ON ST. RITHBERT, CONFESSOR, ALSO CALLED RAIMBERT,
AND PROBABLY ABBOT OF LEUCONAY IN THE DISTRICT OF VIMEU IN PICARDY.
PROBABLY IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY.
CommentaryRithbert, or Raimbert, confessor, and probably abbot of Leuconay in the district of Vimeu in Picardy (St.)
BY J. S.
Castellanus in the Universal Martyrology gives today an announcement framed in these words: In Ponthieu, The relics of St. Rithbert, mentioned by Castellanus, of St. Rithbert the chorepiscopus, who came from the British isles to preach in Flanders, and then in a certain district of Normandy, where three churches are dedicated in his name, that of Capricurtis, that of Cabulatum-Mansionile, and that of Torciacum. This notice of St. Rithbert is indeed obscure, and I do not find him in other printed Martyrologies. Yet, since I find that the greater part of the relics of St. Rithbert rests in the church of the abbey of Leuconay, which is now commonly called St. Valery-sur-mer, from this perhaps we shall make a not improbable conjecture about the Saint himself. Our Henschen at the 1st of April gave the Acts of St. Valery, the first abbot of that monastery, and in the Preliminary Commentary brought forward the history of the recognition of the relics, which was made there in the year 1651, on the XVI day of August. There were then opened, as is read there at num. XI, the shrines of SS. Valery, Blithmund, Sevold, Vulganius, and Rithbert.
[2] What further was found concerning the relics of St. Rithbert are kept in the abbey of Leuconay, and he is venerated there. is explained at num. 14 in these words: In the shrine of St. Rithbert there was found a skull, divided into several parts; eighteen vertebrae entire, four broken; eighteen ribs, both entire and broken; one bone of the flanks and of the hip; part of the sacrum; two thigh bones, two shin bones with their lesser bones, but broken; a certain portion of the arm bone, the ankle bones and the navicular bones of the feet; four bones both of the feet and of the hands: besides a great number of fragments from various members, altered by burning. So far the same place about the Saint's relics. Among our notices I find a Letter, written in the year 1668 from the abbey of St. Valery to Du Cange, who sent it here. In it the memory of St. Rithbert as a confessor is said to have been inserted into the Martyrology of St. Valery, but only by way of addition, because the festival was celebrated on that day according to the ancient Ritual. The Letter adds that no proper lesson about the Saint is kept, and that no other notices about his Life can be supplied than those already mentioned about his relics.
[3] He was probably a monk and abbot, and perhaps This poverty of documents about St. Rithbert has made me search much in the Acts of the Saints who are of nearly the same name as Rithbert, to see whether this Saint might not be better known under a slightly changed name, and whether his body might seem to have been translated to the abbey of St. Valery from elsewhere. Of a body brought to the abbey from elsewhere I could not find even a probable suspicion, so that no conjecture is more probable than that St. Rithbert was a monk or even abbot of Leuconay. Certainly
his body is preserved in the abbey together with the bodies of SS. Valery, Blithmund, Sevold, and Vulganius, of whom the first two were the earlier abbots of that monastery, so that it is probable that the other three likewise lived there and were monks or abbots, especially since they are venerated as confessors, not as bishops or martyrs. There comes in another conjecture too in favor of St. Rithbert. For among the earlier abbots of Leuconay was he who first wrote the Life of St. Valery, and whose name is so close that it can easily be the same as the name of St. Rithbert. Of him a somewhat later author speaks thus in the Prologue to the Life of St. Valery: Which (Life) some years ago the venerable man Ragimbert the abbot had dictated with the greatest zeal indeed, but in too prolix and simple a style.
[4] That this Rahimbert, otherwise Raimbert or Rambert, the first writer of the Life of St. Valery, who is otherwise was nearly contemporary with St. Valery, Mabillon observes in the second Benedictine century, pag. 76, and Henschen in tom. 1 of April, pag. 14, both in the Preliminary Commentary to the Life of St. Valery, from which this is manifestly shown. Hence they judge that Raimbert was the third abbot of Leuconay and the successor of St. Blithmund, of whom we have treated briefly at the III of January. The writers of the Literary History of France agree, who in tom. 3, pag. 600, treat of Raimbert, and say more assertively that he was the third abbot, or the successor of St. Blithmund. He is doubtless the same who in the brothers of Sainte-Marthe, tom. 4 of the Gallia Christiana, pag. 887, is expressed third among the abbots of St. Valery by the bare name Ragembald. This I see certainly proved, that Raimbert was an abbot in the seventh century: he was also probably the third abbot and successor of Blithmund; but this is not shown with equal certainty. The later author speaks of him again in the Life of St. Valery, in our edition num. 22, saying that he is unwilling to write fabulous things; but, he says, those very things which we have learned to have been attested by truthful witnesses; and especially those which we have found written by the venerable man Raimbert, a learned abbot, with pious zeal indeed and religious labor, and in a prolix style, but nevertheless in a sufficiently simple and unpolished setting-forth.
[5] called Raimbert, since he is not venerated as a bishop. More about Raimbert the abbot I do not find. But these things seem enough to make it clear to all who have observed how greatly very many names of Saints have been dislocated in France, that the name of this venerable abbot Raimbert could easily have been changed into the common French Ribert, and that thence could have flowed the Latin Rithbertus. However that may be — for I would not hand on a conjecture as an ascertained fact — I think it more likely that St. Rithbert was an abbot or monk of Leuconay than a regionary bishop, since he is venerated only as a confessor, and not as a bishop, at least in the abbey of St. Valery. Yet even so he could have preached the faith in various places and rooted out idolatry, as many monks did in the seventh century, in which we probably fix the death of St. Rithbert from the conjectures given.