Aunarius or Aunacharius

ON ST. AUNARIUS OR AUNACHARIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR OF AUXERRE IN THE DUCHY OF BURGUNDY,

IN THE DUCHY OF BURGUNDY

At the beginning of the VII century

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Aunarius or Aunacharius, Bishop and Conf., of Auxerre in the duchy of Burgundy (S.)

BY J. P.

§ I. The announcement of his name, corrupted in various ways, in the sacred Calendars; the judgments of more recent writers about his twofold Acts.

[ ] Hadrian Valois in the Notitia of the Gauls, page 69, treating of Autissiodurum or Autissiodorum, commonly Auxerre, a city of Gaul on the river Yonne in the duchy of Burgundy, The Saint, whose name, variously corrupted, says: You will find no name of a city worse received or more often changed by our authors; and then, various examples of various writers being adduced, he shows the truth of his assertion. The same certainly, and, as I judge at least, with better right, can be asserted about the name of the Bishop of Auxerre whose Acts fall to be illustrated on this day. Le Cointe in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, at the year 571, number 6, wove some sort of series of it as variously written, as follows: He is found called Anacharius, Aunacharius, Aunaharius, Aunaarius, Aunarius, Augarius, Anguarius, Autmarius and Autmacharius; corruptly Macarius in the Life of saint Walaric. But Le Cointe is far from having thus reviewed all the variations and corruptions of the name: for, to pass over the many which I have found in the lucubrations of the ancients and the moderns, and of which the reader will be informed by the words of writers to be recited in the course of this discussion, and to produce here only those which shrink furthest from the true spelling — in the most ancient Hieronymian Martyrology of S. Willibrord, in Florentini, at the XXXI day of July he is written Amnanus or Anenanus; in the Blume or Weissenburg one, whose variant readings from his other codices the same Florentini subjoined at the end of his Work, on the same day of the month of July Aunadiarus; and in our Sollerius at the XXV day of September, in the Brussels Auctarium of Usuard, Januarius is read, in the Lübeck-Cologne one Amancius; in the Franco-Gallic Hagiology Anianus.

[2] The true appellation, according to the common opinion today, is Aunarius or Aunacharius, must be corrected from the best monuments, whence by syncope he was called Aunarius, just as Clotacharius by syncope Clotarius. Certainly in one or other manner the Saint's name is constantly expressed in the subscriptions of the councils at which he was present, in his letters to others and in others' letters to him, and in various ancient monuments pertaining to him which Philip Labbe published in print in volume 5 of the Councils and in volumes 1 and 2 of the Manuscript Library; likewise in the Works of S. Gregory of Tours reprinted by Ruinart, and in the Deeds of the Franks of Aimoin published at Paris in the year 1603, as will be clear from the words to be alleged in their place in the course of this Commentary. There is added Usuard, purged and illustrated by our Sollerius, announcing him thus on this day: At Auxerre, of saint Aunarius, bishop and confessor. His memory is not celebrated in the genuine classical Martyrologies of Bede, Wandelbert, Rabanus, Ado or Notker, and hence the aforesaid Sollerius observes that Aunarius was first marked on this day by Usuard.

[3] is celebrated in the sacred Calendars on this That observation displeased Dominic Georgi, on account of the Adonian Martyrology which, once published by Rosweyde, he lately reprinted and revised by the help of three codices of the Vatican library, and illustrated with annotations. For he affirms that in the said three codices, as also in the Fulda Martyrology and in the Franco-Gallic Hagiology, S. Aunarius is announced today, and thus he infers: Whether he is first marked by Usuard, as Sollerius judges, we ask the opinions of the learned. For my part I greatly doubt whether, if any learned men should judge it worth the trouble to take up this cause — I doubt, I say, whether even one on that account

will pronounce against Sollerius; especially when they notice that in four very ancient manuscript codices which Mosander used, and in the three according to which Rosweyde dressed up the Adonian edition, the silence about Aunarius was so deep and so concordant that his name is not found even among those things which Mosander marked with an asterisk, or which Rosweyde threw into an Appendix as not genuine to Ado. Certainly, since Saints are much more frequently added to manuscript Martyrologies than deleted from them, Georgi will not easily persuade us that the name of S. Aunarius was rather deleted in so many codices of Mosander and Rosweyde than added in his own. Take meanwhile the announcement which Georgi gives from these: At Auxerre, the birthday and the translation of the body of saint Aunarius, bishop and confessor, whose life was notable for virtues and whose death is nonetheless adorned with signs and prodigies. The Fulda Martyrology in the same Georgi has Autissiodero, and besides designates the church in which the aforesaid translation was made, in these words: In the basilica of saint Germanus, bishop and confessor; in the rest it agrees with Georgi's three codices: it is reported a little more succinctly in the Martyrology of Auxerre in Martène, volume 6 of the Ample Collection: At Auxerre, the deposition and translation of S. Augnarius, bishop and confessor.

[4] and on other days. Twice the author of our manuscript Florarium celebrated the memory of our Saint; today in these words: At Auxerre, of S. Aunarius, bishop and confessor, a man of marvellous sanctity and magnificence; and in these at the XI day of January: At Auxerre, of S. Aunarius the bishop. But what the cause was of reporting him in the latter place I could not discover. He occurs commonly on this day in the more recent Calendars, of which I select one, today's Roman Martyrology, which has thus: At Auxerre, of saint Anacharius, bishop and confessor. For the rest, he is reported also on other days in some sufficiently ancient Calendars, as in the Hieronymian codices, or rather in their additions, at the XXXI day of July, and in the Martyrology of Auxerre at the XVI day of August: but to avoid useless repetitions I have reserved their words for §2, where I shall discuss his episcopal ordination, and for §5, where I shall inquire into the translations of his body, and especially into that which is recorded on this day in the codices of Dominic Georgi cited in the preceding number, as also in the Martyrology of Auxerre just alleged. And so I proceed to his Acts and to the elogia of the ancients about the Saint.

[5] A Life composed by an anonymous author Labbe published in volume 1 of the Manuscript Library, page 528, His twofold from a transcript of Fr. James Sirmond collated with old parchments which he had in his possession: of the same we too have three manuscript copies, yet not all equally complete. The chief one, and more in agreement with Labbe's edition, is noted as taken from the sixth volume of the Legendary of Sens; another from a manuscript of the church of Clamecy, but, many things being omitted, so divided into six parts that there is scarcely a doubt that they are the lessons of the Office once wont to be recited yearly there — for Clamecy is a town of the diocese of Auxerre; like this one, a few words excepted, is a third, transmitted to my Predecessors by Fr. Chifflet, a priest of our Society, but without any notice of the place or codex whence it was received. The Acts of S. Aunarius are also inserted into the History of the pontiffs of Auxerre in the aforesaid Labbe, page 419. But indeed many things are wanting here which are read in the anonymous biographer just mentioned, and many things also are added from ancient monuments of Auxerre which are wanting in him.

[6] To the compiling of that History, or rather of that part of it which comprises our Saint's Acts, Acts. three writers of the ninth century are said to have laboured, whom their continuator designates at page 434, where, treating of Wala, prelate of Auxerre in that same century, he speaks thus: For it was the zeal of this father of whom we speak charitably to embrace the masters of letters, and to use their conversations and counsels, and to have them share his table. Wherefore two luminaries of our college, Rainogala and Alagus, with Hericus, at once a theologian and a monk, labouring with them, set down the deeds of the prelates of this see in pages elaborated compendiously and in short clauses. Of these one is known above the rest, Hericus or Ericus, monk of S. Germanus of Auxerre, a holy man and, for those times, learned, whose Acts and chief writings we gave in Bolland's Commentary in volume IV of June at the XXIV day, on which his name is marked in the ecclesiastical tables. But that Hericus flourished in the ninth century of Christ, many things said there make beyond doubt, and thence it follows that the aforesaid Work on the deeds of the prelates of Auxerre must be referred to the same century; but whether we have this genuine and uncorrupted I should not dare to affirm, for reasons which will unfold themselves of their own accord in what follows.

[7] Of the value of both lucubrations — namely of the Life composed by the anonymous author, The differing and of the Acts which are contained in the History of the pontiffs of Auxerre — the judgment of all is not the same. Baillet in the critical table prefixed to the month of September, making no mention of the time at which they were composed, nor indicating which he judges must be preferred to the other, says in general that neither has much authority; that both are liable to various errors. Master John Lebeuf, canon and succentor of the cathedral church of Auxerre, in volume 1 of the Monuments for the Ecclesiastical and Civil History of Auxerre, published in French at Paris in the year 1743, uses the History of the pontiffs in such a way as if he believed it to be the genuine Work of the authors of the ninth century; yet he acknowledges, both in his preface and often elsewhere in the course of it, that it labours under many defects. But about the lucubration of the anonymous author he thinks as favourably as he scarcely could; especially at page 123, where, some miracles having been narrated from that same anonymous author which S. Aunarius wrought while living, he goes on thus: His pontificate, which was of thirty years and more, was commended by many other miracles, which the author of the Life pressed down in silence. For the rest, in the few things which he narrates he is quite worthy of credit, since he was a contemporary. On these things we shall afterwards observe something.

[8] opinions of more recent writers The authors of the Literary History of France, volume 5, page 541, judged that the History of the pontiffs of Auxerre published by Labbe is not the genuine Work of Hericus and his companions: Hericus, they say, had a part in the Acts of the first bishops of Auxerre, at which he laboured together with Rainogala and Alagus, canons of the cathedral church. They had carried their Work down to bishop Christian, the predecessor of Wala, not excluded — that is, down to DCCCLXXV, which is the year of his death. But their Work no longer exists as it went forth from their hands. Yet it is not doubtful that the anonymous writer who continued those Acts, published by Labbe, down to MCCLXXVII, gained fruit from their labour, even if he did not wholly transfuse it into his own History. So they: they seem to have drawn the cause of this opinion of theirs from the fact that the continuator asserts that the Deeds of the prelates were written by the three named writers of the ninth century compendiously and in short clauses; whereas nevertheless in the History which survives so great brevity does not appear in many places: certainly they adduced no other cause there.

[9] about these The same authors of the Literary History, volume 6, page 517 and following, judge no more favourably of the Life composed by the anonymous author and published by Labbe. First they pronounce absolutely that it is far from being original; then they confess that they doubted for some time whether it was the same to which Bl. Hericus and the two canons, the collectors or editors of the first part of the Deeds of the prelates, refer their readers, and which the same Hericus mentions in the History of the miracles of S. Germanus: But, they say, after we had examined that Work more attentively, we ascertained plainly that it is later than those two Works, and can belong to the century with which we are occupied, namely the tenth, of whose writers they there treat. That our reader may understand these things more clearly, it must be noted that in the Deeds of the prelates of Auxerre in Labbe, volume 1, page 420, after some deeds of S. Aunarius are narrated, these words are subjoined: By what miracles therefore he was renowned, and of what glory he was in Christ, the little Book published about his Life makes more fully known to those who desire to know. Likewise that Hericus in the same place, page 566, in the Miracles of S. Germanus has these words: But of how excellent a privilege blessed Aunarius was, the account of his deeds sufficiently and more than sufficiently declares. Hence it is clear that a little book about the Life of our Saint existed before the History of the deeds of the prelates was collected: but the aforesaid authors judge that little book to be different from the one published by Labbe. Let us now hear their reasons.

[10] opinions They say that they are persuaded of this, because the little book or Life published seems a Work pieced together out of various parts; that it is clear that the opening bears the appearance of a sermon or panegyrical discourse, and that the part which follows the episcopal ordination of S. Aunarius down to the account of the miracles has been transcribed word for word according to what is narrated in the Deeds of the prelates; that besides one need only read that account of the miracles for it to appear that it is written less correctly than the two former parts: whence it is proved that the biographer rather drew from the Deeds than the authors of the Deeds from him. On which matter, they add, we gladly revoke what is read on page 541 of our volume V, where we said that that part of the Deeds which Rainogala and Alagus, canons of the cathedral of Auxerre, arranged together with Bl. Hericus no longer subsists such as it went forth from their hands. After this they signify that they judge that, since the old Life of S. Aunarius had perished about the year 887, when the monastery of S. Germanus of Auxerre was reduced to ashes by the Northmen, for the repairing of this ruin there was afterwards composed that Life which now survives. Finally they conclude thus: Almost all the historical facts pertaining to the Life of the holy Prelate, except the miracles, are read the same in the Deeds and in Hericus's other Work about S. Germanus. Not vain, therefore, is the warning of M. Baillet: that there is not much authority in this Life of S. Aunarius. So they. Now it must be seen whether, of the two opinions about the anonymous author's lucubration so opposed, either rests on reasons solid enough for us to choose it before the other.

[11] That its author was contemporary with S. Aunarius, as M. Lebeuf supposed, are reported. I find confirmed by no argument. That author indeed says at number XI that in his own time there was surviving among the living, and discharging the office of a cleric, the man who, blind from birth, had by the merits of S. Aunarius obtained the use of his eyes; but that miracle is not of the number of those which the Saint wrought while living: since the biographer expressly says of the man born blind: Laid down at the tomb of this Saint … he deserved to receive light; which could have happened even some centuries after the Saint's death, and therefore helps nothing toward confirming M. Lebeuf's assertion: His pontificate, which was of thirty years and more, was commended by many other miracles, which

the author of the Life pressed down in silence. For the rest, in the few things which he narrates he is quite worthy of credit, since he was a contemporary. For that assertion manifestly regards especially the miracles wrought during his pontificate, some of which the aforesaid Lebeuf had set forth from the biographer. But, as I have already said, we find nothing from elsewhere to confirm it: on the contrary the same biographer toward the end at least allows us to suspect that he was more remote from the Saint's times: for, having narrated the miracles wrought after his death, he thus concludes: But even to this day divine benefits are bestowed by his merits upon all the faithful who ask with faith. Which is the proper manner of speaking of a man who wishes to indicate that things have not been interrupted or ceased after a notable interval of time.

[12] But neither do I judge that it must thence be certainly deduced that nothing in the whole lucubration was written by a contemporary of the Saint or one near his time: and are discussed, for it would be nothing new if the miracles were afterwards sewn to its earlier part, and especially those which happened in the course of time at the tomb, and hence had arisen that diversity of style which the authors of the Literary History of France observed. Certainly of whatever kind that diversity appears, and from whatever source it arose, it does not suffice for me to believe that that Work is later than the ninth century, still less than the History of the Deeds of the pontiffs of Auxerre published by Labbe. Nor does what the same authors say about the beginning of the Work, which according to them bears the appearance of a panegyrical oration, persuade me any more: for this it has in common with several ancient Lives of Saints, whose preludes, often much longer, both differ in style from the rest and contain a pious exhortation or observation of the author: yet granted that this is peculiar to it, what forbids our believing it so written before the ninth century? This certainly cannot be said, that it was transcribed from the History of the deeds or from Hericus's other Work, in which nothing of this kind is read.

[13] and at what value they are held with us Wherefore, until more solid arguments be brought forward, I for my part shall judge the anonymous author's Work older than the History, and the same as that which is alleged in the said History, and out of which the authors of the History compiled the things which they have in agreement with it. For where they leave off and, passing to the narration of other matters, refer the reader for knowledge of the miracles of S. Aunarius to the little Book published about his Life — there, with no word interposed, the biographer begins the account of the miracles, and does not interrupt it except where he records the Saint's death, the time of his see and his burial, and thus separates the miracles wrought in his lifetime from those wrought after his death: so that it agrees plainly with the indication given by the authors of the History. But that that old little Book perished in the devastation of the Northmen must not be presumed, so long as there are at hand various transcripts from various codices reporting that very Book so clearly: indeed this is so much the less to be presumed when we see other writings snatched from that same devastation — for instance, as the authors of the Literary History lay down in the second place, that very History of the deeds of the pontiffs of Auxerre, and, what is more certain, the Life of S. Germanus in verse and the Miracles in prose written by Hericus, and others, of which probably there did not exist before the said devastation so many copies as of that little Book to which, as published or often transcribed and everywhere obvious, the reader is referred. Finally the very account of the miracles, which is found in our little Book alone and makes up the greatest part of it, is no light argument for the existence of the old little Book.

[14] is set forth. But as regards the judgment of Baillet alleged, if his authority ought to have any weight here, it profits little the adversaries of the little Book and at the same time the favourers of the History of the deeds; since he pronounces equally about both Works. Indeed, if he had set forth the causes of his judgment more fully — if, I say, he had wished to assign in particular the errors of which he accuses both in general — he would have proved it more easily of the History than of the little Book of the Life. For, to pass over other things, the chronology of the History is almost everywhere faulty, and such that M. Lebeuf confesses, in volume 1, page 102, that after a long and very laborious examination he found the impossibility of reconciling it with itself: I shall give specimens in the following §. But in the little Book I have hitherto noticed one error, which could easily have proceeded from a careless copyist or an unskilled corrector, and which besides is found the same both in the History and in Hericus's Work on the Miracles of S. Germanus, where the duration of S. Aunarius's episcopate is marked: so that not on that head either can the History be judged better than the little Book. This therefore, although I do not value it as highly as we are wont when we judge it proved by solid arguments that the author was contemporary or very near to the times, I shall nevertheless give as the most ancient and best Acts of S. Aunarius which have hitherto appeared. But to it I shall also subjoin the Saint's deeds from the often-mentioned History, because, whether this exists such as it went forth from Rainogala, Alagus and Hericus, or was afterwards changed and interpolated, in this place at least it contains many things which have been diligently collected from ancient monuments, and hold forth a torch for illustrating several matters which the first biographer either set forth less clearly or passed over in silence, as will be clear from the following § §, and from the Annotations to be subjoined to both lucubrations.

§ II. The Saint's illustrious family and homeland; the time of his birth and of his entering the episcopate.

[ ] The brightness of his stock and of his parents The family and parents of our holy Prelate the Acts (for so I shall henceforth call the biographer's little Book) declare presently at the beginning in the following words: Aunarius was sprung of noble birth, so that none was found loftier among the persons of the citizens of Orleans. His father, Pastor by name, sent us a Shepherd from his stock; but his mother was called Ragnoara by her parents. The History of the pontiffs of Auxerre comprises the same in a few words, at our number 1: Aunarius, an Orleanese by nation, of his father Pastor and his mother Ragnoara … was … most noble by birth. Then, his deeds being briefly related down to his entering the episcopate, several things are subjoined which were passed over by the first biographer, and which conduce very much to illustrating his statements. And these are as follows: He (our Saint) had a full brother, Austrenus by name, pontiff of Orleans; also a nephew by his sister Agia, Lupus, a most holy man, archbishop of Sens, flashing with miracles. Hence we not only learn the Saint's chief kinsfolk, but also gain an occasion for the more easily finding the asserted brightness of his stock and the true name of his father confirmed in other ancient and trustworthy writers.

[16] The Life of S. Lupus, prelate of Sens, which we gave in volume 1 of September as faithfully and sincerely written by an ancient author, perhaps his near contemporary and contemporary, and the names of most of his kinsfolk confirms at page 256 the illustrious pedigree of that same S. Lupus and his nearness of blood to our Saint: Saint Lupus therefore, says the author, sprung from renowned parents, akin on one side to the royal blood, was born in the province of the city of Orleans neighbouring the river Loire; whose father was called Beto, his mother Austregildis by name, Aiga by her uncle's surname … her venerable brothers were prelates, Austrenus pontiff of Orleans, and Aunarius prelate of Auxerre, shining with signs of virtues: who, when they saw that the aforesaid boy loved the rule of religion and cherished the precepts of Christ, took pains to bind him to the office of the clergy. That Aunarius and Austrenus were brothers Aimoin also teaches, book 4 On the Deeds of the Franks, chapter 1, and honourably places both among the prelates who in the time of Brunhild were renowned for holiness, writing thus: But while she with her son and grandsons was governing the kingdom, in the Gauls, irradiated by the grace of divine power, there shone as luminaries Eutherius, archbishop of Lyons; Syagrius of Autun; Desiderius of Vienne; Aunarius of Auxerre with his brother Austrenus of Orleans; Lupus, archbishop of Sens; and Columbanus the abbot.

[17] Finally, that Austrenus, and consequently Aunarius too, had Pastor for father, as the Acts hand down, are demonstrated by trustworthy testimonies. S. Gregory of Tours, a contemporary writer, testifies in the History of the Franks, book 9, chapter 18; where, having related the death of Namatius, bishop of Orleans, he subjoins: Into whose chair Austrinus, formerly the son of Pastor, is substituted. Of Austrenus treat Charles Saussay in the Annals of the church of Orleans, page 141; Francis le Maire in the History of the bishops of that church; and other more recent writers. Of him too discussion has several times been raised in our Work on the occasion of other Saints in whose Acts he occurred, and by name in volume VI of August, page 90, in the Annotations to the Life of S. Syagrius, bishop of Autun; and there, because Andrew Saussay in the Catalogue of those who have no proper birthday adorns him with the title of Saint, and yet does not sufficiently prove a lawful cultus, the learned men of Orleans, or other French scholars, were asked to communicate to us anything they might have suitable for showing this more fully; but no one, so far as I know, has hitherto done so. But as regards S. Austregildis or Agia, the sister of Austrenus and Aunarius and the mother of S. Lupus of Sens, we have proved her public cultus, and, as far as the documents allowed, have discussed some of her deeds and relics in volume 1 of September, in the Appendix to the Life of her son, intending to give more in the month of October if new documents come in. I return to the Acts of S. Aunarius.

[18] He seems to have been born at Orleans Writers commonly mark the place of his birth as the city of Orleans, since in the History of the pontiffs of Auxerre he is said to be an Orleanese by nation, and in the Acts that none was loftier than he in nobility among the persons of the citizens of Orleans. The year of his birth I nowhere find expressed; nevertheless when I consider the circumstances of the persons and of the things afterwards done, I judge that it cannot more probably be fixed than about the year 540: which before I set forth, the words of the biographer must be heard, who, after reporting what I have already adduced about the Saint's parents, stock and native soil, goes on in this manner: Thus the blessed Offspring, while he passed the time of his youth under king Guntram, feeding in the fields of books, and like an unspotted lamb ruminating on the divine sayings, poured spiritual juice into his breast. Thereupon his mind is kindled to religion, called forth with fullest faith. For, the earthly king being left and his parents set aside, he was earnest with full devotion that he might abide in the heavenly kingdom with the eternal King. Then, unknown to his parents, he went to the city of Tours, with two boys accompanying him, and there at the tomb of saint Martin, the hair of his head being shorn, he changed his secular garment for a clerical habit… At the time at which these things were done, Syagrius, bishop of Autun, presided over that apostolic chair. He, hearing what had been divinely done toward the Boy, swiftly sent men to present him to his sight… And when he had been brought, receiving him with exceeding love, he instructed him with such learning and discipline that by educating him he advanced him step by step to the pontifical summit. The same things, but more briefly and only as to the substance, the authors of the History of the pontiffs of Auxerre report, and the same likewise Robert, monk of Auxerre, in his Chronology, carried from the origin of the world down to the 13th century, in which the author flourished, and published in the light by Nicolas Camuzat of Troyes about the year 1609.

[19] not long before or after the year 540; S. Guntram, son of Clotaire I king of the Franks, the kingdom of Orleans and of the Burgundians

did not enter before the year 561, nor did S. Syagrius ascend the chair of Autun long before 560; wherefore, since S. Aunarius, as the biographer has it, passed the time of his youth under king Guntram, or, as others just cited hand down, was staying as a Youth in the palace of the lord king Guntram when the desire of bidding farewell to the world came upon him, then, cleaving to their statements — to which nothing from elsewhere is opposed — his birth does not seem to me to be fixed long before the year 540, from which down to the first year of king Guntram he would have counted 20 or 21 years of age. But neither do I judge that it must be placed long after; because otherwise, when he was taken to the mitre of Auxerre, he would have lacked the age required for that dignity, namely the thirtieth year from his birth, which is absolutely prescribed for the episcopate in two councils celebrated before the middle of the sixth century, namely that of Agde and the fourth of Arles, as may be seen in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, col. [ ] and 1622. But that the Saint was exempted from this law, so recently established, must not be presumed, especially where the ancient writers insinuate it by no word, nor can any just reason or necessity be assigned from elsewhere which would make it probable.

[20] Some epoch of his birth being established, we pass presently to the episcopate, to the bishopric of Auxerre since we find nothing handed down to memory about the Saint's deeds between the one and the other, besides what is comprised in the words recited at number 18, and in which nothing presents itself demanding further discussion. The month and day on which he undertook the episcopate is indeed expressed in the often-cited Acts, but no word is added from which the year may be elicited. No more light does the History of the bishops of Auxerre bring in the Saint's elogium; but where it treats of his predecessors as bishops, it mixes in those chronological notes which cannot in any way be reconciled with historical truth. Let us give an example in Romanus and Ætherius, who immediately preceded S. Aunarius. Of the first it speaks thus: Romanus sat III years, IV days … and he was in the times of the aforesaid Pope John (the third) down to Benedict, in the reign of Justin the Younger; the city was without a bishop for six months and six days. But of the second thus: Ætherius sat nine years, VI months; he died on the VI Kalends of August… For he was in the times of Pope Benedict, in the reign of Tiberius Constantine: the city was without a bishop IV days. Benedict I, the Pontiff here designated, did not ascend the chair of S. Peter before the year 573 or the following; one or other therefore must be laid down as the last year of Romanus, bishop of Auxerre; to which if you add the six months during which after his death the said see was vacant, and the nine years and six months during which Ætherius is said to have held it, the beginning of S. Aunarius will have to be deferred to about the year 583, which is most false, since it is established from elsewhere with certainty that S. Aunarius occupied the see of Auxerre in the year 573, when he was present at the IV council of Paris, and not only subscribed to its constitution in this manner: Aunacharius, in the name of God bishop of the church of Auxerre, have subscribed to our constitution — but also to the letter of that same council to king Sigibert, as follows: Aunacharius, your humble servant, reverently greet you. See Labbe, volume 5 of the Councils, col. 920 and the two following.

[21] And so, since the chronological notes adduced in the History must be absolutely abandoned, according to better reckonings and since we cannot from other ancient monuments ascertain how long the Saint sat before the year 573, we fall back upon the opinions of more recent writers. Le Cointe in the Annals, volume 2, page 126, Henschen in volume 1 of April, page 17, in the Annotations to the Life of S. Walaric the abbot, Baillet today in our Saint, and commonly other learned men, tie the beginning of the episcopate to the year 571. And Le Cointe indeed fetches such foundation as his reckonings have from the second council of Orleans, which was celebrated in the year 533 and to which S. Eleutherius subscribed — third before S. Aunarius among the bishops of Auxerre, and the same who afterwards in the year 549 was present at and subscribed to the V of Orleans. His episcopate therefore he begins in the year 532, and, since he is said to have sat 28 years, 8 months, 9 days, carries it down to the year 561. To Eleutherius he substitutes Romanus, who after three years and some days died in the year 564 on the day before the Nones of October; Romanus's successor Ætherius he says was taken to the bishopric at the beginning of the year 565, and observes these things: How long he sat is in controversy. The History of the bishops of Auxerre attributes nine years and six months. Demochares, who published an epitome of that same History transmitted to him by James de Aula, canon of Auxerre, writes ten years and six months, because he had passed over the interpontificate of one year after the death of S. Eleutherius. Baronius assigns only six years, Severt only as many months… He held the pontificate neither for ten nor for nine years, for in the year of Christ five hundred and seventy-three Anacharius his successor subscribed to the council of Paris. Wherefore we gladly embrace the opinion of Baronius. Almost the same he repeats at the year 571, in which he lays down that Ætherius passed to God on the sixth of the Kalends of August, and that to him at last Aunarius succeeded.

[22] advanced about 571 Le Cointe's reckonings Sollerius adopted in volume III of August at the XVI day, where he tied the death of S. Eleutherius to the year 561; the same M. Lebeuf also followed both in Eleutherius and in Romanus, whose episcopate's duration he marks with these notes in the margin: From the year DLXI to DLXIV: but in some fashion he deviates from them in Ætherius, when, marking the duration of his see in this manner, likewise in the margin: From the year DLXIV to DLXXI, he presently begins the elogium thus: Ætherius, who succeeded S. Romanus, supplies no wider field of history, although he bore the episcopal burden for more than nine years. For thus he insinuates that he retains the duration of Ætherius's episcopate expressed in the History, namely of nine years and six months, which, added to the month of October of the year 564, or rather to the beginning of the following, will run beyond the year 573, the difficulty remaining which the council of Paris presents, and which Le Cointe had rightly avoided by restricting Ætherius's episcopate with Baronius to six years. I should think that from M. Lebeuf (and for that reason alone I said that he deviates in some fashion in Ætherius from Le Cointe's reckonings) — I should think, I say, that those words slipped out inadvertently: For more than nine years. This is persuaded not only by his marginal notes just cited and by his whole arrangement in the preceding bishops, but also by this very thing which he then lays down about the beginnings of S. Aunarius: He was brought, he says, to Auxerre and consecrated bishop on the feast day of S. Germanus, the XXXI of July, about the year DLXXII. Yet I do not see why he sets down the year 572 doubtfully, since from the beginning of 565 down to the month of July 571 six years are abundantly found, nor is the see read to have been vacant beyond four days. We therefore in a matter so entangled likewise embrace Le Cointe's reckonings as to the year of the consecration; but the day is set down in the ancient monuments so expressly that it admits of no controversy.

[23] on the 31st day of July. Our biographer has thus: His merits increasing, he is led, with divine miracles flashing, to the aforesaid city of Auxerre: and there, on the day before the Kalends of August, undertaking the office of the episcopate, he flourished in merits together with sanctity. That day, though most famous before, as being sacred to the birthday in heaven of S. Germanus the bishop, the chief patron of the people of Auxerre, seems nevertheless to have obtained some new splendour from the ordination of S. Aunarius. Certainly the memory of this ordination was held in such veneration among posterity that they willed it to be inscribed in the sacred Calendars. Witnesses are the ancient additions to the Hieronymian Martyrology, in which both festivities are joined on the same day. In the Lucca codex in Florentini these words are read: At Auxerre the deposition of saint Germanus, bishop and confessor. Of Aunachara the bishop, of the ordination of the bishopric. In the Epternach one: At Auxerre the deposition of Germanus the bishop, and of the lord Amnanus or Anenanus the bishop. In the Corbie one: At Auxerre, of saint Germanus, bishop and confessor: of Aunachorus the bishop, the birthday, the ordination of the bishop. A little more correctly in the manuscript of the Queen of Sweden: Of Aunarius the bishop, the birthday of the ordination of his bishopric. There is added the Calendar of the Saints of Auxerre, written in French and inserted into our manuscript codex which our Predecessors often cited under the name of George Viole: On the same day (the XXXI of July) fell the consecration of S. Aunarius, bishop of Auxerre, in the church of S. Germanus, according to the Martyrology of that same church. Hence I conjecture that that ordination was once honoured each year with some particular ecclesiastical cultus; but that this too in the course of time gradually fell away and wholly ceased, the deep silence about it in the more recent Calendars and documents bids me believe.

§ III. Some deeds of the holy Bishop; the councils at which he was present; a synod instituted by him; prayers appointed; his care that the Lives of the Saints should be written.

[ ] The Saint's brief elogium in the Acts is elucidated from elsewhere. The Saint's deeds from the beginning of his episcopate down to his happy death — except for some miracles more fully declared — the biographer has comprised in a brief elogium only, yet not so meagre that you cannot abundantly gather from it that he, laden with the most excellent gifts of mind and with exceptional virtues, filled out all the parts of a most vigilant shepherd, most loving toward his sheep and most ardent in promoting the divine glory. For presently, having narrated his taking up of the prelacy, the author, as if overwhelmed by the abundance of matter for celebrating his praises, exclaims: What shall I say of his learning? What love toward his citizens, what diligence toward his clerics, how most faithful a steward toward the poor, how great his care was toward the Saints, a mortal tongue cannot run through. There was in his face an angelic vision, in his speech a learned exposition, in his ordering of things a most bountiful grace of humanity. He refreshed all with his words; and with the salt of divine preaching he seasoned the hearts of the faithful, and with marvellous eagerness the people burned toward the worship of God, God working miracles through him, whom He had enriched and illustrated with so great and such virtues. The truth of this elogium is briefly confirmed by an author near to those times — the biographer, I say, of S. Lupus, prelate of Sens — when he calls S. Aunarius, the maternal uncle of that same Lupus, a venerable Prelate … shining with the signs of virtues: Aimoin likewise, book 4 On the Deeds of the Franks, when he reckons him among those prelates who in the time of queen Brunhild in the Gauls, irradiated by the grace of divine power, shone as luminaries. The whole text of both you have at number 16; but the truth of almost every part of that same elogium will shine forth particularly from the individual deeds which were passed over by our biographer, and which, compiled from elsewhere, I shall set forth.

[25] I take my beginning from the councils at which our Prelate was present. he was present at the 4th council of Paris and the 1st and 2nd of Mâcon First there presents itself the above-mentioned IV of Paris. That was instituted in the year 573 for public causes and the complaints of private persons, among which the chief was a contention lately arisen in the diocese of Chartres. For although Pappolus had been duly set over it as bishop, yet another, Promotus by name, rashly ordained by Ægidius, prelate of Rheims, was discharging the duties of the episcopate in Châteaudun, belonging to the same diocese. Pappolus brought his complaints to the council;

but the Fathers, and among them our Saint, adding the threat of anathema, decreed that Promotus must be deposed, and directed their constitution to the bishop of Rheims, and likewise appealed by letters to king Sigibert that he should not defend the cause of Promotus. The subscriptions which S. Aunarius subjoined both to the constitution and to the letters I gave at number 20. He was present also at the councils of Mâcon, which, by the care of king Guntram, for reforming the morals of the church, were celebrated about the years 581 and 585. The canons of the first, which he strengthened with his subscribed name thus: Aunacharius, in the name of Christ bishop of the church of Auxerre, have subscribed to our constitutions — the curious reader will find in Labbe, volume 5 of the Councils, col. 967; those of the other in the same place, col. 980 and following, with this subscription: Aunacharius, bishop of the church of Auxerre, have subscribed.

[26] and he himself instituted a diocesan synod, But there is no monument of precious antiquity which more manifestly declares our Prelate's burning desire of promoting ecclesiastical discipline, and his zeal for removing and rooting out whatever was opposed to the divine glory and to the purity of its worship, than the council, or rather diocesan synod, which he instituted in the city of Auxerre itself with seven abbots, thirty-four priests and three deacons. Its canons, which to the number of forty-five the aforesaid Labbe exhibits at col. 957 and following, I here neither transcribe nor undertake to elucidate; for that by no means pertains to our undertaking. Yet I set forth in a few words the chief points which are contained in them. By the earlier canons he aims to eliminate the traces of the old idolatry and the superstitious observances which after the reception of the Christian faith had settled there, or had gradually crept in, and by name in the celebration of festivities and their vigils: by others he prescribes the order and rite to be kept in performing the most holy sacrifice of the Mass and in administering or receiving the other Sacraments; by others he guards against the incontinence of clerics and monks, cuts off occasions of offending and decrees penalties for offenders; by others he forbids incestuous marriages, by others intercourse with the excommunicated, etc.; and last of all he enjoins the observance of this synod under pain of an excommunication to last for a year.

[27] which some place earlier, others later; For the rest, no mark has been added to this synod from which we might learn the year in which it was celebrated: hence the learned have gone off into various opinions. Sirmond sets forth his own in the Notes on that synod, number 1: We, he says, because it seemed likely that it was held at the beginning of his episcopate, thought it better to place it a little after the IV council of Paris, at which he (Aunacharius) had been present, than to throw it back to the year of Christ DXC, as has pleased some. But those act more absurdly who place it in the year DCXIV, since it is ascertained that Aunacharius did not prolong his life to those times. Labbe assented to Sirmond, and, as I shall presently show, Mabillon too, fixing the synod about the year 578. On the contrary Severinus Binius, likewise in the Notes on it, writes first at letter a: Several of the things which had been established in the II council of Mâcon, at which Aunacharius himself was present and subscribed in the sixth place, are found here likewise repeated. Then, resuming the same matter at letter c, he says: That this synod was held a little after the II council of Mâcon is gathered from this indication, that Aunacharius was present at both, and that what had been sanctioned in that second of Mâcon by the common consent of the Fathers he made known to his subjects by this diocesan synod. For a like cause Le Cointe referred it to the year 586, namely the next after the celebration of the second of Mâcon; Baronius to 590; but Pagi in the Critique, on the aforesaid opinions of Sirmond and Le Cointe, which he says rest on slight conjectures, pronounces that we must not depart from Baronius. To the same Mabillon seemed to incline in volume 1 of the Benedictine Annals, page 47, treating of Winebaud the abbot, and saying: He subscribed to the synod of Auxerre under Aunarius in the year five hundred and ninety and upwards, as we shall see in what follows. But he changed his opinion in the same volume, page 171, where he openly says that that synod was celebrated in the year 578.

[28] This author alleges no cause for his changed opinion; we, for the reasons here adduced, nor do Sirmond and Labbe set forth their conjectures, from which they judged that the synod must be referred to the beginnings of Aunarius's episcopate; but these will perhaps manifest themselves when we have briefly examined the reasons of Binius and Le Cointe, and have shown that they are not, in our judgment, such as to make almost certain the opinion of those who place the synod of Auxerre later in time than the second of Mâcon, as it lately seemed to someone. It is true, then, that many things sanctioned in the second of Mâcon are found also in that of Auxerre; nor do I doubt that our Saint made the canons of Mâcon known to his subjects — and not merely some, but absolutely all: since in the Preface to the said canons the Metropolitans addressed the other fathers of the council thus: With God's help, by common deliberation each of the things which are necessary shall be defined by us. This we urge upon your whole brotherhood, that those things which, at the dictation of the Holy Spirit, shall be determined through the mouths of us all, may be made known through all the churches, so that each one may learn without any excuse what he ought to observe.

[29] I do not doubt, I say, that our Saint, being a most observant man, refer it to the beginnings of his episcopate. on returning into his own diocese committed that counsel to execution at the first opportunity; but I do not see how it follows that this was done in the synod of Auxerre with which we are dealing, because some canons agree with one another. For when I consider the words of the preface just cited and turn over the canons of the council of Auxerre, I do not sufficiently grasp why the Saint should have mixed only some of the canons of the council of Mâcon with his own and passed over the rest, and those very notable ones — such as the fifth, by which under threat of anathema tithes are ordered to be paid to the clergy; the eighth, by which asylum is decreed to those who flee to the churches; the eleventh, by which hospitality is commended with this clause: Let this statute of our humbleness be preached in the ears of all Christians; the twelfth, by which it is forbidden that judges should handle the causes of orphans and widows without the bishop being forewarned, or should determine them without him or the archdeacon or some priest of his assisting, and excommunication is threatened against those persons who inflict injury or transgress that determination; the fourteenth, by which likewise under excommunication it is provided that the powerful shall not invade others' property and by force cast out the wretched from their own fields and houses; finally the fifteenth, by which the honour to be shown to clerics by laymen is prescribed.

[30] It would certainly have been worth the trouble — not to say, in view of the metropolitans' counsel, necessary — to insert into those of Auxerre the canons already mentioned as much as the others, since both had been composed by the Saint himself and by all the bishops of the Gauls, in order that they might be made known through all the churches, and that each one might learn without excuse what he ought to observe. But since this was not done, the opinion of Sirmond and Labbe pleases me better, who refer the synod of Auxerre to the beginnings of S. Aunarius's episcopate; and as regards the agreement of certain canons, what forbids our believing that some statutes of the Saint for his particular diocese were afterwards adopted by the Fathers of Mâcon, as worthy to be decreed for observance throughout all the churches of the Gauls? For thus nothing is detracted from the honour of the Fathers of Mâcon, and no little is added to the glory of our holy Prelate. There is another thing too which moves me to prefer this opinion. For according to it the Saint laboured at the very beginning to root out in his diocese the remnants of gentile superstitions and vain observances, against which he passed the first, third, fourth and fifth canons; whereas according to the opposite opinion he would have deferred this to the year 586 or 590, the fifteenth or nineteenth from the beginning of his episcopate, which agrees less with his burning zeal for promoting the divine glory.

[31] Prayers and duties of piety Another monument, which commends his piety and pastoral solicitude, the compilers of the History of the bishops of Auxerre have preserved for us; found, as they say, in the ancient canons, and strengthened in the highest degree by the counsel and authority of the most Christian king Guntram. It is divided into three parts: in the first, and that most worthy of note, the Saint prescribes an order according to which on each day through the year Rogations or litanies should be held in some church of his diocese; in the second part he determines the time at which on Lord's days the Vigils or nocturnal office should be held; in the third he designates those by whom the said Vigils should be celebrated on each day of the week in the basilica of S. Stephen. There is no doubt that occasion for drawing up that document — which in the Acts to be printed in the second place we shall give entire and illustrated with Annotations — was given by an impending calamity, or one already then at least pressing on the neighbouring peoples; and that, in order to avert it and to appease the wrath of the Almighty, he appointed those public prayers. The compilers of the History just mentioned say only in general that he enjoined them for the protection of the flock committed to him by the Lord; George Viole, on the occasion of a contagious plague raging fiercely in his time.

[32] in a public calamity But not even so can one conjecture with certainty to what year the document pertains; since at various times under the episcopate of S. Aunarius plague raged in the Gauls, and by name in the 5th year of king Childebert II, which according to Le Cointe's and others' reckonings coincides with the year of Christ 580; when, on the testimony of S. Gregory of Tours, book 5, chapter 35, of the History of the Franks, after various prodigies narrated in the preceding chapter, a most grievous plague followed. For … a dysenteric disease seized upon almost all the Gauls. Likewise in the 7th year of Childebert, of Christ 582, on the testimony of the same Gregory, book 6, chapter 14, where, various prodigies seen again throughout the Gauls being related, he subjoins: A great plague therefore was among the people in that year: various malignant sicknesses, with pustules and blisters, which afflicted much of the people with death. In the year 588 also, of which the aforesaid Gregory writes the following, book 9, chapter 21: Then it was reported that Marseilles was being greatly devastated by the groin-plague, and that this disease had been swiftly spread as far as a village of Lyons named Octavum. But the king (Guntram), like a good priest, providing remedies by which he might heal the scars of the sinning multitude, ordered all the people to assemble at church and Rogations to be celebrated with the highest devotion, and nothing else to be taken for food except barley bread with pure water, and he bids all to be present earnestly at the Vigils; which at that time was so done.

[33] he appoints. It has seemed good to transcribe the whole words here, because, compared with what we have said above about the document of S. Aunarius, strengthened by the authority of S. Guntram the king, and about the Rogations appointed by it and the Vigils prescribed, they suggest at least a probable conjecture that both belong to this same time. Whatever the case, I cannot assent to M. Lebeuf, volume 1 of the Monuments of the History of Auxerre, page 116, who sets forth the said document in French and adds the following note in the margin: He (S. Aunarius) may not have made that regulation until about the year DXCVI; in French: Il peut n'avoir fait ce reglement, que vers l'an 596. For, to pass over other things, as the compilers of the History of the bishops of Auxerre indicate, and M. Lebeuf does not deny, the document

or constitution was strengthened by his authority by S. Guntram the king, who ceased to live in the year 593. But perhaps into the marginal note recited an error of the pen or of the press has crept.

[34] To the virtues hitherto mentioned he added piety toward the Saints, He takes care that the Lives of the saints be written; and zeal to instil the same into the hearts of his subjects together with a desire of imitating their examples. These things we gather from his letter to Stephen the African priest, in which he signifies that he had already then arranged, or at least wished to arrange, the Lives of certain Saints, and asks Stephen that he himself would write the Acts of two bishops of Auxerre — namely of saint Germanus in verse, and of saint Amator in prose. That letter, as also Stephen's reply, the several times cited compilers recite, and S. Hericus the monk inserted the same into the dedicatory letter to Charles the Bald prefixed to the Acts of S. Germanus among us in volume VII of July, page 222, at the same time insinuating in what manner and by whom they were found, as follows: Lothar of divine memory, the son of your majesty, a boy in years, a philosopher in mind, I frankly profess to have been, by the native quality of his mind and by the riches of his skill (that I may yield to you alone), precious above the other mortals of his age. He, because by your disposition he had been commended, devout to God, to blessed Germanus for education, had conceived so great devotion toward the Saint, so great ardour toward the place, that livid death may deservedly be thought to have grudged us his life. And since the boy was of divine talent, and in the highest degree zealous for the knowledge of things, it happened that on one of those days, searching the hidden parts of a certain book, he lighted upon two letters: in one of them the most holy Aunarius, sixth bishop of Auxerre after blessed Germanus, sued with prayers to Stephen the African priest that he would arrange the Life of that same most holy father of ours Germanus in a metrical manner: in the other the same Stephen signified by rescript that he would obey the aforesaid Pontiff. Whose form of letters I judged it best to insert here too, that the reason to be insinuated to royal ears may be able to struggle free from every scruple of ambiguity.

[35] The letter of bishop Aunarius to Stephen the African priest: “To my most beloved and most loving brother, his letter bearing on this is given, joined to me by a bond of inward charity, Stephen the priest, Aunarius by the grace of God bishop, eternal salvation in the Lord. The prudence of thy learning, approved to us by many trials, has compelled us to lay a certain imperious little burden upon thy shoulders; but one which shall be to thee not a burden but an honour: nor one which presses down with unjust weight, but rather one which lifts up even to heaven. It is known to thee, dearest brother, what is the diversity of human minds, and how not only the empty crowd but also the whole nobility is split into contrary pursuits. And some indeed are delighted with a prose style, but some confess that they are pleased with measures or rhythms and the singing of verses. Therefore, that I might meet the wishes of all, and that none might be cheated of his desire, it pleased me to write some Lives of the most blessed Professors of the faith in free foot, but to arrange some fettered by metrical law. For which reason I beseech the friendship of thy love which is one with me, that thou cease not to change into the quality of verses the Life of the most blessed bishop Germanus: but that thou write that of saint Amator in prose measure, so that, made followers of the apostolic preaching, we may become all things to all men, and owe nothing to anyone, save that we love one another. May the divine mercy guard your charity, undivided from me, venerable brother.”

[36] and the reply to it; The rescript of the aforesaid priest: “To the most blessed lord and one adorned with apostolic mitres, my spiritual father, Aunarius the bishop, Stephen, servant of all the servants of Christ. Having run through the letters of your apostleship, I have approved more clearly than the light whither the ardour of your holy desire reaches with the highest alacrity. It is then the purpose of your devotion that the noble acts of the flourishing lives of those most renowned men Germanus and Amator be written; but let the intention of your most charming path be directed toward those who can shed light upon the lights of their virtues with equal utterances. But I, whose sluggish talent grows torpid with a twofold stiffness, and whose stammering tongue, hindered amid the hoarse courses of my throat by a squalid mould, does not speak but rather hisses — how shall I be able to set forth in polished speech the divinely inspired gifts of most holy men, I who cannot even explain private affairs finished by human chance? To ridicule (unless I am mistaken) inexplicable, and to mockery, does anyone deliver himself who takes up a burden beyond the possibility of his powers. Will not bold rashness ruin the pursuers of wild beasts, if a less deceitful skill has not formed them? Never will a raw recruit bear the memorials of victory painted on his shield, unless the learned examples of a veteran have instructed him. Never either will a bird cut safely the open path of the air, if a feathered mother has not been its guide before. He will assuredly lie cut down by the dashing of the waves, whoever, trusting to the hire of his own impudence, sets his untaught right hand to the tiller of a ship. Thus each one is cut by the hook of inexperience in a different way, if he be not at all helped by the favours of the learned. Therefore, most blessed Man, I ask that the summit of your headship lay upon me those things which it does not doubt that I can readily accomplish. Yet if in this work also you bear with equanimity whatever a rustic garrulity shall have set down inelegantly or without wit, I shall approach it and shall do what fatherly authority commands and bids. Fare well for a long time, my Lord ever, and apostolic Father.” Thus far from the aforesaid dedicatory letter of Hericus.

[37] That Lothar, whom in the words preceding the letters of Aunarius and Stephen he so greatly praises, and who had been handed over by his father Charles the Bald to the monks of S. Germanus for education, and some things pertaining to the same are observed. and afterwards appointed abbot, was snatched from the living about the year 865, in the first flower of his age, as the words of the same Hericus abundantly indicate: but an error lurks in them, when S. Aunarius is called the sixth bishop of Auxerre after blessed Germanus. For in the History of the bishops of Auxerre and commonly in other Catalogues S. Germanus is set down as the seventh bishop of that see, and S. Aunarius only the nineteenth; yet I do not doubt that that error must be attributed solely to the negligence or unskilfulness of copyists, since Hericus himself laboured at putting together the said History. To the same copyists we ascribe also the diversity of writing which occurs in the letters in Labbe in the History just mentioned, and among us in volume VII of July, whence I have taken them, the chief variant readings being noted, however, so far as the margin conveniently allowed. Further, whether the Saint carried into execution what he indicated was his purpose, saying, It has pleased me to write some Lives of the most blessed Professors in free foot, etc., is unascertained by us, since no Life has hitherto appeared with him as author. But Stephen the priest, whom some judge to have been surnamed African because he had come from Africa into the Gauls, or, as M. Lebeuf suspects, because he was perhaps sprung from the once illustrious family of the Africani at Auxerre, is commonly believed the author of the Life of S. Amator published among us in volume 1 of May, page 52. Probably he also obeyed the other desire of our Prelate, and adorned in verse the Life of S. Germanus composed in prose by Constantius the priest; but his Work had already perished in the ninth century, on the testimony of Hericus, who undertook that labour anew and accomplished it in six books. These you have in our Work, volume VII of July, subjoined to the Life written by Constantius.

* elsewhere dispensatione

* elsewhere Confessorum

* elsewhere impeditus digerere

* elsewhere afflatibus inspicere

* elsewhere congesta

* elsewhere fare well for a long time, Lord Father.

§ IV. Saints imbued by Aunarius with ecclesiastical discipline; the Letters of Pope Pelagius II sent to him.

[ ] He instructed S. Lupus, and received S. Walaric Not only was S. Aunarius solicitous to promote on earth the glory and veneration of the Saints triumphing in heaven; he also laboured, and by the examples of his virtues and his pious instructions happily brought it about, that others warring here with him were advanced to a like degree of sanctity. Among them in the first place S. Lupus seems to be mentioned, his nephew, as we said above, by his sister S. Austregildis, who for his piety and exceptional gifts of mind was raised to the mitre of Sens, and after death obtained a notable cultus in the church. His Acts have been illustrated in volume 1 of September; but the words from which we are taught S. Aunarius's care for confirming and establishing his sanctity in youth I have recited here at number 16. To Lupus we join S. Walaric, first abbot of Leuconay in Picardy, whose Acts, first written by abbot Ragimbert and afterwards polished by another monk, my Predecessors gave in volume 1 of April, page 17, where for our present purpose these words are read at number 4: His (S. Walaric's) mind, ever ascending to loftier heights and to nobler capacities, began to seek pilgrimage for the love of God, and to forsake his country and his parents. Then he went on to the monastery of the once blessed prelate Aunacharius, bishop of Auxerre, which is built in the suburb of that city in a certain pleasure-garden, and there he was kindly received by the aforesaid Pontiff. And so for a very long time he led there on earth a heavenly life in the strictest fasts and prayers and vigils. Thence S. Walaric set out for the monastery of Luxeuil, which about 590 S. Columbanus had erected. That departure Mabillon places about the year 594, but Le Cointe about the beginnings of the building of the monastery; according to which chronological arrangement we probably place that same Saint's coming to S. Aunarius about 580, since he is said to have led a life with him for a very long time.

[39] But what is that monastery, marked by the biographer just cited with the name of S. Aunacharius? into a monastery, which is more commonly believed Le Cointe says that this is not known; M. Lebeuf thinks it none other than the monastery once built by S. Germanus and dedicated to S. Cosmas, and afterwards called that of S. Marianus, which was situated near the walls of the city; For if, he says, S. Aunarius had founded another, the biographers would not have passed over in silence the goods assigned to it by the holy founder, since they record only the goods with which he enriched the churches of S. Stephen and S. Germanus. On the contrary George Viole in our manuscript codex contends, on almost the same grounds, that the abbey of S. Germanus itself must be understood. Having first reported the words of the biographer of S. Walaric, he goes on in nearly this manner in French: This can be understood only of the monastery of S. Germanus, on which S. Aunarius conferred many goods, and in which at last he wished to be buried, as his Life relates, inserted in the Work on the bishops of Auxerre. For the abbey of S. Germanus, before on that side the city was enlarged and encircled with walls by Peter count of Nevers (at the close of the 12th century), was situated at the extreme part of the suburb. But if S. Aunarius had founded another in another place, he would not have been unmindful of it in his testament, and would probably have chosen his burial in it, not in the church of S. Germanus, to which alone and to the cathedral church he granted ample goods of his patrimony.

[40] to have been that of S. Germanus; For the abbey of S. Germanus Mabillon too stood,

volume 1 of the Benedictine Annals, page 47, saying: The same man (S. Aunarius), being now bishop, admitted into the monastery of saint Germanus Walaric, afterwards to be a holy abbot of Leuconay: and again at page 173, where he takes up the words of the biographer of S. Walaric thus: This must be understood of the monastery of saint Germanus, whose basilica Aunacharius, on the testimony of Hericus the monk, enriched with magnificent estates … and in the same place he was buried at the feet of saint Germanus. Certainly, since both monasteries at that time were situated in the suburb of the city, the reasons adduced favour the monastery of S. Germanus, and present at least some claim why this rather than the other could have been called by the biographer of S. Walaric the monastery of S. Aunacharius. Hence the aforesaid Viole — or whoever else was the author of our codex — extends his conjectures more widely: for since from no ancient monument can it be certainly assigned when religious of the Order of S. Benedict began to inhabit the said monastery of S. Germanus, I judged it lawful for me, he says, in a matter so difficult, to bring forth my own opinion, … by showing the curious reader that S. Aunarius, the XIX bishop of Auxerre, sprung of royal blood, must be held the first author of the change made in the church of S. Germanus by the introduction of the Order of S. Benedict, having carried out that pious work not only by his authority but also by immense bounties and most ample donations which he bestowed on the building of the new monastery, on the adorning of the church of that place, and on the increase of the revenues destined for the worship of the altars and for the support of the servants of God. These things he says almost word for word in French, presently appealing, for the likelihood or probability of his opinion, to those very words of the Life of S. Walaric.

[41] yet he does not seem to have been its abbot; From a like conjecture perhaps some have handed down that our Saint was at some time abbot of that same monastery, and among them probably Viole himself; for the Sainte-Marthes in volume 3 of Christian Gaul, page 477, giving a series of the abbots by the kindness, as they say, of the reverend father dom George Viole, priest of the Congregation of saint Maurus, from his own Commentaries on the affairs of Auxerre, place in the first place S. Aunarius, who was also bishop of Auxerre. But Mabillon, cited in the preceding number at page 47, acquiesces in neither conjecture; the first he tacitly rejects in these words: From the erection by holy Clotilda of the basilica of blessed Germanus, monks have occupied that place down to our own time, in an unbroken series: but who was the first abbot of the place is uncertain. The second too he indirectly attacks in these words: The published indexes indeed set forth Aunarius or Aunacharius, whom they hand down to have been a monk and an abbot before he obtained the bishopric of Auxerre: but of his abbatial dignity there is deep silence in his Life in Labbe, where he is only declared to have "changed his secular garment for a clerical habit, the hair of his head being shorn," at the tomb of saint Martin, bishop of Tours. To Le Cointe likewise he seemed to be struck out of the catalogue of abbots, because he is not so exhibited in the History of the bishops of Auxerre, although the author records that very many were made bishops of Auxerre from being abbots of saint Germanus. Finally M. Lebeuf writes in such a manner that, even if our Saint were so exhibited in the History, he does not seem likely to have believed that he was an abbot in the strict sense of the name; since he altogether doubts whether at that time there were monks at S. Germanus. For in volume 1, page 135, illustrating the Acts of S. Palladius, who in the 7th century, being abbot of the monastery of S. Germanus, as is expressly read in the History, was taken to the episcopate, he says: Since it is not certain that there was then a monastery of monks in the sense which was afterwards attached to that name, it is altogether credible that Palladius as abbot governed a secular clergy. And thus he signifies that he opposes not only Viole's conjectures but also Mabillon's opinion about the beginnings of the said abbey. For my part, content to have reported the things which bear on S. Aunarius — whom nevertheless I do not think to have been an abbot in the strict sense of the name — I remit the further discussion of this question to those whose care it is to investigate the beginnings of the monasteries of Gaul and to exhibit a series of the abbots.

[42] For some time also S. Austregisilus was subject to our Saint's discipline, he had also as a disciple Austregisilus, afterwards prelate of Bourges, whose Acts have been illustrated in volume V of May at the XX day. He, as a contemporary author narrates more fully, living at the court of king Guntram, was charged by another courtier with a false crime; but, being cleared of it by the protection of divine grace, he began — the biographer's words are — to advance more attentively in the love and affection of God in good works, and eagerly to desire the burden of the clergy, but he hesitated to ask the king for this. There was then in the king's household, among the other senators, a most excellent man, Ætherius by name, a most prudent man endowed with singular caution, to whom the king above all disclosed all the secrets of his deliberation: who was then worthy of the episcopate, and was afterwards ordained bishop of Lyons, that most noble city of Gaul, and who loved the aforesaid servant of God in a singular manner: whom Austregisilus asked to seek by the king's permission that he should be allowed to come to the burden of the clergy: and he suggested it and obtained it. Having received letters, he went on to the city of Auxerre, and there by Bl. Aunacharius the bishop, his hair being cut, was made a cleric and ordained subdeacon. Returning thence he came to the aforesaid Ætherius: and he, having now received the bishopric, received him most kindly with unspeakable joy, and ordained him priest and abbot of the basilica of Bl. Nicetius, bishop and confessor.

[43] According to these things, which for this very reason I have described somewhat more fully, S. Austregisilus seems to have stayed at Auxerre for no very short time: and ordained him subdeacon. since he went away to S. Aunarius while Ætherius was living at court among the royal senators, and returned only to him when he was already then set over the bishopric of Lyons. Nevertheless Philip Labbe in volume 2 of the Library, page 363, gives from an old manuscript parchment codex of the collegiate church of S. Austregisilus de Castro in the suburb of the city of Bourges an Elogium of that same Saint, formerly carved on his marble tomb, in which that stay seems in some fashion to be shortened. The words are these: It came into his (Austregisilus's) mind that the burden of the clergy ought to be undertaken; which that it might be done, he obtained by the prayers of a certain most noble cleric, Ætherius by name, to whom the king above all disclosed all the secrets of his deliberation, and who sent him to Bl. Aunarius, bishop of Auxerre, that by his holy hands the hair of his head might be laid aside. And he both fulfilled in this the wish of the friend who asked, and moreover promoted him to the office of the diaconate. Being made a cleric, therefore, he straightway returned to the king. Whom, when the aforesaid Ætherius saw, he at once asked of the king that he might be committed to him. He himself had already obtained from the prince the see of the church of Lyons, etc. By which it is hinted that S. Austregisilus remained with our Saint no longer an interval of time than was required to render him fit for receiving the diaconate, or subdiaconate, as the biographer has it — to whom, as a contemporary, the greater authority belongs, and from whom perhaps the recited Elogium, with some words changed here and there, was taken. But when these things happened may at least broadly be gathered from the beginnings of Ætherius's episcopate, at which Austregisilus returned to him, and which are commonly fixed between the year 585, in which Priscus his predecessor was present at the second council of Mâcon, and 589, in which he himself as bishop of Lyons subscribed to the rescript of the bishops in S. Gregory of Tours, book 9 of the History, chapter 41. See our Work, volume VI of August, page 91 and following, where his cultus has been proved and his deeds collected.

[44] Great was his authority with his fellow-bishops For the rest, the rescript just mentioned pertains to our Saint in so far as it was drawn up also in his name and by his authority. The occasion was a grave scandal which had arisen in a monastery of Poitiers, with Chrodield, once the daughter of king Charibert, as its author and leader. For she, planning to cast her abbess from her place and to mount it herself, went out of the monastery with many other nuns whom she had drawn to her side, and stirred up such tumults that, when she obeyed no admonitions, and indeed defended herself with a band of wicked men gathered together, Gundegisilus of Bordeaux and three other prelates struck her with anathema together with her rebellious companions. Their sentence, and the injuries inflicted upon them for that reason by wicked men, they signified by letters to ten bishops then gathered at the court of king Guntram; and these ratified the sentence by their rescript, whose beginning is this: To their lords ever, and most worthy of an apostolic see, Gundegisilus, Nicasius (of Angoulême) and Saffaricus (of Périgueux; the name of the fourth, namely of Maroveus of Poitiers, is not expressed), Ætherius, Syagrius, Aunacharius, etc. See the rest in the aforesaid Gregory of Tours.

[45] and with the king; this Pope Pelagius II What has hitherto been said sufficiently persuades that the sanctity and prudence of our Prelate were held in great esteem both among his colleagues the bishops of Gaul and among princes, especially king Guntram; but that this very thing was altogether the persuasion of Pelagius II, the Roman Pontiff, the letters testify of which we must now treat. That at least two were in their hands the compilers of the History of the bishops of Auxerre indicate: There exist also letters of Pope Pelagius to that same most blessed Pontiff, of which one, darkened by excessive age, we could by no means fully extract from the authentic books: but the other we judged worthy to be inserted into this Work. Yet our Labbe brings forward two in volume 5 of the Councils; the first at col. 939, the other at col. 954. The latter is taken from the aforesaid History; the former is probably the same which others could not read, either taken from another codex or transcribed by a more skilful hand: whatever the case, it is both earlier in time and, on account of the matter contained in it, more worthy of record. It runs thus: To his most beloved brother Aunarius, Pelagius bishop of the city of Rome. We have read over the praiseworthy desires of your charity, in which you signify that you had wished to come to us, had not a movement of the heathen stood in the way. For although spiritually we are both together and ever one in the Lord, yet we find that both the older fathers and the Apostles themselves sought bodily presences.

[46] But while you were setting forth your desires and the causes by which you were hindered, acknowledged, we wondered that you had less attended to that which would meet those very excuses. For if you judge this city venerable to the world, if you proclaim that the reins of governing all the churches belong to the peace of the Apostolic See, why do you not also groan with the compassion of charity over our tribulations and temporal straits? Knowing that it is commanded us by a divine mouth through the Apostle that we love one another, that we bear one another's burdens, that as often as any of the brethren is burned, we be burned: while almost in your sight so much innocent blood is shed, sacred altars are so violated, and the Catholic faith is so insulted by idolaters. We too know that these temporal scourges are for probation, and, as we trust from the heavenly mercy, are profitable, and that our Lord, as is written by you, soon gives joy out of tribulation: because those who act wickedly shall be exterminated, and the enemies of God, as soon as they shall be exalted, shall fail like smoke, and the nations shall generally perish from His land. Wherefore it had become you, who

there you are members of the Catholic Church, joined into one body under the governance of one head, that you should with all the strength you have run together for our peace and quiet, for the sake of the very unity of the Holy Spirit.

[47] For we do not believe it idle, nor arranged without great wonder at the divine providence, in the letters, that your kings are like the Roman empire in the confession of the orthodox faith — save that it might furnish neighbors and helpers to this city, from which that faith had taken its origin, or indeed to all Italy. Beware therefore, dearest Brother, lest, while the power of helping us has been given to your kings from heaven, the lightness of your charity toward us be convicted, seeing that you either neglect or put off persuading them of such things — men so devoted, both in faith and in counsel, to your priesthood. But the sacred relics, which both your charity and our most glorious son asked to have sent, we have transmitted along with the sanctification that clings to them. On which account we nonetheless admonish you to hasten, so far as it is possible for you, that the temples of those whose power you seek be freed from the pollution of the heathen; and that you most urgently persuade your kings to hasten to separate themselves, by a wholesome provision, from friendship and alliance with that most abominable enemy, the Lombards. Lest, when the time of vengeance upon them shall have come — as we trust by the divine mercy it will come swiftly — they too be found sharers in it: for it is written that not only those who do such things, but also those who consent to the doers, are to be punished. May God keep you unharmed, dearest Brother. Given on the III Nones of October, in the reign of the lord Tiberius Augustus at Constantinople, in the seventh year.

[48] This letter, which according to some was written in the year 580, in which he replies to a now lost according to others in 581, not only clearly indicates that Aunarius had earlier sent a letter to the Pontiff, but is also so composed as to set before our eyes at least the chief points contained in that now lost letter. And first indeed the Saint declared his desire and purpose of going to Rome, both that he might address the Pontiff face to face, and that he might see the city venerable to the whole world and the governess of all the churches. But he said that he had been prevented from this purpose by the Lombards, who not so long before — that is, at the very time when Pelagius had been raised to the Pontificate — had besieged Rome, and, roaming over all Italy, had thereafter held everything in hostility. To these he joined some pious reasons by which he might rouse the Pontiff to bear those calamities bravely. From this first part of his letter Pelagius seized the occasion of exhorting him to succor with effective cooperation, not with idle commiseration, a Church so beloved and venerable to him — relying so far upon his authority and favor with the kings of the Gauls, whose orthodox faith he commends, as though Aunarius alone could induce them to bring aid to Italy.

[49] Aunarius's letter: In the second part of his letter the Saint asked relics of the Pontiff in his own name and in the name of him whom Pelagius calls his most glorious son — in all likelihood King Guntram — and he obtained them, but with a repeated exhortation that he should act most urgently with the kings, and at least carry this point, that they should not cultivate friendship with the Lombards. There is no doubt that the Saint obeyed the Pontiff's warnings: certainly, provided Sigebert notes rightly in his Chronicle, in that same year or the next following there was fighting between the Gauls and the Lombards, for thus he writes under the year 581: "The dukes of the Lombards attack the Gauls, and with varying fortune of war now the Franks, now the Lombards clash with one another." But since he immediately subjoins to these the death of St. Hospitius the Recluse, I should believe that he wrongly understood St. Gregory of Tours, who, referring that death to the same year 581, at the same time narrates the deeds of his Life, and among them a prophecy once uttered by him concerning the impending irruption of the Lombards into the Gauls, which was fulfilled long before the death of the same Hospitius, and therefore before Pelagius wrote to Aunarius. Let the curious reader consult Le Cointe at the years 571 no. 5 and 573 no. 1 and following. The same Gregory of Tours here — as narrating the deeds of his own time, and therefore to be preferred to all the rest — furnishes ground for our believing more surely that St. Aunarius's efforts with the kings of the Gauls were not fruitless, in book 6 of the History, chapter 42, where, under the ninth year of Childebert II, that is, of Christ 584, he writes in this manner: "But King Childebert went off into Italy. When the Lombards heard this, fearing that they would be cut down by his army, they submitted themselves to his dominion, giving him many gifts and promising that they would be faithful and subject to his party: and when all had been accomplished with them that the king wished, he returned into the Gauls."

[50] other letters of the same Pontiff to the Saint After these Aunarius sent other letters to Pelagius, which likewise have perished; from the replies, however, we learn that he treated again of sanctuaries or relics of the Saints; but we do not sufficiently discern whether he only gave thanks for those received before, or rather — which seems to me more likely — asked for more for the new churches with which he signified that his regions abounded. At the beginning of his reply the Pontiff declares not obscurely that his manner of acting and his affection toward the Apostolic See were highly approved by him: but let us hear the letter entire: "Pelagius to his most beloved brother Aunarius. In the measure that you render yourselves pleasing to God by veneration of the Apostolic See, so much the more serviceable to Him whose See it is becomes the confidence of your charity: nor do we otherwise confess the one and only Church of God, unless we are all built upon the rock on which the Catholic faith is founded: on which account the effect has followed upon your love's desires both swiftly and easily; because the sanctuaries are sought of those princes from whom the preaching of the truth took its beginning. But that you indicate that new churches abound in your regions, we receive with gladness; yet if you knowingly embrace the zeal of seeking after the prophetic voice, 'seek his face evermore.' For in the measure that the truth of the Incarnation of our Lord is opened to human understandings, by so much the more is He both honored and worshiped. But as you desire to be commended to God by our prayers, do you also bring continual solace of intercession to our necessities and straits, with which we are unceasingly burdened, praying and doing with whatever strength you have avail, so that, as you are in concord with the preaching of the Apostolic See, so its peace and quiet may rejoice in what you obtain. May God keep you unharmed, dearest Brother. Given on the day before the Kalends of November, in the reign of the lord Maurice Tiberius, emperor Augustus, in the fifth year, in the fifth Indiction."

[51] This letter, which I have transcribed from volume 5 of Labbe's Councils, given in the year 586. is extant also in volume 1 of the Bibliotheca of Manuscripts, inserted, as I indicated above, in the History of the bishops of Auxerre; but the chronological notes are there faultily set down: "In the reign of Maurice Tiberius, emperor Augustus, in the third year, in the fifth Indiction." For the third year of the emperor Maurice could by no means be joined with the fifth Indiction: since he attained the empire in the month of August in the year 582 of the common era, and accordingly his third year was running on the day before the Kalends of November of the year 584, with the third Indiction, begun from the month of September. But if you take the whole years of the reign and set the first of Maurice at 583 of the common era, the third will be 585, in which on the day before the Kalends of November the fourth Indiction was running, begun namely from the month of September. Wherefore the notes given from volume 5 of the Councils are to be retained, all of which designate the year 586: for in that year, on the day before the Kalends of November, there was running the fifth year of the emperor Maurice, and from the month of September the fifth Indiction. For the rest, nothing further concerning the Saint's particular deeds occurs in the old writers that has been passed over by the biographers, or not sufficiently set forth. St. Gregory of Tours indeed mentions him in book 4 of the Miracles of St. Martin, chapter 13, but only as witness of a miracle wrought in the fourteenth year of King Childebert, of Christ 589, in these few words: "But to that festival, at which Aunacharius the bishop of the city of Auxerre was present, a certain man brought a hand withered and contracted, but after the third day of the festival carried it home restored."

§ V. The duration of his see; his death, burial, translations of his body, cult.

[ ] The Saint after the episcopate Neither do the writers of the Lives set down the year of the Saint's death, nor do they supply anything from which we might probably dig it out. They do indeed express the duration of the see, but faultily, or at any rate in such a way that either what we said above about his birth and his elevation to the episcopate must be overturned, or very much of what is handed down about his successors must be denied. Let us hear their own words: "At length," says the anonymous biographer, "when he had vigorously governed the church divinely committed to him for forty-four years, one month, and twenty-three days, he passed at last, with Christ for his leader, to the long-desired fatherland on the VII Kalends of October." But the authors of the History of the bishops of Auxerre: "He sat forty-three years, ten months, twenty days." The discrepancy of a few months here is not worth observing: let the reader only remember that we, according to the words of those same authors, who say that the Saint passed his youth at the court of King Guntram — that is, after the year 561, when the desire of bidding farewell to the world came upon him — have set his birth about 540, and the beginning of his episcopate about 571, wherein we have followed Le Cointe and almost all the more recent learned men who have touched that matter.

[53] of thirty years or more But if this opinion stands, so long a duration of the episcopate cannot be admitted. For 44 or 43 years and 10 months added to the year 571 will bring us to 615, by which time Desiderius his successor had long occupied the chair: since he, as Le Cointe rightly observes at the year 605, no. 4, exchanged many possessions with Queen Brunhild, who was snatched from the living in the year 613, and only after eighteen years of episcopate made room for Palladius, who nevertheless in the year 625 subscribed as bishop of Auxerre to the council of Rheims. Led by these and other reasons, the same Le Cointe subtracts a decade from St. Aunarius's episcopate and fixes his death in the year 605, in which likewise he has the more recent learned men generally as followers. D. Lebeuf, dismissing all discussion of the difficulties that occur here, simply says that the Saint sat more than thirty years, and, with no reason alleged, encloses the duration within these limits: from the year DLXXII to DCIII: likely because Desiderius his successor is said in the History of the bishops of Auxerre to have been under the Roman Pontiffs Gregory, Sabinian, etc., and therefore at least in the year 604, in which St. Gregory the Great died on the XII day of the month of March. But I suspect that there was no other cause for placing Desiderius under the Pontificate of Gregory than a letter of that same Pontiff, recited in the same History, but according to the more common opinion today written to Desiderius of Vienne, and not to him of Auxerre. These things will be able to be examined more fully on the XXVII of October, on which St. Desiderius of Auxerre died and was buried beside St. Aunarius in the basilica of St. Germanus. Meanwhile I have set the death of our Saint broadly at the beginning of the seventh century.

[54] he died at the beginning of the 7th century. The place of burial. About the day of his death there is no controversy, nor can there be any about the place of burial. The anonymous biographer indicates both thus: "He passed to the fatherland on the VII Kalends of October, with Christ for his leader. And so with the highest glory, amid a throng of peoples, he is led forth to be entombed in the church of the blessed Germanus; where, buried with fitting honor near the body of that same most holy father and most blessed confessor, he is gladly venerated." Heric agrees, in book 2 of the Miracles of St. Germanus of Auxerre, in our volume VII of July, page 280, in a brief elogium which, because until now a fitting occasion was lacking, I have reserved for this place: "But how excellent a privilege the blessed Aunarius had, the account of his deeds declares abundantly and more than abundantly. He, among the other illustrious marks of his sanctity, also enriched the basilica of the blessed Germanus with magnificent estates; for he was both most splendid by birth and abundantly supplied with an amplitude of possessions. He shone with the glory of signs both living and dead; and having discharged the priesthood forty-three years, ten months, twenty days, on the VII of the Kalends of October, full of the Holy Spirit, he departed, and in the basilica of the blessed Germanus, near his body, was laid with due reverence to his fathers."

[55] His body, of whose translation The words of the biographer recited at the beginning of the preceding number, as also his account of the miracles wrought at the Saint's tomb with the following clause: "To this day divine benefits are granted by his merits to all the faithful who ask in faith," sufficiently demonstrate a cult begun from his death and thereafter continued. That it was continued the translations of his body likewise prove. One of them — if indeed it was a translation in the strict sense of the word — is marked on this very day, the XXV of September, in the Martyrology of Auxerre, in Martène, volume 6 of the Amplissima Collectio, column 722: "At Auxerre, the deposition and translation of St. Augnarius, bishop and confessor." Likewise in three codices which Dominicus Georgius used in preparing the new edition of Ado's Martyrology, and in the Fulda Martyrology appended to that edition, in almost the same words: "At Auxerre, the birthday and translation of the body of St. Aunarius, bishop and confessor." Another is noted in the said Martyrology of Auxerre at the XVI of August: "At Auxerre, the translation of the bishops Augurius and Desiderius." I have no doubt that by the word "Augurius," corrupted by the copyists, our Saint is designated, since among the bishops of that city no Augurius appears, and in the Calendar of Auxerre at the end of our manuscript codex attributed to Georgius Viola — certainly written out before Martène's edition — under the same day, the XVI of August, one plainly reads in French: "The translation of the bodies of SS. Aunarius and Desiderius, bishops of Auxerre."

[56] That the translation named in the first place is also the earlier in time, in the Martyrologies the ancient codices in which it is inserted make most likely; indeed, if it be true, as Dominicus Georgius supposes, that the announcement recited from his codices is genuinely Ado's, it will have to be placed before the year 860, before which, according to the more common opinion of the learned, Ado wrote out his Martyrology. But what he supposes is to us at the least doubtful, as we said in no. 3, nor do we sufficiently see why Usuard should have kept silence about the memory of that translation, if he had found it marked in the genuine Ado. D. Lebeuf, in volume 1 of the Monuments, page 124, discusses the present matter in this manner: "The body of this Saint remained in the same place until about the year DCCCLXV, at which time, after the crypts had been constructed, his tomb was translated to the feet of the tomb of St. Germanus. This without doubt is that translation which is read marked at the day XXV of September in the Martyrology of the cathedral church written at the beginning of the eleventh century." Thus the praised author in French; for the clearer understanding of which it will help to go back a little further and repeat some things pertaining to the aforesaid translation about the year 865.

[57] In the year 841, by order of the kings Charles the Bald and Louis, and by the monk Heric the body of St. Germanus was translated by Heribold, bishop of Auxerre, from the place of its first burial — in which same place, according to what has been said before, St. Aunarius also was first laid — into a more seemly one. But in the year 859, after the church of the monastery had been enlarged on the eastern side by the piety and liberality of Conrad and Adelaide, that most illustrious married pair, and there adorned with a marvelous work of crypts, it was placed in the chief of these. Then in the year 862 some monks, furnished likewise with royal mandates and letters, set out for Rome, and, presented by Pope Nicholas, the first of that name, with relics of SS. Urban and Tiburtius, martyrs, and on their return lodging among the people of Agaunum, obtained also the sacred relics of SS. Maurice and Innocent, martyrs of the Theban Legion. Thus far Heric, but far more fully in book 2 of the Miracles of St. Germanus, as may be seen in our volume VII of July from page 273 to 279, where, after relating some things done in the year 865, he at last begins — most probably as an eyewitness — to describe the history of the translation.

[58] "After the work described far above" — these are Heric's words — of the said "it seemed both fitting for ecclesiastical seemliness and worthy for the composing of the pledges of the Saints, and, the judgment of the wise being exercised, it was judged best to do, that the above-mentioned relics of the martyrs, and also the bodies of the blessed pontiffs of Auxerre, once entombed in that very church, should be translated into the crypts and be laid, with the chief diligence of office, around the body of the most blessed Germanus: by a divine mind, by upright counsel; that those whom the same court of heaven contains, the capacity of the same dwelling on earth should also join together. So it was done; and on the right side indeed, that is, from the southern quarter, the bones of the blessed Pope Urban with the head of the holy martyr Innocent were laid in the same coffer. Next the body of the venerable Alodius, once his successor, and then of three holy pontiffs, Ursus, Romanus, and Theodosius. On the side of the feet, that is, the eastern quarter, beside the altar, rest the most sacred limbs of the precious confessor and prelate Aunarius. The left, that is, the northern side, the pledges of the glorious martyr Tiburtius occupied, with five venerable bodies of pontiffs subjoined, that is, of the holy Fraternus, bishop and martyr, Censurius, Gregory, Desiderius, and Lupus, and beyond these the holy boy Moderatus, once crowned with martyrdom."

[59] are discussed, From what has been drawn out thus far it appears sufficiently certain that the Saint's body remained near the body of St. Germanus until the year 841, and was not moved from its place before 865, so that this ought accordingly to be reckoned his first translation, as D. Lebeuf rightly warns. But to me it does not seem as indubitable as to him that this very translation is the one mentioned in the Martyrologies praised above. For since at that time, as is clear from the words recited at length for that reason, not his translation alone was made, but that of many holy martyrs and pontiffs, why should his name alone have been inscribed in the sacred Fasti, or why at least was the announcement not framed in these or similar words: "The translation of St. Aunarius and of other Saints"? I strongly suspect indeed that by those words of the Martyrologies — "At Auxerre, the birthday" or "deposition and translation of the body" — nothing else is denoted than the Saint's death, and the solemn conducting of the sacred funeral from the episcopal house, or rather from the cathedral church, where it had for a while been exposed to satisfy the desire of the pious faithful, to the tomb prepared in the church of St. Germanus.

[60] it was once enclosed in a precious reliquary, As regards the commemoration of a translation fixed to the XVI day of August, and common to our Saint and to St. Desiderius the bishop, I should believe that it was inserted in the sacred Fasti when their sacred bones were exhumed and transferred into precious cases. D. Lebeuf thinks that these things happened about the year 1030: because about the same time, as the History of the bishops of Auxerre witnesses in Labbe, volume 1 of the Bibliotheca of Manuscripts, page 450, the body of St. Desiderius, which was held buried in the church of the blessed Germanus, "… was laid up … in a silver case weighing a hundred pounds." However that may be, St. Aunarius's sacred remains were certainly kept in a precious casket at the beginning of the 13th century. This Guido teaches in his History of the Deeds of the abbots of St. Germanus, carried on from the year 989 to the end of the 13th century, in which he himself presided over that monastery as abbot. For, commemorating the deeds of the abbot Radulph, snatched from the living in the year 1208, he relates in the Labbe just cited, page 580, that the monastery of St. Germanus was pressed by so great a burden of debts from the suit between Radulph and Hugh de Noyers the bishop, that recourse had to be had to the very ornaments of the reliquaries: "The casket also," he says, "of the blessed Germanus, once adorned with gold and gems by Lothair the abbot of good memory, son of King Charles (the Bald), was stripped of its gold and gems, only the fronts remaining. The caskets also of the blessed Urban the Pope and of the prelates Aunarius and Desiderius were likewise despoiled."

[61] About the year 1222 Regnaud was set over the abbey, who by his prudence and industry not only freed it from debts, and it was carried about the city in a public necessity. but also increased it wonderfully in revenues, and adorned the church with precious ornament, as the same author narrates at length on page 581. Hence it is permissible to believe that either by him or by his successors the reliquaries were restored to their former splendor, and that among these our Saint's reliquary was not neglected, seeing that it was in such veneration that under the pressure of public necessity it was carried about in supplications. I have as witness here our manuscript codex of D. Viola on the Deeds of the abbots of St. Germanus, where the following is read in the French tongue: "In his time (the time of the abbot Hugh de Tyard), since God for the sins of the people did not cease to smite Burgundy with the dire scourges of war and pestilence, many supplications were instituted at Auxerre to appease His just wrath, and particular ones indeed, at the request of the magistrate, by the Religious of St. Germanus, in which they carried about the reliquaries of SS. Germanus, Aunarius, Theobald, Romanus, Tiburtius, Sebastian and others, especially from the year MCDLXVII to MCDLXXXII." D. Lebeuf adds, affirming that he had himself seen a letter of the said abbot Hugh, which he addressed to the governors and procurators of the city of Auxerre, and by which he granted leave to take down and carry about the reliquary of St. Aunarius on occasion of a raging pestilence. There is also reckoned, on the same affirmation of D. Lebeuf, the Saint's reliquary among the many which in the year 1554 were carried about the said city in a general supplication on the XXI day of May, to obtain from the divine goodness rain for the parched fields — which not long after followed abundantly, as I learn from the manuscript codex just mentioned. From the said year 1554 I find nothing until the year 1567, in which the diabolical madness of the Huguenots supplied the writers of the affairs of Auxerre with ample matter indeed, but never sufficiently to be lamented, to the treating of which in a few words we now proceed.

§ VI. The sacrilegious fury of the Calvinists against the abbey of St. Germanus of Auxerre, and their impiety toward its sacred relics; the gathering and preservation by the Catholics of the bones of St. Aunarius and of others.

[ ] In the year 1567 the Calvinists sacrilegiously cast forth The havoc brought by the Calvinists upon the city of Auxerre, and chiefly upon the monastery of St. Germanus,

brother Peter de Pesselière, Prior of that monastery from the year 1544 to 1597, committed to writing briefly and in general terms, as D. Lebeuf notes in the documents to the book published in French on the same matter in the year 1723, whence I transfer here the Latin words themselves: "In the year MDLXVII the city of Auxerre was intercepted and taken by the Huguenots; and therefore the monastery of St. Germanus, with several other churches of that same city, was demolished and overthrown and stripped of all its timber, tile, iron, lead, glass, and bells, after the plundering first of the most sacred caskets and relics both of the most holy father the divine Germanus and of other Saints, and also of the ecclesiastical ornaments, books, charters, title-deeds, and the rest of the furniture of the whole house." Thus far Pesselière; and would that he had noted more explicitly what was done with those relics, or whither at last they came! He would assuredly have shut off the way to many contentions over the remains, namely of St. Germanus, persisting among anonymous writers even to these times, not without the scandal of good men on account of the bitter method of writing, and the frauds and evil deceits employed for the sake of diminishing the esteem of adversaries. Let a specimen be the letter scattered abroad among the common people in the year 1752 in our name, that of the Bollandists, in the French tongue, and indeed with Antwerp types (as it lyingly puts on the title), so full of ineptitudes, nay, stuffed with theological principles so utterly alien from our teaching, that of itself it betrays the impostor even to the less sharp-sighted. But let us return to our purpose.

[63] the relics of St. Germanus the bishop, At length, as I just now hinted, D. Lebeuf described the disaster of Auxerre in the praised French book, and set forth in particular the things pertaining to the abbey of St. Germanus from page 142. These things we have exhibited contracted into a compendium in §2 of the Commentarius prævius to the Acts of St. Germanus, volume VII of July, page 187, and, because they likewise regard the relics of St. Aunarius, we have thought them to be repeated here: "It had been agreed among the heretics that, as soon as they had got possession of the city, armed watches of a few should for a while beset the monastery of St. Germanus, lest anything could be carried out or withdrawn, until the leaders of the robbers should arrive. This was done so cunningly that scarcely anything could be hidden by the monks, who were anxiously hastening their flight. So the whole treasure of the very rich monastery and church fell as booty to the band of brigands that soon came upon it. There were, behind the high altar, besides the case of St. Germanus, gleaming with the votive offerings of so many princes from every side, six other great ones deposited (here our Bosch observes that in the Acts of the visitation of the crypts, drawn up in the year 1642, only five are reckoned, and somewhat differently), notable for the bodies of SS. Aunarius, Urban, Tiburtius, Theobald, Romanus, and of certain of the companions of St. Maurice, martyrs: all these that same assault and headlong fury tore from their place and cast down upon the pavement, at the same time scattering the sacred bones promiscuously here and there to be trodden under foot by the wanton and impious crowd. So that if anything of these relics of St. Germanus even now survives at Auxerre, which, gathered up in that confusion of so many others, can be distinguished, it is owing to the exceptional piety and peril of certain Catholics." Thus he (D. Lebeuf), not asserting meanwhile (Bosch adds) that anything of this kind survives.

[64] about which there are today various opinions, Various opinions have long been and are today held about the relics of St. Germanus. The first, after the one already intimated by the praised Lebeuf, holds that the relics of St. Germanus were indeed drawn out of the case by the heretics, but that by those same men — constrained by divine power and content with the material of the case wrought of gold and gems — they were carried back to the church. The second, that they were consumed by fire in the private house of a certain man. The third, that they were withdrawn from the fury of the heretics by pious men, put in a sack, kept for forty years, and at last committed to the abbot of the monastery of St. Marianus of the Premonstratensian Order in the same city, who enclosed them in a chest with a slip of paper attached to the sack, framed in these words: "These bones were consigned into my hands by pious men, who told me that they were relics from the case of St. Germanus, and that they had gathered them on the pavement of the church of the said St. Germanus at the very time when the Huguenots demolished the reliquaries of that basilica in the year MDLXVII. Noted MDCVII." These opinions, as also another, according to which the case together with the relics had been buried in the ground by the heretics and lay hidden until now, our Bosch set forth and discussed more fully in the cited volume VII of July, page 187 and following. But since each seemed little certain — whatever D. Lebeuf may say in volume 1 of the Monuments to the History of Auxerre, page 78 — he embraced none of them, and committed the choice to the reader's judgment. It has pleased me to touch on these here in a word, so that the same reader may perceive that today's contentions turn only upon the relics of St. Germanus alone; and accordingly that whether some one or none of the assigned opinions be true, the things handed down about the remains of St. Aunarius and of the other Saints are not thereby to be rendered less probable.

[65] Now this tradition is contained in a French instrument, [and the bones of St. Aunarius and of others: these, however, as is handed down in the instruments,] which was drawn up by two apostolic notaries, priests and canons of Auxerre, Louis Noël Damy and William Charles, and copied by D. Lebeuf from the autograph and annexed among the other instruments to volume 2 of the aforesaid Work, page 236. In it accordingly the aforesaid notaries testify that there appeared before them "on the fifth day of the month of October in the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-six … the venerable father Dom Anselm Claire, priest and religious of the Order of St. Benedict, of the Congregation of St. Maur, Prior of the abbey of St. Germanus … of Auxerre," and that he set forth that he had been informed by various persons, secular and regular, "that in the storming of the said city of Auxerre, made in the year MDLXVII, the troop-leaders la Borde, Blosset and other Huguenots seized and despoiled the cases of the holy Germanus, Aunarius and others, existing in the church of the aforesaid St. Germanus, and with immense contempt cast the sacred bones upon the ground: which sacred bones were gathered by various pious persons, who had rendered a great part of them into the hands of the venerable Religious of the abbey and monastery of the said St. Germanus." Thus far are the words of the instrument, turned from French into Latin with what fidelity I could, neglecting also, as is plain enough, the elegance of the Latin tongue.

[66] Further, before we report the remaining contents of the instrument, one of which let us for a while comply with D. Lebeuf, who demands attention to these words: "Which sacred bones were gathered by various pious persons, who had rendered a great part of them into the hands of the venerable Religious of the abbey and monastery of the said St. Germanus." In French: "Lesquels saints ossemens furent ramasses par diverses personnes devotes, qui en auroient remis une grande partie entre les mains des venerables religieux de l'abbaye & monastere dudit S. Germain." "These phrases," he says, "are to be studiously noted, from which it is to be concluded that not all the relics gathered on the floor in the church of St. Germanus were rendered to the Religious of the abbey. Of them, and indeed of the more notable ones, some were delivered to other Religious, as one of these left in writing, who declared that they were bones from the very case of St. Germanus." Of the authority of this writing, which I gave entire above in no. 64, our Bosch discoursed in volume VII of July, page 188. This place does not require a new discussion of it, since in it mention is made only of the bones of St. Germanus, and, granting its sufficient authority and the truth of what it contains, it cannot thence be made out that the relics of St. Aunarius too were committed to others than the Religious of St. Germanus, which alone pertains to the present purpose.

[67] But while I consider the alleged phrases more studiously, and interpret them, he wrongly expounded, as I judge must be done, according to the mind of the attesting Prior — here to be dug out from the circumstances of time, place, and persons — the conclusion of Monsieur Lebeuf does not please me, and their sense seems to me to be this: Pious men gathered the sacred bones cast forth by the heretics, and so rendered a great part of them — that is, as much as it was granted them to gather in such a disturbance and tumult of raging men — to the Religious their lords. He said "a great part," not "all"; because he could not with reason persuade himself that in the said tumult absolutely all had been gathered, and that none had been ground under the feet of the sacrilegious, or dissipated in some other way. So that the praised Prior did not so much as think of another part of the gathered bones being retained by the pious men, or granted to another place. For who would believe that he meant to speak thus: "Pious men gathered the sacred bones cast forth by the Huguenots, and those pious men restored a great part of what they gathered to us or to our predecessors, their lords, and retained the other part for themselves"?

[68] nor did D. Lebeuf report There was another thing in the said instrument worthy of note, namely its date, which is expressed thus in French words in the body: "In the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-six," which D. Lebeuf himself marked thus at the head: "Yr. 1636," and which same he retained in the series of instruments, arranged according to the years in which each was drawn up: whereas nevertheless it is evidently faulty. For Dom Anselm Claire, who appears in it as Prior of the monastery of St. Germanus, did not discharge that office before the year 1658. This we learn first from our manuscript codex, which we are wont to cite under the name of Dom Georgius Viola, and in which we read that Georgius Viola himself was Prior of St. Germanus from the year 1632 until the end of the general chapter celebrated at Cluny in the month of October in the year MDCXXXVI. To him as next successor is assigned Dom Philibert Tesson, between whom and Dom Anselm Claire five other Priors are reckoned down to the year 1657. Secondly, D. Lebeuf himself in the aforesaid volume 2 of the Monuments, page 243, produces another instrument, drawn up by the same Louis Noël Damy and by Charles Charles (the same, doubtless, who above was called William, since in both places almost the same titles are ascribed to his name) "in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and sixty-four … in the tenth year of the Pontificate of our most holy Lord Pope Alexander VII … and in the fifth year of the reverend father Dom Anselm Claire, Prior of this most celebrated monastery of St. Germanus of Auxerre."

[69] the true date, Besides, in the same instrument, whose date we say is faulty, mention is made of the bishop of Auxerre in these French words: "feu monseigneur Dominique Seguier," which denote that he had ceased to live before the instrument was drawn up, as all Frenchmen will admit, among whom the particle "feu" signifies one not long since deceased. But this could not truly be written in the year 1636, since the most illustrious Dominique Seguier was translated only in the year 1637, in the month of August, from the church of Auxerre to that of Meaux, and departed from the living only in the year 1659 on the XVI day of May, as D. Lebeuf himself writes in volume 1, page 692, and as is established from the epitaph which the editors of the new Gallia Christiana recite in volume 8, column 1655. Let us say therefore that the instrument belongs to the year 1663, for which either a careless copyist of the notes

by a transposition of the arithmetical figures once wrote 1636, or an insipid corrector — because in the instrument the year 1636 is rightly cited elsewhere — thought the same must be put everywhere, and expressed it as "one thousand six hundred and thirty-six." But we may wonder that an error so evident from so many indications escaped the eyes of a rather perspicacious critic studiously examining the instrument. I return to the relics.

[70] We have therefore from the tradition contained in the praised instrument that a great part of them was withdrawn from the fury of the heretics, gathered for the greater part and restored to the monks of St. Germanus. But what Dom Anselm Claire understood by "a great part of them" may be gathered from another instrument, which the same Anselm Claire had drawn up in the same year 1663 on the XXX day of July on occasion of the translation to be mentioned below, and of which I transfer here the fragments (for I have not the whole) gathered from the fourth critical letter on the verification of the relics of St. Germanus the bishop, published in the year 1753: "Calling to mind that all the sacred relics of the Saints which of old … were kept in this monastery … were, by the singular providence of the divine Goodness, gathered from the sacrilegious hands of the Calvinists diligently and by stealth, ALMOST IN THEIR ENTIRETY, though confusedly, by the pious diligence and zeal of certain persons, and observing … that they are kept mingled together and with too little care in two cupboards of the crypts, among which we are taught by a pious and unshaken tradition that those of our most glorious patron St. Germanus are found."

[71] More is not given; nor are all the things now recited exhibited together in the letter; and preserved. for the latter part, which by the particle "and," expressed in another type, I have connected with the other part, is separated from it by some interposed pieces of reasoning, so that I do not know whether in the instrument itself they are read together or not: nevertheless it seems to me most likely that these words refer to one another: "the relics … almost in their entirety … are kept mingled together and with too little care … in the cupboards": and thence I again gather that, according to the tradition reported by Anselm Claire, nearly all the relics are even now kept in the often-mentioned monastery of St. Germanus. But whether in every part — namely in that where mention is made of the relics of St. Germanus the bishop himself — that tradition be true, I leave to others to discuss and decide. But there is nothing that bids me doubt about the relics of St. Aunarius being kept there among the others, at least for the greater part; since hitherto no one has appeared who calls it into doubt. This the very men who contend that the sacred bones of St. Germanus were withdrawn from the heretics and committed to others than the Religious of their own monastery most liberally concede, and affirm more universally than we do. Let Monsieur Buffard be heard, doctor of sacred theology in the university of Caen and canon of Bayeux, whose words are given in the letter just cited: "Of all the relics," he says in French, "with which the church of St. Germanus was so abundantly furnished, none are lacking save the relics of St. Germanus, and that church preserves the rest even today."

§ VII. The concealment of the sacred bones after the havoc of the Calvinists; their inspection; their sanctity confirmed by a prodigy; their present situation.

[ ] The bones of St. Aunarius, mingled with others and concealed, We have seen in the preceding § in what manner the sacred remains of St. Aunarius, most of them at least, escaped the fury of the heretics in the year 1567, and by the diligence of the pious faithful returned to the monks of St. Germanus; it follows that we declare what was afterwards done with them. According to the French instrument of D. Anselm Claire cited earlier, drawn up namely on the V day of October of the year 1663, the aforesaid monks, meaning to snatch that treasure of theirs — namely the mingled relics of St. Aunarius and of other Saints — from further peril, hid it in the hollow of a great column standing within the crypts of the monastery near the chapel of St. Martin, and on the front of that column they cut a cross into the stone. That same sacred treasure, unless an error has crept into another instrument which I shall mention presently, lay hidden there until the month of September 1636, yet not without the honor and veneration of the pious faithful of both sexes, who poured out frequent prayers both at the other tombs of Saints, great in number, in the said crypts, and namely at the place marked beforehand with the cross. That veneration indeed and cult of the faithful was the occasion that the Benedictine Religious of the Congregation of St. Maur, who had been brought into the abbey of St. Germanus in the year 1629, and had no other knowledge of those relics than from tradition and the cross marked upon them — the occasion, I say, that they opened that column and disposed the sacred bones more seemly.

[73] in a more seemly place "Therefore," these are the words of the praised French instrument, "by the authority and approbation of the lately deceased most illustrious Dominique Seguier, then bishop of Auxerre, after he himself had opened it (the column), had recognized them (the relics), and had venerated them, and had thereafter exposed them to the veneration of the faithful, they took care to have built and adorned in the same place a cupboard, decently furnished with cloth." In it the relics were placed by steps and in order, with glass set before them and a wooden door fitted with locks closed under key, so that the piety of the people and of the pilgrims flowing thither from every side might more easily be satisfied. A Religious also was designated who should show them to pious men desiring to look upon the relics. It is not added in what year these things were done; but that they were done in 1636 about the month of September we dig out from the Acts of the visitation of the crypts, which the praised most illustrious prelate, at that time bishop of Meaux, gave duly written out in the year 1642, and which we have inserted in our manuscript codex of Auxerre.

[74] after the inspection made In these the bishop is said to have visited the crypts of the abbey twice, at the petition of the Prior — who then was Dom Georgius Viola, mentioned several times — and of the monks of St. Germanus. First in the year 1634 on the 2nd day of November, when he visited one part of them: then in 1636 on the VII day of September, when he inspected the other part, on both occasions with many of the clergy and people accompanying him. What was carried out on the first occasion does not belong here; of the second he speaks thus: "But in the year MDCXXXVI, on the seventh day of September, at the petition of the same Prior and monks, again with many of the clergy and people accompanying, we approached the same church of St. Germanus, and, humble prayer having been made first, and the walls of the crypts having been inspected, which are on every side covered with letters and paintings, we dug up the ground and found in various places stone sarcophagi, and when these had been unfastened, bodies were seen which in some fashion answered to the proper inscriptions marking them." Then the aforesaid prelate reckons up what was found and beheld by him in and near the chapels or crypts of St. Germanus and St. Maxima.

[75] by the bishop At last, to our purpose, he delivers the following: "Going out from this chapel of St. Maxima, we approached, to explore it, the wall which is between the aforesaid chapel of St. Maxima and the chapel of St. Martin, otherwise of Our Lady of Consolation. The middle of which wall seemed to bear the sign of a cross, which place the devout people of Auxerre had been accustomed to visit with singular piety, often kissing that same cross, having received from their elders the belief and tradition that there, beneath the little sign of the cross, many and precious relics of Saints were contained. And so, this cross having been uncovered by our authority, a place was found ten feet deep, in the lowest part of which lay hidden a stone tomb closed up with two or three stones, which being removed, the bones of about five or six bodies were found; concerning which bones indeed, when it was doubted by some whether they were true relics of Saints to which honor ought to be shown, we have sometimes heard from men worthy of belief that there was made and heard a striking together of the aforesaid bones among themselves, with nothing * driving them visibly."

[76] The prelate does not express whose relics of Saints these were; they are laid up: but no one, I believe, who has considered even in passing the circumstances of the account will doubt that the discourse here is of the same as in the instrument of Dom Claire, namely of the bones of St. Aunarius and of the other Saints, gathered by the pious faithful in the Huguenot havoc. Nor does it stand in the way that in the French instrument the place where the relics are said to have been hidden is called a great column ("gros pilier"), and in the Latin Acts of the visitation a wall; since the French word "pilier" does not signify a column strictly so called, but a mass built up of various stones, whose square front face could accordingly be called a wall.

[77] There is added that the prodigy intimated in the bishop's last words, where their sanctity is narrated with all its circumstances in the French instrument, drawn up solely, as it appears, to give credit to the prodigy, and thence to conclude that the relics of St. Aunarius and of the other Saints are genuine, as being those at which it occurred. The rather lengthy narration of this I reduce to a compendium, so far as suffices for understanding it. After relating the things we have set down before about the profanation of the sacred bones by the heretics, about their preservation through the piety of the faithful, their deposition in the column or wall, the visitation made by the bishop, their transfer into a more seemly cupboard or case, and finally about the care of showing them to pious men committed to a Religious, it is said to have happened on the ninth day of April of the year MDCXXXVI that D. William Pirot, advocate in the presidial court, came to the abbey with the fathers Paulinus and Gerard Girardin, Religious priests of the Order of Capuchins, and asked that the relics be shown him.

[78] Dom Deicola Vocelle, a Religious priest to whom that care was then committed, led them afterward confirmed by a prodigy first to the tomb of St. Germanus, and thence to the aforesaid column or wall, and, having opened the door of the cupboard and removed the veil of red silk cloth, exhibited to them for their viewing the sacred remains, arranged in order on the lower steps. After they had venerated these on bended knees and with poured-out prayers, the praised Dom Vocelle closed the door, and to father Gerard, who asked whence it was established that they were true relics of Saints, he answered that this was the tradition publicly received and approved by the bishop after the restoration of the city. William Pirot, standing by, confirmed the answer: but father Gerard replied that it could be that other bones than those of Saints had been deposited there, and that veneration was not rashly to be exhibited to relics not sufficiently certain and ascertained. Presently there was heard in the cupboard a huge crashing, as though from a striking of bones against one another, and it lasted for the space of time in which the Angelic Salutation might be recited. But when father Paulinus said, "Everything within has been turned upside down," the crashing was renewed with greater vehemence and a longer stretch of time, so that all were astounded, and William Pirot, terrified, said to father Gerard: "You are guilty of the fault; pardon must be asked of God and the Saints." Then he, falling on his knees, said, "I acknowledge that my unbelief is punished by God: I beg pardon both of Him and of the Saints whose sacred remains rest in this cupboard." Then, after he had prayed on his knees with the others for a notable time, rising up he said, "Wretched me, that I should have thought so!"

[79] is handed down. Thence they went on to survey the other tombs with relics; but on the return father Paulinus, still thinking that everything in the said cupboard had been turned upside down, begged Dom Vocelle to open it a second time: and when he complied, he beheld all the sacred bones in the same order and position in which they had been before, and said in a loud voice, "Now I do not doubt,

that the crashing that was made is a true miracle." The truth of the thing narrated the praised William Pirot and Deicola Vocelle attested on oath in the year 1663 — in which I have shown the present instrument was drawn up — the former being in the sixty-eighth year of his age, the latter in the fifty-fourth, in the abbey of St. Germanus, before Dom Anselm Claire the Prior, and Laurence Martin and Anthony Brugniart, Religious priests, and together with the Prior and the two Apostolic notaries, Louis Noël Damy and William Charles, they subscribed the same instrument. The fact itself, as being proved on oath by grave men, such as the praised Pirot and Vocelle are here represented to be, eyewitnesses, and long before somehow approved and confirmed by the bishop Dominique Seguier — since he reports it in the Acts of the visitation as heard from men worthy of belief — I would not call into doubt; but the time at which the prodigy is said to have been done I cannot reconcile with the time at which the visitation is read to have been carried out.

[80] Some things are observed; According to the whole sequence of the French instrument the prodigy is later than the visitation; since according to that same sequence the sacred bones, before enclosed in the wall or column, were only after the visitation so deposited in the new cupboard that, through the glass set in the door, when the wooden door was unfastened, they could be shown to the pious faithful. This very thing is supposed in the Acts of the visitation, where the bishop says: "And so, this cross having been uncovered by our authority, a place was found ten feet deep, in the lowest part of which lay hidden a stone tomb closed up with two or three stones, which being removed, the bones of about five or six bodies were found." Nevertheless in the instrument the prodigy is noted as done "on the ninth day of April of the year MDCXXXVI"; but in the Acts the visitation is marked: "In the year MDCXXXVI, on the seventh day of September"; which cannot stand together, unless a great part of the sequence set out in the instrument be called erroneous, nay, unless most and the chief of the circumstances of the prodigy be called false. For it will be false that D. Deicola Vocelle opened the door of the cupboard once and again, and removed the silken veil; false, that he showed the bones placed on the lower steps; false, that at the second sight of them in the same position and order father Paulinus the Capuchin exclaimed, "Now I do not doubt that the crashing that was made is a true miracle": which things nevertheless the same Deicola Vocelle and William Pirot attested on oath to be true.

[81] about the time at which the inspection Wherefore the visitation must absolutely be fixed before the prodigy, and it must be said that in one or the other instrument there is an error, if not in the year, at least in the month. Nor can the mention of the prodigy made by the bishop in the Acts of the visitation detain us here, as if these were later than it. For it is certainly established that those Acts were written about the sixth year after the visitation was carried out, within which space of time the prodigy could have occurred, and, being heard of by the bishop, be inserted into the Acts for the greater confirmation of the sanctity of the relics. Hear the bishop concluding his Acts: "But because upon all these things no verbal process, so to speak, was then made — at least none that has come to our knowledge — chiefly hindered by the very great concourse of the people, who for three continuous days thrust themselves forward of their own accord to visit these tombs, and because a few days after that had elapsed we were compelled to betake ourselves to the Most Christian King for the sake of certain affairs and chiefly to satisfy our office of first almoner, and in the following year were translated to the see of Meaux by the disposition of the Most Christian King himself: the Prior of St. Germanus also, who was most earnestly urging this pious business of finding and approving the bodies of the Saints, having been called away to another monastery of his Order, and now dwelling in the convent of St. Fiacre of our diocese — there came to us, the aforesaid bishop of Meaux, the aforesaid monks of St. Germanus with the Prior himself, who then was, and, as we have already said, dwells in our diocese of Meaux, and earnestly besought us that we would deign to furnish them with letters by which it might be established before all whom it concerned regarding our above-praised visitation of the bodies of the Saints resting in the church of St. Germanus of Auxerre; which we, assenting to their so pious petition, willingly granted. Given at Meaux in our episcopal palace in the year of the Lord MDCXLII on the XXIX day of the month of April."

[82] It remains that we see in which of the two instruments the chronological error more probably lies hidden. and the prodigy That the year 1636 is to be retained for the visitation is urged, besides the words alleged in no. 74, first by the clause of the Acts just given, in which the bishop asserts that in the following year he was translated to the chair of Meaux; for that happened in the year 1637, in the month of August, as was shown above; secondly by the testimony of D. Georgius Viola, who at the time of the visitation was Prior of St. Germanus: his words I shall presently produce, plainly consonant with the clause of the Acts; thirdly by the constant assertion of D. Lebeuf and of Mabillon, who everywhere attach the second visitation of the crypts — the former in the Monuments of the History of Auxerre, the latter in the Benedictine Annals, namely at the year 857, on occasion of St. Heribald the bishop, then also found in the crypts — to the year 1636; but among these I find nowhere expressed either the day or the month. Both are added in the testimony of Georgius Viola: the month of September, the same namely as in the Acts; but the day the XVII, in which it differs from the Acts, where the VII is marked. Let us give the words in Latin from the French: thus they stand in our manuscript codex. "He (the most illustrious Dominique Seguier) completed it (the visitation of the crypts) first in the year MDCXXXIV on the 2nd day of November, then in MDCXXXVI on the XVII day of September, altogether with a peculiar delight of the whole clergy and people of Auxerre. But because in the first days of the second inspection there was so great a flowing together of the people of Auxerre into our church … and because the same Prior (who had demanded the visitation) went off a few days later to Paris to another monastery … no verbal process was drawn up upon an action so notable, nay, that piece of business was put off until the year MDCXLII, when he who writes, Prior of St. Fiacre in Brie, obtained that favor from the most illustrious Dominique Seguier, translated from the see of Auxerre to that of Meaux in the year MDCXXXVII."

[83] Moreover, even if the month of September were not so expressly marked both in the Acts and in the testimony given, are reported to have happened. it could be dug out by a most likely conjecture from this, that in both places it is indicated that D. Georgius Viola, Prior of Auxerre, passed over to another monastery a few days after the visitation was made; since, as has been proved elsewhere, he held the Priorate of St. Germanus until the month of October of the year 1636. It is therefore certain enough that the month and year are rightly marked in the Acts, and accordingly, although the day is doubtful, there is no doubt that a chronological error lurks here too in the often-praised French instrument published in print by Monsieur Lebeuf, and that the prodigy reported in it, as being later than the visitation, happened either after 1636, or at any rate after the VII or XVII of September of that same year. For the rest, the sacred remains of St. Aunarius and of the other Saints seem to have remained in the same position and order in the aforesaid column of the crypts until the year 1663; when D. Anselm Claire transferred part of them into two gilded wooden cases, which are extant today on the high altar, as the author of the critical letters of the year 1753 writes, where he gives, from the Acts drawn up on the XXX day of July upon that translation, the words I recited in no. 70.

[84] the present situation of the relics. The same thing D. Lebeuf signifies in volume 1 of the Monuments of the History of Auxerre, page 78, saying that with the prodigious abundance of relics which the Catholics gathered in the Huguenot havoc there are filled today a huge cupboard of the crypts and two cases of unusual magnitude, raised behind the high altar. Hence it becomes uncertain whether our Saint's relics are today kept in the cases, or in the cupboard, or rather — which is more likely — partly here and partly there, so that they receive cult both in the crypts and at the high altar. There is a third place too in the abbey where perhaps some part of his body lies hidden, or once lay hidden. For according to D. Georgius Viola, whom the author of the critical letters cites, the relics gathered in the church by the pious faithful in the year 1567 were laid up by the ancient monks partly within the column of the crypts near the chapel of St. Martin, partly at the cross of the cemetery standing before the great doors of the church. But since no mention is made anywhere else of this latter assertion, I should believe that a mere conjecture of Georgius Viola is here reported: because perhaps at the said cross some bones were afterward found without indication, or that that part was so very small that others did not judge it worth noting: since the bishop affirms in the Acts of the visitation that there were found in the often-mentioned column or wall of the crypts the bones of about five or six bodies. More about the relics of St. Aunarius preserved at Auxerre does not fall to be said.

*. perhaps "with nothing" or "with no force."

§ VIII. The Saint's relics in other places; ecclesiastical Offices old and new.

[ ] The Saint's relics at Paris before the Calvinist havoc: There were also in other places of Gaul, and likely are even now, some portions of his sacred bones, on this head to be esteemed more highly, that they were granted to those places before the sacrilegious rages of the heretics in the said abbey, and were not confused with the remains of other Saints, and can, as is credible, be distinguished by name. Such are mentioned in the Index of relics which are contained in the case of the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Paris, drawn up about the year 1100, where, after the other names of the Saints of Auxerre — Priscus, Cottus, and Amator — these are read: "of St. Aunarius, of St. Desiderius," as D. Lebeuf testifies in volume 1 of the Monuments, page 125, who conjectures that those relics came thither on occasion of the translation of which I spoke in no. 60, and at which perhaps the bishop of Paris was present. Mention of such is made also in the same Lebeuf at the end of volume 2, page 212, in an instrument written in the year 1542 upon relics then given as a gift to the duchess of Guise, as will be more fully understood from the document itself; thus it runs: "To all who shall inspect these present letters: Nicholas de Marconville, priest, bachelor in Decrees, cantor of the monastery of Molesme, vicar general in spirituals and temporals of the reverend father and lord in Christ, the lord Louis of Lorraine, by divine mercy abbot and perpetual commendatory of the monastery of Saint Germanus of Auxerre, of the Order of Saint Benedict, pertaining to the Roman Church without any intermediary, and likewise the whole convent of the said monastery, gathered in chapter at the sound of the bell for the business written below, greeting in the Lord.

[86] "Whereas it was lately intimated, ordered, and required by letters of the aforesaid lord Louis of Lorraine, some granted in the year 1542 abbot of the aforesaid monastery of Saint Germanus of Auxerre, that the most famous and most honored lady, the lady duchess of Guise, mother of the aforesaid lord abbot, greatly desires some small portions of the most sacred relics which she has understood from many were of old

given in great number to the same monastery by several Pontiffs (here some things are wanting) men of good memory, so that namely she might adorn and decorate with those same venerable relics the churches founded by herself and by her most noble parents: which petition we, thus gathered in chapter, weighing to be doubly consonant with right, both because it rests upon the command of the aforesaid lord abbot, and because it pertains to propagating, spreading, and increasing the cult of the Saints, therefore sooner than said we assented to what was asked, and, as is the custom in such matters, with tapers reverently lighted, we diligently took care that the shrines and other repositories of our aforesaid relics be opened, in which these things that follow were found, taken out, and, that they might be faithfully rendered to the often-said lady, resigned to us the aforesaid vicar and to Brother Nicholas Ponce, priest, expressly professed religious of the said monastery of St. Germanus of Auxerre, and these in a certain small case or oblong and square casket, divided into four little iron compartments, upon which the inscriptions of the aforesaid relics were set by name.

[87] "Namely: of a small portion of the jaw of Saint Maurice the martyr, to the duchess of Lorraine. of the sudary of Saint Germanus bishop of Auxerre, of Saint Theobald, of the head of Saint Agnarius the bishop. In faith, strength, attestation, and testimony of all and each of the premises, we have thought that our seals should be affixed to these present letters. Given and done in the said monastery of Saint Germanus of Auxerre on the second day of October in the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred and forty-two, there being present the discreet lord Louis le Jeune, priest, and Peter Thienot the elder, dwelling at Auxerre, witnesses called and asked for the premises." The editor notes that this instrument was taken from the archives of St. Germanus of Auxerre; but neither here nor in volume 1, page 125, where he treats of that donation of set purpose, does he add anything from which we might be able to make out which church the praised duchess enriched with those relics. Further, the same Lebeuf conjectures on page 126 that churches were formerly consecrated under our Saint's invocation; but that the old manner of pronouncing and writing his name, and its affinity or likeness to the names of other Saints, was the cause that his cult ceased in them.

[88] "Among these," he says, "I place the parish church of Hières (d'Hieres) in the diocese of Paris, The church of Hières in the diocese of Paris which today honors as its patron St. Honestus (in French S. Honest), a priest, whose name there is pronounced S. Aunais, as Castellanus agrees, and whom they represent as a bishop, although he never was one, a bishop namely. It has been seen above that from the eleventh century the church of Paris possessed relics of St. Aunarius." Let this be D. Lebeuf's opinion; to me indeed it does not appear to rest on conjectures grave enough to invite assent. Slight assuredly, or rather no weight is brought to it by the French pronunciation of the name, especially when it is helped by no written example; and no example is produced in which the patron of Hières is written in French Aunais or in Latin Aunarius; everywhere we read in French Honest or Honet, in Latin Honestus. But the agreement of Castellanus as to the French pronunciation of the name Honestus stands, in my judgment, rather against D. Lebeuf's opinion than for it. For Castellanus asserts this not of the patron of the parish of Hières alone, but generally of St. Honestus, the apostle of the people of Pamplona, disciple of St. Saturninus and master of St. Firminus, who is noted in the ecclesiastical tables at the days XVI of February, XVII of May, and XII of July, whose relics are honored at Toulouse in the church of St. Saturninus, at Paris in the church of St. Denys of the Prison, and both in the monastery of virgins at Hières and in the parish church of the same place, as will be plain to one considering the same Castellanus's manner of writing in the Annotations to the first two months of the Roman Martyrology, published in French at Paris in the year 1705.

[89] it is not proved to have been dedicated But no one will say that the Saint mentioned in the sacred Fasti at the XVI of February and on the other days is the same as St. Aunarius: no one will contend that the relics kept at Toulouse and at Paris at St. Denys's are his, although the Saint's name is pronounced in French S. Aunais. Therefore neither is this to be said of the patron of Hières, unless a more solid reason be added. But behold, when I had written these things, since I had to do with a learned Frenchman, it pleased me to investigate how the French pronounce, not in one place only, but everywhere and universally, the proper name Honest or Honet, and what discrepancy of sound there is between this and the name Aunais. I therefore consulted the universal French-Latin Lexicon, commonly called the Trévoux Dictionary, and at the letter H I found the following in French: "Honest or Honet. Pronounced as if it were written Aunais. S. M. Proper name of a man (in Latin) Honestus." Likewise at the letter A, after the French name Aunaire, in Latin Aunarius, follows Aunais, and it is indicated that this is the sound of the name Honest. Wherefore, although some of the people of Hières had written the name of their holy patron in the way they pronounce it — which nevertheless is not proved, as not seldom happens even to less skilled Frenchmen — Honestus would have to be understood, not Aunarius, unless, as I was saying, a more solid reason were added.

[90] to our Saint as patron. Nay, you say, such a reason is added; for he is represented in the church of Hières as a bishop, which St. Honestus never was; be it so: but, on the testimony of Baillet, volume 3 of the Lives of the Saints, column 327, he is venerated there as a martyr, which St. Aunarius was not — nay, he is venerated with the Office of a simple martyr ("de simple martyr"), that is, of a martyr who is not a pontiff, and most likely was always venerated with the same, as being the patron of the place. The Office therefore, by which I judge one ought rather to stand, denies the episcopal dignity to the patron of Hières, which the ornament attributed to him — added likely to his statue or picture by someone who, when he read that St. Honestus was a disciple of St. Saturninus the bishop and master of St. Firminus, likewise a bishop, thought him a bishop too. And this ought not to seem wonderful; since William Catel himself, author of the Monuments of the History of Occitania, once doubted about the episcopate of St. Honestus, as he confesses in book 5, page 824, in the series of the bishops of Toulouse, in the following words: "I greatly doubted once whether Honestus was the successor of St. Saturninus; since in the Life of the latter he is called his disciple, and he (Saturninus) used him (Honestus) very much for the conversion of the unbelievers." Of St. Honestus we have treated on the day XVI of February, where mention was made both of his relics in the monastery of virgins at Hières and of the parish church of the same place, distant about four miles from Paris, consecrated under his patronage. The Acts of St. Firminus his disciple have been illustrated today; of Saturninus, the master of Honestus, it will have to be treated at the XXIX of November.

[91] Monsieur Lebeuf in the cited volume 1, page 125 and following, assigns some churches or dioceses of Gaul He is venerated with an annual Office both elsewhere, in which St. Aunarius, so far as I understand, was anciently celebrated with an ecclesiastical Office: "He was always," he says, "noted in the books of Sens, some of which in manuscript call him Authnarius. I have found him likewise in the ancient Calendars of Bourges; he is therefore extant in the more recent ones. The same was true of all those of Orléans until the year MDCCXXXI, when certain correctors, with no reason alleged, believed he must be struck out." The assertion about those of Sens is confirmed in the Breviary of that metropolitan church published in print at Paris in the year 1625, where at the day XXV of September an Office is prescribed with three proper lessons, taken from the Life of our Saint; about those of Bourges we believe him as he asserts it, but we cannot confirm it by another testimony. The people of Orléans venerated St. Aunarius on the day XXIV of September, as François le Maire testifies in the History of the church and diocese of Orléans, page 117, where he cites their Breviary; the same we learn from the manuscript Calendar of Orléans, in which at the said day these things are noted: "Of Aunarius the bishop, semid. 3 lect." Wonderful indeed that in that church the Office of a Saint born at Orléans and celebrated in the Roman Martyrology itself should have been broken off.

[92] Of the cult with which the people of Auxerre followed the Saint and his relics and especially in the diocese of Auxerre, it is abundantly clear from what has been said before; of the annual Office Lebeuf writes in this manner: "His Office in the church of Auxerre was always of nine lessons, and from time immemorial, that is, from the twelfth century at least, until the year MDCLXX, there were sung at his festival proper Antiphons and Responsories taken from the History of his life." To this testimony agree our two ancient Breviaries of the church of Auxerre, one of which we think printed at the beginning of the 16th century or even earlier, the other in the year 1571. In both, at the present day, the Office is distributed in the manner already designated, yet with this difference, that in the later one the lessons are noted as taken from the Acts of the pontiffs of Auxerre, praised more than once, and from the Chronicle of Hugh of St. Marianus, or rather of Robert, to whose Work Hugh added an appendix; but in the earlier they are copied from the Acts of St. Aunarius, to be printed in the first place. Finally, at this present time his Office is made with the rite of a lesser double, as is noted in the Calendar of the year 1725. But the lessons of the second nocturn, copied from the present-day Breviary of that same church and transmitted hither from Paris, are these:

[93] Lesson IV. Aunarius, also called Aunacharius, born in the territory of Orléans of most noble parents, Pastor and Ragnoara; from whose Breviary when as a youth he was living in the court of King Guntram, suddenly, breathed upon by the divine Spirit, without the knowledge of his father and mother, he came to the tomb of Saint Martin to lay down his hair. Formed in piety by the blessed Syagrius, bishop of Autun, he is duly initiated in sacred Orders: then, at the demand of the people and the election of the clergy, he was substituted in the place of Etherius, bishop of Auxerre. Inaugurated pontiff on the very anniversary day of the passing of Saint Germanus, he followed with sedulous imitation the example set before him, and illustrated the church of Auxerre with so great a splendor of virtues and miracles that Germanus seemed to live again. The unwearied ardor for teaching in him was matched in the people by a marvelous eagerness to hear.

[94] are given Lesson V. For the protection of his flock he instituted that solemn prayers or Litanies should be made by turns on some day of each month through thirty of the greater villages of the diocese, and on each Kalends in twelve of the more notable basilicas or monasteries. Nay, further, that the divine service might be performed with a more solemn rite in the cathedral church, he ordered the same clerics and monks to be present on each day of the week, according to the order assigned to each basilica and monastery. He exhorted Stephen, an African priest, by letters sent, to write the Deeds of the holy pontiffs Amator and Germanus, and obtained from him the Life of Amator. He was present at and subscribed the fourth council of Paris and the first and second of Mâcon. At Auxerre, a synod having been gathered with his abbots and priests, he overthrew the relics of pagan superstition, and so restrained the slipping discipline of the clergy by canons wisely published, that thereafter among all the churches that council of Auxerre was held most celebrated.

[95] proper Lesson VI. Pelagius the Second, supreme Pontiff, wrote two letters to Aunarius, which are still extant, indications of his benevolence toward him. Drawn by the fragrance of his virtues, Austregisilus,

deserted the court of King Guntram; then, taken into the clergy by the blessed Prelate and promoted to the subdiaconate, he afterward shone with renown as bishop of Bourges. Walaricus too, received in the monastery near Auxerre, profited so much by his instructions that he governed most holily the monastery of Luxeuil, and thereafter another in the territory of Amiens, which for many centuries has been distinguished by the name of Saint Walaricus. At length, after many labors endured through thirty years and more, the blessed Prelate was called away to heavenly beatitude on the twenty-fifth day of September, about the beginning of the seventh century. Buried in the basilica of Saint Germanus, he shone with many miracles. For both the blind received sight at his tomb, and the paralytic received their former vigor from the oil of the hanging lamp. On the recurring day of his deposition, in the ninth century, his body was placed at the feet of Saint Germanus. There it rested, until, raised from the tomb on the sixteenth of August, it was laid up in a precious case, which the rebel heretics, casting out the relics, impiously plundered.

[96] The Lessons and the prayer. Those Lessons, which have been brought hither long after the rest of what is discussed in the Commentary had already been committed to writing, and the Acts illustrated with annotations, are noted as composed from the History of the bishops of Auxerre, the Life of St. Austregisilus, volume 5 of Labbe's Councils, the second Benedictine Century, and the old Martyrologies, and, as is clear, are sufficiently consonant with our assertions. Except, however, these words toward the end of the sixth Lesson: "On the recurring day of his deposition, in the ninth century, his body was placed at the feet of St. Germanus." For in these is wrapped up the opinion of D. Lebeuf, who thinks that the translation of the Saint marked in some sacred Fasti on the day XXV of September is the same as the translation made in the ninth century, which is not sufficiently proved to us. See above, nos. 55 and following down to 60. There is besides at the end of the said Lesson something I could have wished put a little more explicitly: I could have wished, I say, that after these words — "which (case) the rebel heretics, THE RELICS BEING CAST OUT, impiously plundered" — it had been briefly indicated whither the relics of St. Aunarius afterward came; lest the reader suspect that they utterly perished. Further, to the Lessons is subjoined the following Prayer: "Look propitiously, O God, upon thy family, which the blessed pontiff Aunarius ruled and taught, and grant that his intercession may profit us unto salvation, whose wisdom profited thy people unto amendment. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee."

ACTS

By an anonymous author

From Labbe's edition, volume 1 of the Bibliotheca of Manuscripts, page 528, collated with the Sens manuscript and others.

Aunarius or Aunacharius, bishop and confessor, at Auxerre in the duchy of Burgundy. (S.)

BHL Number: 0805

A. By an anonymous author.

Born of an illustrious house, As often as the pious remembrance of some good man moves our minds, so often are our cheeks bedewed with showers of tears. And so, while we marvel at the merits and virtues of the blessed Aunarius ^a the pious shepherd, we rouse our souls to the doing of good works ^b. Aunarius therefore was sprung of noble birth, so that none loftier could be found among the persons of the citizens of Orléans. His father, Pastor by name, sent us a Shepherd from his stock; but his mother was called Ragnoara by her parents ^c. Thus the blessed Offspring, while he passed the time of his youth under King Guntram ^d, feeding in the fields of books and, like a spotless lamb, chewing over the divine sayings, poured spiritual sap into his breast.

[2] Thereafter his mind is kindled, provoked by a fullest faith to religion; he puts on the clerical habit; for, leaving the earthly king and setting his parents behind him *, he busied himself with full devotion that he might abide in the heavenly kingdom with the eternal King. Then, unknown to his parents, he went to the city of Tours, two boys accompanying him, and there, the hair of his head having been shorn at the tomb of Saint Martin, he changed his secular garment for the clerical habit. When this was done, his parents, troubled, sought with anxious search whither the holy Aunarius had gone. But when no one satisfied their inquiry, a most grievous grief for the lost offspring would not let their breasts rest.

[3] At the time when these things were done, Syagrius ^e, bishop of the people of Autun, presided over the apostolic chair. instructed by St. Syagrius, to the episcopate He, hearing what things had been done from heaven concerning the Boy, swiftly sent men to present him to his sight. Nor is there delay: the desire of so great a man is swiftly carried out by those who obeyed. When he had been brought , receiving him with exceeding love, he instructed him with such erudition and doctrine that by leading him on step by step he advanced him even to the summit of the pontificate. When therefore Etherius ^f, prelate of the church of Auxerre, passed over to Christ, the throng of the clergy, together with the consent of the peoples, is kindled to the election of the blessed Aunarius.

[4] By the favor therefore of divine grace, filled with the Holy Spirit, he is advanced, and shines with every kind of virtue. he is drawn forward to be raised to the pontifical chair. And so, with his merits increasing, amid the flashing of divine miracles, he is led to the aforesaid city of the people of Auxerre; and there, taking up the office of the episcopate on the day before the Kalends of August ^g, he flourished in merits together with sanctity. What shall I say of his teaching? What love toward the citizens, what diligence toward the clergy, how most faithful a dispenser toward the poor, how great his care was for the Saints, a mortal tongue cannot run through ^h. There was in his face an angelic aspect, in his speech a learned exposition, in his ordering * a most bountiful grace of humanity. He refreshed all with his words; and with the salt of divine preaching he seasoned the hearts of the faithful, and with a marvelous eagerness the people burned toward the worship of God, God working miracles through him whom He had enriched and illustrated with such and so great virtues.

[5] He frees a woman from a demon; At a certain time therefore, when after the manner of sacred religion he was going to the basilica of St. Stephen , he met from afar a woman bereft of her mind, whom the devil had so bound that, with her hands tied behind her back and her head bound with a fillet and her whole body encircled with an indissoluble chain, she seemed able to move. That unhappy woman went along in alternating leaps, so that you might discern the monster of the devil . Seeing her, the man of God Aunarius, moved with pity, stretching out his right hand far in the little sign of the Cross, said: "Depart, devil, depart as quickly as may be; the Lord looseth the fettered : nor does Christ, the head of man, suffer thee to hold this woman captive any longer." At that word the wretched woman was straightway free of the demon ⁱ, so that the bonds which had settled upon her body did not appear at all , where or what they had been .

[6] Thereafter, when in the course of time a certain man had been condemned by the drawing up of his feet, to a man crippled in his feet and was carried by the effort of the hands of his dependents, and did not change his place by his own motions, in the depth of the dead of night St. Lupus ^k appeared to him in ecstasy, saying: "Sending speedily, dispatch one of the brethren who may bring thee the shoes of the sacred prelate Aunarius, and as soon as thou hast set them on thy now numbed feet, thou shalt straightway recover the use of walking, nor shalt thou any longer use the hands of servants." Moved by this vision, he narrates to the brethren in a faithful account what he had seen; and, trusting in the admonition of so great a man, he sent forthwith one of the brethren to discharge the office of so great an embassy to the Man of God: and that brother, coming to the holy Aunarius of God, and falling at his feet, said: "I beseech thee, my Lord, grant to a client who asks. That abbot of mine, whom thou, kindly Shepherd, knowest personally, has sent me hither to thee for this cause ^l, that thou wouldst send him the shoes which thou usest daily on thy holy feet." Then he, ascribing it not to his own power but to the Godhead, and holding himself unworthy of so great a thing, said: "Remain with us this night, brother, and what the Lord shall inspire, we will do."

[7] walking is restored; While this delay was being made, that abbot again is shaken more terribly in his sleep, and he sent another messenger, saying with tears of faith: "I beseech thee, Man of God, delay not the coming of the power which the Godhead is about to confer through thee upon my dead feet." Hearing which, the Man full of God, moved with his wonted piety, said: "Report, brother, what thou hadst asked: may that Lord who healed the centurion's servant by a praiseworthy faith Himself restore his steps to thy father." And weeping a little while, he said, "Farewell, my brother, and hasten to meet him who asks." That abbot, having obtained with ardor of faith the gift he had asked, with great weeping called the brethren and said: "Come nearer, sons, to learn the mysteries which the faith of him who asked and the merit of him who sent obtained ^m, that this day may be a testimony to you and to those who come after." And when, with the crowd of brethren standing about, he had put the shoes on his dry feet, straightway the feeble soles were restored to the use of walking. He bears the mass of his body to the hall of the Maker, no longer requiring a litter * to be carried by the hands of servants.

[8] the water of a spring being corrupted, But because whatever the divine power deigns to show forth through His servants belongs to the praise of the Giver, I relate another miracle no less great, wrought from heaven through the aforesaid Man of God ⁿ. There is in the territory of the aforesaid city of Auxerre, not far distant from it, an estate which is called Uro, in which a spring bubbled up, into which a certain man, when by the sudden impulse of diabolical art he had fallen headlong, the unhappy man gave up his soul in a lamentable departure. And when the multitude of the people wept that the use of drawing water had been taken from them by the snare of the malignant enemy, coming to the holy Shepherd they said: "Is it unknown * to thee, holy Father, what loss the bloody beast has brought upon thy people? There is," they said, "among us a spring in which the ancient enemy lately killed a certain man by hurling him down, and by the ceasing of the drawing of water has reduced the spring to a wilderness, and taken from thy flock the use of drinking. Succor, we beseech thee, succor thy people quickly, and, the malice of the unhappy one being put to flight, bring back the spoils from the robber, lest the flock of the pious Shepherd perish of bodily thirst — the flock which thou dost not cease to water from a spiritual spring."

[9] But he, not lightly esteeming what the thousand-shaped seducer had brought upon his sheep, purged by his merits, he casts out a demon from a possessed woman. said, "Bring hither a little salt"; and when it had been brought and the sacrament of blessing set upon it from above, he said, "Go quickly, and plunge this into the spring in the name of the Trinity; draw the water too without fear"; and when the salt had been plunged into the watery pool, for the fuller strengthening of faith, while the crowds were not expecting it, a woman ran up, full of a savage demon. She — while all who were present were astonished — as soon as she had brought the water of the spring to her mouth in her hollowed hands, drank and vomited it up, and returned home * whole. O how wonderful, and how to be proclaimed in all ages, is thy power, good Jesus! which under the union of a single might published three miracles for the confirming of the hearts of the faithful: the first, when the spring is rendered unpolluted; the second, when the thirsting company is refreshed; the third, when the woman is freed from a most ferocious demon ^o.

[10] Having run through the virtues by which the most blessed Aunarius, while living in the world, He dies; shone with admirable renown, let us briefly trace out his happy passing. At length, when he had vigorously governed the church divinely committed to him for forty-four years, one month, and twenty-three days [p], he passed at last, with Christ for his leader, to the long-desired fatherland on the VII Kalends of October. And so with the highest glory, amid a throng of peoples [q], he is led forth to be entombed in the church of the blessed Germanus. Where, buried with fitting honor near * the body of that same most holy father and most blessed confessor, he is gladly venerated.

[11] But lest the brightness of his sanctity should after his death pass from the memory of men, and his sanctity the divine power declared him no less after the death of the flesh by the signs of miracles. A certain boy blind from birth, a native, as they say, of the city of Sens, when he passed his whole span of life as though in the darkness of a single night, being laid at this Saint's tomb, as soon as he had poured forth prayer, deserved to receive light, and a new day was given to one once blind of sight, and he marveled at his very self as at something new. And straightway, being made a cleric in return for the granting of his petition, he attends to this day upon the service of the sacred burial [r]. Then, as time went on, a certain man by the name of Begto * lost his sight, being himself also blinded. He, as soon as he touched the holy monument, received the sight of light [s].

[12] At that time a certain woman, dissolved by paralysis, lay to be lamented in the whole use of her body, he is illustrious with miracles. and she, as is reported, had come from the district of the Gâtinais [t]. She too begs her own people, saying, "Carry me, unhappy that I am, carry me, I pray, and lay me at the memorial of the holy pontiff Aunarius. Perhaps, as I believe, he will deign to hear the laments of one who prays, and will come to my aid in my misery." And when after the day of the Lord's Ascension she had been brought by the kindly hands of her own people, as she herself had asked, and prayer had been poured out with a roaring of the heart and a shower of tears, she was anointed with the oil of the lamp which hung before the tomb of the most holy Prelate. And presently, her feet being set in place, the frame of her body was so made firm that by no one would it have been known that she had ever been sick in body, save by one who had seen her. Thereafter followed another miracle done concerning a woman. For twelve years, as was reported, the hands of that same woman had been contracted. She, as soon as she touched the slabs of the sacred tomb, returned with sound hands. What shall I say of this, that shaking off decay he drives diseases from the body, when often a succeeding power puts demons to flight from the bodies they held captive? But even to this day [u] divine benefits are granted by his merits to all the faithful who ask in faith; Christ Jesus our Lord cooperating, to whom is honor and dominion with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit through all ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATA.

p. Consult upon these things the Commentarius prævius, no. 52 and following.

q. The Sens manuscript: "And so with the highest glory, amid a throng of peoples." The Clamecy and Chifflet ones agree, in which the narration is resumed from the beginning of this number.

r. Upon these things I have observed something in the Commentary, no. XI.

s. The Clamecy and Chifflet manuscripts do not proceed further.

t. The district of the Vastinenses or Vastinienses, Vastinium, in French le Gâtinois, is a tract of Gaul in the province of the Île-de-France.

u. Upon these things too I have annotated something in the Commentary, no. XI.

*. Clamecy Ms.: "depositis."

*. others: "celeritate."

*. others: "Quem adductum."

*. others: "dispensatione."

*. in the manuscripts there is added "proto martyris."

*. add "non."

*. others: "diabolicum."

*. others: "compeditam."

*. others: "fuerint."

*. others: "parerent."

*. others: "subsidium."

*. Sens Ms.: "Incognitumne."

*. read "domumque."

*. others: "prope."

*. others: "Begio."

OTHER ACTS

From the History of the pontiffs of Auxerre, published in Labbe, volume 1 of the Bibliotheca of Manuscripts, page 419.

Aunarius or Aunacharius, bishop and confessor, at Auxerre in the duchy of Burgundy. (S.)

BHL Number: 0806

From the History of the pontiffs of Auxerre.

The Saint's birth, his contempt of the world, Aunarius, by nation of Orléans, of his father Pastor and his mother Ragnoara, sat forty-three years, ten months, twenty days, in the reign of Maurice ^a. This most blessed Pontiff, when as a youth he was dwelling in the palace of the lord King Guntram — for he was most noble by birth — being breathed upon by the grace of the Holy Spirit, left the earthly kingdom, that he might abide in the heavenly kingdom with the eternal King: then, without his parents' knowledge, he went to the city of Tours, two boys accompanying him, and there at the tomb of Saint Martin, led by the love of God, he laid down the hair of his head. Thereafter he sought out the holy Syagrius, bishop of Autun, who was then held foremost in the things of God, who, receiving him with exceeding love, instructed him with such erudition and discipline as befitted an apostolic man.

[2] his episcopate, By the favor therefore of divine grace, with his merits increasing, filled with the Holy Spirit, he is constituted Pontiff of the church of Auxerre, and there, on the very day of the festival of the most blessed Germanus, on the day before the Kalends of August, taking up in that same basilica the office of the episcopate, he flourished in merit together with sanctity. He had a full brother, Austrenus by name, pontiff of Orléans, and also a nephew by his sister Agia, Lupus ^b, a most holy man, archbishop of Sens, shining with miracles.

[3] his virtues; This holy man Aunarius therefore, being now made bishop, began to flourish in virtues and to shine with miracles. And what shall I say of his teaching? What love toward the citizens, what diligence toward the clergy, how faithful a Dispenser toward the poor, how great his care was for the Saints, a mortal tongue cannot run through. For there was in his face an angelic aspect, in his speech a learned exposition, in his dispensing a most bountiful grace of humanity; he refreshed all with honey-flowing words; and with the salt of divine preaching he seasoned the hearts of the faithful, and with a marvelous eagerness the people burned toward the worship of God, God working miracles through him whom He had enriched and illustrated with such and so great virtues. With what miracles therefore he shone, and of what glory he was in Christ, the little Book ^c published about his life makes more fully manifest to those desiring to know.

[4] the councils at which he was present For we read in the ancient canons that this most blessed Prelate was present at the synod of Mâcon, which was held in the XXIV year of the reign of the lord Guntram, the most glorious king, there sitting in that same council the venerable archbishops Priscus of Lyons, Euantius of Vienne, Prætextatus of Rouen, Bertechramnus of Bordeaux, Artemius of Sens, Sulpicius of Bourges, Syagrius of Autun, with very many others; in which synod, treating of many things that conduce to the profit of holy mother Church, as befitted men so great and such as they, they compressed all the chief matters into XX chapters. Likewise we find that the same holy Man was present at another synod, which was celebrated at the same city upon the summons of the same prince, by the same venerable bishops, where also, treating of all that was honorable and most useful to the holy Church of God, they divided the greatest matters into X and VIII chapters ^d. There are extant also Letters of Pope Pelagius to the same most blessed Pontiff, one of which, darkened by exceeding age, we have by no means been able to extract fully from the authentic copies of the books ^e; but the other we have thought worthy to be inserted in this Work ^f.

[5] Supplications in the places of the diocese by turns Moreover the same most blessed Pontiff established very many things in the church of Auxerre, as is found in the ancient canons, which that they might be observed with especial

vigor, he greatly strengthened by the counsel and authority of the Most Christian King Guntram. For, for the protection of the flock committed to him by the Lord, he ordered that both in the city of Auxerre and throughout the parishes of that district this institution ought to be kept ^g.

"On the first day, the Kalends of January, let the city with its clergy and people make the Rogations.

On the II Day, Epponiacus and Vendosa.

On the III Day, Gaugiacus and Nautriacus.

On the IV Day, Corevicus with its clergy and people.

On the V Day, Bacerna and Accolacus.

On the VI Day, Matriacus with its own.

On the VII Day, Curcedomus with its own.

On the VIII Day, Drogia with its own.

On the IX Day, Varciacus with its own.

On the X Day, Columbariacus with its own.

On the XI Day, Campus Lametii with its own.

On the XII Day, Bargiacus with its own ^h.

On the XIII Day, Domiciacus with its own.

On the XIV Day, Soliacus with its own. to be held through the whole year

On the XV Day, Massua with its own.

On the XVI Day, Condida with Draptiacus.

On the XVII Day, Eliniacus with its own.

On the XVIII Day, Novus Vicus with its own.

On the XIX Day, Brioderus with its own.

On the XX Day, Giemus with its own.

On the XXI Day, Blanoilus with its own.

On the XXII Day, Cassiniacus, Nantiniacus with the cell of Salvius and of Maurus.

On the XXIII Day, Laoderus with its own.

On the XXIV Day, Vitriacus and Arcutius.

On the XXV Day, Balgiacus with its own.

On the XXVI Day, Interranis with its own.

On the XXVII Day, Tauriacus with its own.

On the XXVIII Day, Liccadiacus with its own.

On the XXIX Day, Pulverenus with its own.

On the XXX Day, Odona with its own ⁱ.

[7] Likewise he established that at the heads of the twelve months the same Litanies should be celebrated thus: he prescribes.

On the Kalends of January, the basilica of the lord Germanus.

On the Kalends of February, the basilica of the lord Amator.

On the Kalends of March, the monastery of the lord Marianus.

On the Kalends of April, the basilica of Saint Peter the apostle.

On the Kalends of May, the basilica of the lord Valerianus and the monastery of Vulfinus.

On the Kalends of June, the basilica of the lord Martin.

On the Kalends of July, the basilica of the lord Julian.

On the Kalends of August, the monastery of Decimiacum at Saint Cyricus.

On the Kalends of September, the monastery of Fontanetum.

On the Kalends of October, the monastery of Coacum at the Saints.

On the Kalends of November, the monastery of Saffiacum.

On the Kalends of December, the monastery of Mannacum ^k.

[8] But on the other days of the months as above: and with equal condition he established, and he institutes other offices of piety; that on all the Lord's days vigils be made in this manner in their own places by all the archpriests and abbots. That is, from the holy day of Easter until the Kalends of October from the first evening until the dawning of day; but from the Kalends of October until the Lord's Nativity from cockcrow, and from the Lord's Nativity until Easter from midnight. Likewise he established by whom the vigils in the basilica of Saint Stephen in the city should be celebrated together with the abbots.

On the Lord's night, the basilica of the lord Germanus with * the monastery of Decimiacum.

On the second weekday, the basilica of the lord Amator and the monastery of Fontanetum *.

On the third weekday, the monastery which the lord Germanus built, where Saint Marianus rests, and at the same time Sessiacus ^l.

On the fourth weekday, the basilica of Saint Peter and the monastery of Manuacum *.

On the fifth weekday, the basilica of the lord Martin and the monastery of Vulfinus.

On the sixth weekday, the basilica of the lord Valerianus and the monastery which is called Varrenæ ^m."

[9] At length he gathered a venerable synod in the city of Auxerre ⁿ, he holds a synod at Auxerre; where, treating of very many things concerning the salvation of the people committed to him, he compressed all that was necessary and greatly useful into forty-four chapters. These are the names of those who, confirming the same chapters, subscribed — for we have not thought the chapters themselves should be inserted ^o.

"I, Aunarius, bishop in the name of God, have confirmed and subscribed this constitution. I, Winebaud, abbot, have subscribed. I, Desideratus, abbot, have subscribed. Frannulf, abbot. Gregory, abbot. Amandus, abbot. Cæsarius, abbot. Baudoveus, abbot. Tegridus, abbot. Audoveus, priest. Ananias, priest. And very many others who were present subscribed [p]."

[10] He takes care that the Acts of the Saints be written, and with his goods How zealous also this holy Pontiff was in all useful matters, the copy of the letter to Stephen, an African priest, sent by him, shows — that he should write out the Life of Saint Germanus in verse, and that of Saint Amator in prose in a noble style, running in this manner [q]. That angelic man also, the blessed Aunarius, since he was of a most noble stock, offered the greatest gifts of his estates to God almighty, of which he also made the holy Church his heir. He gave therefore to the basilica of Saint Stephen the fields and estates which had come to him by paternal right, that is, Brioderus with Venolium and its other appurtenances; also Nolvetum and Gaionnum, and at the same time Oscellum with their appurtenances [r]; finally in the district of Orléans or of Blois [s] Meldunum [t] and Brigium with their appurtenances, also Rocca and Manuisum and Villaris with their appurtenances, and the estate of Boue with its appurtenances [u].

[11] he enriches churches; he dies, Likewise he gave also to the basilica of the lord Germanus (where he had decreed that his body should be consigned to burial) a certain most noble field in the district of the Gâtinais, which is called Corbiliæ [x], with all its appurtenances; and in the district of Avallon [y] Decimiacum with Vidiliacum [z] and Calminiacum [aa] and their other appurtenances, and also in the district of Sens Baldiliacum [bb] with its appurtenances. And so the holy Man, all things being duly disposed, full of days, and most illustrious also in sanctity and in the glory of miracles, on the VII day of the Kalends of October passed over to Christ; and, heaven rejoicing and earth weeping, he was buried beside his predecessors in the basilica of Saint Germanus, and the episcopate was vacant for VII days.

ANNOTATA.

Labbe, just praised, columns 961 and following, the names of all — that is, of thirty-four priests and of three deacons, who likely subscribed for their own priests — are exhibited; but the abbots are reckoned in a different order and manner than here: nevertheless most of the variant readings taken from these Acts are marked in the margin, which I have taken care should be done here also, as follows.

I, Aunacharius, bishop in the name of God, have subscribed this constitution Note: confirmavi &.

I, Vinobaudis Note: Winebaudus, abbot, have subscribed.

I, Baudonius Note: Baudoveus, abbot, have subscribed.

I, Francolus Note: Frannulfus, abbot, have subscribed.

I, Cæsarius, abbot, have subscribed.

I, Desideratus, abbot, have subscribed.

I, Amandus, abbot, have subscribed.

I, Tegredus, abbot, have subscribed.

I, Vigilius, priest, have subscribed.

I, Gregorius, priest Note: abba, have subscribed.

I, Claudius, priest, have subscribed.

I, Anianus Note: Ananias, priest, have subscribed.

Then, eight names of priests being interposed, there follows:

I, Audovius, priest, have subscribed Note: Audoveus.

According to that series of subscribers Gregorius, called abbot in the Acts, belongs to the class of priests, and there remain seven abbots, as many as Le Cointe also reckons in volume 2 of the Annals at the year 586, no. 36; and just as many D. Lebeuf admits in volume 1 of the Monuments, page 119, where he observes that the number seven of abbots coincides with the series of abbeys or monasteries given before, namely of St. Marianus, of Vulfinus, of Decimiacum, of Fontanetum, of Cotiacum, of Saxiacum, and of Manuacum. Nevertheless, saving a better computation, the number eight of abbots would come nearer to the complete series of monasteries; since Varrena too is named a monastery, both in the Acts and in the maps, equally with the rest. Nearer, I say, would the number eight come, yet it would not certainly complete the number of monasteries then existing; for, as I noted in the Commentary, nos. 39 and following, according to the Sainte-Marthes and others the monastery of St. Germanus of Auxerre existed generally at that time, and over it presided that very man who subscribed the canons first after the holy Bishop, the abbot Winebaud: and this opinion was so approved by Le Cointe that at the year 586, no. 38, saying that it cannot be known from the ancient monuments over which monasteries those abbots presided, he added: "Unless however you except Winebaud": which opinion standing, a ninth is wanting, that an abbot may be found for each monastery.

q. That letter of the Saint, together with Stephen's reply, I recited in the Commentary, no. 35 and following.

r. Of the goods or places named here, which the Saint granted as a gift to the cathedral church of St. Stephen, I find only two marked in the first map of the diocese, Brioderus and Oscellum, both on the Loire. D. Lebeuf, in volume 1 of the Monuments, page 122, conjectures that Venolium or Vernolium is the village which, neighboring Brioderus, is now called Domna-Maria, commonly Dammarie: and Nolvetum, a parish of the diocese of Auxerre, in French Neuvoy. Gaionnum, finally, he interprets Giem without further elucidation.

s. The territory of Orléans Baudrand describes thus: "It is a province of Gaul, part of the prefecture of Orléans, and so called from its chief city; it is bounded on the north by the Beauce, on the east by the tract of the Gâtinais, on the west by the territory of Blois, and on the south by the Sologne." And that of Blois thus: "A province of Gaul, toward the river Loire, in the general prefecture of Orléans, … it is bounded on the east by the province of Orléans, on the west by that of Tours, on the south by that of Bourges, and on the north by the Beauce."

t. D. Lebeuf interprets Meldunum in French as Meun, which is a town of the district of Orléans on the Loire between Orléans and Beaugency. Nevertheless that place is commonly read in Latin Magdunum, sometimes Maidunum or Maudunum, nowhere else, so far as I know, Meldunum. Further the praised Lebeuf observes that two villages have here been omitted by Labbe, either from inadvertence or on purpose, because he did not believe them to be proper names of places. He says the name of one was Deus-adjuva, of the other Cormagnum; but as to their situation he adds nothing.

u. The same Lebeuf calls Brigium in French les Bries, or les Bray; Rocca, la Roche; Manuisum, Mannay; Villaris, Villers; the estate of Boue, Bone; he adds that it may easily be perceived that those lands were near Château-neuf, a little town of the territory of Orléans on the Loire, and to the monastery of St. Benedict (S. Benoit sur Loire), otherwise Fleury, not far distant thence on the same river; since even now there are seen in the same place Bray and Manny in the parish of Bouzy, and Bonne. Then, citing Aimoin, book 2 of the Miracles of St. Benedict, chapter 26, he says that until the times of King Robert there were goods in those parts belonging to the church of Auxerre. The third book of the Miracles of St. Benedict, which is Aimoin's second, is, in our Lyons edition of the year 1605 at least, divided into only 22 chapters. Likely the praised Lebeuf had in view the chapter which with us is the tenth of that same book, and whose beginning is this: "A certain field, subject to the dominion of the church of Saint Stephen of Auxerre, adjoins the land of Saint Benedict, that is, of Fleury."

x. That place, commonly Corbeilles, on the testimony of Lebeuf, is distant about three miles from Château-Landon and Montargis, towns of the aforesaid district of the Wastanenses, that is, of the Vastinienses, le Gâtinais.

y. It is a tract in the duchy of Burgundy, in French l'Avallonois, so called from Avallo or Aballo (Avallon), a town on the river Cousin.

z. Decimiacum, according to Lebeuf, is the present-day Domecy sur le Vaux, whose church is even now distinguished by the title of St. Germanus of Auxerre. In Blaeu's map of the duchy of Nevers, Domeci is marked not far from Avallon toward the river Cure (la Cure). But Vidiliacum the same Lebeuf judges to have been in our Saint's times only a village, now a town, commonly Vezelay, in Latin Vezeliacum, which is thus described by Baudrand: "Vezeliacum, also Viceliacum, in the district of Avallon … a city of Gaul within the bounds of the duchy of Burgundy and of the tract of Auxerre, on a hill by the river Cure … X leagues above Auxerre to the south," etc.

aa. Whether Calminiacum still exists is unascertained by me: certainly in that tract no name akin to it occurs; unless perhaps the district of Avallon once extended as far as Clamecy, and that place was designated, situated on the river Yonne about three miles from Vezelay.

bb. The often-praised Lebeuf expresses Baldiliacum in French as Boully, which place is, according to Blaeu's map of the territory of Sens, in the neighborhood of Briennon (Brinon or Brignon l'Archevêque), a little town on the river Armentio.

*. read "ac."

*. read "Fontanetense."

*. read "Mannacense."