes (Valenciennes) and the lesser territory or vicariate of Tournai.

p. Of this incursion of the Hungarians we shall treat below, where the fortunes of the relics of St. Foillan will have to be discussed.

q. The town of Fraxinus, situated among rocks, is today nothing but a domain of the parish of Lustin near Namur, and has the vernacular name Sur-le-Rocher de Frêne. In the same parish there are also other domains with a similar name Vander Maelen, Diction. géogr. de la province de Namur, pag. 178.. Of Fraxinus more copious speech will be needed in the Posthumous Glory, when we treat of the relics of St. Foillan and their translations.

r. In the margin there is written by another hand: End.

s. In the Annals of Lobbes we read at the year 1090: In this year there arose among men the plague which is called the burning, by which also many perished Mon. Germ., hist., Scriptt., tom. IV, pag. 21., and in the same year in the Annals of Liège: A pestilent year, many men rotting with the sacred fire Ibid., pag. 29.. This plague is also commemorated by many other historians [Cf. ibid., tom. XVI, pag. 501, 604, 623, 639. Bouvier, op. cit., part. III, cap. III, pag. 196 et seqq.].

* et, by another hand above the line.

thus corrected.

* terreret cod.

CHAPTER TWO.

Wondrous healings. Benefits granted by St. Foillan to the canons of Fosses.

[At Rolceis in a small chapel of St. Foillan a matron is freed from pain of the head.] In the village of Rolceis ^a a certain matron was suffering from a habitual pain of the head, and hoped that no one but God could heal her sickness. Now there was in the same village, in memory of the aforesaid martyr, a small church, where the neighbors, after completing by custom the holy service at the parish church, came with pious diligence to pray. One day the woman, supported by the hands of her household, was brought into this oratory: that, calling on God and the holy martyr Foillan with tears, she might deserve to be freed from the hold of her long-lasting infirmity. After the offering, then, as she was praying, she fell asleep while praying, and waking not long afterwards, she gladly perceived that the stings of her internal pain had ceased, and praising God, having received soundness, she returned home with no one supporting her.

[12] The belt of St. Foillan most useful to pregnant women. Since many such things worthy of note are passed over, hear still an excellent and divine miracle in the belt of the bishop. If it should happen at any time that an expectant mother or a woman labors gravely in the pain of childbirth, and the time of delivery being delayed

she despairs of life; the belt of the blessed bishop is taken with reverence from its silvered little casket by the hands of a priest and carried there, that, the woman being girt with it, the womanly things of nature may be loosed, and the pains of the inner suffering lessened. We have heard and it has been proved by experience that a good many women of this kind are freed by touching it; which it is not doubtful can be attributed to the merits and intercessions of the pious martyr.

[13] St. Foillan helps two canons in a tempest, Let us recognize also the beneficence of the martyr in a miracle no less accepted, but in a very different outcome, and most beautiful to commend. Two canons of the church of Nivelles ^b were recently in the parts of the Rhine * carrying out the obedience of the wine. When they had diligently accomplished this for the benefit of those serving God, and with the ship loaded, the rope being loosed, were sailing, from the western quarter, a storm raging, a very great tempest fell upon them, which by a terrible flooding of waters struck all with fear of death. For seeing the peril of certain ships, which, driven swiftly by oars, were energetically running ahead, they feared the more for themselves, and in hope of life they vowed vows to God with poured-out prayer. At last in so great a crisis of the straits of death, one of the canons, by name Gerlo, began frequently and attentively to invoke the holy martyr Foillan: believing that by his intercession he could escape so great a peril as of approaching death. Without delay; under the thickness of the tempestuous air, there seemed to stand at his right as it were an image of a man, heartening the sailors to sail, and driving the ship where they had to row. Soon they felt so gentle a wind arise, which, blowing through the sail, satisfied the desire of the shipwrecked. Then to the praise of God they did not delay to sing psalms to the holy martyr, and afterwards returning to their place, the matter well done, they related publicly the pious thing, as it had happened. For we saw those same brethren afterwards, in humble dress and devotion of mind, enter the convent where the bones of the blessed bishop rest, and with veneration place on the altar the small gifts of their vows, and make this same thing public, as it was.

[14] and to the canons of Fosses in two lawsuits concerning the boundaries Among the few things which are selected for the sweetness of their merits from the very wonders of the blessed martyr, it occurs to the pen by what and how great protections he unexpectedly came to the aid of the brethren, who were quite often in straits over the affairs of the church. In the estate which is called Mihertinæ ^c, which belongs to the use of the brethren of the church of Fosses, there stood an oak grove, which a certain nobleman claimed for his right by power: asserting that it lay within the bounds of his estate, by name Bossuth ^d, as they say. For a long time this dispute between the men of either jurisdiction was very great, until on an appointed day, the prelate of the church of Fosses with his advocate ^e came to argue the matter against the adversary. Now the party that seemed to contend unjustly began to take refuge in a clever invention, since it was by no means of the right of the people of Mihertinæ, because a stream of water, which flows between there, was the boundary of the fields of the neighboring jurisdictions: by this fraudulent occasion hoping to draw to himself what he was striving to usurp with violence. There the supporters of each party inserted many things in intricate speech, that the matter might not be brought to a conclusion: and as if each were ashamed that his party did not prevail, they put off the matter itself, because evening was near, to the morrow. As had been agreed, they returned on the morrow, and found the oak grove, as is asserted, on that side of the little stream on which it was not accustomed to stand: and the dispute now having ceased, they attribute the wondrous thing to the merits of the blessed martyr; who by the grace of God, by so unusual a sign, retained what belonged to the right of his church.

[15] of the estate of Mihertinæ, Likewise on the same estate, namely Mihertinæ, while there was a dealing about the neighboring boundaries of the villages, and a very great dispute arose over it among the stewards, on a day named by the advocates, certain pledges of the martyr, namely his scrip and staff, were carried there, and placed in the midst of the two parties. There indeed, the speech of the parties being published in public, the judges sitting on either side, it was decreed by common censure that the advocate should walk round the places which he judged would be of his right: and should soon lawfully confirm by oath through suitable witnesses that they were of his right. He therefore mounting his horse passed beyond the marks of the just boundary, but the justice of divine power thus corrected his impudent confidence. For the solid earth suddenly began to gape beneath him, and like a deep marsh to drain the strength of the horse below it at each pace, until, many running and shouting, that he should not go to his ruin, but rather desist from what he had begun, and not incur the anger of God's vengeance, he confusedly acquiesced, and confessing himself guilty, promised before all that he would not offend further against the property of the church, or presume anything rashly. By this miracle both the man is prevented from perjury, and is freed from the snare of sin, and the church rejoices in its right retained.

[16] and of the estate of Fleruis. The estate too by name Fleruis ^f had passed by hereditary right into the patrimony of a certain freeborn man: except for a fourth part, which belonged to the uses of the canons of the church of Fosses. But as is the custom of most powerful men, rather to oppress those dwelling around them who are not of their right, and to reckon their disadvantages always as their own advantages: going beyond the bounds which he had justly possessed, he began, at the instigation of his servants, to invade the small possession of the church of God: saying that the part which he was invading he was not usurping for himself, but that it was the public pasture of the whole fisc, and that it was not lawful for anyone either to build or to plough there. But when the tenants ^g and servants of the church ^h of God resisted, and the prelate of the place opposed with just answers, on the named day they met in public, that the truth of the matter might be plain to the reckoning of all. That tyrant therefore, pretending that in the case for which they had come together justice especially pleased him, the assembly being quieted, said: "I have come to exalt injustice, and to oppress equity", when he had resolved to say "to exalt equity and to crush injustice." And when he had repented and was ashamed of having said it, laboring in vain to correct it, silence being made before all, he said that same thing a second time, and also a third time he clearly repeated it: as if there were being proved in him that saying of the Lord: "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." On this occasion, then, the wealthy man, ashamed, acquiesced; and soon the people resounded with the greatest acclamation in praise of the martyr, who came to the aid of those serving him with so beautiful a protection.

[17] The horse of a man harming the church's fields goes mad. It happened also once, the time of harvest being already near, that a horseman was crossing through the demesne cultivation of the church, at the boundary of the little estate named Phalisulæ ⁱ. When he dismounted there for the sake of a rest, the bridle being taken off, leave to graze was given to his steed. Having received liberty the horse rolled on the ground as usual. Then shaking itself, it greedily grazed on the new crops, and harmful by trampling and at once grazing, it inflicted on its owner a greater loss of itself. For as if in vengeance for the loss of the crops, it was forthwith turned to rage, and gnashing dangerously, it entered the fort of Fosses, striking the greatest terror into all. There often breaking in the anguish of its teeth the wall-stones of the inner cloister *, and also loosening them by striking with its heels, it reared up with wondrous leaps, until it expired, disturbed by the hand of many.

[18] By the intervention of St. Foillan a knight is prevented from plunder, Recently, when the emperor Henry ^k was going up against the Menapii ^l in defense of the people of Cambrai, whom they were attacking, part of the army of the Teutons, passing through Pongeiæ ^m, a village belonging to the uses of the church of Fosses, took for itself as plunder whatever met its eyes. Now it happened that some of them were laboring to break open and plunder a demesne storehouse of grain. But wondering not a little that their strength did not suffice for this, since the door was held to be little fortified and the wall all around frail, they gave up what they had begun by the will of God. At the outcome of this matter those who saw and heard, stupefied with joy, praised above the clemency and dignity of the martyr's merits the highest and incomparable power of God. This also I learned from the report of a certain suitable priest, who was present at the matter, and I have judged it should be related publicly.

[19] a guilty man is released from his bonds, The provost of our church, by name Rabbodo, had summoned a certain man to the court of the public laws as guilty of grave injustice. Him the judge, having no sureties, by the judgment of those sitting with him, had delivered to a toll collector ⁿ to be guarded; and the toll collector was holding him in his house, fastened in wooden shackles. Why say more? That same day being already far spent, the celebrations of the kalends of the finding of the blessed martyr ^o were beginning: when the aforesaid man, in his desire for liberty, obtained from God and the holy martyr by vows and tears that at the first cock-crow [p], namely at the morning hours, the guards being asleep, he should suddenly be loosed from the shackles. He, unwilling to go away in clandestine flight, the toll collector being called three times by name, declared that he had been loosed by the mercy of God: and the door of the house being opened, he gladly fled into the church. When he had prayed, and had given thanks to God and the holy martyr, he soon made known the outcome of the matter to laity as well as clergy: and so at the gladness of so great a festivity he was present free and secure among the rest.

[20] and a feeble man is healed. Some of ours too, not much time having passed, were sitting before the doors of the church, when a certain feeble man, the sinews of his knees being corrupted, supporting himself on crutches under the shoulders, went in as a suppliant to pray. And when he had completed a long prayer, he felt his sinews gradually restored; and without any support, sound and exulting, leaping forth, he passed where he had to pass, spreading abroad the mercy of God.

ANNOTATIONS.

[Cf. J. de St-Génois, Histoire des Avoueries en Belgique. Muratori, Antiquitates medii ævi, tom. V, col. 275, Milan edit. 1741. Calmet, Histoire de la Lorraine, tom. VI, col. CLXIX et seqq.]. The advocates of the Chapter of Fosses seem for a long time to have been the lords of Morialmé Borgnet, Cartulaire de Fosses, pag. XVIII, XLI, 20, 75 et seqq..

p. The first cock-crow, that is, after midnight; but the second, stronger, toward dawn: whence this time is called gallicinium. No one will wonder that this way of indicating the beginning day, usual among the Hebrews, Latins and Greeks, was also used in Belgium, as we learn even from Hillinus, in the eleventh century Cf. Erasmus, Opera omnia, Adagiorum chil. III, cent. VII..

* Reni cod.

* by another hand above the line castri

CHAPTER THREE.

The raising of the body of St. Foillan and the miracles then performed.

A certain matron, who to the church of Fosses A certain matron born of no low place, in the time of her widowhood, eager to change the habit of her former life for the better, began attentively to examine what would be best for her, and what also would be expedient, not only by inner consideration but also by the counsel of certain of her people. At last, having obtained counsel both through herself and through her people, she left the sites of her estates, quite suitable for dwelling: and she chose to live sincerely in the fort of Fosses next to the monastery of Blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and of the venerable martyr Foillan ^a, both for the dignity of the present sanctuary, and because she delighted in spiritual jubilation in the clerics psalming daily to God. There therefore, by no means living for herself alone, she was liberal toward her household, more liberal toward the poor. She tamed herself with psalms, fasts and vigils. Sometimes for devotion to the saints she served God as a pilgrim in many places. In addition, desiring by the admonition of inmost charity to share in the prayers of the clergy, and in the benefits of the faithful of the church, she consulted Berengar, provost of the venerable place, a religious man and of outstanding ability; and sought his help in this matter. Perceiving, then, in the practice of frequent conversation that his counsel agreed with her intention, she professed to Henry ^b, bishop of pious memory, close to her in blood, what was fixed in her heart: and humbly begged that there be imparted to her a prebend among the canons, who not so much were willing as desired that same thing. And the bishop familiarly admitted her as of his household, acquiesced in her petitions, encouraged her to sweat in good works: partly for kinship, partly for her freeborn state, partly, what is referred to more useful things, for * the advancement of the church. She indeed rejoicing to have attained what she so greatly strove for, gave thanks to God from the inmost affection of her heart.

[22] is most devoted, More diligently therefore and more familiarly, from the charity with which she overflowed, she pressed her company upon the brethren, and came to the aid of the necessities of the church, * with prayer, counsel and largess. But nevertheless, besides these marks of her benefits, on the day on which the memory of the archangel Michael was held celebrated and joyful, an annual refreshment was diligently furnished by her at her own expense to the brethren. By these and such affections of manners, namely equity and condescension, she provided for the good of her soul; advancing from day to day in the manifold probity of the virtues. Truly she was thinking by what reason, or by what diligence of piety, she might increase the property of the church: but she could not easily bring this to effect, since she neither wished nor was able to disinherit her children of portions of her estates. Yet striving little by little by the paces of benevolence and steps of beneficence to fulfill, if not wholly, at least in some part, what she had conceived in pious meditation, human favor being removed, by the virtue of frugality, which is supported by modesty and temperance, money being collected from her revenues, not for the sake of avarice, but for the advancement of the church, the relics of St. Foillan, placed on a precious feretory, she resolved thus to provide for the future of her soul.

[23] A portable feretory of artful beauty ^c, in which the ashes and bones of the blessed priest and martyr of Christ Foillan might be placed, she carefully intended to distinguish with the brilliance of metals; so that for the time the beauty of the church might be increased by it, and in time of necessity all of it might either be paid out to the poor or be distributed by its opportunity for seeking out the church's resources. So on the advice of the aforesaid provost, at his dictation, and with his effort applied, by the hands of a goldsmith a work sculpted and precious was perfectly composed, where the passion of the aforesaid bishop on the more eminent sides of the chest, and on the lower ones the four rivers of paradise, and the twelve apostles with letters expressing their meaning, were represented with evident reason, and the eyes of those who looked on were delightfully fed by the beautiful spectacle. In addition you might see on one of the fronts of the shrine as it were the majesty of God walking on the asp and basilisk, on the other as it were angels taking up the soul of the bishop, and above the Lord's hand protecting and receiving it ^d. Thereafter what needed to be done was publicly determined: namely that the matter should be referred to the bishop, by whose authority the case might fittingly succeed, and for the memory of the martyr might remain more indelible.

[24] So the prelate of the canons of Fosses, as was the will of all, she takes care that they be translated, resolved to indicate to the bishop what the faithful of the church proposed should be done concerning the translation of the excellent bishop and martyr Foillan, reporting with prayer that all could succeed prosperously if the matter worthy of memory were magnified by the authority of his presence. And the bishop, the matter being reported to him, as a religious man, as a lover of the place, as a diligent executor of ecclesiastical custom, gladly heard the petition of the faithful of the church: and on a fixed day, God permitting, he kindly promised that he would be present in the place to carry out whatever so great a matter required. Indeed according to the arrangement he came with suitable persons, praised the preparation of the matter, and was amazed that an infinite people came together.

[25] For the report had gone out through the borders of the region of the coming translation of the body of the aforementioned martyr: with the greatest solemnity. and there came together from the congregations and parishes a very great multitude of monks, clerics, nuns and laity; many to bewail their errors, many for the spectacle of so great an assembly. And the nobles and all the greater persons of mixed sex, as each one's means sufficed, offered gifts at the altar on which the relics of the martyr had been exposed for the abolishing of their guilt. Some of the people who went before, having given their offerings, could by no means withdraw from the place of the sanctuary for the multitude of those following, and in so great a press of the heaped-up people those who could not approach closer threw their offerings from afar; whose crowding so hindered those serving God in the church that they neither psalmed canonically in the choir, nor celebrated the solemnities of the Masses according to custom.

III

[26] There happened also the same night a matter worthy of memory, On which day a certain man suffering from the stone is healed, and not unsuited to the veneration of the faithful. A certain man laboring under the trouble of the stone experienced the pious intercession of the blessed martyr. For rising in the night at the morning hours, having conceived hope of recovering health, he went up into the church and applied himself devoutly for a long time to prayer. There indeed there happened a thing pious to relate and worthy of memory; for when, in very great contrition of heart, with prayers, tears and vows he called frequently on the help of the aforesaid martyr, God granting it, he thus found a remedy for his wearisome sickness. For while he was still praying, he passed the stone crushed into fragments * with urine mixed with blood; which things, gathering them as soon as his prayer was finished, he showed to many, nor did he suffer any more from such a disease.

[27] On the same day also a languishing country man, destitute by the trouble of a long-lasting languor, experienced the mercy of God and the magnificence of the blessed martyr. another languishing man, For carried from far off by wagon *, at the urging of his wife and children, he was brought by the hands of his people into the monastery. So the man, by the pious devotion of his heart rather than by prayer of word, on account of his very great weakness, lying a little while in the church, prayed: and within himself he at once felt himself better. For the pain gradually languishing within, he began to thrive in his former soundness, and rising without a vehicle, by the martyr's merit, he returned with his people to his own home.

[28] In so great a difficulty of coming and going out, not only from the presbytery, and a youth whose hand was withered. but even from the whole space of the church, the bishop with the more dignified persons, the office being carried out, which not unworthily belonged to this matter, ordered that a procession should take place. And in the street by which one goes out of the fort toward the sunrise,

crowds flocking from all sides, the body of the martyr was being carried out. Standing then opposite was a youth, whose right hand with almost the whole arm had withered, and he, bent forward in body toward the feretory, humbled himself, devout in mind, and thus, on seeing the martyr's feretory, humbly implored the propitiation of God: "Help me, most blessed martyr, by your prayers, that in * my infirmity the merciful and compassionate Lord may be propitious to me." Why many words? Since one who hopes in the Lord is never left in confusion, by the intercession of blessed Foillan the martyr grief was turned to joy, as by the grace of God the young man was restored to his former soundness. By these three miracles, besides others, this festive day is celebrated, adorned to the praise of the holy Trinity, in that the man with the stone was healed, the languishing man restored to life, the withered one healed.

[29] Then a station being taken outside the town, the bishop standing in a more eminent place, An annual commemoration of this translation is decreed. after a sermon in which he soothed the hearts of those standing by with the sweetness of the heavenly life, all being absolved in the confession of their sins, proclaimed an annual observance of this day to be celebrated, to the honor and glory of the threefold name of God, and to the eternal memory of this translation of the most pious bishop Foillan ^e. He also established by the decree of his elders, namely on the day before the feast day, and on the day after the feast day, peace for merchants, and all wishing to frequent the place: that every year on these days they might come to the place peacefully for the fair or to pray, and might return from the place peacefully ^f. He also condemned with perpetual anathema those who should oppose this statute. In the year, then, of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand and eighty-six, on the third before the nones of September, in the ninth indiction, this day became more celebrated than usual in the fort of Fosses, under the veneration of the aforesaid bishop and martyr, to the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, for ever and ever ^g. End *.

ANNOTATIONS.

* word almost erased

* by another hand corr. necessitatibus

* frustra cod.

* plaustri cod.

* add. by another hand above the line

* add. by another hand

CHAPTER FOUR.

Miracles performed through the intervention of St. Foillan. A good many benefits conferred by him.

A candle in honor of St. Foillan is kindled by a miracle A certain woman too, as she had known of old, entering the oratory of this small place, placed a candle ^a on the altar to the honor of God and of the martyr Foillan with pious devotion of heart. Then a little later, when, having said her prayer, she wished to depart, she earnestly entreated the widow dwelling there, who had the care of the small place, that at the very end of the day she should light the candle she had offered, that all night light might by no means be lacking in the oratory for the veneration of the bishop's martyrdom. The pilgrim woman having thus departed, the widow, as if to fulfill what was asked, removed the candle itself from the altar; and placed it in a chest to be kept until night should come on. But as night approached, the woman, out of carelessness, neglected what she had promised, and went to sleep as usual. And when on the next day she had risen and on some occasion had opened the chest itself, she saw: O new thing! that the candle she had put there was wholly burned, and she grieved greatly that she had defrauded the pilgrim woman's vow through forgetfulness. Stupefied indeed with wonder at such an event, and greatly fearing lest the clandestine fire might have burned some of her furnishings, she blew away the ash of the fire from the linen clothes on which she had placed the candle with the breath of her mouth, and shook out the ashes with her hand, and found both the clothes themselves and the rest unhurt by burning. O how admirable was the devotion of this woman! Whom the heavenly compassion, for the merit of the martyr, did not suffer to be cheated of the desire of her vow!

[31] St. Foillan assists one repairing the wall of a church. For some time the wall of this oratory had been sinking from age, and according to what seemed to those who entered, was already near to ruin. But a certain man, by his own labor and at his own expense, had cut * wood to rebuild the building, and had carefully prepared it, suitable for the structure. Trenches then being dug, where posts set up might bind the woven wall, that man, greatly intent on this work, running through almost the whole diocese ^b, frequently urged his neighbors to help him on account of the excessive weight of the work: but on a pretext put forward none of them either came, or promised on his own that he would come that day. So returning alone, reckoning to his bad luck that it had gone wrong for him in this matter, exceedingly devoted to the work he had begun, he put his hands with the whole effort of his body to the heavy timber, invoking God and the holy martyr Foillan with this appeal: "O blessed martyr Foillan, if the work which I undertake for the venerable exaltation of your name is acceptable to the divine will, now by the power of God may you be seen to labor with me, and to supply me with strength for that which I desire to fulfill." O wondrous thing! He felt at once the weights of the posts so lightened that they could be turned by him alone, and easily fitted to any place.

[32] He vindicates certain goods of the church of Fosses. In the small village which is called Osanne mons [c], there lived two rustics: who, from nearness of kindred, had divided the inheritance of their predecessors between them. Now both were servants of a certain freeborn man; but part of their inheritance belonged to the church of the canons of blessed Foillan the martyr. A dispute then began to arise between them from their neighboring dwelling, because one of them desired to seem more faithful to the church of God, whose interest he served, the other to the lord under whom he lived. A pear tree was the occasion of their dispute; since each of them asserted that it belonged to the boundary of his garden. At length, the dispute having lasted long, the more contentious one, trusting more in the power of his lord than in justice, as if angered girded himself with an axe to fell the pear tree, tying to the tree itself a very stout rope, lest by its fall it should claim another small place than was his will. And when the other of them had seen * such a thing being done, wholly certain that action was being taken unjustly and violently against the estate of the holy church, with hands joined and stretched to heaven he cried out to God as witness of the truth, and piously presumed to reproach the holiness of the martyr Foillan. Without delay, the aforesaid tree, nearly cut through, nearly bent to fall by the rope, by the power of God cheated the hope of the insolent rustic: for now on the point of falling it made a leap, and the rope being broken, it went across the hedge too, some distance from itself, and in falling plainly showed that the space of ground which the perverse man had wished craftily to usurp was of the right of the church's possession. And the obstinate man, when he saw the plan he had formed brought to nothing, restrained himself from the dispute, and terrified by so evident a miracle he yielded to justice.

[33] He frees a youth from debt. "To say nothing of such things as I have heard from many reporting that they happened, take note of the experience of his kindness from what happened to me. When I was still under the school discipline, I was in debt to a certain lender for a boyish matter for three obols, but I could not have the means to satisfy his will in repaying. Daily indeed he not only pressed me to pay, but by frequent accusation defamed me before the master: whose heavy words, not to speak of blows, it was then grievous to bear. And when I had long borne the false accusation of such suffering, and hoped to find nowhere a remedy for the accusation, one day, entering the church, I began, prostrate on the pavement, to invoke the aforesaid martyr by name again and again, that he would deign to rescue me from this trouble. O pious thing! Soon it seemed to me as if there were a nod within: 'Take what you desire from that place in the monastery.' Hastening to the small place which was indicated to me inwardly, I found neither more nor less than the debt required: which, taking it, I gladly paid to the lender who was harassing me in every way. By this event, then, in place of the sadness of the former injury, a more welcome gladness of soul arose, by the generous gift of God through the help of the most clement martyr Foillan."

[34] He bestows on Rothardus money with which to buy shoes for his father. The discourse being barely finished, a certain brother named Rothardus, already promoted to the rank of the priesthood, yet not great in age, began openly to recount that something nearly similar had once happened to him. "One day, he said, when according to custom I was standing by as minister to a certain priest of reverend name, and was responding to him in the celebration of the priestly mystery, agitated by domestic cares, among many things I began to consider that my father, now worn out by old age, and somewhat diminished in his own property, was in need of shoes; if I could provide for him even in this, I would seem to obey the Scripture saying: 'Almsgiving shall not be forgotten:' and likewise: 'Of what evil fame is he that leaveth his father.' On one side piety, on the other poverty, on one side mercy, on the other need seemed to contend in me; because whither I was now drawn by piety, I was now drawn back by poverty, and whither my will was now driven by mercy, it was now driven back by need. But since it is written that nothing is richer than a good will, God, who is rich in mercy, gave the victory to the pious affection by his incomparable generosity; because, since he himself is charity, he does not delay to give what anyone asks from the spirit of charity. What then? To obtain * what I desired, the name of the aforementioned martyr being invoked from the heart, soon not far from me as many silver pieces ^e from

the dust I took up, as were necessary for the purchase of my father's shoes. And when I had given thanks on high for this, weeping for joy, my ministry being finished, I left the monastery, still thinking also of how the hardness of the slippers ^f might be softened, that this was lacking to the pious business. Yet that there might not be wanting to a sincere will what might be supplied from charity, at once, that you may wonder the more, in the very entrance of the cloister, finding a half coin, I lifted it from the ground, and with it supplied what seemed to me to be lacking."

[35] A sick man by name Walter, a vow being made, is healed by St. Foillan. This year too, autumn being now almost half-way through, there came to our church two men, one a priest, the other a layman, and offered at the altar gifts ^g, namely a silver thread measured to the height of a man's stature. When certain of the brethren spoke with them, inquiring whether it was by their own vow or that of someone else that they were bringing this gift to the treasury of the church, they answered that in this matter nothing was of concern to them, but that they had been sent as legates under this vow of a certain freeborn man; and thereupon they briefly set forth the course of the matter: "An illustrious man, they said, by name Galterus, under whose lordship we live, free by race, adorning too the form of freedom with a noble liberality of manners, had begun to burn so greatly with the pains of an inward infirmity that his people were doubtful of his life, and grieving whispered among themselves of his end. Now it happened that one of the family of his house, more familiar to him, about the middle space of the night saw a vision in sleep, namely a suitable person standing by his pallet, and saying to him as if with great moderation of voice: 'Tell your sick lord that if he has a votive offering made, which shall contain * in itself the length of his body, and gives or sends it to blessed Foillan the martyr, he will shortly be relieved of the disease of his languor, and will be presented to his former health.' The dreamer did not delay to report this dream to his master, and thereafter to consult at the same time on what should fittingly be done about it. The sick man at once, in his desire for health, conjecturing that these things were revealed in vision for his salvation, vowed to the most holy martyr this pledge of his vow, which is here present, and arranged for it to be carried here through us. So indeed what he conjectured of the vision he proved by experience, for soon after the vow he felt the disease lighten in himself."

HERE END THE MIRACLES OF THE MOST BLESSED BISHOP FOILLAN.

ANNOTATIONS.

* ciciderat cod.

* conpexisset cod.

* imperandum cod.

* previously contineant.

MORE RECENT MIRACLES OF ST. FOILLAN.

Foillan, martyr in Belgium. (S.)

From the Brussels manuscript 8928 fol. 61 we copy certain miracles: which, as is said in the added note, were excerpted by Dom Robert of Fosses, priest of Gilly, on the 9th of July in the year 1609.

St. Foillan being invoked, a madman is healed, Bartholomew Coyneau, now provost of Martine, a man worthy of credit, narrated to me that about the year of the Lord 1583, while he was living at Fosses at the sign du Sauvage Home of the Wild Man, in the market-place with his mother, there was brought by certain men, that he might call on God with a novena at the basilica of St. Fullian, a certain man of the village of Farcine, of about twenty-eight years of age; whose name he long held in memory, but which has now slipped from him. He, from the love and fury which he had conceived from the departure of a certain girl with whom he was desperately in love, who, himself looking on, withdrew by ship to the parts of Namur with a certain man to be betrothed, had turned to madness: who for the first seven days uttered many foolish things, many ridiculous things, many blasphemous things. But on the eighth day he raged beyond measure, and was held very tightly by his keepers, and also one of the servants of the mill which is nearby was called in. But on the following day he became wholly tranquil, of sound mind and healthy, and giving thanks he returned, and he saw him afterwards coming every year to St. Fullian. He thinks, however, that he has now passed from life.

[2] an infant revives, My stepfather John Gillent, citizen of Fosses, used to relate that when once in the crypt of Blessed Mary, under the body of the blessed martyr Fullian, a man having a most wicked spirit was being exorcised, in the course of the action itself he heard and saw one of the square little pieces of a great window broken, and carried to the ground with a tinkling sound, and the man freed from the demon. It is still public report at Fosses, and my mother Anne Thirion heard, that the bells were rung for a very long time according to custom, in the year one thousand five hundred and fifty-six, or about then, when a boy was being baptized, who had lain three days already in profane burial in the district of Roul, but at the insistence of his mother in childbed, who incessantly asked that the little boy be dug up; otherwise she herself would go and dig him up with her own hands, that he might be carried to the church of St. Fullian. They carried him where the vowing woman had commanded, and he obtained the gift of sacred baptism.

[3] and other benefits are obtained. A good many things are narrated by the mixed people, but they are of this kind. For the glorious Fullian of the Lord is accustomed to be invoked over the possessed and the demented, and over little boys who have not obtained baptism, and lastly over inclement weather, namely long drought or rain, and then his relics are carried round in solemn procession through the fields. What is here asserted of the mad is confirmed by the testimony of Sébastien Bouvier, who narrates that both a priest of Falisolle at the end of the sixteenth century, and in his own age many other madmen, brought to the sepulchre of St. Foillan, came to their senses [Miroir de sainteté, etc., part III, cap. VII, pag. 198 et seq. Cf. cap. IV, pag. 211.].

POSTHUMOUS GLORY OF ST. FOILLAN, MARTYR.

Foillan, martyr in Belgium. (S.)

BY R. D. B. & FROM PRINTED SOURCES AND MSS.

§ I. The origins and fortunes of the town and convent of Fosses.

Of the town of Fosses That the posthumous glory of St. Foillan is very outstanding strikes the eyes of all. Certainly the Scottish monastery which he himself founded at Fosses, afterwards indeed changed into a chapter of canons regular, was the honor and ornament of that region up to the end of the eighteenth century: and since God there made the sepulchre of the martyr glorious with miracles, the estate of Fosses gradually grew into a town not ignoble. To which even today, to honor and implore that holy man, pious Christians flock from all sides. There is the further point that in the very place of his martyrdom a most distinguished monastery of the Premonstratensian Order was erected, in the lifetime of St. Norbert. Likewise St. Foillan was adopted as patron of many churches. And his relics, translated now here, now there, to a safe place, lest they should suffer insults, were always most religiously preserved. Of these and other things of this kind we must now treat.

[2] the origin was an estate given by St. Gertrude, in which a monastery The town of Fosses (now of the diocese of Namur) arose from an estate which St. Gertrude, having received it by hereditary right, granted to St. Foillan. Whether it was ample or not, whether it consisted of many manses or few, we have not ascertained. But an estate in Merovingian times was commonly a farm with all its inhabitants; but in the age of Charlemagne, a village or even a parish B. Guérard, Explication du cartulaire de Villis, pag. 4.. How celebrated many estates were in the ninth century, how wealthy, may be indicated by Palatiolum (Palaiseau), accurately described by Benjamin Guérard [Polyptyque d'Irminon, tom. I, pag. 828 et seqq.; pag. 45 et seqq. Essai sur le système des divisions territ. de la Gaule, pag. 167 et seqq.]. Indeed not a few into towns

or into very populous villages passed over [Cf. Du Cange, Glossarium lat., under the words Villa and Palatium. Raepsaet, Anal. de l'origine et du progrès des droits des Belges, lib. III, cap. XIV, pag. 205 et seqq., edit. 1839.]. Now on the estate of Fosses there soon stood a convent of monks. For St. Gertrude, says the author of the second Life (num. 8), recognizing the holiness both of him St. Foillan and of his brother Ultan, offered to God through their hands part of her inheritance, namely the estate commonly called Fosses, which she delivered to them for the sustenance of the servants of God, that they might build in that place a monastery … and below: the monastery … which he and his venerable brother Ultan had built above the little river which is called Beverna, and which from the situation of the place is called Fosses. There is no disagreement in the augmented Martyrology of Ado, which was formerly kept in the Liège monastery of St. Laurence and transcribed in the manuscript Florarium of the Saints Acta SS., tom. I of May, pag. 118.. The same also in the other Lives of St. Foillan, except that in most the matter is narrated as if the estate was given to St. Foillan alone, and not also to his brother. Nor do I trouble over a certain opinion rashly arisen, by which St. Gertrude is stated, when St. Fursey was preaching the gospel in Belgium, to have built for him the convent of Fosses: which he himself afterwards, called by God into Gaul, gave to his brothers Cf. Bouvier, Recueil des fruits d'honneur de Fosse, pag. 10.. The monastery of Fosses is also mentioned by the contemporary writer of the Life of St. Gertrude [Ibid., tom. II of March, pag. 596. Cf. Friedrich, Kircheng. Deutschl., tom. II, pag. 344.], but he does not indicate that she contributed anything to the matter. On the contrary Sigebert of Gembloux in his Chronicle, at the year 648, says most explicitly: Foillan, by the gift of Gertrude the virgin, afterwards founded the monastery of Fosses, where too, crowned with martyrdom, he rests Mon. Germ. hist., Script., tom. VI, pag. 324.. But these things can be referred neither to the year 648, when St. Foillan had not yet reached Belgium, nor (as some authors are of the opinion) to the year 653, since Bl. Ituberga, in whose lifetime Fosses was given, had by then already departed this life. Moreover the canons of Fosses most religiously kept the memory of this donation; for, as Geldolphus of Ryckel wrote in the year 1637 Histor. S. Gertrudis, pag. 116.: For every year (unless difficulties of the roads or a just fear of wars or brigandage urge otherwise) they carry the pastoral staff of St. Foillan to Nivelles on the 3rd or 4th feria of Pentecost, and carry back to their church the abbatial crook of St. Gertrude. And on the Sunday of the Holy Trinity canons appointed by the abbess of Nivelles return the turn, go to Fosses, are received with the same rites and ceremonies, and, taking the crook of St. Gertrude, are dismissed with much mutual show of apostolic charity, and return to their own place. These and other shows of mutual charity were still customarily practiced in the eighteenth century Jamart, S. Feuillen, pag. 10 et seqq..

[3] of the Scots The convent of which we are treating was Scottish, or one in which Irish institutes and customs flourished [Cf. Hundius, Metrop. Salisburgensis, tom. III, pag. 64 Œfelius, Rerum Boic. Scriptt., tom. I, pag. 340 et seqq. Chronicon mon. S. Jacobi, in the Works of Trithemius, pag. 3 et seqq., Busæus edit.]. And therefore perhaps it is called by some in the vernacular monastère des Scats monastery of the Scats, wrongly, I believe, for Scots. Certainly Einhard, as I said before, treating of a certain Dothius, says: This man said that he had come from the monastery of the Scots, which is called Fosses, and that he was called Dothius Acta SS., tom. I of June, pag. 203.. And something similar is perhaps indirectly indicated by St. Gertrude herself, where, sending one of the brethren to Fosses to ask of St. Ultan on what day she was to die, she says: "Go quickly to that pilgrim who is called by the name Ultan, who is withdrawn in the monastery which is called Fossuense Acta SS., tom. II of March, pag. 596.." It is plainly established also that that convent was a hospice of travelers, as were a good many other monasteries of the Scots. For in the council of Meaux of the year 845 the bishops gravely complained that the monasteries of the Scots were being despoiled of their goods, and decreed that King Charles the Bald should be admonished of so great an iniquity: The royal greatness, they say, is to be admonished concerning the hospices which in the time of his predecessors were both ordered and cultivated, and are now reduced to nothing. And also the hospices of the Scots, which holy men of that race built in this kingdom, and enlarged with goods acquired on account of their holiness, have been wholly alienated from that same office of hospitality. And not only are those arriving not received in those same hospices, but even those who from infancy in those same places have served the Lord under religion are both cast out from there and compelled to beg from door to door Labbe, Concilia, tom. VII, col. 1832.. Of the same the bishops of the provinces of Reims and Rouen wrote to King Louis of Germany in the year 858: The hospices of pilgrims, such as are those of the Scots, and those which were built and established in the time of your predecessors the kings, see that they be held to that to which they were deputed, and be ordered, guarded and administered by rectors who fear God Ibid., tom. VIII, col. 661..

[4] was founded by St. Foillan. That a lodging of this kind was founded by St. Foillan is explicitly handed down by the author of the second Life, who says that the estate was given to him by St. Gertrude, that he might build a monastery as a perpetual hospice for pilgrims, so that those arriving from distant regions might there obtain the solace suited to them (num. 8). This institution of the holy man yielded a fruit of the greatest usefulness. For already at this time the Scots or Irish, of whom Walafrid Strabo said that the custom of going abroad had already almost turned into nature Acta SS., tom. VII of Oct., pag. 908., made long journeys with incredible ardor, whether by command of their superiors, or by divine warning, or for the sake of propagating religion Cf. ibid., tom. II of Feb., pag. 361 et seq.. Moreover the Scottish monastery founded by St. Foillan was probably the most ancient of all of this kind. Mabillon indeed Annal. O. S. B., tom. I, lib. XII, at the year 628, pag. 343, edit. 1703. and Longueval Hist. de l'Eglise Gall., tom. V, pag. 161, Paris edit. 1826. affirm that long before this the convent of the Holy Cross at Meaux was founded by St. Faro, to be a xenodochium for Scots arriving. But whether this was the mind of the holy bishop has been rightly doubted by our predecessor, Joseph Van Hecke Acta SS., tom. XII of Oct., pag. 601., since it seems it cannot be gathered from the Life of St. Faro. Afterwards, however, the monasteries called of the Scots (on which Ward and Sirinus have excellently written Acts of St. Rumold, § XI, art. XV, pag. 284 et seqq.) were very frequent in Germany, especially after in the eleventh century the convent of Regensburg, from which came forth those of Würzburg, Nuremberg, Vienna and Eichstätt, was established by Bl. Marianus Scotus [Acta SS., tom. II of Feb., pag. 368 et seqq. Cf. Gretser, Works, tom. X, pag. 779, edit. 1737.].

[5] Which, probably laid waste by the Normans, Whether the convent of Fosses was independent, or belonged to kings or bishops, whether or not Scottish monks dwelt there for a long time, using their proper norm of living, historians have not handed down to memory. Einhard indeed in the ninth century says, as we have seen, monastery of the Scots, but perhaps on account of its former name, and not because it was in fact Scottish. But this seems quite certain, that the Normans were ruinous to it in the ninth century, who at that time laid waste all Belgium. Documents of this disaster are the monasteries destroyed by those barbarians of St. Géry near Cambrai, Mortzellum near Aalst, Ulmetum at Mechelen, Saint-Ghislain in Hainaut, Hautmont on the Sambre, Soignies, Maroilles, Liessies, Ronse, and many other convents and towns of the dioceses of Cambrai, Tournai and Liège [Annales Vedastini, Mon. Germ. hist., Scriptt., tom. I, pag. 518 et seqq.; Annal. Bertiniani, ibid., pag. 441 et seqq. Annales S. Bavonis, in De Smet, Corpus chronicorum Flandriæ, tom. I, pag. 443. Cf. Smet, Heylige en roemweerdige mannen in geheel Nederland, tom. I, cap. XV, pag. 455 et seqq., edit. 1808.], so that it can hardly be believed, since they were neighbors, that the church and convent of Fosses did not bear a like fortune.

[6] was changed into a college of canons, In that same century canons were perhaps substituted for the monks of Fosses. For at the year 890 we read in the addition to the Chronicle of Sigebert Monum. Germ. hist., tom. VI, pag. 391., written between the years 1131 and 1137, and in the Chronicle of Alberic [Ibid., tom. XXIII, pag. 631. Leibniz, Accessiones historicæ, tom. II, pag. 222. Cf. Hist. littér. de la France, tom. XVIII, pag. 280 et seqq. Böhmer, Regesta imperii, part. II, pag. LXVIII, edit. 1849. Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtq. im Mittelalter, tom. II, pag. 354, edit. 1878.], composed in the thirteenth century: Franco, bishop of Liège (who died in the year 903), acquired for his bishopric the abbey of Lobbes and the provostship of Fosses with its appurtenances. Nearly the same words occur in Anselm's book on the deeds of the bishops of Liège Monum. Germ., Script., tom. VII, pag. 200.. But in a diploma of the year 907 it is still named an abbey J. Borgnet, Cartulaire de Fosses, pag. 2.; so that it seems it must be said that the convent at that time either returned to its former state, or had not yet been changed into a college of canons: and that it is called a provostship by the chronographers of the thirteenth century for this reason, that at the time when they were writing canons had long since succeeded monks. And indeed some authors think [Hugo, Ann. Ord. Præmonstr., tom. I, col. 674. Cf. Castillion, Sacra Belgii chronologia, pag. 43 and 223. Cf. Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 13.] that that conversion was made not in the ninth century, but by Notger, bishop of Liège, at the end of the tenth century, who then, as far as we arrive at it by conjecture, either introduced the chapter or gave it a new form. Hence it came about that the rectors of Fosses were thereafter called provosts, which is plainly seen in the diplomas published by the venerable priest Joseph Barbier [Analectes pour servir à l'histoire ecclés. de la Belgique, tom. IV, pag. 396 et seqq. Cf. Bouvier, Recueil des fruits d'honneur de Fosse, pag. 35 et seqq.]. That there were canons there from the beginning to the number of thirty or thirty-two is commonly handed down.

[7] after, by permission of King Louis, We have received from no one in writing into what state Franco brought the provostship of Fosses: but it can be believed that it was of nearly the same condition as the abbey of Lobbes, of which the same Franco had previously been a monk, and then, after he had been called to the insignia of Liège, also abbot. Now how he arranged the affairs of the monastery, and claimed half of the goods for himself, we read both in the history of the convent of Lobbes written in the tenth century Vos, Lobbes, son abbaye, etc., tom. I, pag. 375. Cf. pag. 188 and 363., and in Folcuin, likewise an author of the end of the tenth century Migne, Patrol. lat., tom. CXXXVII, col. 557. Mon. Germ. hist., tom. IV, p. 61.. Franco having died in the year 903 (or according to others in the year 901), Stephen, canon of Metz, was declared bishop of the people of Liège. To whom, however, the abbey of Fosses does not seem to have gone at once. For as we learn from a diploma of the year 907, Louis the Child, king of Lotharingia from the year 900, gave it to Kisala or Gisela, abbess of Nivelles; who with the king's permission gave it to Bishop Stephen. And Gisela having died, Louis the Child confirmed the donation Borgnet, Cartulaire de Fosses, pag. 1 et seqq..

[8] it had been made an episcopal monastery. The same, in the year 908 ratifying a good many grants made to the Church of Liège, mentions: The abbey by name Fosses, acquired by precarial grant from Gisla, abbess, our kinswoman, with the consent of our will, established in the territory and county of Lomme, of which Berengar is now count Miræus, Opera diplom., tom. I, pag. 34.. From which diplomas we learn also that the monastery of Fosses was imperial or royal; for it was given by the king to Gisela, who, with his concession, gave it to the Church of Liège: whence it was made episcopal. What sort of condition this was, since we have explained it elsewhere Acta SS., tom. XII of Oct., pag. 658 et seq., it will be enough here to indicate summarily. Monasteries were of two kinds. Some were called episcopal and were under the protection and defense of bishops: others royal, and no differently from those which were under the protection of the Roman pontiff were named free. Hence to kings or to bishops, according as monasteries were royal or episcopal, belonged the care of temporal affairs and of regular discipline. This however did not prevent kings from using the efforts of bishops for reviewing whether all things were duly carried out in their monasteries.

[9] The estate of Fosses, made a town, That thereafter the church and monastery of Fosses might not be overthrown by barbarians, Notger, as Gilles of Orval reports, surrounded them with walls Mon. Germ. hist., Scriptt., tom. XXV, pag. 59.: thus Fosses was made a town. The same bishop, besides a good many other privileges, obtained in the year 974 from the emperor Otto II that he might establish in the place called Fosses a toll and market and mint and brewing materials Borgnet, pag. 4; pag. XVII. R. Serrure, Dict. numism., under Fosses.. Especially from the age of Notger the history of Fosses, both ecclesiastical and civil, was almost always mingled with the history of the bishopric of Liège, and since Fosses took part in nearly all the wars stirred up there, it was not rarely plundered. Some of these disasters, as being deadly to the convent, church and relics of St. Foillan, we shall briefly list. In the year 1140 Henry, count of Namur, laid waste the church and the whole town. So the contemporary author of the Triumph of St. Lambert over the castle of Bouillon Mon. Germ. hist., tom. XX, pag. 501.; with whom agree another contemporary writer, the continuator of the Chronicle of Sigebert of Gembloux Ibid., tom. VI, pag. 387., the authors of the Annals of Fosses Ibid., tom. IV, pag. 31. and of the Annals of Floreffe Ibid., tom. XVI, pag. 624.. But the writer of the Annals of Orval Ibid., pag. 683. refers the disaster to the year 1122, and others to the year 1137, 1138 or 1142 Ibid., tom. XXV, pag. 101., which latter opinion seems more probable Borgnet, Cartulaire de Fosses, pag. XII..

[10] it was oppressed by disasters. Shortly after these misfortunes, that is, in the year 1153, the new church of St. Foillan … was consecrated by Henry II, bishop of Liège Mon. Germ., tom. IV, pag. 31; ibid., tom. XVI, pag. 624.: which was again burned in the year 1174 Ibid., tom. IV, pag. 31.. Likewise in the year 1408 William of Bavaria, count of Hainaut, burned the town of Fosses, the church and the cloister, when he fought for the side of his uncle John of Bavaria, bishop of Liège, against the people of Fosses [Suffridus, in Chapeaville, tom. III, pag. 107. Borgnet, Cartul. de Fosses, pag. XXXVI et seq.]. The same calamity was brought by Antoine de Croy, in the name of Philip, duke of Burgundy, waging war against the people of Liège, yet in such a way that the church remained untouched Suffridus, pag. 121, 126. Cf. Borgnet, pag. XXXVII.. This Duke Philip was imitated in the year 1471 by Louis XI, king of France Borgnet, pag. XLI.. In the next century, in the year 1554, Henry II, king of France, hostile to the emperor Charles V, making an attack into Belgium, while he was taking a good many places of the Namur district, consumed Fosses with fires: by which disaster many documents of the archive of Fosses perished Ibid., pag. XLII, pag. 135 et seqq.. Not more gently did the Calvinists from France treat the town and cloister at the end of the year 1568, bursting into our country Ibid., pag. 147.. And if Fosses was not thereafter overthrown by the enemy's iron and fire, it nevertheless suffered no moderate losses in the perpetual wars of the seventeenth century Ibid., pag. XLV et seq.. What historical monuments survive these harshnesses of the times have in great part been made public by the learned men Jules Borgnet Ibid., pag. 1 et seqq. and Joseph Barbier [Analectes pour servir à l'histoire ecclés. de la Belgique, tom. IV, pag. 396 and 489; tom. IX, pag. 47 et seqq.; tom. XIII, pag. 361 et seqq.].

§ II. The memory of St. Foillan in the sacred fasti. His cult at Fosses, in the dioceses of Liège, Cambrai, Tournai, Namur and in other places.

St. Foillan, honored especially at Fosses, Foillan, Foyllanus, Follianus, Fullanus, in Irish Faelan, Faolan, Foelan or Faalan, in the French tongue Feuillen, Follien, Foillain, Fouillian, Foislains, Foignain, Fagnan, etc., is the name of a good many Irishmen distinguished for holiness and miracles Cf. Colgan, Acta SS. Hiberniæ, pag. 104.. Listing these Colgan indicates on what days they were inscribed in the martyrologies. But that Foillan who met his death at Le Rœulx in Belgium is for the most part honored on the 31st day of October, yet in some places on the 30th. This veneration took its beginning to some extent immediately after his death, when on the seventy-eighth day after his murder the sacred body was found, and then magnificently led to Fosses. Surely that very great pomp of the funeral which the writers of the Lives set forth can neither be called a certain sign of public and ecclesiastical cult, nor is it so unusual: for we know a good many holy men to have been so splendidly borne out that their obsequies differed little from the raising of the body from the ground [Cf. Benedict XIV, De servorum Dei beatificatione et canonizatione, lib. II, cap. XII, num. 9.]. Yet honors of this kind paid to a most religious man on account of his holiness are rightly held as a cult begun. But the piety of the people of Fosses toward St. Foillan did not rest in these things; for they have long since honored him three times each year, celebrating on the 16th day of January the finding of his body, on the 3rd day of September his translation, and on the 24th of October the natal day of the saint, whose octave fell on the 31st day of October, illustrious for the martyr's murder. Add that the clergy of Fosses carried out his office once each week with double rite: which piety persisted in this town up until the French, at the close of the eighteenth century, disturbed sacred affairs in Belgium.

[12] and patron of a good many parishes, Besides that of Fosses there are other parishes which have St. Foillan as principal patron, namely in the diocese and province of Namur: Longchamps near Eghezée, Tillier, Omezée, Castillon; in the diocese of Mechelen in Brabant: Enines near Jodoigne, Offus (a small village of the village of Ramillies, itself also near Jodoigne) and especially Neerlinter, to which many flock to invoke the holy man Bets, Geschiedenis der gemeente Neerlinter, pag. 65 and 72.; at Liège the Outre-Meuse church of St. Foillan (or Pholan), which, on the testimony of Jean Foulon in the History of Liège, was founded in the year 1189 by nobles of the Pratana family … the first after that of St. Remaclus, they say, M. S. of the Outre-Meuse Tom. I, pag. 285. Cf. Délices de Liège, tom. I, pag. 152.; in the town of Aachen the parish of St. Foillan Cf. Noppius, Aacher Chronick, pag. 81 et seqq.; of which it was written to our forebears: The church named from this saint is a parish next to the basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary: from which also it was transferred, so that it seems formerly to have been only a chapel, in which some parochial functions were carried out Mss. of the Royal Library of Brussels, num. 8928, fol. 57.. Indeed the author already often cited, Sébastien Bouvier, mentions churches sacred to St. Foillan in Ireland and in the district of Toulouse.

[13] he is mentioned in the sacred fasti In a good many monuments of the eleventh century, namely in the Lives which we have published, Foillan is called a saint. But the more ancient documents by which it may be made plain that he had long since been honored with ecclesiastical cult are not so many. Indeed before Wandelbert, a writer of the middle of the ninth century, no martyrologist, as far as we know, celebrated him. He is also commemorated, at the 31st day of October, both in the Festilogium which is called by the name of Aengus, and which its most recent editor refers to the end of the tenth century Whitley Stokes, On the calendar of Œngus, pag. 4 et seqq., pag. CLIII., and in other ancient Irish calendars, which we shall presently indicate. That his feast was kept at least in the eleventh century at Liège in the Benedictine monastery of St. Laurence appears from the martyrology of Usuard which was abridged for the use of that abbey in the eleventh century, and is now kept at shelf-place 10850 of the Royal Library of Brussels: there, as in Wandelbert, the feast of St. Foillan is announced at the 31st day of October; likewise in the Usuardian martyrology of Centula of the fourteenth century, and of the fifteenth century the Great one of Antwerp, of Utrecht, of Lübeck-Cologne, and finally in the additions of the sixteenth century published by Greven and Molanus. To which add the augmented martyrology of Ado Martyrology of Ado, pag. 554, Domenico Giorgi edit., and the old martyrology of the Dublin cathedral church of the Holy Trinity [Clarke Crosthwaite, The book of obits and Martyrology of the cathedral church of the Holy Trinity, pag. 172.]. Nor did they take any other road: Bl. Peter Canisius in the German Martyrology (which is commonly said to be Adam Walasser's), Galesinius in the Martyrology, Chastelain in the French Universal Martyrology, Molanus in

the Natales of the Saints of Belgium, in the Indiculus of the Saints of Belgium and in the Auctarium to Usuard, Cardinal de Noailles in the Martyrology of Paris, Ferrari in the Catalogue of Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, and also Simon Peyronnet in the Catalogue of Men and Women Saints. From whom O'Clery in the Martyrology of Donegal Todd and Reeves, Calendar of the saints of Ireland, pag. 289. and Matthew Kelly in the Calendar of the Saints of Ireland Calendar of Irish saints, pag. XXXVIII. do not differ.

[14] at the 31st or 30th day of October. The name of St. Foillan occurs also at the 31st day of October in the old Scottish Calendars called that of Drummond Alexander Forbes, Kalendars of Scottish Saints, pag. 27., of Nova Farina Ibid., pag. 76. and of Adam King Ibid., pag. 166.. To these add the Martyrology of Maurolycus, who however errs in this, that for Fosses in the Namur district he takes Fossæ Papirianæ, a town of Etruria, of whose situation there was once much dispute Baudrand, Novum Lexic. geogr., pag. 298.. At the 30th day of October the holy martyr is mentioned in the Belgian and Burgundian Fasti of Miræus, in the Order for reciting the divine office published in the year 1746 by the Premonstratensian family, in the abridged Belgian Hagiology of Baudouin Willot L'Abrégé du martyr. ou Hagiol. Belge, pag. 61, Lille 1658., in Bucelin Menol. Benedict., at the 30th day of Oct. and others. Finally, says Colgan Acta SS. Hib., pag. 104 et seq., Camerarius places the feast of St. Foillan on the 30th of November, on which day no hagiologist before him mentions him. Others record three feasts of his: first, of the finding, the 16th of January… the Martyrology of Tallaght and the Martyrology of Donegal… Second, of the translation, the 3rd of September: so Ferrari, Wion, and the English Martyrology. The third is of the passion or natal day, the 31st of October, concerning which… the Martyrology of Tallaght, the Calendar of Cashel, Bl. Marianus Gorman, and Charles Maguire.

[15] His cult celebrated in the diocese of Liège, As we now review the cult of St. Foillan through the individual dioceses, the first that meets us is the Church of Liège, to which Fosses, where our Saint was buried, belonged for a very long time. No one will wonder, then, that from ancient times his feast was celebrated on the 31st day of October by the priests of Liège. Traces of this veneration we discover in the missals, those at least which we have seen, of the years 1486, 1502 and 1515 Cf. Xav. de Theux, Bibliothèque Liégeoise, tom. II, pag. 539 et seqq.: for there on the 31st day of October priests are ordered to recite in honor of SS. Quintin and Foillan this commemoration: O God, who grantest us to frequent the yearly solemnities of thy holy martyrs Quintin and Foillan: grant, we beseech thee, that we may both celebrate them with devout minds, and by their meriting patronage may fully receive an increase of security. Through. This rite is indicated also in the breviaries of the same church of the years 1488, 1535, 1558: where too St. Foillan is invoked in the litanies. He is mentioned again in the Proper Offices of the year 1623. In the year 1636, as is clear from the breviary printed at that time, the people of Liège kept the feast of St. Foillan with semidouble rite, using this prayer: O God, who grantest us to celebrate the glorious natal day of blessed Foillan, thy martyr and bishop, etc. The lessons of the 1st nocturn were: Justus si morte; the lessons of the 2nd nocturn from the Life of St. Foillan (the third of those which we publish); the lessons of the 3rd nocturn: Sint lumbi vestri etc., as in the common of one confessor not a bishop. There was also a commemoration of St. Quintin. In the Proper Offices of the Feasts of the same diocese published in the years 1644 and 1666 are indicated antiphons, hymns, prayers, invitatory, lessons of the 2nd nocturn, responsories, accommodated wholly to St. Foillan alone, as taken from his Life. Then too there was no longer any commemoration of St. Quintin. But for I know not what reason in the Breviary of Liège of the year 1846 the office of St. Foillan was again banished, yet in such a way that of the holy martyr and of St. Quintin, no differently than in the liturgical books of Liège of the years 1488, 1535, 1558 and 1623, the commemoration: O God, who ... us the yearly, etc., is said to be recited: which also obtains in the Breviaries of Liège of the years 1766 and 1792. But in the Proper Offices published at the beginning of the nineteenth century by J. Zaepffel, bishop of Liège, and printed again in the year 1835, the third lesson on St. Foillan is taken from his Life. In which these things are to be noted: by whom Pope Martin I created regionary bishop, as some report … he came into Belgium about the year 640 … slain by assassins in the year 655.

[16] at Mons, at Le Rœulx, In the diocese of Cambrai too St. Foillan was once venerated: nor is it any wonder, since the place where he shed his blood for Christ was formerly contained within the bounds of this Church. The festivity however was not a celebrated one, since only a commemoration of the holy martyr was made in the divine office. But at Mons in Hainaut, a town which lay in the diocese of Cambrai, the chapter of St. Waldetrudis, as we read in the Offices proper to this collegiate church and their supplement, carried out an office in honor of St. Foillan with double rite, and invoked him from the remotest times in the litanies; the lessons of the 2nd nocturn, as regards the matters themselves, approach that Life which we have called the fifth, with these things added: he was afflicted with martyrdom … in the year of salvation 657. The place of his martyrdom is held marked with veneration in the middle of the church of the monastery of St. Foillan. The cause of this devotion of the people of Mons seems to be this, that in their collegiate church the sacred remains of St. Foillan rested for a good many years, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and that there his hip and shinbone were piously kept almost up to our times. But at Le Rœulx, where St. Foillan obtained the palm of martyrdom, the Premonstratensian canons, who had this seat from the twelfth century, celebrated three times a year, namely on the days of the 16th of January, the 3rd of September, the 23rd of October and the seven following days, the finding, translation and death of the blessed martyr, in nearly the same way as the canons of Fosses. Even now, although the Premonstratensian family has died out there, the cult is strong, as among other things is shown by the solemn Mass sung on the feast day in his honor.

[17] in the whole diocese of Tournai, of Namur, But after the concordat of the year 1801, when both Mons in Hainaut and Le Rœulx were no longer parts of the diocese of Cambrai, but of Tournai, the clerics of Cambrai ceased to celebrate our Saint: on the other hand the bishop of Tournai, François Joseph Hirn, in the year 1805 commanded the priests of his diocese that thereafter, using the office previously recited by the canons of St. Waldetrudis of Mons, they should every year on the 31st day of October keep the feast of St. Foillan with semidouble rite: which mandate Bishop Gaspard Labis renewed in the year 1845. Likewise since by the concordat of the year 1801 the town of Fosses was no longer of the diocese of Liège, but of Namur, and at the same time Foillan passed among the saints of this Church, the clerics of Namur were ordered to keep his feast with simple rite, using the lessons of the Roman Breviary from the common. But to their bishop, Charles Pisani de la Gaude, Pius VII granted on the 27th day of January of the year 1809 that the office which the clergy of Liège, with the approval in the year 1804 of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, had been accustomed to use, should be employed also by the clergy of Namur. And when Nicolas Dehesselle, bishop of Namur, changed the proper offices of his diocese in the year 1841, with the permission of the Holy See, he ordered that the feast of St. Foillan should thereafter be kept with double rite; the lessons of the 2nd nocturn are an epitome of the third Life.

[18] and of Mechelen. As at Fosses that of St. Gertrude, so at Nivelles the cult of St. Foillan was once strong. For there, on the 2nd feria, on the feast of Pentecost, a suffrage was made of St. Foillan, as we see in the liturgical books of the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries Edm. Jamart, S. Feuillen, son séjour et son culte à Nivelles, pag. 11 et seqq.. Moreover on the 30th day of October, in honor of the same saint, a Mass of the common of one martyr was said, with the prayer Infirmitatem, and every year in the public supplication (which holds even today) this antiphon was sung: Blessed bishop Foillan, having become the companion of the gracious virgin Gertrude, continually implanted in her senses the fervor of faith, long-suffering and the sweetness of charity. This ancient veneration had indeed become somewhat obsolete; but on the 31st day of October of the year 1877 the dean and parish priests of the district of Nivelles, with some others whose churches enjoy St. Foillan as patron, asked His Eminence Cardinal Victor Dechamps that he would deign to request from the Holy See for the diocese of Mechelen a proper office of St. Foillan to be celebrated every year on the 31st day of October. The right of this holy man … to our devotion, they say, is attested both by other things and by the ancestral devotion of the people of Nivelles toward St. Foillan, which the greatest disturbances could not extinguish, since still every year, in the church of Nivelles, when the relics of St. Gertrude are carried round in procession, a memorial of St. Foillan is made, an antiphon being sung in his honor; there are witness also the various churches built in honor of St. Foillan in our diocese, in the places Neerlinter, Ransbergen, Offus and Enines, and his most devout cult in them, and especially in the church of Neerlinter, spread far and wide, pilgrims running there from all sides. The most reverend archbishop, assenting, on the 8th day of June 1878 asked of the Holy See that the clergy of the archdiocese of Mechelen might be permitted to recite the Mass and office of St. Foillan, bishop and martyr … with the prayer and three proper lessons … already approved for the diocese of Tournai by the S. R. C. on the 9th day of March 1865, and that such a feast might be celebrated under the lesser double rite on the natal day itself, namely the 31st of October Ibid., pag. 14 et seqq.. The Sacred Congregation of Rites on the 23rd day of July of the year 1878 granted the faculty asked for: which His Eminence the cardinal, promulgating it, ordered the feast to be celebrated on the 6th day of November Ibid., pag. 13..

[19] The companions of St. Foillan were venerated at Nivelles So far on the cult paid to St. Foillan and propagated continuously right up to our own age. It follows that we should show that his companions too, from before the memory of men, were enriched with the same honors. First of all those three disciples (whose names Colgan conjectures [Acta SS. Hiberniæ, pag. 103. Cf. Corblet, Hagiogr. du dioc. d'Amiens, tom. III, pag. 585.] to be Boetius, Columban and Gobban) are named martyrs in that Life of St. Foillan which our Cornelius Smet published from a manuscript of the convent of Rouge-Cloître Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 19.. Then we read in the Martyrology of Usuard augmented by Greven, and printed at Cologne in the year 1515, then 1521, at the 16th day of January, on which the bodies of St. Foillan and his companions were found, that the memory is observed of Foillan, bishop and martyr, and his companions; likewise in Molanus Natales SS. Belgii. at the 30th day of October: But the three disciples of St. Foillan were buried at Nivelles in the monastery

of the canonesses of St. Gertrude, and with St. Foillan they are invoked in the litanies of the abbey of Le Rœulx; and in his Indiculus of the Saints of Belgium Pag. 34. he adds that they are invoked in the litanies by the canons of Le Rœulx in these words: St. Foillan with thy companions, pray for us. Moreover Baudouin Willot, in the Belgian Martyrology, written in French in the middle of the seventeenth century, reports at the 31st day of October that relics of three companions of St. Foillan are preserved at Nivelles Martyrologe ou Hagiologe Belg., pag. 110.. These words are read also in a manuscript Belgian Martyrology for the use, at the end of the eighteenth century, of the nuns of St. Ursula of Antwerp. Of the same saints Du Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology at the 30th day of October says: In the district of Liège, in the town of Fosses … the natal day of three blessed companions of St. Foillan himself, who, slain with him by the same wicked men, poured out their happy spirits in immortal victory, and at the following day: At Fosses is celebrated the natal day of St. Foillan, martyr, and his companions, whose last contest was carried out yesterday. Whether or not in the year 1637, in which Du Saussay published his Martyrology, the three martyrs were honored with public and ecclesiastical cult at Fosses, I have ascertained from no other historical document. Indeed in the proper offices of the church of Fosses used in the eighteenth century, which I have to hand, I nowhere find the companions of St. Foillan venerated as saints.

[20] where they were buried, That they were buried at Nivelles the biographers all agree with one voice; and indeed, on the testimony of Bartholomew Fisen Flores Ecclesiæ Leodiensis, pag. 473. and Molanus Natales SS. Belgii, at the 31st of Oct., they are believed to have been laid in the church of St. Gertrude. Indeed, if anyone is pleased to determine it more closely, he will perhaps conjecture that their sacred bones lie under the former high altar. When at the beginning of this century the parish priest of the church of St. Gertrude, by name Allard, wished to remove this, in order to place a new altar; the front stone of the old altar being taken away, he saw two oaken caskets, adorned with golden stars, very ancient and eaten away: which, placed on a structure one foot high, contained many very large bones. The priest, not knowing whose they were, thought that the old altar should not be removed, but the new one set opposite it, so that between the two altars there would be a passage by which the caskets could be reached: where even today those bones are seen. Since these things then are placed in a wooden tomb, marked with stars, and that movable, on a structure one foot high, under the altar of a most celebrated collegiate church; no one who has even lightly touched the books of Benedict XIV on Beatification Cf. lib. II, cap. XII, num. 12 et seqq., or the decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Rites on the confirmation of the cult of many saints, will deny that sacred and public cult was paid to the aforesaid remains. Which would seem by no means strange, if they are the bones of the companions of St. Foillan: for, as is established from all the Acts of the holy man, the disciples met a bloody death with piety. This was formerly required and sufficient for someone to be enrolled among the martyrs.

[21] perhaps in the church of St. Gertrude; Yet I do not wish to conceal that there are the bones there not of three men, but, as it seems, of only two. Indeed, the conjecture will have to be called not only doubtful, but wholly empty, if we stand by the opinion of Guillaume de Rebreviettes. For he wrote in the year 1612 [L'image de la noblesse figurée sur la vie de S. Gertrude et de ses parens, part. III, cap. XX, pag. 454.], and certain more recent authors after him have reported, that under the high altar of the church of St. Gertrude lie the bodies of Bl. Pepin of Landen and Bl. Iduberga, and that his bones are carried round every year in the public supplication on the Rogation days. But to these things, I believe, assent is not to be given. Certainly, to omit other things, in the year 1680, when our forebears made public the Acts of Bl. Iduberga, the remains of Pepin and his wife had been placed behind the high altar: which Henschen testifies that he himself saw, recording too that Molanus noted that they were honorably carried round at the time of the Rogations Acta SS., tom. II of May, pag. 308.. Then in our age the same relics of BB. Pepin and Iduberga were reviewed by His Eminence Cardinal Sterckx, and even today are carried round through the Rogations, wholly different from those which rest under the old high altar. Since these then are not of the holy spouses, whether they can be referred to the companions of St. Foillan I would not dare to determine, nor am I led to suspect it, except by a light conjecture Cf. Edm. Jamart, S. Feuillen, son séjour et son culte à Nivelles, pag. 6 et seq..

[22] and, although killed by robbers, That indeed no one denies, that St. Foillan and his companions have always and everywhere been held martyrs: but whether rightly and deservedly has at one time been doubted, because they are stated to have been killed for the sake of plunder, not of religion Hugo, Ann. Præmonstrat., tom. I, pag. 673.. Whence it came about that some authors both withdraw credit from the ancient Lives in this, and in the gravest words reprove those who think that St. Foillan was killed solely from greed. They will have it that his slayers were either wicked men, inflamed against the holy man because he criticized their vices, or moreover idolaters, who took it ill that Foillan was everywhere overthrowing temples, altars, images of false deities, and preaching against them in the very place Ampolines; indeed, so they say, one is free to believe that the assassins were sent by Penda, king of the Mercians, who, formerly laying waste the monastery of Cnobheresburg, had then tried in vain to kill St. Foillan, the abbot [Bouvier, Miroir de sainteté en la vie, etc., de S. Fueillien, pag. 124 et seqq. Cf. Lejeune, L'ancienne abbaye de S. Feuillien, in Annales du Cercle archéol. de Mons, tom. V, pag. 134.]. These conjectures are not only opposed to all the Lives of St. Foillan, but also have no use. For that St. Foillan and his companions, slain by robbers, were enrolled among the martyrs is by no means foreign to the ecclesiastical discipline of that age. Namely in the sixth and following centuries, as has been shown a good many times in our Work, those men were very often called martyrs, distinguished for holiness, who, not indeed for Christ or for piety, but with piety, met an unjust and bloody death, especially if the Lord honored them with the glory of miracles [Acta SS. Bollandiana vindicata, Papebroch's Resp. ad exhib. errorum, art. XI, § XVII, pag. 378. Acta SS., tom. III of June, pag. 938; tom. IX of Oct., pag. 141.].

[23] they were held as martyrs. Such were, to gather at least some and that it may at the same time appear that this discipline flourished among all Christian peoples in the Middle Ages, St. Sigismund, king of Burgundy Acta SS., tom. I of May, pag. 83 et seqq., SS. Ethelbert and Ethelred in England Ibid., tom. VIII of Oct., pag. 96., St. Lupentius, abbot at Châlons in Gaul Ibid., tom. IX of Oct., pag. 602., St. Evergislus, bishop of Cologne Ibid., tom X of Oct., pag. 657., St. Meliavus or Eliavus in Armorican Brittany Ibid., tom. XI of Oct., pag. 945., SS. Luglius and Luglianus in Artois Ibid., tom. X of Oct., pag. 109., St. Meinrad, hermit in Switzerland Ibid., tom. II of Jan., pag. 384., Bl. Hainmarus, bishop of Auxerre Ibid., tom. XII of Oct., pag. 369., St. Sigebert, king of the Anglo-Saxons, afterwards a monk Ibid., pag. 899., St. Edward, king of England, Ibid., tom. II of March, pag. 638 et seqq., St. Eric, king of Sweden Ibid., tom. IV of May, pag. 187., St. Olaf, king of Norway Ibid., tom. VII of July, pag. 87 et seqq., St. Margaret at Roskilde in Denmark Ibid., tom. XI of Oct., pag. 716., St. Canute Lavard, king of the Obotrites Ibid., tom. I of Jan., pag. 391., St. Adalbald the duke, venerated in Belgium Ibid., tom. I of Feb., pag. 296., St. Baldwin, archdeacon of Laon Ibid., tom. I of Jan., pag. 502., St. Magnus, earl of the Orkney islands Ibid., tom. II of April, pag. 439., and many others. It is not then a singular thing that St. Foillan was numbered among the martyrs: whom we read also called the protomartyr of Hainaut Brasseur, Sancta Sanctorum Hannoniæ, pag. 228..

§ III. The translations of the body of St. Foillan. Of the present state of the relics.

The body of St. Foillan, In the eighteenth century the canons of Fosses sang in lesson VI of the second nocturn of the day of the 3rd of September, sacred to the Translation of St. Foillan: This certainly brings to us more ample matter for wonder, that the continuous vicissitude of eleven centuries, the sudden irruption of the Normans, who with the highest impiety mingled sacred things with profane, the repeated and lamentable slaughter of the town of Fosses, and the deadly doubled fire by which the church, the cloisters, and in short the whole city were blown away, did not begrudge that the sacred body of Foillan be transmitted to us whole. Indeed it is seen from the series of dangers from which God rescued the relics of St. Foillan that the canons rightly gave thanks. These perils we shall briefly set forth, beginning from the finding of the sacred body shortly after his murder.

[25] found after his murder and carried to Fosses, In the place Ampolines, where he was slain, St. Foillan lay unburied more than two months. The robbers, says the author of the first Life, hid the bodies of the saints in the shady lairs of wild beasts: which St. Gertrude found on the seventieth day after the passion of the most glorious martyr, indeed, as the second biographer attests, on the seventy-eighth after the day of their death, which is the seventeenth before the kalends of February. But for the 16th day of January to be able to be called the seventy-eighth from the 31st of October, on which they were killed, we must reckon both days. Of the three narratives of the Finding which Colgan published Acta SS. Hib., pag. 99 et seqq., we have thought it right to reprint none here; since the first, from the manuscript of Rouge-Cloître, was published by Cornelius Smet; the second is nothing but the last part of the second Life of St. Foillan; and the third does not differ at all from the composition of Philip of Harvengt. Colgan adds concerning the same Finding both a brief prose and a hymn for vespers, which have nothing why they should be shown again here. We think the same of the Life of St. Gertrude which the manuscript 14934 of the eleventh century of the Brussels Library presents, and which Geldolphus of Ryckel published in great part [Vita S. Gertrudis, pag. 59 et seqq., Louvain 1632. Cf. Acta SS., tom. II of March, pag. 593.]. From it certain recent biographers of St. Foillan took not a little, since there it is narrated how the blessed man frequently went and returned, visiting now the brethren, now the spouse of Christ; how by robbers, in greed for spoil, with three disciples he was slain

and how at last St. Gertrude found him, long sought. That the body of the blessed man when found was carried first to Nivelles, and from there with great preparation to Fosses, the biographers assert with no one dissenting. But of the attendant circumstances there is not the same agreement among all. If the more recent writers are to be believed, Ultan said to St. Gertrude, who was in doubt about the place of burial, that this was St. Foillan's will, that he should be interred at Fosses. Indeed this is already read in those Acts of St. Foillan which Henschen, discoursing of St. Ultan, brought forward in part, and which approach the third Life: They carry the body when found to Nivelles, place it in the church, celebrate Masses with the devotion of the peoples. While they are in doubt whether they should bury him there or elsewhere, the abbot Ultan is present, thus approaching them: "From divine counsel, he said, it was the will of the bishop and a fixed purpose that after his death burial should gather him at Fosses. If anyone intends and contends to bury him elsewhere, he will be seen to oppose the will both of God and of the bishop." The virgin consents, the multitude of the people also consents Acta SS., tom. I of May, pag. 119.. Another tradition, of which we find plainly no trace in ancient documents, some authors have set down in writing C. Kairis, Notice sur la ville de Fosses, pag. 12.. If we wish to hear it, when the people of Nivelles and of Fosses each claimed the sacred body for their own, they placed it on a wagon and committed it to four untrained oxen, to bury it where the yokes of oxen should stop. These (to say nothing of other wonders) of their own accord went on to Fosses.

[26] about the middle of the tenth century it was hidden at Fraxinus. But in what place the relics of St. Foillan rested through the irruptions of the Normans, in what way they were defended from their impiety, the writers have not reported. Nor has it been shown that they were carried anywhere outside Fosses before the tenth century. But Hillinus writes in the Miracles of the blessed man that in the middle of the tenth century they were exiled from this city: When the Hungarians, he says, or barbarians were once laying waste parts of our Gaul, because the place had not yet been surrounded with ditches (which it obtained in the year 974), by the counsel of laity as well as clergy the venerable body of the holy martyr was carried into the neighboring town, which is called Fraxinus (today called Frênes, part of the parish of Lustin, near Namur), conveniently situated on the bank of the Meuse among the rocks: where, on the testimony of the memory of their fathers, the inhabitants say that the relics of St. Foillan remained for about a hundred years, in a cave which is called in the vernacular La grande eglise The great church Annales du Cercle archéol. de Namur, tom. II, pag. 334 et seqq.. This translation seems to be referable to the year 954, in which, as Folcuin, abbot of Lobbes, a nearly contemporary writer, says, the Hungarians, having attacked Hesbaye with fires and plunder, made for the Charbonnière [Mon. Germ. hist., Scriptt., tom. IV, pag. 66. Dussieux, Essai historique sur les invasions des Hongrois, pag. 62, edit. 1879.]. This irruption is also, to omit others, recorded by the Continuator of Regino Mon. Germ. hist., tom. I, pag. 623. and in the Annals of Würzburg Ibid., tom. II, pag. 242.. But certain writers will have it that these things happened at another time, not only in the year 926, when the Hungarians laid waste all Francia, Alsace, Gaul and Alemannia with fire and sword Cf. ibid., tom. I, pag. 68 and 616; tom. II, pag. 241., but also much earlier. Canon Florenville thinks that the relics were returned to the people of Fosses already in the year 900. But, as Charles Kairis holds Not. hist. sur la ville de Fosses, pag. 14., Fosses having been plundered by the Normans in the year 880, the body of St. Foillan was carried to Fraxinus: from which in the year 914 they were brought back to their former dwelling by Stephen, bishop of Liège, and the emperor of Germany.

[27] in the year 1086 placed in a new casket, In the very next century the Translation of St. Foillan, at which Henry I, bishop of Liège, was present, was celebrated with great pomp at Fosses, on the 3rd day of September of the year 1086. Narrating this, Hillinus, a witness of the matter, adds that Henry proclaimed an annual observance of this day to be celebrated. Which was obeyed not only at Fosses, but also at Le Rœulx in the abbey of St. Foillan up to the eighteenth century. We think it better, omitting the other lessons IV, V and VI of the second nocturn, recited formerly at Le Rœulx and Fosses at the commemoration of this Translation, to present lesson VI of the other office, used on this solemn day by the canons of Fosses, which is a summary of the narrative of Hillinus. At last in the year one thousand and eighty-six a pious matron bequeathed a silver urn, distinguished with gold and gems with wondrous art, for placing the relics of blessed Foillan more honorably. For this translation the third day of September is fixed. There is present Henry the first, bishop and prince of our diocese. So great a deluge of peoples floods the town and the whole neighborhood that they can hardly contain those flowing to this august ceremony. A procession is proclaimed by the most illustrious bishop: priests eagerly carry the sacred burden of Foillan's relics, which a huge ordered line of the supplicating people follows. And behold, a certain man, wasted by the squalor of a long-lasting disease and useless in all his limbs, begs to be restored to his former soundness by the blessed martyr; another, troubled by the most bitter pains of the stone, asks to be freed from cruel strangury; a third at last entreats that his withered right hand be recovered: all of whom were not cheated of their desire, but were most wholly healed of whatever infirmity held them. In memory of this threefold cure, Henry I decreed that today's translation should be celebrated every year under the invocation of the most holy Trinity.

[28] in the year 1125 translated to Le Rœulx, But another translation soon took place. For since the people of Fosses were persuaded that those undertakings would be fortunate which were commended to St. Foillan, indeed since upon his body, the body being present, they not rarely received donations and pleaded cases [Cf. above, Miracles, num. 15. Anal. pour servir à l'hist. eccl. de la Belg., tom. IV, pag. 397.], they brought the sacred bones to Le Rœulx, when a new convent was instituted there for canons under Burchard, bishop of Cambrai. This indeed is referred to the year 1124 by the author of the Annals of Fosses, saying: In the year 1124 the bringing of blessed Foillan the martyr to Ampolines, where also he suffered Mon. Germ. hist., tom. IV, pag. 30.; but the year 1125 seems preferable, because Nicholas, bishop of Cambrai, in a diploma of the year 1137 recalls that these solemnities were celebrated by his predecessor at the very constitution of the convent of Le Rœulx: which Burchard himself testifies in a diploma took place in the year 1125. He then, as Bishop Nicholas writes, emancipated that place sprinkled with the wave of his holy blood St. Foillan's and shining with the frequent light of miracles, where also a chapel in his honor was situated, and handed over both it and the altar of Sterpeis with all its appurtenances, and also the altar of Archene near Nivelles, likewise the altar of Guasleir * and the chapel of Borle-Fontine, to the blessed martyr Foillan and the church of Fosses, upon his most sacred body, which had been carried there to accomplish this along with very many bodies of the saints, for the uses, namely, of the brethren who in the same place, in the forest which is called Cherbonires, might serve God and the blessed martyr Foillan under regular habit and order Anal. pour servir à l'hist. eccl. de la Belg., tom. IV, pag. 399 et seq..

[29] then found in the year 1176; What the fortunes of the holy relics were from the year 1125 to the year 1176 no one has handed down to memory. But at the year 1176 one reads in the Annals of Fosses: In this year the body of blessed Foillan the martyr was revealed at Fosses in the midst of the castle, under Raoul, bishop of Liège Pertz Monum. Germaniæ histor., Scriptt., tom. IV, pag. 31.. I judge that the body of St. Foillan, after the burning of the church of Fosses in the year 1174, was hidden, and after two years had passed was restored to the piety of the people. For the same Annalist of Fosses writes at the year 1174: The church of Fosses was burned at midnight with the cloister and all the workshops, with the basi … la Bastida of the bishop and a certain part of the aforesaid town Ibid.. As regards the castle in which the body of blessed Foillan was revealed, it was enclosed by walls and was not rarely called the cloister, and the chapter. It contained the bishop's house, the collegiate church of St. Foillan, the cemetery and the dwellings of the canons. Its chief part was the castle or house of the bishop. The site of this is today named Arvol or Porte du château Gate of the castle Borgnet, Cart. de Fosses, Introd., pag. XVIII et seq..

[30] in the year 1232 hidden in a new throne. But since the grateful spirit of the citizens of Fosses toward St. Foillan took increase day by day, and they wished to show their pious affection, they asked in the year 1232 John II, surnamed Apianus, bishop of Liège from the year 1229 to the year 1238, to place the body of Blessed Foillan in a silver casket, and that one finished with singular artifice. Sébastien Bouvier, recounting the martyr's virtues in the year 1657, reports that he saw a testimony of this solemnity written on a parchment, which had been sealed by John Apianus. These were the words: In the year of grace 1232, on the feast of Blessed Remaclus, the 3rd day of September, by John, by the grace of God venerable bishop of Liège, the body of Blessed Foillan, glorious martyr, was laid in this vessel: who, in the reign of King Sigebert, consecrated bishop by Pope Martin, merited by martyrdom to be enrolled among the heavenly citizens in the year of the Lord 657 Bouvier, part. III, cap. V, pag. 263 et seq., edit. 1657.. Moreover in the Annals of Fosses at the year 1232 one reads: In this year the venerable body of blessed Foillan, bishop and martyr, was replaced in a feretory by John, bishop of Liège Mon. Germ. hist., tom. IV, pag. 32.. This vessel was of silver, more than two feet high, about five feet long, and shaped in the manner of a roof. On the ends there was sculpted on one side the Mother of God surrounded by rays, and at her feet a certain canon prostrate: on the other side St. Foillan, bishop and martyr, at whose right a certain nobleman and at whose left a certain matron knelt. On one side of the casket were cut SS. Peter, Paul, Michael, Lambert and Ultan: on the other side SS. Gertrude, Henry, Louis, Giles and Maternus. The canon, the nobleman and the matron there represented, whose names are unknown, probably contributed the most toward making the feretory; although it was handed down in the memory of the citizens that no small help was also given to this work of piety by the common people. And these things are from Sébastien Bouvier, who however erred in saying that the casket which in his age contained the body of St. Foillan was wholly the same as that of which John Apianus spoke in the year 1232, and that on it the image of St. Louis was engraved. For St. Louis the king in the year 1270 and St. Louis, bishop of Toulouse, in the year 1297

departed this life. Hence it must be said either that the casket was engraved after the year 1232, or that St. Louis was taken by Sébastien Bouvier for another holy man.

[31] In a war it was carried to Mons in Hainaut by Duke William, In the year 1408 the relics of St. Foillan were carried to Mons in Hainaut. The cause of this was the following. When John of Bavaria, elected bishop of Liège, labored under the greatest ill-will among his people, the people of Liège, thrusting him from the throne, drove him out by force. His brother William IV, count of Hainaut, indignant at this, entered the parts of Liège and laid them waste. Fosses too was taken, and wasted with fire and iron. Yet William, not daring to touch the remains of St. Foillan with sacrilegious hand, nay taking pains that they should be harmed by no one or as little as possible, transferred them to Mons, and committed them to the canonesses of St. Waldetrudis to be kept for a time. He ordered a most certain testimony of his will to be drawn up, written on parchment. This letter, as it exists even today in the royal archive of Mons, I share with the reader.

[32] who committed it to the canonesses of St. Waldetrudis for a time, In the name of the Lord, amen. Let all and each who shall inspect this present public instrument know that whereas lately the men of Liège, commonly called Hedroit, had driven from the said city and country the illustrious and most vigorous prince, reverend and father, Lord John, duke of Bavaria, elect of Liège and count of Loon, their lord, and also his venerable chapter of Blessed Lambert, together with a good many other priests, noble and notable men, ecclesiastical and regular as well as secular, of the city and their country of Liège, cause and reason being absent, but by wicked will and tumultuous assault, and had stirred up war against him and his, and were prosecuting it most impiously, and at length with a very great army had besieged on every side the town of Maastricht, in which he had fled for the sake of protection and had received himself with his people, intending to take such a town by force or hunger, and to demolish it from the foundation, and wickedly to deliver that lord and his people to death, as sufficiently appeared and is reported; and then the most illustrious prince and most powerful lord, Lord William, duke of Bavaria and count of Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland, and lord of Frisia, own brother of the aforesaid Lord John the elect, attending that his brother was placed in such peril and that there was no other refuge for his brother, wishing to rescue him from the hands of such tyrants, as he was bound, defied, being requested by the same brother with all insistence, the said people of Liège and country, and moving his army, entered the said country, depopulating, wasting and burning it, until he had come with his army to the town of Fosses of the same country: which therefore by frequent and violent engagements he took by force and subdued to himself. And when it had been seized, and a little afterwards exposed to plunder and burning, he beheld the principal church of the said place blazing with fire by accident, and grieved over it vehemently, especially since he had afterwards learned from the report of some that the body of blessed Foillan the martyr rests in it. Wherefore he commanded without delay that the aforesaid body should be diligently sought out, and as far as possible drawn out from such fire. Of which body the head and very many bones of the same holy martyr were found there unharmed, and were diligently gathered up, and honorably preserved; and at length by command of the same lord prince they were carried to his town of Mons in Hainaut, and reverently laid and enclosed in a new casket with a good many locks. Therefore in the presence of us public notaries, and of the witnesses written below, specially summoned and asked for this, there being personally present the renowned and powerful men, the lords de le Hamaide, Anselm lord of Trazegnies, barons, James de Sars, knight, provost of Mons, Baldwin of Fremont, treasurer of Hainaut, councillors of the aforesaid most illustrious prince, in his place and name, as they said, handed over wholly and really the already said relics of St. Foillan, sealed, to the venerable and noble college of the church of blessed Waldetrudis of Mons, there in procession, together with the college of the church of St. Germanus of the said place, gathered together for this, to be guarded and to be preserved in deposit, with the reverence that is fitting, in the treasury of the same church of blessed Waldetrudis, they handed them over, under the content of the words expressed by the lord treasurer himself by word of mouth, which follows: namely that the aforesaid most illustrious prince was handing over and delivering, or causing to be handed over, such relics to the aforesaid college of blessed Waldetrudis, to be preserved reverently and untouched in the said treasury, in the manner and on the condition that, when it should please the said most illustrious prince or his successors, he could and ought, they could and ought, to have back the aforementioned relics freely and wholly and without any difficulty, and they ought to be fully restored to him or his successors by the aforesaid college or chapter, he or they to dispose of the same relics according to the pleasure of his will, as his or their conscience or the counsel of those learned in the law shall judge should be done. In this manner, then, and on this condition the said college and chapter of blessed Waldetrudis received those relics in good faith and without evil intent to be preserved, and promised to return them to the aforesaid lord prince or his successors, or his or their special messengers, without any impediment in the aforesaid manner. And thereafter the said colleges carried the same relics reverently, in procession and devoutly singing, all the bells being rung and the lights lit, the clergy and people standing by, the hands of the aforesaid lords barons and treasurer, and of a good many other ecclesiastical men, being put to the feretory covered with a golden pall, to the said church of blessed Waldetrudis, and placed them in the same treasury, one of the keys of the same casket being delivered to the said provost, and the other to Broiandus de Sars, esquire; whereupon, through the mouth of the said lord treasurer, in the name stated above, it was insistently asked and ordered concerning the foregoing that a public instrument should be made and delivered by us the notaries written below to the said lord prince. These things were done in one of the houses of the said most illustrious prince called Bassecourt, the treasurer, the colleges, Broiandus, John de le Hestre, John Couvet, esquires, Colard de Gemblues, John Vivien, Ralph and James de Marchiennes, John de Hon the younger, Lancelot de Bertemont, and a good many others being gathered there as witnesses, specially summoned and asked for the foregoing.

And I, Stephen Wiardi of Tongeren, of the diocese of Cambrai, public notary by apostolic and imperial authority, was present at all and each of the foregoing, as they are described above by my own hand, together with the said lords and colleges and witnesses and the notary subscribed below, and all and each of these, being present, received by me in note, I have reduced into this public form, a collation having been held between us notaries on this matter, and have here placed my accustomed sign together with the sign and subscription of the discreet man Lord John Ogin, otherwise of Saint-Vaast, public notary by imperial authority, subscribed below, being requested and asked, in faith and testimony of the foregoing.

And I, John of Saint-Vaast, priest of the diocese of Cambrai, public notary by imperial authority, since I was present at all and each of the foregoing, as they are written above by the own hand of the discreet man Stephen Wiardi, public notary by apostolic and imperial authority, together with the aforenamed witnesses and the same notary, have therefore here subscribed myself, and have here placed my usual sign together with the sign and subscription of the aforesaid notary, being requested and asked, in testimony of the foregoing [Archives de l'Etat at Mons, Trésorerie des chartes des comtes de Hainaut, num. 814.].

[33] and afterwards he took care that it be returned to Fosses, In the same year the war was finished, and the relics of St. Foillan could confidently have been restored to the church of Fosses. Nevertheless no one had the care, says Bartholomew Fisen, of bringing them back to their former place. The holy martyr took it upon himself, by no means willing to suffer a longer exile. He showed himself to William of Bavaria, count of Hainaut, as he slept one time, and severely warned him to send his body back to Fosses: if he did not do so, he would pay gravely. Awakened, when he pondered with himself what he had received through the dream, he judged it to be nothing but the mockeries of an empty dream, and so determined not to obey. This decision of mind was soon followed by a huge pain of the head, which the count himself called intolerable: and he was prevented by it from admitting any rest. He recognized the right hand of St. Foillan in anger. He ordered his body to be sent back to Fosses Historia Ecclesiæ Leodiensis, part. III, lib. VIII, pag. 180..

[34] a certain part being left in the church of St. Waldetrudis. He determined however, with the approval of the canons of Fosses, that, in perpetual memory of the dwelling granted to the remains of St. Foillan, his hip and shinbone should be given to the canonesses of St. Waldetrudis. They were enclosed in a very beautiful casket of silver, inlaid with gold, adorned with this inscription: This reliquary of St. Foillan was given by William, duke of Bavaria, count of Hainaut, etc., who had carried * the body of the saint into this church after the destruction of the town of Fosses, in the year of the Lord 1408, in which he utterly defeated in a pitched battle the people of Liège, rebels against his brother, their lord, and subjected the whole country, and afterwards honorably restoring the body of the said saint to the canons of the place, with their consent, acquired these relics in perpetual memory of the event [Cf. Raissius, Hierogazophylacium Belgicum, pag. 546. Bouvier, Miroir de sainteté en la vie, etc., de S. Feuillien, part. II, cap. VI, pag. 243. Devillers, Mém. hist. sur l'église de Sainte-Waudru à Mons, pag. 57.]. The reliquary itself, which they say has now been lost with the relics contained in it, was described by Fr. Brasseur: There are seen … the hip and the shinbone in a transparent silver case, sustained under a starry heaven by two angels on either side, with this inscription sculpted at the base in old lettering: This reliquary etc. And the case of the aforesaid St. Foillan is quite often accustomed to be exposed to draw forth rain, when there is a great drought, or to restrain it, where excessive rain overabounds Sancta Sanctorum Hannoniæ, pag. 197.. That the chapter of St. Waldetrudis gave effort to adorning this case is shown by the account tables of receipts and expenses Compte de la recette générale du chap. de Ste Waudru, 12 Oct. 1426..

[35] In the year 1429 the relics of St. Foillan are carried to Nivelles. Bartholomew Fisen narrates that the relics of St. Foillan, when war arose in the year 1429 between the people of Liège and Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy and prince of nearly all Belgium, were carried to Nivelles, as to a safe place. Which the people of Fosses did wisely; for shortly afterwards (in the year 1430) the Burgundians besieged Fosses, and having taken it burned it, leaving only the church untouched Historia Ecclesiæ Leodiensis, part. II, lib. IX, pag. 193.. The war being finished, when the body of St. Foillan, which rested at Nivelles for a whole year, was being carried home, those who had put their shoulders under the sacred burden, passing a certain district, asked a woman for water from a well, with which to quench the burning of their thirst. She refused: and at once, all moisture failing, the well dried up Ibid., pag. 196..

Which things Fisen says he received from Jean de Stavelot. But to me, searching through his chronicle, published by the learned Adolphe Borgnet, nothing of this kind occurs: whether perhaps Bartholomew Fisen used another copy, I do not dare to determine.

[36] A little later the canons tried in vain to carry them to Hasselt. In the year 1455 the canons of Fosses, because the cloister of the convent, the seat of the relics of St. Foillan, was not a sufficiently safe place in war, had formed the plan of transferring them to Hasselt. Hence so great a discord between the chapter and many citizens that they brought the dispute to be settled before the magistrates of Liège, Dinant and Thuin, as being nearer. These, when they saw that the canons' fear was not indeed empty, but that the exile of St. Foillan would be most grievous to the people, established that so great a treasure should remain in the town, at the same time promising in the name of the people of Fosses that they would devote no slight effort to fortifying the cloister. But since the magistrates of Fosses did not stand by these promises, publicly confirmed by them, the people of Dinant, who were the chief inhabitants of the district lying between the Meuse and the Sambre, admonished them on keeping faith. And these things are from contemporary and wholly certain documents, which Jules Borgnet, most learned in the affairs of Namur, has made public Cf. Cartulaire de Fosses, Introduction, pag. XXXVII et seqq.. From which we learn also that for adorning or restoring the casket of St. Foillan, about the year 1560, the magistrates of Fosses contributed something Ibid., pag. 300..

[37] [For the most part they were lost at the end of the eighteenth century. Some are preserved at Fosses.] In the next century, namely in the year 1628, these and other relics of the chapter of Fosses are said to have been reviewed by Luigi Caraffa, legate of Urban VIII, in the tablets of Lord Florenville, dean of Fosses at the beginning of this century. Nor was there only one casket of St. Foillan there. In the review of the sacred vessels made in the year 1773 there are mentioned, as was written to us from Fosses, both a throne shaped in the manner of a chalice and a silver arm, in which certain relics of the holy bishop were preserved. The people of Fosses diligently guarded the sacred body of their patron up to the end of the eighteenth century. What was done with them then, namely when in the year 1792 and following the enemy trampled all holy things in Belgium, no one has so far disclosed. I would not wonder if so great a treasure, together with the silver casket in which it lay, was hidden by certain canons in a very secret place: who afterwards departed this life before they could disclose the secret to others. The people of Fosses were also near to losing the silver breastplate in which the head of St. Foillan was separately enclosed. For it was already being carried to Namur, when behold some citizens, pursuing the plunderers, overtook them at the bridge called Laloup, and brought the venerable pledge back to Fosses: where it is venerated even today [Cf. Bouvier, part. III, cap. V, pag. 229 et seq. Cf. Delchambre, Vie de S. Feuillien, pag. 185.]. That silver breastplate is referred by experts to the end of the sixteenth century: but before it another must have existed, since we see fitted to it a small image which is said to be of the thirteenth century, with this inscription: St. Foillan, whose head is within, let prayer be made for the maker Jamart, S. Feuillen, pag. 7 et seq.. The same church retains two small chests in which they report some relics of St. Foillan are contained, and on which a bishop's seal was impressed. One of them Lord Florenville, parish priest and dean there at the beginning of the nineteenth century, obtained for the church of Fosses. The present parish priest suspects that this formerly belonged to the priory of Oignies: where, while the convent stood, a small chest containing remains of St. Foillan was mentioned in the catalogue of relics.

[38] The canons of the Val-des-Écoliers the jawbone But other churches too, besides that of Fosses, boast that they possess certain bones of St. Foillan. I said before that at Mons the hip and shinbone were granted to the canonesses of St. Waldetrudis. In the same place the canons of the Val-des-Écoliers preserved the lower jawbone, to whom it is said to have been brought from Fosses in the year 1471, and who in the year 1603 gave it to the Premonstratensians of the town of Le Rœulx. This is attested by a letter of which we have copied an apograph existing in the archive of Mons Cf. Leop. Devillers, Notice sur les archives de l'Etat à Mons, pag. 387.:

COPY.

We, Brother Melchior le Beghue, by the grace of God prior of the Val-des-Écoliers near Mons in Hainaut, to all and each who shall read or hear read the present letter, eternal salvation in the Lord. Since among other relics of the saints which we preserve with honor in our monastery, we have a certain lower jawbone with some teeth, which is established to be that of St. Foillan, martyr and bishop, both from the tradition of our forebears, and from a certain old writing which contained these words: Of St. Foillan; and that writing was placed above the jawbone itself; as also from another writing which was in the casket of relics, containing these words in French: Touttes ces dignes et precieuses relicques furent donnees a l'eglises de Cheens par T. Resverend pere en Dieu et noble seigneur Monseigneur de Nerbone seigneur de Havrech [All these worthy and precious relics were given to the church here by the Most Reverend father in God and noble lord Monseigneur de Nerbone, lord of Havré]; and especially from the report of the religious canons of the monastery built in honor of the said St. Foillan near Le Rœulx; who assert that having set out to Fosses for the sake of piety (where the holy body and head of the same saint are most diligently, most religiously and most honorably preserved), they carefully inspected the saint's head itself, and saw that the lower jawbone was lacking, which the canons of Fosses say they do not have, nor are they ignorant where it is. And they affirm that relics of the same saint have not been removed from their town, except when the king of France with the aforesaid lord of Havré traversed the bounds of the people of Liège; who also carried off some relics from the church of Fosses. In satisfaction for which matter the king gave a great window, and the other, the Lord of Havré, a window and a tapestry with which the body of the glorious martyr Foillan was first covered, each decorated with his insignia: which the same religious of St. Foillan say they still saw in this year one thousand six hundred and three.

[39] gave to the abbey of St. Foillan; Since then it is established from these things that by the effort of the same lord of Havré it could have come about that this jawbone was carried off somewhere, and it is certain also that he gave some relics to our monastery, in which he himself was honorably buried, from these things we piously believe that this is the jawbone of St. Foillan. These things being so, the reverend Lord Dom John Rondeau, abbot of St. Foillan near Le Rœulx, has more than once entreated us, both to the honor of God and for the greater cult of the same St. Foillan, whom he acknowledges not only as patron, but also as the peculiar saint of his place, since he consecrated it by his martyrdom and blood, that he might be able to carry off the same jawbone of St. Foillan as a gift from us. We therefore, considering so pious a reason, and at the same time bearing in memory that the same prelate, for his affection toward our monastery, has adorned our church with certain ornaments; but especially attending to his most ardent devotion toward God and the holy martyr Foillan; mature deliberation being held with our brethren, have assented to his pious wishes, and have most willingly shared the same jawbone, since we do not doubt that the same prelate with his religious, inflamed by such a gift, will preserve it according to its dignity. In faith and evident testimony of which, we have wished to secure the present letter with our accustomed seal and the subscription of our own hand. Done at Mons in Hainaut in our monastery in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and three, on the twenty-third day of the month of October.

It agrees with the original, which I the notary attest. V. Hulin, notary.

[40] they are said to have received it from Jean d'Enghien, Some years later, on the same cession of relics, Louis Desperies, canon regular and prior of the abbey of St. Foillan at Le Rœulx, wrote to Heribert Rosweyde: Of St. Foillan our patron what shall I say? The people of Fosses hold tenaciously that they have the body, indeed that nothing (except in our monastery) of the body is anywhere else: unless perhaps (as the dean of Fosses recently said to me, when I had been sent there for that reason) what a certain Lord John, lord of Enghien and Havré, could once have taken away, who came into those places with the army of the king of France, and besides other injuries also despoiled the church of Fosses. He could then have carried off some of the relics. He afterwards, in satisfaction for the damage done, besides other restitutions, gave a great glass window at the side of the high altar, which I myself still saw having the painted insignia of the lord of Enghien and Havré. On the other side there is likewise a glass window, which also has the insignia of the king of the French for the same reason. Indeed I also saw a rather old tapestry, on which the same insignia of the lord of Enghien and Havré appear, with which they say the feretory was first adorned and covered. That is the frequent report among all. There is in confirmation of this matter the fact that when a short time ago we asked that the lower jawbone of St. Foillan be given us by the prelate of the canons regular of the Val-des-Écoliers at Mons (in whose possession it was established for us that it was; and which we also obtained) an old writing on parchment was shown to us (given by John, lord of Enghien and Havré), whose tomb (at least his wife's) we saw in the midst of the choir, raised from the ground and worked in excellent stone. And we saw afterwards that that lower jawbone is lacking in the head of St. Foillan at Fosses. There is also in the church of St. Waldetrudis at Mons a small silver casket, in which are seen two bones of the arm of St. Foillan: perhaps that was once obtained from us. What others can show of Abbeville I do not know. To this is added that the people of Fosses preserve with very great care that which they think they have, and as I judge, do have, and if ever the head and body which they have are brought out in public supplication, the matter being shared with the canons and the magistrate of the town, armed citizens succeed one another in turn, so that always, night and day, at least twelve keep watch beside those holy relics. I am an eyewitness, and I wondered at so great a light in the church by night from torches and other tapers. The supplication being finished, on the following day the canons and others of the magistrate come together again, and the matter being diligently examined, lest anything should be stealthily taken, they replace them in an honorable place, but shut with many locks; and if ever incursions of the enemy or insolences of soldiers are feared, a council being gathered between the canons and the townspeople, all is hidden in a most secret place. Of this matter we are eyewitnesses Acta SS. Belgii, tom. III, pag. 14..

[41] probably in the year 1471. But what we have recited so far must be reviewed. First of all the war which is mentioned there can most conveniently be referred to the year 1471: at which the contemporary writer Jean de Los says: At that time Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, sustained an invasion of his country by the people of Louis XI, king of the French. For

the French extended themselves as far as Hainaut, standing in the lands of Morialmé, going down as far as Fosses, Braine, Florennes, Walcourt, and as far as Floreffe, carrying out plundering and rapine and the captivity of men Chronicon rerum gestarum ab anno 1455 ad 1514, pag. 66, De Ram edit.: of which war much has been gathered by the Benedictine monk Plancher Plancher, Histoire de Bourgogne, tom. IV, pag. 396 et seq., de Barante Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne, tom. VIII, lib. III, Brussels edit. 1839. and others. Next, that Jean d'Enghien had a part in this war is credible. First indeed we gather from the manuscript of the library of Mons, Généalogies Nobles, by the authors Laisné and Preudhomme, that at the same time there lived a Jean d'Enghien (not indeed lord of Havré, but called of Havré), lord of Preels: who was the bastard son of Gérard d'Enghien, castellan of the town of Mons. Then about the year 1463 Jean de Croy and not a few other nobles of Hainaut (among whom perhaps Jean d'Enghien), since they were hateful to Charles the Bold, migrated willingly or unwillingly from Belgium into France, and there adhering to King Louis, could render most useful service in the wars waged against Charles [Cf. Plancher, tom. IV, pag. 315 et seq. Delewarde, Hist. du Hainaut, tom. V, pag. 92 et seqq. Mémoires de Duclercq sur le règne de Philippe-le-Bon, tom. IV, lib. XX, pag. 95 et seqq. De Barante, tom. VII, lib. XII, pag. 48 et seqq.]. Wherefore Louis Desperies and others not absurdly suspected that Jean d'Enghien was one of those who plundered Fosses in the year 1474.

[42] Certain relics of St. Foillan exist at Le Rœulx, To the abbey of St. Foillan at Le Rœulx there fell not only the jawbone (which is understood from the documents brought forward), but also other relics. Namely, as Philippe Brasseur wrote in the year 1658 [Sancta Sanctorum Hannoniæ, pag. 228 et seq. Cf. Ph. Brasseur, Origines omnium Hannoniæ cœnobiorum, pag. 208, edit. 1650.], the jawbone of the Holy Martyr with a bone of the head, a joint of the thumb, and another small bone of the body, which are today shut up together in a figure or statue of rich silver, by the gift of the very reverend Dom John Rondeau, prelate of pious memory. There exists also a bone of his arm, laid in a silver-gilt forearm, which is customarily given to pilgrims to kiss… There are also other relics existing here from before the year 1609, and now fittingly enclosed in four silver phylacteries. The inscriptions of the second phylactery: Of St. James the Less, of St. Foillan, of St. Nicholas. When at the end of the eighteenth century the abbey was extinguished, its sacred treasure, as was written to us from Le Rœulx, was dispersed. Some relics (and perhaps something of St. Foillan) the last abbot, N. Durieu, transferred to the parish of Strépy, over which he had been placed. The lower jawbone of St. Foillan itself was carried by a certain Premonstratensian canon, who, the abbey being suppressed, had been created parish priest of the village of Thieu, to that place: but it was afterwards restored to the church of Le Rœulx. The most illustrious Gaspard Labis, bishop of Tournai, reviewed it, the instrument of review itself being placed in the casket. It is preserved even today, and on the second Sunday of October this case is carried round in public supplication, on which there was inscribed on one side: Holy Relics of St. Foillan, bishop and martyr, preserved at Le Rœulx in Hainaut, on the other:

Foillan, holy bishop, of the lofty stock of kings, Here bore the well-earned aureole of a martyr;

which words indeed were once cut in a stone in the church of the Abbey of Le Rœulx, namely in the place where, as tradition had it, the holy man had fallen Ibid., pag. 269..

[43] at Namur, At Namur the nuns named of Our Lady have a good many relics attributed to St. Foillan, which were once preserved in the priory of St. Mary at Oignies. Of these some, together with remains of other saints, have been placed in a great copper throne, gilded, shaped in the manner of a bell tower. There exists also a bone of the holy martyr, in the midst of the relics of a good many others, in a wooden casket, whose lid, covered with silver leaf, is made in the appearance of a roof. Likewise a small silver statue contains relics of the blessed martyr together with those of other saints, placed in a small wooden case, whose lowest part is covered with a silver plate. This case is said to have formerly belonged to Cardinal James of Vitry, who at one time professed the monastic life at Oignies. The nuns of Namur also religiously preserve a tooth wrapped in paper, on which this is written in French: A tooth of St. Foillan, martyr. They likewise have a part of a jawbone, to which a tooth adheres, wholly similar to the other. On account of this similarity, and because the name of St. Foillan is written on a certain parchment, this small bone too is thought to be of the blessed bishop. But, that all doubt might be removed, the nuns sent those teeth to Fosses, to be brought to the head and jawbone of St. Foillan. But whether they are part of it could not then be explored; since, as Rev. Lord Letor, dean of Fosses, wrote on the 4th day of December of the year 1864, not the whole head of the holy patron is visible: some of its bones are laid in two small chests sealed by the bishop. Yet the doubt would easily be removed, if those uncertain bones were entrusted to men expert in anatomy to be examined, as was done in the review of St. Eutropius, bishop of Saintes [Cf. Recueil des procédures faites pour la reconnaissance des reliques trouvées dans l'église souterraine de S. Eutrope.]. Moreover in the museum of Namur there is shown a cross made in Byzantine work, in which, besides a good many relics of other saints, there exist some of St. Foillan the martyr. This cross was once a hierotheca of the priory of Oignies, in whose catalogue of relics it is mentioned. Moreover the relics of Oignies at Namur were reviewed on the 16th day of December of the year 1648 by Engelbert Dubois, bishop of Namur.

[44] at Liège, Next, in the church of St. Foillan at Liège there was preserved a leg bone of the blessed patron, which (as we read in the instrument sealed by J. B. Le Grain, notary), at the request of Lambert de Xhenomone *, pastor of the parish church of St. Foillan of Liège beyond the Meuse, was given to it on the 7th day of October of the year 1702 by the Dean and chapter of the distinguished collegiate church of the most blessed bishop Foillan, martyr, of the town of Fosses, of the country and diocese of Liège, situated between the Sambre and the Meuse. Joseph Clemens, archbishop of Cologne and bishop of Liège, by letter of the 28th day of October of the year 1702, subscribed by G. B. de Hinnisdael, coadministrator and vicar general, permitted the sacred relic, namely the leg bone, to be exposed to the veneration of the faithful. Today too some bones, when supplication is held, are carried round at Liège, which are said to be probably of St. Foillan: whether they can be thought the same as the relics of which we have just spoken is by no means ascertained. But, however the matter stands, that the cult of our saint in this church has by no means become obsolete is indicated both by a good many other things and by its high altar, on which, in the year 1871, the deeds and miracles of St. Foillan were artfully expressed in twenty pictures and molded images.

[45] and in other places, and among these at Abbeville. Of the remaining churches of Belgium and other regions, in whose sacred treasury something of St. Foillan was preserved, it is well to indicate these briefly: the abbey of Brogne near Namur, the college of the Society of Jesus at Mons Brasseur, Sancta Sanct. Hann., pag. 253., the chapel of SS. Boniface and Willibrord at Cologne Gelenius, De magnitudine Coloniæ, lib. III, syntagma CX, pag. 617., the abbey of St. John at Valenciennes Brasseur, Sancta Sanct. Hann., pag. 269., the collegiate church of St. Peter at Douai Raissius, Hierogazophyl., pag. 411.. The priory of St. Peter at Abbeville had long since received notable relics of the holy man, either from a certain count of Ponthieu (du Pontieu), or, as others report, from a dyer, who found them in the river [Ignace-Joseph, Hist. ecclés. d'Abbeville, pag. 160. Corblet, Hag. du dioc. d'Amiens, tom. IV, pag. 279.]. In the year 1492 they were laid in a new silver casket and placed on the high altar, on which, already in the year 1349, the deeds of St. Foillan had been expressed in painted panels Corblet, loc. cit. Ignace, Hist. d'Abbev., pag. 159, 161 and 163.. Of these bones three indeed were obtained in the year 1646 by the chapter of St. Fursey at Péronne: where, received with the greatest preparation on the 5th day of May, on the 10th day of September they were laid in a silver breastplate Corblet, tom. IV, pag. 279.. What was done with the rest when the priory of St. Peter was extinguished I would not dare to determine with certainty. But (as a priest of that district wrote to us), on the place where the priory of Abbeville was situated there stands at present a convent of Ursuline nuns, in whose chapel, together with other relics in the same small chest, there is preserved a bone of St. Foillan of the size of a nut: certainly there is inscribed in a recent hand St. Foillian. Those precious remains had been collected about seventy years ago by Rev. Lord Cauchy, parish priest and dean of the church of the Holy Sepulchre. In the same Ursuline convent there is seen at present the front panel of an old altar, which is of oak and shows the letters S. F. sculpted amid palms: the carved reliefs seem to be referable to the preceding century. In our age also certain relics of St. Foillan are to be seen both in the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Abbeville, and with the nuns of Amiens named of the Most Sacred Heart Ibid., and also in Belgium, besides the places already listed, in the village of Longchamps, to whose church in the year 1849 a small bone of the head was granted Delchambre, Vie de S. Feuillien, pag. 172..

[46] Images of St. Foillan. The relics of the holy man having been inquired into, it follows that we should speak briefly of his various images. It would be long to pursue all the ways in which we see St. Foillan expressed. But since some have sharply disputed his episcopate, it will not be beside the point to mention those images in which he is shown in episcopal dress. They are numbered in very great quantity. Of this kind is, besides the rather ancient figure in the church of St. Foillan at Liège, likewise the statue of the sixteenth century placed in the church of St. Gertrude at Nivelles Jamart, S. Feuillen, pag. 9., the small image of the church of Fosses, fitted to the silver breastplate in which the sacred head is contained even today. In the same place among eight painted panels on which, in the choir itself, the life, death, finding and translation of the body of the holy patron have been represented, there is one in which the apostolic man appears as bishop, consecrated by St. Martin the pope, coming into Gaul. Much more ancient are the molded images which adorn the wooden stalls of the choir. In these carved reliefs St. Foillan is shown as a bishop consecrated before the Roman journey. Often too he is expressed with a dove, by which the vision of St. Ultan is signified Above, pag. 384., or trampling a crown, because namely royal

riches he sent back his renunciation [Cahier, Caractéristiques des Saints, pag. 267. Corblet, Hag. du diocèse d'Amiens, tom. IV, pag. 280.].

* Wallers

* otherwise deposuerat

* read Xhenomont

§ IV. The abbey of St. Foillan at Le Rœulx.

In the place where St. Foillan was slain a chapel is built, Since it pertains to the cult of our saint, we shall briefly indicate the fortunes of the old abbey of St. Foillan, adjoining the town of Rhodium (le Rœulx). From the collated narratives of the historians it appears that St. Foillan was killed in the forest of Sonefia Life I, num. 5., indeed on the estate which is called Sonefia Life II, num. 9., or Sonephi [Anal. pour l'hist. eccl. de Belg., tom. V, pag. 446. Cf. above, life V, num. 18, pag. 414. Acta SS. of July, tom. III, pag. 60.], in the place which is called Ampolinæ, bordering on the parish of the village which is called Sterpeis Miracles, num. 2.: where afterwards there stood Ruez cella and the town of Le Rœulx Duvivier, Recherches sur le Hainaut ancien, pag. 151 and 307., and before these the chapel of Senophe. Charles Duvivier thinks that Sonefia or Senophia is the same as Seneffia (Seneffe) Ibid., pag. 42, 62 and 196., yet with a good many, as is easily understood, contradicting. Now to the place in which St. Foillan had fallen, indeed in which his body had been found, the report is that so many pilgrims flocked, so many visited the wrestling ground of the holy athlete for the sake of religion, that this part of the forest was soon cultivated and habitable [Cf. Lejeune, L'ancienne abbaye de S. Feuillien, pag. 134. Cf. Chotin, Mém. sur l'étym. des noms de villes du Hainaut, in Mémoires de la Soc. des sciences, etc., du Hainaut, tom. IV, pag. 313, tom. V, pag. 150.] (and this, as it seems to many, the very word Rhodium indicates, whose etymology is held to signify cultivated clearings.) The place was soon adorned with a chapel, which in the twelfth century was called the chapel of Senophe. Of whose beginnings Hillinus says: In the place, he says, which is called Ampolinæ …, where the innocent blood of blessed Foillan the martyr and of his attendants was shed, an enclosure being made, a churchyard was marked out, in the midst of which a wooden structure of a little church was set up, and an altar raised to the praise of God in honor of the martyr himself: where on Sundays and feast days the dwellers of the adjacent villages flocked to ecclesiastical service. The small place therefore began to be held celebrated among the neighboring nations on account of the countless prodigies of signs that took place there by the grace of the divine will. Using this narrative, I believe, and others now unknown, Charles Hugo, diligent historiographer of the Premonstratensian Order in the middle of the eighteenth century, says Ord. Præmonstratensis ann., tom. I, col. 673.: Immediately after the very murder of Foillan, Christians consecrated the place empurpled with his blood with a small chapel and an erected altar, to which the neighbors flocked for devotion's sake, enticed to piety by frequent miracles. A fountain, renowned for many kinds of cures, is reported to have burst forth of its own accord where the martyr's severed head had lain: and that place afterwards became so famous by so many visions and portents that it seemed to merit and require a special cult. Wherefore some monks from the convent of Fosses were sent by St. Ultan, abbot and brother of St. Foillan, to carry out divine things there. Until the devastation of the Normans the men of Fosses stayed in the cell of St. Foillan, which hostile ferocity compelled them to desert. The persecution of the barbarians being relaxed, Notger, inaugurated bishop of Liège in the year 971, intent on restoring the sacred places of his diocese, built the church of Fosses, and, fortified with towers, handed it over to canons, who soon by right of recovery claimed for themselves the abandoned cell of St. Foillan, and working divine things in it, exercised the pastoral function.

[48] then a convent, to which the bishops of Cambrai gave benefices, At the time when Hillinus was writing the miracles of St. Foillan, about the year 1100, that place seems to have been administered by a priest of Soignies Miracles, num. 2.. But this is altogether certain, that at the beginning of the twelfth century some of the canons of Fosses lived at Senophe. For Burchard, bishop of Cambrai, in a diploma given at Senophe in the year 1125, cedes for the increase of divine worship in the chapel of Senophe the altars of Strepy, Sereffle, Espinon, Mignan, de Crois, Warlers, Derkenne and Trunere, that the brethren taken from the church of Fosses might be able to live on them Miræus, Opp. diplomatica, tom. I, pag. 103.. The same, in another diploma of the same year: We have reckoned it sound counsel … he says, to condescend to the pious petition of the church of Blessed Foillan of Fosses, and have granted … some altars for the uses of the brethren who serve in regular habit in the chapel of St. Foillan in the Forest of the Charbonnière, where he was martyred Ibid., tom. IV, pag. 361.. He then established certain things which, together with the donations, Nicholas, likewise bishop of Cambrai, renewing them in the year 1137, says: Burchard emancipated that place sprinkled with the wave of his holy blood Foillan's and SHINING WITH THE FREQUENT LIGHT OF MIRACLES, where also a chapel in his honor was situated, and handed over the goods of which there was mention above to the blessed martyr Foillan and the church of Fosses, upon his most sacred body, which had been carried there to accomplish this along with very many bodies of the saints… But because this was done not without some labor and manifold expense of the church of Fosses …, he also established that every year that church of Cherbonires should pay as a tax to the church of Fosses, at the dedication of the same church, a gold coin or twelve coins; and that if that place should be so multiplied by the merits of blessed Foillan and the religion of the brethren that the means of the place required an abbot, and that assembly should canonically elect for itself an abbot, it should bring the elect to Cambrai to be consecrated; that the consecrated man should come to Fosses, to receive the pastoral staff from the altar of the blessed martyr Foillan, and to renew the fellowships and the institution of brotherhood; and that, on his death, the brotherhood should send the aforesaid staff back to Fosses upon the same altar, to be received from there again in his own time by his successor. Now this so reasonable institution … that it may remain ratified and unshaken, I … approve Analectes pour servir à l'hist. ecclés. de la Belgique, tom. IV, pag. 399..

[49] and a Premonstratensian abbey, That Premonstratensians were soon substituted for the canons of Fosses all agree; but one could hesitate in noting the time, since on the one hand Nicholas in the diploma of the year 1137 seems to signify that no change had yet been made, on the other hand most authors think that it took place in the year 1125. To bring forward one, the writer of the annals already cited [Hugo, Ord. Præm. ann. tom. I, col. 674. Cf. Gall. christ., tom. III, col. 196. Brasseur, Orig. omnium Hannoniæ cœnobiorum, pag. 202 et seqq. Bouvier, Recueil des fruits d'honneur de Fosse, pag. 64 et seqq., Liège 1674.] narrates this: A few months having passed from that donation (of Burchard) (reported in the first diploma of the year 1125), through the intervention of Godfrey, count of Namur, and in view of Bl. Hugh, a native of Fosses, the canons of Fosses transferred the place itself to the companions of Norbert. This cession Burchard, bishop of Cambrai, not only praised, but for the friendship with which he was borne toward Norbert, whom he had held as intimate in the emperor's court, he enlarged the new inhabitants of St. Foillan with revenues and the altars of some districts. At that time a slender fortune sustained a tiny house, and Burchard cherished the tenants, few in number, called in from the abbey of Prémontré, living under the rule of a prior. But little by little as the abundance of revenues grew from the offerings of the faithful, it grew into an abbey, and he who had before been set as prior over the colony of brethren presided over them with the dignity of abbot.

[50] now extinct. The first abbot is said to have been Nicholas Gallia christ., tom. III, pag. 196.. Of whom St. Bernard of Clairvaux much complains, that on account of his greed or contumacy the church of St. Foillan had been interdicted from divine worship Works of St. Bernard, tom. I, epist. 253, col. 457, Migne edit.. Thereafter the abbey flourished for nearly seven centuries, until in the year 1796 it was extinguished by the French Republic Lejeune, L'ancienne abbaye de S. Feuillien, pag. 154 et seq.. Up to this time the number of canons had almost always been the same. Namely about twenty-five lived in the monastery, and six others administered parishes outside. These things the last abbot of Le Rœulx, Norbert Durieu, testifies that he received from authentic instruments, who on the 14th day of April of the year 1787, by order of Joseph II, shared with the magistrates a review of the goods of the abbey [Dépôt des archives at Brussels, Etats des biens du clergé, tom. XIV, Province de Hainaut, pag. 109.].

§ V. Of the public supplications celebrated in honor of St. Foillan.

[On account of the help found to be customarily brought by St. Foillan to those who venerate him,] In the Lessons of the office once recited by the canons of Fosses we read this of St. Foillan: Whose patronage and protection against the dangers of affairs that come on we still experience even now; especially where from dry heat, or from rains rushing from heaven, an imminent sterility is feared for our fields. For in similar cases, that terrifying showers have been dried up by the merits of our father, or the burning heat of the sun tempered, there are as many eyewitnesses as there ought to be grateful praisers of the blessed martyr. And these things are confirmed by Bartholomew Fisen Hist. Leodiensis, lib. IV, num. 8.: The town, he says, received into his protection, he has very often protected from imminent calamities. And he turns aside inclemency of the air from the crops so certainly, even into our age, that within the memory of men it has not been heard that rains were denied to the thirsting fields, when the sacred body of the Blessed Martyr, brought out of the sanctuary, was set before the multitude for veneration. And that the fertility of the fields might be safely secured, and also sometimes (as happened in the year 1637) that the contagion of pestilence might be prevented [Bouvier, Miroir de sainteté, etc., part III, cap. VI, cap. VI, pag. 252, edit. 1674.], from the highest memory columns of suppliants carried round the relics of St. Foillan. These processions, since they are customary even today and have the greatest celebrity, we shall describe summarily from a manuscript Processional of the end of the eighteenth century.

[52] his relics were borne on a feretory by the people itself That a supplication of this kind may be decreed, either the magistrates of the town or strangers, to whom the cost of the matter must then be proposed, ask the chapter of Fosses. When the canons have judged that these wishes should be complied with, the people being called into the church by the bells, the cases in which the bones of St. Foillan are laid are opened, and lights are lit through the whole church. There, after all the canons have come two by two into the church, the Te Deum is sung with a good many antiphons, versicles and prayers. And this on the day on which the supplication was decreed. On the day before it is held, while the chapter sings together liturgical prayers, two canons the head of St. Foillan, and others two caskets into

which the other bones lie, take down from the cases and place on feretories. Before these sacred pledges, as long as they are set forth for the veneration of the faithful, the magistrates of Fosses are accustomed to keep watch day and night. On the day fixed for the solemnities (which is for the most part about the twentieth of September), after the Mass celebrated at the eighth hour, six canons clothed in copes lift the sacred head and body on their shoulders, and carry them as far as the hospital which is committed to the care of nuns. There they entrust the sacred relics to laymen, who with the highest religion strive to bear them by alternating turns. For the whole neighborhood flocks here, and there is no one who does not try to take up the pious burden Cf. Bouvier, Miroir de sainteté, part. III, cap. VI, pag. 251.. While the precious deposit is carried round by them, two of the most ancient canons walk watching beside the sacred body, four beside the other bones. And so, the clergy singing psalms and other things along the whole way, countless men as suppliants conduct the holy relics through the villages and fields. And when, making back for the church, they arrive at the hospital, the laymen withdrawing, six canons put their shoulders under the caskets: other canons also put on copes, and singing responsories in honor of St. Foillan, they at length enter the choir of the church. Where, the Most Holy Eucharist being placed on the altar and the blessing imparted to the people, the solemnities of the sacred rites are concluded.

[53] already in antiquity, Processions of this kind in honor of our saint were celebrated at Fosses from ancient times and have continued up to our age. But of those rites which we have set forth according to the old processional, many on account of the condition of the times have lapsed or been changed. Today, namely, the people are informed by the parish priest of the holding of the supplication on the first Sunday of the month of July. Then at the sound of the bells the relics of St. Foillan, placed in the silver breastplate, are exposed with great preparation in the middle of the church. And that the church may shine, that the offices of the ceremonies may be magnificently carried out, neither effort nor expense is spared. In a share of this matter come also the young men of the neighboring parishes, so that several thousand men, in maniples and indeed in military array, accompany the sacred relics. This custom seems to have prevailed for this reason, that formerly, to protect the very rich caskets from plunderers, armed citizens had to surround them Kairis, Notice sur Fosses, pag. 70.. Moreover those ceremonies, which the reader will find described in widely available books Delchambre, Vie de S. Feuillien, pag. 211 et seqq., it is not for us to set forth at greater length here. For the rest, what the magistrates contributed to the feasts, in what way they themselves kept watch at the sacred body [Registre aux résolutions de Fosses, 22 Sept. 1789, in Borgnet, Cart. de Fosses, pag. 291. Cf. pag. 310.], what rewards they gave to the armed maniples of the neighboring places, who certainly were already present at the supplication in the seventeenth century Ibid., pag. 309 and 287., how they took care to have the roads repaired Ibid., Registre aux recez, de Fosses, 17 Sept. 1699, pag. 279. Cf. pag. 311. and provided the rest of the expense Ibid., pag. 320 et seq., we see carefully and minutely reported in the public records.

[54] and this cult persists at least in part. At Mons too and at Le Rœulx public supplications were once held in honor of St. Foillan Bouvier, Miroir de sainteté, pag. 253.. Indeed, in our age also, some of his relics are carried round in certain places, as we noted above; but nowhere with so great a preparation as at Fosses: where these solemnities are carried out every seventh year. And not in these only, but almost continually Christians go to St. Foillan in prayer. It often happens that those who suffer in the head place their head for a little on the sacred bones, or use cotton which has been brought to the head of the holy martyr. But especially, where there is fear for the fields on account of drought or an inclemency of waters, the help of the patron is begged. Which, as now, so from all memory was customary to the inhabitants, as is easily apparent from what has been said before [Delchambre, Vie de S. Feuillien, pag. 193. Cf. Rousseau, Vie de S. Feuillien, pag. 208 et seqq.].

§ VI. Hymns in honor of St. Foillan used at Fosses and in other churches.

An old sequence on St. Foillan. Having pursued the honors paid to St. Foillan from ancient times and even in our age, we add at the end certain liturgical monuments, either hitherto unpublished, or rare and printed in books not at all readily met with. And first indeed, in the manuscript of the Royal Library of Brussels 9742, of the twelfth century, which formerly belonged to the Liège monastery of St. Laurence, there exists a sequence on St. Foillan, not written by the same hand as the rest of the manuscript. It is also held by the Brussels manuscript 18654, on whose first folio is written: Book of the monastery of St. Laurence near Liège. We mark the former manuscript by the letter A, the other B Cf. Prelim. Comm., num. 1 and 5..

There is present to us this celebrated and joyful day, on which the bishop and martyr Foillan , the flesh laid aside, was clothed with heavenly glory, having attained the rewards of his merits, having now obtained above the ether the company of the just. He, devoted to Christ from boyhood, deserted his royal patrimony; wandering hence by divine will across the seas, he renounced his homeland, made a stranger. Him from the cradle Ireland cherished, island of the western peoples, and afterwards she herself was cherished by him with an abundance of spiritual food . Him, imitating with pious effort the apostolic footsteps, Gaul happily received, as an evangelist of peace. For a good many by his preaching were imbued with the teaching of life, the grace of God working. So also with the adornment of the virtues, as with material increase, mother church was beautified. O how glorious the merits of the man's life! O how precious the glory of the man's death! A herald of sincere manners, in life he shone bright, and brighter from his death he shone forth, through very many prodigies of miracles. Among which his passion by the dove, his holiness by the consolation of the angel *, the hiding of his body by the column were marked, by the grace of a threefold gift. Therefore it belongs to piety to embrace the pledges of so great a father, and so by his grace to merit his patronage. And you, dweller of heaven, whose yearly feasts we celebrate, help those devoted to you, and kindly reconcile us to Christ, in whom through you may there be festive joys for us. Amen.

[56] Hymns from the more recent printed Office. From the Offices of the collegiate church of Fosses published in the last century, we think it worthwhile to show here again certain hymns among those which were said on the 24th day of October in honor of St. Foillan:

AT VESPERS.

AT COMPLINE.

AT LAUDS.

In the weekly Office, and on the feasts of the Finding and the Translation, the same were recited, except for the following hymn:

AT VESPERS.

Let heaven resound with praises, Let the world exult in joys: Him received in the seats of the pole Let us follow with glad canticles.

The holy father is now joined To the gracious assembly of heaven-dwellers: To the martyr who emulated Christ The reward, a crown, is given.

A column of fire shone, Hanging from the axis of heaven; Which granted that the bodies Covered with thorns should be found.

A limpid spring flows, Which makes the place noble; The sacred pledges at Fosses Attain a funeral urn.

Let us raise tireless voices To the praise of the martyr; Let us bear energetic minds, That we may follow the father going before.

Grant, blessed Trinity, That the sons of so great a father, Holding to his paths, May enjoy the joys of heaven.

Amen.

[57] Hymns from an older manuscript Office. There exists also another manuscript office of St. Foillan, which the chapter of Fosses was once accustomed to recite on the 24th day of October. We bring forward the hymns here, as they were copied from a manuscript exemplar which the venerable priest Banneux, canon of Namur, lent us. They are similar to the hymns in the Proper Offices of Liège published in the year 1666.

AT VESPERS.

In new measures of hymns Let us sing glory to Christ, Venerating the memory Of Foillan the bishop.

Founder of our college And shepherd of the flock entrusted, O Foillan, we beseech, Bring help to us all.

Once a lamp, from the glassy Seats of the Irish sea Proceeding, like a golden sun, He rose on our bounds.

The man, shining forth in doctrine, Went to the city of Rome, Growing weary in the limbs of the flesh, Foreknowing his future death.

At the bidding of Martin, Pontiff at Rome, he came to Gaul, On which the ray of the splendid sun Shone with signs.

Here Ultan accompanies him; On Gertrude's patrimony The doctor is placed at Fosses, Shining with the ray of signs.

At last on the final path You painted roses * with blood, When, cut down by the dread sword, You passed the stars of heaven.

Now holding the highest prize, And following the Lamb going before, Heal our sins, we ask, By your holy prayers.

Hail, father Foillan, Hail, martyr and patron, Those psalming to your name Join to the choirs of the heaven-dwellers.

Let not the Devil mock us This night with his frauds, But with the limbs at rest Let the spirit rest watchful.

To Christ be praise and glory, And joys to Foillan, Who in the court of light May enrich us with eternal reward.

Amen.

AT COMPLINE.

Let us breathe again in the memory Of blessed Foillan, And let us exalt the solemnities Of the aforesaid bishop. Hence let us rise, roused, To his praises.

Sprung from Ireland, Of royal stock, Soon, in tenderest age, Growing in wisdom, And flowering in holiness of life, He spurned transitory things.

At length led into the deserts, The Holy Spirit leading, The pious man, killed by the impious In the forest of Ampolines, Translated to Fosses by divine Will, rests in the body.

Patron chosen beforehand by God, Through your suffrages, O Foillan, bend God, Pardon being obtained, That the glory of eternal life May be conferred on us.

Amen.

AT LAUDS.

Once the bright light, Foillan, Of your homeland Ireland, Afterwards you gave light to our Gaul, overgrown with showers *.

In which, all things being perfected Which the Holy Spirit teaches, What is the highest glory of life, He was made a blessed martyr.

Now possessing the heavenly light, Scatter our darkness, Which the cultivator of dread night Thickens with many a demon.

On this night on which the Saviour Broke the gate of Tartarus, From the very victim of the world Obtain for us tranquil things:

That when he shall rise in the morning, And appear to the just, He may make us Galileans * And carry us across to the heavens with him.

To God the Father be glory, And to his only Son, With the Spirit Paraclete, Both now and for ever.

Amen.

The same were sung also in the Octave, and on the feast of the Finding, except that at vespers there was another hymn:

Let the palace of heaven exult, Let the present court rejoice, Because our bishop reigns In the fatherland with glory.

Foillan now follows The Lamb wherever he goes, And to the martyr is granted Whatever he asks of God.

A column of fire shone, Touching the ground and the stars, Which showed by night That the corpses of the saints were to be found.

The place of the fountain shows The privilege of martyrdom, And for the sacred body Fosses Prepares the service of Fosses.

Let souls be raised up To the protection of the bishop, By which the more may be given The prize of the Lord's everlasting life.

Grant, unbegotten Father, Jesus with the sacred Spirit, That by the prayers of Foillan We may be joined among the heavenly.

Amen.

[58] Smaller liturgical fragments. This hymn, whose four last stanzas occur in the Irish Breviary, in the year

1769 published at Paris Kelly, Calendar of Irish Saints, pag. 185., and in Colgan's Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ Pag. 102., was also said at vespers of the feast of the blessed martyr, on the 23rd day of October, in the monasteries both of St. Foillan at Le Rœulx and of Blessed Mary of Bonne-Espérance Officia particularia festorum ecclesiarum B. Mariæ Bonæ Spei et S. Foillani.. And on the 16th day of January, sacred to the finding of the glorious bishop and martyr, this responsory among others was sung: To his sepulchre the sick come and are healed. Truly wondrous is God, who makes Blessed Foillan to flash with continual miracles. In the office of the day of the 23rd of October the responsory at first vespers is very similar to the versicles of the earlier Life, num. 9; the antiphons are almost all taken word for word from the other Life (the same must be said of the Proper Offices of the Church of Liège published in the year 1666). In the same churches, finally, at the commemoration of the 5th feria of St. Foillan, this prayer was recited: Be propitious, we beseech, Lord, through the glorious merits of St. Foillan, thy martyr and bishop, who suffered in the present church, etc. It is not necessary that we pursue here other prayers recited in honor of the holy martyr, since from the liturgical books in which he is commemorated the chief ones have already Posthumous Glory, § II. been listed. To which only these seem to need adding: in the little Missal according to the use of the venerable Church of Cambrai, of the year 1507, at the 31st day of October, memorial is made of St. Follian, martyr and bishop. This is indicated also in the Breviary of Utrecht of the year 1503, in the Breviary of the Brussels church of St. Gudula of the year 1516, and finally in the old proper offices of the church of Parc. Certain other things regarding the cult of St. Foillan, or the topography, as about the place where Fosses and Le Rœulx were founded, and about the rivulet which is here called Beverna in the Acts (in French la Biesme), we put off to the end of this volume.

* Foillianus B.

* om. B.

* vatus A?

* esse codd.

* visu codd.

* sanctitatis codd.

angelo A.

* om. A. consolatio B.

* rosæ cod.

* tenebris?

* Nos gaudentes efficiat Off. Leodiense.