Carissima

ON ST. CARISSIMA, VIRGIN,

WHO IS VENERATED AT ALBI IN OCCITANIA

In the sixth century, as is reported.

SYLLOGE

On her cult and deeds.

Carissima, virgin at Albi in Occitania (S.)

BY J. S.

The most recent Gallic martyrologists today record St. Carissima the virgin, omitted by the rest, yet illustrious for a long-standing and sufficiently ancient cult. The Saint's memory and cult, of whom certain Acts survive: Castellanus in the Universal Martyrology has it thus of her: In the diocese of Albi, of St. Carissima (in French Careme) the virgin. The Parisian Martyrology: In the territory of Albi, of St. Carissima the virgin, whose body is religiously venerated at Albi in the greater basilica of St. Cecilia. Simon de Peyronet in the Catalogue of male and female Saints asserts more strongly the cult of St. Carissima, writing thus of her in the Annotations at the word Careme, in Latin Charissima: Whose sacred memory is famous in the territory of Albi on VII September, on which day she is venerated in the church and diocese of Albi under a semidouble rite, as is plain from the Calendar of the same diocese, and from the ancient Lectionary of the venerable chapter of St. Cecilia, where we have read her manuscript Life, which, written by Bl. Sulpicius primate of Bourges,

we have said in the same place. Further, this Saint in the vernacular tongue is called among the people of Albi Sainte Careme, otherwise Caresme: under which appellation she has a church dedicated to her in the same diocese of Albi, in Papire Masson commonly sainte Chresme: and some venerable pledges of so great a heavenly Saint are preserved at Albi in the cathedral church of the same St. Cecilia. Thus far the praised writer, by whose testimony the Saint's cult is sufficiently proved: but certain of his statements must be further examined or elucidated.

[2] First, what is said about the Life of St. Carissima written by St. Sulpicius bishop of Bourges seems lightly asserted rather than firm or probable. [but the writers of the History of Occitania judge that these are not of approved credit,] Certainly the most recent writers of the History of Occitania did not pass so favorable a judgment on that Life, as will presently appear. There were among the prelates of Bourges two Sulpicii, both Saints, the one as the sixth century verged to its end, the other in the seventh century before the middle. Wherefore if either had written the Acts of St. Carissima, these would have an author nearly contemporary, since the Saint's death is fixed at the beginning of the sixth century, and so could safely be fixed, if the Acts were admitted as good. But Claude de Vic and Joseph Vaissete in the most recently written History of Occitania, tome 1, pages 662 and 663, discuss the Acts of St. Carissima inserted in the Breviary of Albi, and believe that they were at least not written save after the eleventh century. It pleases me to transfer their very words hither, because the Breviary of Albi is not to my hand. Having given a summary of the Acts, which I shall recite below, they subjoin these things in French: Such is the Legend of St. Carissima. But if St. Eugenius (bishop of Carthage) did not found the monastery of Vieux , as appears, those Acts, which certainly do not agree with the simplicity of the sixth century begun, will have little authority. Nay, it is manifest from the name of Hugolinus of Châteauvieux , who is asserted (in those Acts) to have been destined for marriage with St. Carissima, that these are later than the eleventh century, in which proper names of families began to be in use.*

[3] from which a summary of them is recited These words as well as others of the praised writers, who say that those Acts are not such that from them we can learn the deeds of St. Carissima, have persuaded me that I must forbear the labor by which I might have obtained the Acts. And so I transfer a summary of them hither from the same writers. They have it, they say, that the Saint was born at Albi of noble parents, her father Aspasius, her mother Helena; that a vow of virginity was made by her, the Holy Spirit inspiring it, and that a persecution of her parents arising thence against her, because they wished her to marry Hugolinus of Châteauvieux, the Saint fled by the leading of an angel into a certain wood, where for a whole three years she lay so hidden that the place was known to no one but her nurse, who at intervals of time brought her barley bread for food. They add that a daughter of that nurse was raised from the dead by the Saint; and that when she feared lest by that miracle she should become known, she crossed the river Tarn , the demons vainly resisting; and that after many wanderings through desert and wooded places she found by divine guidance St. Eugenius, bishop of Carthage, then in exile there; that these Saints then together set out on a journey and came near the little river Vère , where St. Eugenius had begun to build a monastery: and that at last, after seven years passed with St. Eugenius, her death was revealed to St. Carissima, and that St. Eugenius was warned by her about its being at hand, who buried her when dead in his monastery.

[4] [the monastery of Vieux does not seem to have been founded by St. Eugenius of Carthage:] From this summary it is sufficiently plain that little or no credit can safely be given to the Acts. But as regards the monastery which St. Eugenius is said to have founded in the territory of Albi, it was situated in the village of Vieux on the stream Vère, and was distant nearly four Gallic miles from the city of Albi, say the writers of the History of Occitania, tome 1, page 239: but they do not dare to assert that St. Eugenius was the founder of that monastery. Meanwhile in that place was the sepulchre of St. Amarandus the martyr, of whom there will be treatment at the VII of November. St. Gregory of Tours in book 1 On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 58, testifies indeed that St. Eugenius once prayed at the sepulchre of St. Amarandus, and there then died and was buried: but he by no means implies that that Saint dwelt there, much less built a monastery. Tillemont therefore much relaxed the severity of his criticism, in tome 16, in St. Eugenius of Carthage, article 48, when from the Breviary of Albi alone he attributed with Ruinart the building of that monastery to St. Eugenius; especially since Gregory not only is silent about St. Eugenius's dwelling in the village of Vieux and about the building of a monastery, but at the same time hints that Eugenius dwelt in the city of Albi during the time of his exile, and only says that he came to the sepulchre of St. Amarandus after he had been informed by a divine revelation about his impending death and about his burial with St. Amarandus. Wherefore it is far more probable, as the writers of the History of Occitania have already shown, tome 1, page 662, or note 61, that the monastery of Vieux was not founded by St. Eugenius, but was only built after the times of St. Gregory of Tours.

[5] Hence also it is uncertain whether St. Carissima was a contemporary of St. Eugenius: nor does it seem certain that the Saint dwelt with Eugenius: for about the time of her death nothing is established from any other source. Yet for no other cause, I think, is her death fixed in Castellanus in the sixth century, and in the Parisian Martyrology about the year 504, than because she is said to have lived with St. Eugenius, and to have died before him. If this were as certain as it seems uncertain, I should somewhat suspect that St. Carissima was an African, and came into Gaul with St. Eugenius, because I find a certain Carissimus among the African martyrs given at the III of March; and another Carissimus among the African bishops in Ruinart's History of the Vandal persecution, page 124. But both this conjecture and St. Carissima's dwelling with St. Eugenius I judge altogether uncertain. If we were to proceed by conjectures, none would appear to me more likely than that Carissima was a recluse or solitary in that district.

[6] [she is said to have been buried in the monastery of Vieux: the body afterwards translated to Albi.] She is said to have been buried in the monastery of Vieux, which I would not deny. Nevertheless it is more certain that the Saint's body in the tenth century rested in the said monastery, which then enjoyed the title of an abbey: for in an instrument of the tenth century, in tome 1 of the reprinted Gallia Christiana, col. 48, St. Carissima is named with SS. Eugenius and Amarandus as resting with them in the abbey of Vieux. It is also certain that the Saint's body, with the bodies of SS. Eugenius and Amarandus, was afterwards translated to the cathedral church of Albi, and that that translation is celebrated on the 2nd of October in the church of Albi. But that translation, if it was made by Louis d'Amboise, as the praised Ruinart asserts, page 503, and Tillemont in Eugenius, article 48, could not have been made in the year 1404, as is read in Ruinart, by a printer's error perhaps, which Tillemont drowsily adopted. The writers of the History of Occitania, page 662, have it that the translation was performed in the year 1494, when the bishop was Louis d'Amboise, raised to that see in the year 1473, and they praise for that year the new Breviary of Albi. More about St. Carissima I have not to record.

* Vieux

* de Châteauvieux

* Tarn

* Vère