Ysarnus

ON ST. YSARNUS, ABBOT OF ST. VICTOR,

AT MARSEILLES IN THE PROVINCE OF GAUL.

In the year MXLVIII, or perhaps MXLVII.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY

Ysarnus, abbot of St. Victor, at Marseilles in the Province of Gaul (S.)

BY C. S.

§ I. The Saint's memory in the Martyrologies, his ecclesiastical Office and ancient cult in his monastery at Marseilles: his Life written elegantly and faithfully by a contemporary.

[ ] The famous monastery of St. Victor, which, founded by St. John Cassian near Marseilles in the Province of Gaul when the V century was some years begun, flourished for many centuries, first under that same Saint's Rule, The Saint, abbot of the monastery of St. Victor, on this day and then under the Benedictine, was at last, by a Pontifical Bull given on the day XVI of the Kalends of January of the year 1739, and promulgated on the VIII of October of the year 1743 in the church of St. Victor at Marseilles, changed into a college of secular canons, on the witness of the most illustrious Henri-François-Xavier de Belsunce de Castelmoron, bishop of Marseilles of most pious memory, in the Antiquities of his church of Marseilles, tom. 3, pag. 445. Among the abbots of that same monastery there flourished in the XI century St. Ysarnus, a native of Toulouse, a man famous for eminent virtues and miracles before and after his death, whose sacred memory is celebrated on this day, which was his day of death in the year 1048, and has been inscribed in some more recent Martyrologies. Du Saussay announced him in the Gallican Martyrology today, after his manner, with a prolix eulogy, which, because he framed it from the Life to be published by us, and yet not well enough, it has seemed good to omit here.

[2] Hugues Ménard in the Benedictine Martyrology at the same day has more briefly thus: is inscribed in some Martyrologies, At Marseilles, of St. Isarnus the abbot, conspicuous for the glory of admirable sanctity and miracles. Then in book 2 of the Observations he exhibits a eulogy of him from the same or a like Life; but likewise not without faults, among which this is the chief, that he holds that the Saint lived in the year of Christ 804. Gabriel Bucelin also celebrates him at length in his likewise Benedictine Menology, where, praising the monuments of St. Victor and Ménard, by a like anachronism he placed his death after the year of Christ DCCCXX, whereas without doubt it must be referred to the year 1048 or 1047. This year 1048 Chastelain in the Universal Martyrology and the author of the Paris Martyrology rightly noted in the margin, in whom on this same day is read: At Marseilles, of St. Isarnus, abbot of St. Victor. As to the day Filippo Ferrari dissents in the General Catalogue of Saints, where at the XXIII of September he says: At Marseilles, of St. Ysarnus the abbot.

[3] In the annotations he cites the monuments of the monastery of St. Victor sent to him, and he is venerated in his monastery and adds that he could not learn of what place the Saint was abbot; but that it seemed to him he was of St. Victor. And this indeed rightly; but the day I believe he learned from some exemplar of the proper Offices of that same monastery: for I too have one at hand, the year of whose edition cannot be recognized because the first leaf is torn, where his feast was prescribed at the day XXIII of September, but by a stroke of the pen that numeral has been corrected to XXIIII. Whether however that correction was made because there was a printers' error in the former numeral, or because his cult was after the publication of that Office transferred to the later day, I cannot say with certainty. The first however seems to me by far the most likely, because both in this very Office and in the Life he is said to have died on the eighth of the Kalends of October; nor does a reason appear why the feast should have been set a day before his death. In his epitaph, to be recited below, he is said to have died the eighth of the Kalends of October being passed; where the word passed was put by the unskilled poet for current; so that there too not the XXV day but the XXIV is designated.

[4] with an Office of double rite of the second class, from which the Collect Further, St. Ysarnus is venerated, or at any rate was venerated, in the church of St. Victor on the said day, before it was converted into a collegiate church, with a proper Office of double rite of the second class, as is read written there with the pen. That Office has proper antiphons, responsories and lessons of the second Nocturn, taken here and there from the Life, and therefore not to be recited here. For the first Nocturn the lessons The just man, if he be overtaken by death, etc.; for the third a Homily on the Gospel Behold we have left all things, etc., as in the Common of abbots; the rest are assigned from the Common of confessors not bishops. But the Collect is this proper one: O God, who hast manifoldly adorned blessed Ysarnus, thy confessor, with wondrous virtues and miracles, grant to us thy servants that we may feel him as an intercessor with thee in heaven whom we had as a guide of life on earth. Through our Lord, etc. I add here also the hymn prescribed at both Vespers, at Matins and at Lauds, which Mabillon in the observations preliminary to the Life says he found also in a codex of the royal library of Paris, written out, as he judges, not long after the Saint's death.

In divine praises, On which blessed Ysarnus Was taken from things present, And presented to the longed-for Sight of the Lord.

This man was singular, And of the Lord's flock A shepherd famous in life and word And in miracles; Almost the only glory in Christ Of his own time.

That he now lives blessedly In heavenly glory, And can obtain all things From Christ, and wills to do so, The frequent mighty works Which are done through him bear witness.

Appeased in kindness By his prayer, good King, Jesus Redeemer, grant that we, Absolved from every Burden of faults, May live in innocence;

That, thy faithful servants, Upheld by his patronage, And rescued from the shipwreck Of a stormy world, We may deserve always To enjoy thy protection.

To God threefold and one Be eternal glory, One honor, one power, The same might, Who lives and reigns as God Through boundless ages. Amen.

[6] The said Mabillon judged thus of St. Ysarnus' ancient ecclesiastical cult among his own Victorines, from that hymn and from the royal codex: His cult there is most ancient That his festivity was instituted a little after his death may be gathered from the hymn which, composed for that celebration, is contained in the royal codex, which we have said was written not long after his death. It is the very same which even now is sung in his Office. Thus he: but it is hard for me to believe that Mabillon could have known from the writing of the codex alone, which he had there said above approaches blessed Ysarnus' time, that it was written not long after the Saint's death. But whatever be the case about the time when his yearly festivity was first instituted, from his biographer it is certain that Ysarnus, soon after his death, or at any rate a little after, was held for a Saint by the people, and, being invoked with vows, was famous for many miracles. For, as he says in the Prologue, when he himself came to the church of St. Victor for religion's sake, among the innumerable memorials of the Saints … the tomb of blessed Ysarnus the abbot, recently dead, was thronged by various peoples of the sick.

[7] Likewise, on the same biographer's witness in the same place, remedies so swift are there obtained from the Lord by those who piously ask, as though all the other Saints had already granted all their power to him. and his miracles are proved from his biographer. Finally at the end of the Life he says of his tomb: And he was buried in a precious marble vessel in the northern part of the church, where he is glorified by the Lord our God with constant miracles. An old epitaph carved on that tomb in barbarous verses we shall recite at the end of this Commentary. Now that tomb is in the lower church, and in it the holy Man's body, so far as I know, has rested until now, except for some relics drawn out thence for public veneration. Jean-Baptiste Guesnay in St. John Cassian Illustrated, book 2, chapter 22, §2, says that the chapel in which he lies is named from him, and writes there obscurely enough the following: From it (another chapel) there lies open an approach to that of St. Cassian, the founder of this monastery, which is now commonly called the chapel of St. Isarnus. Beneath its altar nearly all the bones of that same Cassian, besides those which we have said were laid apart in their own places, are laid up in a tomb. Another is besides seen set upon the altar, where the body of abbot Wifredus, restorer also of this monastery, is kept together with the remaining bones of St. Isarnus, abbot also of this monastery; very many miracles of his are still celebrated, especially in driving away fevers.

[8] Antoine de Ruffi in his History of Marseilles, corrected and enlarged by Louis-Antoine his son, His right arm, by Pope Urban V and published in a second printing at Marseilles in the year 1696, tom. 2, pag. 148, writes that some of his relics were taken out of that tomb by Urban V, the Roman Pontiff, and by his command enclosed in a silver shrine. This Urban, before his Pontificate called Guillaume de Grimoard, had presided as abbot over the monastery of St. Victor, and, being already Pontiff, continued to govern it, at least for some time, through a vicar. The same Pontiff both bestowed other benefits on the said monastery, and took care that it should be rebuilt, and in the year 1365 himself consecrated the chief altar of the church, as may be read in the most illustrious Henri de Belsunce in the Work praised at num. 1, tom. 2, and in others. Easily therefore could Urban, who held his See at Avignon, or perhaps even before he entered on the Pontificate, have taken the said sacred relics out of the tomb, that they might be exposed to public veneration in a silver shrine.

[9] being separated from the rest of the body, is kept in a silver shrine. What these relics were, however, or what part of the body, the said writers do not state; but since the same, at pag. 120, among the sacred treasures of that same church review the right arm of St. Ysarnus, it is likely that this very thing, if not alone, is one of the bones of which, as separated from the rest of the body by Urban V, they made mention at pag. 148. The same also J. Arnoux teaches in the Catalogue of the sacred bodies and relics which are kept in Provence, which he inscribed to Louis XIII, king of France, in the year 1622, and in which, besides the bones of St. Ysarnus resting in the lower church of St. Victor at Marseilles, among the relics of the upper church enclosed in silver shrines by the said Pontiff Urban, he mentions also the arm of St. Ysarnus, abbot of the said monastery. In both these places of Arnoux there is read indeed Isac for Ysarnus; but that it is a fault, both the correction made with the pen in our copy teaches, and the thing itself; since no St. Isac is read ever to have presided over that monastery as abbot; and it is established also from elsewhere that of St. Ysarnus, abbot of that place,

the body rests in the lower church there, and that his arm, separated from the rest of the body, is honored. Finally Jean-Baptiste Guesnay, praised above, at pag. 479, among the treasures of the sacristy of that same church likewise reviews the right arm of St. Isarnus, of silver without gold, with relics enclosed, of the weight of six pounds and two ounces.

[10] The Life to be published has for its author an anonymous writer Jean Mabillon published the Life of St. Ysarnus in the Acts of the Saints of his Order, Century VI, part 1, from pag. 608, from manuscript codices, one of the royal library of Paris, the other of St. Victor of Marseilles, of which in the preliminary Observations he writes thus: This Life we first had transmitted to us from the monastery of Marseilles; but afterward, when we were giving our labor to the making of a catalogue of the manuscript codices of the royal library, we found the same Life in an old codex whose writing approaches blessed Ysarnus' time, from which, collated with the Marseilles copy, we bring it forward, with the addition also of the Prologue, which is wanting in our earlier exemplar. We too have the same Life in manuscript, which is noted as received from Marseilles by the care of the Reverend Father Petrasancta. It agrees with the one published by Mabillon, but likewise lacks the Prologue, and besides is sometimes more correct than that one, sometimes also more corrupt. Yet because Mabillon's edition exhibits the aforesaid Prologue (though mutilated in some places) from the royal codex, I shall so reprint this one that I shall emend its faults from our copy, where this is more correct, the reader being advised.

[11] contemporary, yet not a monk of Marseilles, Who the author was, he nowhere makes plain; yet everywhere he shows himself pious, learned, sincere, and once contemporary with the Saint, yet not his disciple or intimate, or an eyewitness of the things done by him. The said Mabillon rightly shows that he was not a monk of the monastery of St. Victor, since, as he says in the same place, he says that he came to it that he might there behold the heavenly choirs of that most famous religious house, and commend himself to their prayers. Hence that learned man must be said to have forgotten what he had said, when in tom. 4 of the Benedictine Annals at the year of Christ 1048, num. 32, treating of St. Ysarnus' death, he says: His deeds an anonymous writer, a monk of the place, his contemporary, elegantly wrote. But although the biographer's monkhood is likely enough, that he was not a monk of the monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles I hold for certain with the same Mabillon in the Acts. And that both this and the other things which we have said of the biographer may be made plain, we must here cull some things from his Prologue.

[12] Thus he began it: When some few days ago I had come to the venerable monastery at Marseilles, and it was written elegantly, with great fidelity that I might behold the heavenly choirs on earth of that most famous religious house, and commend myself to their prayers, among the innumerable memorials of the Saints … the tomb of blessed Ysarnus the abbot, recently dead, was thronged by peoples of various sick persons. These words indeed as clearly declare the writer contemporary with the holy Abbot, as they declare him a stranger to that monastery. That he did not however come thither in the same year 1048, in which St. Ysarnus died, we gather from himself in the Life, num. 19, where he speaks of St. Odilo, abbot of Cluny, as already dead. Now he died in the year 1049, and probably on the Kalends of January, as may be seen in our Work, tom. 1 of that month. Then the biographer goes on to set forth thus by what reason he was impelled to write that Life, and with what fidelity, and on what witnesses he wrote: Kindled therefore by the remembrance of so great a Man, I desire to say some things about his life and conversation and virtues…

[13] There is also that which most of all provokes me to write about him; and sincerity because I am the more certain that I shall speak with the most sincere truth, in that, because of the recent memory of the Man, nearly the whole Province stands as witness of what I am about to say, and most of all many very venerable monks, his disciples, who, I certainly believe, wish to shun falsehood as they would death; in whose conversation, that I may say all about them briefly, the Master's very life shines out clearly. With this Prologue the rest agrees; for he often names by their own names the Saint's disciples as eyewitnesses of the things he narrates, nor does he report incredible things, nor has even a little word anywhere escaped him from which he might be believed to have lived more remote from Ysarnus' age, or could justly be held suspect of imposture. Yet this may in some measure be noticed in him, that, although he has by no means passed over the Saint's virtues, yet out of his particular deeds he has chiefly chosen those which move greater admiration, many others being passed over from which the Man's sanctity would have shone no less, and perhaps even more. But this he has in common with many other biographers.

[14] And that many things were passed over by him, he himself confesses, not long after the Saint's death. alleging I know not what necessity and narrowness of time. Hear him speaking at num. 50 of the Life. Since, he says, I am not sufficient to pursue the rest, of which many things about the holy Father remain; because both a certain most grievous necessity, as you know, presses upon me, and I am pressed also by too great a narrowness of time, I shall write at least of his glorious end… For the rest, that anonymous writer seems to have put this Life together, at least for the greater part and in a rough style, at the time when he was staying as a guest in the Victorine monastery; or at any rate at that time to have set down in writing the events which he had heard, and to have read them aloud to the monks there, lest he should stray from the truth. So we gather from the Life, in which at num. 6, after narrating the divine vengeance upon certain men who injured the Saint, he continued thus: While I was reciting this to the Brethren, one of them, Peter by name, a man of great authority in the monastery (of St. Victor of Marseilles) in all things, said: With me as witness, at Castrum Morarium a miracle happened in this same order, etc. Likewise at num. 39, having narrated some miracles of the holy Abbot, he had premised: And as I was recounting these things before the Brethren, a certain Rainoardus, venerable in the monastery for the esteem of his great sanctity, brought in what I am about to narrate, saying, etc. Deservedly therefore did Mabillon make much of this Life, and I wonder that Baillet gave it no place in his Work on the lives of the Saints.

§ II. The Saint's entrance into the Victorine monastery of Marseilles, and its increase in monks and possessions under him as abbot: what is to be thought about the church of St. Victor dedicated by Pope Benedict IX?

[ ] Entering the monastery as a young man, he becomes Prior; Since the Life to be published does not need a long commentary, I shall report in this and the following § only those things which, passed over by the biographer or more lightly touched, have become known to me from elsewhere, or which require a longer elucidation than the Annotations would allow. That St. Ysarnus was a young man when he began his novitiate of monastic profession in the monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles, the biographer relates in the Life in more than one place, but he does not express the year of his age, or of his beginning the religious life. Nevertheless, since in the instrument of the election of Guifredus or Wifredus the abbot, in Martène, tom. 1 of the Ample Collection of Writers, col. 367, Isarnus is read to have subscribed among the other monks of that place, the Saint must be said to have been admitted among the monks by abbot Garnerius, to whom Guifredus succeeded in the year 1005; unless anyone should wish, without solid reason, to suspect that that Isarnus was another than ours. On the same biographer's witness, num. 9 of the Life, Ysarnus, a few years after his monastic profession, was, on account of his notable virtues, set over the other Brethren there as Prior by the said Guifredus, and, when Guifredus afterward died, was elected abbot, not without a divine nod, as at num. 10 and following is narrated in the Life.

[16] made abbot in the year 1020 or 1021, he greatly advances the monastery The year in which he entered on the Priorate is hidden; but that the beginning of his abbatial prelacy must be tied to the year of Christ 1020 or the next following, we shall more fitly show below, where his year of death, about which there is some controversy, must be treated. Further, what the Saint showed himself to be as soon as he was made abbot must here be explained somewhat more fully. That that once most famous monastery, which had more than once been afflicted with great disaster by the barbarians, was again about the year 923 destroyed by the Saracens of Spain, the most illustrious Henri de Belsunce, bishop of Marseilles, writes in the Antiquities of his church, tom. 1, book 4, num. 35. On its restoration Martène or Durand may also be consulted in the Preface to the Ample Collection of Ancient Writers. The chief restorers however were the said Guifredus and our Ysarnus. Of Guifredus this is established from the old Chronicle of that same monastery in Labbe, tom. 1 of the Bibliotheca of manuscripts, pag. 339, which has thus: In the year M, Indiction XIII, the monastery of Marseilles began to be restored, the lord Guifredus being there first Prior for five years, and living there for the fifteen following years as abbot… He died in a good old age, leaving the monastery with L Brethren, which he had first received with five, as the Brethren related to us who had been brought up in the monastery in his time.

[17] To some indeed it seems suspect that Guifredus is said to have received that monastery with only five brethren or monks, happily restored by Guifredus, because in the instrument of his election praised above twenty-three are read to have subscribed together with abbot Garnerius, who was resigning the prelacy. But, unless a fault has crept into the Chronicle's numerals, these things can be reconciled if we say that there were only five monks there when Guifredus was made Prior, not when he was made abbot. However that may be, that there was not a great band of monks there when St. Ysarnus first came thither, the biographer also teaches in the Life, num. 6, where he says that the holy Youth inquired about various matters there from the few Brethren, who, the monastery having been lately restored, had begun to live there regularly enough. But how much, under the same abbot Ysarnus, that monastery grew both in the number of monks and in possessions, must now be said. The biographer in the Life, num. 21, says this to our purpose: And it came to pass that very many, smelling the fragrance of his virtues, desired to be trained in his disciplines.

[18] Among these he chiefly celebrates two, whom the holy Abbot enrolled first of all among his monks, he increases it with many notable nurslings, Dodo and Rainaldus, both famous for admirable sanctity and very many miracles; of whom he attests that the former had already, when he wrote these things, died holily, and that the other was then also shining among the living in virtues. These (the biographer subjoins in the same place) a venerable posterity following from various lands, they made in a short time out of a modest flock an immense one for the Lord; among whom many also of the nobles, kindled with love of the heavenly life, gave the world illustrious examples of their conversion. Then also Pontius, archbishop of Arles, and not long after his successor also, Randibaldus, then the sole glory of all the Province, under the same Father to the holy Rule

submitted themselves. It has seemed good to report this whole sentence here, because it needs some elucidation. In the first place that word posterity is not to be taken in the common and obvious sense, but for all those who, following the examples of Dodo and Rainaldus, embraced monastic profession under St. Ysarnus. So it is clear from those two archbishops, whom he subjoins to have submitted themselves to the holy Rule under the same Father.

[19] About Pontius there is another question. The twin brothers Sainte-Marthe, tom. 1 of the Gallia Christiana, among whom were two archbishops of Arles pag. 47, write that Pontius de Marignane was raised from a Victorine monk to the archbishopric of Arles, and, being deposed in the year 1029 or the following, returned to the same monastery over which St. Ysarnus then presided. On the contrary Denis de Sainte-Marthe in his likewise Gallia Christiana, tom. 1, col. 552, judged nearer the truth that the said Pontius embraced the monastic institute in the said monastery under abbot Ysarnus only after he had held the archbishopric. The twin brothers are favored by the biographer's words, according to whom not long after, his (Pontius') successor also, Randibaldus, submitted himself to the holy Rule under the same Father. For since it is established from elsewhere that Randibaldus or Raiambaldus, St. Ysarnus' monk, succeeded to the archbishopric of Arles when Pontius passed into St. Ysarnus' discipline, it would consequently have to be held either that Pontius was a monk under abbot Ysarnus before receiving the insignia, or that Randibaldus not long after he had received them laid them down and returned to the monastery.

[20] But neither of these can be said. For, with the said writers of the Gallia Christiana agreeing, Pontius already presided over the church of Arles about the year 1000, in which Ysarnus was certainly not yet abbot, and perhaps not even a monk; Pontius and Randibaldus or Raiambaldus. and Randibaldus held the aforesaid archbishopric for very many years after the holy Abbot's death; and although Denis de Sainte-Marthe in the same place thinks that Randibaldus some time before his death, having resigned the archbishopric, returned to his monastery, yet the biographer's words cannot be taken of that withdrawal, since according to them Randibaldus must have given himself to be trained among the monks by Ysarnus not long after Pontius, whom he had succeeded in the archbishopric. And so, that these things may be reconciled, I believe the biographer should be so expounded: Then also Pontius, archbishop of Arles, and he who, not long after he had put on the monk's habit under Ysarnus, was his (Pontius') successor, Randibaldus … submitted themselves to the holy Rule under the same Father. This interpretation is required by what we have said above about the times of both episcopates, compared with the beginning of St. Ysarnus' prelacy, which from what is to be said must certainly be referred to the year of Christ 1020 or 1021.

[21] Leodegarius, archbishop of Vienne, gives him Nor were notable and illustrious persons only, but churches also and monasteries, even situated outside the bounds of the diocese of Marseilles, made subject to abbot Ysarnus, and his monastery was moreover increased with many estates. It would be long to enumerate the several things which are read in various authors. Yet I shall bring forward some places of this kind which, whether that they might be restored as things formerly taken away, or that regular discipline might be introduced into them, were handed over to him by men of the nobility. There was in the archdiocese of Vienne the church of St. Ferreolus of Grigny, once a monastery of four hundred monks, but then, through the iniquity of the times, fallen down, all its goods being dispersed elsewhere. When Leodegarius the archbishop strove to recall this to its former splendor, he decreed, in a numerous synod at Vienne of five hundred abbots, monks and other clerics, to hand it over, endowed as far as he could with its former goods, to Ysarnus and his successors, on this condition, that it should be inhabited by his monks. The charter of this donation is extant in the said Collection by Martène and Durand, tom. 1, col. 402 and following, whence I transfer hither what follows.

[22] the church and monastery of St. Ferreolus, I, Leodegarius, archbishop of the holy mother church of Vienne, servant of all the faithful of God, moved by the example and love of my predecessors, desiring to adorn our church, which once most gloriously flourished, purpose and desire to serve the most blessed lord Ferreolus, martyr and tribune of our city. For his church, or monastery, which they call of Grigny, had in it at one time a multitude of four hundred monks; but we, whom God has brought to these unhappy times, if not so, at least fulfil what we can. We restore therefore to him, namely to St. Ferreolus and to his former monastery, out of his inheritance whatever we held in our lordship, as also, wherever anything of his inheritance shall be found, we restore the whole altogether, and those who hold it, if they be willing to restore it, we join in this alms. But our faithful Blandinus also restores all that he held of his inheritance in benefice from us, and moreover bestows of his own allod.

[23] that he may bring his monks into it. This therefore we do by the counsel of our faithful, with all the clergy and people of our church approving, and moreover with the assent of Ermengarde, the renowned queen, wife of king Rudolph (of Transjurane Burgundy, the third of that name), now a widow. We place therefore in that place the servants of God from the monastery of the most glorious St. Victor of Marseilles, and give that place, with all that pertains to it, perpetually to the same St. Victor, and to the venerable man the lord abbot Isarnus, by the counsel and will of the lord abbot Odilo of Cluny, and of all the Brethren of his congregation. This charitable donation was made in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ MXXXVI, Indiction IV, epact I, in the VIII year of Conrad, emperor of the Romans, etc. Conrad, of whom mention is here made, is he surnamed the Salic, first king of Germany and then emperor; but in his year there is here a fault; since neither the VIII year of his reign nor of his empire fell in the year of Christ 1036. That St. Odilo, abbot of Cluny, was intimate with St. Ysarnus, and an admirer and herald of his virtues, our biographer relates in the Life, num. 19 and 20; whence it is no wonder that he willingly consented to this donation.

[24] There follows in the same place another charter, marked with the year of Christ 1037, From the same he receives the church of St. Symphorian, and four others but somewhat mutilated here and there, by which the said archbishop Leodegarius restored to the same monastery of St. Ferreolus — to which he had already summoned Victorine monks, with the assent of the venerable abbot Isarnus, servant of God — the church of St. Symphorian, which had formerly belonged to it, with the estates and other goods pertaining to it. Another donation also, or restitution, of four churches which were situated at Petra Castellana in the diocese of Senez in Provence, the holy Abbot obtained from bishop Amelius. The instrument of the donation, or a fragment of it, which Martène thinks was made about the year of Christ 1040, he recites in the same place, col. 405 and following, whence I report it here, because it is short. I Amelius, by the grace of God bishop of Senez, by the will or at the request of our sons and of our other faithful, restore or give back by Apostolic authority to the same monastery certain churches of our diocese which formerly were of the right of the monastery of St. Victor of Marseilles, although for some time unjustly possessed by certain monks, with all that pertains to the same churches, together with all the tithe of the things pertaining to them, acquired now or hereafter, which churches are situated in the place or villa which is called Petra Castellana.

[25] And this we do with such purport, that at all times the servants of the Lord, remaining there, may be intercessors to the Lord for us and our successors. at Petra Castellana, from Amelius, bishop of Senez. Now these churches are: of St. Mary, of St. John, of St. Peter, of St. Laurence. Thus far that fragment, on which the most illustrious Belsunce, tom. 2 of the Antiquities of the Church of Marseilles, book 5, num. 28, observes that Amelius probably obtained the Roman Pontiff's consent for making this donation, since he says that he makes it by Apostolic authority. Further, mention of the same Amelius will recur in the Life, num. 25, where Ysarnus is said to have entreated him not to excommunicate the inhabitants of the castle of Barrême for the injury done to the Saint himself. At Petra Castellana also the biographer mentions some possession of the monastery of Marseilles in the same place, num. 23 and 25. Now Petra Castellana was a town of Gaul in Provence, set upon a mount, with the citadel of the barons who ruled in that town; but after the middle of the XIII century, the last lord of the place being beheaded, the inhabitants, leaving the mount and removing into the valley, settled by the river Verdon, where the town now is, called in French Castellane, two miles from Senez, in whose diocese it is.

[26] To these donations was added another also, of the monastery of St. Michael de Fallio, situated in the county of Barcelona, or in old Catalonia, of which an instrument is extant in the said Martène, col. 406 and the two following, He acquires the monastery of St. Michael de Fallio whence I report some things here. Gombaldus of the castle of Besora, who had received that place as a gift from Raymond, count of Barcelona, and his wife Ermessende, as is clear from the charter reported in the same place, col. 353, and had enriched it also from his own goods, being solicitous for his salvation, gave it, with its annexed possessions, to the Lord God, and to St. Victor the martyr, to the monastery of Marseilles, and to abbot Isarnus present, and to the abbots who shall be after him. He added however this condition, that it be not lawful for them to sell it, nor to alienate it, nor to exchange it, or transfer it, but at all times to hold it for the service of St. Victor, and that his monks of St. Victor shall at all times abide in that cave and church of God, and pray the Lord for (his) sins. But if the monks of St. Victor should be unwilling to abide in that place, St. Victor and his monks should have nothing at all.

[27] in the county of Barcelona. But the place itself and its situation Gombaldus there sets forth thus: I began to serve and honor the churches of God out of my substance, of which I chose one situated within the borders of Barcelona or of Ausona, and restored to the service of God, and not made by human work, but fulfilled by the wondrous will of God, and set on a lofty rock, and they call it Spælea, and it is consecrated in honor of God and of St. Michael the archangel, above the castle which they call Mons-boius, situated within its borders, which the common people call Falium. The city of Ausona, of which mention is here made, formerly called Ausa and Ausona, then also Vicus Ausonensis, commonly Vich and Vic de Osona, is a city of Spain in Catalonia, distant about seventeen miles from Barcelona to the north, and it is episcopal under the archbishop of Tarragona. Further, the said instrument is marked the Ides of October, in the XII year of king Henry, namely of France, and therefore in the year of Christ 1042. And that that donation was accepted by St. Ysarnus is clear from the biographer, who at num. 56 of the Life, treating of the Saint's Spanish journey, says: At last, to a certain possession of St. Victor, Alfalium by name, where in a most pleasant cave a very beautiful and quite convenient monastery in honor of St. Michael the archangel

has been built, … they come.

[28] Other donations in the diocese of Marseilles and elsewhere Not long after, namely in the year 1044, Pontius, the second of that name, bishop of Marseilles, gave the church of St. Genesius in the county of Marseilles beside the mount which is called Guarda, which was then destroyed, with the consent of the canons of his church, to almighty God, and to his monastery founded in honor of St. Victor at Marseilles, and to abbot Isarnus and to the monks present and to come, and dwelling in the same monastery, that, building the aforesaid church, namely of St. Genesius, they may hold and possess it for ever, etc. The charter you have in tom. 1 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, among the instruments, pag. 114 and following. In the same place, pag. 64, another donation made in the same year is again exhibited, in whose instrument Bertrannus the donor speaks thus: I Bertrannus, by God's authorship marquis or count of Provence, restore and give the church of St. Promasius the martyr, with the borough and the lands which are of my possession, to the almighty Lord and to St. Victor the martyr and to his monastery. This donation was made in the year of the Lord's Incarnation MXLIV, Indiction XII, king Henry reigning.

[29] made to him: Greek monks Again in the same place, among the additions to the instruments, pag. 204, there is recited a charter of Raiambaldus, archbishop of Arles, formerly a Victorine monk, by which he gave a religious place founded in honor of St. Genesius or St. Honoratus within the walls of the (Arles) city to the monastery of St. Victor of Marseilles, in which Isarnus, abbot of that monastery, should place monks in the service of God. The year of the donation is not written. In Martène, in the said Collection, col. 408 and following, there occurs a donation which has thus: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. A memorial and notice or donation concerning the third part of the church of St. Peter, which is built in the territory of the castle or villa which is called Auriol, in the county of Marseilles, to the Greek monks whom bishop Pontius and Isarnus, abbot of the monastery of St. Victor of Marseilles, place in that same church. Therefore I Pontius, by God's grace bishop of the holy see of Marseilles, together with the good pleasure and consent of the clerics of the church committed to me by God, make a donation of the altar of St. Peter of the church named above, and of the whole third part of all things, namely of allods of fields, vineyards, gardens, meadows, or whatsoever possessions, which now pertain to that same church … to the Greek servants of God and their successors, serving the Lord in that same church, under the care and governance of the abbot of St. Victor, etc.

[30] At the end this donation is said to have been made in the year from the Lord's Incarnation MXLIIII, in the church of St. Peter in the county of Marseilles Indiction XIII, king Henry reigning. And below: Done publicly at Marseilles in an assembly of the clergy on the 2nd of the Nones of July, on the VI feria. But these chronological notes are faulty; for Indiction XIII in the month of July belongs to the year 1045, in which the VI feria fell on the day III of the Ides of July, while in the year 1044 the day before the Ides of the same month was the VI feria. Martène in the same place, in the Preface, pag. XLIX, says that the same donation was made on the II of the Nones of July, the VI feria, in the year MXLV, Indiction III. I do not know in which place he followed his manuscript more correctly, but in both there is an error in the notes. The same editor there judges that Ysarnus wished that the church of SS. Zacharias, John the Baptist and Elizabeth, and the estates which he had received from Raiambaldus, archbishop of Arles, in the territory of the castle of Auriol, and from others for the said church, together with the aforementioned church of St. Peter, should go for the maintenance of the Greek monks. The instruments of these donations you have in tom. 1 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, among the instruments, pag. 95, and in the said Martène, col. 400 and following.

[31] But the most illustrious Belsunce, tom. 1, book 5, instituted under the Saint's discipline: likewise other donations. num. 25, writes that the canons of the church of St. Zacharias embraced the Benedictine Rule under St. Ysarnus, and that these were the beginnings of the monastery of men which formerly was at St. Zacharias', and which today is only a priory under the patronage of the abbot of St. Victor. However these things stand, the said most illustrious writer in the same place, num. 31, rightly suspects that those Greek monks were placed by bishop Pontius and abbot Ysarnus in that church of St. Peter for the sake of the merchants who put in at Marseilles from the East. I pass over many other donations made in our holy Abbot's time to the Victorine monastery, on which may be consulted the said Martène, Denis de Sainte-Marthe, tom. 1 of the Gallia Christiana in various places, the most illustrious Belsunce in the said Work, and others who have written on the affairs of Marseilles. For me it is enough to have reported the aforesaid, that from them the reader may gather how great was the esteem of St. Ysarnus even while he lived, and how happily he enlarged his monastery's resources for the divine worship.

[32] Pope Benedict IX does not seem to have dedicated the church of St. Victor. The writers of Marseilles, and others who have written on the ecclesiastical affairs of Provence, everywhere relate that the church of St. Victor at Marseilles, which abbot Guifredus had begun to build, was completed by St. Ysarnus, and, at his request, consecrated with great solemnity by Benedict IX, the Roman Pontiff, in the year 1040 on the Ides of October. Benedict's Bull, in which this is asserted to have been done, Guesnay recites in the Annals of Marseilles at the said year, and Denis de Sainte-Marthe, tom. 1 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, among the instruments, pag. III and following, where it may be consulted. Jean de Launoy in his Disquisition upon the Disquisition concerning Magdalen coming to Marseilles attacked it against Guesnay in chapter 7, and he in the Historical Supplement on the same Magdalen tried to vindicate it. Further, it is certain that in that Bull, or in the instrument in which it is inserted, some things occur which make it strongly suspect of forgery, and therefore unfit to persuade me of that Benedict's coming to the people of Marseilles, which is the chief point of the matter, and of which none of the ancients makes mention. Wherefore, as I cannot deny that the dedication of that church was made under St. Ysarnus as abbot, so I cannot ascribe it to the Pontiff Benedict IX.

nay, eidem*

terminos*

in*

perhaps voluntate*

§ III. The Saint's Spanish journey happily accomplished for the ransoming of the captives of Lérins: his return to Marseilles: his blessed death, and the year of it assigned: his epitaph.

[ ] The monastery of Lérins being plundered by the Saracens of Spain, It remains that we say a few things here about the last period of Ysarnus' life, in which the holy Man wonderfully displayed his truly heroic charity toward his neighbor, and no less happily exhibited it. The event the biographer relates at sufficient length in the last chapter, and therefore I shall here touch it only so briefly as is necessary for elucidating it. It is commonly known that the ancient and most famous monastery of St. Honoratus was founded in Lérins, which is a small island of Gaul, on the coast of Provence, in the sea, about two miles distant from Antipolis, commonly Antibes, to the south, and is now wont to be called by the French l'Isle de saint Honoré. Upon this island pirates of the Saracens of Spain put in with hostile intent, and, the monastery being plundered, carried off into Spain the monks whom they had taken. The year in which this plundering of Lérins was done the biographer, after his manner, does not express, and it was passed over by the ancient writers. Yet mention of it is made by an ancient codex of the monastery of Lérins, in which, on the witness of Vincent Barrali in the Chronology of the Saints and other illustrious men of that same monastery, part 2, pag. 152, it is tied to the year 1046, or at any rate to the next following.

[34] and the monks carried away, the Saint, to ransom them, Take his words: In the year of the Lord one thousand and forty-six (as is read in a certain catalogue of a very ancient codex of the monastery of Lérins, in which all the abbots are reviewed from that year until the year one thousand four hundred and twenty) the lord Aldebertus, the first of this name, was ordained abbot of Lérins, and while he administered the abbey, it is read there that in the first year of his ordination the monastery of Lérins was destroyed, and was not rebuilt or raised again until after forty-two years, by his successor Aldebertus the second. To which ruin we do not readily assent, since that ancient codex names no invaders; nay on the contrary within that time many benefactors are found, and the state of the monastery of Lérins appears most flourishing, etc. Thus far Barrali, who, if he had read this Life of St. Ysarnus, written by a contemporary, would have found the invaders, nor could he prudently have doubted of the plundering itself. Yet I should readily believe him that the monastery of Lérins did not lie in ruins so long a time, for whose speedy restoration the biographer writes in the Life, num. 57, that St. Ysarnus himself also labored, and doubtless would have done more for it if a longer life had permitted. For the rest, observe that that catalogue praised by Barrali cannot be called very ancient if it runs down to the year 1420, unless perhaps the abbots were inscribed in it each in his own time.

[35] Further, to return to the history, the monks of Lérins although grievously ill, sets out for Spain, who had not fallen into the pirates' hands, being piously solicitous for their captive brethren, having collected as great a sum of money as they could, resolved to ransom them. But because to go to that faithless nation seemed nothing else than to hand themselves over with their money to it without any relief of the captives, by an excellent counsel they determined to ask help from Ysarnus. For he had some possessions near Spain, and in the very county of Barcelona the monastery of St. Michael de Fallio or de Alfallio, as we have said above, and he was of great name and esteem with the chief men, whose help they needed for that business. They asked him therefore to grant them one of his monks, who should accompany those about to set out for Spain, and by his authority further the pious work. The holy Abbot was then lying fixed to his bed by a long illness; but, having heard of the near occasion of doing good, leaping from his bed, he declared that no other than himself would go; and, all his own being unwilling, being carried in a litter, amid the utmost torments and dangers of life he came to the aforesaid monastery of St. Michael, and, unable to go further, lay down there in danger.

[36] Then, on the report of his coming being spread abroad, says the biographer at num. 56, and lying sick in the monastery of St. Michael de Fallio, Raymond Berengar, consul of Barcelona, and his wife Elisabeth, and Gumbaldus, a man of consular rank, offering themselves and their goods there — the greatest princes, namely, of the whole region — hasten to lay open their own sins, and beg that he may become their patron with God. He assented to their requests, and at once enjoined on them this task of penance: that by whatever just means they could, as much by the threats of their power as by the strength of their wit, both by counsel and by prayer, they should restore the captive monks to the Lord God, and should restore to the honor of the Lord the once noble monastery of Lérins, now wickedly destroyed by impious nations; and they accepted this condition.

Raymond Berengar, who is here called by the biographer consul of Barcelona, and a little after count, was count of Barcelona, the first of that name, of whom a brief but notable eulogy stands in the Deeds of the Counts of Barcelona, chapter XI, published by Étienne Baluze after the Marca Hispanica, where they may be consulted. Yet to win greater credit for the biographer's words, it will be useful to have reviewed these few things from the cited chapter.

[37] This Raymond Berengar, says the author of the Deeds, through Raymond, count of Barcelona, and Gumbaldus shone with exceeding uprightness, and among the other princes of Spain had so great a princedom over the Hagarenes that XII kings (Moors) of Spain in his time yearly paid him tribute as their lord. In the same place he is said to have lived in his county 42 years, and to have died in the year of Christ 1076, which fits rightly with St. Ysarnus' date, and with the time at which the biographer places this journey of the Saint's. Of Elisabeth also, the said Raymond's wife, mention is made in a donation made in the year 1045 by her and her husband to the pilgrims' house of Barcelona, in Étienne Baluze in the Continuation of the Marca Hispanica of the most illustrious Pierre de Marca, book 4, col. 442, and elsewhere. Whom the same biographer meant here to designate by Gumbaldus, a man of consular rank, I have hitherto not found for certain. Yet I suspect that he is the same as Gombaldus of the castle of Besora, by whom that very monastery of St. Michael de Falio had before been given to St. Ysarnus, as we saw at num. 26 and 27. But whoever he was, he too must have been a powerful and vigorous man, whose threats the Moors feared. However that may be, the said princes, as I said, accepted the work of penance laid upon them. Now one part of the captive monks was in the city of Denia, which formerly was also called Dianium and Artemisium, and is situated in the kingdom of Valencia, with a harbor on the Mediterranean sea.

[38] he recovers the captives; thence returning to Marseilles he dies It was then held, on the biographer's witness, by a king or petty king, Alaïus, to whom Raymond and Elisabeth sent their envoys, to demand the captive monks from him and, if he refused, to declare war. The other part of the monks of Lérins was detained at Tortosa under a petty king whom the biographer calls Agalifus. Now Tortosa, now called by the inhabitants Tortosa, is a city of Spain in the principality of Catalonia, on the river Ebro, which about three Spanish miles below discharges itself into the Balearic sea. Hither also the said Gumbaldus sent his envoys, demanding the same things which Raymond had charged. To each embassy a monk was added, who should recognize the men of Lérins. Why say more? Both petty kings gave back the captives, whom, after the sailors' perfidy had been divinely baffled and a second embassy sent by the same Christian princes, St. Ysarnus at last received free with the greatest joy; as may be read at greater length in the last chapter of his Life, which I therefore here pass over. The business being so happily accomplished, and being increased both in bodily sickness and in merits, he was carried back in his litter to Marseilles, where in his Victorine monastery on the eighth of the Kalends of October, on the biographer's witness, on the very same day a year after that on which he had gone out to Spain to give himself for his brethren, to the long-desired Fount of eternal life, loosed from the flesh, he joyfully sent forth (his soul). But in what year this happened must now be inquired.

[39] in the year of Christ 1048 according to the biographer and others. The biographer in the Life, num. 65, after the words just given, expresses it thus: And the year was then from the Lord's Incarnation the one thousand and forty-eighth. The same Saint's epitaph, carved on marble, agrees, which we shall give below, and in which it is read thus: He died in the year MXLVIII, indict. 1, Epact III. Further, this Indiction, running with the day XXIV of September, must be taken as the Pontifical one; for if it were the imperial, it would belong to the year 1047. About the Epact there is another difficulty: for according to Clavius' table before the correction of the Roman Calendar, Epact III belongs to the year 1047, in which the golden number was III; but in the year 1048 the golden number was IV and the Epact XIV. But this difficulty the learned Benedictines remove, who in Du Cange's Glossary, published in an enlarged form, at the word Annus, observe that Clavius' table always precedes the ancients' mode of reckoning by one year, and therefore in the table which the said Benedictines there exhibit for examining the chronological notes of ancient instruments, the golden number IV concurs with Epact III. As to the year, the old Chronicle of St. Victor of Marseilles likewise agrees, which in Labbe, tom. 1 of the Bibliotheca of manuscripts, pag. 339, has thus: MXLVIII. Ind. 1. Died the lord abbot Isaurus. And that this Chronicle is ancient, and was continued by another, is clear from this, that in the same, in red letters, immediately after the said words, is read: MLV. Ind. VIII. In the same year this book was made. Likewise there agree what is related in the same Chronicle about the death of Wifredus or Guifredus, whom St. Ysarnus succeeded in the abbacy, and what is related in the epitaph praised above about the years of that Saint's government.

[40] For the Chronicle has thus of Guifredus: MXXI. Ind. IV. Died the lord abbot Wifredus. But Martène thinks he has demonstrated But the time of Ysarnus' government the epitaph, agreeing with the biographer also about the day of death, marks in verses barbarous enough thus:

Twice ten and seven years he faithfully ruled The sweet flock of the Lord committed to him; He gave it up, the eighth of the Kalends of October being passed, And began to enter the realms of the glowing sky.

Add these 27 years of Ysarnus' prelacy to the year 1021, that of Guifredus' death, and you will come to the year 1048, in which the Saint is said to have died. Hence it has come about that almost all writers have tied St. Ysarnus' death to the year of Christ 1048. Nevertheless there are not wanting reasons which render this opinion somewhat doubtful and make for drawing back the Saint's death to the year 1047. Edmond Martène, or Ursin Durand, in the Preface to tom. 1 of the Ample Collection of Ancient Writers, pag. L, discourses thus on this subject: After these things St. Isarnus did not prolong his life long, whose death the ancient writer of his Life assigns to the year MXLVIII, on the VIII of the Kalends of October, whom the epitaph reported by him supports, and with whom the more recent writers (whom he had seen) agree to a man. But that both the writer of the Life and the composer of the epitaph slipped in memory, many things persuade which clearly demonstrate that Isarnus' death must be set a year earlier. For it is established first from the said epitaph that the Victorine monastery was administered by Isarnus a full twenty-seven years, whose governance had been committed to him in the year MXX, in which year his predecessor Wifredus, as the ancient monuments of Marseilles have it, met his fate.

[41] Further, if Isarnus, created abbot in the year MXX, presided over the Victorine monks XXVII years, that he died a year earlier. it follows that we must say that he flew to heaven in the year MXLVII. Secondly, the decree of the election of Peter, his successor, praised in the new Gallia Christiana, gives the year MXLVII. Thirdly, the donation of the church of the Blessed Mary de Grauleriis, made to St. Victor in the year MXLVII, Indiction XV, was received not by Isarnus but by Peter, who accordingly was already sitting. Fourthly, the church of St. Paul of Gerona was given to abbot Peter in the year MXLVIII, in the month of February: therefore Isarnus had already departed this life, namely on the VIII of the Kalends of October of the preceding year. Lastly, Lambert and his wife Austrudis sell a vineyard at Cathedra, "the lord abbot Isarnus himself being dead, nay rather, as we believe, taken from this mortal life to eternal things, and in his stead the lord Peter being now ordained pastor in the aforesaid monastery," in the year MXLVIII, Indiction 1; and accordingly Isarnus, who closed his last day on the VIII of the Kalends of October, could not have died in that year, in which the second Indiction begins on the VIII of the Kalends of October. These things more than sufficiently demonstrate that St. Isarnus' death must be assigned not to the year MXLVIII but to the preceding. Thus far he, who in the same volume, col. 413 and following, reviews the said instruments of donations, unearthed by Fournier from the archives of the monastery of St. Victor of Marseilles. Let us therefore see whether these are such as to settle the matter as certainly as it seemed to Martène.

[42] What those ancient monuments of Marseilles are in which he says Wifredus' death is marked in the year 1020, I have not ascertained; that there are some, however, I have learned from elsewhere also. For both Guesnay in St. John Cassian Illustrated, book 2, pag. 569 and 713, marks Wifredus' death in the year MXX on the day before the Ides of September, and the most illustrious de Belsunce, tom. 1 of the Antiquities of the Church of Marseilles, book 5, num. XXV, writes that St. Ysarnus succeeded Wifredus in the same year. Yet they will hardly produce anything more ancient than the Chronicle of St. Victor praised above, which, although it ties Wifredus' death, in the words reported at num. 39, to the year of Christ 1021, yet before had referred the same to the year 1020 in this manner: In the year M, Indiction XIII, the monastery of Marseilles began to be restored, the lord Guifredus being there first Prior for five years, and living there for the fifteen following years as abbot, who thus died in a good old age in the XX year of the Incarnation of Christ after the thousandth. Thus here; but afterward, marking his death in its place, he says: MXXI. Ind. IV. Died the lord abbot Wifredus. It is therefore certain either that one or the other passage is faulty, or that the chronicler in the former place wished to elicit the year of Wifredus' death merely from the twenty years of his government taken roundly, taking no account of at what age he had been made Prior and then abbot, and whether and by how many months he had exceeded the five years of the priorate and the fifteen of the abbatial government.

[43] by which he judged this to be proved, That in the latter place, where he marks Wifredus' death in the year 1021, there is no error, is urged by the added Indiction IV, which cannot here belong to the preceding year, since that chronologer is wont to note at the several years the Indictions which were running at their beginning, or were then beginning. Further, perhaps from no other source than the former passage of that Chronicle was Wifredus' year of death set at the year of Christ 1020 in the other monuments of Marseilles which Martène praised in general. I go on to other matters. Of the decree of Peter's election, in which he is said to have been made abbot in place of St. Ysarnus in the year 1047, Denis de Sainte-Marthe, tom. 1 of the Gallia Christiana, col. 683, judges thus: In the instrument of the election the Indiction III is faultily given; whence its chronological notes seem to us little certain: wherefore we care little that it is read to have been done in the year MXLVII, and we think that the year MXLVIII fits better. Whether this instrument has besides other chronological notes, Sainte-Marthe does not state; but certainly Indiction III belongs neither to the year 1047, in which Indiction XV was running, nor to 1048, in which consequently the first was running. That instrument therefore is not fit enough to be opposed to more certain ones in which St. Ysarnus' death is expressly set in the year 1048.

[44] are weighed, The donation of the church de Grauleriis to the Lord God and to St. Victor of the monastery of Marseilles … made in the presence of the lord abbot Peter stands in the said Martène, col. 413 and following, where it is marked thus: This donation was made in the year from the Lord's Incarnation MXLVII, Indiction XV, epact III, and the moon XXII. This Indiction indeed fits rightly with the year 1047 if it be the Pontifical one, begun from the Kalends of January of that year; but otherwise if it were the imperial one: for this ends with the day XXIII of September, on which Ysarnus was still alive, with Martène agreeing. But since he above at num. 41 examines the Indictions by the imperial standard, he ought to have acknowledged this one too as faulty here. Epact III belongs to the year 1047 according to Clavius' table; but to the year 1048 according to the other, on which consult above at num. 39. Finally the month has been omitted in the same instrument. There follows in the same place the donation of St. Paul of Gerona, made by Ermessende, countess of Barcelona, and subscribed by the said Peter, already then abbot, which has these chronological notes: This writing of donation was made on the VIII of the Ides of February, in the XVII year of the reign of king Henry. By this Henry Martène understands Henry I, king of France, and so rightly reconciles these notes with the year of Christ 1048, taking the beginning of Henry's reign from the year of Christ 1031, in whose month of July his father Robert died — by whom he had already before been taken into partnership of the kingdom — and Henry began to reign alone, whose XVII year therefore was also running on the VIII of the Ides of February, on which the donation is noted as made.

[45] The last instrument finally, which is there entitled A sale of a vineyard at Cathedra, and from more certain monuments made to Peter, abbot of Marseilles, and in which, by the words reported by Martène at num. 41, Ysarnus is said to have already then died, is marked in the year from the Lord's Incarnation MXLVIII, Indiction 1. But that anything certain might be concluded from this, it would first have to be proved that this Indiction is the imperial and not the Pontifical: for if it be the Pontifical, it was running until the end of the year, and so from it it cannot be gathered whether this donation was made before or after the day XXIV of September of the year 1048; and so all force is lost from Martène's argument, which he repeated once and again from the Indiction. In like manner in the Saint's own epitaph no other than the Pontifical Indiction is set down, in these words: He died in the year MXLVIII. Indict. 1. Epact. III. And all these notes on that reckoning stand rightly, since Epact III also belongs to the same year, as may be seen above at num. 39.

[46] And so, although the instruments alleged by Martène, taken together, may raise some doubt in favor of assigning the Saint's blessed death one year earlier, it is pronounced for the year 1048. I prefer nevertheless to cleave to the more common opinion, because it appears to me far less likely that the author of the epitaph, the biographer and the chronicler of St. Victor slipped in memory in this matter, than that Martène's said instruments are free from fault. Indeed that slip of memory in the epitaph's author would be the more wonderful in proportion as it was composed the nearer after the Saint's death. For since it is established from what has been said that Ysarnus' tomb was thronged by the faithful for religion's sake not long after his death, and made illustrious with miracles, and yet at the close of his epitaph the suffrages of the faithful are asked for his soul in this little verse,

And so groaning in heart, say, say: God, have mercy on him. Amen,

it cannot be doubted that it was made at once after the Saint's death. Add that the biographer and the chronicler also, both contemporary or nearly contemporary with the Saint, and who therefore could easily have been warned of that slip, set down that very same year of death.

[47] The most illustrious de Belsunce, tom. 1 of the Antiquities of the Church of Marseilles, Other opinions about his year of death are refuted; book 5, num. 35, praises a certain charter of a donation made by Fulco, viscount of Marseilles, marked in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ one thous. XLIIII, Indiction XII, Epact VIII. In this, he says, Fulco speaks thus: We have resolved to build the aforesaid church by the counsel and command of the lord abbot Isarnus of happy memory, and with the will of all the Brethren dwelling in the aforesaid monastery. Hence the most illustrious writer judges that St. Ysarnus was already then dead; for the living are not wont to be called of happy memory. I confess that that phrase is used almost only of the dead; but what has been said hitherto proves either that Ysarnus was then still among the living, or that the year of that donation was wrongly noted in Fulco's charter. There are also two other opinions, of which one defers the Saint's death too far; the other anticipates it by a monstrous space of time. To have reported each will be to have refuted it.

[48] of which one referred him to the ninth century. Guesnay in St. John Cassian Illustrated, book 2, pag. 569 and following, after he had fixed St. Ysarnus' death in the year 1048 from the book of charters of St. Victor, fol. 26, continued thus: Which however a certain anonymous glossator notes in the margin as faultily written, in these words: "St. Isarnus was still governing the abbey in the year MLI; for I have found elsewhere, namely in the royal archive of Aix, that St. Isarnus was still in the year MLI governing the present abbey, in the confirmation which the lord Ildefonsus, marquis of Provence, made concerning the priory of Trigance in the diocese of Fréjus." The gloss's falsity is plain from what has been said. The other error, much grosser, makes St. Ysarnus flourish in the year of Christ 804. I do not know whether Hugues Ménard first began this or adopted it from elsewhere, who in book 2 of the Observations on the Benedictine Martyrology on the day XXIV of September closed his eulogy thus: This holy Man was famous in the year eight hundred and four, since in the same year lived Stephen, bishop of Agde, from whom he received the monastic garb, as is clear from the catalogue of the bishops of that same city.

[49] refuted. Following Ménard, Gabriel Bucelin, in the Benedictine Menology at the same day, says: He died most happily after the year of Christ DCCCXX. The occasion of the error is manifest. The biographer in the Life, num. 5, relates that St. Ysarnus as a young man, lest he be drawn back to the world by his parents, was clothed in the monastic garb by Stephen, bishop of Agde. Now that bishop Stephen was the second of that name, who in tom. 6 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, col. 672, is said to have been already sitting in the year 990, and in the year 1035 to have subscribed the synod celebrated in the monastery of Cuxa. But Ménard, or whoever else went before him, believed that the Stephen mentioned in Ysarnus' Acts was the first of that name, whom the writers of the said Gallia Christiana, col. 671, affirm not to have presided over the church of Agde before the X century was full-grown, but the brothers Sainte-Marthe affirm to have presided already in the year 903; and so Ménard was mistaken both in the Stephen and in the years of Stephen's episcopate, and ill arranged the times of St. Ysarnus.

[50] The Saint's epitaph from Ruffi's edition Now I subjoin the Saint's epitaph.

HE DIED IN THE YEAR 1048, INDICT. 1, EPACT. III.

SEE, READER, WHAT DEATH IS: THE LAW FOR MAN, THE GUILT OF THE FIRST-FORMED, WHICH IS IN ME, A WRETCHED DEAD MAN.

HERE ARE LAID THE ILLUSTRIOUS SACRED LIMBS OF THE MAN AND FATHER ISARNUS, GLORIFIED BY HIS OWN PIOUS ENDEAVORS,

BY WHICH HIS HAPPY QUICKENING SOUL WAS BORNE ALOFT, BY HIS EMINENT MORALS AND PEACEABLE SPIRIT.

FOR THIS MAN WAS WREATHED WITH THE FORMS OF VIRTUE, A LORD TO ALL, FOR WHOM HE IS GLAD.

WHAT HE DID, THE PIOUS AND BLESSED ABBOT TAUGHT, AND CONSTRAINED HIS DISCIPLES TO BE PIOUS.

SO LIVING HE HELD THE GOVERNANCE, BUT HE WAS BITTERLY AND WRETCHEDLY COMPELLED TO CLOSE THE THRESHOLD OF LIFE.

TWICE TEN AND SEVEN YEARS HE FAITHFULLY RULED THE SWEET FLOCK OF THE LORD COMMITTED TO HIM; HE GAVE IT UP, THE EIGHTH OF THE KALENDS OF OCTOBER BEING PASSED,

AND BEGAN TO ENTER THE REALMS OF THE GLOWING SKY.

AND SO GROANING IN HEART, SAY, SAY: GOD, HAVE MERCY ON HIM. AMEN.

[51] So that epitaph, composed in rude verses and carved on his marble tomb, Louis-Antoine de Ruffi exhibits in the History of Marseilles of the second edition, part 2, with the variant readings in Mabillon. pag. 129; and somewhat otherwise Mabillon after the Life. Ruffi, who inspected it in person, professes that he took care that those sepulchral inscriptions, of which he there exhibits several, should be printed with the faults with which they stand in the church of St. Victor at Marseilles. Take now the variant readings in Mabillon's edition, whether he himself so corrected them or read them in his own copy. First, the Saint's year of death is in him expressed in Roman figures. Secondly, he exhibits the third hexameter more correctly thus:

By which his happy quickening soul bore him aloft.

Thirdly, he gives the sixth pentameter better thus:

He was compelled bitterly and wretchedly to close the threshold of life.

Finally he recites what follows thus:

The rest agrees with Ruffi's edition.

nisi*

LIFE

By a nearly contemporary anonymous author.

From Mabillon's edition, collated with the Marseilles manuscript.

Ysarnus, abbot of St. Victor, at Marseilles in the Province of Gaul (S.)

BHL Number: 4477

By an anonymous author.

PROLOGUE

The author sets forth the occasion of his writing, When some few days ago ^b I had come to the venerable monastery at Marseilles ^a, that I might behold the heavenly choirs on earth of that most famous religious house, and commend myself to their prayers, among the innumerable memorials of the Saints, of whom a numerous host rests there, the tomb of blessed Ysarnus the abbot, recently dead, was thronged by peoples of various sick persons ^c… Remedies so swift are there obtained from the Lord by those who piously ask, as though all the other Saints had already granted him, giving ^d, all their power… Kindled therefore by the remembrance of so great a Man, trusting in his life, conversation and the merits of his virtues, I desire, as the Lord shall grant, to say some things — not that I may do justice to the matter … since indeed what … of human eloquence … but lest so great a glory of God be altogether … by silence; and that holy Church may not be defrauded by the virtues of her sons … of the most wholesome knowledge of a most holy Man.

[2] There is also that which most of all provokes me to write about him, and on what witnesses he relied. because I am the more certain that I shall speak with the most sincere truth, in that, because of the recent memory of the Man, nearly the whole Province stands as witness of what I am about to say; and most of all many very venerable monks, his disciples, who, I certainly believe, wish to shun falsehood as they would death; in whose conversation, that I may say all about them briefly, the Master's very life shines out clearly. Which Work ought to be received the more gladly by all, in that the virtue of him about whom we write adorned properly our own times; and it will come about that a recent sanctity and modern miracles may perhaps more easily prick our hardness, since now the infirmity of men does not refuse as impossible what it knows a Man of its own time to have fulfilled; and while the modern victory of one stirs up rivals, having shaken off

his sloth, each one labors more studiously to fight and overcome spiritual wickednesses. Wherefore let us now begin, in the name of the Lord Jesus, what we have purposed to do, lest antiquity should boast that it is marked beyond us by the prerogative of sanctity and the nobility of virtues.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's country, boyhood and youth: his pious flight from his parents: his monkhood received at Marseilles: the priorate and prelacy of that place laid upon him unwilling.

[ ] Born among the people of Toulouse and brought up at Fredelium, Blessed Ysarnus, of an honorable family, though far more honorable ^a in virtue to come, born of the country of Toulouse ^b, was at Fredelesium ^c, which is a village of that same country, brought up and taught by religious men in a noble canonry ^d. Where, as much as in that place could then be done, the little Boy learned Grammar and the ecclesiastical chants with such liveliness that it may not unjustly seem that this name was given him by no chance, but as it were by a certain prophetic spirit. For Ys in Hebrew is with us said Man; and Arnus in the language of his country sounds keen. Ysarnus therefore designates a keen man. But his skill in chants was then and in all his life adorned by such elegance of voice that in however great a company of singers, easily surpassing the voices of all the most accomplished [*], he seasoned it also with the sweetness of a certain angelic modulation.

[4] leading a youth ripe in virtues, with abbot Gauscelinus But when he had now reached the threshold of youth, which snatches most mortals into the abyss of death, and the common peril of all and the common temptation pressed hard upon the young Man, what he showed himself to be, how he resisted for his soul against the flesh and its kindler, the ancient enemy, how at that time when others fall he seized the palm of angelic celibacy, is not within our power to declare. For they say that he preserved his virginity whole and unstained until the end of his life. And nothing, as is wont at that age, sounded swollen or harsh in his words; nothing proud or unseemly appeared in his acts; nothing wanton in the bearing of his whole body, nothing loose or slippery; nothing finally in all his demeanor seemed unbecoming; but in every word and in every act and in the service of all his members a wonderful grace declared him a vessel of the Holy Spirit. Then indeed, setting all his counsel in the Lord, he most studiously sought out that manner of life by which he might commend himself more acceptably to God.

[5] For at that time, the Godhead, as we believe, affording the young man an occasion of salvation, going away secretly, is clothed with the monastic habit by the bishop of Agde. he heard a certain abbot Gauscelinus ^e, as he chanced to pass through that village, discoursing on the word of God; by whom being fatherly urged and swiftly persuaded, he was presently carried away from his native soil by a pious theft. On that journey it came about that the same abbot, by the disposing of him who had judged that Ysarnus, a vessel of the Holy Spirit, should be set over his house at Marseilles, hastened to the city of Marseilles to visit certain noble kinsmen of his; but when he lingered some days in the town of Agde ^f, the servant of God Ysarnus, fearing lest from the delay some hindrance should come to his purpose, his friends perhaps pursuing him, received the habit of holy religion from Stephen, a venerable man, bishop of that city ^g. This too the divine Wisdom fittingly enough disposed, lest the aforesaid abbot should afterward more sharply and importunately demand him back as his own monk when he was serving in the monastery of Marseilles, had he himself laid the religious habit upon him.

[6] At length after a few days they come to Marseilles; but while Gauscelinus was occupied with his friends' conversations, [While in the monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles he goes over the crypts of the Saints,] the young man devoted to God meanwhile goes solicitously about the tombs of the martyrs ^h, is seized with a desire of knowing all things, and inquires about each from the few Brethren who, the monastery having been lately restored, had begun to live there regularly enough. For that monastery, most famous in all the world, which the most blessed Cassian ⁱ had once built, destroyed by the Vandals, until their times showed forth only the ruins of the ancient work. These men, following with wondrous charity the young man's religious zeal, satisfy his desires, and lead the Man through all the sanctuaries. This place, they say, a venerable host of martyrs holds, to whom entreaty is never made in vain, whom throughout all these widely spreading fields an innumerable people of holy confessors, once monks of this place, surrounds round about. And there apart rests a throng of holy virgins.

[7] But in that inner sanctuary, which thou seest cut in the natural rock itself, there he becomes a monk, Gauscelinus striving in vain against it. there are contained many and awe-inspiring relics of the first witnesses of Christ, namely of the holy Innocents, whom the most blessed Cassian, first a cenobite of Bethlehem, carried hither with him. Hearing which, he, vehemently kindled with love of the Saints, and sighing more deeply from the bottom of his heart, said: Good God, how terrible is this place, and I knew it not! Truly this is nothing else but the house of God and the gate of heaven. Why say more? By the Brethren he is urged to dwell with them. And he says that he will on no account withdraw from the place. By common vow he is at once hidden, lest he be demanded back by abbot Gauscelinus. Gauscelinus through his friends, the powerful men of the city, more sharply demands his monk; but they, secretly persuaded by the Brethren, doing much with words, as is wont to happen among negotiators ^k of this kind, at last settle the matter by entreaty. So he who a little before had by a pious theft deceived the holy young man's parents, was himself by a worthy requital deceived by his own kinsmen.

[8] While he is the admiration and the love of all, Presently Ysarnus, bearing as it were in his breast that saying of the Wise Man written: Whatsoever thy hand can do, do it earnestly; for thou knowest not what the coming day may bring forth, began to run the regular way with such fervor that in a short time he seemed admirable to all ^l, even to the more perfect. And first indeed having before his eyes that word of Samuel: That obedience is better than sacrifice; and it is a sin of divination to rebel, and a crime of idolatry to refuse to comply ^m — he obeyed with such humility and such charity and patience, not only the father of the monastery but all the Brethren also, that one who perchance did not know him would reckon him not as one of the others, but as the very lowest little dependent of them all. His obedience no contradiction, no muttering, no wrinkling of the nostrils, no harshness of countenance, no indication at all, however small, of indignation or impatience could darken; but while he offered himself for all things, even the meanest and vilest services, he seasoned all with such gracious cheerfulness that his cheerfulness alone pleased all more than any other's great work.

[9] he is made Prior of that same monastery against his will, In divine things indeed he was so assiduous that only the necessity of taking food or of sleeping seemed for a little while to steal the divine praises from his mouth, unless he were reading. Nay, even his reading was prayer; for he sought in it not more what should instruct his understanding than what should prick his heart. For he had learned from the good Master that we must always pray. No entrance therefore was given to detraction or idle talk, since continual prayer occupied almost all his time. O blessed beginnings of a young man, to which the very consummation of old men is with difficulty compared! O happy novitiate, to which the virtue of others already grown veteran yields! At that time a man beloved of God, Guifredus ⁿ, was vigorously discharging the office of abbot in that same monastery. He, seeing that the young man's spirit was ever growing to more perfect things, after a few years, certainly by divine instinct, appointed him Prior over the Brethren, though he strove much against it and was compelled.

[10] and after the death of abbot Guifredus But he, having as it were that precept written on his mind: The greater thou art, humble thyself in all things, from the priorate conferred on him so lowered himself in his own eyes as though that honor seemed to him nothing but a burden, and that exaltation nothing else than a casting down; and he showed himself such to all in the charge laid upon him that, by the merit of his sanctity and diligence and temperance, from being most dear he rendered himself yet more abundantly dear to all good men; and that quite fitly. For his very austerity had such a savor of the dove that whoever was rebuked by him carried away nothing of gall, nothing of bitterness; ever reckoning with himself that one set over others should strive to profit all, not to be over them. Here now came his special prayers, here his vigils begun early and prolonged, here his admirable fastings. But when the most kind Lord was disposing both to reward his well-deserving servant, the venerable abbot Guifredus, and to advance this man to a higher dignity — as one whom he had proved faithful in a little, and whom according to his own word he had purged, that he might be fit to bring forth much fruit — that man closed a most worthy life with a blessed end ^o.

[11] he is consecrated abbot on a boy's vote, all consenting. Then the Brethren, solicitous with the neighboring abbots for the choosing of a successor, beat upon the Almighty with pious prayers. So when the whole convent was gathered, some judging this way and others that, and some also busying themselves for their own sakes, Archinricus, once abbot of Montmajour [p], a man of loftier wit, calling the least of the boys [q], said: Ho thou, little son, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, declare who seems to thee worthy of the office of abbot. And without delay he, taught by the Holy Spirit, said: Ysarnus. Seizing therefore upon this as a divine oracle, all with one consent and equal wishes, acclaiming his election, at once subscribed. But he, most bitterly saddened, knew not what to say, or what to do about himself; and while he was striving to excuse himself by whatever means he could, he is violently carried off by all; and lest perchance delay should bring something contrary, he is consecrated.

ANNOTATIONS.

of Occitania, among the Notes, pag. 622. Further, the city of Pamiers is now episcopal under the archbishop of Toulouse, and is situated on the river Ariège in Occitania. Baudrand in his Lexicon, praising the most illustrious de Marca, says that it has a castle called Fredelet, from which it was otherwise called Fredelacum.

p. Mons-major, commonly Mont-majour, is a monastery of the Order of St. Benedict, a mile and a half distant from Arles, on the witness of Denis de Sainte-Marthe, tom. 1 of the Gallia Christiana, col. 603. Of Archinricus he treats there, col. 604 and following, where he says that he was substituted in the abbacy for Riculfus, who died in the year 999, but afterward, laying down the governance, withdrew into the monastery of Cérilly, subject to Montmajour. The year of his withdrawal he does not express, but he teaches from a manuscript codex that his successor Rambertus was already abbot in the year 1016. Hence we learn why Archinricus is called by our biographer once abbot of Montmajour; namely because in the year 1020 or 1021, when St. Ysarnus was made abbot in Guifredus' place, he, having already resigned the governance of Montmajour, was living in the monastery of Cérilly.

q. Namely one of those who after the ancient custom were brought up in the same monastery.

Mabill. exquisitus*

CHAPTER II.

The holy Abbot's eminent virtues: the devil's vain attempts against him: notable men admitted by the Saint into his discipline.

[ ] Made abbot, he shines with notable humility Thereafter therefore, as though then for the first time a new athlete, he gave more and more labor to correcting his morals and to constraining his life; and as some are wont to be relaxed from the summit of honor into their own liberty, and from their own liberty into neglect of themselves and pride, and then from neglect of themselves and pride into many other evils; so on the contrary he, bound by the fear of the Lord, kept himself solicitous [] about all things, according to what is written: He that feareth God neglecteth nothing. And that he might become more circumspect against all vices, he was busy to be, from his prelacy, in all things the more subject to the holy Rule; ever revolving it in his mind, and acknowledging himself not so much master as servant of all. For that Scripture had not gone out of his mind which says: They have made thee a prince: be not lifted up, but be among them as one of them.* Doing this therefore, he always strove to be loved in the Lord rather than feared. Whence he was lovable, beyond what can be said, not only to the Brethren but to all men. Then came the care of the poor, then the wonderful profusion of alms; then the swift consolation of the sick and of all afflicted with misery of whatever kind.

[13] and with wonderful mercy toward the afflicted and the poor Often he himself would beg for his own garments from the stewards for the poor, and also, where it was convenient for him, steal ^a those of the other Brethren, and give them secretly to the cold; then threaten them that they should not betray the author of this deed. And when a question about thefts was raised in chapter, he himself, searching out the thief with the rest, would presently order better things to be restored. But at last these things were discovered; for on a certain day, while he was carrying off an excellent coverlet ^b, having diligently looked round on all sides, he was caught by a certain Stephen, who was to me both reporter and recorder of this matter. When now the Brethren were watching him, and chiefly complained that he was distributing those things which were bought for him more dearly out of fatherly reverence, he, after long silences, said in jest: A good giving [] prepares an excellent receiving.* But when now, fearing the Brethren's words, he did not dare to do it himself (for he was almost the gentlest of all men), he kept doing the same through a certain most trusty companion, Pontius by name, silence being commanded him.

[14] O blessed thefts! O thefts of piety! O thefts of charity! and with liberality; severe toward himself Would that all thefts were like you! Would that all thieves, sparing their neighbors' goods, labored to commit such deeds out of their own! Paul would not say of such: Neither shall thieves possess the kingdom of God: nay, Peter, the key-bearer of heaven, would gladly meet such, would gladly open to such. But this Man, while he became most bountiful to all, showed himself most sparing to himself; most kind to all, most austere toward himself; and while he lightened the miseries of all, he ever condemned himself to the wasting of an incredible abstinence. He ate indeed with the Brethren, and, desiring in all things to conceal himself, pretended to use all the foods in common: but nevertheless, diminishing the bread set before him piece by piece, in gnawing the little crusts, as though he were eating a long while, he occupied almost the whole space of the refection; and when, fish being set before him, he was urged, or rather compelled by a friendly violence, to eat, inasmuch as they seemed of precious savor and most studiously seasoned, he used a witty excuse, saying that it did not become all well-seasoned things to pass through abbots' mouths. At last, when he had bit by bit torn them into small pieces, the heads and bones ^c being laid over them, as one who had consumed everything, refreshed only by the temptation overcome, he sent them out to the poor.

[15] What of that very small quantity of wine which he used? and frugal. Given to prayer, he keeps night watches in the church, He spoiled it with such an infusion of water that it was fit for no use. By such hypocrisy, if I may so say, the Saint, fleeing hypocrisy, constantly labored. And in the time of Lent on the second, fourth and sixth ferias he tasted nothing. By such works therefore the Man beloved of God lifted his prayers to heaven, faithfully fulfilling that word of Jeremiah: Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to the Lord [*]. But when he had offered himself to the divine gaze for Prayer, chiefly in the silence of the night, who could declare those rivers of tears which were then poured out; who those groans, those lamentations, those sobs which were then brought forth? He always slept clothed, lest he should slumber too indulgently, and that he might rise the more readily: and it was his custom, having tasted a very little sleep at the beginning of the night, to go out stealthily from the dormitory with slow step, so that he was scarcely ever noticed, to seek the crypts of the martyrs, and there to keep watch through a very long space of the night until the Brethren's vigils.

[16] And often indeed he begged the guardians to unbar the church doors for him; which, being shut, he often entered, and was often found in it stiff with cold. but often, all the doors being carefully secured, not knowing how God had brought him in, they found him after his wonted manner in the crypts of the martyrs. There they report that on winter nights, while he was intent on heavenly things, so forgetful of himself, he very often grew stiff with cold, so that, unless he were carried away by others' hands, he could not have gone out at all. And frequently by those who then curiously watched him he was heard, after long sighs amid faint sobs, as though addressing Jesus himself present, to break out into these words: O Keeper of men, why hast thou set me contrary to thee, and I am become burdensome to myself? Why dost thou not take away my sin, and why dost thou not remove my iniquity? Whence it is sufficiently shown how heavily he bore the exile of this world; with how great affection he sighed toward him to whom he spoke.

[17] Beholding these things, the ancient enemy was exceedingly tormented with the brands of envy; and although, repelled by the power of his prayer, he could not draw near to him, The demon appearing in the shape of a dragon yet by whatever illusions he could, he strove to drive him away, or, if he could not do that, at least to terrify the Man. On a certain night therefore a man of venerable memory, William, then guardian of the church, having risen early before the common vigils, was applying himself to prayer, as he was wont, in that circuit which hangs above the crypts of the martyrs (for so they call that place). Then suddenly on the steps by which one goes down to the crypts he heard so great a noise, as though all the crypts were being overthrown from their foundations. And behold a very great dragon, unfolding immense coils and stretched in a long train over all the steps, vomiting terrible flames from its gaping jaws, filled the whole entrance of the greater crypt, from the upper hinge down to the bottom, with its vast mouth, as though about to receive the holy Man when he should go out.

[18] he puts to flight by prayer; and bids the witness conceal it, Then the holy Man, his prayer being completed after his manner before the altar of the most holy Virgin Mary and of the blessed martyrs, withdrew [*] to the other part, to the altar of St. John the Baptist, about to pass before that horrible monster. But William, fearing that he would at once be swallowed by the devil, felt all his bones shaken, his whole body tremble, immense sweats pour over him, and, his breath stopped, he was almost lifeless. But the holy Man, taking confidence in the Lord, by frequently bending his knees and fortifying his brow and breast with the sign of the Cross, persisted untiring in prayer so long that that enormous phantasm, giving forth terrible hissings and a horrible crash in witness of its own confusion, wholly vanished. When morning therefore was come, at the first dawn the Saint roused the aforesaid William from his bed; asks him whether he heard anything unusual in the church that night; and when he dissembled, compels him to relate everything. Then indeed by due obedience he commands with all authority that, while he lived, this miracle

should be revealed to no mortal.

[19] wonderfully shunning vainglory. St. Odilo of Cluny's But if he, shunning vainglory with so great solicitude, was busy to hide this, of which another was conscious, when, think we, would he tell those things which, with no one privy, he had done? Happy conscience, to which the world had so grown worthless that, being full of so many goods, it thus fled from being praised; while we wretched men daily sigh after the praises of men even in those things which we do amiss! But neither is this perhaps greatly to be wondered at. For virtues are made friends to virtues by a natural bond, and vices are pleasing to vices. Whence I do not wonder if he, filled with virtues, lacked not this one either; or if those who are the bilge-water of vices do not fear to be defiled even by the contagion of human praise. But while I, inexperienced in such things, proclaim the blessed Man's merits, I fear that I may rather do injury to all than be able to unfold even one as had been fitting. Yet I shall set down what a certain man most familiar with the virtues (I mean the most holy Odilo, abbot of Cluny ^d) briefly said of him: for those two lights of the world were then as one heart and one soul.

[20] judgment and saying about his virtues. When therefore he was enumerating his virtues, he said: Eight things are found in the lord Ysarnus, with his other goods, scarcely to be found together in any other. If any other man had each one of these singly, and had so far advanced in it, he would not undeservedly seem to have attained the summit of sanctity. But in this man these eight beatitudes — that is, chastity, humility, mercy, patience, fastings, vigils, prayers, contempt of vainglory — are so perfectly heaped up that, when thou hast weighed each one singly, he seems singular in each. With a most rough haircloth he was always clothed next his flesh; he had no use of breeches at all, except when once at Cluny St. Odilo clothed him with breeches and a woollen shirt ^e by a violent charity, which, returning to Marseilles, he at once laid aside. And blessed Odilo, when they reclined together, was wont in a certain friendly contention to call him Hypocrite, because he put forward the appearance of a human and common manner of life, and yet tormented himself beyond almost all men with hunger and various hardships.

[21] And it came to pass that very many, smelling the fragrance of his virtues, He admits notable men into his discipline, desired to be trained in his disciplines. The first therefore converted under him were Dodo and Rainaldus ^f, and, offered by him to the Lord like a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, they drew so great a richness of his overflowing grace and of his first blessing that it is certain that their admirable sanctity, in all things to be compared with the ancient fathers, shone with very many miracles. And Dodo indeed has already followed his Master to the blessed life by a glorious end. But the venerable Rainaldus, desiring nothing so much daily as to be dissolved and to be with Christ, has hitherto been preserved to us as a most faithful witness of his Master's virtues. These a venerable posterity ^g following from various lands, they made in a short time out of a modest flock an immense one for the Lord; among whom many also of the nobles, kindled with love of the heavenly life, gave the world illustrious examples of their conversion. Then also Pontius, archbishop of Arles, and not long after his successor also, Randibaldus, then the sole glory of all the Province, submitted themselves to the holy Rule under the same Father ^h.

[22] But I ought not to be silent about that man who, like Saul, being first borne with in much patience, among whom a powerful robber, who for the damage done to the monastery was scourged that he might be corrected; cast down that he might be raised; who, being compelled to conversion, afterward bore no small fruit. There was a certain Adalardus of secular pomp, an exceedingly fierce and most wicked man. He very often afflicted with unjust exactions the peasants of a certain estate which was of the monastery's right, Lagninas ⁱ by name; extorting from them swine, rams and other things of that kind convenient for his own uses; and if they were not given, violently carrying them off. And when he was gently admonished by the Man of God to refrain from injuries to the monastery, counting it as nothing, he bore himself far more savagely toward the aforesaid peasants. Once therefore, when the holy Man was staying on that same estate, messengers arrive reporting with a grave complaint that that sacrilegious robber, having plundered the aforesaid villa the day before, was now also at hand to consume in his feasts what remained.

[23] Then indeed the whole household which was with the Man of God being gently rebuked by the Saint, raged, cried out, seized lances and stakes, and ran about the more fiercely, meaning at once to attack the enemy with the help of those dwelling round about. But he, with hands outspread, set himself against them, raging, in the doorway, vehemently threatening and protesting to all who were about to go out to that deed that, unless he were first slain, the way out ^k did not lie open. And when he had broken the spirits of the furious men, and they complained of his excessive simplicity, he is reported to have said: Since indeed he has presumed, revering neither the glory of so great a festival (for it was the Lord's day) nor our presence, to rage so proudly, he shall not escape the Lord's vengeance. Then he sent peaceable messengers to the robber himself, to bring him to converse with him. And when he was present, he presently invites him to feast with him, sets his own portion before him, and, when he was fully refreshed, gently admonishes him of his injuries and exhorts him to correct himself for the future. These things being so done, he goes forward to another dwelling, which is called Petra Castellana ^l, whither he had purposed to go.

[24] But after the Man of God's departure, Adalardus, still remaining there, and had been divinely chastised. presently began to be tormented in his belly like a woman in labor; and, a certain monk Nortaldus being most swiftly summoned, when, the torment growing exceedingly strong, he believed he would die on the spot, he asks for the habit of holy religion, asserting that the foods consecrated by the Saint's hand were fighting with the accursed foods which he had taken from the plunder; and that by that conflict he was miserably being brought to an end most worthy of his madness. Wonderful thing! The habit being taken, at once in that same hour that intolerable pain departed. Nevertheless for almost a whole year, until he was fully at home there, he languished. From which it was made sufficiently known that the Saint had prayed for the salvation of his persecutor's soul, and had a little before threatened him with this vengeance.

ANNOTATIONS.

in the manuscript agebat*

in the manuscript largitus*

Mabill. Deum*

in the manuscript secessit*

CHAPTER III.

Injuries done to the Saint, divinely chastised: some miracles wrought for his sake.

[ ] The inhabitants of the castles who had denied the Saint lodging, At another time he was going to the same Petra Castellana, of which I have just made mention; and when a longer way still remained, and, the day being now closed, through rough and unknown places, and with storms hindering the journey, it was no counsel to go further, he ordered lodging to be sought in the castle of Barrême ^a, which was nearby. But all the barbarous men denying him lodging, he withdrew, as the case then dictated, into a certain vast barn which was at the end of the villa, meaning to make shift there. And so neither by prayers nor by price did he experience any humanity in that castle, except in one poor little widow, who out of her eggs — and whether also of bread, I do not know — brought him a blessing according to what she could. But on the morrow, when for so great inhumanity the reverend man Amelius, bishop of Senez ^b, wished to excommunicate that castle (for it belonged to his diocese), the holy Man, laboring much in those men's excuse, interceded that it should not be done; but not long after the divine vengeance followed.

[26] For that castle was a little after so consumed by a wasting fire being divinely punished by the burning of their houses, that there seemed not to remain from the burning wherewith one man could be fed. And that the Lord might show that he had done this for the vengeance of his Servant, he preserved wholly unharmed only the house of the widow who had visited him, and the barn in which he had stayed. While I was reciting this to the Brethren, one of them, Peter by name, a man of great authority in the monastery in all things, said: With me as witness, at Castrum Morarium ^c a miracle happened in this same order. We were coming to Arles ^d, and, the shades of night now beginning, we went to the lord of the said castle, who was called Carbonellus, if I remember well, asking only a house of lodging for the lord Abbot and for those who were with him; for we said that all other necessaries abounded to us plentifully. He, having asked, according to the time,

roundabout excuses, answered that he could avail us in nothing; and the other townsmen imitated him without exception.

[27] Rejected at last by the others, a certain poor little man received us in a very narrow hut. without harm to the two who had done him good. Why should I delay longer? Passing that way again a little after, I myself, wondering not a little, saw all the houses of that same town, except our little lodging, reduced to ashes. And whereas no remains at all of those things which were useful to men survived, beyond the bare ground, from the others' houses, our host rejoiced that of all his little goods nothing at all had perished in that fire. In this matter therefore this Peter reviewed with admiration both a likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ in Ysarnus, and of that great Peter in himself: for he so wondered that the town in which his Master had sought the fruit of charity in vain had been burned up, as that great Peter wondered that the fig tree in which the Lord Jesus, seeking fruit the day before, had found none, had withered ^e.

[28] Others injurious to the Saint and his monastery Then the same monk Peter added to us these things also. A certain woman, a widow of good religion, lady of the castle of Trans, out of a custom of charity, yearly brought to the monastery cloth whereof the holy Man's own garments might be made. On a certain occasion therefore, hastening to the monastery after her custom, she was passing beneath the castle of Bocco ^f, as the public road runs. Now Rainoardus, lord of that castle, because his father, having been made a monk with us, had given certain lands of his own right to the monastery, being impious against his father, was very often hurried by a beastly rage into injuries against us. He therefore, coming down with his followers to meet the woman, when she alleged the name of St. Ysarnus, saying that she was going to him and would offer him the cloth which she was then carrying, being the more vehemently provoked by this, violently carried off the horses and all that she was bringing. But she nonetheless hastened on foot to the monastery to ask the holy Man's blessing.

[29] seized by evil spirits, another But by the wondrous dispensation of almighty God, before she departed from the monastery, she sees those same robbers, most cruelly tormented by evil spirits, so that they wretchedly tore themselves, and — what is horrible even to say — were, as they say, defiled with their own excrements, dragged bound with that plunder to the feet of blessed Ysarnus. Then, all the complaints with which the tyrant had raged against the monastery being wholly abolished, at the Man of God's prayer they were most swiftly restored to perfect health. Trets ^g is a villa in which a certain reeve ^h, Redemptus by name, of a very insolent spirit, being about to prepare a banquet for his lord the viscount of Marseilles, laying his impious hands right and left wherever [*] he could on this occasion, carried off from the monastery's right the cow of one peasant. Which peasant, running to the monastery, filled the blessed Father's ears with pitiable wailings ⁱ. But on the next day Redemptus the reeve also entered the monastery to pray at the tombs of the most holy martyrs.

[30] afflicted with a dire disease of the foot. And when his prayer was made but not completed, as he was going out of the church, before St. Ysarnus, who had come out to intercede for the peasant, the wretched peasant prostrated himself at his feet. But that unhappy man, driven as he was by a diabolic spirit into fury, and bent by no reverence for the Saint, striking the peasant with his foot beneath the chin, threw him on his back: but the holy Man, saying nothing at all, having wrapped his whole head in his cowl, at once entered the church. But the unhappy Redemptus, having swiftly mounted his horse, before he could go out of the cemetery, was terribly struck by divine chastisement in his sacrilegious foot. And when many kinds of medicines applied to the pain in no way relieved it, not enduring to bear the intolerable torments longer, on the third day at last, finding no other who would do it for him, seizing an axe ^k with his own hands, he cut off the most impious foot. From which the almighty and most kind Lord most manifestly declared that to be true which he had promised to his servants, saying: He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of my eye; when he struck with such severity that most evil foot which, by striking the peasant, had touched the holy Man in his heart. But let us now leave these terrible things, and be glad in prosperous ones.

[31] The Saint, when the fish set apart for the day of the Lord's Nativity The solemnity of the Lord's Nativity was at hand, and the sea, exceedingly stirred by storms, allowed no abundance of fishing at all. But on the very Vigil a certain man, on account of his father's anniversary celebrated on that day by the Brethren, bringing a copious multitude of great fishes which he had gathered from every quarter, beyond what could be hoped for in that face of the season, raised the stewards' spirits not a little. It was at once deliberated and decreed that, as a blessing truly sent by the Lord, they should be kept for the morrow for the honor of the highest festival. Then a certain Martin, coming from the charge ^l which he governed for the festival's sake, chancing to see the fish, and hearing the decree, urbanely indeed, but yet somewhat more than had befitted a man of this name (for far distant from that great Martin, as I judge, was this Martin's speech), undertook to plead the belly's cause. Alas, he said, so great a gathering of Brethren arriving today, wearied at once by the labor of the journey and by the harshness of winter, with moreover the temptation of so many and so great fish set before them, will be defrauded, against the custom of this house, of a charitable refection! What reason is there to keep the fish for the festival's sake, when the labor of the road and hunger shut out the grace of the festival?

[32] Hearing this, the holy Man, and with a kindly affection of compassion granting the pleader's wish, set out the day before, to be cooked, orders a monk to fish in the stormy sea, summoning the stewards, orders all the fish to be cooked at once: and when they strove against it, he asserts that we ought not to be too solicitous about the morrow; especially on the Nativity of him who taught that we should take no thought for the morrow. The fish therefore being spent for the love of this faint-hearted Martin, the holy Man follows the examples of that great-hearted Martin. One of the Brethren skilled in fishing, of the same name with him, being besought with many prayers, he sends to the sea, that he may inspect the shores on every side; and explore whether anywhere by any means, even for a little, he can put out; teaching that the most merciful Jesus will not fail, and that all things are to be hoped from his bounty. Then Brother Martin, armed with the Father's blessing, while the others were celebrating the evening praises, he, so far as in him lay ready to die at once for obedience and to lay down his life for the Brethren, having gone aboard a small boat ^m, attacks the raging sea, attended by scarcely two companions.

[33] But the office ⁿ being ended, father Ysarnus after his manner seeks a secret place, and with all his heart and with much shedding of tears implores the Savior's kindness for the safety of the son exposed to danger who presently catches a great dolphin and for the refreshment of the others. Presently therefore three very great dolphins, sent by the supreme Trinity, meet Brother Martin at the very entrance. He, as worshipping one God in Trinity, strikes one with a three-pronged iron with wondrous confidence, and with one blow cuts its throat clean through; and in a wondrous manner, though such a fish, wrapped in the strongest nets and struck to death, easily scatters many ships ^o, Martin, having taken it without nets and cast it into the small boat, almost forgetful of himself, carries it to land. In which deed I would call the blessed father Ysarnus very like the great Martin; save that this Martin's dolphin surpassed the other's pike [p] not only in bulk but also in a very useful significance.

[34] For Martin's fish was caught in nets simply for Martin's own use in fresh waters, as soon as he sets out. or signifying not so much. But our dolphin, out of three meeting them together, was struck and taken, one alone, with a three-pronged iron, in a troubled sea [*], by three men, on the evening preceding the Lord's Nativity, for the common refection of the Brethren, without nets — which quite fitly signifies him who, the whole Trinity indeed cooperating, yet he alone in the evening of the world, as by three men, namely by the whole Trinity, and by a three-pronged iron, as it were by one sentence upon our threefold sin, entangled in no cords of sins, was struck while the world raged, and died, that we might be born again in him, and that all of us, as many as are brethren in one church, might be refreshed by his body [q]. So the blessed Man's wonderful fishing was both a soothing consolation of the present hardship, and a solid and pure and in a manner visible preaching of eternal delights, and both refreshed those then present once with the food of the body, and, as often as it shall be recited, will refresh posterity with the nourishment of the mind.

[35] His sanctity is wonderfully made manifest through a candle. A certain possession of the monastery is called Marignane [r], in which the Man of God, being received in lodging, was sleeping in an adjoining chamber at the entrance of the church. Now it was a night to end in the Lord's day [*]; out of reverence for which night, and at the same time for the blessed martyr Victor, in whose honor that church was consecrated, a great company of those dwelling round about was then keeping watch after the custom with their lights. A cleric therefore, to whose care that church belonged, took the candle of a certain woman then by chance absent, and set it at the head of the Man of God to burn all night [s]. And when the woman, returning from outside, had learned this from those keeping watch, blazing up with womanly heat, she said: I prepared the candle for St. Victor, not for any abbot; and, entering with hastened step and without any reverence the chamber in which the Man of God was resting, she snatched the candle: and, it being quenched by that shock, running about in vain among all the lights of the church, she could not light it.

[36] It is wonderfully made manifest. Then all who were present, moved with great wonder, terrify the wretched little woman with a great uproar and with manifold rebukes, asserting that she could not live by God's judgment, who [*] had presumed so foolishly, so shamelessly to injure a Saint of God. But that unhappy woman, having at last received counsel from the same, trembling, carried the candle back to the very place whence she had foolishly carried it away, being sufficiently punished by fear alone. Which being done, by the divine nod that same candle, all seeing it, presently began to burn as though it had not been quenched at all. In which twofold miracle I would deservedly proclaim the admirable favor of almighty God toward this Man, who so evidently preferred that a light vowed to his glorious martyr should serve this man.

[37] By water blessed by him lightnings are kept off: by water, Divine chastisement had for many continuous years miserably punished with frequent lightning the castle which is called de Mandolis [t]. Whence it came about that its inhabitants, exceedingly terrified, when the heavenly stroke raged, were compelled to implore the divine Physician. Ysnardus therefore, the lord of the castle, approached the holy Man with many supplications, that he might at least deserve to use as a remedy the water which he should have consecrated. And when he, putting forward many excuses after his manner, refused in every way, it was at last scarcely extorted from him, in a manner violently, by the unavoidable importunity of the Brethren who were with him; and the town, being sprinkled with that same water, has been to this day, by the Lord's mercy, saved from every stroke of lightning. At Marseilles a certain woman, blind for seven years, frequently prayed the holy martyrs to have mercy on her; but the holy martyrs preferred to grant the glory of the miracle to their familiar friend Ysarnus.

[38] [with which he had washed himself, blindness and pain of the sides are driven away.] For the woman heard in her sleep a voice saying to her that she should make for the monastery, and that with the water

with which father Ysarnus had washed his hands she should bathe her eyes, and would at once receive her sight. Then she, rejoicing, hastening to the monastery, reports the vision to those Brethren to whom she could speak; and they, having compassion on the woman, watch the Father carefully that they might steal some washing of his hands. But he, having perhaps already learned the matter by the spirit, as soon as he had washed, poured out the water in which he had been washed upon the ground. Nevertheless at last the most diligent watchers, having gained possession of it by a pious theft, give the woman the water she desired: and she, bathing her eyes therewith, rejoiced that she had at once fully recovered her sight. On the mount which they call Cursone the holy Father was once staying. And a certain nobleman nearby was very often most bitterly tormented by grievous pains of the sides. He, by a like theft, having obtained the water with which the Saint's hands had been washed, bathed his sides, and was thenceforth perfectly freed from all pain.

[39] And while I was recounting these things before the Brethren, The Saint multiplies a little wine: a certain Rainoardus [], venerable in the monastery for the esteem of his great sanctity, brought in what I am about to narrate, saying: I was staying, then a young lad, at the church of St. Maurice near the town of Meiresta [u] with the lord Isnardus the monk; and while we were talking of blessed Ysarnus, how he was reported to have come into those lands, behold he himself is at our doors. And we, having no provision fit for his reception, began to be vehemently troubled and anxious. Yet the table being set for the midday meal, he, kindly consoling us, sat down. We had so little [] wine that it could scarcely be shared most sparingly by three at one refection; nor was there any hope of finding more in all our neighborhood. Why say more? Trusting in the Father's blessing, we offered that little.

[40] I myself poured it out, and, greatly astonished, saw it abound most bountifully for nearly thirty men. by the water of the washing of his hands a man in fever is healed. But what is there to astonish, if he who imitated Christ in his living could imitate him also in miracles; so that, as Christ's power multiplied the loaves while they were being eaten [x], so this man's blessing, Christ cooperating, increased the wine while it was being drunk — since the Lord himself said: He that believeth in me, the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he do. Then the same Rainoardus added this also: We had a boy who, afflicted almost the whole year with most grievous fevers, was most bitterly tormented: him we gave to drink of the water with which the holy Father had washed his hands; and in that very hour, to our no small wonder, he was fully healed.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. See, if you please, St. Gregory of Tours in the book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 5.

q. Sufficiently wonderful and too far-fetched is that comparison.

r. Marignane is a village or hamlet in Provence, distinguished by a marquisate. In geographical maps it is set on the maritime lake commonly called Mer de Martigues, about three or four French miles from Marseilles. Mabillon in the Annotations observes from Antoine de Ruffi's History of the Counts of Provence, pag. 59, that Bertrannus, count of Provence, in the year 1031 gave two farms to the monastery of St. Victor for the evil which he had done in the obedience of St. Victor, which is beside the villa of Marignane.

s. Perhaps that the Saint, at whatever time he should awake, might have a light.

t. In our manuscript it is: Demandolus; but in neither way have I found this place, nor have I judged it worth while to inquire into it at greater length.

u. Pope Paschal II in the often-praised Bull names also among the possessions of the monastery of St. Victor the cell … of St. Maurice de Merresta, which he reviews in the bishopric of Riez. In our copy of the Life it is written Meirrestia.

x. See the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 14, and elsewhere.

Mabill. quæque*

Mabillon. mare*

Ms. terminata*

Ms. quod*

Ms. Reinardus*

Mabillon. tantulum*

CHAPTER IV.

The Saint's suffrage implored by the dead: his spirit of prophecy: a horse's wonderful deference toward him.

[ ] For the refreshment of two young men unjustly slain, But I shall now pass to the recording of those things which I learned from the narration of the venerable man Rainaldus ^a named above. Many things, he said, worthy of wonder can be related about the holy father Ysarnus, but I shall narrate only those at which I myself was present. There was a certain man, he says, called Pandulfus, easily surpassing his neighbors as much in power as in almost every kind of malignity. He in his house in the castle which now, from the event of that very crime, has the surname Tortorium (for before it was called the castle of Saint-Domnin ^b), unjustly broke the throats of two most illustrious young men who were expecting money from him ^c, by a fraudulent and secret hanging, and, casting their corpses into a certain vast cave, covered them. But not long after, when the most impious crime had been discovered, they were carried by the monks who were staying at the villa of Crosa ^d, out of regard for humanity, to that monastery, and buried. Some days therefore after, appearing in sleep to a certain matron dwelling not very far from that same monastery, they say: Dost thou know abbot Ysarnus? And when she answered that she had never seen him, as neither them, they say: We are those young men whom Pandulfus lately impiously strangled.

[42] But we beseech thee to intervene for us with abbot Ysarnus, who will pass this way on the third day, he celebrates the Mass which they had asked. that we who by the intervention of his charity deserved burial in his monastery may by the same charity deserve one Mass from his mouth. For this is the sentence of divine judgment passed upon us: that, although the bowels of supernal goodness are moved on account of our unjust slaying, yet, our sins hindering, we are shut out from entrance into the kingdom until he himself celebrate a Mass for us. And when the matron on the third day, as had been revealed to her, had related this, entreating the Man of God as he passed by, on behalf of the dead, he answered that he was not worthy to be able to loose the dead. Yet presently, coming to the villa of Crosa, the same woman following and we entreating, he celebrated a Mass for the absolution of the young men. Hence therefore it is given to understand how much that Man can now do with God, in whose hand, while he was still living, the Judge's own sentence declared his judgment concerning the dead to be.

[43] But to the adornment of his other virtues the spirit of prophecy also wonderfully illumined this Saint's mind; He foretells that the horse carried off by robbers which we shall evidently show if we set forth one event which the same venerable Rainaldus further related to us. I, he says, was administering the obedience which is named Lagninas ^e. At that time robbers of the aforesaid Pandulfus, rising up on every side, at once cast down a certain man of ours, returning from Castle-Duplum ^f, from his horse. In those same days the lord Abbot was staying at the villa of Crosa, to whom that man, coming in haste, sets forth with great groaning the loss of the horse carried off and the injuries received. Wherefore the lord Abbot, sending me at once with suppliant words to Pandulfus, who was some way off [*], himself asks in vain for a conference with his wife, who was then staying at Tortorium, to beg for the horse. For she, answering the Man of God with the venomous words to which she was accustomed, as befitted such a woman, cut off from him utterly, so far as in her lay, all hope of recovery. But Pandulfus, when he knew the matter, foreseeing, as I judge, that I would come, fled away by many byways, that he might not be found by me.

[44] must be restored, and their ambush against the swine: At last therefore, wearied more because I had accomplished nothing than by the labor of the journey, and drenched (for the whole

day a copious rain had worn me down), I returned to the lord Abbot. And he, refreshing me with full cheerfulness, afterward comes to my ear, as though about to say something familiar. Take comfort, he says, for wherever our horse has been led away, it will today be brought back hither to us. Nevertheless return to thy house the more hastily [*]; take heed lest greater things befall thee, and above all give order that thy swine be guarded the whole day with careful watch. So, being now certain of recovering the horse, but no less certain that not without cause had he ordered the swine to be guarded, joyful and anxious I returned at once, and appointed fitting guards for all our substance and chiefly for the swine. But what watchfulness can prevail against diabolic men, or against human devils, if I may so speak? For unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it. For the whole day the aforesaid robbers lay hidden in the neighboring wood; but when evening was now inclining, and we were almost secure and thinking of nothing less than any such thing, coming out of the wood they run up to snatch away the swine by a sudden seizure with the help of the on-coming night.

[45] [these robbers, suddenly struck blind, restore the goods and obtain pardon from the Saint,] But where human guardianship could not help, the divine was not lacking: for at once each one stood stupefied in the place where he had seized his prey, fixed like a statue. And when they asked one another with wonder why they delayed, and each urged the other to snatch the swine, they all confessed that they had been struck with a sudden blindness, and, bound by the just curse of the blessed father Ysarnus, they mutter at once that they will perish as an example to all the wicked. Then, their straits dictating and compelling, having found a wholesome counsel, having confessed their fault, they cast themselves on the ground to pray the divine clemency; they vow that they will restore the horse that very day, and that they will be more amended for the rest, if by the holy Man's merits the lights of their eyes be restored to them from heaven. Why say more? Their prayer being completed, presently, their sight being fully recovered, they hasten home in rivalry, and exchange an impious robbery for a theft of piety. For the horse which they had already handed over into the hands of that most wicked lady they carry off by a pious theft, and with all that they had taken from our aforesaid man along with it, they rush at that same hour to the blessed Man; they unfold in order the whole matter of the swine and of the blindness suddenly inflicted and removed, and, giving themselves and all theirs to his judgment, they ask pardon with humble satisfaction.

[46] with a prophecy added, which the event proved: Whom the holy Man, pardon being granted, admonishes more attentively about the amendment of their life; declaring that, if they amended, they would live prosperously, but if they were negligent, they would be punished with an infamous mark before the end of that same year. Both conditions the evident outcome of events proved: for two, being amended, passed their life prosperously; but three, returning to their vomit (for there had been five in all), before the year was completed gave to all a foul spectacle of their calamity. For one had his eyes dug out; another's feet were cut off; but the third, both punishments being joined in him, was punished with a doubled unhappiness. In that therefore he foretold that the horse should be given back that very day; that he ordered the swine to be more carefully guarded on that same day; that he declared to those same robbers a prosperous end if amended, or a sad end in that same year if unamended — the wonderful loftiness of prophetic grace is recognized.

[47] But in that the robbers, when about to snatch the swine, were struck blind, The author's note on these things. and, when humbled, were given light, we not undeservedly recall Elisha's deed, who by prayer divinely struck blind the robbers of Syria coming to seize him, and, when they were taken and humbled within Samaria, afterward fully restored their sight ^g; except that in this part it seems perhaps a greater miracle, because what Elisha obtained for his own protection, this Ysarnus obtained for the defense of his monk's little swine; and what the former, present at close quarters, sought in the crisis of the utmost necessity as a refuge of divine help, this man, far absent, merited from God in a matter not very necessary as a token of his admirable sanctity. Nor is it much to be wondered at if he so loftily had the prophets' glory in showing forth miracles who so excellently labored to attain the prophets' most holy manner of life. But all these things must be wholly reckoned to him, to him ascribed with all consideration of reason, who works in all his Saints, and judges without acceptance of persons; who knows how to dispense his good things in their own times, and at the end of the world, as of a certain very long night, though he brings forth stars rarer and duller, yet, when he judges it fitting, knows how even now for the most part to bring forth great constellations also, and sometimes the greatest morning stars.

[48] But let us come to those things which we have yet learned as needing to be narrated about the holy Man. The Saint knows hidden things; his horse carries him with wonderful deference A certain Brother noble according to the world, of the citizens of Marseilles, by name George, had professed the Regular life under him. To him the man of the Lord, when passing by chance through the cloister he had looked upon him as upon the rest, sent word through a certain man closely attached to him, that he should correct the useless thoughts which he was turning over; for what he was thinking was deadly. And he, wondering exceedingly with joy and shame, thereafter took better counsel for his own salvation, testifying that at that hour in which the Man of God passed before the Brethren he was pondering a return to the world. About the horse on which the same man of the Lord was accustomed to sit, we have learned, with nearly all Provence proclaiming it, what we shall set down. The merciful Lord had given to his exceeding frailty a horse, most strong indeed in strength and excellent for the great gentleness of its carriage. If any other approached it to mount, it stretched itself out with almost intolerable fierceness, neighing and snorting with a tossing of its whole body: but as often as it saw the holy father Ysarnus draw near, it composed itself with such meekness that it seemed of its own accord to offer its back to him who was to sit on it. But if any other chanced to sit on it, it turned wholly to rage as though indignant; but when it carried him, it showed itself like the gentlest little ass.

[49] And when the holy Man, as one who had watched almost the whole night in prayer, and caution. very often dozed, and, as happens, swayed hanging to one side as though about to fall, the horse, fearing that he would slip, bent itself, as it could, to the opposite [*] side, and in that way, so long as it perceived the Saint to be dozing, so it bore itself: and when he was awakened, presently, with body erect, it walked as none could more becomingly. And if it had to pass beneath a tree whose little branches might be thought likely to hurt the eyes of him who sat upon it, it would either go round the tree, or, if that did not avail because of the density of the wood, as often happened, would stay there motionless until it was helped by the service of those who followed; and it did the like in every doubtful passage. And sometimes it passed through the narrowest windings of the roughest crags, or unknown steps of a marshy way, beyond all hope, with such caution that you would believe it was guided by an angelic ministry. For as an angel set against Balaam, who walked ill and desired earthly things, both hindered him against his will and taught his she-ass against his folly ⁱ; so it may not absurdly be believed that the horse of Ysarnus, who walked justly and desired the fellowship of angels, was directed by an angel where the necessity of the way demanded; and was instructed how to bear itself where the Just man's harmless rest required it.

[50] The author hastens to the end of the Saint's life. But since I am not sufficient to pursue the rest, of which many things about the holy Father remain — because both a certain most grievous necessity, as you know, presses upon me, and I am pressed also by too great a narrowness of time — I shall write at least of his glorious end, for the edification of those who shall read or hear these things; and I shall relate, trusting in divine help, for the consummation of all his virtues, how, after the example of the good Master, he loved unto the end his brethren who were in the world, and how he laid down his life for them. For when through the long course of his warfare he had continually shown himself a martyr by the incredible austerity of his life and by the immense torments of fastings and vigils, he merited this too from God, whereby he might triumph with the glory of a twofold martyrdom: that in the very article of death, as the patriarch Abraham, being called, offered his son and did not slay him, so this man, being called, should offer himself to martyrdom, and, his will being ready, yet the striker failing, should rest a victor in peace. But that the reason of the whole matter may be clear, I shall first disclose what cause preceded the deed.

ANNOTATIONS.

h. Add se gerebat.

Mabill. longiusculo*

Mabill. festinatius*

Ms. oppositurum*

CHAPTER V.

The Saint's journey into Spain for ransoming the captive monks, with a happy outcome following: his return to Marseilles, his last illness and death.

[ ] The monastery of Lérins being plundered by the pagans, The pagans, breaking into the monastery of Lérins ^a, the rest being scattered, carried off many of the Brethren as captives into Spain ^b. Then the remaining Brethren, having gathered money as their means allowed, resolved to send some of themselves into Spain to ransom the captives. But what were men to do to whom all things there were unknown? They might hand themselves over with their money after the others: for concerning a return no ground of hope offered itself; but on the other hand not to help the captive Brethren seemed foreign to the manners of God's servants; while to throw oneself needlessly into danger, where there was counsel neither for helping the others nor for escaping oneself, was held very like madness. But after many waverings of mind, the reason of piety at last prevailed, and, all cares being committed to God, the part of charity became the higher. It seemed good to them therefore, since the possessions of St. Victor adjoin Spain ^c, to seek father Ysarnus' counsel, that some one

of his own, known in those parts, might be sent with them, through whom counsel might be given them both in household matters, if necessity pressed, and d some means afforded of approaching the neighboring princes, that they might namely aid the business.

[52] Then the holy Man, driven by a grievous and continual illness, and that his last, had for a long space of the year now betaken himself to his bed. But that most holy mind of his, in whose keeping the business of charity could not be endangered, in which a love strong as death burned, for whom alone, his body being now dead, he lived, groaning most bitterly for the destruction of so great a monastery and the captivity of the Brethren, promised that he himself would go, that he himself would take the matter in hand more diligently, and would undergo all things for the Brethren. Presently therefore, rising from his bed, he walked to and fro, and feigned that he had fully recovered. But when in the monastery something began to be sensed of this resolve by a certain gentle whisper [*], how great a grief straightway pierced the hearts of all who learned of it, what troops of complaints, what rivers of tears they cast forth, no one can easily unfold. For his good will could not justly be gainsaid; but they alleged that his poor body could not suffice for the accomplishing of the work: that finally a wise man presumes nothing beyond his strength, but must measure his strength to that which he undertakes; and that all things must be done with counsel.

[53] But that it was no counsel to desert the sheep committed to him, his monks vainly striving against it, and to seek others whom he would not find; and himself an exile, in the middle of the journey, without the solace of the Brethren, to die like any one of the people: and that in a matter which admits correction an error is more lightly to be borne; but that in this deed, after he himself should die, no repentance, no correction would follow: and that the captives could be ransomed without his death in many other ways; for that innumerable men had until then been freed, of whom none had been freed by his labor, much less by his death. Wherefore, since he himself certainly was not sufficient, and from this greater dangers were almost feared, and many other means seemed available for ransoming the captives, he ought to yield to better counsels, and to think of bringing help to the captives in other ways. Then he, borrowing his words from the Holy Spirit, said: I answer you by the Apostle's example. What do you, afflicting my spirit? "I make not my soul more precious than myself." For it becomes us to hear the Savior rather than you, by whose example and precept instructed I am ready not only to go into Spain for my brethren, but even to subject myself to servitude, and moreover to lay down my life.

[54] trusting in God he sets out for Spain But myself and this house, and whatever I purpose to do, I commit to be guarded and provided for not by my own prudence, but by almighty God. For he neither sleeps nor slumbers who keeps Israel; and unless he keep us, our eyes watch in vain. So finally we better guard ourselves and our own if we keep the Lord's precepts; whom to serve is not only to be guarded but even to reign. But if it should befall me to die, O happy I, if I shall have deserved to be blessed by such a death! The Lord is indeed able to free his captives without me; but if it has now pleased him through me, so much the more ought I now to join in, as I know that hitherto I have done nothing like it. Wherefore, casting all upon the Lord, let us hasten eagerly whither he calls us. And you, my bowels, my dearest sons, be strengthened in the Lord, and pray for us. Having spoken such things, he for the time restrained with great authority all the complaints of those who opposed him, and at the same time overcame the greatness of his disease — nay, death itself, now almost present — by love of a precious death.

[55] with great torments. Then, before the country should be stirred by the report, or the Brethren's outcry should rise against him again more sharply, he silently orders the beasts to be made ready at once; and, commending himself to the Lord and to the Brethren's prayers, they following with common prayer, he set out on the journey. And when, as though invited to a kingdom, he hastened to press on earlier, being exceedingly harassed by his wonted pains, he suddenly uttered such piteous cries as though he were about to give up his spirit on the spot. Then indeed his companions, setting him down on the ground, mourned with immense tears, unhappily beat their breasts, and cried out upon themselves as most cruel murderers, who obeyed him to his own death. So he was doubly tormented, both by his own calamities and continually by his men's complaints: and he, his spirit being a little revived, that he might wipe away his companions' griefs, silently swallowing within himself all his pains as best he could, calmed their spirits with pleasant words; but presently, overcome by the violence of his pains, he was compelled again and again to repeat the same. From which it is plainly shown with how great a fire of charity blazing he entered upon, held to, and completed that pilgrimage; since so many on every side murmured against it, and he none the less persevered untiring.

[56] Lying sick in the monastery of Alfalium, he is visited by princely men, But the Rhône ^e being crossed, at once the report of his coming, flying before through all the countries round about, gathered the peoples in all cities, castles, villages and villas to meet him. For all believed themselves sanctified by the sight and blessing of so holy a Man; and each counted himself most happy who deserved to receive him into lodging, or in any way to minister to him of his own means. At last with the utmost difficulty they come to a certain possession of St. Victor, Alfalium ^f by name, where in a most pleasant cave a very beautiful and quite convenient monastery has been built in honor of holy Michael the archangel. There the holy Father, now utterly worn out with exceeding sickness, took wholly to his bed. Then, the report of his coming being spread abroad, Raymond Berengar, consul of Barcelona, and his wife Elisabeth, and Gumbaldus ^g, a man of consular rank — the greatest princes, namely, of the whole region — hasten thither, offering themselves and their goods, lay open their own sins, and beg that he may become their patron with God.

[57] Whom he, edifying them much with divine discourses, at once enjoined this task of penance: by whose help and authority he has the captive monks of Lérins that by whatever just means they could, as much by the threats of their power as by the strength of their wit, both by counsel and by prayer, they should restore the captive monks to the Lord God, and should restore to the honor of the Lord the once noble monastery of Lérins, now wickedly destroyed by impious nations. And if they did this, he readily promises them from the Lord remission of their sins, if they amended themselves, and that he would pray for them with all his heart. Then, by the inspiring of him who arms with a rhinoceros' [*] horn of such power for taming the spirits of barbarians, and by such bars sets bounds to the most bitter and most turbulent sea of the nations, they offer themselves most ready for his every wish. And without delay, at once count Raymond and his wife send their envoys to the city of Denia ^h, to king Alaïus, together with a monk who should recognize the captives, that they should demand back the monks with all insistence. And that if the pagan king should scorn to give them back, they should declare that all covenants of peace would be broken, and an irreconcilable war waged by land and sea.

[58] The same likewise Gumbaldus enjoins on Agalifus, king of Tortosa ⁱ, through his messengers, together with a monk: [given back by the pagan petty kings; and, hearing that they were being carried off] for he seemed rather to correspond to Gumbaldus' power. And in these two cities all the captive monks were held. When therefore both kings saw, being more surely informed, that it would not go unpunished for them, and that they would suffer far greater losses if the matter went otherwise than was asked, yielding at last to sounder counsel, they vomit up the harmless prey, and restore the captives, not without great grief; and by hardly a lesser miracle than if sheep were snatched unharmed from the inward parts of wolves, after they had already been wholly swallowed within and chewed. Then the envoys put those recovered aboard a merchant ship laden with various wares and making for Barcelona ^k; they themselves return by the land route. And when they had announced to the holy Father the joy of the recovered Brethren, at once others follow after, to assert that the Brethren, though recovered, had at sea by the pagans' fraud been carried off, and that they were being transported [*] into Sicily ^l, and would there without any recall be sold.

[59] Then the holy Father, as though pierced through the bowels with a deadly wound, by the sailors to be sold, he prays, and announces that they will be recovered; grieved to the soul; and now destitute of all human hope, he enters the church in tears, and poured out to him from whom he had learned not to hope in vain all that the greatness of his grief brought forth in him. When therefore he had pleaded weeping before the Lord from morning until about the ninth hour, coming out with a most cheerful countenance to console the Brethren, he said: Exult in the Lord, sing and make melody to him: tell forth all his wonders. For human defenses are overcome, the counsels of princes are scattered; the enemy's cunning has prevailed for a time, that God's mighty works might be the more abundantly celebrated, and that human prudence might not ascribe all to itself. For the Lord has willed to make wonderful his mercies, and has saved those who hope in him. Let the enemies labor and rage as much as they may; for not one of our captives shall be taken away; the Lord will give them all back to us shortly. Taking up hope therefore toward the Lord, all suspend their hearts, with ear ever anxious as to when and from what quarter the promised prosperities should be announced to them.

[60] and that they, driven back into Spain by a contrary wind, Meanwhile the pagans, the captives being put aboard a swift ship ⁿ, make for Sicily with favorable winds; but when they had now been carried further off, a contrary breeze with violent blasts suddenly carried them back to Spain. And when for nine continuous days, worn out with exceeding labor, a like adversity had rolled them back after prosperous beginnings to the shores which they had left, it is reported that the pagans themselves said that either there were petitioners of the most high God in that same ship, or that elsewhere prayer was being made for those who were carried in the ship, and that they were without doubt being hindered by prayers. Meanwhile the envoys of the aforesaid princes, sent back to the said kings, grievously complain that their lords have been mocked by a most shameful fraud; and testify that, unless the captives, whithersoever carried over, wherever sold or hidden away, be brought back safe at once, the evils that would follow could be redeemed by no money, by no man's, by no subterfuge's intervention. Then they, constrained by a most grievous crisis, send at once to the ship, and order that all the captives, if by chance they have not yet crossed over, being refreshed with baths and feasts and adorned with new changes of raiment, be given back without any guile.

[61] and, being given back, he joyfully embraces them. The day of the Lord's Resurrection had dawned when a liberty despaired of was announced and given to the captives: by a worthy judgment indeed, that they who on the day of the Lord's Passion had suffered with the Lord should rejoice together also at the time of the Resurrection; and as on that same day of old Christ the Lord, offered for the human race, had brought back his captives from the lower world, death being overcome, so also now father Ysarnus, who out of love and by the example of the Lord Jesus had offered himself for his brethren, should on that very same day, by the power of the same our Lord, free his captive brethren from the dominion of hell's ministers, their fierceness being overcome. The brethren therefore being recovered, bursting out with all his heart, with all the strength of his soul, into joys and tears together, neither from their embraces

and kisses could he be satisfied; and for the deliverance of the brethren and the restoration of the ruined monastery, and because the Lord had appointed him a fit minister of these things, the holy Man rendered inexpressible thanks to almighty God.

[62] Returning sick to Marseilles in a litter, Then, bidding farewell with much giving of thanks to the aforesaid princes, when he had greatly instructed them with divine discourses, with the highest favor of all and a worthy escort, being increased as much in sickness as in merits, and now unable to ride, carried with difficulty in a bed, he made his way back to Marseilles; where, being received with unspeakable devotion both by the Brethren and by many throngs of peoples running to meet him from every side, he made such joy for all Provence as though the Lord had after very long darkness given back to the weeping earth the sun that had been taken away. Then therefore, broken both by the labor of the journey and by the trouble of his health, the victory being completed for whose desire he was held in this world, now with all his heart desiring to be dissolved and to be with Christ, with his disease driving him to the last, he began daily to be more sharply tried.

[63] [he is tormented with most grievous pains, and, most holily preparing himself for eternity,] But that he might not lack the merit of a superabounding patience also, he was then for nearly four months driven by such goads of pain that he could scarcely ever [] turn himself onto the other side except by others' hands — the divine judgment acting most kindly, that, while the best Father was restored to the sons whom for the office [] of charity he had left desolate, yet the glory of martyrdom, which was but a little wanting to his most ready will (the persecutor's fire being not avoided but overcome — since he sought death of his own accord, but death fled from him who was almost dying), might be supplied through the patience of a most bitter and very long sickness. In which space of time, running assiduously with his whole spirit into prayer, into tears, into desire of things to come, who could think, much less declare, how much he advanced, how much he grew, how perfect an edifice of all virtues he heaped up; when at every moment he most certainly felt death, no longer threatening from afar but present; and by feeling it, as a man, in some measure feared it; and by fearing it, discerned more clearly all the infirmities of his soul; and in the multitude of infirmities fled with all his strength, all his intent, all his desires, praying from the marrow, to the grace of the almighty Physician; and in prayer, contemplating the very countenance of the most merciful Jesus and all the mysteries of human salvation, was strengthened, refreshed, feasted, as though [*] he already rejoiced in the joy of his Lord, and was made firm by a most certain hope.

[64] If any wicked, shameful, criminal man had wept in penitence so for so long a space, he would be believed a saint; he dies and is honorably buried. but even the thief at his very end merited glory in one moment. How great glories then, how many crowns do we think this Saint merited — so free from crime, so filled with virtues, so scorched by so many and so great straits, of so great and so lasting a patience, most of all approved at the end — when now no ambition of earthly desire, no stain, or a very rare one, of uncleanness, no admixture of hypocrisy defiled his heavenly mind, as being in his last agony; but he now lifted himself wholly to heaven, now marvelled at the choirs of the heavenly ones, now almost leaped into life? And now the long foreseen and desired day had come, on which, about to receive in all things the rewards of his virtues, he was called to the prize of the supernal recompense.

[65] Then, the companies of his holy sons being gathered from every side, when he had animated them with sacred admonitions and with those fiery discourses to the contempt of the world and to the love of heavenly things, commending the sheep entrusted to him to the most faithful shepherd the Lord Jesus, and having received the divine Viaticum, with almost all his flesh consumed, he joyfully sent forth that most holy soul beloved of God, his disciples chanting psalms and weeping, the angels rejoicing and dancing, on the eighth of the Kalends of October, on the very same day a year after that on which he had gone out to Spain to give himself for his brethren, to the long-desired fount of eternal life, loosed from the flesh. And the year then was from the Lord's Incarnation the one thousand and forty-eighth ^o; and he was buried in a precious marble vessel [p], in the northern part of the church, where he is glorified with constant miracles by our Lord, to whom be glory, praise and dominion through the infinite ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. His epitaph carved on marble we have given at the end of that same Commentary.

Mabill. quomodo*

Mabill. susurrio*

rhinocerotis*

Mabill. transportaturi*

read umquam*

in the manuscript auxilio*

Mabillon. se*