ON ST. SOLEMNIS, BISHOP,
AT CHARTRES IN GAUL.
About the year DVIII
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Solemnis, Bishop and Conf., at Chartres in Gaul (S.)
BHL Number: 7819
BY J. C.
§ I. The Saint's name variously dislocated, and mention of him on various days among the martyrologists and other authors. An account of his Acts.
[ ] Saint Solemnis is announced by the Gallican Martyrologies, and he is celebrated also in very many other sacred Calendars, chiefly in the Usuardine Auctaria. The Saint's name occurs variously written among some martyrologists But neither is the same day assigned him everywhere, nor is his name written in the same manner. In the manuscript codices he is sometimes called Solempnis and Solempius, by the usual custom of the middle age, more rarely Solennius, often Solemnis, as may be seen in Sollerius's Observations and in the Auctaria to Usuard. The more common appellation is Solennis, which for that reason I have adopted. By the natives he is called S. Souleine. Munerat and Grevenus mention him at the XXIV day of September in their Martyrologies. And the latter indeed announces him thus: Item, of S. Solemnis the bishop; but the former: At the castle of Blois, of S. Solennis, bishop and confessor. On the same day his memory occurs among the Usuardine Auctaria of Sollerius in the transcripts of Avranches and of the Register of the Carthusians of Utrecht. These had been preceded by Rabanus Maurus, who at the VIII Kalends of October makes mention of our holy Prelate. That Rabanus had before his eyes Acts like those which we shall publish we shall observe afterwards: here is Rabanus's announcement. On the same day, the deposition of Solemnis the bishop, who from infancy was devoted to God, and who also was renowned for miracles. For when on a certain day he was setting out on his journey to Chelles, he met a man blind from birth, deaf and dumb, whom he embraced and kissed on the neck, and quickly restored him whole.
[2] on the 24th day of September, He also, when, the bishop of the city of Chartres having died, he was elected to the bishopric, therefore received it unwillingly. And king Clovis, still a pagan, who at that time was ruling the Franks, when he wished to go to war against the Goths, he armed with the sign of the Cross in his heart and on his breast; and thus, when he had obtained victory over his enemies and returned home, together with S. Remigius, bishop of the city of Rheims, the divine power favouring, he baptized him with the alacrity of grace, and with him brought forth in the Holy Spirit three hundred and seventy noble chieftains, regenerated at the sacred font, as sons of adoption; and so that Saint of God, having spent three Olympiads in the episcopate, departed from this light to Christ. Equally agreeing as to the day are Molanus in his additions, the Martyrology of Paris, the Breviaries of Tours of the church of S. Martin, of Chartres and of Saint-Malo. Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology and Baillet in the Lives of the Saints treat of S. Solemnis on the XXIV of September, and celebrate his memory with elogia, which I nowhere find in the more recent Gallican sacred Calendars deferred to the following day.
[3] among others on the 25th day Yet Baronius in the Roman Martyrology announces him thus on the XXV of September: At Blois, of S. Solemnius, bishop of Chartres, renowned for miracles. Baronius may have been guided by some Acts and by various Auctaria of Usuard in our Sollerius, where on the XXV day of September the greater Antwerp codex, the Rosweydian, the Hérin, the Pulsano and several others have S. Solemnis, which I forbear to enumerate. Longer, and conceived in almost the same words, is the Saint's elogium in the Hagenau, Brussels, Utrecht, Alberg and Danish transcripts, which I transfer hither from the Utrecht one: At Chartres, the birthday of S. Solempnis, bishop and confessor. He restored to a man blind and deaf and dumb from birth his sight, his hearing and the function of his tongue. Clovis also, king of the Franks, and three hundred (about Clovis the Brussels one has nothing; the Hagenau one reckons Six hundred) and sixty-four with him he initiated with the water of sacred baptism. Belinus and Galesinius also report the Saint on the XXV. Whether Usuard inserted him in his Martyrology on the same day, Sollerius doubted, inclining to the negative; because in the Prato codex, the announcement of S. Aunarius, which had been in the last place, having first been deleted, it had afterwards been written in a more compressed hand, so as to make room for the mention of S. Solemnis, and because the Hérin codex is today found enlarged elsewhere, in which therefore he did not dare to trust much: yet he declared that he would readily yield to arguments. Bouillart, the champion of the Prato codex, contends that the correction was, as usual, written in the Prato manuscript by the same hand of Usuard, and teaches that the Dervensian codex too agrees with the Hérin one, and celebrates saint Solempnis in the same manner.
[4] That the hand of these corrections, which is the same as that of the rest, is indeed Usuard's own, nothing hitherto compels us to confess. on which day too Usuard seems to mention him and we treat of him. The contrary judgment of our Sirmond and of Castellan, and the excuses which it has happened were thrust upon those who were eager to inspect with their own eyes the much-vaunted Prato codex, cannot but leave and nourish some suspicion. As regards this matter, since the codex of the royal library of Dervensis agrees with the Prato and Hérin ones in the announcement of S. Solemnis, it seems to me at least more probable that it is genuinely Usuard's. But why he celebrates him on that day and not on the preceding one I do not know, unless perhaps he saw some Acts where, as in our two transcripts, he is said to have died on this day. Galesinius had Usuard for guide, Baronius both, when he ascribed the Saint to the XXV day of September in the Roman Martyrology, as I have already said. Him we are wont to follow, when nothing absolutely persuades us to throw the Saints back to other days; which we shall likewise observe here: for although not a few martyrologists already reviewed, and with them the diptychs and the Breviary of the diocese of Chartres printed at Paris in the year 1633, celebrate S. Solemnis on the VIII Kalends of October, yet Usuard, marking his death, with some manuscript Acts, on the XXV of September, suffices for us not to tear him away from the day on which he is noted in the Roman Martyrology.
[5] The first known author who is established to have mentioned S. Solemnis The Saint is mentioned also by Gregory of Tours, narrating miracles, is S. Gregory, prelate of Tours, who had visited his tomb. He in the book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 21, narrates the miracles which had occurred at his tomb. It will be well to have transferred his words hither, from Ruinart's edition. The title is: Of the tomb of S. Solemnis. And although, he says, we have already written some things about the city of Tours, yet since we have lately beheld the tomb of S. Solemnis, we cannot be silent about what was done at the monastery of Meillac, which is built on the top of a hill, fenced about by ancient buildings now torn down. For they relate that in that place, while the crypt was still hidden and that place had been revealed to none of the Christians, on every night of the solemnities of the Lord's days a light was seen kindled by the inhabitants; but no one knew what this mystery meant, only a suspicion held men that something divine was kept there. Meanwhile there came two possessed men from the basilica of S. Martin, who, striking their palms together, began to cry out, saying: Here rests the most blessed Solemnis in a hidden crypt.
[6] which occurred at his tomb, Open therefore the tomb of the Friend of God; and when you shall have found it, cover it with veils, kindle a light and render him due worship. It will be healthful for this region, if you shall fulfil what we say. And saying these things with a great outcry, they strove to dig up the earth with their nails. Then the inhabitants, seeing what was being done, taking a hoe and digging, opened the crypt, in which, descending by a series of steps, they found a great tomb, of which those men, still infirm, testified that this was the tomb of the most blessed Solemnis; and they presently departed, their senses recovered. But after this the sick of divers diseases began to flow together to him, and, having received health, to return home sound. And Lithomeris too, of that same city (Ruinart testifies that most of the manuscripts have Litthomerus of the city of Poitiers), when he was wearied with an illness of the quartan type, taking candles from his little lodging, rose with one servant only and came to the place. And having poured forth prayer, and lighted the candles and held them with his own hand through the whole night, he celebrated the vigils. When morning came, therefore, he returned home, and no longer endured from this disease any grievousness of chill or of breaking-down. Thus Gregory; from which it presently follows that S. Solemnis lived long before his times, and was laid in a tomb at Meillac.
[7] and by Sigebert and Alberic in their Chronicles. What they report about the time of his see and of his death — Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology, Le Cointe in the Annals at the years of Christ 497, number 10, and 509, number 12, Baillet, the continuators of the enlarged Christian Gaul, volume VIII, in the Catalogue of the bishops of Chartres, and Longueval, History, book 5, at the year 511, and others — they drew from the Acts of S. Solemnis, such as each of them obtained; indeed it is clear that the very biographers of SS. Aventinus and Deodatus, abbot of Blois, whose deeds you have in our Work on the IV day of February and the XXIV of April, transferred fragments thence into the Lives which they wrote. These Acts themselves, therefore, must first be discussed, before anything can safely be established about the time of the episcopate and the death of our Saint. Whether Sigebert saw the Acts is unascertained: yet he writes in his Chronicle at the year 490: Solemnis, bishop of Chartres, is renowned, who not sluggishly pressed on in preaching Christ to the Franks. Alberic mentions him in his Chronicle at the following year. The Acts I have hitherto not found printed. Surius at this day has nothing about the holy Bishop but the miracles excerpted from Gregory of Tours, which we have just now reported.
[8] His various manuscript Acts, We have besides the Acts of S. Solemnis, bishop of Chartres, in manuscripts, in three forms; for I call those different which, although they have flowed from others, are nevertheless so enlarged and interpolated that not merely the difference of certain words makes the distinction. Of those which without doubt are the most ancient of all, we again have three copies, so differing from one another that with different words and a few different phrases they report plainly the same things. And first indeed we have a Life of S. Solemnis in a most ancient codex of our Museum marked P. Ms. 20, which we received by exchange of other books from our college of Molsheim, and which we are therefore commonly wont to call the Molsheim codex. It is written there in a Latinity so barbarous and clumsy that you will scarcely find any sense which does not labour under several faults of style. Sentences occur so incomplete, so twisted, that one can scarcely by divining reach what the biographer means to signify. Closest to this comes a transcript from a manuscript of S. Maximin of Trier, whose style, however, is much less mutilated and contorted. More perfect still in that kind is another transcript excerpted from a manuscript codex of S. Saviour of Utrecht and formerly sent to my Predecessors. These two transcripts Bolland had before his eyes, when he illustrated the deeds of S. Aventinus at the
IV of February, and brought in a discourse about the Life of S. Solemnis.
[9] The second Acts of our holy Bishop we received from a manuscript of the queen of Sweden marked number 528. some of which Bolland wrote on the copy: The Life which is here is from a manuscript of the most serene queen of Sweden; it differs from the others, nor yet does it itself seem sufficiently authentic. It was in a codex written in a recent hand, but from ancient copies. How just this censure of the learned man is, we shall see hereafter. Further, in the transcript the whole prologue is at once different from the preceding ones. What follows is not only written in a much more polished style and stuffed here and there with exhortations and elogia studiously composed, but besides, some things which in the earlier Acts breed difficulty are so twisted that you may easily see that the interpolator felt the difficulty and endeavoured to lighten it. Let us give specimens. What in the Life to be printed in the first place is narrated at numbers 6 and 7, about the coming of king Clovis to Chartres and his conversation with S. Solemnis, is here read thus. At length after ten days king Clovis was leading his army against the nation of the Goths and their king Alaric. And when he had entered the city of Chartres, the clergy in the church were chanting praises to the Lord after their manner. But certain of the king's princes, having entered the church, suddenly hear chanted: Take hold of arms and shield, and rise up to help me. And coming to the king they say to him: Great auspices have been chanted for us today in the church. And the king says to them: What are these? They say to him: Go to meet Solemnis the bishop, and he himself will tell thee of them. Then the king, coming to meet him, was honourably greeted by him. To whom the Bishop said: Whither goest thou, king? And he answered: Against the king of the Goths and his people. And blessed Solemnis said to him: Illustrious king, if thou wilt, I will clothe thee with such arms as with which thou mayest be able to lay low the troops of thine adversaries.
[10] The king, wondering, prayed him to gird him with these arms. flowed from others To whom he said: Unless thou shalt be signed with the seal of the Cross, by which the Lord Jesus Christ conquered the devil, thou shalt not receive victory. And so the king at once, weeping, bowing the neck of his heart, asked that he would fulfil what he had promised. And suddenly the Man of God made the standard of the Cross on his forehead and on his breast, and catechized him. And the king vowed, saying: If I return victorious to my country, I shall not hesitate to receive the grace of baptism: for even before he had often been admonished by blessed Remigius, bishop of Rheims, and by his wife Clotilda, who greatly feared God, to forsake the idols and to adore the true God who is in the heavens. Let the reader now compare these things with what is read in the Acts to be printed in the first place, and he will easily confess that the interpolator is such as I have depicted above. Let another example be added. From the primary Lives you would say that S. Solemnis not only died at Chartres, but was also entombed there. I call to witness the ninth number of the first Life. Our interpolator had read in Gregory of Tours — whom he also cites elsewhere, reporting the miracles related by him — that the body of S. Solemnis was found at Meillac among the people of Tours. That it had been translated thither from Chartres he had nowhere found; therefore he so dresses up the narrative as to exhibit the holy Bishop dying at Meillac.
[11] Not long time after (he says, namely after Clovis had been baptized in the presence of S. Solemnis), and were interpolated. again war was stirred between king Clovis and Alaric. And gathering the whole army of the Franks, (Clovis) came into the district of Tours, leading with him, along with other bishops, blessed Solemnis. Where, when they were tarrying a little while, blessed Solemnis, wearied by old age and a light fever, began to be weary. But learning by divine providence something more certain about his death, he ordered all his disciples and ministers who were there with him to be called together, and began to make plain to them the end of his days. Then follows a very lengthy exhortation to them, and the Saint's commendation of his soul to God, sprinkled with passages of holy Scripture; and, his death there and the miracle which happened at his funeral being narrated, he resumes: The Man of God therefore rested on the VII of the Kalends of October, and was buried in the monastery of Meillac, in which he rested a long time, until the said monastery was laid waste by the pagans. After the persecution was quiet, in what manner the Lord deigned to reveal, to the praise and glory of His name, his precious body and tomb, which for a long time lay hidden from human gaze, we have learned from the report of blessed Gregory, pontiff of Tours. Then two miracles taken from the book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 21, are subjoined. Besides this I ought, I think, to add nothing here to prove the judgment passed above upon this interpolator: let us meet with another.
[12] The transcript which R. Fr. Combefis sent to us from Paris, A transcript of the third Acts was sent to our Henschen from Paris by R. Fr. Francis Combefis, of the Order of Preachers, a writer very well known to the learned. Whence he excerpted it, I nowhere find noted: but I scarcely doubt that he transcribed it from a codex of the royal library, of which Ruinart speaks when he says in Note 6 on chapter 21 of Gregory of Tours: His Life, the history of the Finding made by our Gregory, and of the Translation, and the Miracles, we have seen in a manuscript codex of the royal library. Certainly in the transcript which Combefis sent, all the parts of the Life are subjoined in the order in which Ruinart reviews them. Further, this Life is much more enlarged than the other interpolated one with words and sentences excerpted from the sacred Writings. The style is much more florid, and, unless I am much mistaken, perhaps even some centuries more recent. That this anonymous author had before his eyes Acts similar to those which we received from the manuscript of the queen of Sweden becomes clear from this, that what we reported as superadded to the first primary Life he exhibits with the phrasing changed and amplified. He has some things also proper to himself, and which we owe to his invention. And first indeed a quite long proem about the cultus due to the Saints, which begins: In the building up of our holy mother the Church let us without tumult give thanks to the supreme Craftsman. What in the Acts to be printed is narrated at number 4 about Clovis's command that none other than S. Solemnis should be promoted to the chair of Chartres, and about his flight, and what is found in the manuscript of the queen of Sweden only a little altered, the later anonymous author dresses up thus.
[13] and probably extracted But while the name and merit of so great a father was thus daily being extended, Flavius, bishop of Chartres, entered upon the last day of his life. Whence the whole assembly of the church, dismayed in mind, after it had put off its grief, began to treat about a worthy successor. For at that time the warlike king of the Franks, Clovis, had extended the boundaries of his kingdom's strength as far as the Loire; who, although he was still held by the worship of idolatry, nevertheless had the Christians under his royal nod. Therefore the whole clergy and people of Chartres, coming together with unanimous counsel and equal desires, sent men to the king with prayers that the blessed Man might be raised to the episcopal see. They add besides by letters his sanctity, his diligence and prudence, and — what is to be wondered at — that in his own place he was held in reverence among all. And the king and his nobles, marvelling at so great a fame, thinking it worthy to obey the petitions of clergy and people, commanded, nay even forbade under oath to all, that any other should be admitted to the pontifical lot save blessed Solemnis. For although he was a gentile and impious, yet already, as it were by divine preordination, the Saint of God was in some fashion to be reverenced by him. And when the venerable Servant of God learned the royal word concerning himself in such a business, fearing lest by reason of the honour he should suffer loss of the contemplative life, to which he had already cleaved and after which he panted with all his strivings, he humbly thought to escape so great a matter, lest, rising to higher things, he should be seen to incur a fall: for he said within himself: How shall so sinful a soul dare to draw near to the inner propitiatory of the Godhead? How shall I, who for my own guilt am not worthy to be heard, be judged worthy to intercede for others?
[14] The first parent of the human race, knowing the greatness of his sin, from a codex of the royal library cited by others, hid from the face of God in paradise; and shall I, bearing my own guilt and that of the whole people, appear before Christ the Lord amid the holy of holies? Moses at the bush, the Lord speaking to him, hid his face; and shall I, foolish, stand by Him, when my iniquities have gone over my head? And why do I linger among outside examples? (Or is it better that I weave a story from home?) Mark the Evangelist too, a son in baptism of the chief man of that same Church, and fully taught by him about the acts of the Lord Jesus, is said for the faith's sake to have cut off his own thumb, lest at any time the priestly rule should be laid upon him; but what shall become of me, if I ascend to so great a degree, since there is no peace in my bones from the face of my sins? Ruminating these things with himself, that Faithful one of God, and being anxious in them, on a certain night, no one knowing it, he entered a cave distant about two miles from the city. There he lay hidden, praying with tears and fastings.
[15] Here the anonymous author again pursues at length the Saint's prayers to God, much more enlarged than the rest after which he subjoins: While in these and like things the mind of the Saint of God was held, and the greatest confusion troubled, on account of his absence, the bishops invited to consecrate him, since both the king's command pressed and the people, contending over him, cried out, being armed with weapons of wisdom they agree to ask him of the Lord. Calling together therefore an assembly of the whole clergy and peoples, they proclaim a fast, enjoin prayers, and exhort and entreat that they should be willing with anxious solicitude to seek from God him whom they desired. The admonition proclaimed becomes voluntary for all; God's mercy is unanimously beaten upon with groaning by the whole people. But the merciful Lord, not spurning the prayers of His own, indeed busying Himself to bring forth His Faithful one to the light of the peoples, spoke thus in a nocturnal vision to one of the bishops: Be not troubled about My Faithful one, for I have him hidden from you in a cave; go to it with religious men, and let him be led without trouble and consecrated by you. I too shall make the place notable to you, in which you shall find him passing the night in prayer. But on the morrow, the vision having been made known to those to whom it should be, they go to the place marked out by the divine revelation. The Servant of God, seeing this knowledge of himself which he had not expected, and hearing that it had come about by God's dispensation, although the choice of his own will resisted, fearing to hinder the counsel of the Godhead, weeping and wailing much, gave his hands to the holy company, and, saying, Let the will of God be done, went forth to that which was enjoined upon him.
[16] and seems more recent, And although some, having now laid aside hope of him, had arranged to enthrone Adventinus, archdeacon of that same see, when the Saint returned they at once demanded to have him as bishop, who was also presently consecrated by the prelates acting there — as the interpolator then narrates with many circumlocutions of words, whose bent and manner of writing, from what we have produced,
must have become abundantly clear to the reader: whence he will without doubt agree with me that he is much later than the authors of the preceding Acts, indeed perhaps very recent. For the rest, I have noted that in the same manuscript there is subjoined the narrative of the translation of S. Solemnis from Meillac to Blois, and some Miracles. In the Miracles mention is made of Richard, abbot of Verdun, who is no other than he who died in the year 1046, and who as venerable has a place in our Work on the XIV day of June. Nothing is read there about the miracle which the anonymous author narrates; but Mabillon joins it to the Miracles of Bl. Richard in Century VI of the Acts of the Order of S. Benedict, part 1, page 534, in almost the same words, received, unless I am mistaken, from the same manuscript codex of the royal library. Further, in that very narrative the anonymous author sufficiently insinuates that he is later than the times of Richard; for he speaks of a matter not so very long past, as I shall also observe in that place; but let us first discuss more attentively our primary Acts, out of which the other two grew together and were enlarged, and consider whether they are not more tolerable than has seemed on account of certain faults found equally in the interpolated Life.
§ II. The older Acts of S. Solemnis are examined. Which Lives are to be published?
[ ] The primary Acts, perhaps very ancient, have some things which by writers Our three earlier copies, an account of which I gave in the preceding § at number 8, although one is a little more correct than another, I hold in the same rank: for the matters narrated in them are plainly the same. That they are very ancient becomes to me altogether likely; but at about what time they were written it is difficult to define more nearly. I should suspect that the unskilled writer lived before the translation of the sacred body from Meillac to Blois, indeed before Gregory of Tours and the finding of the relics of S. Solemnis, since he makes no mention of these, were I not little wont to attribute weight to negative arguments of this kind, being by now taught how easily the little Works of one writer may lie hidden from another, and how often careless biographers, compiling Lives in those slothful centuries for the private use of their own monasteries or churches, neglected to inquire more diligently into the true elogia of their own Saints, being content with domestic traditions and documents, if any perchance lay to hand. Meanwhile nothing occurs from elsewhere by which his age may certainly be enclosed even within an interval of some centuries, about which therefore I suspend my judgment; and I inquire whether that Life can be commended on any other ground than certain antiquity. Bolland attributed little to it, whose censure I reported above; nor does Baillet attribute more, grieving that the holy Man did not obtain a worthier biographer. Whether he saw the Acts which I call primary, I do not know: although the same things occur in them on account of which any others whatsoever are chiefly blamed. Le Cointe seems to have consulted none, or at least alleges none, citing Saussay, Gregory of Tours, and the fragment inserted by Bolland into the Commentary on S. Aventinus.
[18] Certainly he is mistaken when at the year 497, number 10, he suspects that the moderns, from the fact that S. Solemnis is said to have obtained the mitre thirty days before Clovis moved his army against the Goths, [are rejected as fabulous, and are examined. The chronological arrangement described there] believed that the Saint, first the king's catechist, was afterwards present at his baptism at Rheims. For this matter is clearly asserted not only by the moderns, but in the primary Acts also. Longueval, cited above, admits most things from those Acts; but what pertains to the conversion and baptism of Clovis he so mitigates that he only says: He shone forth especially in zeal for the conversion of the Franks, and Clovis held him in particular esteem. Let us examine, then, whether the things which are reported about the Deeds between S. Solemnis and Clovis are such that they can by no means be admitted, some chronological notes from that Life being first set forth, against which the facts reported strike. At number 6 Clovis comes to Chartres, drawing his forces against the Goths, on the thirtieth day from the ordination of S. Solemnis. The biographer thus circumscribes the limits of the holy Bishop's life at number 9: But saint Solemnis, when six lustres and four courses of harvests of his life had rolled round, after he flourished in the honour of the pontifical function, adorned in the church with the brightness of a clear light, spending also three Olympiads, departed in triumph to Christ; concerning which see the Annotations in that place from the manuscript of S. Maximin. Further, from these it is concluded that the Saint was promoted to the chair in the thirty-fourth year of his age, and wore the mitre twelve years, and consequently departed to the world above at the age of 46 or 47.
[19] In the year of Christ 511, to the first synod of Orleans, last of all, subscribes Aventinus, bishop of the church of Chartres, coheres rightly, provided you indulge the biographer an error, who, while S. Solemnis was among the living, certainly did not bear this title in councils. Therefore the latter had already died before that, although it is uncertain in what year determinately, since perhaps Aventinus had already for some time before the synod of Orleans been sitting at Chartres. The baptism of Clovis is by some tied to the year of Christ 495, by others to the following. This was preceded a little before by Clovis's victory over the Alamanni on the bank of the Rhine, related as won by the invocation of the aid of the God whom his wife Clotilda worshipped. Let us fix the victory and the king's baptism in the year 496, and let us suppose that in our Acts the discourse is about this Alamannic war and not about the other waged against Alaric; in no part, so far at least as I see, will the chronological arrangement labour. At the beginning of that year, thirty days before Clovis came to Chartres, moving his forces against the Alamanni, S. Solemnis will have been consecrated, and after three Olympiads have died in the year 508 or 509, which all fits excellently. But is the biographer treating of the Gothic war against Alaric, king of the Goths, which was waged in the year 507, and not of the Alamannic one? I confess that his words in some fashion designate this; but to an unskilled man, writing perhaps at a time when the name of the Goths almost alone was heard, and when the victory won over them by Clovis was especially celebrated, that error, if the rest cohere, could readily be indulged.
[20] Yet he seems in more than one place to betray his own hesitation about these things. [who confuses two different wars. Clovis is asserted in the same place after the battle] Treating of the same war, he brings in Clovis vowing thus at number 7: Going in these arms, if I shall not have been overcome by the Goths or the Alamanni, but shall return in peace, I shall straightway fly to be baptized. And he presently goes on: Girt with such arms he goes to fight in the war, and straightway subdued the fierce nation of the Alamanni: from which you may perceive that he confuses the Goths and the Alamanni, and the battles waged with both. The apparition of S. Solemnis which follows in the Life again has circumstances mixed from what followed both battles. After the battle of Vouillé and the slaying of Alaric, Clovis subdued Aquitaine and almost the whole kingdom of the Goths, and to this seems to bear our anonymous author's assertion about Aquitaine laid waste with sword and flame before Clovis returned victorious into Neustria. Certainly Clovis did not draw a victorious army into Aquitaine through so great a tract of lands against the Goths, then still friends, after the battle joined against the Alamanni on the bank of the Rhine, as both Lives of S. Vedastus have it, illustrated by Henschen in our Work on the VI day of February. But there there occur also some things which may seem in some fashion to favour the biographer who narrates the vision, namely in that part in which he asserts that Clovis abstained from pursuing the enemy after the victory won before his conversion, and soon returned to his own people with his victorious army.
[21] [to have ceased from incursion into the enemy's region, which does not seem contrary] Since on this question — namely, whether after the battle of Tolbiac Clovis for a long time was occupied in pursuing the remnants of the enemy and subjecting their regions, or rather returned to Rheims not long after that battle — depends the credit of the Acts in almost everything else narrated, the error about the Goths being corrected, some things about that Alamannic war must be inserted here. Writers agree that the Alamanni about these times held the region fenced by the Rhine, the Main and the Danube, and thence, the rivers being crossed, frequently made hostile inroads into the neighbouring dominions. King Sigibert of Cologne ruled the nearer peoples of the Rhine with some beyond the Rhine. Whether his kingdom extended beyond the Moselle on the South seems unascertained. It is not remote from likelihood — although the moderns commonly think that it obeyed Clovis — that Germania Prima or Superior, even on this side of the Rhine, was occupied by the Alamanni when Clovis made war on them, perhaps for this reason, that thence they threatened his kingdom more nearly. Indeed I much doubt whether even before the Franks came into the Gauls the Alamanni did not hold it. However that may be, they could also thence, the river Moselle being crossed, break into the Ubii and the dominions of Sigibert king of Cologne, where recent French writers commonly suppose that they were cut down by Clovis in a decisive slaughter at Tolbiac, a town of the duchy of Jülich, which today is called Zulg and Zülpich. The same writers add that the king of the Franks led his victorious forces into the enemy's region and subjugated everything far and wide. Indeed Fr. Daniel believes that Clovis after the victory of Tolbiac overran the whole region beyond the Rhine as far as the Rhætian Alps, pressing and scattering the remnants of the Alamanni.
[22] to the testimonies of Gregory of Tours About the battle of Tolbiac I shall observe some things in the Annotations: this meanwhile is certain, that whatever is here asserted about the war which followed the aforesaid victory arose from conjectures that are not ancient, and that the contrary, agreeing with our biographer's assertions, is much more probable, as will presently be clear. Gregory of Tours, book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapter 30, after he has narrated how Clovis, seeing his forces vehemently pressed by the enemy, sent forth vows to heaven, subjoins: And while he was saying these things, the Alamanni, turning their backs, began to slip away in flight. And when they saw their king slain, they submit themselves to the dominion of Clovis, saying: Let not the people, we beseech, perish any more: we are now thine. And he, the war being stopped and the people brought under, returning in peace, told the queen how by the invocation of the name of Christ he had deserved to obtain the victory. Who, I ask, would from this gather that Clovis after the slaughter of the Alamanni carried his army round through so great a tract of lands, and would not rather conclude that the remnants of the routed Alamanni implored the victor's clemency, and, lest they should all be destroyed by extermination, offered themselves as tributaries, and that this thing made an end both of the battle and of the war? Certainly he who does not labour under prejudices will hammer out nothing else from Gregory's words. Fredegar, contracting Gregory's history, spreads clouds over this passage, unless all the copies of the epitomized History which survive are faulty.
[23] Thus have the words published by Ruinart after Clovis's sighs to God: and of other ancients The Alamanni, turning their backs, slipped away in flight. And when they saw their king slain, exiles from their seats for nine years, nor could they find any nation which would help them against the Franks, at last they hand themselves over into the dominion of Clovis. Ruinart notes on these words that the passage is obscure and expounded by no one. I suspect that after slain something is wanting, for the sense in what follows labours; from which, however, no more than from Gregory's
words are wars following the battle unearthed. Indeed Fredegar goes on thus: For when Clovis had returned to Rheims from the battle mentioned above, etc.: which clearly hints the contrary. The like has the Deeds of the Franks, except that they add, he took the Alamanni, and set them and their land as tributaries under the yoke — which certainly, even though he did not himself enter their lands with an army, could be done by a compact. To which opinion again favour the words which presently follow: And the victory being won (of the battle alone the anonymous author spoke) he returned into France to his queen. Let us hear the Lives of S. Vedastus, which as to Clovis's return after the victory of Tolbiac do not disagree with what has hitherto been adduced. The one published in the first place in our Work on the VI of February, page 792, has thus at number 2: Therefore when the renowned king of the Franks Clovis … reigned over the Franks, it happened that … he went to fight against the Alamanni, a fierce nation.
[24] And when the battle-lines had come thither from both sides, and unless he had met the enemy (here probably has fallen out on the bank, as the second Life has) of the Rhine, both Franks and Alamanni were gaping for mutual slaughter: of writers, whose silence about the deeds done with Clovis the battle being joined, so vehement a terror had crept over Clovis's mind that in that fight with dreadful anxiety he weighed the end of his own living. And when therefore he saw his own men being crushed to destruction, at last, supported by the Lord's help in his mind, he lifts up also his eyes raised to heaven. There follows Clovis's prayer, and then: And when he beat upon the Author of things with prayers of this sort, at length the enemy, turning his back, yielded the victory to Clovis. Then he took the conquered Alamanni with their king into his dominion, and, exulting, returning in haste to his country, came to the town of Toul. The Life of S. Vedastus corrected by Alcuin again goes on thus, after the king's vows and sighs to God: Presently, the divine mercy working, the Alamanni turned their backs; the victory fell to the king and to the Franks. Then, some things being interposed which do not bear upon this matter, it is resumed: Therefore, the enemy being overcome and affairs settled in peace and the Alamanni subjected to his dominion, the king exulting returns to his country with the praise of triumph. All of which no more than Gregory's words persuade that the king extended his victory beyond the Rhine, unless perhaps by a treaty alone made with those who survived the battle. Rorico, who wrote the Deeds of the Franks, and Aimoin I do not delay over, since it is beyond doubt that our biographer wrote before them, seeing that Rabanus transferred a fragment from the Life into his Martyrology; and I conclude that the anonymous author's narrative about Clovis being restrained from further war after the battle against the Alamanni is very likely.
[25] More opposed to him, as regards all that he narrates as having been done between Clovis and S. Solemnis, is more opposed to the biographer. The two Acts is the silence of other writers, in whom we read that the king was drawn to receive baptism not by the exhortations of the bishop of Chartres but by the assiduous admonitions of his queen and wife, and finally was washed in the sacred water not by S. Solemnis, of whom there is nowhere any mention, but by S. Remigius. The first perhaps to mention this matter, from our Acts or the like, is Rabanus, in the announcement which I alleged above. The silence of others about it renders our writer suspect with me, lest perhaps he amplified rather freely some intercourse of the Saint with the king, and sprinkled it with historical faults and anachronisms, which so pleased the later interpolator that he judged that they should be adorned with his own style also, and extricated from the difficulties in which they were entangled. To this indeed he seems to have aimed, when he inserted a second war against the Goths into the Life. And these are the things which had chiefly to be observed about the primary Acts; for the rest can easily be indicated in the Annotations, since they suffer no special difficulty. For the rest, I shall print the transcript of S. Saviour of Utrecht in preference to the rest, because it is somewhat more correct than they: yet since the file was perhaps applied by a more recent hand, I shall warn the reader in the Annotations when it notably departs from the others.
[26] to be published, and from the third Acts, of uncertain credit and age, I long doubted whether I should wish to subjoin the other copy from the manuscript of the queen of Sweden, of which above at number 9: at length this reason prevailed, that I have nowhere found it published entire, and yet from the fragments which they allege I am persuaded that all the authors who have hitherto treated of S. Solemnis had before their eyes no other than it, or the Paris one, which in most of the things narrated is like it. That the assertions of others and our own may more easily be compared, I shall publish it in the second place and illustrate it with Annotations, from which no little light, and perhaps also merit, will accrue to the Life to be published in the first place. From the third Acts reviewed by me some things also will have to be published, yet some admonitions about them being first set down. I noted above, §1, number 16, that to the Life of S. Solemnis which Combefis sent from Paris to Henschen, and to the narrative of the miracles which Gregory reports to have happened at the finding of the holy body at Meillac, there is subjoined the history of the translation of his relics from Meillac to Blois, and to this at last are subjoined some miracles.
[27] The history of the translation Whether he received that history and the miracles from elsewhere, I do not know; but both certainly are written in the same style in which the preceding interpolated Acts are; whence one may conjecture either that the anonymous author was the author of them, or that, having received them from elsewhere, he interpolated them after his own manner, as he did the Life itself. But as regards the History of the translation in particular, I have not hitherto read it elsewhere: but the anonymous author too sufficiently hints that he is much later than the translation, since he describes it so vaguely and hesitantly that you may feel that few of its circumstances were clear to him. About transferring the sacred remains from Meillac, which was subject to the bishop of Tours, to Chartres, the matter is handled not without some difficulties between the bishops of Tours and of Chartres; but neither is named. First three clerical envoys are sent by the people of Chartres to make inquiry about the sacred remains: S. Solemnis appears by night to one of them, and bids that certain things be reported to the bishop of Chartres; to whom, the vision having been heard, the other two also return; they set forth what has happened to them, and he presently sends men to seek the sacred body. But the anonymous author narrates these things again with no one of them called by name, and what he says was enjoined by S. Solemnis on the cleric, and by the latter on the bishop of Chartres, is so feeble that I should not believe that the prelate of Tours, on hearing these things alone, would so readily have consented to the translation. By a word, both by these and by other things, the anonymous author abundantly makes plain that he is both much later than the translation and had very few particulars about it clearly perceived. But at what time the relics of S. Solemnis were first brought to Blois is likewise very uncertain. The anonymous author indeed writes: For they knew that he was entombed in those parts (near Meillac) … but on account of the great interval of time they held it doubtful whether any removal by the faithful, or any plundering or carrying off by the unbelievers, had occurred through the past molestation of the pagans. Namely concerning the relics of S. Solemnis: whether they still survived there, and had not been scattered by the pagans breaking in, or translated elsewhere by the faithful for fear of them. But of what pagans he speaks he again does not explain.
[28] But neither elsewhere have I found anything about that translation and the Miracles. whence I could elicit the time. Martyrologists who announce the Saint at Blois, on account of the sacred remains translated thither, are, unless I am mistaken, none before Munerat and Molanus; nor does our manuscript Florarium, which commonly and studiously adds like things to the elogia of the Saints, mention this translation by a word. As regards the Miracles: first of all it is uncertain whether they were first written by the same man, or rather scraped together from elsewhere. If the anonymous author who wrote the translation is the author of all of them, perhaps he will not have been far from the XII century. Certainly he narrates that the first miracle happened in the church of S. Solemnis at Blois while Bl. Richard, abbot of S. Vanne at Verdun, was preaching, and in such a way that he does not seem to have been more than a century distant from that time. Bl. Richard died in the year 1056: whence let him who will conjecture further about the anonymous author's age and about the translation having been made: I think that the time cannot safely be more nearly defined, since neither in the following miracles which he relates does he employ any note of time, nor finally does he anywhere betray his own age. And so I shall publish those Miracles, and shall assign in the Annotations what there is suspect to me. The church of Blois, which, utterly overthrown in the past century by the violence of the sky, was restored by the munificence of Louis XIV, and in the year 1697 was raised by Innocent XII to a cathedral, on this occasion lost the name of S. Solemnis and began to be called that of S. Louis. It already then possessed a small portion of the body of S. Solemnis; for the rest the fury of the Calvinists, raging against all holy things, had consumed. For the rest, I have announced the Saint at Chartres, where I think he died: in this following the older Martyrologies, whereas the more recent French writers believe S. Solemnis to have died at Meillac, where his body rested; which very thing indeed is asserted in the interpolated Life, probably from Gregory of Tours's narrative. But such conjectures of an anonymous writer ought not to prevail over the primary Acts, from which the Saint seems to have died at Chartres. Now I subjoin those Acts, in which, if you shall have corrected the error about the Goths and Alaric, as I have declared above, the errors are not so great as they have seemed to certain moderns. These, when observed, I shall give in the Annotations.
LIFE
By an anonymous author.
From the Utrecht manuscript of S. Saviour, collated with others.
Solemnis, Bishop and Conf., at Chartres in Gaul (S.)
BHL Number: 7816
By an Anonymous author.
Proem. It belongs, then, to the judgment of discretion to behold and to weigh the divine miracles, since now from heaven by God's helping grace a in the last age of the world, its border growing white, in which the machine of the world is turned, the beginnings of the Saints' lives so differ that those who follow their feet, though wrapped in earthly dregs, can attain to the realms above; for great is the strife of the contest, where triumph is won over the victory of Christ. b
[2] The Saint, his boyhood illustriously spent, There was a certain priest, Solemnis by merit and by name and by sanctity, noble by birth, c but nobler in mind, illustrious in works, but more illustrious in faith. His infancy was reckoned that of a boy, but the old age of his mind was in the Lord; not undeservedly was he called Solemnis, whose solemnity, shining with the whiteness of faith, clothed with the fervour of charity, was joined to the love of Christ. In vigils [d and prayers he was excellent, and by fasts bending his heart to the Lord] and, forsaking worldly pursuits, he gave himself to divine readings, and was fed rather by fasts than by food. He gave meats to the hungry, and continually bestowed alms on the poor out of his own resources. Such was the beginning which his holy mind took, that in the end the truth of the matter might be proved. Lest he should be sunk in the waves of the sea by the strong storm of the world, he greatly feared shipwrecks, lest, while he waged a naval battle, he should be sunk by the tempest; e and, made firm upon a solid rock, he came peacefully to the harbour of salvation. For he was girt with the breastplate of justice and with the helmet of salvation; adorned with desire, he was covered by divine aid, and with the javelin
of the Cross hurled forth, piercing the breasts of his adversaries, he laid low their troops.
[3] [renowned for a miracle, is demanded by Clovis's command for the chair of Chartres;] Armed with such faith, the Athlete of Christ triumphed with the palm of victory. From his angelic countenance [f a light divinely radiated, and from his eyes a splendour, and a fountain of wisdom flowed from his breast.] But as much as amid human fellowship a slender frailty subsisted, so much did the vigour of heavenly grace's strength flash in him. Under an awful attestation, then, let me not be silent, but let me report mysteries of this kind to the people. On a certain day, when he was setting out on the path of his journey, he met a man blind and dumb from birth, all the frame of whose limbs had grown stiff, save that he only had a panting breath, [and, the print of his foot being pressed down, he was carried along by the collapse of his body, and so great was his collapse that if he had been sunk by his weight into a pit, he would have been wholly submerged.] Whose right hand the man of God taking, and lifting his eyes upward to heaven, he sang as is read in Psalm LXVII, g O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me; and embracing his neck, he kissed him. And straightway his tongue was loosed to speak, and his eyes to see, and his ears to hear. O ineffable exchange! Help is awaited, and medicine is bestowed by God; a kiss is offered, and by a heavenly remedy the scars of body and soul alike are cleansed. But this was a presage which afterwards the outcome of the matter proved.
[4] understanding which he flees to hiding-places, but, being discovered, Since therefore Clovis at that time held the principality of empire in that same place over the gentile people whom the soil of mother France brings forth to the world, h he practised nothing else than the worship of idols, and, as was the custom, adored gods of gold and silver, of wood and stone. For in them was fulfilled the word which holy David sings in the Psalm, saying: Let them become like unto them that make them, and all that trust in them. And again holy Scripture says: I will not the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live. But the grace of the Lord, who enlightens every man coming to Him, when the bishop of the city of Chartres had died, i kindled a breath and a spark in the mind of the foolish king, that none other than Solemnis should be consecrated bishop. For he had inquired after his fame, which had been published abroad in the whole world. And so venerable Solemnis, hearing the edict of the prince, and seeing the pontiffs who had come to consecrate him, secretly fled, and for three days lay hidden in a cave. For he was sought, and was by no means found. The one was cherished in a hiding-place in a cavern, the other was filled k with sadness; the one poured forth solemn prayers to the Lord, the other, sad, sought a hidden place for consolation. The prince's commands were being carried out, lest it should be punished by a sentence of death.
[5] Considering therefore the sheep whom holy mother Church brings forth, S. Aventinus having already been ordained, he is consecrated, and to him lest they should be torn by the raging bite in the jaws of a ravening wolf, they, acclaiming with praises Aventinus l the archdeacon, demand that he be appointed for them at once shepherd and priest. And when he had obtained the episcopal fellowship, love separated the priest from the banquet. And so blessed Solemnis heard in the cave where he was hiding, as through a gentle breeze running in the silence of the night, the people saying with a roar and outcry: Aventinus the bishop has offered a holocaust to God. And when the Man of God had heard this, he poured forth this prayer to the Lord: Lord, grant the lamp of the word to shine for my feet on the path of light, that my soul may bless Thy holy name. And going forth on the morrow, he was going to meet the new priest; and the peoples, seeing him, raise their shouts to heaven, for the longed-for Solemnis was awaited as the thirsty earth awaits the drops of rain. From this the murmur of the people roars in an uproar; then all sound forth praises together, saying with one voice: Behold Solemnis is here; let him be ordained bishop for us, for he is worthy. At their praises the bishops came out and, filled with the highest joy, said: He is worthy; let him be consecrated bishop for this city: for they had not yet gone out of the church. m And, taking him, they led him to the altar of the church, and clothed him with a white stole, placing on his head a precious crown; delivering to him also the pastoral staff, that he might gather the scattered sheep to the faith of sanctity.
[6] therefore saint Solemnis says: What then shall we do about Aventinus the bishop? he yields a part of his diocese. To Clovis, still a gentile, All answered: If he shall survive thy death, let him obtain the place of his dignity; but if not, let him be obedient to thy command. n But the man of the Lord, moved in the bowels of piety, lest holy religion should be stained and his mind should be in any way darkened, gave under the care of his rule the town surnamed Dunum, where all the days of his life he might in security exercise the practice of religion. After thrice ten o days, therefore, king Clovis was leading his armed host against the battle-line of the Goths; and when he had entered the city of Chartres, as is the rite of the ancients, under the covering of the church this was sung: Take hold of arms and shield, and rise up to help me. For the nobles say to the king: Great instruments and religious auspices sound for us today. The king asked what this might be. They say to him: Go to meet Solemnis the bishop, and he himself will tell thee the mystery. Then the aforesaid king, going to meet the venerable bishop Solemnis, greeted him honourably. [p] To whom saint Solemnis said: Whither goest thou? The king said: Against the king of the Goths, to battle. Blessed Solemnis answering said to the king: If thou wouldst, O illustrious king and ornament of the Franks, I would clothe thee with arms girt with which thou wouldst lay low the troops of thine adversaries. And the king, marvelling, began to beseech him to gird him with these arms. And he said to him: Unless thou shalt be signed with the seal of the Cross, that thou mayest triumph by the trophy of Christ, thou shalt not receive the palm.
[7] Straightway therefore, weeping, bowing the neck of his heart, he asked that he would fulfil for him what he had promised. he foretells victory, and to him who would extend his victory further And at once S. Solemnis set the standard of the Cross of Christ upon his forehead and upon his breast alike. The king therefore vowed, [q saying:] Going in these arms, if I shall not have been overcome by the Goths or the Alamanni, but shall return in peace, I shall straightway fly to be baptized. Girt with such arms he goes to fight in the war, and straightway subdued and conquered the fierce nation of the Alamanni. And when the columns of the Goths had drawn themselves up against him, [r] who had prepared war against him, and his line hurled its darts against the line of the enemy and the war pressed sharply, in a moment [s] the columns of the Goths are laid low, the Lord helping, and headlong they gave their backs to the sword. For the Cross was impressed by the hand of the Pontiff on the prince's breast, and the victory flashed on his sword-point. The deceitful and faithless nation of the Goths is cut down by the sword, [t] and the king's army firmly praised Christ the Lord. But when by the intercession of the venerable Prelate they had obtained the palm of victory, those Goths who remained slipped away in flight, and the whole [u] army of the Franks said to the king: Let us pursue the fugitives, and let us seize and hold their kingdom. At which counsel the king, glad, praising their bravery and their counsel, commanded that on the following day they should take the road and lay waste the regions.
[8] [he appears in sleep, dissuading him from what he was planning. He assists at the baptism of Clovis;] But when on that very night he had given himself to sleep, there appeared to him in his sleep that most blessed man, bishop Solemnis, and said to him: What doest thou, king? Enter not the region which thou art planning to lay waste, for the Lord has not permitted thee to enter further. [w] But when the Franks at that very dawn had wished to go to fight, the aforesaid king said to them: Do not enter, for the priest of God Solemnis, who made for us the standard of the Cross on the forehead and on the breast, through which we received the palm of victory, himself appeared to me in a vision and said: Enter not, king, into that region, for the Lord has not permitted thee to enter thither or to lay it waste. Return therefore to thine own soil, or to the land which is of thy dominion. Returning therefore as he had been admonished, he entered the region of the Aquitanians, [x] and burned, laid waste and plundered that whole region; nor could anyone conquer him whom the unconquered Cross of Christ protected, by which all the venom of the crooked serpent is driven off and the rights of Tartarus and of envy alike are curbed. Exalted by such a trophy through the mystery of the Cross, the king, returning from Aquitaine, sent his envoys to blessed Solemnis, that he might pour over him the water of baptism, that his original sins might be blotted out. Which Priest, filled with spiritual joy, took with him the cultivators of the sacred law, Remigius and Vedastus, [y] venerable prelates, and, the divine mercy favouring, coming to the king, baptized him with all his dignitaries, and together with him three hundred and sixty-four most noble dukes of the Franks, whom, begotten at the font of baptism in the Holy Spirit, mother Church brought forth as sons of adoption. [z]
[9] he dies holily. The miracle which happened at his relics That man, then, who was blind, deaf and dumb from birth, whom the man of God S. Solemnis had before healed by the help of divine grace, was showing something great. For he showed [aa] the form of the ancient Franks, not yet reborn, whose birth had not yet been enlightened by the Sacrament of Baptism, and who had not before perceived with their ears the preaching of the Prophets, because faith had not yet been taught them for believing. Weighed down therefore by original sin, they were being plunged into destruction. But saint Solemnis, when six lustres and four courses of harvests of his life had rolled round, after he flourished in the honour of the pontifical function in the Church, adorned with the brightness of a clear light, spending also three Olympiads, departed in triumph from this light to Christ on the VII [bb] Kalends of October, giving his spirit to heaven and his body to earth. At that very hour, namely, when he rendered his spirit to God, that house where the body lay was filled with so great an odour of sweetness that the capacity of a human mind cannot describe it; and some saw as it were a white dove going forth from his mouth and flying away amid choirs of psalm-singing angels. When therefore the little body, placed on a bier, was being led to the tomb, there was a certain robber, Tarsius by name, [cc] already three years lodged in prison and so bound with iron chains at the neck, hands and feet that all his flesh, putrefied, stank. But when the limbs were being carried on the bier, the robber, looking through the window, cried out with a loud voice, saying: O merciful Solemnis, who didst restore sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf and the tongue to the dumb, deliver me from this fettering, in which the whole frame of my limbs, withered, stinks.
[10] And straightway, as soon as he had finished these words, he went out free through the middle of the roof-tops, and leaping forth walked through the middle of the crossways of the streets, occurred. and all the people were struck with terror and wonder; and at once, coming to the bed where the Priest's lifeless body lay, he laid hold of the frame of the bed on which the venerable body lay, and forthwith his body was restored to health. After the funeral lamentations for him had ceased, he was laid in a tomb, where many signs and miracles are shown even to this day. [dd] Behold therefore, Brethren,
how great a grace the kindness of our Saviour Jesus Christ has conferred on His servants, since so great a divine power shines forth after death: lay up, Brethren, what you have heard; [ee] so celebrate the anniversary day, and so await the discourse due to this day, that by the Lord's grace you may be partakers of paradise, and that, whence the old Adam was cast down by the craft of the serpent, the new Adam may bring us into the kingdom of the heavens, to whom be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
p The transcript of S. Maximin has thus: They say to him: Go to meet Solempnis the bishop, for he will tell thee the mysteries. Then the king in sound health and his attendants betook themselves to meet the glorious Sollempnis.
q In place of these our copy has, And he came saying. After this the Trier transcript varies thus, with which our Molsheim codex almost agrees: In these arms I shall go away, and if I obtain the victory, I hand myself and my people over to the grace of baptism. Girt with such arms the king went on to the battle. When line against line hurled forth their darts, in a moment the nation of the Goths is cut down by the sword, etc. See, if it please you, what I have observed from number 20 of our preliminary Commentary, for excusing and correcting our biographer, who wrongly confuses two wars.
r Perhaps we should read inspexisset, or something similar; unless you prefer instruxissent and understand duces. Certainly in the singular it here signifies nothing.
s These things have been transferred hither by our anonymous author from the battle of Vouillé against Alaric, king of the Goths. Certainly in the battle with the Alamanni the fighting was long and so sharp that Clovis's army was inclining to disaster, when the king, having sent vows to heaven, restored his men and obtained the victory. Consult, if you please, Gregory of Tours, book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapter 30, and the preliminary Commentary, §2, number 22.
t I have already often enough warned the reader that our biographer wrongly transfers the Goths hither; since the Gothic war was accomplished in the eleventh year from Clovis's baptism, whereas the Alamannic one fits excellently with the rest of the chronological arrangement of the life of S. Solemnis which the same author hands down. Further, that the battle with the Alamanni was joined by Clovis at Tolbiac — which today is called Zulg and Zülpich — in the duchy of Jülich, at the fourth milestone from Cologne, the French assert in rivalry, yet from writers who are not ancient. Henschen denied it, volume 1 of February, page 796, Note e on chapter 1 of the Life of S. Vedastus written by Alcuin, and judged that the fight took place near Strasbourg in Alsace. He gave his reasons: that the Alamanni dwelt on the opposite bank of the Rhine; that the duchy of Jülich, in which Tolbiac is, then obeyed Sigibert king of Cologne, not Clovis, who is not read to have been called to aid; that in both Lives of S. Vedastus it is asserted that the king, soon after the aforesaid victory, hastened swiftly to Rheims and Soissons, and passed through Toul, which certainly was no road for one hastening from Lower Germany, since Toul, distant from Rheims thirty greater French miles, is separated from Tolbiac by about an equal space. Longueval judges, page 227 in a Note, that these arguments, which Jordan in the History of France had almost embraced, do not suffice to tear anyone away from the common opinion: For Gregory of Tours (they are Longueval's words, which I render into Latin) teaches us that Clovis after the battle compelled the Alamanni to obey him: it is therefore easy to believe that he penetrated into their region, and so did not return by a direct route from the battle to Rheims. As regards Gregory, I do not know whether from his words what he deduces flows so limpidly. The words are in chapter 30: And while he was saying these things (Clovis sighing to heaven), the Alamanni, turning their backs, began to slip away in flight. And when they saw their king slain, they submit themselves to the dominion of Clovis, saying: Let not the people, we beseech, perish any more: we are now thine. And he, the war being stopped and the people brought under, returning in peace, told the queen, etc. I do not know, I say, whether from these words it may not rather be clear that, their army being cut down with their king, the Alamanni soon submitted themselves to the victor's command, and that Clovis ceased from further war and incursion, and so did not penetrate into their dominions. What has been said in the preliminary Commentary, §2, number 21 and following, may be seen.
u More correctly in the Trier transcript it is read: But when the victory had been won, and those Goths who remained had slipped away in flight, the army of the Franks said to the king.
w What the anonymous author here hands down about the apparition of S. Solemnis and about what followed it are things mixed together. After the disaster of Vouillé Clovis did not abstain from their kingdom, in which the very fight had taken place; he presently sent part of his army into the Arverni, the Cadurci and their neighbours, himself stormed other towns and cities with his forces, and withdrew to Bordeaux to winter: in early spring he occupied Toulouse, the head of the kingdom of the Visigoths, and at length gained possession of all Aquitaine. What therefore the biographer narrates to us about the vision cannot bear on this matter.
He adds indeed that the king, returning into his own kingdom, laid waste Aquitaine with sword and flame; but neither does that cohere; for how could Clovis, pressing the enemy from the field of Vouillé southward as far as Toulouse, be said to have so returned into his own kingdom and not to have penetrated further into hostile dominions? Therefore these things bear on the Alamannic war; yet not all of them: for what he intermixed about Aquitaine laid waste he again borrowed from the Gothic war; unless perhaps he calls Upper Germany, or part of it, Aquitaine, for then these things too could in some fashion be saved. For it is likely that Germany on this side of the Rhine, or at least part of it, was invaded by the Alamanni before the Franks clashed with them: which being laid down, whether the fight took place at Tolbiac near Cologne or near Strasbourg, Clovis, the plan of crossing the Rhine being laid aside at S. Solemnis's warning, could on his return have destroyed some places in upper Germany on this side of the Rhine — which for the anonymous author would be Aquitaine — still occupied by Alamanni who did not consent to surrender at Sens.
x Consult what has been annotated on these matters at the preceding letter.
y The Trier transcript here varies thus: Who, having joined to himself S. Remigius, bishop of the city of Rheims, the divine power glowing, baptized the king with the greatest alacrity. The like our codex, but as usual more faultily. Both Lives of S. Vedastus, given in our Work on the VI day of February, assert that he was present with S. Remigius at Clovis's baptism; which I do not know whether it is found in other ancient monuments. Certainly our anonymous author again errs here, making S. Vedastus already then a bishop, who took the mitre only four years later, as Henschen proves at number 9 of the Commentary on the aforesaid Lives.
z These things Rabanus has almost word for word in today's elogium of S. Solemnis, for which see number 2 of the preliminary Commentary.
aa In the copy of S. Maximin it is read thus: That man, blind, deaf and dumb from birth, was the figure of the gentiles, whose birth had not yet been enlightened by the grace of baptism, nor had they heard with their ears a prophet preaching before, nor one speaking a word about God, whose faith had not yet been taught them for believing; weighed down therefore by original sin, it was being plunged into destruction. So indeed the anonymous author dresses up the comparison which he had announced beforehand above at number 3. Namely, that the prodigious healing of blindness was a presage of the spiritually blind nation of the Franks, afterwards to be enlightened by supernatural faith.
bb So also the manuscript of the queen of Sweden, to be printed below. The Molsheim codex, with the Trier and Paris transcripts, refers the Saint's death to the VIII Kalends of October, on which I observed at number 4 of the preliminary Commentary that he is celebrated in the Breviaries and diptychs. In what precedes too the manuscript of S. Maximin is less faulty, where it is read thus: But saint Sollempnis, when six lustres and four courses of his life were rolling round after the manner of harvests, being promoted to the pontifical honour, flourished in the Church, adorned with the brightness of a clear light. Spending also three Olympiads in triumph, he departed from this light to the Lord. From these things I deduced some chronological arrangement in the Commentary, numbers 18 and following, according to which S. Solemnis received the mitre in the year 496, in the 34th year of his age, and wore it 12 years; and consequently died in the year 507, or the following, if the three Olympiads were completed.
cc In the Trier transcript, here much more faulty than ours, it is Tharsis. A little below it is again more correct, but only in words, which it will help nothing to report.
dd I observed at the foot of the preliminary Commentary that from these words the Saint seems to have been buried at Chartres and not elsewhere. And if it is so, and his body was translated to Meillac long before the times of Gregory of Tours, that is, before the end of the VI century, our biographer may to some seem very ancient and near enough to the age of S. Solemnis, since he here insinuates that he writes before any translation of the holy body was made.
ee I am mistaken unless from this and from the proem it be concluded that these Acts were recited or read as a discourse at the Saint's anniversary feast.
* perhaps opibus
INTERPOLATED LIFE
From a manuscript of the most serene queen of Sweden, marked number 528
Solemnis, Bishop and Conf., at Chartres in Gaul (S.)
BHL Number: 7818
From manuscripts.
CHAPTER I.
The Saint's birth, gifts of mind, virtues. A miracle wrought by him. His flight from the mitre, which he receives with reluctance. He fortifies Clovis, setting out for battle, with the sign of the Cross, and promises him that he will obtain the victory.
[ ] Prologue. The churches of the faithful spread throughout the world celebrate the praises of holy men with the highest praise, and, to show the devotion of the faithful, who burn with affection toward them, they pour them into the minds of readers by monuments of letters. For neither ought the words and deeds of those to be suppressed in silence whom the divine mercy provided as an example of right living to the men of their own time, and, so long as the world runs on through rolling years, to the faithful of Christ who desire piously to imitate them. Nor is it to be judged that a small reward awaits those who with running pen have left certain writings about them. a For if we seek to have as intercessors for our frailty those whom we trust to have pleased the Lord, let it not irk us to bring back their memory to our minds more often. Let us praise also almighty God in their faith, morals, doctrine and acts, who gave us the highest exercises of wisdom to imitate.
[2] S. Solemnis's illustrious birth, gifts of mind Among whom the divine providence provided for posterity a shepherd not to be despised for the church of Chartres, namely blessed Solemnis, who strove to adorn his own life with an abundance of the greatest spiritual virtues; whose most holy life and worthy of God we have judged it best to make known to the knowledge of the faithful. The aforesaid man was therefore Solemnis by merit, by name and by sanctity, sprung from noble birth, but nobler in mind; illustrious in works, but more illustrious in faith. Not undeservedly was the name Solemnis imposed on him, in whose heart the solemnity of faith always, from the very years of boyhood, shone continually with the love of charity. For he loved God with his whole heart, and with his whole soul, and with his whole strength. He was also tranquil in manners and serene in aspect. He bore a gentle countenance, a moderate appearance, an ordered look, a quiet judgment, a glad mind, a humble wisdom; he always showed good works more by deeds than by words. Chastising his body with hunger, he loved fasting rather than feasts; he consoled the grieving, he committed his hope to God; he frequently gave himself to prayer, and set nothing before the love of Christ: teaching what he believed, imitating what he taught. For the last day was always before his eyes, and his mind always meditated on the heavenly precepts.
[3] and virtues. He heals a blind, deaf and dumb man, But charity above all things he both himself loved and commanded all to keep. Temporal goods he bestowed upon the poor, that for them he might purchase the delights of paradise. Him, intent upon these and other good acts, the divine clemency so far advanced that before his episcopate the Lord's mercy declared miracles in him. For on a certain day, when he was making a journey, he met a man blind, deaf and dumb from birth, and so far dissolved in all his limbs that scarcely for weakness could he move his feeble members: whom, when the man of God Solemnis saw, he straightway groaned, and perhaps then chanted the Psalm, O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me; and, prostrate on the ground, he carried his prayer with tears through to the end. But when he had risen from prayer, embracing the neck of the infirm man, he kissed him. And straightway his tongue was loosed to speak, his eyes to see, and his ears to hear, and he glorified God.
[4] renowned for which, he is asked of Clovis as bishop by the people of Chartres. Meanwhile the Man of God, when he had felt himself so powerful in miracles through the Clemency of God, was not on that account lifted up into human pride, but began more and more to tame the rebellion of the flesh by the rigour of abstinence, to frequent by assiduous prayer the tombs of the holy martyrs and confessors, to have compassion on the want of the afflicted, to pursue hospitality, to sweat in almsgiving, to despise the world, and with all his desire to pant after the court of paradise. But when his fame ran far and wide, and love of him grew in the hearts of the good, as soon as bishop Flavius b at Chartres ended the last day of this place, the whole clergy and people of the city of Chartres unanimously suggested to the ears of king Clovis that the venerable man Solemnis should receive the chair of the said city.
[5] and he assenting, the man about to be ordained flees to hiding-places, But the aforesaid king and the greatest part of the Franks had not yet been regenerated by the water of sacred baptism, but after the ancient manner adored gods of gold and silver, of wood and stone. And so king Clovis, assenting to the prayers of the clergy and people, commanded that none other than Solemnis should be consecrated bishop in that city: for his fame had been published in his palace. And so venerable Solemnis, hearing the edict of the prince, and seeing the bishops who had come to consecrate him, fled, and secretly for three days lay hidden in a cave. He was sought and was not found; he lay hidden in a cavern, they were filled with sadness; he solemnly poured forth prayers to the Lord, they, sad, sought the hidden man. But when they could find no trace of finding him, the sheep of holy mother Church, fearing lest without a shepherd they should be torn by the bites of a ravening wolf, acclaiming Adventinus c the archdeacon as worthy of the episcopate, appoint him at once shepherd and priest.
[6] And when he had obtained the episcopal chair, hearing which, the Saint, returning in security, is ordained reluctantly, he ordered a banquet to be prepared for the bishops who had consecrated him. d And so blessed Solemnis heard in the cave, where he was hiding and supplicating the Lord, as it were a gentle breeze running with a roar and crying out: Adventinus the bishop has offered a holocaust to God. And when he had heard this, he poured forth these prayers to the Lord: Lord, grant the lamp of Thy word to shine for my feet, and the path of light for my heart, that my soul may bless Thy holy name. And going forth e he was going to meet the priest. But when he entered the city, the people, seeing him, sounded forth with an uproar and with praises: Behold Solemnis; he is worthy that he be ordained bishop. At whose voices the bishops came out, and filled with the highest joy said: He is worthy to be consecrated bishop; for they had not yet gone out of the church.
[7] And, taking him, they led him to the altar and consecrated him bishop, and yields a part of the diocese of Chartres to Aventinus. and delivered into his hands the pastoral staff, that he might gather the scattered sheep to the faith of the holy Trinity. Saint Solemnis says to them: What then shall we do about Adventinus the bishop? The bishops answered: If he shall survive thy death, let him obtain the place of his dignity: but meanwhile let him be obedient to thy authority. Lest therefore holy religion should be stained, and the Church of God should suffer schism, f the Man of God, afterwards moved by piety, gave to the aforesaid bishop Adventinus one castle and its suburbs, that in the days of his life he might there
be able to serve the Lord in quiet, and to instruct the people of that territory with salutary admonitions. But having received the episcopate, blessed Solemnis showed himself so piously and without complaint imitable by all that of him it could rightly be said: Behold a man without complaint, a true worshipper of God.
[8] At length after ten days king Clovis was leading his army against the nation of the Goths and their king Alaric. g Clovis, setting out against the enemy, meets the Saint, And when he had entered the city of Chartres, the clergy in the church were chanting praises to the Lord after their manner. But certain of the king's princes, having entered the church, suddenly hear chanted: Take hold of arms and shield, and rise up to help me. And coming to the king they say to him: Great auspices have been chanted for us today in the church. And the king says to them: What are these? They say to him: Go to meet Solemnis the bishop, and he himself will relate them to thee. Then the king, coming to meet him, was honourably greeted by him. To whom the Bishop said: Whither goest thou, king? And he answered: Against the king of the Goths and his people. And blessed Solemnis said to him: Illustrious king, if thou wilt, I will clothe thee with such arms as with which thou mayest be able to lay low the troops of thine adversaries.
[9] The king, wondering, prayed him to gird him with these arms. To whom he said: Unless thou shalt be signed with the seal of the Cross, by which the Lord Jesus Christ conquered the devil, and, fortified by him with the sign of the Cross, wins the Victory. thou shalt not receive victory. And so the king at once, weeping, bowing the neck of his heart, asked that he would fulfil what he had promised. And suddenly the Man of God made the standard of the Cross on his forehead and on his breast, and catechized him. And the king vowed, saying: If I return victorious to my country, I shall not hesitate to receive the grace of baptism. For even before he had often been admonished by blessed Remigius, bishop of Rheims, and by his wife Clotilda, h who greatly feared God, to forsake the idols and to adore the true God who is in the heavens. Girt therefore with such arms, as has already been said, king Clovis goes on to battle. And when they fought together, the columns of the Goths are laid low, and gave their backs to the swords, and the army of the Franks praised Christ the Lord.
ANNOTATIONS.
* perhaps vitam
* perhaps opibus
* perhaps orans
CHAPTER II.
[ ] To Clovis, having gained the victory and planning to make an incursion into hostile dominions, S. Solemnis appears and dissuades him from carrying out the plans conceived. The Saint is present at the king's baptism, and, being summoned to accompany him on another expedition, falls ill and dies at Meillac. The miracle which happened at the Saint's funeral.
[ ] [Clovis, being warned by the Saint in sleep not to penetrate into the enemy's kingdom,] The victory being won, the Goths who remained were all turned to flight: but the army of the Franks asked the king to permit them to lay waste their land. And the king gladly assented, and commanded that on the morrow they should be prepared to devastate everything which was in their kingdom. And when on that very night the king had given himself to sleep, blessed Solemnis the bishop appeared to him in his sleep and said to him: Enter not into this region, because the Lord does not permit thee to go further. But at dawn the army with much fervour desired to go, as had been commanded them: but the king said to them: Return by the way by which you came, because that Priest who made a sign for us on our foreheads and on our breasts, through whom we received the victory, appeared to me in a vision and said: Enter not whither thou desirest, because the Lord does not permit thee to enter or to lay waste further, but thou shalt return with thy army to thine own home. a
[11] And so the king returned, and all his army with him, he returns into his own kingdom, where him and they entered the region of Aquitaine b and laid it all waste with fire and sword: nor could anyone resist those signed with the power of the Cross of Christ, in which all the snares of the crooked serpent are driven away. Such a victory king Clovis obtained through the triumph of the Cross of Christ, before he had received the laver of baptism. But after no long time the king returned from Aquitaine, and his army with him. But queen Clotilda, most devoted to God, having with her the excellent bishop Remigius, sent her envoys to blessed Solemnis, that he might come and move him to fulfil the vow which he had promised to the Lord. And he without delay went speedily to her. And those two great luminaries Remigius and Solemnis, coming to the king, admonished him to forsake the way of error and to renounce the pomps of the devil and his works, and to walk in the way of salvation, and to be cleansed by the washing of saving baptism.
[12] The king therefore gladly lent his ear to their preachings, imbued with the mysteries of the faith he baptizes, with many of the army. but said he would not do this before he had treated of these matters with his people, and had exhorted them to do the like. But, the mercy of God and His power running before, all the people of the Franks cried out with one voice: We forsake the mortal gods, glorious king, and we are ready to believe in the true and immortal God whom Remigius and Solemnis preach. And the king and the bishops and the queen together, filled with great joy, order the laver of baptism to be prepared. And so Clovis was baptized first, and with him three hundred and sixty-four of his princes, and they were confirmed with sacred Chrism in the power of the Holy Spirit. There were baptized also of his army more than three thousand men. c
[13] [Ruling his diocese holily, he is summoned to Clovis, who was about to make war, and falls ill among the people of Tours,] But blessed Solemnis, returning to Chartres with joy and spiritual gladness, ruled in long peace the people committed to him, admonishing them every day, and untiringly cleaving to salutary warnings. Kindled indeed with the zeal of charity and truth, he laid open to the peoples what he himself held with unstained faith, charging all to serve God in truth and to do true judgment and justice at all times, and to be mindful of the benefits of Christ, and to bless His name all the days of their life. Not long time after, war was again stirred between king Clovis and Alaric; and gathering the whole army of the Franks, he came into the district of Tours, d leading with him, along with other bishops, blessed Solemnis: where, when they were tarrying a little while, blessed Solemnis, wearied by old age e and a light fever, began to be weary.
[14] and, seeing his death at hand, instructs his own with salutary admonitions, But learning by divine providence something more certain about his death, he ordered all his disciples and ministers who were there with him to be called together; and he began to make plain to them the end of his days, and, as he had always been wont, to preach among other things that peace must always be kept, that peace must be guarded with the brethren, and that charity above all must be held, in which is the bond of unity and concord. But when he now lay in his last illness, his mind was always passing over to the remembrance of future blessedness, and exceedingly glad he awaited the journey he desired. But now placed at his last, when a slight warmth was growing tepid in his body, calling his disciples together, he says to them: Most sweet sons, if you love me with true love, be earnest to fulfil the divine commands: daily consider again this uncertain life, and continually fear the dread judgments of God: with anxious consideration weigh what manner of men you shall be presented on the day of judgment. For I, according to the words of the Scriptures, go the way of all the earth: for God deigns to call me, and I now desire to be loosed from these things and, if it please Him, to be at rest.
[15] and holily dies. Then, lifting up his suppliant eyes with his hands to heaven, he long poured forth a silent prayer, and then, bursting into speech, he said: Remember me, Thou who alone art without sin, Christ Redeemer of the world, and leading me out of the body of this death, save me into Thy heavenly kingdom. Receive me according to Thy great mercy, and confound me not from my expectation. Thou hast always been my protector; into Thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said these things, in the midst of the words of his prayer he gave up his spirit. And at that same hour in which he rendered his soul to the Creator, the house in which he was was filled with so great an odour that all who were present there were filled with inestimable sweetness: and they saw a white dove go forth from his mouth and fly away to the stars amid choirs of angels.
[16] [A robber, putrid in his whole body, is freed from prison and healed, when the Saint's body is carried] When therefore his body, placed on a bier, was being led to the tomb, there was a certain robber, Tharsius by name, already three years placed in prison and so bound with iron chains at the neck, hands and feet, that those very limbs, already putrefied from the weight of the iron, stank. And when the holy limbs were being carried on the bier, looking on, he cried out, saying: O merciful Solemnis, who didst restore sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the dumb, deliver me from these bonds, in which the whole frame of my limbs is being dissolved. And straightway the chains were burst asunder, and going out into the street he praised God with a loud voice, and, stretching out his hands, laid hold of the bier on which the venerable Solemnis lay, and forthwith health was restored to his putrid limbs. And those who were carrying the holy Man's body, seeing this, fear
and amazement seized them all, and with a loud cry they glorified God.
[17] The man of God rested therefore on the VII f of the Kalends of October, and was buried in the monastery of Meillac, [to be buried at Meillac, where he long lay hidden, and, as Gregory of Tours reports,] in which he rested a long time, until the said monastery was laid waste by the pagans. After the persecution was quiet, in what manner the Lord deigned to reveal, to the praise and glory of His name, his precious body and tomb, which for a long time lay hidden from human gaze, we have learned from the report of blessed Gregory, pontiff of Tours. g For among the other miracles which he wrote in praise of the Confessors, he says of blessed Solemnis, speaking thus: Although we have already written some things about the city of Tours, yet since we have lately beheld the tomb of saint Solemnis, we could not be silent about what we learned of him — which is established at the monastery of Meillac on the top of a hill, fenced about with ancient and wonderful buildings, but then already half ruined.
[18] For they relate of that place that, while the crypt of his burial was still hidden, by prodigies and that place had been revealed to none of the Christians, on every night of the solemnities of the Lord's days a light was seen kindled by the inhabitants, but no one knew what this mystery meant: only a suspicion held men that something divine was kept there. Meanwhile there came two possessed men from the basilica of saint Martin, who, striking their palms together, began to cry out, saying: Here rests the most blessed Solemnis in a hidden crypt: open therefore the tomb of the Friend of God; and when you shall have found it, cover it with veils, kindle a light, and render him due worship: for it will be healthful for this region if you fulfil what we say. And saying these things with a great outcry, they strove to dig up the earth with their nails. Then the inhabitants, seeing what was being done, taking a hoe and digging, opened the crypt, in which, descending by a series of steps, they found a great tomb, of which those men, still infirm in mind, testified that this was the tomb of the most blessed Solemnis; and they presently, their senses recovered, departed.
[19] But after this the sick of divers diseases began to flow together to him, was revealed. and, having received health, to return home sound. And Lithomerius too, a native of the city of Poitiers, when he was wearied with an illness of the quartan type, taking candles from his lodging, came to the place with one servant only. And having poured forth prayer and lighted the candles and held them with his own hand through the whole night, he celebrated the vigils. When morning came, therefore, he returned home, and no longer suffered from this disease any grievousness of chill or breaking-down. And thus the tomb and merits of saint Solemnis, the Lord permitting, became known; by the granting of Him who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God through all ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
* read vastare
* perhaps procurante
* read collum.
HISTORY OF THE TRANSLATION OF THE RELICS
From a transcript sent from Paris by R. Fr. Combefis, and probably excerpted from a manuscript codex of the royal library.
Solemnis, Bishop and Conf., at Chartres in Gaul (S.)
BHL Number: 7820
[The people of Chartres, hearing the miracles which were being done at the Saint's tomb,] At length, after the passing of many years' returns, a when God had willed to bestow the benefits of their Father upon the people of Chartres, upon hearing such heraldings of miracles and stirred by a fame so pressed home by tokens, the prelate, the chief men of the church and the people come together in one, that by decree of common counsel inquiry might be made about such things. And so, a discussion having been held at some length and, as is the custom among many, handled in manifold ways, the opinion of all turned to this, that three of the faithful clerics, with others of the religious of the people, should be sent to see the places of the holy report. For they knew that he had been entombed in those parts, and had a certain testimony of his merits. But on account of the great interval of time b they held it doubtful whether any removal by the faithful, on account of the past molestation of the pagans, or any plundering or carrying off by the unbelievers, had occurred. And because they had read from the mouth of the Saviour: In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand, sending as many Brethren as they knew to be suitable, they willed that the truth be traced out beyond doubt. Who, departing and hearing on the way and everywhere many things about the Saint's miracles, were made glad, and at length came to the holy tomb as pilgrims, and, offerings having been brought forth in the sight of those standing by, and a prayer of faith heard, they implored God and the holy Confessor that, if he judged the holy see of his episcopate worthy of his dwelling, he would by a certain token of truth give them knowledge of it, according to the desire of the others.
[2] treat of obtaining his body, But when the hush of night was rushing on, returning to their lodgings, and turning over many things and long, they at last postponed their late care to rest. And when they were held by the sluggishness of sleep, the blessed Bishop, coming in a vision to one of the envoys, spoke in a godlike manner these words: Go, son, say to our brother the bishop of Chartres: Do what thou doest; work what thou workest; let not thy hand cease nor thy foot: for in the place of the Apostles c thou shalt come to me, and I will render thee a reward. The Brother, being admonished by such a declaration, when morning came made his companions certain of what he had heard from the Blessed one. All having learned the heralding of so great a mystery, and not doubting that such a thing had proceeded from the Lord, a search of common counsel being suddenly held, giving thanks to God, they returned to the place of their mission, to declare the force of the reasoning which they had received not idly from their holy Bishop. And indeed the blessed pontiff, having heard the oracle of Sanctity, pricked by the divine spirit, cried out with tears: To my hearing Thou shalt give joy, and the bones that have been humbled shall rejoice: for the declaration of Thy words shall give understanding to little ones. Enlighten, we beseech, our hearts, that we may be able to know Thy mysteries, from whom and through whom all secrets are. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, Thine is the praise and the mercy; Thou art the knower of secrets and the knowledge of truth, and of those secrets which among men need knowing.
[3] And after this he says to those who reported it: Go, we pray, dearest sons of the Church, and, leave having been given by the bishop of Tours, seek our father and yours Solemnis; and, sought and found, honour him with the honours you owe him; and, honoured as you know and ought, be earnest to pray that it may please God and himself that his body be carried by his own people to the bosom of the mother church of God. Let our letters also and our seal be carried to the holy pontiff of Tours, in which the petition of the whole clergy and people, with our authority and that of the canons, may be set forth in ecclesiastical order. And if the institution of Catholic law d shall please him in our regard, the holy Father shall be carried off by us to the place due to him. This he said, and, envoys having been deputed to the bishop of Tours, he ordered the manifestation of the holy conveyance to be made. But after the return of the embassy, the number and manner of the things needful for the fitting bearing of the blessed clod having been determined, the gathering of the ecclesiastical mission goes thither with prayers and spiritual hymns. One having also been sent ahead who should say these things at Tours, the bishop is present to meet them, weeping and wailing with troops of clerics; there is present too with him a multitude of virgins and monks; there are present also companies of lamenting peoples, who, having seen and heard the aforesaid miracles, mourned that they were losing the Patron of so great devotion.
[4] With these too the procession of Chartres, the longed-for journey being undertaken, they carry off the holy relics from Meillac, came at last with much exultation to the site of Meillac. e And so, digging up the holy Man's resting-place with frequent prayers and psalms, they found the resting limbs of the blessed body, awaiting in the Lord the resurrection of all humanity, and already as it were rejoicing under hope of it after the manner of those who long. For that dust of the famous corpse was dust only in appearance; the bones shone white as ivory, or as something more beautiful if such there be. Men chosen as worthy to do this, gathering the sacrosanct relics — nay rather the pearls of infinite and inestimable worth, comparable to none — placed them on the shoulders of holy and devout men, to be borne devoutly and faithfully to the place foreseen by God. O how great, O God, did Thy miracles there appear; how many healings of the sick were declared on every side; how great praises of Thee were proclaimed there on all hands; how mercifully did Thy compassions applaud those who cried out! For to no one, not even to that eloquent tongue of Tullius Cicero, would it have been granted to set forth more readily how great and how many advantages of health were seen to arise there, what thousands of the peoples standing by rejoiced, how they praised the great deeds of God in His Saints, and how numerous companies of chanting clerics re-echoed.
[5] The bier therefore being raised and placed on the pious necks of holy men, when they were entering upon the order of the psalms, with the highest praise of the people of Tours the holy bishop of Tours began this antiphon: The way of the just is made straight, the path of the Saints is prepared, for the Lord knoweth their ways; and thus, with crosses and candlesticks going before, and all the fragrance of incense and frankincense set round about, on one side the sad troops of Tours went through that Davidic melody; on the other the rejoicing faithful multitude of Chartres did not hide their joys, singing and chanting psalms. Those anxious about the loss of so great a patronage; these rejoicing over the recovery of him whom they must love. But when they had come to the turning of the city, every age and every sex, coming to meet them, cried aloud and shouted: Have mercy on us, O God, through Solemnis Thy servant. But when it came to this, that the two parties should be separated from one another, the blessed bishop, silence being made among all, spoke thus to the whole crowd: You know, brethren, and it has been heard through God's clemency, how by His gift we have had hitherto among us the holy bishop of Chartres, Solemnis, and through his prayers have received healings for the sick and help for our whole province: but now
still more, his merits bringing it about, the indulgence of the Saviour has broken forth to this, that He wills that not only the help of His bounty through him should be given us, but that also for those to whom it belongs by justice — nay, for the city and the whole fatherland — there should be a patronage through the presence of his body. Whence also He willed by a divine utterance to exhort His citizens, and chiefly the clergy, because it is pleasing to Him that His Faithful one should have his rest in his own place.
[6] [with the deepest grief: and while, carrying them to Chartres, they halt at Blois,] Since therefore we can not and ought not go against God's precepts, he shall be carried hence, with the troops of the faithful whom you see accompanying him. But you, dearest ones, be not disturbed at this, but rather submit yourselves to God and implore His grace, that you may deserve to have both the prayers of His holy Bishop and, through him, the saving mercies of the Lord Himself. Now they too will depart with their Patron, but we by God's gift shall remain (fear not, you who believe) with his patronage. Let us therefore salute — and all of you with us — our blessed Father, praying that he may be merciful to us, interceding with the Lord Jesus Christ. Thou indeed, father Solemnis, by God's gift hast had thy rest with us; but now, about to depart from us in body, mayest thou hear our prayers, mayest thou, loosing our sins, grant remission, and mayest thou in mercy guard us from all evils, that by thy intercessions thou mayest bring us to the glory we desire. We say to thee also: Hail, blessed Father; may God our salvation help us through thee and save us. The assembly being so dismissed, these mourning and those glad, they girded themselves for the march of their own lordship. But after journeyings of several days had been interposed, they came at last to the entrance of the bishopric of Chartres, the courses of the river Loire lying between; and its stream being crossed with labour, f they entered the castle of Blois, at a time indeed when the night was already dewy.
[7] the sacred relics cannot be moved thence, Now there was, near the border of the bank, in the territory of that same castle, a chapel of S. Peter, g in which, by God's will and with the peril of night at hand, they received, by the favour of the people of the castle, lodging for the holy relics preordained by God. And when the customary vigils had been celebrated there after the usual manner, and when, the dawn growing light, they wished to take the road, the sick coming from every side, the Lord's miracles began to shine forth in the efficacy of their healing, and the intercessions of the holy confessor and bishop Solemnis to appear. h And when for this reason they had drawn out their delays somewhat long, at last laying hands on the holy bier that they might take the road, they could not move it at all. Even more men coming with stronger ones, and labouring the whole day, experienced only labour, accomplishing nothing at all. Whence, dismayed and made sad, the evening of night now being at hand, they announce such things by a messenger to their priest. But saint Solemnis, appearing to him on that same night, i spoke thus: Going to the castle of Blois thou shalt find the relics of my body in the church of the Apostles; there too thou shalt bury me, there thou shalt lay me in a place of prayer: for the mercy of God has preordained through our prayers to succour many people there.
[8] The bishop, k coming with a great clergy and with many crowds of the peoples, wherefore they are placed there in the church of S. Peter. entered that oratory of S. Peter with many tears. But entering, he could not for grief hold back his voice from crying out to saint Solemnis: O holy Solemnis, awaited in vain by thine own, why hast thou scorned to be among us on earth? O Solemnis, solemnity of the angels, why does it not please thee to be the solemnity of thy people of Chartres? Yet thou shalt grant to us also the solemnity that is due, since to our people of Blois too thou wilt give, not without us, help and gladness. Here shall be thy rest, blessed Shepherd: be to us, we pray, though not present in body, a merciful helper. This he said, and, a most excellent resting-place being prepared, he laid the holy relics in a place of prayer, in which his prayers and merits flourish, and by his benefits the good things desired are granted to those who ask with faith — the clemency of Christ bestowing it, the grace of the Father and of the Holy Spirit co-operating, who is God, one in Trinity and omnipotent, for ever and ever. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
* perhaps dignitatis has been omitted
MIRACLES
From the same Paris transcript of R. Fr. Combefis.
Solemnis, Bishop and Conf., at Chartres in Gaul (S.)
BHL Number: 7821
Prologue, For human frailty a it is difficult to treat anything of the greatness of divine works, unless that overflowing Spirit water the innermost parts of the heart with His sprinkling — He who, bearing with Him all the wealth of words to the minds of the Apostles, glided down from heaven: for who can bear the burden of so great a felicity, unless that Paraclete of whom we have already spoken supply strength? For not even if the tongue of a man should send forth a hundred sounds could it fully explain the arduousness of so great matters. Since it is so said by the prophet David: Man shall come to a deep heart, and God shall be exalted. Whence let us, not daring to approach such a business, forsaken by the strength of our talent, implore divine aid, that what we fear to touch we may, by His help, be able to accomplish without any anxiety. For we know that Truth itself, which is Christ, said thus: Open thy mouth, and I will fill it; and to open the mouth and to be filled by the Lord is when one, loving God with his whole mind, utters His praise with a pure heart, and with all the strength of his soul makes himself over to His service. Whose mouth Christ seasons with the wisdom of the divine word, and directs his mind to the acknowledgment of His truth; nor does he walk in a circle, as the impious do, but is made wholly capable of the divine light, and he can undoubtingly sing with the prophet that verse: To Him have I cried with my mouth, and I have exalted under my tongue: for he does not cry to God with his mouth whom the guilt of his own conscience accuses within. But let us now, having advanced far from our beginning, turn our pen to the treatment of the following Work, and touch briefly, as best we can, on the miracles wrought in the basilica of the most blessed bishop Solemnis.
[2] Therefore when on a certain day Richard, venerable abbot of the monastery of Verdun, Water flows from the side of a Crucifix in the church of S. Solemnis. returning from Tours of the holy Martin, the confessor of confessors, came to Blois, and it settled in his mind to go to the church of saint Solemnis for the sake of prayer, it happened that all the common people of that castle, not ignorant of the arrival of so great a man, gathered together, because they rejoiced that a holy man had come. Wearied by their unceasing prayers that he would celebrate Mass for them, the illustrious man came to the Lord's altar, set before the tomb of the blessed man Solemnis, clothed in the vestments as priestly custom requires, and there about to offer a living victim to God. But after the Gospel, the divine clemency working, he sought the pulpit, that he might make a sermon to the people poured round on every side, whom he felt to be in need of the fodder of the divine word: for he perceived that bodily food profits little unless the mind within receive spiritual food. Therefore while he was inserting many things among certain others about the Lord's passion, and while all the people carefully took in what proceeded from the man's mouth, he turned the course of his discourse to that speech, how the faithless Jew pierced with a lance the side of the Lord hanging on the cross, and how straightway blood and water ran therefrom. But while he was making such things known to the people, and while this word, watered by a shower sent from heaven, was springing up in the hearts of all, forthwith, while very many brethren of the church and certain good laymen beheld it, an immense brightness fallen from heaven shone round the whole Crucifix, and thereupon crystalline water flowed marvellously from His side; and those who saw it bore witness, and still
the thing itself, subject to bodily senses, confirms the testimony most fully. For it can be seen and touched, like other things too which persist of that nature. O wondrous mercy of God! Water flowed forth from dry wood, which the earth had not nourished now for innumerable years past. b The same miracle too our Lord Jesus Christ willed now to show to us which He showed to the people of Israel when, water being brought forth from the hardest rock, He gave drink to that people, faint with the burning of thirst: for as that people, having seen the abundance of God, went away glad and filled, so we, the immense power of God being shown, each one returned rejoicing to his own home. And this water falling from the side of the Crucifix a certain little cask received, and stood half full of it: which, buried within the altar, preserves the sacred water for posterity, to keep the memory. These things being thus dispatched, let us pass to the rest. c
[3] A certain woman, sprung from the district of Vendôme, d A blind woman is enlightened by S. Solemnis's patronage, who, blind now for many past seasons, was living in those parts, hearing the miracles of the Cross e which the Lord deigned to work for His servant Solemnis, asked of her fellow-villagers to grant her guidance for seeking out the Saint's mercy: and they, not refusing her petition, obeyed her wish with a willing mind. Therefore on the Lord's day of the Ascension into heaven, that poor woman, lying in continual watch before the presence of the body of saint Solemnis, and pouring forth prayers to God with deep sighs, deserved by the holy Man's intervention to receive the sight which she had long lacked. For while the words of the holy Gospel were being read at the Lord's Mass, straightway, the long night being put to flight, she gained the daylight which she had so long lost, and returned to her home, with none leading her, with the greatest joy of her own people. f
[4] Nor do we judge that this ought to be passed over in silence, which by a most evident act our Saviour deigned to disclose in a certain madman. a madman returns to a sound mind, Now there was a certain madman so full of all frenzy that he allowed no one to come near him. And those who did come near were wounded by his bloody bites. Him therefore, as if he were a most savage beast, all the country folk surrounded in a ring, and, making an onset upon him, seized him as he struggled with the greatest violence; and, having lifted him upon a cart and bound his hands tightly behind his back, they most devoutly brought him to the healing of the lofty confessor Solemnis. To whose prayers the Lord, for the sake of His soldier Solemnis, willed to lend an ear, and did not delay to bestow what they had faithfully asked. And so he who before had been mad is made master of his mind, and, using sound counsel with his own people, returns home. And he, not unmindful of so great a benefit wrought upon him, takes a ram of the whitest fleece, which he had chosen out of all his flock, and led it even to the altar of saint Solemnis, as one indebted for the health granted him: imitating that Samaritan covered with leprosy and cleansed by the Lord, who, when the nine had forgotten their cure, alone returned to the Lord to render thanks, and deserved to hear from Him: Go, thy faith hath made thee whole. g
[5] a paralytic woman recovers the use of her limbs But not long after, a certain poor woman was living in the territory of Bourges, in a village to which the name Camariziacum h has been given, so dissolved in all the strength of her body that she neither knew at all the use of her feet nor was able to lift her hand up to her mouth: who, long beset by so great a disease, sought the basilica of saint Eusicius, i whom she had heard to flash with frequent miracles. Whence, prolonging an anxious life by lying there not a few days, and at last obtaining no health, she returned home mourning: who nevertheless, fervent in faith and not distrusting God's mercy, invokes Him with assiduous vows, that He would speedily deign to bring help to her, labouring under so great a torment. Whom the Lord perhaps for this reason delayed so long to heal, that it might be declared on earth of how great merit His servant Solemnis was held in heaven. And so, while she rested on her bed at midnight, and gave to sleep her limbs vexed with exceeding weakness, she seemed to have heard a mighty voice, as of a trumpet, and to have been thus admonished three times: Arise, and be earnest to have thyself carried to the church of blessed Solemnis, and there implore the most abundant compassion of God and of that Saint: thou shalt straightway, by his intervention, receive perfect health of thy limbs.
[6] she recovers, And so when morning came, the woman, being awake, began silently to ponder within herself what had happened to her in sleep, and to relate it to her friends, summoned for this purpose: relying, through their zeal, on great hope of recovering health, she entreats to be led to the most holy pledges of the above-mentioned Father. And after a few days had passed, she was carried by cart to the place she desired. Being at length placed before the sacrosanct tomb of the blessed Confessor, she ceased not with tearful voices to call for his help and a remedy for her weakness, until through God's Servant, the divine clemency favouring, she deserved to be freed from the trouble of her sickness. But the people, who heard of this spectacle, running together from every side, see that she had received full soundness. Therefore she gave thanks to almighty God and to His faithful Solemnis, by whose merits and prayers she knew well that she had been restored to health, and hastened eagerly to return home with her company. And all who were present there, seeing what the Lord deigned to show for His Servant, rendered Him immense thanks, and no less to blessed Solemnis, through whom so many tokens of miracles were made plain.
[7] a woman of Orleans, blind from birth, Another woman likewise, dwelling in the district of Orleans, an inhabitant of the stronghold which is called Herbert's, k had a daughter blind from birth, but devoted to God and vigorous: who, hearing that the name of blessed Solemnis was spread abroad famous everywhere, and that he was merciful and very swift in the gifts of miracles, took pains to come with some friends even to the holy Man's presence, and to bring her daughter thither with her; if perchance the Lord and the most merciful Confessor should show the gifts of their clemency toward her. And she was earnest to fulfil as quickly as she could what she had in mind. Hearing therefore, she went to the basilica of the blessed Father, and, bringing according to her means a gift of oblation upon his altar, she bade her daughter fall down before the tomb containing the precious bones of the blessed Man, and beg the abundant mercy of God and of the holy Prelate. And she, on the Lord's day, while the priest was celebrating the solemnities of the Mass of so great a day, and amid the libations of prayers was offering the Sacrifice to God, received the sight of her eyes, the darkness being suddenly removed, and hastened to go through the several places of the monastery with none leading her.
[8] But the canons of that place, being doubtful about this miracle, when the enlightened woman was shown them, obtains sight, began to question those who had come with her, whether she had before been illumined with any light. And they began to attest and to swear that she had seen nothing at all before that day. Therefore when the chief men, natives of that place, of the greatest authority, to whom credit ought to be given, came to the castle of Blois, asking of God and of blessed Solemnis pardon for their sins, then was believed whatever before had been turned into a doubt: and they made known to the people and to the prelates of the church that all was as had been declared by the former witnesses. And the aforesaid woman, made capable, by the merits and grace of saint Solemnis, of unwonted sight, having vigorously performed what she owed for so great a gift, presently returned home with her own people, likewise moved with great zeal. And the inhabitants of that same district, who had already learned this beforehand, running together to meet her and especially congratulating one another on this thing, gave acts of thanksgiving to God and to saint Solemnis for the display of such miracles.
[9] Nor is that less to be told which was afterwards done in the church of the most blessed Solemnis concerning a certain girl. a wretchedly contracted girl is straightened; There was, then, a certain man of good repute, having an only daughter, who scarcely by crawling along the ground could move her body anywhere, and who had fallen into so great an affliction that her feet, drawn back with her legs, clung to her buttocks, and her sinews likewise, drawn back with the skin, allowed no stretching. He therefore, having gone forth from his own soil with his wife, resolved to lead her, placed upon a little ass, through the holy places, that God by the merits and entreaties of His Saints might mercifully deign to disclose health for her. And so she was led through several places of the Saints, none of them profiting her weakness: but, to make plain the power of saint Solemnis, those Saints refused to grant her soundness, that saint Solemnis might be more and more exalted and more frequently venerated by the faithful. But last of all she was brought to the bier of the above-mentioned Man, where very many sick men obtained the joyful cure of their diseases. Tarrying there three days, the little ass having now been sold for want of food, and preparing to set out, they put off their departure to the fourth day. But on the Lord's day, which was reckoned the fourth day, while the Gospel was being expounded to the people, and the reader had this verse in his mouth, But He, taking hold of the man with dropsy, healed him and let him go, suddenly she began to be free of the crookedness of her feet and legs, and to walk upright wherever her mind carried her. Thus strengthened in the vigour of her limbs, the companion of both her parents, she followed on foot, by the deserving intervention and grace of saint Solemnis.
[10] Among these very admirable spectacles of miracles, something must be brought forth which the Lord deigned to work by His grace through His servant Solemnis, a workman carried off into captivity by robbers that from it the minds of readers may lay hold of fuller increases of virtue, and that hearers may become more practised in good acts. There were, then, two carpenters hewing timber in a certain grove for their necessary uses, and sweating exceedingly at this work. But in the midst of their doing so there came upon them robbers of the castle of Amboise, l carrying dreadful spears in their hands, with which they threatened them with a terrible voice, that they should quickly declare the name of their lord; otherwise they would presently perish with violent blows. Of these one took the viscount to himself as lord; but the other chose blessed Solemnis as his patron, nor did he cease to invoke him, although he was afflicted with exceeding stripes. Therefore he who said he belonged to a man who would die remained free and safe: but he who submitted himself to an immortal Lord lost liberty together with security. And so, his hair cut off and his neck shorn, he is led to prison, his hands tightly bound behind his back with ropes. But then, covered with bristling darkness, he began to complain and to say: O holy Solemnis, for the preserving of my safety I invoked thee, and now the contrary has befallen me, that, placed in prison, I lead a life heavier than death. If these things are true which are preached of thee, snatch me from these bonds by which I am bound.
[11] is freed, But while, mourning, he wept out such words, marvellous to say, an exceeding brightness shone in the prison, the gloom of the darkness giving way, and in the midst there seemed to him to stand a certain hero of middling size, adorned with garments falling to his ankles, whiter than it is lawful to say, whom for the immense radiance he could scarcely behold: who said that he was present, he whose name in the grove before the robbers he had refused to change. Straightway his hands began to be loosed, and a cudgel a cubit in size, set before him,
he found, though before he had been unable to find anything at all. And with that same rope with which his hands had been bound he presently encircled his neck, and by it gave himself over within the prison as a slave to holy Solemnis. At length, digging up the ground little by little with the cudgel, he went out, blessed Solemnis presiding, filled with great joy. Before he turned aside home, he directed his way to the temple of the reverend Prelate, to render him manifold thanks for so great gifts bestowed on him. But when he drew near the monastery, he began to cry out as though out of his mind: O my lord Solemnis, where art thou, whom in the past night I beheld so brilliant and so comely, and now I do not see! And to those who had heard him and thought he uttered such things through madness, he himself relates in order how through Solemnis, so dear to him, he had escaped the snares of the robbers — Solemnis whom Christ has exalted with such glory that no one asks help of him in vain; who lives and rules over all through all the ages of ages.
[12] A thief is prodigiously caught At another time, then, a certain man named Ebraldus was living not far from the monastery of saint Solemnis, enriched with wealth and sufficiently adorned with uprightness of manners: who, by the suggestion of demons, by night broke in through a glass window of the basilica of blessed Solemnis, and, seeking the chest where the holy Man's treasure was laid up, broke it open. But when he wished to carry off from it a certain golden phylactery, the rest being despised, his hand straightway stuck fast, nor could he draw it out of that chest. But at the noise the guardians of the temple awoke, and found him so ensnared by divine power. Of whom one, greater in years and set over the rest, rebuked him with bitter words, and thereupon with the staff which he had in his hands struck his head a little. Him, suffused with blushing, asking for mercy, and caught red-handed in so great a crime, he was unwilling, moved by piety, to strike further, but prostrated himself in prayer before the holy Prelate's altar, asking of God and of the merciful Solemnis pardon for the man caught in so great guilt. But the prayer being completed, he went back to him again, supposing that he had escaped the peril by which he was still held. Whom, poor wretch, he sees held by the same keeper of whom he had wished to become the plunderer (but the power from above withstood him). And he, while his hand was being separated from the Phylactery, sent forth dreadful cries, like an ox struck on the neck with an axe: for, as he afterwards reported, he was so increased in immense pain, as if his hand were being cut with some knife. Thereupon, repenting of the deed, and, according to the command of the priest who caught him, about to cleanse his fault by abstinence, he went home corrected, and resumed the constancy of a good life which by the fraud of the son of perdition he had forsaken.
[13] After these things this must be added, which the Maker of all things showed the sinews of a contracted workman are loosened; by an evident miracle in a certain Durandus. This man, then, of whom the discourse is, trod the earth with no steps, but, his feet bent back, was dragged only by the aid of his buttocks and hands, nor did he do any manly work, but attempted a woman's, which is lighter. And so in the church of saint Solemnis, some courses of years having now passed, he led a tearful life, yet always with such effort as he could, skilfully intent upon the services of the church. For he cleansed the temple of the filth heaped up, and then watered it with abundant streams of water, being no less necessary for the other little tasks of the church, although to himself he was a burden. m But amid these things he prayed often to the glorious Solemnis that he might become a bountiful restorer of his failing part. To him, uttering these and many other things besides, the excellent Solemnis did not delay to bring help. Therefore, when on the feast of the Man of God he lay prone on the ground beside his tomb, and with earnest voice besought him as an intercessor with God for his restoration, straightway, while the peoples standing in the temple beheld it, his sinews crackling, he began to stretch out his legs, and, raised up, to stand in that same place with his knees extended. Thereupon, with steps still tottering, he sought the ropes by which the bells are drawn, and by one of them is made a servant of the Saint. And as long as he drew these vital airs, he did not fail in his service, unless perhaps detained by grave illness. And the company of the brethren serving God and blessed Solemnis there, seeing him restored to his former vigour, breaks forth into praises of God and of His servant Solemnis, endowed with so great an honour of miracles.
[14] To our Creator, dearest brethren, it befits us always to render thanks, a man cast into prison for debts is thence, the Saint's help being invoked, who ceases not everywhere to glorify His Saints; by whose help every living thing is nourished and ruled; under whose governance the world glides on in fixed successions; to whom whatever is known as arduous is easy; whose will the effect straightway follows. There was, then, a certain man sprung from this castle of Blois, who had borrowed a great sum of money from usurers, but had come into such want that he repaid to none what he owed. And behold, while he was going out of the temple of the most holy Solemnis, whither he had gone to pray, he met one of them, to whom already often, compelled by poverty, he had lied about the term of repaying his own. Whom that man seized before the doors of the temple, and, holding him, choked him most cruelly: and when he could exact nothing from him, he caused him to be led into the prison of the vicar, whose brother he was. And he, weeping, bound in his hands by his hostile leaders, is without delay handed over into the vault; n and, the day being taken from him, he is given over to the horrors of dusky night. At length on a certain day, while those under whose custody he was held were sitting at table and eating, straightway the promised power, like a river of fire, drove out the door of the prison and the bar of the vault, and in like manner scattered the weight which had been heaped upon it.
[15] freed. When the vault was opened, his hands loosed, and liberty prepared on every side, he was unwilling to depart thence secretly, but said silently to himself: Christ Jesus, who has snatched me from these lowest cells, can bring it about that I withdraw hence with free steps, none hindering. But those at dinner, hearing the noise of so great a ruin, began to inquire among themselves what had fallen. At length they sent the cup-bearer who was pouring wine for them to inquire what had happened, and to report to them at once whatever it might be. And he found him sitting upon the vault, glorifying God and blessed Solemnis, by whose prayer and merit he had been freed from so great a shipwreck. And he, breathless, reported to the guests the deed which by God's nod had been wrought. And so the usurer, who was one of those at dinner, knowing that he had not escaped the dungeon save by God's permission, did not dare to lay hands on him further, but bade him depart, released from his debt, for fear of God and of blessed Solemnis.
ANNOTATIONS.
* read Dominicæ