Grimonia

ON ST. GRIMONIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR,

AT LA CHAPELLE IN PICARDY

HISTORICAL SYLLOGE.

Grimonia, Virgin and M., at La Chapelle in Picardy (S.)

BY J. S.

St. Grimonia, who is venerated at La Chapelle, is believed to be the same La Chapelle is a town of the province of Picardy in Teoracia, commonly Thiérache, which is the most Eastern part of Picardy and borders on Hainault, from whose boundary La Chapelle is not far distant. This town on the VII day of September venerates as its patroness with a solemn rite St. Grimonia; and it intermits servile works on her festivity. Whence I greatly wonder that no mention of St. Grimonia is found among the Gallic martyrologists, at least under that name by which she is celebrated at La Chapelle. Nevertheless, if the things which are today handed down about the body of St. Grimonia be true, William Gazet in the Ecclesiastical History of Belgium, pages 166 and 167, and Arnold de Raisse in the Auctarium to the Natales Sanctorum Belgii at the XXVIII of April treated of that Saint under a somewhat changed name; and from them our Predecessors treated of the same Saint at the XXVIII of April together with St. Proba. Gazet called her Germana, and that name others adopted, Raisse noting however that she is elsewhere also named Germania, and thus indeed her name is written in an instrument of the year 1389, which is recited in the praised Raisse.

[2] as St. Germana, whose body is in the abbey of Hénin: But that Grimonia is now believed the same as that St. Germana or Germania is clearly plain from the things which are reported about the relics translated to the abbey of Hénin concerning St. Germana in the praised writers, and concerning St. Grimonia in the notices communicated to me. For the body of St. Grimonia is now said to be preserved in the abbey of Hénin (commonly called Hénin-Liétard) between Douai and Lens * in Artois, and to have been translated thither by the care of Adrian de Croy, adorned with many titles. Concerning this translation Raisse may be seen, or our work at the XXVIII of April in SS. Proba and Germana, where the translation is attached to the year 1640. Secondly, the inspection of the body of St. Germana or Germania, which is reported to have been made in the same place in the year 1389 in the church of Scalæ, is in the same way attributed to St. Grimonia in the notices transmitted to me. Wherefore there is no doubt that those relics which are now preserved at Hénin under the name of St. Germana are believed to be those of St. Grimonia, whose festivity is celebrated at La Chapelle on the VII day of September: nor can a slight diversity of name stand against the probability of this opinion. But since the people of Hénin knew nothing about the deeds of the holy Proba and Germana in Raisse's time, and did not even celebrate an Office of them, they do not seem to have known either that Germana was the same as the Grimonia celebrated at La Chapelle: nor do I judge that this was long known to the people of La Chapelle. Certainly I have a letter given to our Predecessors in the year 1679, by which the cult of St. Grimonia first became known to me, but by which it is at the same time indicated that nothing further about her could be ascertained at La Chapelle, so that then the people of La Chapelle seem to have been ignorant that the body of their Patroness was preserved in the abbey of Hénin.

[3] The author of the letter, who is not unlearned, writes indeed that he had seen three lessons, in the lessons of the Office, which was abrogated, miracles were narrated: wont to be sung yearly in the Office at La Chapelle, from a parchment however ancient. But from reading them, he says, *I perceived that it is recent

and made up with so many miracles of no credit that I have not dared to send them to you. This came about, as I suppose, from the burning of the whole town, in which all the monuments were consumed at the beginning of this (seventeenth) century: in relief of which loss an anonymous writer, perhaps the pastor of the place, wove these together out of a very fabulous tradition of the common people.* From this letter I gather that St. Grimonia was formerly famous for miracles at La Chapelle; but that only a confused memory of them survived when the aforesaid lessons of the Office were composed. Yet I would not believe with the author of the letter alleged that those lessons were not composed before the seventeenth century. But at whatever time they were put together, the very reverend lord Charles de Coste, at this time parish priest of La Chapelle, wrote to me most recently that that Office is no longer recited, but that a new one has been composed, which will henceforth be recited. The lessons of this new Office that most courteous man had copied out for us from the renewed Breviary of the diocese of Laon, to which La Chapelle belongs, and kindly sent them to me with other notices about the Saint on the XXVIII day of April of this year 1748.

[4] Into the lessons of this Office the author gathered everything which he believed he had found more certain or more probable about St. Grimonia: The lessons of the new Office: in which about the Saint's deeds and martyrdom, and he collected these from our Work, from archives, and from the tradition of the parishes in which the Saint's memory is celebrated, as I find noted. But since I have no monuments by which I could confirm or weaken what pertains to St. Grimonia, it will be enough to transfer the text of those lessons hither: By a most ancient and ever living tradition it has been handed down in the parts of Thiérache to our own times, that Grimonia the virgin, sprung of a most noble family in Ireland, being singularly devoted to Christ, that she might altogether decline marriage with the bridegroom destined for her, and might withdraw herself from her father driven by fury, sought hiding-places, and at last crossed over to the shores of Gaul. Thence she is reported to have betaken herself to a place then most desert, which afterwards she made illustrious by her death, burial, and miracles. For there impious satellites sent by her father at length found Grimonia after much searching: by whom, being struck with the sword, she crowned her virginity with martyrdom.

[5] In her honor there was first built in the very place of the contest an oratory, about her cult and the translations of her body, and it was thereafter enriched with her sacred remains. Which the Walloons, coming to it in the greatest numbers for piety's sake, called La Chapelle. This famous name the borough retained which gradually arose from the concourse of pilgrims, and which afterwards was built into a most munificent city by Francis the first of that name, king of the French. The oratory itself had long since been raised into a parish church under the patronage of the same Saint. This church, already enriched with the pledges of Grimonia, a certain part of the remains of St. Proba, carried thither, had further adorned, that the Virgins might be celebrated with a common cult, whom a constant tradition asserted to have been both companions of a long pilgrimage and equally illustrious by martyrdom. But when Thiérache was laid waste by the tumults of wars, since nothing, not even what was sacred, escaped the fury of the enemy, the citizens of La Chapelle, fearing less for themselves than for the sacred relics, translated them to Lesquielles, and deposited them in a church consecrated to God under the invocation of St. John the Baptist in a monastery of Benedictines, as in a safer place.

[6] the present opinion is explained. There they lay buried until, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, Anselm prelate of Laon, having heard the fame of miracles, went to Lesquielles; and, the matter being most diligently weighed, ordered them to be raised from the earth and exposed to the veneration of the faithful. But about the middle of the sixteenth century, when the heretics had devoted all sacred things to their fury, they gave the monastery of Lesquielles to the flames: but the sacred pledges, as though by divine power snatched from the burning and from spoliation, were translated to the abbatial church of the Regular canons of St. Augustine in a borough situated about the borders of the diocese of Arras between Douai and Lens, on the day before the Kalends of May of the year one thousand five hundred and forty, at the expense and by the care of the religious man Adrian de Croy, prefect of Arras, and have been held in the highest honor until now. Thus far the lessons of the new Office, to which I have added the word tradition enclosed in brackets, because it seemed to have been omitted by the transcriber. And in these St. Grimonia is believed to be the same as St. Germana or Germania, whose bones are preserved in the abbey of Hénin.

[7] certain things are observed about the place where the body formerly was. Nevertheless I find some difference in the name of the place from which Raisse at the XXVIII of April writes that the body of St. Germana was translated to Hénin. For he asserts that it was translated from a village which is named Sale, situated between Guise and Laon. In the instruments which he there recites the church is called de Scalis. But this place is called Lesquiria, in French Lesquielles, and that it is distant about one Gallic mile from Guise the aforesaid de Coste testifies. From Raisse's instruments too it is sufficiently gathered that the place was near to Guise. Hence I suspect that the French name of the place was in the course of time somewhat changed, and thence expressed in Latin in a different manner. Certainly, since I understand that St. Grimonia is venerated in the village of Lesquielles, I judge that this comes about from no other cause than that her body was formerly preserved there. For the rest, I find nothing about the Saint's age; nor do I know how certain is the tradition which has come down to posterity about the Saint's country and martyrdom. But about her famous and ancient cult we can by no means doubt.

* Lens