ON ST. PRINCIPIUS, BISHOP,
AT LE MANS IN GAUL,
Probably between the years 511 and 520.
COMMENTARIUS PRÆVIUS.
The Saint's cultus: his Acts: the time of his episcopate.
Principius, bishop of Le Mans in Gaul (S.)
BY U. S.
Being about to illustrate the illustrious deeds of St. Principius, seventh bishop of Le Mans, I set down beforehand what may make his lawful cultus attested to anyone. The Deeds of the bishops of Le Mans, composed in the ninth century, The Saint's name in various Fasti, present him as conspicuous with every splendour of the virtues, and illustrious for miracles wrought before and after his death, and call him by the name of Blessed; which is a sufficient argument of his cultus, since they do not bestow this title on any but those who have a cultus. Two auctaria of Usuard in Sollerius recall our holy Prelate at this sixteenth day of September, on which he is reported also by the remaining Martyrologies to be mentioned below. The Daveronensian codex in these words: At the city of Le Mans, the deposition of the holy Principius, bishop and confessor. Grevenus announces the Saint in the same words, only the word city being omitted. With both agrees the German Martyrology called Canisius's. Claude Castellanus in the Universal Martyrology added the place of burial, writing thus: At Le Mans, St. Principius the bishop, buried with the other ancient bishops of this city in the greater church of the nuns of Le Pré. The Paris Martyrology published in the year 1727 notes also the time in which our Saint flourished, in this manner: At Le Mans, St. Principius the bishop, who subscribed the first council of Orleans under Clovis the Great.
[2] The Gallican Martyrology of Saussay has a more prolix eulogy of the same Saint, and his cultus is shown. which it has seemed good to transcribe here. At Le Mans, the holy Principius, bishop and confessor, who, having obtained this see not so much by gift as by merit, after the decease of the holy Victurius, bore most laudably the helm of the church he had undertaken, and, illustrious for the glory of his holy actions, after he had been present at the first council of Orleans with one and thirty bishops (where most holy constitutions were issued about the sacred contemplations and ecclesiastical discipline), having passed twenty-nine years in a happy and glorious prelacy, received from the Lord the worthy reward of his long labour. With these agree very many authors who, having published the sanctions of the first council of Orleans and the names of the bishops who subscribed, reckon St. Principius among those prelates who, renowned for the fame of sanctity, obtained the reward of their virtues, the public veneration of the faithful. Corvaiserius too and Bondonet may be seen in the Chronology of the bishops of Le Mans. And these things suffice for us to acknowledge our Saint's cultus to be ancient and lawful.
[3] Besides the Acts of St. Principius brought to light by Mabillon in tome 3 of the Analecta, His various Acts, we have a twofold manuscript copy of his Life. One of these my Elders received from Father John Dardes, who had transcribed it from an old and notable manuscript procured through Dom Autbert, a monk of Saint-Calais; and it bears this title: The Life of the most blessed lord Principius the bishop. For the rest, although it agrees almost word for word with the aforesaid Acts in the aforementioned collection, this manuscript is sometimes blank, leaving a space for three or four words which the writer had not been able to read, the letters being doubtless erased through age: but from the context it is plain that they are the same as those which we find in Mabillon's edition, who perhaps obtained a transcript not so worn away. There is one difference between the aforesaid Acts worthy of note: Mabillon's assign to our holy Prelate 29 years, 1 month, 21 days of episcopate; but our manuscript only 25 years, 4 months, and likewise 21 days.
[4] both printed and manuscript. The other copy was transcribed from a little book entitled: Nomenclature or Golden Legend of the pontiffs of Le Mans, faithfully gathered into a compendium by John Movellus of Laval, doctor of theology of the University of Paris and canon of Le Mans, from the most ancient codices and pollegitica of the cathedral church of Le Mans long laid away in the archives of the aforesaid church, in the year of the Lord 1572. This copy, as received, we owe to the kindness of Julian Musserot, priest, semi-prebendary canon of the cathedral church of Le Mans, who transcribed from the aforesaid little book our Saint's Acts, along with the Lives of several other prelates of Le Mans, with his own hand, with that fidelity which he attests in a letter given to Papebroch on the 20th of February 1669 in these words: Your reverence will read through the whole volume of the deeds of the blessed Aldric our bishop (from whose Life he begins his writing), just as it is religiously preserved in our archive, written out, and indeed with so scrupulous a conformity that the barbarous Latinity has everywhere been allowed rather to issue from the pen than to be altered by one jot. This Life, collated with the Acts published by Mabillon, I shall print below.
[5] Of what authority are they? Of what authority the Acts of the bishops of Le Mans are, Stilting indicated at the twenty-fifth day of August, in the Commentarius prævius on St. Victor, number 22: These things, he says, can probably be said, if one wishes to adhere to those Acts of Le Mans
: but I confess that they are of less weight than that from them the matter should become altogether certain. And a little below: I should prefer to admit a long-lived age for one bishop than utterly to disturb the episcopal Fasti of the church of Le Mans. For, as Tillemont confesses in tome 4 of the Monuments, page 731, "It is troublesome to invert the order of the bishops of any church… Nay rather, that order is more to be kept in the church of Le Mans than in others, because it at least rests on monuments of the ninth century, which is found in few others." What was said there about the Acts of the prelates of Le Mans in general holds good also for the Acts of St. Principius. Prudently did James Longueval judge of them in the History of the Gallican church, tome 2, book 5, where he has it thus: St. Principius is venerated on the sixteenth of September… The authors of his Life confounded him with St. Principius, brother of St. Remigius and bishop of Soissons; and this mistake may render suspect the rest of what is reported of him. That this account, which asserts our St. Principius to be brother german of St. Remigius, must more probably be judged erroneous, will appear from what is presently to be said. Longueval, therefore, in pronouncing our holy Prelate's Acts suspect on account of this error, means only this, that nothing can be determined from them as altogether beyond doubt. Nevertheless, if anyone on that account desires that all credit be withdrawn from the Acts, even that which we give to likely narratives, I should not wish to subscribe to his censure, both on account of what has been said about the Deeds of the bishops of Le Mans, and because they do not seem fabulous.
[6] Corvaiserius in the aforesaid History of the bishops of Le Mans, It is proved that our Saint in St. Principius first speaks thus, somewhat doubtfully: Either all our writers must be mistaken, or it must be confessed that St. Remigius, archbishop of Reims, had two brothers, both of whom were bishops: one of Soissons … the other of Le Mans, who was elected after the decease of St. Victurius. But below he plainly agrees that our Saint was brother german of St. Remigius. A better way was chosen by Bondonet in the Lives of the bishops of Le Mans, page 156 and following, in his observations on St. Principius. He acknowledges, first, that in the manuscript codices and in all the authors it is a continued error, and one corrected by no one up to his own times, by which our St. Principius is made brother of St. Remigius, archbishop of Reims; then he contends that this error can be detected with easy labour, and at last concludes that he is by no means to be blamed for having expunged it from the Life of St. Principius. It will be of use to set forth Bondonet's arguments in summary.
[7] From the Life of St. Remigius, composed by Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, was more likely not it is established that Aemilius and Celinia were the parents of St. Remigius, who in their flourishing years begot two children, the first-born named Principius, and another, whom he does not name nor designate otherwise than that he was the brother of St. Principius of Soissons, and begot a son who, called Lupus, succeeded his uncle in the bishopric. Both these having been given to the world, they made an end of begetting, until by God's special providence, in a decrepit age and broken with old age, contrary to the order of nature they begot St. Remigius, after whom most probably no other son was born to them. There is therefore, he says, no place for our Principius of Le Mans, unless one wishes to build up that he presided first over the church of Soissons and then over that of Le Mans, which cannot be said, since Principius of Soissons died in his own see and was buried in the church of St. Thecla. Bondonet contends besides that our St. Principius cannot be said to be the brother of St. Remigius left unnamed by Hincmar, since there exists no monument in history from which it may be gathered that he was married before his episcopate, which nevertheless is necessary for him to have been the parent of St. Lupus. Nor, he says, is it likely that two brothers so close to each other in the order of birth were called by the same name: for at that time it was no one's care to have two children of the same name, that benefices might be secured to families by fraud.
[8] He uses besides another argument to show that our St. Principius was not the brother of St. Remigius, which I here compress into few words. the brother of St. Remigius. If he was St. Remigius's brother, he was born of the same mother as he, who was never wedded to any man but Aemilius; since therefore they lived to a long old age, it cannot be said that sight was restored by our St. Principius to his mother, which she had lost through mourning too much the loss of her husband. But that argument seems to me plainly ruinous: for Bondonet alleges no monument by which it is established that this benefit was conferred by our St. Principius upon his mother: nor in our Saint's Acts, both published and unpublished, do I find any little word which gives credit to it. In these indeed I read, He (our Saint) gave light to a blind man, and restored him seeing to his mother who wept continually. But who, even moderately skilled in Latin, would so take these words as to believe it asserted that sight was restored to St. Principius's mother by her own son? I therefore adhere to Bondonet's first argument, and judge that by it it is far more likely to be established that our holy Bishop was not joined to St. Remigius by that bond of blood which is everywhere related.
[9] The time of his entering the episcopate, It remains that we say a few things about the time of our Saint's episcopate. The Acts published by Mabillon, and the Life to be published below, assert that he held the episcopal chair 29 years, 1 month, 21 days, which writing I judge not easily to be deserted, and to be preferred to the manuscript of which at number 3, since it could easily have happened that an error crept into the figures, especially because the transcript, as I noted in the same place, being worn away with age, could not be read in some places. To determine the time of our Saint's entering the episcopate and of his death is truly exceedingly difficult, the authors going off into various opinions. Castellanus adds in the margin to his announcement of our Saint: about the year 530: the Paris Martyrology notes the year 513. Le Cointe supports this epoch, writing thus in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks at the year of Christ 513: In this year departed from life Principius, bishop of Le Mans, after he had sat twenty-nine years, one month, twenty-one days. There are not wanting those who contend that the episcopal see was vacant for some while after his death, but these writers wrongly hold that he died either in the preceding year, or two years before, after he had returned from the council of Orleans… Certainly they are mistaken who substitute Innocentius for Principius, and Domnolus for Innocentius… Innocentius indeed sat midway between Principius and Domnolus, but besides, Victor sat between Principius and Innocentius, etc.
[10] and the year of his death, I, that I may not do here what has been done, refer the reader to what was laboriously discussed at the twenty-fifth day of August in St. Victor by Stilting, from which he will see that this intervening Victor is not necessarily to be admitted. Other authors assign another year to St. Principius's death: Corvaiserius the year 511, whom in this part Bondonet follows, and he writes that our Saint entered the episcopate in the year 482. And if this is true, the Acts of St. Principius, which assign to him twenty-nine years of episcopate, are plainly saved. But all these things are too perplexed for me to be able to plant my foot with certainty anywhere. What makes against Bondonet's epoch I subjoin from that writer's own principles. Asserting, according to the more probable and more common opinion, that the first council of Orleans was celebrated in the year 511, he speaks thus: But the consular Fasti are much more certain than all these; wherefore in this chronology I have determined to follow Father Sirmond: and below, speaking of Corvaiserius, he says that this opinion pleased him and was adopted by him, but not for a long time. Certainly it seems to me that that dart with which he attacks Corvaiserius falls back upon Bondonet; for he does not more constantly follow the consular Fasti, which nevertheless he holds as safe guides for arranging chronology. Bondonet could by no means have been ignorant that in the Acts of St. Victurius it is read: The aforesaid blessed man Victurius therefore died on the Kalends of September, full of days, Faustus the younger and Longinus for the second time being Consuls: whose consulship falls in the year 490. How therefore could it come about that, Victurius surviving to the year 490, St. Principius succeeded to his see in the year 482?
[11] I should prefer candidly to confess that nothing at all certain and determined can here be settled. cannot be determined with certainty. This one thing seems capable of being said without error, that our Saint did not die before the year 511, in which the first council of Orleans was celebrated, which he is found to have subscribed: but how long he survived it I should not easily divine. If the epoch of St. Victurius's death stands, and the time of St. Principius's episcopate noted in the Acts of the pontiffs of Le Mans, and if Bondonet's opinion about an interpontificate of two years after St. Victurius's death is true, St. Principius's decease could not be more aptly referred than to the year 520 or 521. But that this should not be done, there stands in the way again the title of the Deeds of St. Innocentius, which has it that he flourished in the times of Clovis I, the first Christian king of the Franks, and of Childebert his son: for since it is now everywhere received among the learned that Clovis died in the year 511, on the 27th of November, Innocentius must have entered the chair not long after the celebration of the first council of Orleans, that he might be said to have ruled the church of Le Mans for at least a month or two while Clovis reigned. Because therefore these things are so uncertain and disturbed, at the beginning of this Commentary I fixed the time of St. Principius's death, somewhat doubtfully, in this manner: Probably between the years 511 and 520. Now I subjoin the Acts themselves, illustrated with notes.
LIFE
By an anonymous author,
From a Manuscript of Le Mans, collated with the Acts published by Mabillon.
Principius, bishop of Le Mans in Gaul (S.)
BHL Number: 6925
By an anonymous author.
St. Principius's birth and some miracles: The blessed Principius, seventh bishop of the city of Le Mans, sprung of a noble family of the Franks, was brother german a of the divine Remigius, archbishop of Reims, with whom he lived from his very infancy, and, fully instructed by his examples and teachings, merited to serve lovingly the Lord and the church of Le Mans committed to him. For both were foreseen and foretold by an angelic revelation b — this one to be a bishop, the other a deliverer c of his nation from the assaults of evils: nor did the heavenly presage deceive them; for they shone with wondrous miracles in their lifetime. For this blessed Principius, giving a sample of his sanctity, gave light to a blind man and restored him seeing to his mother who wept continually. By whose merits and prayers many others also, by the Lord's bounty, were healed of divers sicknesses and restored to their former health.
[2] his zeal for sacred things, Besides these things, being himself the highest lover of religion and of hospitality, and wonderfully solicitous about ecclesiastical matters, he rebuilt very many churches in his parish and diocese which threatened ruin through excessive age, and founded the rest anew. And he consecrated more than thirty churches: from which d the revenues and lights for the mother church, both in wax and in oil, or thirds e
he judged should be paid. He also took the greatest care of the hospices [\] or of the sick. Yet he did not do so much as he purposed to do, on account of the sedition and persecution f that arose both among his own servants and among others living in the neighbouring places in his diocese: for so great a persecution raged in his time as [\] he could scarcely bear. Nevertheless, as much as was permitted him in the time of the persecutions, he laboured in the divine worship, and, with the Lord's help, delivered many of his diocese from the aforesaid seditions, from the yoke of the persecutors and from the captivity of the savage, and handed them over to the holy mother church of his see: for he had nothing lukewarm in himself, so much so that among those conversing with him he was declared to have experience of all matters.
[3] his various virtues, He was also patient of cold and of heat: fasting frequently, especially on the fourth and sixth ferias; celebrating Mass daily, unless he were hindered by grave infirmity: for according to the report of those g who conversed with him familiarly, never from the time of his ordination did one day pass by without his celebrating Mass, whether public or private, before the infirmity (of which he died) had come upon him: for often he performed the Sacred rites, or celebrated Mass, so infirm that he was supported before the altar by two of his ministers, because without another's help he could not stand. He was not therefore lifted up by the summit of the episcopal dignity, but rather set on fire with divine love.
[4] and his care of the sick, to whom he himself ministers. He had so great a care of the sick and the feeble that on several days (when leisure permitted him) he did not use ministers toward them, but himself supplied what was necessary for them. He also ran about through the hospices or hospitals ministering to the sick, wiping their pots, carrying the broth, preparing the vegetables, offering the spoons, breaking the bread, and giving eulogiae or little gifts to each, and serving the food, rinsing the cup, and doing all the other things which it is the custom of servants and ministers to do every day. By which good works, building up himself and offering an example to others, he strove earnestly to render himself pleasing to his Author. And he held thirty-two Ordinations in his diocese, ordained two hundred and five priests, and as many deacons and other ecclesiastical ministers as he foresaw to be necessary.
[5] The time of his episcopate, the day of his death. Now he flourished in the times h of the emperors Zeno and Anastasius, and of Clovis, the first Christian of the kings of the Franks. And he sat as bishop in the aforesaid city of Le Mans twenty-nine years, one month and twenty-one days, and the bishopric ceased for some time after his death on account of the aforesaid disturbance and the huge sedition that was raging. Meanwhile a certain chorepiscopus i named Peter sat. And the blessed Principius died, the course of this life being measured out, on the sixteenth of the Kalends of October, and was buried by the other bishops and by his disciples and the other priests, becomingly and honourably, with angelic hymns sounding together and resounding on high, in the church of the Apostles beyond the river Sarthe k, beside the tombs of the holy pontiffs Turibius, Pavatius, Victurus and Victurius: whose death many miracles of powers preceded and also followed l. But now he lives with Christ, with whom may we, by the Lord's granting, merit to live for ever in the heavenly seats together with the other Saints of God. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ read xenodochiorum*.
\ read quantam*.