ON ST. PLACIDIUS, ACOLYTE,
IN THE PROVINCE OF BERRY.
CommentaryPlacidius, acolyte, in the province of Berry. (S.)
J. P.
He is placed by Castellanus, and elsewhere, on this day. The first notice of this saint I received from the Martyrology of Castellanus on this day, on which he is announced in the province of Berry in Gaul (en Berry), otherwise sufficiently known. There is added the saint's vernacular name, S. Plaisis, and the office of acolyte. In Simon de Peyronet, in his Notes on the Catalogue of Male and Female Saints, page 332, he is called in French Plaisir, but in Latin Placidus, and his public cult is thus confirmed in the same place: There exists a parish church in the diocese of Bourges, under the archpresbyterate of Bourbon, which is called of St. Placidus, commonly St. Plaisir. But of which St. Placidus — whether of the martyr who is venerated on the fifth of October; or of the bishop of Autun; or indeed of another — is not clear. The title of acolyte, applied to today's saint by Castellanus, seems sufficiently to indicate that this man is different from those two. But by what authority the same Martyrologist so announces him, I do not know, even though it may be believed that the office of acolyte was found by him somewhere, which I too have set down above along with him. On occasion of the bishop of Autun, whom Peyronet mentioned, observe that we treated on the seventh day of May, page 138, of St. Placidus or Placitus, presbyter at Augustodunum in Gaul, that is, the city of the Ædui, who by some is held to be a bishop, but better a presbyter and abbot of St. Symphorian's. The Gallia Christiana in its new edition may also be consulted, volume 4, column 337, where among other things it indicates that more recent writers err who reckon him among the bishops of Autun. Catharinus in the Sanctuary of Bourges, page 34, mentions St. Placidus on the first day of September; but he adds nothing there whereby he might be more distinctly known. I do not sufficiently understand what the following announcement on this day in the Hagiology of Franco-Gallia, which Labbe published, may mean, or whether it belongs here: From the city of Pamplona, in the territory of Bourges, in the monastery of Fronteneau, the deposition of Placidus the confessor, and of Valentinus the martyr.