Peter of Chavanon

ON ST. PETER OF CHAVANON, OF THE ORDER OF CANONS REGULAR OF S. AUGUSTINE,

AT PÉBRAC IN AUVERGNE.

In the year MLXXX or perhaps the following years.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Peter of Chavanon, Canon Regular of the Order of S. Augustine, at Pébrac in Auvergne (S.)

BY J. L.

§ I. His veneration; his body elevated and inspected; fever-stricken persons healed and sight restored to a blind woman; the proper lessons.

[ ] Of the monastery of Canons Regular of S. Augustine at Pébrac, and of its provosts and abbots, Denys de Sainte-Marthe treats in tom. 2 of Gallia Christiana from col. 457; [The situation of the provostship and afterward abbey of Pébrac; of its founder and first provost] whence I transfer hither the following notice of its situation: The abbey of Pébrac, sacred to B. Mary, under the rule of S. Augustine, is situated in Auvergne beside the little river Desges, not far from Langeac, on the slope of a mountain; and formerly it belonged to the diocese of Clermont, now to that of Saint-Flour. That monastery, called in French Pebrac, S. Peter of Chavanon founded, and in it established canons professing the rule of S. Augustine — he being commonly also called, as Sainte-Marthe says, S. Peter of Pebrac. In the first years from its foundation Pébrac was a provostship, which the same S. Peter first administered, then his disciple Dalmatius; whom, after Robert, Bernard succeeded, under whom the provostship of Pébrac was erected into an abbey by Pope Urban II. That that Pontiff stayed at the end of the year 1095 in the town of Saint-Flour, and consecrated there a new basilica to that saint, Ruinart teaches in his Life, pag. 232; and on this occasion, he says, as may be conjectured, Bernard, who under the name of provost presided over the Canons Regular at Pébrac, obtained that his church should be erected into the title of an abbey. For they report that this was done by Urban about that time; and indeed Pébrac is not far distant from Saint-Flour.

[2] S. Peter's earlier veneration; his body elevated in the year 1537; Immediately after his death our Saint began to be honored with public veneration, of which the reader will find manifest indications after this Commentary in chap. 3 of the Life and miracles which Stephen, a Canon Regular of Pébrac, an almost contemporary author, transmitted to posterity in a narrative worthy of credit, as will be seen in the following paragraph. On what day and with what solemnity of veneration the memory of S. Peter was wont to be kept, Jacques Branche, Prior major of the abbey of Pébrac, briefly indicates in his French Work on the Saints of Auvergne and Velay, which came to light at Le Puy in the year 1652, pag. 544: His Office, which is performed with an Octave in solemn rite in our church on the day after the Nativity of the most blessed Virgin, that is the IX of September, is extant written in our ancient codices. Of the Saint's feast falling on the same day Sainte-Marthe too makes mention in his account of William of Flageac, abbot of Pébrac toward the end of the XV century. Jean de Langeac, bishop of Limoges and first commendatory abbot of Pébrac, on the testimony of the same Sainte-Marthe, elevated the body of S. Peter of Chavanon on the 2nd of April MDXXXVII. Branche in his said Work, pag. 542, asserts that by the command of that prelate the Saint's bones were elevated and laid at the left side of the high altar, and that they still rest there in his own age.

[3] The same Branche in the place just cited writes that S. Peter's relics and sepulcher were never other than famous for frequent miracles; many freed from fevers through the Saint; but that fever-stricken persons above the rest experience the Saint's help and are restored to their former health, when they devoutly pass the night at his tomb, or take care that a Mass be celebrated in his honor: As, he says, from the year MDC it happened to Antoine Mercier of pious memory, while he lived cook of the abbey, to Brother Louis de Champagnat and Brother François de Chillaguet, novices, to Géraud Gérauld of Pébrac, to Julien and Marguerite Roux on the same night, to Louise and Catherine Recrouset, to André Chausse, to Gilbert and Marguerite Bourrel likewise on the same night, to Marie Chevalier, to Benoîte Gaigne, to Jean Martin surgeon of Langeac, and to many other inhabitants of various parishes; but most of all to those who had come from the town of Langeac. Of all whom the instruments drawn up by the royal notaries Comte and Pommier at my request in the years MDCXXX and MDCXXXI give assurance. I too would dare to affirm before God that in the month of July of the year MDCXLII, when a tertian fever, increasing with each access, had held me for twelve days, I went devoutly to lie down before the tomb of the holy Confessor, and there fell back into the fever; but it, after it had lasted about an hour, was wholly driven away, so that I did not thereafter feel even the least access of it.

[4] On the XVIII day of October of the year MDCXLVI, before the religious and the people of the abbey and parish of Pébrac, by the reverend lord Pierre de Brisson, the sacred bones inspected in the year 1646; Official of Saint-Flour, when he was visiting the church for the bishop, the chest in which the Saint's body lay was inspected, and all his bones, both the greater and the smaller, were found, except the jaw, kept apart in a casket, and wont to be exposed to the public veneration of the faithful, that their pious desire might be satisfied. In the same chest also there were found a part of a linen cloth, woven of thick hempen thread and somewhat gnawed by mice, in which the Saint's body had been wrapped when he died, and another linen of fine thread, full of the sacred ashes and of sepulchral earth, and these so white and so little worn as if they had been placed there but a single month before. Which was held in the place of a miracle by the lord Official, by all the religious, and by the people standing by. The sacred pledges had been inspected in the year MDXXXVII by the authority of Jean de Langeac bishop of Limoges and abbot of Pébrac, as is certainly established from the documents found with them.

[5] Marguerite Pradon, daughter of François a tailor and of Françoise Sauzède of Pébrac, had been seized with a fever from the year MDCXLV. sight and health restored to a blind woman; At the beginning of the month of September a violent pain of the head had come on, which, followed by a suffusion of the eyes, rendered her wholly blind from the feast of S. Michael until about the end of November, no hope of recovering her sight being left. Her parents, trusting in the merits of S. Peter of Chavanon, carried their daughter to the church of the monastery and placed her upon the Saint's tomb; where she, when through the night she had often uttered these words: S. Peter will heal me, and I will be his handmaid, received her sight at first dawn; nor was she from that time troubled with fever any more, as her parents declared before the royal notary Pommier and five witnesses, who with him and with me on the IX day of March in the year MDCXLVI subscribed the instrument in which that declaration had been reported. Thus far Branche, whose narrative I have turned from French into Latin.

[6] a chapel built to S. Peter, whom the Gallican congregation of S. Genevieve Sainte-Marthe in his eulogy of S. Peter says: On the IX day of September his festival is recalled, on which the celebrant at solemn Vespers uses that same Saint's rain-cloak with a small hood. His sacred body the Canons Regular of the Gallican congregation, who renewed the regular observance in the house of Pébrac, reverently preserve in a chapel sacred to him, built by father Rigobert l'Evesque the Prior. The Prior major of this abbey, Branche, makes no mention of a chapel erected to S. Peter; which is an argument that its building is later than the time at which the said author wrote of the Saint's veneration, life and miracles, published in the year 1652. That the monastery of Pébrac was united to the Gallican congregation of Canons Regular, whose head is the Paris abbey of S. Genevieve, I have ascertained in the year 1649, when also the discipline of the regular life was restored in it; but before that union the said congregation was already venerating with an ecclesiastical Office S. Peter, the first provost of Pébrac and its founder, among the Patrons of its Order: for it is prescribed to be recited under a double rite on the IX day of September in the Proper of the Saints which that same congregation had published for its own use in the preceding year, that is 1648, from the Paris presses.

[7] and other congregations of Canons Regular venerate with a double Office, The Directorium of the Canons Regular of S. Augustine in Bohemia for the year 1664, the proper Offices of the canons of the same Order of the Lateran congregation printed at Milan in the year 1666, as also those of Windesheim in Belgium printed at Brussels in the year 1678, likewise order the Saint to be venerated with a double Office, but not on the same day: for to the Canons Regular in Bohemia the IX day of September is assigned, but to those of the Lateran and of Windesheim the XI day of the same month. No martyrologist can I produce — at which you may wonder — who celebrates S. Peter as illustrious with a widely propagated veneration, except Castellanus, in whose universal Martyrology at the VIII of September this announcement is read: At Pébrac in the diocese of Saint-Flour, of S. Peter of Chavanon, founder and first provost of the Canons Regular of that abbey. Castellanus refers the Saint to the day on which he died; but here he is given on the day on which from time immemorial his festival is solemnly kept at Pébrac, and is honored with a double Office by the Canons Regular of Bohemia and by the French of the congregation of S. Genevieve. Those of the Lateran and of Windesheim deferred it to the XI of September, because the IX day of the same month was hindered by the feast of S. Sergius I Pope, and the following by the feast of S. Nicholas of Tolentino.

[8] in which the lessons of the second Nocturn Further, in that Office, which I judge has been extended to more congregations of that Order than I have named, the lessons of the second Nocturn have been extracted from the Saint's Acts — of whose antiquity and credit there will be treatment below — and set forth in summary his virtues and chief deeds. It pleases me to transcribe them in this place. Lesson IV. Peter, born at Langeac in Auvergne of a noble place, from his first years gave his labor to the pursuit of piety and to the liberal disciplines. Assiduous in vigils and prayers, he afflicted his tender and innocent body with hard chastisements. Having been initiated in the sacred Orders and made archpresbyter of Langeac, he was wholly given to preaching and to promoting the salvation of souls. He so cultivated virginity that he put to flight, with unconquered constancy of mind, an unchaste woman who had come to overthrow his purity. Notable for miracles, he imparted health to many. A blind woman, while she applies to her eyes the water with which the holy Man had washed his fingers at the altar, at once received her sight.

[9] Lesson V. Being admonished by Peter the prince of the Apostles, the Saint's life not without error he betook himself to a desert place which they call Pébrac, granted him by Durand bishop of Clermont: where, companions being gathered and a monastery built in honor of the most blessed Virgin — which he afterward preserved from a fire and from impending ruin — he took up the rule and institute of the Canons Regular of saint Augustine. Being appointed the first provost of the monastery, he governed his disciples in a perfect observance of regular discipline. Whence the bishops of the neighboring cities, moved by his sanctity and religion, committed to him the administration of many churches

and revenues. In this lesson the beginnings of the monastery of Pébrac are referred to the episcopate of Durand, and at the same time it is hinted that S. Peter built it and gathered companions there before he took up the institute of the Canons Regular of S. Augustine: but in §§4 and 5 I shall show that the same monastery existed under Durand's predecessor Stephen V, and that from its very origin the Saint and his disciples were Canons Regular.

[10] narrate in summary. Lesson VI. While therefore Peter, kindled with zeal for the divine honor, labors untiringly in procuring the spiritual advantages of the church and of his own people, worn out with continual fastings, vigils and prayers, he overcame various assaults of demons. Being seized at length with a mortal sickness, lying in ashes and haircloth, while he joyfully chanted hymns and psalms, he rendered his spirit to God on the very birthday of the Virgin Mother of God (it is added in the Acts: to whom he himself had faithfully rendered service with his whole mind), in the seventy-seventh year of his age, in the year of Christ one thousand and eighty. Of the Saint's age and year of death see below at num. 13 and 16. His body, fragrant with a most sweet odor and suffused with a certain wonderful liquid, is buried in the basilica of Pébrac, made illustrious by many miracles.

§ II. The Acts written by Stephen a canon of Pébrac; his age and credit; the time of S. Peter's death and birth; his family; his country; the archpresbyterate of Langeac; the care of the nuns of La Chaise.

[ ] By the command of his abbot Pons de Montroux about the year 1130, D'Achery in tom. 2 of the Spicilegium of the earlier edition, from pag. 691, gives the Life and miracles of S. Peter of Chavanon, which in the Preface prefixed to that volume, num. 6, he says were communicated to him by Nicolas de Boissy, Prior of the Canons Regular in the abbey of S. Quentin at Beauvais. I have at hand a manuscript copy of them, which is noted as having been extracted from another manuscript copy preserved at Pébrac, and sent to our predecessors by the Rev. D. Fr. Boulart, assistant of the congregation of S. Genevieve, in the year MDCLXIII. The biographer in his Prologue names himself Stephen, and declares that he is by profession a Canon Regular of Pébrac, and that he wrote the Saint's Acts by the command of his abbot Pons. In our transcript this title is prefixed to them: The Life of saint Peter, first provost of the church of blessed Mary of Pébrac, of the diocese of S. Flour in Auvergne, gathered about the year of the Lord MCXXX. It is plain from the mention of the diocese of S. Flour, erected only in the XIV century, that that title is the annotation of some later hand; to which however, as assigning the biographer's age, credit can safely be given: for in the year 1130 Pons de Montroux really presided over the abbey of Pébrac, as two charters assure us, which Denys de Sainte-Marthe adduces among the instruments to tom. 2 of Gallia Christiana, col. 132 and 230. In that which stands at col. 230, it is narrated that Humbert, bishop-elect of Le Puy, gave the church of S. Martin of Podemniacum, or, as we now say, of Polignac, to the said Pons in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord MCXXVIII … on the festival of the Lord's Annunciation, or the XXV of March of the year 1129 in our reckoning; for I know for certain that the former year was reckoned from Easter. The other charter, by which the abbot of S. Julien of Brioude grants the church of S. Just and other things to the same Pons, is noted as drawn up in the year MCXXXVIII from the Incarnation of the Lord: but the chronological notes which presently follow — in the II Indiction, in the month of July, on the VII feria, on the VIII moon — indicate the year 1139. That Pons did not live long after this donation is ascertained by me.

[12] [or perhaps even 1120, Stephen a Canon Regular of Pébrac wrote the Acts of S. Peter,] Branche, Prior major of Pébrac, in the History which, woven from various monuments concerning the holy Founder, he inserted in his praised Work on the Saints of Auvergne and Velay, says at pag. 540 that Stephen wrote under Pons about the year MCXX; but at pag. 545 he asserts that he did this XX or XXX years after the Saint's death, which at pag. 538 he had attached to about the year MLXXX. The biographer indeed shows by no manifest indication that he is even later than the year 1100, which according to Branche was about the twentieth from S. Peter's death; yet he must be later not only than the said year 1100, but also than 1110, nay than 1120 too, if the chronological succession of the first provosts and abbots of Pébrac be accurate, which is exhibited both in the new Gallia Christiana of Denys de Sainte-Marthe hitherto praised, and in the old one of the brothers de Sainte-Marthe, Scévole and Louis. In both places Dalmatius is said to have ruled the provostship of Pébrac after S. Peter, who died in the year 1080, until the year 1092; then to Robert only two, but to Bernard de Chasnac, who from provost was made the first abbot, 35 years of rule are attributed: whence it follows that Bernard prolonged his life to about the year 1128, and that Stephen could not sooner, at the command of his successor Pons de Montroux, have committed to writing the Acts of the holy first Provost. Nevertheless, since Denys de Sainte-Marthe immediately subjoins: By the command of the same Pons the Life of S. Peter was written by Stephen, a canon of Pébrac, in MCXX, and since the brothers de Sainte-Marthe say that Bernard departed from among the living in the year 1118, and the same Denys too hands this down among the bishops of Le Puy, tom. 2, col. 704; the opinion of those authors seems to be that Bernard presided only 25 years, for which by error 35 crept in, running on to the year 1128. If the year 1118 was Bernard's last, Stephen could have composed under abbot Pons his little Work on the Saint's Life and miracles in the year 1120 or thereabout, but not in 1110 or earlier.

[13] The Sainte-Marthes in the places indicated connect S. Peter's day of death, the VIII of September, with the year 1080. [who probably did not die before the year 1080, nor prolong his life beyond the year 1085.] Branche, by the addition of the word about, hints that he doubts: nor do I determine that year without hesitation. That the Saint however passed to a happier life more probably in that same year 1080 than in the preceding, and not later than 1085, is proved from the documents which Denys de Sainte-Marthe praises, tom. 1, col. 204; where, of Pons son of Stephen, bishop of Rodez, he says: He gave to Pébrac and to D. Peter the provost and his successors the church of S. Martin of Alto-podium, from the chartulary of Pébrac, fol. XVII. But this was done at latest in the year MLXXX, in which it is established that blessed Peter died. From another charter of Pébrac: in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord MLXXXV Pons bishop of Rodez gave to the church of holy Mary of Pébrac, and to the provost Dalmatius and the Brothers of this congregation living regularly, the churches of the castle of Boisiol etc., from the chartulary of S. Peter of Chavanon. That our Saint was surviving in the year 1079, and more probably died his last day in the following than in the same year, is made out from this, that Pons son of Stephen, bishop of Rodez, successor of Peter Berengar, gave him the church of S. Martin of Alto-podium; who did not leave his see and invade that of Narbonne before Guifred the archbishop of this church had been taken from among the living, which did not happen before that same year 1079. These things two learned Benedictine monks put beyond doubt in the General History of Languedoc, tom. 2, pag. 252, 253 and 621; where the error of Denys de Sainte-Marthe is noted, who draws back the episcopate of Pons to the year 1076. That S. Peter did not live beyond the year 1085 is plain from another donation, made to Dalmatius provost of Pébrac in that same year, which the same Denys mentions, after he had positively pronounced that the death of the holy first Provost fell in the year 1080 — resting, I know not whether, on a testimony weighty enough to produce sure credit.

[14] From what has thus far been adduced about the year of S. Peter's death Some observations concerning the biographer and about the age of Stephen the biographer, a canon of the church of Pébrac, it is sufficiently understood that the latter was not so many years later than the former but that at the time in which he wrote there could have survived alive the elder canons of that same church, who either dwelt with the Saint himself or with those who were spectators and admirers of his virtues and acts. Nor can there be any doubt that in the archpresbyterate of Langeac, which the holy Man administered and in which Pébrac lies, and in other places in which he lived with praise, there then lived men 70 or 80 years old, who could have been present at various things done by the Saint, and could have heard of things earlier than their own times from his contemporaries or even from men older than himself. It cannot therefore be said that Stephen lacked witnesses worthy of credit for those things which he narrates about S. Peter. The biographer may seem to have received all that became known to him about the Saint from the discourses of men alone; for in the Preface to Pons his abbot he says: What I have proved to be true by the report of the faithful, and what oblivion has not yet cut off, I shall take care to hand down to memory, a few things out of many. But the author, in my opinion at least, either understood by the report of the faithful their testimonies also committed to writing, or, if he wished to signify only such as were uttered by mouth, he used these that he might also prove those things to be true which he had found handed down in writing. It would be a wonder that the older canons of Pébrac left no written monument about the virtues, miracles and other deeds of their Founder — who immediately after his death began to be honored with public veneration — by which the biographer might have been helped. Certainly Branche at pag. 545 affirms that he used an older writing composed in rhythm, of which the discussion will presently return. From the instruments of donations drawn up while the Saint was living, whence were extracted the things which will be reported from the manuscript codex of Pébrac in §3 and following, the biographer took nothing, so far as I know: who in his Preface confesses that he passed over many things in silence, namely that he might celebrate in writing chiefly those things about his Founder which seemed to him most to conduce to the commending of his memory and the proving of his sanctity.

[15] and the two copies of his lucubration. The Saint's Life and miracles, as they are in our Pébrac transcript, differ much from themselves as they stand published in d'Achery. Some things are absent from the manuscript copy which are contained in the printed; and in turn some things are lacking in the latter which are read in the former: but all of them are of such a kind as contribute little or nothing to the completeness of the history; and therefore they were doubtless omitted on purpose. In many places too I find the structure of the sentence or of its parts very dissimilar; but this brings a notable variety to the reading, not to the matters which are reported. Which of the two copies — which, if you look to the substance and the expressed circumstances of the matters, agree well enough — agrees more in other respects with Stephen's original lucubration, I cannot discern from the Saint's Acts published by Branche, who so sets forth in French what is taken from the Biographer that it is manifest that he cared for nothing less than to conform his own style to that same biographer's. Our transcript is vitiated with more faults than d'Achery's, which therefore I have preferred to publish after this Commentary. To the Acts in our Ms. there is subjoined a rhythmical hymn, in which

benefits afforded by the Saint to various persons are recounted in general, and the theft of coins offered to him, divinely punished, is narrated. Branche at pag. 540 judges that that hymn belongs to Stephen's lucubration, not because he composed it, but because he adopted it as composed by an older author: for at pag. 545 he says that the biographer used an older rhythmical Ms. On Branche's credit I shall subjoin the said hymn, which is lacking in d'Achery's edition, from our transcript to the Acts, as a part of them; which those things certainly constitute which the biographer below in chap. 2, num. 12 and following, narrates likewise in rhythmical discourse.

[16] The time in which the Saint was born of a pious and noble family Our transcript has some additions to the Acts written in the margin, whose author I do not at all doubt is later than Stephen. The first is this: He was born in the year of Christ MVII, Pope John XVII sitting in Peter's chair, Robert reigning in France. About the same was the year of S. Peter's birth according to the Sainte-Marthes and Branche, who at pag. 533 sets about the 55th year of his age together with the year of Christ 1062. But his birth must be attached to the year 1003 or 1004, if he died in the seventy-seventh year of his age, of Christ one thousand and eighty, as is asserted in the sixth Lesson given above of the Office which the Gallican congregation of S. Genevieve and other congregations of Canons Regular recite of him. Whether you defer the time of his birth to the year 1007, or call it back to 1003 or the following, you will not stray far from the truth: for the Saint, as the biographer teaches in chap. 3, when his age was already inclining downward toward perfect old age … obtained his last day, and that in the year 1080, or at any rate not later than the year 1085, as I have shown above. S. Peter is surnamed of Chavanon from a noble family of Auvergne, of which he himself was sprung, and very many others, on the biographer's testimony, are reported to have existed, whose life God very often declared by miracles. That is indeed a singular praise, which, if it be true, adorns that family the more in proportion as holiness of life excels nobility of blood and all human things: but by this S. Peter must be reckoned to have made the stock of Chavanon more illustrious than the rest, whose names and deeds oblivion has blotted out from the memory of men.

[17] Lesson 4 of the praised Office, Branche at pag. 526, and the Sainte-Marthes say that the Saint was brought forth into the light at Langeac, and of Chavanon; his birthplace; the archpresbyterate of Langeac, a town of Lower Auvergne, situated on the river Elaver, called by the inhabitants l'Allier. But Stephen writes that he was sprung from the territory of Langeac, or, as it is read in our Ms., from the territory of Langiacum. I subjoin, turned from the French tongue into the Latin speech, what Branche records from pag. 544. His house at Langeac still remains today near the bridge there set upon the Allier, distinguished with the name of Chavanon and with the title of nobility, and subject to no other lordly right save the feudal right of the lord of Langeac. It bears its antiquity conspicuously before it, having doors and windows built with mosaic work. The name of Chavanon his male descendants used until about the year MCCLXIX, at which time Pierre de Chavanon esquire and Simon de Chavanon knight were possessors of that house, as I have read in the ancient tables of the fiefs of the lord Marquis of Langeac. An ancient tradition assures us that they, laying aside the name of Chavanon, took another, of Flaghac. Certainly the lords of this place have possessed the same house from time immemorial, and possess it even now. Stephen, who had affirmed that the Saint was sprung from the territory of Langeac, afterward signifies in these words that he was an inhabitant of that very town: When in the said town he was filled with many marks of virtues … he was raised to the archpriesthood with the greatest assent of clerics and laymen. The house therefore of the town of Langeac, which is reported once to have belonged to the family of Chavanon, could have received the surname of S. Peter because he dwelt in it, if he was not born in it. The virtues with which the Saint cultivated his mind from boyhood, and in which he afterward shone as archpresbyter of Langeac, most zealous for his own and others' salvation and growing famous also by miracles, the pious reader can see in his Acts and, with God's grace, imitate.

[18] In the archpresbyterate of Langeac — formerly of the diocese of Clermont, but now of that of S. Flour — near the river Allier in a deep valley lies the abbey of La Chaise or of S. Peter de Casis, [which, with the care of the nuns of the abbey of La Chaise, he laid down when about to take up the habit of the Canons Regular.] of nuns of the Order of S. Benedict according to Denys de Sainte-Marthe, tom. 2, col. 451: where the origin of that abbey is traced back to the times of Charlemagne, and presently it is subjoined: No mention however occurs of the nunnery of La Chaise until the XI century, in which about the year MLXXV S. Peter of Chavanon had the care of it, as the Life published in tom. 2 of the Spicilegium relates. In the Animadversions on volume 2, which are brought forward before volume 3, it is rightly given notice that for about the year MLXXV should be read before the year MLXII: for from the Saint's Acts it is manifest that the nuns of La Chaise were under his pious governance before he abdicated the archpresbyterate of Langeac and professed the religious life of the Canons Regular of S. Augustine; which he did not later than the year 1062, as will be said in its place. As far as may be gathered from the same Acts, he had laid down together with the archpresbyterate the care of the nuns of La Chaise, when he was carrying out the pious counsel — approved by God, whose will he had explored by frequent prayers — and was withdrawing to the place divinely shown him. This was Pébrac, where he shortly erected under his own discipline a congregation of canons living according to the rule of S. Augustine. About the time there occur difficulties of no light kind, to whose examination I premise what I have found handed down to memory about the beginnings of the monastery of Pébrac and about the notable increases which it received under its holy Founder and first Provost.

§ III. The origin and increases of the house of the Canons Regular of Pébrac; the churches acquired by its founder and first provost S. Peter, in which he established his disciples.

[ ] The beginnings of the monastery of Pébrac from the Saint's Acts The beginnings of the house of the Canons Regular of Pébrac Stephen describes thus in d'Achery: The man of God Peter, giving himself to fastings and supplications in the abbey of La Chaise — as is clear from what precedes — often entreats the Lord that he from whom proceeds every excellent gift would show him a most fitting place where, the business of secular men being left, he might freely carry out the divine business. God, the hearer of the humble, from whose eye nothing hidden lies concealed, seeing this Father's vow and desire, shows him a suitable place through the spirit of the Apostle Peter, of old given over to the Mother of God, at that time most destitute, whose name they call Pébrac, which a priest having a wife held, but most uncultivated. Peter, relying on the oracle of the Rock [\], gladdened by the present token, having left his archpresbyterate, having acted on the counsel of the prelate Durand, having taken the canonical habit and laid down the burden of the world, about to serve God as a soldier forever, supported by the twofold solace of Brothers (Peter and Guy d'Artos, as is added in the margin of our transcript), came to Pébrac with solemn joy on the vigils of the Lord's Nativity, in the year of the Lord one thousand and sixty-two. But the aforesaid prelate Durand, a most holy man, hearing that churches were being freely given by the neighboring chief men to Peter and his companions, most liberally granted him these and several others by the common chapter of the canons of Clermont. But God, willing to increase the harvest of his faithful, visiting the aforesaid number, joined together to him several Regulars in one, who should follow the Apostolic manner of living, according to the Augustinian edict, having nothing of their own in this world. It is not read in the text of our transcript that the Saint came to Pébrac in the year of the Lord one thousand and sixty-two. There is indeed in the margin: S. Peter came to Pébrac, in French Pebrac, in the year of the Lord MLXII, under Philip I king of the French*: but this is the annotation of some later hand. Other variant readings will be indicated in the notes with which the Acts will be received.

[20] and from the Terrier of S. Peter, The instrument which Denys de Sainte-Marthe brings forward at the end of tom. 2 from col. 159, among those which pertain to the church of S. Flour, states the names of those by whose liberality S. Peter received the church of Pébrac and other benefices. Briefly too it enumerates many other churches granted to the Saint. The praised Denys — henceforth alone to be praised among the Sainte-Marthes — published it from the old codex of the tithed lands of the abbey of Pébrac, commonly the PAPIER TERRIER. The same instrument d'Achery subjoined next after the Saint's Acts from the Terrier, as he himself writes, of S. Peter of Pébrac. It stands mutilated in Sainte-Marthe, entire in d'Achery's edition, from which I transfer it hither. Since it is fitting that it should come to the hearing of many, in what manner and from whom [\] our lord Peter first had the church of Pébrac, and with what gifts God afterward enriched that same church for the love of his Mother and for the religion of the holy Man; lest the truth of the matter should be able to lie hidden from posterity, we have with provident deliberation determined to commit it to the monuments of letters. Let the present age therefore know, and all posterity to come, that in the year of the Lord one thousand and sixty-two (here Sainte-Marthe notes in the margin that that year was written in by a more recent hand) when the aforesaid Servant of God, supported by divine power, was shunning the allurements of the flesh, and was submitting his neck to the Regular yoke of the canons, that he might so much the more give himself to the divine worship [\]; not defiled with the plague of simony he received the aforesaid church from Durand himself, the venerable bishop of the men of Auvergne, and from Augerius chaplain of that same church, and also from certain lay chief men who in those times possessed that same church by hereditary right, namely from Audigerius of Taglac, and William of Pébrac, and Stephen and Dalmacius his brothers, and whatever their vassals [\] should be willing to give hereafter. Besides, Raimund of Digons, and Pons Caslanus, and Peter Rainaldi, gave utterly to God and to the most holy Man whatever they held in that same church.*

[21] And while in that place he was wasting his body with fastings and, as is the custom of such men, was passing the nights in vigils, in which also many churches, to the holy Provost, the fame of his sanctity growing, all the inhabitants of that place loved him with ardent mind, and enlarged him with their honors. For the aforesaid pontiff, when by the report of many and most discerning men he learned that he was no idle husbandman of the Lord's vineyard, and understood that he was a wonderful pruner of barren shoots with the sword of the word of God, assigned to be governed by his authority, with the assent of the possessors, very many churches by the common chapter of the canons of Clermont, and chiefly in the hearing of the lord Anselm the dean, and of William Ergino, and of the lord Rorgus, and of Gilus, and of Radulf Caslanus. And these are their names: the church of saint Vincent and the church of holy Mary of Vieille-Brioude, the church of saint Bonitus, both churches of Auratum, the church of Fraghac, the church of Alteyrac, the church of Tauliac, the church of saint Peter of Chasels, the church of saint Sebastian of Vallorseyras and the church of saint Marius. To which bounty Robert, at that time count of Auvergne, gave his assent, and increased it with his own gifts; because the holy man of God, namely Peter provost of the church of Pébrac

loved him from the heart and opened to him his secrets especially. If therefore anyone shall presume with rash daring to disapprove the decision concerning the churches and their gift, let him, cut off from the body of Christ and of the Church, be plunged forever with Dathan and Abiram into the lower place. What the author of this instrument, and Stephen above, record about Duranus, Durantus, or, as I shall henceforth write, Durand bishop of Clermont, will be discussed below from num. 31; and then at num. 36 it will be inquired whether the origin of the monastery of Pébrac is to be connected with the year 1062, at which the text of the instrument is interpolated, and perhaps also the biographer's narrative, as d'Achery published it.

[22] under whom the same monastery became most flourishing, are enumerated. Into what state the church of Pébrac had fallen when it was given to S. Peter is sufficiently known from the account of Stephen given above, in which Pébrac is said to have been of old given over to the Mother of God, at that time most destitute and most uncultivated. But after the Saint with two companions had entered upon the possession of Pébrac, and had begun to establish there the canonical life according to the rule of S. Augustine, in a short time that place became most cultivated, most flourishing in the number of canons professing that same rule, and most famous for the observance of religious discipline. Of the new and ampler church built by the Saint in honor of the most holy Virgin Mary, and of the twofold miracle by which he preserved it and the dwellings inhabited by the canons from fire, the biographer may be read. That the congregation of Augustinian canons which S. Peter established at Pébrac, and ruled under the name of provost, was very numerous and illustrious for the praise of regular discipline, anyone will easily draw out from the following notices, which I have judged should be brought forward about the churches acquired for the monastery of Pébrac by the holy Provost. I shall begin with the churches which the author of the instrument adduced recounts in the preceding number. But I would have the reader know beforehand, first, that Sainte-Marthe toward the end of tom. 2, col. 160 and following, published from the manuscript codex of Pébrac or Terrier of S. Peter various fragments of donations extracted from ancient charters, and that he, where he treats of the provosts and abbots of Pébrac, and Branche too in the Saint's Acts from pag. 533, took from that same codex whatever they record about the churches given to the Saint; secondly, that all which I shall adduce from those fragments or from Branche or Sainte-Marthe can be found in the places indicated, unless I give other notice; thirdly, that I shall observe nothing about the years of Christ and the bishops of Clermont, Stephen and Durand, occurring in the giving of these notices, until after I have brought them all forward.

[23] Various Among the churches which the author of the instrument reported enumerates, in the first place are named the church of saint Vincent and the church of holy Mary of Vetula Brivata or Vieille-Brioude; of which the fragment of a donation published from the Terrier of S. Peter by Sainte-Marthe has this: The churches of Vieille-Brioude, which are held of old to be the possession of the church of Brioude, I Stephen son of Bernard restore and commend and give to God and to holy Mary of the church of Pébrac and to the lord prelate Peter and to the rest of the Brothers subject to him, and also to their successors etc. The donor of the churches of S. Vincent and of the Virgin Mother of God Branche names Stephen of Vieille-Brioude, and says that he was clothed with the religious habit not long after Guy — whom the biographer too below at num. 15 testifies to have been one of his first companions — and Peter d'Artos, the companions of the Saint when he withdrew to Pébrac, had received it. The priory of Canons Regular which S. Peter erected at Vieille-Brioude in the church of S. Vincent Sainte-Marthe reckons among the monasteries of the bishopric of S. Flour, tom. 2 of Gallia Christiana, col. 421. The continuators of the same Work, tom. VII, col. 797, say: In the year MDCLVI in the month of February the priory of S. Vincent of Vieille-Brioude, of the diocese of S. Flour — the place being bestowed by Stephen the lord of it and by Bernard his father with the approval [\] of Stephen bishop of Clermont, then the diocesan — instituted in the XI century by saint Peter of Chavanon, first provost of Pébrac, under the authority of Pébrac, came over to the Gallican congregation of S. Genevieve.* Vieille-Brioude, where a bridge is seen over the Allier, must be distinguished from the neighboring Brioude; where in the church of S. Julian the martyr there is a notable college of noble canons, of whose number the instrument to be reported at the end of the Commentary teaches that our holy Provost was.

[24] In the second place occurs the church of S. Bonitus, which, notices about those churches on the biographer's testimony at num. 21, a certain clerk of Le Puy, Bertrand surnamed Bos, gave to the Saint. In the fragment of a donation from the Terrier of S. Peter that church is called S. Bonitus of Medeirolas. It lies in the archpresbyterate of Livradois of the diocese of Clermont, whose bishop Aimeric in the year 1118, as Sainte-Marthe relates in tom. 2, col. 268, from a charter of Pébrac, settled the unjust complaint of the monks of S. Théofrède against the canons of S. Bonitus of Medeiroles, doubtless established in that church by S. Peter under the rule of a Prior. Then are mentioned both churches of Auratum, according to Branche sacred to S. Martin and S. George. Of these I bring forward the following fragment: Be it known to all … that Stephen of Valle and his wife and his sons gave to God and to holy Mary of Pébrac and to the lord Peter provost of that same church, with the assent of Durand bishop of Clermont, both churches of Anicetum (read of Auratum) and the church of S. Sebastian of Valorseira. Wherefore the canons of Pébrac made his son William of Valle a canon. In the fourth place is set the church of Fraghac, faultily for Flaghac, which the Saint received from Blismot the lady of Flaghac; who also granted him the place la Garde, where he built a church to the Virgin Mother of God, in which, having taken up the religious state, she might serve God for the remaining days of her life under the governance of the holy Provost. Thus Branche from the Terrier of S. Peter. The Catalogue of the benefices of France, printed at Paris in the year 1688, places in the archpresbyterate of Langeac of the diocese of S. Flour the priories of the abbey of Pébrac of Aurat and of Flaghac, of which I have just treated, and of Talhac, of which mention will presently be made.

[25] There follow the church of Alteyrac and the church of Tauliac. are brought forward This last alone Branche and Sainte-Marthe reckon among those which were given to the Saint. Nothing likewise do I find in the fragments of donations about the former church; but of the latter this notice is brought forward: Duranus bishop of the church of the men of Auvergne gave to the lord Peter provost of the church of Pébrac the church of Tautlac etc. Branche calls this S. John of Taillac, and writes that its care was committed to S. Peter, with Audigerius the lord of the place consenting. Of the priory of Talhac the Catalogue of the benefices of France makes mention in the preceding number. There succeeds the church of saint Peter of Chasels, of which take another fragment: Be it known to all … that Stephen the Bald, a priest, solicitous for his own salvation, gave and granted the half of the church of S. Peter of Chaselas, and a vineyard which is called Clausum, to God and to S. Mary of Pébrac and to the lord Peter provost of that same church. For which cause he was thereafter made a canon of Pébrac … in the reign of Philip and the prelacy of Durantus. Who gave the other half, at least in part, understand from these words of Sainte-Marthe: There fell besides to our Peter the churches of S. Peter of Chasels and of S. Bonitus of Medeyrolis, from Bertrand Bost, a presbyter of Le Puy. Then occurs the church of saint Sebastian of Vallorseyras, which, on Branche's testimony, Gerald of Corbeyre gave, whose son was made a Canon Regular: but in the preceding number you will find that Stephen of Valle with his wife and sons bestowed that church. The last place is occupied by the church of saint Marius, given, as the same Branche has it, by William the Proud, Peter of Verdesun and Gilberga of Prades, who devoted herself to the religious life. The priories of Val-Ursière and of S. Marius, depending on the monastery of Pébrac, situated in the diocese and archpresbyterate of S. Flour, the praised Catalogue of the benefices of France records.

[26] The liberality of Robert II count of Auvergne and of others. Durand bishop of Clermont in the instrument set forth above is said to have given all the churches just enumerated to S. Peter to be governed with the assent [\] of the possessors, that is, with the consent or according to the will of those who had possessed them, and had transferred whatever right they had to the Saint, that he might establish in them Canons Regular of his own discipline. It is added in the same instrument: To which bounty Robert, at that time count of Auvergne, gave his assent, and increased it with his own gifts.* Namely, as Branche narrates, he gave to the holy Provost the land and castle of Ganillon, and by his example Audigerius lord of Taillac, Stephen Berauld, Iterius of Mazeiral, Guilielma Ebrard and Bernard Charaix her son, who took up the religious habit, gave him whatever right they had in that same land of Ganillon. Branche is mistaken when he writes that the said Robert was the first of this name; since he was the second, who from about the year 1060 to 1095 held the county of Auvergne, and followed S. Peter with singular veneration both living and dead, as may be seen in the Biographer at num. 20. Now I subjoin the other churches granted to the holy Provost and to the church of Pébrac, of which no mention is made in the said instrument.

\ S. Petri*

\ in Sainte-Marthe a quibus*

\ tantum*

\ feudales*

\* that is, with the consent

§ IV. Canons Regular established in other churches by the holy Provost, who is proved to have erected the monastery of Pébrac before Durand became bishop of Clermont.

[ ] The church of S. Amabilis of Riom Of the church of S. Amabilis of Riom, bestowed on S. Peter by the prelate Durand, and of the monastery of Canons Regular joined to it, Sainte-Marthe writes thus, tom. 2, col. 388: Riom of S. Amabilis, a town of Auvergne, had a monastery of S. Amabilis of the Order of S. Augustine, of the diocese of Clermont in Limagne. It owes its beginnings to Durand prelate of Clermont, who in the year MLXXXVII granted the parish church of S. Amabilis to saint Peter of Chavanon, provost and founder of the church of Pébrac, to be organized. He brought thither some disciples of his own institute, namely Canons Regular, who inhabited this house until the year MDXLVIII, in which Savaron affirms that it was given over to the secular gown, or passed to secular canons, by the authority of Paul III. In Sainte-Marthe, in the Catalogue both of those who ruled the monastery of Pébrac and of those who ruled that of Riom, I read that Dalmatius, his disciple, Robert and Bernard presided over the Canons Regular in both places after S. Peter's death, and that, before the provostship of Pébrac was erected into an abbey — which at the beginning of this Commentary I said was done in the year 1095 — they governed the monastery of Riom under the title of abbots. But that this was an abbey at the time in which the chief and older house of Pébrac was only a provostship needs proof, which is not brought forward. The Bull of Pope Paul III given in the year 1548, by which secular canons were substituted for the Canons Regular of Riom, Sainte-Marthe produces in his account of James of Chalençon, the last abbot of the place; but he adds that it was solemnly promulgated and committed to execution only in the year 1570.

[28] Sainte-Marthe, to this title, Duranus

bishop of Clermont gives the church of S. Saturninus of Villa, and other now called la Mothe, subjoins two fragments of donations from the Terrier of S. Peter, in the first of which these things are read: In the year of the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand LXII the lord Durand bishop of the church of Clermont gave to blessed Mary of Pébrac and to the lord Peter provost of the aforesaid place and to the other canons serving God there the church of S. Saturninus, which in the vulgar tongue is called Villa, in the presence of the persons of the church of Clermont, namely of the lord Anselm the dean… This gift was made in the month of May, on the V feria. I add from the other fragment, which is also about the church of S. Saturninus: But after the gift of the aforesaid bishop Durand, the same gift was approved by Peter, a most noble man of the castle of Bulido. The witnesses are … Raculf abbot of Brioude, of whom see below at num. 34. The place where the church of S. Saturninus is seen is called by the biographer at num. 15 Villa supra Motam. In the Catalogue of the benefices of France the priory of Ville of the monastery of Pébrac is noted in the diocese of S. Flour and in its archpresbyterate of Brioude. Not only in the diocese of Clermont, to which formerly belonged the tract of Auvergne now subject to the bishop of S. Flour, but also in the neighboring dioceses of Le Puy, of Viviers and of Rodez the holy Provost obtained some churches to be administered by his canons.

[29] There lies a very ancient castle not far from Le Puy in Velay, the churches in the charters of the middle age often called Podemniac, but now Polignac, where Armand or Herimand the viscount built a church to S. Andeolus the martyr, to be delivered to S. Peter and to be governed by the canons of Pébrac whom he should appoint, and endowed it abundantly with goods whereby they might be maintained. So, as to substance, Branche from the Terrier of S. Peter; from which Sainte-Marthe culled the following: With the Lord Jesus inspiring, we purpose to record in what manner the matter of the church of the holy and most blessed martyr Andeolus was accomplished. Since throughout the world most illustrious men of sound mind far and wide were striving to please the Lord God by their acts and thoughts, a certain one, illustrious among the illustrious and not slower in a good gift, did not delay to please him, namely the lord Herimand the viscount. Wherefore he determined that a church of the blessed martyr Andeolus should be built for almighty God, which it pleased him to endow in no mean measure from his own and best [\] lands, namely… The goods annexed to the church of S. Andeolus, and the donation of this made by the viscount of Polignac, and perhaps other things, Sainte-Marthe here suppressed, subjoining these from the same Terrier: Accordingly the aforesaid Stephen bishop of the men of Auvergne, by the counsel of his father, gratefully assigned again the above-said church, and as much as seemed to look to it, to God and to the holy monastery of Pébrac and to the lord Peter provost of that same place. Whence canons sent thither… There is added, tom. 2, col. 261 and 458: But these things were written by the command of the lord Armand and of his son Stephen, with his other sons William and Pons favoring it. Then Pons the viscount… Two Benedictine writers of the congregation of S. Maur in the General History of Languedoc*, tom. 2, pag. 549, assert that the father of Stephen V bishop of Clermont — and at the same time, as I have learned from elsewhere, provost of the cathedral church of Le Puy — was Armand the third of that name, viscount of Polignac, and that the church of S. Andeolus was granted to the provostship of Pébrac, as they say is noted in the very Acts of the donation seen by Sainte-Marthe, on the VI day of October in the third year of the reign of Philip I; which those same writers set together with the year of Christ 1062, which was the third of Philip I king of the French from the death of his father Henry I: and they add that that donation cannot be fixed to the year 1061, the third of king Philip crowned, because the monastery of Pébrac was not founded before the year 1062; how uncertain which is will be plain from what is to be said at num. 36.

[30] given to S. Peter and to the provostship of Pébrac, Gerald II bishop of Viviers committed the administration of two churches in his diocese to the holy Provost's care, namely of S. Laurence and of S. Pons. Both Branche states, and Jean Columbi in his Opuscula historica, published at Lyon in the year 1675, pag. 206; where, treating of the prelate Gerald, he says: In the year MLXX he gave to Peter of Chavanon, founder and first provost of Pébrac, the churches of S. Laurence and of S. Pons, being moved by the sanctity and miracles of the Man. The same Sainte-Marthe has in tom. 2, col. 458, in an annotation; who subjoins the document which he found in the Terrier of S. Peter about those two churches given in the year 1070, thus mutilated, to the other fragments: When Gerald Dussel and his wife were considering and thinking about the recovery of the love of Christ and about the salvation of their own souls and of their parents', they gave to God and to blessed Mary of Pébrac and to the lord Peter, first provost and a most religious man, the church of S. Pons … with Gerald bishop of Viviers giving and granting it, and with the suffragans and rectors giving and granting… The same Sainte-Marthe, tom. 1, col. 204, says that Pons son of Stephen, bishop of Rodez, gave to Pébrac and to D. Peter the provost and his successors the church of S. Martin of Alto-podium, from the chartulary of Pébrac or Terrier of S. Peter. Branche narrates from the same that Pons, whom from his surname he calls Stephen, gave the Saint two churches, namely of S. Gervasius and of S. Martin of Alpuech or Alto-podium, with the assent of Stephen of S. Ursanus and of his brothers, who took up the habit of the Canons Regular, to be imbued by the holy Provost with the precepts of the religious life. It is clear from what was said at num. 13 that that donation could not have been made before the year 1079.

[31] which is shown to have existed before the episcopate of Durand of Clermont The documents which I have gathered in this and the preceding paragraph afford matter for a twofold question. The first is whether the house of Canons Regular of Pébrac was founded under Durand bishop of Clermont: the second, whether its origin preceded the year 1062. This question I reserve for the following §, and to the former I answer that S. Peter erected the monastery of Pébrac and governed it under the name of provost before Durand's episcopate, at least under his predecessor — and the successor of Renco who died in the year 1052 — Stephen V, who in the year 1073, having left the see of Clermont, passed to that of Le Puy, vacant by the death of Peter II. That Stephen, having spurned his first spouse, claimed another for himself, S. Gregory VII the Pope took ill: but he, having promised that he would in all things obey the judgment of the Apostolic See, recovered the Pontiff's favor; who by letters written in the month of April in the year 1074 admonished the men of Le Puy to reverence Stephen as their prelate. He did not stand by his promises, and was excommunicated by the Pontiff celebrating a council at Rome in Lent of the year 1076, and again at Le Puy by his legate Hugh prelate of Die, some days after the synod of Clermont, in which Durand abbot of La Chaise-Dieu had been consecrated bishop of that same city, William de Camaleria having been deposed for simony, who had occupied the chair deserted by Stephen. The sentence of repeated excommunication passed against Stephen by his legate Hugh the supreme Pontiff confirmed by two letters, of which one was given to the canons of Le Puy, the other to the bishops of Gaul, both on the same XXIII day of March in the year 1077. Hence it is made out that the synod of Clermont, in which Durand was initiated bishop, was held not later than at the beginning of that same year 1077; but neither that it was celebrated earlier than at the end of the year 1076 is proved from this, that after S. Robert the first abbot of La Chaise-Dieu, who died on the XVII day of April in the year 1067, Durand had presided over that monastery nearly ten years before he was ordained bishop in the said synod. All these things I have learned to be certainly true from the praised letters of S. Gregory in Labbe, tom. X of the Councils, from col. 63 and 164, from the Acts of the Roman council there at col. 356, and also from the Chronicle of Verdun by Hugh abbot of Flavigny, whose statements to our purpose about the synod of Clermont and the bishops Stephen and Durand may be read there at col. 359; likewise from Bertrand a monk of La Chaise-Dieu in the miracles of S. Robert, published in our Work at the XXIV of April, distinction 1, num. 16, and dist. 3, num. 3.

[32] That the provostship of Pébrac is older than Durand's episcopate, whose beginning I have proved must be attached to the end of the year 1076 or the beginning of 1077, is shown to have existed under his predecessor Stephen V: I hold for a certain thing. First of all, Durand had not yet begun to sit, nay had not even succeeded S. Robert abbot of La Chaise-Dieu, who died in the year 1067, when our holy Provost united to his monastery of Pébrac the church of S. Andeolus the martyr; for this Armand III viscount of Polignac and his son Stephen bishop of Clermont gave him not later than the year 1062, as is plain from what was said at num. 29. The same Armand and Stephen, when the latter held the see of Le Puy, but Durand was administering the abbey of La Chaise-Dieu, enriched the said church of S. Andeolus and the canons of Pébrac established in it with various possessions, which the instrument taken from the archive of Pébrac or Terrier of S. Peter enumerates in Sainte-Marthe at the end of volume 2, col. 229, and which is confirmed by the subscription of Hermann or Armand the viscount … of Stephen his son bishop of the country of Le Puy and, to omit the rest, of Durantus abbot of La Chaise-Dieu. That instrument was drawn up, as it is right to believe, when Stephen bishop of Le Puy had not yet been struck with the anathema. Before he had passed from the diocese of Clermont to that of Le Puy, there was entered upon between the Canons Regular of Pébrac and the chapter of S. Julian of Brioude a fellowship, which the charter to be produced at the end of this Commentary thus begins to set forth: In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand LXX the lord Peter provost of the church of Pébrac etc. In the same year 1070 Gerald II bishop of Viviers benefited our holy Provost, on the testimony of Jean Columbi, whose words I gave at num. 30. Finally the continuators of the new Gallia Christiana above at num. 23 write that S. Peter instituted at Vieille-Brioude a priory of the canons of Pébrac in the church of S. Vincent, given him with the approval, that is the consent, of Stephen then diocesan of Clermont. All these things indeed leave me no doubt that the provostship of Pébrac was founded before Durand's episcopate, at least under his predecessor Stephen, who, as I said before, after Renco who died in the year 1052 sat at Clermont until 1073.

[33] errors are noted with which are vitiated I make nothing therefore of the fifth Lesson of the Office of the Saint given at num. 9, which sets Durand's episcopate together with the beginnings of the monastery of Pébrac; nothing of Branche, who likewise fell into that error, and seems to have drawn into the same the authors of the old Gallia Christiana, tom. IV, pag. 733; nothing either of the instrument reported from num. 20 out of the Terrier of S. Peter, which obtrudes this about the origin of the provostship of Pébrac: Let the present age therefore know, and all posterity to come, that in the year of the Lord one thousand and sixty-two, when the aforesaid Servant of God, supported by divine power, was shunning the allurements of the flesh and was submitting his neck to the Regular yoke of the canons, that he might so much the more give himself [\] to the divine worship; not defiled with the plague of simony*

he received the church of Pébrac from Durand himself, the venerable bishop of the men of Auvergne, etc. Hither look the things which Denys de Sainte-Marthe noted where he treats of Pébrac. Those, he says, who surveyed the archive of Pébrac with their own eyes observed that the year MLXII, which is assigned for the time of the foundation, had been written by another and indeed a more recent hand. It is established from elsewhere that the church of Pébrac had Canons Regular before Durand's episcopate and at least under his predecessor Stephen. Some things being interposed, he thus goes on: Therefore what we read, that Durand the bishop, who did not sit before the year MLXXVI, gave to Peter of Chavanon the church of Pébrac, must be understood of the possession of this church confirmed to him. By this observation Sainte-Marthe wished, as I think, not to excuse but rather to correct the error with which the instrument is vitiated, asserting all too openly that the church of Pébrac was first granted by Durand; who nevertheless could only ratify the first donation of that same church, whose possession S. Peter with his companions had entered upon under his predecessor Stephen. In the same instrument, after the beginning of the monastery of Pébrac has been ill set forth, it is narrated that bishop Durand gave various churches to S. Peter to be administered; and in the first place are mentioned the churches of S. Vincent and of S. Mary of Vieille-Brioude; whose administration however Durand did not confer on him, save in this sense, that he confirmed what had been conferred before. Read again what was said at num. 23.

[34] The Terrier of S. Peter; the biographer's text either corrupt It is likewise more probable that the church of S. Saturninus was possessed by the canons of Pébrac before Durand's episcopate. This indeed above at num. 28 Durand bishop of the church of Clermont is said to have given to the holy Provost; but there is added: In the year of the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand LXII … in the month of May, on the V feria, at which time Stephen was sitting; and it is the more credible that the donation was made because in the same place Raculf abbot of Brioude is read to have strengthened it with his own testimony, who in the year 1062 designated was presiding. Denys de Sainte-Marthe, tom. 2, col. 476, names him Radulf, and proves that he administered the abbey of S. Julian of Brioude not beyond the year 1066. I should easily believe that the author of the Terrier, or perhaps the copyist, read in the ancient charters that the church of S. Saturninus was given not only in the year 1062 in the time of abbot Raculf or Radulf, but also by the prelate Durand; but that he did not distinguish the first donation from the second, that is from the confirmation of the first, and that from the confusion of the two was born that enormous error by which Durand's episcopate is drawn back from the year 1077 or 1076 to the year 1062. From a like confusion could flow what is asserted in the same Terrier, that S. Peter received the church of Pébrac from Durand already then bishop, when the aforesaid Servant of God, supported by divine power, was shunning the allurements of the flesh and was submitting his neck to the Regular yoke of the canons. But, you will say, that the Saint under Durand as bishop laid the first foundations both of so religious a life and of the provostship of Pébrac, Stephen the biographer himself also so manifestly declares: His archpresbyterate being left, having acted on the counsel of the prelate Duranus, having taken the canonical habit, … supported by the twofold solace of Brothers, on the vigils of the Lord's Nativity, he came to Pébrac etc. I answer that this passage is perhaps corrupt as well in the copy published by d'Achery as in our Pébrac transcript. So I am allowed to suspect, since I hold it explored that in neither is the genuine reading everywhere preserved. He who in the Terrier, whether he were its author, or a copyist or interpolator, bound Durand's episcopate and the origin of the provostship of Pébrac to the same time, could also have defiled Durand's Acts with a like error.

[35] If nevertheless the primitive reading has: Having acted on the counsel of the prelate Duranus etc.; or seems to be excused by a kindly interpretation. it can be said that the biographer by prolepsis attributed to Durand the appellation of prelate, because he afterward bore that dignity. It is agreed among all that the monastery of Pébrac began to be founded before the year 1063, in which Durand was a Benedictine monk under S. Robert abbot of La Chaise-Dieu, whom also in the year 1067 he succeeded. Durand as a monk could not give the church of Pébrac and that of S. Saturninus to S. Peter before the year 1063; and therefore inexcusable is the error of those who say that both churches were given by Durand as bishop before that same time: but Durand, although a monk, could help the Saint with counsel; and therefore the objected words of Stephen do not refuse the kindly interpretation which I have given. To them the biographer immediately subjoins that Durand granted many churches to S. Peter; which he did not do save after he had in the year 1076 or 1077 been created bishop of Clermont from abbot of La Chaise-Dieu. Then he returns thither whence he had digressed, namely to the Saint, who, having followed the counsel of Durand not yet bishop, and having taken up the habit of the Canons Regular, had come to Pébrac with two companions: to whom he signifies that several others were joined together in these words: God … visiting the aforesaid number, joined together to him several Regulars in one, who should follow the Apostolic manner of living etc. Further I prefer to believe that Stephen's narrative is either corrupt or must be expounded in the sense in which I have reconciled it with the truth; because it appears to me less probable that that writer, a canon of Pébrac and so little removed from S. Peter's age that he could easily have dwelt with his disciples and been instructed by them, was so basely deceived as to defer to Durand's episcopate the beginnings of his own monastery, founded long before under his predecessor Stephen.

\ optimis*

\ tantum*

§ V. The first beginnings of the same monastery probably to be referred to about the year MLX; the Order of Canons Regular of S. Augustine much older; the fellowship entered upon between S. Peter and the canons of Brioude.

[ ] [The Saint withdrew to Pébrac, and there more probably established Canons Regular before the year 1062:] It cannot be called into doubt that S. Peter not later than the year 1062 was made a Canon Regular from archpresbyter of Langeac, and began at Pébrac to gather under his own discipline religious men following the same institute of life. But did not Canons Regular under the holy Provost inhabit Pébrac earlier than that same year 1062? This Branche and the Benedictine writers cited at num. 29 deny. But relying on what foundation? Is it because the instrument transcribed from the Terrier at num. 20 has that the church of Pébrac was given to S. Peter in the year of the Lord one thousand and sixty-two, when the aforesaid Servant of God … was submitting his neck to the Regular yoke of the canons? Hear again the words of Sainte-Marthe admonishing the reader, given at num. 33: Those who surveyed the archive of Pébrac with their own eyes observed that the year MLXII, which is assigned for the time of the foundation, had been written by another and indeed a more recent hand. Is it because in the Saint's Acts in d'Achery it is read: Having taken the canonical habit … on the vigils of the Lord's Nativity, he came to Pébrac with solemn joy, in the year of the Lord one thousand and sixty-two? But in our Pébrac transcript that year is inserted among the notes set in the margin and to be ascribed to a later author, and not into the biographer's own narrative; into which it could easily have been transferred from the margin by the copyist whose copy d'Achery used. Both in our Ms. and in d'Achery's text of the biographer the Saint is said to have come to Pébrac on the vigils of the Lord's Nativity, that is, on the vigil of the Nativity of the Lord. But to S. Peter provost of Pébrac the church of S. Saturninus was given in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand LXII … in the month of May, on the V feria, as is had above at num. 28 in the Terrier; but the church of S. Andeolus of Polignac, as the Benedictine writers praised at num. 29 testify that they read, on the VI day of October in the third year of the reign of Philip I, that is, in the year of Christ 1061 or 1062; for the third year from Philip I crowned as king began to run at the feast of Pentecost of the year 1061, but the third from the death of his father Henry on the IV of August of the year 1062. It remains that at least into the year 1061 or 1060 fell the vigil of the Nativity of the Lord, on which the Saint, the habit of the Canons Regular being taken up, withdrew to Pébrac.

[37] It does not escape me that some writers can be opposed, in whose opinion S. Peter in the year 1062 or earlier could neither profess the religious life of the Canons Regular, [not only older than the said year, but much older also than the Roman council of the year 1059] nor institute a congregation at Pébrac; since they remove the origin of that Order to later times: but that for finding this one must ascend to earlier times, the learned now hold with great consent, and it will also be made manifest from what is to be said. Thomassin in his Ancient and new discipline of the Church, part 1, book 3, chap. 21, repeats the institution of the Canons Regular from the fourth canon of the Roman council celebrated under Pope Nicholas II in the year 1059, as from its first fountain. If I assented to that author, as some have done, I should say that the provostship of Canons Regular of Pébrac could not have been erected before about the year 1060, and I should congratulate its founder S. Peter that he was the first, or among the first, who brought religious men of that most celebrated institute into the Christian world. But neither do I attribute this praise to the Saint, nor do I even deny that the first beginnings of the monastery of Pébrac are earlier than about the year 1060; although they seem rather to be referred to that time, because then Canons Regular were propagated throughout Gaul, as will be seen at num. 43. I say that they were then propagated, not born; for Thomassin in the fourth canon of the Roman council held in the year 1059, which will be set forth at num. 42, did not detect the fountain from which that sacred Order drew its origin, but that from which it took its increase. Thomassin himself in his own principles ought to have admitted that it existed long before the celebration of the said council, if he had read its Acts, which Mabillon in the last year of his life, of Christ 1707, first brought forth into the public light from the very ancient Roman Ottobonian codex, in tom. IV of the Benedictine Annals from pag. 748. Many writers indeed against Thomassin affirm that the Canons Regular are older than the Roman council of the year 1059; but at the same time they contend that they first arose in the XI century, and acknowledge no religious family of theirs which preceded that of S. Rufus at Avignon, erected about twenty years before that council. But the Acts of this council so weaken their opinion also that I should think myself acting imprudently if I embraced it.

[38] Before I bring forward those Acts, I would have the reader know the canons professing the rule which S. Augustine prescribed to his clerics; that the Canons Regular of S. Augustine were so called from the rule or norm of living which the holy Doctor kept with his clerics after the example of the first Christians, and which on occasion of a certain offense he publicly set forth to the people of Hippo in two sermons, which in the Paris edition of the Benedictines are 355 and 356, otherwise 49 and 50 de Diversis. In what manner, he says at the opening of the latter sermon, by God's favor we now live, although many of you know from holy Scripture, nevertheless for the reminding of you the lesson itself will be recited to you from the book of the Acts of the Apostles, that you may see where is described the form which we desire to fulfill… “But of the multitude of believers there was one soul and one heart; and no one of them said that anything of what he possessed was his own, but all things were common to them…

Neither indeed was there anyone needy among them: for as many as were possessors of fields or of houses, selling them, brought the prices of them and laid them before the feet of the Apostles. And it was distributed to each one, according as anyone had need”. To these sacred words, here reported from the Acts of the Apostles, chap. 4, ℣. 32, 34 and following, as to the most perfect rule of clerical life, S. Augustine, the emulator of the primitive Church, ordered his own manner of living and that of his clerics: but that the canons who imitated him, who adorned the Church in the XI century, received thence the name of Regulars of S. Augustine, I would here prove by certain and clear testimonies of the ancients, if I feared that a fair and learned reader, the matter being ripely examined, would dissent from me. Meanwhile Father Le Large, a Canon Regular, may be consulted in the Disquisitions of his own Order, which he published at Paris in the year 1697, his name being suppressed, from pag. 45 and 67.

[39] as is most clearly plain The said two sermons of S. Augustine constitute chapters 112 and 113 of the Rule gathered from the decrees of the ancient councils and the sentences of the Fathers, which the synod of Aachen held in the year of Christ 816 prescribed to canons; from which it is established that he in the episcopal house professed a common life with the clerics who were his messmates, and the abdication of all things without any exception. But the subsequent chapters of that rule turn aside from the sayings of S. Augustine and of the other Fathers previously adduced, chiefly in this, that they permit canons to possess in their own name whatsoever things, even those coming from the church. Now receive from the praised Acts of the Roman council held in the year 1059 those things which prove that the Augustinian Canons Regular, although under this name — about which there is no need to litigate — they were not known before that same council, were nevertheless in the thing itself much older. In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord MLIX, in the XII Indiction, on the Kalends of May, the lord and venerable Pope Nicholas presiding, in the first year of his Pontificate, with his Cardinals, bishops and presbyters, Dominic patriarch of Grado also sitting with them etc., in the basilica of the sacred Lateran palace which is surnamed the Leonine, that most excellent man Hildebrand, afterward the supreme Pontiff Gregory VII, discharging the authority of archdeacon of the Apostolic See, said: Some of the clerical order, inflamed through the Holy Spirit with the fire of perfect charity, are known LONG SINCE in this Roman city and in the provinces and parishes more specially pertaining or cleaving to it to have EMBRACED AND AT THE SAME TIME PROFESSED THE COMMON LIFE AFTER THE EXAMPLE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH, that is, the rule which S. Augustine gave to be observed to the clerics living with him in the episcopal house, so far that they reserved nothing of their own to themselves, their means being either distributed to the needy, or left to their kinsfolk, or at any rate offered to the churches of Christ.

[40] from the Acts of the said Whom, as the love of perfection joined in a holy striving to attack the narrower way and to enter by the strait gate, so also the abundance of iniquity seeks little by little to disjoin by its coldness, that they may fall back behind it, and become apostates of the purpose once seized: while there are among them those whom incautious youth or suspect old age calls back and drags to the presumption of private property, which by their own vow or that of their parents they had left. Who also for the greatest defense of their prevarication take up some chapters from that rule of Aachen which is said to have been compiled for canons, at the exhortation of the emperor Louis the Pious, by one who is not known: who, so long as he took care to shape and lead the congregations of canons by the sentences and footsteps of the earlier Fathers, proclaimed that the means of the church were owed to those alone who from love of perfection either renounce at once all things which they possess, or the mere desire of possessing, if other things are lacking which they might renounce. But where he wished as it were to condescend either to his own or to another's languor, he strayed too widely from the path of the holy Fathers, and reproved the whole of what he seemed to approve, and what he had undertaken to defend he not only assailed but, so far as in him lay, overthrew. Which chapters, since they are at hand for the present, may it please this your holy assembly that they be considered, and that at length a necessary and fitting sentence be pronounced upon them: so that they who have already by their own or their parents' vow resolved or begun to live in a canonical congregation without any property may beware of looking back; and they who have not yet put their hand to this kind of plow may learn what is to be observed by them after they shall once have put it.

[41] May it likewise please your Sanctity that there be recited that profession of the Roman council under Pope Nicholas II by which hitherto in the Roman city clerics about to live in common after the manner of the primitive Church have been wont to bind themselves: and if it is to be confirmed, let it be confirmed by your authority, or if it is to be corrected, let it be corrected by your judgment. The religious profession of which there is here discourse Mabillon brings forward, tom. IV of the Benedictine Annals, pag. 587, from the same Roman Ottobonian codex, from which in the same place at pag. 748 he produces the things which I have already transferred into this Commentary. And that profession is exhibited conceived in these words: As it is held to have been regularly sanctioned, I N. deliver and offer my very self to the Catholic church of N. or to holy N. and to the lord N. the provost, to serve faithfully according to the canonical rule, with my hands wrapped in the pall of the altar together with the oblation, and a portion of my goods for the use and expense of the Brethren canons there for the time serving God after the manner of the primitive church: so that from this day it may not be lawful for me to shake my neck from under the yoke of the rule; but rather to keep that same rule faithfully according to the institutes of the holy Fathers, and to serve the Lord as a soldier with the rest with a grateful mind. And that this promise may remain firm, I have confirmed it with my own hand and strengthened it with witnesses. This is that formula which long before the council of the year 1059 they had used, and which up to its celebration without any interruption the Roman canons went on using, professing the common life devoid of all private possession, that is, the life of the first Christians. The same the clerics of S. Augustine once vowed, as he himself testifies in the first sermon on their life and morals: Behold, I say it, hear. He who deserts the fellowship of the common life already undertaken, which is praised in the Acts of the Apostles, FALLS FROM HIS OWN VOW, FALLS AWAY FROM A HOLY PROFESSION.

[42] Pope Nicholas approved Hildebrand's counsel about examining the laxer Aachen rule of canons and the formula of profession held in the year 1059: the institute of life which is commended in its canon 4, which clerics of a stricter discipline had been accustomed to utter. Accordingly the two books of the synod of Aachen were brought forth, which besides the said rule of canons comprised also another given to canonesses. What the Fathers of the Roman council reprehended in either rule the praised Mabillon adduces from the Ottobonian codex from pag. 749. The rest, he says, is wanting in the manuscript, as I think, the original; from which at least one leaf has been torn away. But that the profession of those serving God after the manner of the primitive church, whose formula too Hildebrand had demanded to be recited in the Roman council, was confirmed and very greatly commended to all canons, is sufficiently drawn out from the fourth canon of that same council in Labbe, tom. IX, col. [ ]: And commanding we decree that … beside the churches to which they have been ordained, as befits religious clerics, they eat and sleep together; and whatever comes to them from the churches, let them have it in common. And entreating we admonish that they strive with the utmost care to arrive at the Apostolic, that is, the common LIFE. Here the Roman synod commands community of all ecclesiastical revenues, whose property the Aachen rule at chap. 115 had permitted to canons. These indeed that rule judged were to be compelled by no precept to lead, the other goods too being abdicated, that common Apostolic life which is described in the Acts of the Apostles, chap. 4, and which at that time was observed at Rome and elsewhere in some churches: yet it willed that all should be entreated and admonished to emulate with the highest zeal that most perfect manner of living. The same the Roman synod held in the year 1063 under Pope Alexander II inculcates upon them, which confirmed and renewed all the canons framed in the former synod.

[43] [propagated through Gaul about the year 1060: the monastery of Pébrac, then also erected,] After Pope Nicholas II had by letters, which stand in the cited Labbe at col. [ ], transmitted the statutes of the Roman synod celebrated in the year 1059 to all the bishops of Gaul, there straightway began to be erected congregations of canons who, according to the counsel of the fourth canon reported above, their patrimony and all things being forsworn, embraced the Apostolic life. Canons of this holy profession were those whom Henry I king of the French toward the end of his life brought into the church of S. Martin des Champs near the walls of Paris, restored by him in the year 1060, and whom in his diploma he calls canons serving God in a Regular manner of life, which may be read among the instruments of the church of Paris in tom. VII of the new Gallia Christiana from col. 32. About the same time Anne queen of the French founded the abbey of S. Vincent at Senlis, to the end that there quiet and tranquil religious men serving the Lord, renouncing the world, embracing canonically the Regular life, that is, of the holy Apostles and of B. Augustine, which has been written, might be able to live. These words are excerpted from the charter of foundation which the brothers de Sainte-Marthe give in tom. IV of the old Gallia Christiana from pag. 949. Since with no time either does that saying of Stephen the biographer about S. Peter the founder of the provostship of Pébrac seem to me able to be more aptly connected than with about the year 1060: Having taken the canonical habit and laid down the burden of the world, about to serve God as a soldier forever, supported by the twofold solace of Brothers, on the vigils of the Lord's Nativity, he came to Pébrac with solemn joy. But that the habit which the Saint took up, and the congregation which he instituted at Pébrac, were of the Order of Canons Regular of S. Augustine, is manifest from the following words of the biographer: God … visiting the aforesaid number, namely S. Peter, who had come to Pébrac with two companions, joined together to him several Regulars in one, who should follow the Apostolic manner of living, according to the Augustinian edict, having nothing of their own in this world.

[44] [from its first origin Canons Regular inhabited it under the governance of S. Peter: the agreement] From the words of the biographer just now reported it is understood that Augustinian Canons Regular inhabited the house of Pébrac from the beginning, that is from that time in which it began to be erected under Stephen V prelate of Clermont: yet because the authors refuted in the preceding paragraph, who say that the monastery of Pébrac was founded under Stephen's successor Durand, can perhaps throw in some suspicion that it indeed existed under bishop Stephen, but was not of the Order of Canons Regular of S. Augustine, because its founder S. Peter with his disciples did not begin to profess that same Order save under Durand; I here subjoin to the biographer's testimony another document about the fellowship entered upon between the church of Pébrac and that of Brioude, from which the reader will clearly recognize that the provostship of Pébrac was inhabited by Canons Regular before the episcopate of Durand, who began to sit at the end of the year 1076 or the beginning of 1077; and at the same time he will learn among other things that a canonry in the most noble church of S. Julian of Brioude was conferred on our holy Provost.

Denys de Sainte-Marthe published it from the Terrier of S. Peter in tom. 2 of the new Gallia Christiana among the instruments of the church of S. Flour from col. 131; whence I transfer it hither entire. In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand LXX the lord Peter provost of the church of Pébrac came into the chapter of S. Julian of Brioude, in the presence of the canons; and there he granted the above-said church of Pébrac, and all the churches which he and his brethren were about to acquire either by gift or by purchase, in allod to S. Julian the martyr and to his canons, by the consent of his Brothers of Pébrac, on such an agreement, that they should be their helpers and defenders, and should, so far as they could, aid and counsel them in all their affairs throughout.

[45] But if a canon of S. Julian should wish to come to their Regular habit, entered upon between him and the chapter of S. Julian of Brioude. the Brothers of Pébrac themselves should receive them with great joy either with money or without money; moreover, if the merit of his life should grant it, they should make him superior to others. And in return the canons of saint Julian granted to the lord Peter and to his successors who should be prelates in the church of Pébrac a prebend in perpetuity, that they might be canons like one of them: and if the canons of Pébrac should come to Brioude, so long as they should stay there, they should eat with the canons of saint Julian in the refectory, and should abide with them likewise in choir and dormitory. Moreover the canons of Brioude promised that they would give dwellings at Brioude to the canons of Pébrac, where they might be able to do their own will, as in their own lordship. Then they granted, which is a greater thing, to the lord Peter and to his canons both present and to come, whatsoever churches or lands or anything else they should be able to acquire in the land of saint Julian either by gift or by purchase, on such an agreement, that saint Julian and his canons should have their own rent as before; nay rather that the canons of Pébrac should pay in full every due of that acquisition according to the custom of the elders who had possessed those things. And this was generally granted in the chapter of saint Julian by both parties, that they, brotherhood being shared, should be of one mind in Christ, and that God should be all in all. Branche writes that the covenant sanctioned between the church of Pébrac and that of S. Julian of Brioude in the year 1070 lasted long, and that the abbot of the former in his own times too has a place among the comites, that is, the canons of Brioude distinguished with that title.

THE LIFE AND MIRACLES

by Stephen, a Canon Regular of the abbey of Pébrac, almost contemporary.

From d'Achery's edition, tom. 2 of the Spicilegium, from pag. 691, collated with the Pébrac transcript.

Peter of Chavanon, Canon Regular of the Order of S. Augustine, at Pébrac in Auvergne (S.)

BHL Number: 6703, 6704

By Stephen, can. Reculari.

PREFACE

The author indicates that he wrote by the command of his abbot Pons. To his most dear ^a Pons, by the grace of God abbot of the church of Pébrac, Stephen the servant of Christ. That I should write the life and acts or miracles which the Lord wrought through the lord Peter, the first founder ^b of the monastery of Pébrac, thou hast wholesomely and very often admonished me, most dear Father ^c. Judging myself unequal to which burden, I almost wholly shirked this labor: but relying on thy prayers, trusting that what was in my mind could be done by me through thee ^d, I would not hold out my own sluggishness; nay rather I willed to obey according to my power the command of so great a father ^e. For, moved by a most religious zeal and forewarned, I believe, by the nod of God — whom I weighed to be enjoining this upon me through thee ^f — thou wouldst not that the light of the Church of God should lie longer hidden in darkness; nor under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it might shine for all who are in the house ^g. It had nevertheless been more equitable to commit these things [\] to be written by some holy man, whose words joined with virtues might flower again; but to leave me as an unfruitful tree, who have taken care neither to abide in the garden of the Bridegroom's delights nor to offer [\] any fruit: for no small fruit has such a labor and such a treatise in itself. But I, while I try to unfold the merits of the venerable Man by the office of the pen, rather let down [\] his praises than utter things worthy of his deeds: for ^h though that pomp of the eloquence of the ancients were supplied to me, I do not think nevertheless that I could suffice in this. Therefore, passing over many things out of more, I shall take care to hand down to the memory of posterity a few things out of many, which I have proved to be true by the report of the faithful ⁱ and which oblivion has not yet cut off. And [\] lest a longer epistolary sheet become tedious, I shall approach the work proposed.

ANNOTATIONS.

e. Supply I willed.

\ read hæc*

\ In the Ms. afferre*

\ in the same place prius*

\ In the same place Sed*

CHAPTER I.

His birth, pious upbringing, virtues, the archpresbyterate of Langeac; the care of the nuns of La Chaise; sight restored to a blind woman.

[His country; his pious and noble family; the virtues with which from a tender age] From the stock therefore of the illustrious ^a of the province of Auvergne, from the territory of Langeac, the lord Peter, a man of venerable life and of the highest sanctity, was sprung. Brought up indeed by the sagacious care of religious parents, and given over from infancy to the liberal studies, as by a certain divine presage and disposition of God, he passed his boyish years simply and shrewdly. But of his stock very many are reported to have existed, whose life God very often declared by miracles. For in truth, since they were illustrious in birth and rich in goods, they were treated among the throngs of the nobles with the greater honor [\] the more they aspired to eternal rather than to transitory felicity. And because the generation of the upright shall be blessed, he, shining like a most bright star among the lesser luminaries, wonderfully adorned the line of his family with the lamp of sanctity. For from the very first beginning of his youth he shunned the allurements of the world, he fled the wantonness which that age is wont to embrace; and in the churches, now accompanied by his parents, now alone, passing the nights in vigils and supplications, offering [\] himself a living victim pleasing to God, he built with what cost he could a temple of the Holy Spirit. His purpose burned, kindled with desire of the heavenly fatherland, and already with the Apostle his conversation was in the heavens. Serving the world in outward show only, with unbent mind he sought the deserts with John the Baptist, desiring to overcome the pleasures of the flesh as the fodder of death, and to exchange the transitory blandishments of the world for eternal delights ^b.

[3] he shone up to man's estate; and then, being made archpresbyter of Langeac, The time therefore of youth being past, when his good disposition was calling this Man of God to greater works of virtues, there began to grow up in him ^c manly strength, and to embrace virtue of mind ^d, often unrolling with himself that saying of the Gospel: “Unless a man renounce all things which he possesses, he cannot be my disciple”. Luke chap. 14, ℣. 33 And elsewhere: “If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me”. Matthew chap. 19, ℣. 21 And he was prudent in manners, truthful in word, conspicuous in all goodness and sanctity ^e, so that — since in the said town he was filled with very many marks of virtues, and since the Lord in the present world for the most part repays [\] a hundredfold to those who follow him, but in the world to come eternal life — he was raised to the archpriesthood with the greatest assent of clerics and laymen.*

[4] [the zeal for cultivating chastity, for praying devoutly, and also for promoting the salvation of others] Having attained this summit of dignity, how piously, how soberly, how justly he lived, it is above us to tell. For so diligent a lover of holiness and chastity had he been even before, that he turned his eyes away in every manner from vanity, lest death should have entrance through those windows. He busied himself to guard his feet from slipping, his actions from every fall, so far as he could with the grace of God helping. The care too of those subject to him he bore with pastoral watchfulness, and like a spiritual father he refreshed each with the banquet as well of soul as of body according to his power, not unmindful of the Lord's word to Peter: “Feed my sheep”. John chap. 21, ℣. 17 This is, good Jesus, thy not deaf hearer, who ^f, when he might have rejoiced with the flower of temporal things, chose rather to gain eternal gladness by momentary labors than to procure [\] for himself cause of weeping forever. What shall I say, that his mouth was always conversing with God in psalms: leading even on earth an angelic life, he sang with the spirit, he sang also with the mind. For if he had a journey with anyone, it was his custom that he should walk first ^g, and should wait for no one, that he might nowhere break off his psalmody.*

[5] by word and by example. But in what manner he despised the world is given us to know not only from his sayings, but much more from his constant deeds, by which he showed forth utterly the ruin of the world: and, longing to draw all to Christ, most frequently convicting the shortness of this life in long exhortation, he thus spoke: Our life, though it be stretched to a thousand years, yet we come to the last day of our age. When therefore the last hour shall have come, what will the fruit of continued pleasure profit, which, as soon as it has ceased, will seem not to have been? What do daily delights, fine linen and purple, profit the rich man burning among those below? All trust in this world is like a reed, which the wind of vain glory tosses and the river of tribulations shakes down. There are here very many evils mingled with good in the unequal measure of the human condition. If perchance this world were willing to give prosperous things even to the end, yet death intervening would take all away. The earth will receive our corpse in death; and, unless you take heed, the dead body will make for impious Tartarus. Let us raise our minds to things above, and, the sleep of the soul being shaken off, let us watchfully sing with the greatest of the prophets: “My soul hath thirsted for thee, how manifoldly my flesh for thee”. Psalm 62, ℣. 2 Despise, dearly beloved, the short life and acquire the long, and for the labor of a brief age prepare the rest of one everlasting: for the good things which you love you cannot long retain. Why do you not love there,

where you know that you shall be blessed forever? By these and the like assertions the venerable Priest of God stirred up the people to leave worldly and superstitious things ^h.

[6] the care of the nuns of La Chaise; sight restored to a blind woman; But after the almighty Lord willed to make his Saint wonderful, his life began also to be more manifestly declared to the world by the marks of miracles, though against his will, as one who would rather hide all his virtues than bring them into the light. And it came to pass that the monastery of La Chaise was for some time under his care ⁱ: whose nuns of that place, who at that time dwelt there religiously enough, he watched over diligently and with the zeal of God, that they should nowhere creep forth further from the monastery without his own most faithful company ^k. While therefore he had set out with certain of them to Dalet for some urgent business, and the Lord had willed that his Servant, notable for the glory of miracles, should be more openly manifested to the world; it happened that he was celebrating Mass after his daily custom. On hearing which, a blind woman, who there had lost her sight for many years, ran to the monastery as quickly [\] as she could, and asked the minister of the altar that there should be given her secretly and as it were by stealth the water flowing down from the hands of that holy Man after the consecration of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ; which when she had received, and had washed her eyes therewith, at once she received the light of her eyes and of her mind, and cried out that she had received it.*

[7] the Saint's submissive mind, shrinking from vain glory. Which when the holy Man learned, although he grieved to be made manifest on this account; yet because God, as we believe, willed this to be brought about by his merits, he was not lifted up into the glory of this world, but rejoiced with himself for the poor little woman ^l, saying that it must be attributed not to his own merits but to the power of God. And so the Lord, who far and wide graciously discloses the merits of his servants, has already fulfilled in this his Servant what he had promised to his faithful, saying: “He that believeth in me, the works that I do, he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do”. John chap. 14, ℣. 12 This indeed is the first miracle of the blessed Man, publicly wrought, which has come to our knowledge: for we know for certain that before this the Lord had secretly shown very many indications of his sanctity ^m. But I omit to write of those things which he himself preferred to lie hidden. Those only will I briefly touch which by the sure testimonies of many could not be concealed. For if either the dryness of our discourse could set forth the signs of his so great virtues, or the memory retain them, the daylight will be able to have an end sooner than the page ⁿ. Departing therefore from the above-said monastery as quickly as possible, the business being done, as though for shame of the miracle he went back with those same nuns to the fellowship of La Chaise like a fugitive.

ANNOTATIONS.

\ In the Ms. venerabantur*

\ In the same place offerendo*

\* This word is absent from the Ms.

\ In the Ms. parari.*

\ In the Ms. quantocius*

CHAPTER II.

With unconquered constancy of mind he resists an unchaste woman, whom a punishment divinely inflicted sets free; he becomes a Canon Regular; he founds a monastery at Pébrac; he extinguishes a fire; he builds a church to the Virgin Mother of God and preserves it from impending ruin.

[ ] A nun And it happened at another time, that he was riding after the accustomed manner with the abbess of the aforesaid monastery and with certain others, to see the threshing of the harvests in a farmstead of those same holy [\] women. And when the impending night had overtaken them there, and had compelled them to remain; at last, while all were hastening to go to bed, Peter the man of God, that he might more freely give himself to prayer, and also that he might avoid the noxious ^a worms of the night, took care that a bed should be prepared [\] for himself upon a wagon which by chance was standing loaded with hay near the door; which forthwith was carefully and diligently made ready by the chamber-servants. But while he was watching there and meditating on the psalms; behold ^b the most wicked spirit, who always envies the quiet of the good, stirred up against the Saint of God a certain woman of the companions of that same nun [\], goaded with venereal frenzy; who came by stealth through the darkness to his bed, and began to ask that he would lie with her that night. To whom he said: Depart from me, wicked woman, tinder of sin; go to thy rest, and sign thy heart, because the devil urges thee to begin and to speak this, nay to do it. When therefore she pressed on, and would by no means go away; the holy Man, moved with the zeal of God, began terribly to threaten her that, unless she desisted from what she had begun, he would at once call out to all the men who were lying near. But she, confounded with shame and grieving at the base repulse, at length hardly departed.*

[9] most shamelessly tries in vain But having tarried a while, again goaded by the same spirit of lust — nay rather the wicked spirit himself through her attacks the Man of God a second time — and by tempting he exhorts to sin, as the serpent did the first men. But of them, alas for the grief! he came off victor; whence our race [\] was struck down: here however, being conquered by the second Man, he is thrust down groaning to Tartarus. For Peter the Man of the Lord, strengthened by the Holy Spirit, again and again frightened the woman away, and by thundering out higher tones threatened her more earnestly, that she who had set behind her the zeal of God should at least stand in awe of the shame of men. O how great and immeasurable is God almighty! Behold indeed another Joseph, set in the Egypt of this world, suffers the assaults of another Potiphar's wife ^c; he leaves his cloak in the chamber and flees away with the mantle of chastity: lest he lose the garment of modesty, he strives with all his might. A second time therefore the shameless woman is struck with fear and shame, and returns secretly through the darkness to her own bed; where again she began to burn and, anxious, to meditate what she should do. There came into her mind the outward beauty of the holy Man's limbs, the comeliness of his countenance, the cheerfulness of his face, his sweet speech, [\] his good health and the rest, the favor of which good things God confers on individuals as he wills ^d: which good things moreover he did not abuse, but rather gave over his whole self to the service of the Creator.

[10] That nun therefore — who should rather be called a demon-woman — to storm him, and is punished divinely in a horrible manner by a toad, meditates at last a third time to address the holy Man about incest; and with a shrewder artifice and words thought out she gives him most bitter assaults. Why, said she, dost thou not yield me thy assent? It surely appears that thou art utterly ignorant of the beauty of my body, and of the brightness of my form and the smoothness of my flesh: and if thou shalt behold what things these are and how delightful, thou wilt by no means refuse. For the things which appear are of worth, but more the things which lie hidden. And when she was pursuing these things and the like, the holy Man said to the nun: Since I see that thou wilt not otherwise desist nor come to thy senses; I implore God almighty that in this night thou be punished with a manifest chastisement for this crime. But know thou, all ambiguity being removed, that I will pollute neither body nor soul in any wise [\] with the filth of lechery. Then indeed a third time confounded and raging with tears ^e she departed, and is stretched out on a certain pallet, as if she were lifeless and worn out with the vexation of her long-continued goading. But behold, unexpectedly a certain very great toad,*

which they commonly call a bramble-toad ^f, or the same spirit which had inwardly inflamed her with the venom of wickedness against the Man of God, in the shape of a most monstrous toad, like a swollen night-slipper, seized her as she lay there by the shin, and with most sharp teeth made her outwardly swollen most suddenly, and with envenomed eyes drove his most sharp teeth through flesh and sinews even to the bone. Which happened to her without doubt, lest the prayer of the holy Man should be shaken. For he had said: That in this night thou be punished with a manifest chastisement for this crime ^g. For the Lord willed both to fulfill the vow of his Servant [\], and, lest she should be smitten with eternal destruction, to punish her with a temporal scourge.*

[11] by which she, repenting of the deed, is at last set free by the Saint. Then indeed she is racked with intolerable pain, and thunders out horrible cries to heaven. The chamber-women and the servants run up; the whole household hastens: they behold a horrible monster, and terrified at the sight they flee. For it clung with a most huge gape to her shin, it kicked with its feet from above, it swelled with a most black skin, and blazed [\] with burning eyes. At length they go to the lord Peter, and it is announced that such and such a nun is suffering so terrible a plague, that he should succor her most speedily; and that she was earnestly entreating him about such a matter ^h. Further the holy Man, weighing that this was the most manifest vengeance of God for her outrage, declared that he would not visit her until it should be morning. Through the whole night therefore that followed neither did the toad forsake her, nor could anyone remove it thence ⁱ. The venom seizes her limbs, the woman is smitten with a horrible burning. And at length, morning being come, Peter the friend of God came to her, whom he knew [\] to be still tormented by the spirit: and seeing her punished with so horrible a torment, he had compassion on the most wretched woman; and ^k that he might fulfill in her two works of piety, he pitied her who lacked health and consoled her who was most grievously languishing in misery. For coming near he set the sign of the Cross over the place of the disease, and at once the venomous creeping thing left the limb. Which being taken away, all the swelling so departed that no indications of swollenness appeared in her flesh ^l. O happy traffic of charity, by which the viper's venom is taken away, health of soul is bestowed, and the hurt of past guilt is washed away! For now we see what Paul had said of certain men: “Where iniquity abounded, grace also did more abound”. Romans chap. 5, ℣. 20 At the sight of this, those who were present are terrified; Peter's sanctity becomes known; she is confounded with shame that she had accosted a holy Man about such baseness; and she repented of the past, and was on her guard for the future.

[12] [Pébrac being divinely shown him, he goes thither with companions, the habit of the Canons Regular being taken up;] The business therefore being done for which they had gone, they returned at once to the monastery of La Chaise. Where ^m Peter the man of God, giving himself to fastings and supplications, often entreats the Lord that he from whom proceeds every excellent gift would show him a most fitting place where, the business of secular men being left, he might freely carry out the divine business. God, the hearer of the humble, from whose eye nothing hidden lies concealed, seeing this Father's vow and desire, shows him a suitable place through the spirit of the Apostle Peter, of old given over to the Mother of God, at that time most destitute — they call its name Pébrac — which a priest having a wife held, but most uncultivated ⁿ. Peter, relying on the oracle of the Rock [\], gladdened by the present token, having left his archpresbyterate, having acted on the counsel of the prelate Duranus ^o, having taken the Canonical habit and laid down the burden of the world, about to serve God as a soldier forever, supported by the twofold solace of Brothers [p], came to Pébrac with solemn joy on the Vigils of the Lord's Nativity, in the year of the Lord one thousand and sixty-two* [q].

[13] [he gathers very many disciples there; he acquires many churches; he suddenly extinguishes a fire;] But the aforesaid prelate Duranus, a most holy man, hearing that churches were being freely given by the neighboring chief men to Peter and his companions, most liberally granted him these and several others by the common chapter of the canons of Clermont [r]. But God, willing to increase the harvest of his faithful, visiting the aforesaid number, joined together to him several Regulars in one, who should follow the Apostolic manner of living, according to the Augustinian edict [s], having nothing of their own in this world. A crowd of many Brothers being massed together, while he was abiding in a scanty hut, while they were straitened with snowy cold, a fire blazing, kindled beyond measure, clings to the roof-top of the dwelling: which the holy Man, the danger being seen, extinguished forthwith by his prayers. O how great a benefit of faith, which pressed down so great a burning! While he thinks to lose the college of Brothers, the offered help of burning fails. How great a thing with him is it to press down fires, who presently kindles the lights of the blind? Or what is it to drive away little flames, for him who puts to flight the snares of demons?

[14] [he builds a temple to the Virgin Mother of God, and turns aside by the sign of the cross a rock rushing upon it.] But [t] let a page be added, for neither will the priest's miracles be lacking. For while far and wide the signs of the languishing shone forth, already from unlooked-for quarters crowds began to run together to him, and an immense throng [\] to press hard upon him. But the excellent Man of God, exulting at the wonders which the Lord Jesus Christ was busily working, began to fulfill in his mind what had been revealed to him by a divine oracle. For he prepares to raise with most dutiful zeal a temple consecrated under the title of the Mother of God, where the shepherd might feed for the Lord the sheep committed to him, snatched from demoniac ruin. As therefore the adversary of the human race never ceases to show his power of hurting, then from the opposite side he makes a most monstrous stone, broken from a neighboring mountain, rush most suddenly upon the new building, threatening a ready downfall, had not the Man of God been an obstacle to it. Seeing indeed the rock coming terrifyingly against [\] the building, the pious Priest, his hand being raised, opposed to it the defense of the Lord's Cross; and that mass, straightway fixed in the earth, so stood still in obedience that it seemed to have been pressed down by divine power. Thereupon his companions and neighbors, seeing the wondrous works of God, glorified Christ, who makes his will wonderful in his Saints: since he [u] who as he spread the sea for Peter his Apostle, so made a most heavy rock immovable for Peter his priest.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. These were Peter and Guy d'Artos, as is noted in the margin of our Ms. The biographer mentions Guy at the beginning of the following chapter.

q. I much doubt whether the biographer expressed this year, which is absent from his narrative in our Ms. See what was said in the preliminary Commentary, num. 36.

r. These things are otherwise thus read in the Ms.: But the aforesaid most holy prelate, hearing from the neighboring chief men that churches were being given Note: Add to Peter, and to his associates, all things being freely granted to him, providently busied himself to subject more. Read again what I have observed about this and the next following period in the Commentary, num. 35.

s. Go again to the Commentary, num. 38.

t. In the Ms. the biographer thus goes on: I could wish still, unsated, to set forth by singing the miracles of the most holy Man, but I fear the reader's weariness. Lest, while I avoid the hurt of presumption, I incur the stumbling-blocks of the Priest, let a page be added, for neither are miracles lacking. Meanwhile, while far and wide the signs of the languishing shone forth etc.

u. In the same place since he who spread the sea for the feet of Peter his Apostle, for this Peter his priest etc.

\ In the Ms. sacrarum*

\ In the same place rogavit*

\ read sanctimonialem or sanctimonialibus*

\ In the same place there is added morte*

\ there is added & hic virium*

\ In the same place usquam*

\ In the same place there is added in præsenti*

\ In the same place flammabat*

\ In the same place noverat*

\ S. Petri*

\ In the same place frequentia*

\ In the same place super*

CHAPTER III.

He heals a paralytic; he succors a ship in peril; most piously

he dies: the splendor and sweet odor of his body; the wonderful liquid flowing from his sepulcher; a withered hand cured; fevers driven away and other benefits; a sacrilegious thief punished.

Brought by palsy into peril of life, he suddenly recovers his health; But when the course of many days had rolled by, he is informed that Guy, one of his first companions, in the place named Villa supra Motam, whither he had sent him, had been brought by a most grievous palsy into peril of life. Without delay he visits him, that, if it could be done, he might bring him down to Pébrac. But while he prepares him for the journey, he was so seized in all his senses that he seemed almost bereft of life. The most holy Father therefore, having compassion on his palsied son, and bound with many tears, restored him forthwith to health, as it is reported, by wiping him with his own hands ^a. At the sight of which the most venerable Priest of God was not lifted up into human favor; but understood that the goodness of God was in his work. O Man most holy in all things, who, though he has nothing of his own in the world, yet shines in all things with the dowry of virtues ^b!

[16] he snatches a ship from the peril of sinking, About the same time it happened that he set out to the village whose name is Brioude, out of desire to visit the most blessed Julian the martyr ^c. But when he had come down to Vieille-Brioude, the people began to flock to him from every side, and to demand of him with words and tears that they might recognize that power of his which they had known beforehand in the deliverance of a certain ship, which, laden with men, they saw already sinking in the neighboring river ^d and already, with an adverse wind blowing, in peril. Then the most pious Man, overcome by the weepings and prayers of the people beseeching him, is stretched upon the ground, pours out abundant tears, redoubles deep sighs, most humbly entreats the Lord for the shipwrecked; and at length, his hand being raised and the sign of the Cross made over the ship, he commands by the authority of his word that the wicked robber who was troubling it within should depart, and should forsake the servants of Christ whom he was longing impiously to slay. At the prayer and command of the holy Man the most envious parent of the envious fled away unwilling, as the sign of the exceeding stench raised by him in the ship indicated. And thus, snatched from the peril of shipwreck, they gave thanks to God, the miracle being shown.

[17] when he had ordered himself to be laid on the ground, he most holily dies: But about the same time the Man of God, notable in all things and adorned with all virtues, and observing Apostolic simplicity in the word of God [e], truly a priest and a victim of God, when he had always shown himself everywhere solicitous about the business of feeding the poor, even then too strove to fulfill the work long since undertaken. When now his age was inclining downward toward perfect old age, all his goods as well as his companions being increased, he obtained his last day. For the Lord, the most perfect rewarder of all good men, did not suffer his most glorious Servant to be longer weighed down with the toilsome burden of the body; And likewise, that the Mother of mercy — to whom he himself had faithfully rendered service with his whole mind — might worthily requite merit with merit, as he was worthy, on the day of her Nativity she willed that he should not, I will not say die, but be born to the heavens, the lowest things being left. And when, his sickness compelling, his disciples were laying down his body upon straw, that by the holy Man's command he might be placed on the ground next to the earth; chanting psalmody and hymns, and persevering in the love and praises of God, on the sixth of the Ides of September he rendered his unstained spirit to heaven.

[18] [his body, wont to be covered with ashes and haircloth, wonderfully shines and breathes a sweet odor] But those who had come to perform his obsequies, seeing the glory of the glorified body, and the flesh — before always covered with ashes and haircloth — so shining and pure after the manner of the clearest glass, believed that it already put forth a certain grace of the resurrection. And the neighboring priests and clerics and the common folk mingled with them, coming near and perceiving the odor proceeding from him, fragrant beyond balsam and cinnamon, already acclaimed him an Apostolic Man and most worthily to be joined to God. There meet this most bountiful [\] soul the fellowships of all the heavenly hosts, banded with the most reverend Theotokos ^f, and they render their fellow-citizen to paradise, resting forever in the bosom of Abraham ^g, where he glories manifoldly crowned with laurel, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God through all ages of ages. Amen.*

[19] Peter after the departure of the flesh, as the present judgment is made [\], gives greater miracles by the intercessions of the Lord. For when the disciples bewail the departure of so great a Patron, and grieve at his passing, lacking their accustomed consolation, a withered hand healed; amid the sighs and groans of the mourners a certain Berlanus [\], from the first state of his conversion given to the office of the kitchen, deprived of his strength and with a withered hand, coming near ^h thus lamented among the rest, saying: Who, most holy Father, will console the flock committed to thee, or who will bestow on us so charitably the benefits of the word? Among the roaring woods of this world the wolves will devour thy subjects: and who will preserve us from their bites? Who, I say, will any longer correct and cherish me, most poor and deprived of strength? Do thou therefore, most dear Father, console the most wretched, look upon the grieving, strengthen the sick, receive the weeping ⁱ, help the needy with thy mercy; look with thy accustomed piety upon the servant beseeching thee, given to thy service while life was his companion, and never about to depart from thee. Saying these things and many others he wept, and anxiously panted, raising over the tomb his wholly withered hand, and, supported upon so great a Patron, persevered in tears and prayers. Without delay he felt himself so sound ^k as if he had been held by the languor of no sickness: and thus, coming sad, by praying and groaning he departed glad.

[20] At the time also in which Duranus ^l bishop of Auvergne was ruling the church, [the bailiff of count Robert, who had loved S. Peter living and venerated him dead,] count Robert ^m, hearing the fame and sanctity of that most perfect Man, sent a certain bailiff of his at Brioude, by name Filiolus, vexed with a long-lasting fever and taking no food because of his long-lasting [\] sickness, with wax bought for four shillings, to his tomb with these words: Go in haste to the sarcophagus of the most excellent Priest Peter, asking him that for the sake of his accustomed friendship for me he would bestow upon thee the fruit of health. The command of the venerable count being heard, the servant makes ready to seize the road; and at length, weary through steeps and hollows and deprived of strength, resting a little before the tomb of the blessed Man, he addressed him in such words ⁿ: To thee, most holy Father, the count ^o Robert, in all things subject to thee, closely bound by the time that is past and by his present love, sends me, wasted with a long fever and, unless thou most speedily succor, joined to death, that by thy sanctity thou mayest succor my misery and oppression, and, remembering thy ancient love, mayest, death being put to flight or deferred, restore me to health. Scarcely had he ended his words, when he felt his soundness [p]. He returns home safe, the household rejoices with him, the count is glad at the benefit bestowed, and the fame of his sanctity is proclaimed by him everywhere through the ears of a manifold people. These are the works of him who made a shepherd boy an excellent prophet [q]; who, when he has filled anyone's mind with virtues, makes him burning and kindling in all things.*

[21] A certain cleric of Le Puy, Bertrand, surnamed Bos, and a cleric of Le Puy, who had done him a kindness, are freed from fevers; who, when the Man of God was enjoying the present life, had bestowed the church of blessed Bonitus [r], being for a very long time goaded with a quartan fever, so that he could neither raise nor support his body; having learned of the soundness of many returning from his burial-place [s], remaining on his own pallet, sent a messenger to Pébrac, that those who were present there might send a little of the wine with which the Priest's tomb was poured over [\]. And when from the messenger sent he received and tasted the wine he had wished for, he at once felt the most complete health [\]. And thus the power going forth from the tomb was everywhere magnified by the people [t]. And although death by the debt of nature extinguished the poor body of this most holy Man, yet the limbs of him who lives shine in the burial-place.

[22] the Saint's sepulcher abundantly pouring forth a liquid healthful to the sick; Among [u] so many miracles one was famous and continual, that at the tomb of the most holy body a fountain, overflowing with a constant sweat, took to itself so continued an increase that it made a stream on either side, with the abundance of water poured round about, like a wet pool [x]. To this prodigy, heard of on every side, a copious multitude of the languishing flowing down, when they had wetted their hands with the holy liquid [y] and touched, by whatsoever weakness they were held, they most suddenly return sound: for there the divine power so abundantly overflows that no one returns without the help of health [z].

A HYMN.

[23] a thief of coins offered to the Saint punished; benefits enumerated in general. After the excellent Man, Loosed from the limbs of flesh, Rejoicing sought the stars, Frequent miracles shine forth.

By his bright prodigy The blind, the lame at this tomb Are rendered whole, deservedly Blessing the Lord.

The people, flowing round about, Had come together, tearing up the platforms, Whence the tomb might be adorned, Many gifts being given.

Among these a certain man coming, Not offering, but seizing, Six coins being snatched, Returns home as quickly as he can.

While he seizes these too intently, Greedy, he felt seizers, His sheep being seized by wolves In numbers not unequal.

The Man of God from infancy Is filled with the grace of Christ; While he lived in this body, He shone again with wondrous work.

He drove night from minds, He brought back the light of day, Strength of sinews to the withered, He gave vigor to the faint;

He puts to flight the demons present, He cleanses [aa] raving [\] men;* He raises up the ears of the deaf, He opens the tongues of the dumb, Whereby through the service of sense More praise together the Lord.

Therefore, renowned Priest, Wash away our crimes, Let there be pardon for us through thee; Mayest thou bring tranquil times. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. In the Ms. and already he had felt his soundness.

q. The biographer understands David. What follows is absent from our Ms.

r. In the same place there is here added to him. About the church of S. Bonitus and its donor Bertrand the preliminary Commentary, num. 26, may be seen.

s. That is, the sepulcher, as I have already advised.

t. In our Ms. these things are subjoined: Let it be no weariness to any of the hearers to unroll with the pen the deeds of our Patron, since they are for the remedy of the faithful peoples. For although the just man needs nothing of mortal things in the letter, that is, although he needs not to be celebrated by the writings of men, whose name is already contained in the heavenly page; yet the merits of faith grow up while the fresh examples of the Saints are repeated; since to the band of Christ-worshipers too the Shepherd, shut up in paradise, is represented by an earthly pen, that the flock, summoned by his examples, may direct its steps to the heavens; so that, according to the oracle of Daniel chap. 12, ℣. 3, the people taught by the Patron's mastery may glow red like the splendor of the firmament, and the Teacher may flash with a starry light heaped up for him. Although therefore death by the debt of nature extinguished the poor body of this most holy Man, yet his living limbs shine in the burial-place. In the prologue of the Life of S. Sulpicius the Pious, bishop of Bourges — whence were taken the things which I have just now transcribed from our transcript — for viventia membra poliandro there is read in Mabillon, Benedictine Century 2, pag. 168, viventia miracula polyandro.

u. Our Ms. thus goes on: Besides, at the tomb of the most sacred body a fountain … was taking etc.

x. I suspect that the biographer wrote madidam quasi lacunam: yet the first word is omitted in the Ms.

y. Supply themselves or their bodies.

z. Here d'Achery's copy ends. From our transcript the following Hymn is added; about which read again what was noted in the Commentary, num. 15.

aa. The word purgat seems to be taken in that signification which is attributed to it in Du Cange's Glossary in these words: Purgari are said to be those who are freed from unclean spirits, in Ambrose book VII, epist. 2, in Jerome in the Life of Hilarion, and in others praised by Henri de Valois on book V of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, chap. VII; where he observes that the Greek writers use καθαρίζειν in the same sense.

\ In the same place liberalissime*

\ In the same place indicium*

\ in the same place Berlandus*

\ In the same place nimiam*

\ In the same place superfunderetur*

\ In the same place sensit*

\ read Bacchantes*