Hiltrudis

ON ST. HILTRUDIS, VIRGIN,

AT LIESSIES IN HAINAUT

About the end of the Eighth Century.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Hiltrudis, virgin, at Liessies in Hainaut. (S.)

BY J. P.

§ I. The memory of the Saint in the sacred Fasti; by whom, when, and with what helps her Acts were written; the judgments of more recent writers.

[ ] The most celebrated abbey of Liessies, or, as others write it, Lescies, commonly Liessies,

of the Order of St. Benedict, of which, on account of the benevolence shown by its venerable abbots and Religious to our Elders, and the labor bestowed on illustrating the Acts of the Saints, The name of the Saint in the Roman and other Martyrologies. a grateful recollection ever clings to our minds, is situated in Hainaut, a province of Belgium, on the river Helpe near the town of Avesnes. In it on this day is celebrated the solemn memory of St. Hiltrudis, virgin, who in a manuscript codex of Liessies, among the Auctaria of the Martyrology of venerable Bede, published by us before tom. 2 of the month of March, is announced in the first place in these words: The birthday of S. Hiltrudis, virgin, who for the love of Christ fleeing a bridegroom on earth, clung manfully to him whom she had chosen, and concluded her good purpose with a praiseworthy end. In the same words and on the same day Molanus in his enlarged Usuard, Wion, and the author of the German Martyrology commemorate the Saint at Liessies; nor does Galesinius differ in substance, writing thus: At Liessies, of saint Hiltrudis, virgin, who, burning with love of Christ her Spouse, despising earthly nuptials, rested in him alone. More briefly Menard in the Benedictine Martyrology, and, agreeing with him word for word, the most eminent Baronius in the Roman: In Hainaut, of saint Hiltrudis, virgin. Of her, besides, treat Ferrarius, Saussay, Bucelin, Arthur, Molanus in his Indiculus and in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium, Miraeus in the Belgic Fasti, and several others, especially writers on Belgic affairs and on the Order of St. Benedict, whom I shall cite in the course of the work, if they have brought forward anything which they could not have learned from the Life of St. Hiltrudis, or which conduces to illustrating the same.

[2] Her Acts were written by an anonymous author That Life Mabillon first published in print, part 2 of Saeculum 3 of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, and prefaced it in this manner, p. 420: This Life was written by a certain monk of Waulsort, according to Jacques de Guise, who inserted it into his Annals of Hainaut. The author of the Little Book on the restoration of the monastery of Liessies designates the name of the monk of Waulsort by these letters, W, and says that that work was undertaken by him at the request of the canons of Liessies: and therefore before the year one thousand and ninety-six, in which the monks were restored in place of the canons. What monuments the author used in writing this Life he in no way discloses. Though most things are true, some indeed of doubtful credit are related: such as what is said of Hugh, prince of Burgundy, and of the veiling of Hiltrudis by Theodoric, bishop of Cambrai. But nevertheless, since other monuments fail us, it is well to retain these for such knowledge as may be had of the beginnings of the monastery of Liessies: concerning which the silence of Baldric in the Chronicle of Cambrai is remarkable, as also concerning Hildetrudis the virgin, of whom I have found nothing written elsewhere among the ancients.

[3] after the middle of the eleventh century Not unwillingly do I assent to the testimonies adduced of Jacques de Guise and of the other author: but even with these standing, the biographer not obscurely discloses that he was almost three centuries later than St. Hiltrudis; for he so arranges her deeds that she must be reckoned to have died before the end of the eighth century; then, being about to narrate the restoration of the church of Liessies, he thus prefaces: But in the time of Henry Augustus, when the man worthy of God, Gerard, administered the fasces of the bishopric of Cambrai, the holy virgin Hiltrudis, appearing to a certain man, etc.; then he subjoins the building and dedication of the new church, and two miracles, one of which he says happened on the anniversary day of the dedication; and at length, proceeding to a third miracle: I shall relate, he says, another miracle also, which the divine goodness has wrought through the merits of his Virgin in our own times. All these things certainly denote the eleventh century not a little advanced: since Gerard, the first of that name, who under the reign of St. Henry, Conrad, and Henry the third held the see of Cambrai, and of whom the biographer speaks as of a man no longer surviving, prolonged his life until the year 1051; as we proved in tom. IV of June, p. 585, in the preliminary Commentary on the Acts of St. Lietbert, who next succeeded Gerard in the same see. Hence I should not indeed wish to dissent from Mabillon, who notes in the title that the biographer lived in the middle of the eleventh century; but I judge that he wrote somewhat later.

[4] To an age so far removed from the times of the Saint there is added, to diminish the authority of the Acts, the penury of monuments with no written documents, as it appears, under which the author labored, and which I gather not so much from the fact that, according to Mabillon, he in no way discloses what he used, as from his own confession, speaking thus in his prologue: Of her (St. Hiltrudis's) life and conversation and of the doings of her parents, and of those powers which the Lord deigned to work through her merits, as we have heard from the account of the faithful, who both learned from their forebears and themselves saw them present, we shall speak in what follows. What wouldst thou conclude thence, save that his whole Work, in so far as it comprises the deeds both of the Saint and of her parents, rests upon report alone, and that received by word of mouth? The cause of so great a penury he indeed nowhere openly alleges; nevertheless he sets it forth to be somehow conjectured at num. 15 and following, where he narrates the destruction of the monastery of Liessies by the Hungarians, and the invasion of its goods by seculars which followed a little after.

[5] For the Hungarians, as he asserts, having entered Gaul after the death of Charlemagne and of his son Louis the Pious, which are believed to have been burnt by the Hungarians and having tried in vain to consume the church of Liessies with flames, carry off and scatter all the furniture of the church, and burn with fire the cloistral and service buildings of the brethren; they fill all things with mourning and lamentation, and lead away many captives of both sexes and of different ages: who, when the victory over the Hungarians was won, returning, gave the matter of this chapter to our pen. From that time not only here, but also elsewhere, by such tempestuous events the monastic state and the monastic Order was leveled to the ground, and altogether brought to nothing, and the cenobites were scattered. And when that tempest was over, the provincials dwelling round about usurped to themselves what had belonged to saint Hiltrudis, and each seized for himself whatever was nearest. Things that were ecclesiastical became secular. Hence, I say, the author leaves it to be conjectured that the titles, and whatever other written instruments there were, were either burnt by the Hungarians or afterward made away with by the secular invaders of the church's goods, lest their unjust possession should be betrayed by them; as, according to the same author's testimony, happened to the written testament of St. Hiltrudis, which in the eleventh century was found in her sepulcher.

[6] Not otherwise have the men of Liessies themselves long thought concerning the Acts, and by others as the manuscript Little Book of their Chronicles teaches us, which we keep in our Museum. The author at the head of the prefatory letter thus indicates himself: To the most esteemed in Christ, both fathers and brethren of the fellowship of Liessies, Jacques Lespee, unworthy monk and priest, wishes greeting: and at the foot of the same letter he thus marks the place and time: From our cell of Liessies, the thirteenth Kalends of January, in the year from the Virgin's childbearing 1544. Then, having narrated the beginnings of his monastery, and its devastation by the barbarians, and also the invasion of its goods by secular men, he says: Hence it came about that we labor under a want of histories and Annals. But when he comes to the times of our biographer, he speaks in this manner: The canons entreat a certain monk of Waulsort that, with such dexterity as he was … endowed with, he would write with his pen the Life of the holy Hiltrudis, for the delight of the minds of those to come. The monk indeed wrote his History, polished in expression, yet less perfect in its numbers; since it is plain that he did not affix to each several matter a definite indication of time. But if thou consider that he handed down to posterity only things heard, not also things seen, thou wilt cease to wonder why he wrote so briefly of the state of the church: otherwise the learned man would have satisfied the desire of all, if it had been permitted him to unroll even the fragments of past things: for in writing his History he accuses those before him of negligence and ignorance. I indeed could likewise complain and accuse our elders, who furnished us with no writings, and who from the death of blessed Guntard (the brother of St. Hiltrudis and first abbot of Liessies) until the expulsion of the canons (that is, until the end of the eleventh century) presided over this place. So much for these matters: we must proceed to others, which can be defended by the monuments of writings. The same complaints about the want of monuments an anonymous monk of the same abbey lays down, who between about the years 1202 and 1206, as will be clear from what is to be said below, wrote the Little Book of the foundation or restoration of the monastery of Liessies, and openly indicates that he had nothing at all at hand from which to learn the state of that church down to the restoration, save the Acts of our Saint written by the monk of Waulsort at the prayers of the canons.

[7] are believed to have been burnt in the tenth century, Further, the irruption of the Hungarians into those parts mentioned by the biographer, on which occasion we conjecture that the monuments of Liessies perished, happened about the middle of the tenth century. Our witness here, besides Sigebert, the Continuator of Regino, and others, is the author nearest both in time and in place, Fulcuin, who in the same century presided as abbot over the monastery of Lobbes in the same diocese of Cambrai, and described at length the injuries and losses then inflicted by the Hungarians upon the monks of Lobbes, in the miracles of St. Ursmar published by us in tom. 2 of April, p. 565 and following. To Fulcuin we add Baldric in the Chronicle of Cambrai and Arras, because he lived at the same time as our biographer — if indeed we have rightly ascertained his age — and in the things which he relates in a general way about the ferocity of the Hungarians in that diocese agrees excellently, thus beginning chapter 74 of book 1: In those same days the Hungarians were cruelly raging through the regions of this province, taking Christians captive, and, the sacred rites being profaned, burning the churches. Then, a few things being interposed: In the year, he says, from the Incarnation of the Lord 953, on the eighth Ides of April, those same Hungarians, showing forth a warlike discipline with a readier onset, flew upon this city (Cambrai), and, tarrying three days, brought forth a plague upon the whole race.

[8] [or that he was helped by the testimonies of ancient writers. The judgments of more recent writers] Mabillon wonders, and not without cause, that no memory of the monastery of Liessies occurs in Baldric; but it is more to be wondered at that hitherto no writer could be adduced who, being more ancient than our biographer, has made mention, even so much as by name, either of St. Hiltrudis or of the monastery founded there by her parents. That silence, so general, is in my judgment more adverse to the History itself than those things which Mabillon noted, the assertions about Hugh, prince of Burgundy, and about the imposing of the veil upon St. Hiltrudis by Theodoric, bishop of Cambrai. For the first can without difficulty be explained, and the other ascribed to the unskillfulness of copyists, as must frequently be done even in Acts otherwise most worthy of credit. But now let us examine the opinions of others upon these Acts. Le Cointe in the ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks at the year 768, num. 48, having narrated certain deeds of the Saint from Mabillon's edition, subjoins: These things thou hast in her Life, which a monk of Waulsort, much later, wrote, and therefore of doubtful or of no credit in most matters. Baillet in his critical Table at the twenty-seventh day of September, premising that the Life was written by a monk of Waulsort about three centuries later, adds: The work is liable to some errors, nor otherwise can it be of great weight

when it is produced by an author otherwise unknown and so far removed from the times of the Saint. The writers of the Literary History of France, tom. 7, p. 560 and following, likewise observe the biographer's distance of three centuries from the events, and signify that this is the chief cause why he, otherwise learned and prudent, succeeded less well in composing an exact History. They acknowledge that the foundations upon which the writing rests may be true, but conjecture that they were corrupted by uncertain traditions, which the author employed when better documents were wanting; and they think that from that source flowed what is related of Hugh, prince of the Burgundians, and of Theodoric, bishop of Cambrai.

[9] As regards Le Cointe, however harshly he pronounced upon the credit of the Acts in most matters, judgments upon them. he seems nevertheless to have been of the same opinion as the writers just praised, as to the substance of the things narrated, or the foundations of the writing; since, relying on the biographer's authority alone, he attached the dedication of the monastery of Liessies to the year 765, and referred the consecration of St. Hiltrudis to God, and the imposing of the veil by the bishop of Cambrai, to about the year 768. The same is to be judged of Baillet, who likewise on the biographer's single credit both arranged the beginnings of the monastery of Liessies and set out the Acts of the Saint: the same too of Denis de Sainte-Marthe, tom. 3 of the Gallia Christiana, col. 123, where, although he abstains from a judgment upon the Acts, he follows Mabillon in designating the beginnings of Liessies, and, setting Guntard, the brother of St. Hiltrudis, as the first abbot, refers the reader to her Acts, published in the third Benedictine Saeculum. And indeed they could prudently judge that the biographer did not lack some written monuments, from which he drew at least the marrow of a History sufficiently distinct in the matters narrated, and not ill composed: especially those who had not seen the part of the preface recited above, omitted by Mabillon for what cause I know not, and the testimonies of the writers of Liessies which I have also brought forward above. But indeed, while I consider these things joined with so general a silence of the ancients, I find no way, even by probable conjecture, to assign other helps for the History besides the account made to the author by word of mouth. It remains therefore that we investigate of what sort this was, and by what channel it could have come to him.

§ II. The reasons by which the authority of the Acts may in some measure be defended are set forth, and the manuscripts from which they are here to be printed are indicated.

[ ] Only one century after the burning of the documents How weak a foundation an account received only by hearing is for a History of things done about three hundred years before is known even to the unlearned. Nevertheless I would not on that account pronounce upon our Acts more harshly than the praised writers of the Literary History of France. Be it so, then, that not a single fragment of writing lighted the biographer's way: there are nevertheless reasons from which it may prudently be conjectured that the things related by him are in themselves true. For first, the irruption of the Hungarians into those parts, as we have shown above, happened about the middle of the tenth century, but he himself flourished after the middle of the eleventh; and therefore it may be believed that he committed to writing what he had heard from those whose forebears in the preceding century had read the same in written documents, afterward consumed by fire by the Hungarians, or even later made away with by the invaders of the monastery's goods. An interval of time of this kind indeed abundantly suffices for events to be clothed with doubtful circumstances, but not for the events themselves wholly to perish in the same or neighboring places, especially when the matter concerns Saints and when meanwhile those things are done which are related of St. Hiltrudis. For the biographer testifies — who here certainly deserves credit, since he relates events nearest his own times — testifies, I say, that in the same interval of time the Saint was renowned for prodigies, that her body was raised, and that the church of Liessies was restored; which were so many occasions for renewing the memory of what had been either read or heard concerning her deeds and the first foundation of the church of Liessies.

[11] the author lived, and from the Saint's testament, Secondly, the biographer cites an instrument which he himself most probably did not indeed see, but from which he could have heard at closer hand many things pertaining to the Saint and her parents and the first foundation of the church of Liessies. That these may become plainer, I set forth briefly what he narrates at num. XI. The parents of the Saint, when all their heirs had been taken from among the living by an untimely death, except their son Guntard, who, having embraced the monastic life, presided as abbot over the monks of Liessies, and Hiltrudis, who had likewise bidden farewell to the world, at last transferred their goods to her by testament with this mind, as the biographer hints, that after the death of St. Hiltrudis the same goods should pass into the right of the church of Liessies and to the use of those serving the Lord there. Which testament, indeed — these are the biographer's words — when she had withdrawn to the heavenly seats, her most pious parents, looking forward with a well-eyed intent, caused to be buried with her, sealed with lead; which, many years after, in the time of Henry Augustus, who had succeeded Otto the third, the Virgin's sepulcher being opened with rash curiosity, was found and burnt with fire by one not of the heirs, but of the invaders of what had belonged to saint Hiltrudis. Of which we have preferred to say little, rather than to breed loathing or ill will in readers or hearers. The caution contained in the last words the biographer used, I think, because, while he wrote, the heirs of the said invader stood out with the greatest power in those parts, and among them, as is commonly handed down, his son, a little afterward the restorer of the monastery of Liessies.

[12] which was burnt in the eleventh century, From this testament, I say, the biographer could have learned many things at closer hand: to wit, the names and condition of the parents of St. Hiltrudis, the time in which they flourished and founded the church, the goods and privileges which they conferred upon it, and things like these which were expressed in it, and which moved that man to cast it into the fire, lest by so evident a testimony he should be compelled to restitution. Now the testament was found in the time of Henry Augustus, who had succeeded Otto III; therefore between the year 1002, in which St. Henry succeeded Otto III, and the year 1024, in which the same holy emperor died, and consequently not so very long before the biographer was born — if indeed he was not already born when it was committed to the fire: so much so that he could have learned what was contained in it from elders who had themselves read it; for it is not to be believed that it was read by him alone by whom it was burnt.

[13] Nay, that it was read by several the author of the History of the foundation or restoration of the abbey of Liessies persuades us, more things, as we gather from the testimonies whom I have praised once and again above, and of whom it will be well here to have given a fuller notice from his own History. Jacques de Guise, a Minorite of Mons, inserted it in the fourteenth century into his manuscript Annals or Chronicles of the county of Hainaut; but, although I find various things conducing to our Work taken from the said manuscript Annals and preserved in our Museum, yet I do not find a Latin transcript of it; wherefore I am compelled to have recourse to the French translation, made from the Latin Annals of de Guise and published at Paris in the year 1531. Accordingly, in tom. 3, fol. 5 verso of the praised French edition from de Guise's Latin Work, the author, suppressing his own name, signifies in the preface that he is a monk of the abbey of Liessies and has lived in it from boyhood, or, as he adds, before his seventh year of age; that his father, having set out on a journey toward Jerusalem with Louis, king of France (the seventh of that name, as will presently be seen), died at Constantinople; and that he writes while Philip, the son of the same Louis, reigns in France; John in England; and Baldwin the count rules over the Flemings and the men of Hainaut, who, having crossed the sea, now, he says, fills your ears with new and happy successes.

[14] All which things denote that he, being then already about sixty years old, of other writers wrote at the beginning of the thirteenth century. For Louis VII undertook his journey to the East in the year 1147; while his son Philip Augustus reigned, John obtained the kingdom of England in the year 1199; and Baldwin, count of the Flemings and of the men of Hainaut, set out for the East in the year 1202, obtained the empire of Constantinople in 1204, and afterward, taken by the Bulgarians, was cruelly slain in the year 1206. Further, that author, having likewise complained of the negligence of his forebears in transmitting written documents to posterity, declares more clearly for our purpose what the biographer, restrained by fear, had indicated in few words concerning the testament. The clerks, he says, or canons brought about the cause of this church's ruin: for indeed they opened the sepulcher of saint Hiltrudis, and drew out the testament buried with her… They carried the privilege sealed with lead into the court; but the adverse party, when it beheld that testament, perceiving that by the force of this testament the matter in question must be adjudged against them, snatched it and, tearing it from the hands of the readers, cast it into the fire. O mournful day! Then perished all the resources and immunities of the church of Liessies… That tyrannical and shameful deed is said to have been done by Wedericus, called Ad Barbam. So almost word for word in the French edition.

[15] The same matter in Latin Jacques Lespee, cited above, relates in his manuscript Little Book of Chronicles, we gather, but whether taken from the Latin autograph itself, or enlarged from other instruments or changed in style, we do not know. It runs thus: The clerks and canons dwelling at Liessies determined, by the unanimous counsel of all, to snatch the possessions of the church from the hands of seculars. Wherefore, clearly knowing that a catalogue of the privileges and goods of the house was exactly contained in the Virgin's sarcophagus, they carried the Virgin's testament into court to establish the goods of the church. But lest occasion of shuffling should be given to the invaders of the church's goods, it was recited before all, and it was indicated from whom those very possessions were by right to be reclaimed. Wedericus, surnamed Ad Barbam, knowing and understanding that by this testament those things which he had hitherto held were being reclaimed, snatched the testament itself from the hands of the readers and cast it into the fire. There at once perished all the rights, possessions, and privileges with which the church of Liessies had of old been magnificently endowed. To these both Lespee and the anonymous Historian of the restoration subjoin some things about the stock of Wedericus, and more about his son Theodoric, who, in order in some measure to expiate his father's crime, erected a new monastery at Liessies and substituted for the canons monks of the Order of St. Benedict, which things we shall discuss more fully in their place.

[16] he could have learned from those who had either read it themselves One thing, however, I here add, which both affirm of Wedericus, namely that not so very long after the crime was committed, as the anonymous author has it, or after some days had afterward passed, as Lespee says, he died miserably. For if this be true, and at the same time true the opinion of Aubert Le Mire, who in his Notice of the Churches of Belgium, p. 410, sets the same Wedericus, the father of Theodoric, as surviving among the living in the year 1066, because he thinks his name is subscribed to the diploma of Baldwin of Lille, count of Flanders, which, written in the same year, he sets forth in the same place, p. 188, and in which among other names of noble men there is truly read S. * Wederici Tornacensis: these things, I say, if they be true, it will be permissible to gather that our biographer wrote a little after

the burning of the testament, and learned what it contained pertaining to his purpose from the canons themselves, witnesses of the burning and still imbued with a fresh memory of it. But, thou sayest, that conjecture is opposed by the biographer himself, when, treating of the testament, he designates the time of the emperor Henry who had succeeded Otto III. I do not deny it, if indeed the epoch marked necessarily regards both the finding of the testament and its burning: but since the biographer confines the matter within so few words, if anyone should wish to combine and maintain Le Mire's opinion with the death of Wedericus asserted by others, he will say that the sepulcher was indeed opened in the time of St. Henry, and in it the testament of St. Hiltrudis found and read, but that it was either laid back in its place, or kept until, the matter being maturely examined and the case prepared against the possessors of the church's goods, it was at last produced in judgment with insufficient caution; all which things commonly require a notable space of time, when a long possession of goods must be discussed, and an action brought against powerful men, such as Wedericus was.

[17] or had heard it read aloud. The prudence and learning of the same author; However that may be, the things hitherto adduced from the anonymous History of the foundation or restoration, and from the Little Book of Chronicles of Lespee, altogether persuade me that the testament, before it was burnt — whether that was done in the time of St. Henry or later — was read by many and heard read aloud by more, of whose number some surviving among the living could have furnished the biographer with material for laying solid foundations of his History, and, helped by other traditions, for completing his Work. This I judge the chief argument for in some measure defending the Acts, and I wonder that it was either not detected by Mabillon and the writers of the Literary History, or at least not indicated to readers: for so they would have persuaded us the more that the Acts may be true, as they say, as to the substance of the matters, or their foundations. But that I too may omit nothing which I think conduces to the Acts being less despised, I fully assent to the writers of the Literary History of France: I believe the author to have been a prudent and learned man. Prudent, because he so arranged the deeds done by the Saint in her life that he did not mingle with them marvels, or prodigies exceeding the bounds of probability, into which vice those have commonly fallen who committed to writing deeds received from traditions, adopting without discussion or discrimination anything whatever, even fabulous, nay often, by adding ornaments of their own, rendering them more marvelous but less credible. And that he was learned I gather from this, that although in duly ordering his Work he touched here and there upon matters long ago done and in other regions, he neither confused persons nor deviated from right chronology, a rock which compilers of this kind, not well versed in ancient histories, rarely avoid. He is indeed here carped at by others on one point or another; but each can be so explained that it ought not to be ascribed to his unskillfulness; as I have hinted above and shall declare in the Annotations.

[18] For the rest, the studious reader will easily observe that the things hitherto brought forward by me, Whence the Acts are taken, and how they are to be given here. both as opposing and as favoring the writer's authority, regard only those things which he narrates as done down to the raising of the body of St. Hiltrudis, that is, down to the beginning of the eleventh century: for in the rest, which followed the said raising, the biographer, since he flourished in that same century, claims for himself that credit which we commonly give to contemporary or nearly contemporary writers. And since from this biographer has flowed whatever is known of the Saint and her cult down to the restoration of the monastery of Liessies, I judged that the Acts should be placed before both the said restoration and the other things found in more recent writers concerning her posthumous glory. Now besides Mabillon's edition we have two manuscript transcripts of the Acts: one taken from a manuscript of Liessies and compared with a manuscript of Lobbes, the other copied from the Latin Annals of Jacques de Guise, book 2, chapter 1. And in this these transcripts of ours differ, that the one of de Guise is divided into chapters and has titles prefixed to each, while the one of Liessies lacks these: in other respects they so agree with one another that the variant readings, rarely occurring, do not deserve to be noted. But it is wonderful how much Mabillon's edition differs from them, although it too is noted as made from the codices of Liessies and Waulsort at once. For not only are there wanting in it the greater part of the prologue and almost the whole epilogue; but also in the narrative itself many things have been omitted, and a very frequent diversity betrays itself either in the words or in their transposition or in the orthography. The chief omissions, where they do not require another observation, will be shown to the reader by brackets of this kind [], if he will deign to remember that everything enclosed in them is read in both our transcripts and is wanting in Mabillon; but the variety of words I shall commonly designate in the margin; and the transpositions and like minutiae I shall leave to those who may wish to compare our edition with Mabillon's.

* that is, a sign

ACTS

Written by an anonymous monk of Waulsort in the eleventh century.

From a manuscript of Liessies compared with one of Lobbes, the manuscript Annals of Hainaut of Jacques de Guise, and the Mabillonian edition.

Hiltrudis, virgin, at Liessies in Hainaut. (S.)

BHL Number: 3953

A. by an anonymous author.

THE OLD DIVISION OF CHAPTERS

Chapter I. Prologue to the Life of St. Hiltrudis, Virgin.

II. How king Pippin gave to Wibert the territory of Liessies.

III. That Wibert purposed to build a church at Liessies.

IV. That Wibert in fact built the monastery of Liessies.

V. Of Guntard, the son of Wibert.

VI. Of the good character of saint Hiltrudis.

VII. That the bishop of Cambrai veiled saint Hiltrudis.

VIII. Of the testament of saint Hiltrudis.

IX. Of the passing of saint Hiltrudis.

X. Of the burial of the parents of saint Hiltrudis.

XI. Of the burial of the first abbot of Liessies.

XII. Of the diminishing of the church of Liessies.

XIII. Of the devastation of the church of Liessies.

XIV. That the sparrows * of the church of Liessies came into the hands of seculars.

XV. That the body of saint Hiltrudis grew famous for miracles.

XVI. Of a notable miracle concerning the parents of saint Hiltrudis.

XVII. That a certain innocent girl heard the praises of the angels in the church of saint Hiltrudis.

XVIII. Of the raising of the body of saint Hiltrudis.

XIX. That saint Hiltrudis revealed to the bishop of Cambrai the restoration of her church.

XX. That the bells of the church of saint Hiltrudis rang * of themselves.

XXI. That by the merits of saint Hiltrudis her church is delivered from fire.

XXII. That by the merits of saint Hiltrudis a certain boy is delivered from pestilence.

XXIII. That a certain man by the merits of saint Hiltrudis is delivered from an epidemic.

* read: possessions

* read: rang (sonuerunt)

PART I.

Chap. I.

On the fifth day of the Kalends of October we keep the famous day of the deposition of the holy virgin Hiltrudis. The Prologue. It behooves us to celebrate this with psalms, hymns, and festal canticles. For she is known to have been honored in all things by the Lord and by his holy angels: to whom to live was Christ, and without doubt to die was gain. For while after Christ she bore her * cross; while she despised the pomp of the world; while she crucified her flesh with its vices and concupiscences; while she chastised her body with fasting and vigils in sackcloth and ashes; while she lived according to the Gospel of Christ, did she not, being dead to the world, live to Christ alone? ^a What is such a life but a cross and a martyrdom? To one so living without doubt to die was gain, since by a happy exchange she bartered great things for small, eternal for perishing. The Psalmist says: God is wonderful in his Saints. If ^b God is wonderful in his Saints, whom he made such, surely the honor which is shown to such is shown to him who made them such. For they are the temple of the Lord, they the instruments of the Holy Spirit, who wrought through them and in them. Since therefore in the holy temple of the glory of God this Player upon the instruments of the Holy Spirit is present among the angelic ones, deservedly ought we to solemnize and honor her in these temples made with hands with such offerings as we can. Of her life and conversation and of the doings of her parents, and of those powers which the Lord deigned to work through her merits, as we have heard from the account of the faithful, who both learned from their forebears, and themselves also saw them present ^c, we shall speak in what follows.

II.

[2] In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord seven hundred and fifty-one, the most glorious prince Pippin obtained the sole monarchy of the Franks and Germans ^d. King Pippin For he, because he was fit for that dignity, being endowed with great strength both of mind and of body, Catholic in faith, a cultivator of holy religion, at the bidding of Pope Zachary was the first to be consecrated as king by bishop Boniface ^e. But after the death of Zachary ^f also, when Pope Stephen sat in the chair of the papacy, and, certain ecclesiastical causes requiring it, had come into Gaul, and had dedicated the church of saint Denis at Paris , he himself * in person consecrated him with all his following progeny in the same church with a perpetual blessing ^g. And when he came to perfection in every way, and all things fell out prosperously for him, he was strong also in the nobility of his chief men and magnates; such as it became the men of king Pippin to be.

[3] Among these was a certain count named Wibert ^h, gives to the Saint's parents noble in family and in deeds , sprung from a most noble stock in the district of Poitou, and he had a wife named Ada, of the more noble among the Franks. He, being exceedingly beset by the pressures of enemies , went to the king, on whose favor especially he both presumed and by whose munificence he was helped; and by prayers obtained from him that he should grant him from the royal right a place where, setting a dwelling for himself in safe peace, he might withdraw from his enemies ⁱ. To whom the king, as he was of liberal munificence, assented to his petitions, bestowing on him ample possessions from the right of his patrimony, lying between the district of Thiérache ^k and Avesnes ^l upon the river Helpe, fertile in crops, abounding in cattle, most rich in pastures, and shady with the thickness of woods, affording very much of hunting and fishing : so much so that it plainly appears that this was a royal gift. Why say more? He received it; for what he had received he gave thanks, and, meaning to consider how great they were, he set out on a journey, considered them , saw clearly * that his wish had been satisfied in this respect, held it acceptable, and ^m conceived in mind that he would migrate with his whole household to that place, which he also brought to effect.

III.

[4] On a certain day therefore, when in hunting he was driving a boar, the territory of Liessies: with the hunters pursuing on this side and the dogs on that, he came upon it above the aforesaid river Helpe, in the place which today is called Liessies : and when, casting his eyes widely round about, he had seen clearly the suitableness of that place, I believe ⁿ not by chance but by divine inspiration it came into his mind that he should make that very place habitable, found a church, and build there workshops useful for the servants of God, which the very site of the place allowed, as appears even today. He returned to the king, gave the greatest thanks for the benefit, and made known the affection of his mind.

The king approved the man's affection, urged him to carry it into effect, and both promised and bestowed his own help upon him. Then at last, returning to his venerable wife Ada, he lays open the affection of his mind inspired by God; and he also declares the favor, consent, and assistance of the most religious prince *. They both become of one mind in affection, partners in effect and they make the oft-mentioned place, which before was of wild beasts, a habitation of men, called Liessies. After these things now they manfully gird themselves to the building of an oratory.

IV.

[5] Since therefore they had chosen and decreed that it should be a temple of the Lord, where they found a church and monastery, they deliberate to build for him a house of prayer. Acting therefore with the counsel of wise and religious men, on the very bank of the channel they provide a place fit for this work and suitable for monastic workshops ^o, which should always supply water for necessary uses, and should contain a mill, a bakehouse, a kitchen, a garden, and various crafts within the cloisters of the monastery. Then they count up the costs and expenses ; they lay foundations by the rule, and in advancing the work they show themselves in a manner a second Solomon. [For although he was richer than these, yet he was not more devout. That work was not weak, not ignoble; but noble and solid, displaying the solid foundations of a noble intention.] The oratory at length being completed, and the walls of the church raised, and the roof set on, and, as we have touched upon above the cloister well furnished with workshops, they go to the bishops and abbots dwelling round about, and especially to the bishop of Tongres, and ask and obtain relics of the Saints for the consecration. That bishop gave them the precious relics of very many Saints, and especially of saint Lambert [p]; whence also by familiarity, friendship, and persuasion he required that they should dedicate their oratory to his merits and name. They announce the matter to the bishop of Cambrai, to whose diocese that oratory belongs, who also with due honor and reverence dedicated it to the merits and name of saint Lambert on the third day of the Nones of November [q].

[6] They had a son named Guntard, from boyhood learned in sacred Letters, and appoint their son as abbot. instructed in monastic disciplines, accustomed to monastic usages, zealous in the meditation of the holy Scriptures, alternating * reading with prayer and prayer with reading, watchful and frequent in vigils and fasts, living what he was called, a monk, desiring nothing of the world, [embracing the Lord alone with his whole heart, his whole soul, his whole strength.] To him his most religious parents gathered together some persons of the monastic order and life, over whom they set him as father and ruler. And he, as long as he dwelt in the prison-house of the flesh, most diligently carried out that which was of the grace of God, and that which he was called, being made a model to those committed to him. Thou wouldst have seen Elkanah and Anna of mount Ephraim both beget and offer to the Lord a holy male child; thou wouldst have seen also a second Samuel ministering in the temple of the Lord. There was no danger of fearing the priest Heli of Silo [r]: since he knew both to prick those who kicked back, and to draw to the Lord by a pastoral rod those who acquiesced.

VI.

[7] They had also a daughter named Hiltrudis, fair of face but fairer in faith, The Saint, adorned with excellent gifts noble in family, but nobler in her holy conversation. For as iron is sharpened by iron, and charity is fostered by charity, so the Virgin the sister of a virgin emulated the deeds of her brother. While he showed to her a second Jerome, she showed to him a second Eustochium. A certain prince of the Burgundians [s], Hugh by name, sought to wed her, allured * both by the girl's nobility and elegance and by his long acquaintance and familiarity with her noble parents. They appoint a day, they meet to confer; on both sides the joining of matrimony is treated; the Virgin's mind is sounded by her parents. To whom she said: If ye seek my opinion upon this matter, I will surely declare what I think. Long since I love Christ alone above all things; to him I have pledged my faith; him I desire and long to wed. If ye will be fathers to me, if ye will have me as daughter, if ye separate me not from my true Father, from him whom I have loved as my true Spouse: I both acknowledge and profess that ye are fathers to me and I a daughter to you; but if otherwise, I neither set great store by your fatherhood, nor have I any daughterhood to bestow upon you.

[8] Meanwhile they hold their peace, and say that they are girlish words and to be counted as nothing: she flees marriage, they think that a woman's opinion , as of a changeable disposition, will be altered; they decree that the matter should be reserved for the morrow. They know not the manly spirit in the Woman, nor that the thing is being done by the Lord. The holy Virgin knew not what counsel to take, what to do. She could not resist her parents, nor yet did she think it lawful not to obey them: yet she burned with all desire to wed her immortal Spouse. Yet at last she took this counsel. In the dead of night, with a few and very faithful companions attending, she fled into the neighboring wood, and there prepared herself a hiding-place. On the morrow her most pious parents, hearing of the flight of their dearest Offspring, were not a little troubled; not only for their Daughter, but also because of the injury done to the prince's authority and friendship : yet they charge their people to cover the deed with silence. Again there is a meeting for conference: the parents bring forward an excuse, that Hiltrudis, staying in an inner chamber, persists in yesterday's opinion; that they do not prevail to soften her mind; that she had long since set her mind upon that manner of life; that they had learned this from the daily course of her life, which had nothing at all of levity, and from the testimony of many; that if they oppose her vows, they fear the wrath of God from heaven: that if God * deign to give them children, in this they rejoice most greatly. Hence he gives them thanks; and the former friendship can remain safe and inviolate, if it please that prince to take in marriage another of their daughters, named Bertha, equally noble and no less beautiful.

VII.

[9] Why say more? On both sides they consent, the parents betroth the girl to the prince, and consecrated to God the prince lawfully takes her to wife, who herself also was seen before the end of her life to lead a religious life. These things therefore being briefly set forth, as the matter requires, let us bring back our pen to the hiding-place of the holy Virgin. Therefore before the departure of her sister Bertha the holy virgin Hiltrudis is called back by her parents, herself also about to wed, but an immortal Spouse. And not many days after she is presented to the venerable Theodoric, bishop of the see of Cambrai; to whom also it is intimated what the Virgin's devotion is, and what her petition. The bishop, as he was a man of virtue, rejoicing in the Lord over the advances of souls, gives thanks to God, approves the Virgin's devotion, exhorts her zeal * by words of holy edification, and prays the Lord for her that she may keep her purpose to the end. Lastly, during the celebration of Masses, he consecrates his Bride to Christ, nay rather, through him Christ consecrates her to himself, and imposes on her the sacred veil [t]. And what she showed herself to be, having received the habit of holy religion, we have both set forth at the beginning of this narrative, and we shall now briefly insert.

[10] she lives most piously: For thou wouldst have seen a second Anna, not a widow, but truly joined to her immortal Husband, truly present, not departing from the temple, giving herself day and night to fasts and prayers, thinking of nothing save how she might please her Spouse, and perseveringly run after him in the odor of his ointments. No one either heard or saw her uttering light words or such as move laughter, or relaxing her countenance in laughter. For although in body she was growing young, in mind she had already grown old. After prayer she came to the words of holy reading; which her brother, the venerable abbot Guntard, poured forth to her as one Benedict to another Scholastica. Afterward she returned to silence for the cultivation of justice, that, like a rational animal from the manger of the Lord, she might ruminate what she had tasted from the fullness of the holy Scriptures — namely in a place fitted for her prayer and meditation in the same church on the north side, behind the oratory of the brethren. Thus for seventeen years the aromatic cell of Christ was fragrant in the world with the odor of a pious and just conversation, being made an example not only to the female sex but to the male also.

VIII.

[11] At that time her parents, worthy of God, were bereaved of all those she is made her parents' heir; whom they had taken to themselves as heirs, their children having been carried off by an untimely death: whose little bodies are contained buried in the oft-mentioned church. For, as I seem to see, the Lord would not have them corrupted by the malice of this world, sunk in the depth of this mire, to grow up for hell: and therefore, being about to give them a long-lived seed in the land of the living, he took them from the midst of iniquity. Whence it came about that they made a donation of their possessions at home and abroad to their daughter the holy virgin Hiltrudis; namely from the village of Moustier [u], where the venerable Ada had built a church to the Lord [x], as far as the village of Semousies [y]. Which donation they without doubt confirmed by a hereditary testament in her hand, so that both she herself should freely preside over these while she lived, and after her death they should pass into the right of the church of saint Lambert for the uses of those serving the Lord there. Which testament, indeed, when she had withdrawn to the heavenly seats, her most pious parents, looking forward with a well-eyed intent, caused to be buried with her, sealed with lead. Which, many years after, in the time of Henry Augustus [z], who had succeeded Otto the third, the Virgin's sepulcher being opened with rash curiosity, was found and burnt with fire by one not of the heirs but of the invaders of what had belonged to saint Hiltrudis [aa]. [Of which we have preferred to say little, rather than to breed loathing or ill will in readers or hearers.] Now let us speak of the passing of the holy Virgin.

IX.

[12] Since therefore neither judgment nor life is in man's power, she is seized with sickness; it fell out otherwise than her religious parents supposed: namely as God, the parent of all parents, had predestined before the ages of the world. For the Virgin devoted to God, having fought the good fight, having faithfully finished her course, having kept the faith to Christ, was after a little to go forth to meet her Spouse, and to enter with him into the nuptial chamber. Whence, being seized with a slight languor, she began little by little to grow weary * and to be more and more deprived of bodily strength. And when day by day the languor grew heavier, and she was now by the necessity of our mortality being compelled to go forth from the body, her religious brother was present with those subject to him, daily strengthening her with the sacred mysteries. She ceased not to commend herself to their prayers, and to pray the Lord that he would receive her in peace. Her most pious parents also were present; the household also was present; and since it was pious to rejoice for her and pious to weep for her, [they both rejoiced that she had persevered in her purpose, and grieved that she was departing from the world.]

[13] At last that holy soul was loosed from the prison-house of the flesh, she dies. about to enter those eternal tabernacles for which she panted, of which she had sung in daily meditation and with daily voice: How lovely are thy tabernacles, she said, O Lord of hosts! [My soul longeth and fainteth for them. With her lamp full of oil, that is, with the fruitfulness of pious virtues,] she is brought by the holy angels into the chamber of the King, and is presented to the face of her Spouse, whom she loved, whom she had chosen, whom she had sought, whom she had always desired. There is joy at her passing among the angelic spirits,

appointed for the guardianship of the human race; there is congratulation also among all the Saints, because the prince of this world found nothing of his own in her. On the contrary, for her religious brother Guntard and the college of all the brethren, for her pious parents and her household, there is sadness, mourning, and grief: who, although they believed that she had lost death and found life, yet bore heavily the absence of her pious life. And she rested in the month of September on the fifth day of the Kalends of October [bb]. For her they set a sepulcher, such as befitted a Virgin of Christ, at the side of the high altar on the north part: [where they honorably buried her with that testament of hers, of which we have spoken, of her father's patrimony given to her.] They also placed upon the sepulcher a stone tablet, inscribed in this manner: Here lies the body of Hiltrudis, a virgin of Christ, who died on the fifth of the Kalends of October. [O happy Virgin of Christ, whose soul was placed in the heavenly sanctuary, her body in the earthly, since indeed she herself was a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit. Happy too I should truly call the parents, who, while they made the church of those present the heir of their possessions, acquired for their children the eternity of the heavenly mansions.]

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Of St. Lambert, bishop and martyr, treatment has been made at length among us in tom. V of September, and on that occasion of his relics here mentioned according to what our biographer relates, and what besides Philippe Brasseur, a priest of Mons, brings forward in his Cimeliarchium Laetiense, printed at Mons in Hainaut in the year 1645. And he, part 2, p. 93, says that both these and other relics of St. Lambert received later were enclosed in a new reliquary in the year 1623, and to that end recites three inscriptions affixed to the reliquary in that year, one of which runs thus: Pious beholder, here venerate the relics of St. Lambert, martyr, bishop of the Tungri, … which Walcandus and Albero II, bishops of Liège, gave to Wibert, founder of the monastery of Liessies, and to Wedericus the third abbot. Yet the same author added in the margin this observation: Perhaps St. Floribert could better be substituted, for in the time of Wibert he was sitting (at Liège), and not Walcandus, who only in the year 810. What may more probably be laid down on these matters will be brought out at the following letter.

q. Various are the opinions of more recent writers about the beginnings of the monastery of Liessies. For, to pass over those who refer them to about the year 700, when they write that the veil was imposed upon St. Hiltrudis, which has no appearance of probability, Brasseur, just praised, in book 1 On the Origins of the Monasteries of Hainaut, p. 40, and Vinchant in the Annals of Hainaut, p. 122, mark the year 751; but Gazet in the ecclesiastical History of Belgium about the year 800. But neither opinion pleases me either. Not the first, for although the biographer, beginning the Acts, expresses the year 751, those notes do not regard the year of the monastery's foundation, but the beginning of Pippin's monarchy; and what he afterward narrates, compared with what we have brought forward to elucidate his narration, sufficiently indicates that the foundation is later by some years at least. Still less does the second please, because the biographer expressly says that Pippin devoted and bestowed his labor upon the erection of the building; which Pippin nevertheless died in the year 768, that is, thirty-two years before the epoch of the foundation marked by Gazet. Preferable therefore is the opinion of Mabillon and other more recent writers, referring the beginnings of the monastery to the year 764. For this opinion plainly agrees with what was related above at letter i concerning the tumults stirred up by Waifar in Aquitaine about the year 760; which tumults the biographer most probably meant where he said that Wibert, beset by the pressures of enemies, sought from the king a place into which he might withdraw in safe peace from his enemies. Further, according to this opinion Le Cointe rightly places the dedication of the church of Liessies in the year 765, in which the third day of November, here expressed by the biographer, fell upon a Sunday. Hence too we deduce that the relics of St. Lambert were not granted for the consecration of the church by Walcandus, bishop of the Tungri or of Liège, as Brasseur rightly observes; nor yet by St. Florebert, whom the same author signifies could perhaps better be substituted for Walcandus. For as the beginnings of Walcandus's episcopate are later than the consecration by more than forty years, so the death of St. Florebert preceded it by about twenty years, which our Elders at the twenty-fifth day of April in the Commentary on his Deeds fixed at the year 746, and others attach to 745. There must therefore be substituted he who is thus read subscribed to the Acts of the assembly of Attigny, held in the year 765, in Labbe, tom. 6 of the Councils, col. [ ]: Folericus, bishop of the city of Tongres. At the same time Albericus occupied the see of Cambrai, and therefore according to the same reckonings the consecration of the church is to be ascribed to him.

r. The danger, that is, of the punishment which Heli incurred on account of excessive indulgence toward his sons: 1 Kings, chapters 2, 3, and 4.

s. This is the first passage upon which the critics animadvert; as if by those words the author had wished to indicate that the supreme princedom of all Burgundy was in the hands of that Hugh, whereas it is established from elsewhere that at that time the Burgundians obeyed the king. But since the word prince admits of various significations, I do not see what compels us here to restrict that word to a single signification. For, to pass over its other

significations, which Du Cange gives, there were called princes: 1, magnates or nobles; 2, dukes set by the king or supreme prince over provinces; 3, those who possessed fiefs with the title of a principality, or so exercised supreme power in their own lands that they nevertheless depended on the king or a superior prince in certain cases; 4, those who held the chief place in some order. Certainly in some sense of this kind must be taken the words of Pope Zachary in Labbe, tom. 6 of the Councils, col. [ ], writing in this manner to St. Boniface: What thou hast suggested, that all the princes of the Franks have chosen one city … we receive with glad mind. And again in the same place: Whereas thou hast besought that we should write to the princes of the Franks or to the other Franks, as thou didst ask, we have written to them one by one. For at that time the one supreme prince of the Franks was king Childeric. Add that, in the reign of the same Childeric, Carloman and Pippin, Mayors of the palace, called themselves princes of the Franks. Take an example from the preface to the Canons of the council of Soissons in the aforesaid Labbe, col. [ ]: In the name of God and of the Trinity. In the year 744 from the Incarnation of Christ, on the sixth day of the Nones of March and the fourteenth of the moon, in the second year of Childeric, king of the Franks, I, Pippin, duke and prince of the Franks. In this way, therefore, the words of the biographer, otherwise sufficiently practiced in historical matters, a certain prince of the Burgundians, admit of various senses, nay most probably require one of the following: A certain Burgundian prince, that is, one of the magnates of Burgundy; A certain man enjoying in the parts of Burgundy the title and right of a principality; A certain illustrious man set over the Burgundians by the king; A certain man holding the chief place among the Burgundian nobles.

t. As more recent writers vary in fixing the beginnings of the monastery of Liessies, so they differ in assigning the time at which the holy Virgin consecrated herself to God. Wion and others mark about the year 700; but their opinion is utterly devoid of all likelihood, since according to the whole series of the narration the imposing of the veil is later than the foundation, and this, as we showed above, cannot be set before the year 751. Le Cointe, who had fixed the dedication of the church of Liessies at the year 765, binds the imposing of the veil to 768, and the Saint's death to 785, because according to the biographer she afterward lived seventeen years. Mabillon does not express the year of the veil's reception; yet he tacitly hints at about the year 773, since he places the Saint's death about 790. The conjecture of both agrees with the Acts, but which comes nearer to the truth I do not know. For the rest, I fully assent to them and to others who give warning that an error lurks here in the name of the bishop of Cambrai. For Theodoric did not enter upon the episcopate before 831, in which year Halitgarius his predecessor died. Hence, if the imposing of the veil be deferred even to the first year of Theodoric, it will follow first that the Saint was then already more than sixty years old; since, while she was living, as the biographer sufficiently indicates, the foundation of the monastery was made, and that foundation cannot be set after the year 768, in which king Pippin died, as I observed at letter q. Secondly, and without any doubt, it will follow that the Saint's parents, who before the year 768 had a son fit for governing a monastery, as is clear from what has been said before, lived at least until 848, before which the Saint's death cannot be set; since she survived among the living for seventeen years after receiving the veil, and was delivered to burial by her parents, as is said below. These things are too far removed from likelihood to be believed to have proceeded from our biographer, otherwise prudent and learned; and therefore it must be thought that the name of Theodoric was added by an unskilled copyist, or substituted for the name of Albericus, who was governing the bishopric of Cambrai when, according to the probable opinions of Le Cointe and Mabillon, the veil was imposed upon St. Hiltrudis.

u. Mabillon has Molihamium; now it is commonly called Molhanium, in the vernacular Molhain, and it is a place of the diocese of Liège, of which fuller treatment has been made in tom. 6 of August, p. 485 and following, on the occasion of St. Elmerus or Ermelius, venerated there.

x. That tradition still flourishes among the people of Molhain, as letters testify sent thence to us and printed in the volume just mentioned, in the following words: On the fifth of the Kalends of September, in the collegiate and mother church of the blessed Mary the Virgin at Molhain, of the country and diocese of Liège, founded in the year 752 by the most illustrious Ada, wife of Wibert count of Poitou, founder of Liessies, for twelve canons … is celebrated … the feast of saint Ermelius, etc. Fisen agrees, History of Liège, book 5, saying: To Wibert the count, founding the monastery of Liessies in Hainaut, … and to Ada his wife, founding a college of canons at Molhain in this diocese, Pippin did not fail to give his contribution.

y. Mabillon writes Seanescum, and appends this annotation: This village is now called Vallis, in the vernacular Vaux, hitherto subject to the monastery.

z. The Acts of St. Henry the emperor, who is here designated, have been illustrated at the fourteenth day of July.

aa. See what we have observed concerning our Saint's testament in §2 of the preliminary Commentary.

bb. The year of her death, suppressed by the biographer, Le Cointe marks about 785; Mabillon about 790, each from a conjecture sufficiently agreeable to the Acts, as I said above at letter t; but since nothing persuades us to determine one year rather than another, I have broadly fixed her death about the end of the eighth century.

* Mabillon lacks suum

* the same lacks magna

* the same, more correctly, primum

* the same, in cathedra

* the same, Parisiorum

* the same lacks ipse

* another reading: moribus

* Mabillon, circumdatus

* the same, venatione & piscatione

* the same lacks consideravit

* the same lacks pervidit

* the same lacks suprascriptum

* another reading: Lætia

* Mabillon, regis gloriosissimi

* the same lacks & expensas

* the same, &

* the same, miscens

* the same, illectus

* the same, puellarem

* add sciunt

* the same, non is lacking

* Mabillon adds tanti

* the same adds ad se trahere

* the same lacks studium

* Mabillon, sublatis

* Mabillon, occulta

* Mabillon, tabescere

PART II.

X, XI, and XII.

After the falling asleep of the holy Virgin, and of the children of whom we spoke above, [The Saint's parents and brother having died, the monastery flourishes for a time;] her parents also, worthy of God, rested in Christ. Whom their venerable son abbot Guntard buried in the porch of the same monastery on the southern part, as befitted them. For they had both chosen that place for burial and had commanded that they be laid here: where he set his father in a higher bed and his mother in a lower. For here, for the sake of humility, and that those entering might pray for them for the rest of their souls, they provided a resting-place for the flesh, judging themselves unworthy to have a dormitory within the church. After the venerable abbot, whom the Lord had preserved for this very thing, had performed the funeral obsequies for the brethren, for his parents, and for his most holy Sister, he too paid the debt of death, and sent to heaven his blessed soul, to live for ever. His body was placed by the brethren, whom he had ruled according to the Lord, and whom, dying, he had commended to the Lord, and whom he had asked to be mindful of him, as they wept for his departure, in the midst of the oratory of saint Lambert: where both his name and his merit are held in readiness to this present day ^a. After the departure of his life the order and religion of monks persevered and flourished in this place for many years ^b; but after the death of Charlemagne and of his son Louis the Pious, when their successors attacked one another in war, and a plurality of kings drew to itself, tore in pieces, and claimed what in the time of the earlier princes had been a single kingdom, the majesty of the Roman empire began little by little to fall away, to flow down more and more, and to be diminished . For what, as a certain writer says, is divided among many becomes less for each. Everywhere throughout Gaul there were wars, slaughters, devastations, until evils were multiplied.

XIII.

[15] That storm raging, when the Lord had disposed to scourge his people, it is laid waste by the Hungarians the nation of the Hungarians grew strong, breaking into the parts of Gaul; whose unbridled malice, although it was to recoil upon their own head, yet for a short time, raging beyond measure , laid waste cities, castles, and villages with slaughter and fire , and did not spare even the churches of God. Hastening therefore to the aforesaid oratory of saint Lambert, where we have said that the relics of many Saints, and the bones of the holy virgin Hiltrudis and of her brothers, were placed, where also many virginal bodies rest of which we have not spoken, they set fire to the roof, and spend much labor to burn it. But wonderful to say! The fire forgetting its own strength, they profit nothing. For the Lord would not have the dwelling of his virgins burn in fire, whose ^c bodies, their own dwellings assuredly, had not burned in the ardor of lust. Why should I dwell on many things? They break down the doors of the church; they set up a wine jar smeared with niter; they put under it pitch, tow, and firebrands, dry pieces of wood, and supply various fuels for the fire; but even so they profit very little. For, as far as the circuit of the jar allowed, the flame, licking, made the roof scorched; of the rest it presumed nothing. They, frustrated by their vain labor, desist, carry off and scatter all the furniture of the church, and burn with fire the cloistral and service buildings of the brethren; they fill all things with mourning and lamentation, and lead away many captives of both sexes and of different ages; who, after the victory was won over the Hungarians ^d, returning *, gave the matter of this chapter to our pen. From that time not only here, but also elsewhere, by such tempestuous events the monastic state and the monastic order was leveled to the ground and altogether brought to nothing, and the cenobites were scattered.

XIV and XV.

[16] And when that storm was over, the provincials dwelling round about usurped * to themselves what had belonged to saint Hiltrudis, its goods are seized by seculars; the Saint and each seized for himself whatever was nearest. Things that were ecclesiastical became secular; for malignant men, as though saying in their heart: There is no God, joined ecclesiastical things to their own, far from assigning their own to ecclesiastical uses. Lest therefore the lamp of the Lord should lie longer hidden under a bushel, that the divine goodness might make plain to men of how great merit she was with him, he began to work very many powers at the tomb of her body, her merits interceding, which through the negligence of writers and the sloth of the unskilled have been abolished in oblivion. But neither did the place of her rest at that time have men free for such study, nor did the malice of the time, on account of the frequency of evils, permit it. For there can be no zeal in the mind, unless the mind be in tranquillity.

XVI.

[17] There was a certain son of Belial, Fragimarus by name, a man of the knightly class, from boyhood imbued with malicious

and accustomed to malicious ways, is made illustrious by prodigies a plunderer of other men's goods, inasmuch as he had nothing of his own right, neither fearing God nor reverencing men. He met his death: for I should truly call him dead who while living was dead to God. He, before he was overtaken by death, having given to the priest of the church of Liessies his horse, upon which he had been wont to sit for plunder and the shedding of blood, obtained for himself a place of burial in the porch of the same church, near the bodies of the venerable Wibert and his wife Ada, that is, of the parents of the holy virgin Hiltrudis. Truly those brutish men knew not that holy places bestow upon the impious not salvation but damnation, and that there is no communion of Christ with Belial. Why say more? When this was heard, by the edict of the bishop of Cambrai that church was closed and deprived of the clerical assembly and of the priestly office. There were heard by night the voices of demons crying out to their Fragimarus that he should come out to ride, but not presuming, because of the holiness of the place, to carry him off. The inhabitants of the village were terrified at hearing this, and no one dared to go out of his house at night, whatever necessity demanded. The holy virgin Hiltrudis, appearing to that priest in a vision of the night, said: Why hast thou so presumed, Dominicus — for this was the priest's name — as to lay that most foul carcass beside my parents, by whose obstruction I cannot come to visit them? Know for certain that thou shalt not go unpunished unless thou remove it. The priest *, being terrified, when he had awoke, not being a deaf hearer of the threat, commanded his household to carry out that carcass, and to cover it with a little earth, cast out in the flood-plain of the Helpe outside the churchyard of the church. And so it came about that, when they had removed that victim of Pluto, they no longer heard the terrifying voices of his ministers ^e.

XVII.

[18] There was at that time a certain man named Adelard, she is made illustrious; possessor of an estate at Liessies, and he had a wife named Ermentrude, thoroughly religious and frequent in prayer and works of piety: she had committed the care of her little daughter, named Haduidis, to a certain girl of good report, named Roberga; since therefore God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh justice is acceptable to him, this girl on a certain night heard the voices of angels singing psalms in that very church, the little cry of the wailing infant somewhat hindering her hearing. She, quieting the infant with caresses, was attending to that sweet melody, when behold, drowsiness relaxed her, half awake, into sleep. There stands by the girl the girl and holy virgin Hiltrudis (for that little cell of the aforesaid mother of the family, whence this had been heard, was adjoining the church), and gently rousing her, addresses her; and when she asks who she is, she tells her that she is Hiltrudis, informs her that she is the dweller in that same church, and asks her whether she has heard anything. She answers that she has heard a certain sweet euphony , sweetly caressing the ears. I know, she says, that thou hast heard, but not fully: for the little cry of the wailing infant hindered thee. But hark: she will fall into a sickness, but not unto death; not that such an age deserves a stripe, but for a testimony and confirmation of the divine praise which thou hast heard ^f. For to thee, when thou dost affirm concerning the angelic praises which thou hast heard, the health of the infant, at once restored, will bear witness. When she had said this, the holy Virgin disappeared. And when it had dawned on the morrow, according to the word of the holy Virgin a kind of mottling as of leprosy corrupted the whole surface of the flesh in her from the crown to the heel. It was announced to the mother of the family that the infant had fallen so suddenly into an evil of this kind. She, seeing her infant so grievously afflicted, and thinking that she was presently to die, was carried away first into stupor, then wholly into despair and grief. The girl of whom we have spoken is present; she tells of the angelic praises which she had heard, and by what reason this had come to pass; she comforts the mother, that she should not fear for the child, nor despair of her life; she affirms that in a little while health would be restored to her by the promise of the holy Virgin; which also came to pass.

XVIII.

[19] There are very many miracles which the Lord deigned to work through his virgin Hiltrudis; her body is raised; and if we should wish to tell them, the light of this day would find its end sooner than our words. Persuaded by the hearing of these, Erlin, bishop of the church of Cambrai, came to the place, and with much honor, namely with the psalmody of the clergy, with sweet hymnody, with censers and candles, raised the bones of the holy Virgin, and placed them, arranged in a new little coffin, on high behind the high altar * ^g. Thou wouldst have seen as great gladness at the raising of the holy Virgin as there was sadness to be seen at her burial, [and as many tears now poured forth for joy as then in the sighing of grief and mourning.] But in the time of Henry Augustus, when the man worthy of God, Gerard ^h, administered the fasces of the bishopric of Cambrai, the holy virgin Hiltrudis, appearing to a certain man, said: Go, tell Adelard and Ermentrude that, since the place of the oratory which my parents founded has through the age of time, through neglect and secular adversity, been neglected and threatens its own ruin, they should not delay to build me a church in the place of their barn.

XIX.

[20] They, when they hear of the revelation, at first indeed, as hearing these things in a dream, dissemble; her church is restored: but afterward, admonished many times, they acquiesce. The venerable matron, as being of more fervent zeal for the salvation of her soul, manfully girded herself to that work: for she was of such authority that her husband, although not greatly caring for his own salvation, was not able to oppose her. For she was * excellent both in family and in character, and was of chaste wedlock, and, as we said above, frequent in prayer and works of piety. In the advancement of that work one might see in a woman the zeal of David, who on the threshing-floor of Ornan ⁱ the Jebusite set a tabernacle for the Lord. At length, the aforesaid work being completed, they send an embassy to the bishop of the church of Cambrai, that he would deign to come to dedicate this church. The bishop, as he was of fervent zeal in the Lord, comes, meaning to satisfy their wish; he dedicates the church on the fifth of the Nones of May; he places there precious relics from the body of saint Gaugericus ^k; and also with due honor and veneration transfers hither the bones of the holy Virgin, most bountiful of remedy and cure.

XX.

[21] It happened that this church, on account of certain seditions committed in the churchyard, she shines with new prodigies was closed by episcopal edict and deprived of the divine office. As the anniversary of its dedication therefore drew near, a messenger is swiftly sent, who should bring from the bishop holy water for the purifying of the church and churchyard *. And while the messenger delays in returning on the day before the solemnity, the clergy are silent from the evening assembly; the people flocking together for the sake of prayer take it ill that they are cheated of the divine praises. Why say more? The doors of the church being barred at night, they go to bed; when behold, at the hour when the vigils were to be performed, the bells sound in the church. The sacristan of the Church, who had secured the church with the key, runs up astounded; the clergy also run up, and very many of the people, thinking that the messenger had returned from the bishop. But when they enter the church — for the sacristan, astounded at this, does not presume to enter alone — that sound of the ringing bells falls silent. They understand that something of divine power is present, they praise the Lord together, and everywhere proclaim his power.

XXI.

[22] About the same time the men of Beaumont ^l, meaning to plunder that village and burn it with fire, she shines forth. assemble, tear away the booty, carry off all the furniture of the village, and at last kindle a fire. The houses nearest to the church are set on fire; the fire threatens that very church: the clergy are in anguish, they tremble, they hasten, they run about, they despair of the church, not knowing what to do or whither first to turn. At length two of them seize the bier in which the bones of the holy Virgin are contained, meaning to carry it out to meet the fire. Already the fire was licking the buildings adjoining the church; when behold, those two bearers, between two houses which allowed an exit from the church by a narrow gap, meet the fire, and cannot go farther. Since there was no turning to the right or to the left, they set down the bier; they themselves withdraw to the threshold of the church, thus crying out to the holy Virgin: If, they say, thou permit thyself to be burnt by the fire, we commit it to thy own judgment to determine. There, wonderful to say! thou wouldst have seen the fire, as by a blast of wind , driven back and fleeing, and failing in itself. [For he could without doubt preserve unharmed his Virgin, who had not burned in the ardor of lust, who preserved his children unscorched in the Babylonian furnace.] This miracle being seen, those plunderers desist from burning the church, and the clergy magnify the Lord over this working of his power.

XXII.

[23] I shall relate another miracle also, which the divine Goodness has wrought through the merits of his Virgin in our own times. By her intercession, There was a mortality of men of this kind: there came on suddenly such a languor that whoever fell into it did not recover, but on the next day, or the same day, without delay died. Compelled by this necessity, men of different sex and age fled to the intercession of saint Etto, resting in the village which is called Dompierre ^m. And when some men of the village of Rance ⁿ, returning thence, turned aside to the church of the holy virgin Hiltrudis, a certain boy of that company suddenly fell into a languor of this kind. His parents feared for him, because none of those languishing in this manner was restored to a state of health; whence, hastening to the intercession of the holy Virgin, they asked her prayer for the boy, vowing that for his deliverance they would bring an anniversary offering every year. The boy recovered from his infirmity, so that in this too the Lord might make plain how much his Virgin availed with him in prayer.

XXIII.

[24] It happened also that a certain inhabitant of the said village fell into the same disease, health is restored whence also he lay upon his bed. [His people thought that nothing remained for him but death alone; sleep stole upon him.] It seemed to him in his sleep that it was announced to him that the bones of the holy Virgin were shortly to be carried through that village. Waking, he gave credit to the vision, told it to his people, admonishing them most urgently that he should be shod and led out to meet it. They at first thought that he was raving; but when they saw him insisting, they satisfied his urgency *. When he had been led out of the house by the hands of those supporting him, behold, there began to be heard the sound of the little bells which were borne before the bier of the holy Virgin. He met it as it passed through the streets of the village, went beneath the bier, made his vows, and a little after, being strengthened, gave thanks to the Lord and to the holy Virgin. Whence it came about that every year not only he, but all the dwellers of that same village, on the day of the deposition of saint Hiltrudis and on the dedication of her church, do not cease even today to bring suppliant prayers and most devout vows.

[25] to the sick. There is * another indication also of her power, which we count it unworthy to cover with silence. A certain woman of the village which is called Terlunius ^o fell into a frenzy, that is, an alienation of mind. Her people, her hands being bound, set her upon a cart, for indeed one in such a case could not be brought on foot, and brought her to the intercession of the holy Virgin. And when they had set her down at the door of the church, the sacristan was sought, that he might open it for her. But while he, long sought and at length found, delayed to come, and they before the doors of the church

implored health for the wretched woman, and vowed their vows to the Lord and to saint Hiltrudis, she began to slumber a little. Lifting her in their hands and placing her in a neighboring house, they trusted her sleep, which they believe to be a sign of recovery in the sick. And when she had awoke from sleep, she felt that she had recovered health; and she also proved it by the fact itself. For she rose with sound mind, spoke to her people, entered the church, gave thanks to the Lord and to the holy Virgin, and she who had been carried on a cart returned on foot to her own home with joy.

[26] The Epilogue There are other tokens too of her powers, exceeding number, which the divine Piety, cooperating with those who love it, works daily to the praise of its name and to the manifestation of this precious Lamp, which we ourselves also have seen [p] and have heard from those who saw them [q]. Which, being passed over lest the foolish virgins be wearied, let it suffice that we have admitted these few things which we have set out for the edification of the prudent. For we have not written these things in order to help the holy Virgin, as though she could not be sufficiently illustrious of herself; but that we may proclaim the Lord wonderful in her. For to a religious and pious mind this alone suffices concerning the Saints, that precious is their death in the sight of the Lord. For signs and miracles of powers were necessary only at that time, when at the beginning of the newborn Church the faith of neophytes was suckled with them. But now it is not so; because today from the rising of the sun even to its setting every tongue confesses the name of the Lord. Nor, as blessed Pope Gregory says, is it for this reason that the Saints of this time do not work powers as the ancients did, that they are of less merit with the Lord; but today there is no need to say to one's neighbor: Know the Lord: for all from the greatest to the least know the Lord: and, as the same writer confirms in the Treatise on the Ascension of the Lord, what those did bodily, these do spiritually; what those did visibly, these invisibly. If therefore I have spoken as I ought, to thee, O Christ, I give thanks: if not as I ought, do thou and thy Virgin pardon me. Admit us, we beseech thee, O Son of the Virgin, within thy chamber into the fellowship of the prudent virgins, who livest and reignest with God the Father and the Holy Spirit through all ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

of St. Gaugericus of Cambrai: these are the words: In the year 1634, on the twenty-first of April, a particle of the arm of St. Gaugericus is assigned to the abbot of Liessies (that was the most reverend lord Antoine de Winghe). The same Brasseur also recounts in the Cimeliarchium of the church of Liessies, p. 137, in the following words: Of St. Gaugericus, bishop. A part of a bone of the length of the little finger, given by the chapter of the same Saint.

p. The anonymous monk of Liessies, who about the year 1206, being then already sixty years old, described the foundation or restoration of his monastery, as I showed at num. 14, expressly affirms that our biographer was a monk of the abbey of Waulsort, which is situated in the county of Namur on the river Meuse between Philippeville and Dinant. Yet here the same biographer professes himself an eyewitness of at least some miracles, most probably wrought at Liessies. But these things are easily reconciled; perhaps from an inhabitant of Liessies he became a monk of Waulsort, so that as a young man he could have beheld miracles or benefits with his own eyes, and for that reason was asked to write about the Saint rather than another; or perhaps — and this seems to me quite probable — being asked to write, he betook himself from Waulsort to Liessies, in order to collect what pertained to the Saint, and meanwhile beheld some benefits as one present.

q. Of what follows nothing is read in Mabillon except this one clause: These things we have written, that we may proclaim the Lord wonderful in this Virgin.

* Mabillon, est

* Mabillon, innovari

* the same, grassata

* the same, vastabat

* Mabillon, repatriantes

* Mabillon, usurparunt

* Mabillon, supponeres

* the same, sacerdos

* the same, nocte

* the same, symphoniam

* another reading: sancti Lamberti

* Mabillon, erat autem mulier

* Mabillon, deferat

* Mabillon, minantur

* the same, vento

* Mabillon, reparaturos

* the same, ei

* the same, contigit

APPENDIX

On her cult from the eleventh century to the eighteenth.

Hiltrudis, virgin, at Liessies in Hainaut. (S.)

§ I. The restoration of the church and monastery of Liessies; the construction of a precious reliquary.

[ ] The restoration of the church and monastery, in the eleventh century The deeds and glory of St. Hiltrudis we have set forth, with the anonymous biographer as our guide, down to the eleventh century, and that most probably well advanced, as the miracles and benefits disclose which the same biographer records as done by her patronage after the raising of her body. Now from other authors we shall pursue the remaining things pertaining to the same glory of hers, keeping, as far as shall be possible, the chronological order. That this may be duly done, some things must be premised concerning the second foundation of the church and monastery of Liessies, or rather the restoration of the former, which happened in the same eleventh century, but after the Acts were written, since the author constantly indicates that the church in his age was possessed by clerks, and suggests no mention of a change made or of monks, although he himself was a monk of Waulsort. The first, so far as I know, who noted that change was Herman or Herimann, about the same time a monk and afterward abbot of St. Martin of Tournai, in book 1, chapter 2, of the Miracles of St. Mary of Laon, in d'Achery after the Works of Guibert, abbot of Nogent; where, treating of the noble stock of Bartholomew, bishop of Laon, and enumerating the seven daughters of Hilduin, count of Roucy, who was the grandfather of the same Bartholomew, he sets as the fifth Ada, who took as her third husband Theodoric of Avesnes, and with him built the monastery which is called of Liessies, on her own possession: and the same Theodoric having died, she gave herself wholly to the same monastery; where, living religiously for several years, she died and was buried.

[2] made by Theodoric and Ada, lords of Avesnes, The same Herman in the Narrative of the restoration of the abbey of St. Martin of Tournai, tom. 12 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, p. 413, mentioning Theodoric on another occasion, adds: Who at the same time built from the foundations the monastery of Liessies on his own land, and, all the workshops being finished, set monks there, and abundantly provided whence they should have food and clothing. To Herman we join Baldwin of Avesnes, who in the thirteenth century wove together genealogies from the Chronicles of Hainaut. These d'Achery also published in tom. 7 of the Spicilegium, where at p. 600 these things are read: After this Werric (surnamed With the Beard, or the Bearded) his son Theodoric, succeeding in the lordship, enlarged the tower at Avesnes and removed the canons at Liessies, setting monks there. Midway between Herman and Baldwin flourished, unless I am mistaken, the anonymous monk of Liessies, notice of whom I gave in the preliminary Commentary at num. 13 and following, and just now in the Annotations on the second part of the Acts, letter p. And he transmitted to posterity a little Work in which he not only described the foundation or restoration of the monastery, but also inserted in it various matters pertaining to the same monastery down to his own times: for he thus concludes his little Work: At that time the emperor Conrad (the third of that name) and Louis (the seventh) set out on the journey to Jerusalem; that was done in the year 1147, in which, according to what has been said in the Commentary, the anonymous author was already born.

[3] That little Work, divided into ten chapters, at least as it is published in the French version of de Guise's Annals, is fully described I shall not transfer hither, since most of it makes nothing to the present purpose; yet I shall pluck a few things thence, and those abridged into a summary, which may gradually and in order lead us to the glory of St. Hiltrudis, or the continuation of her cult. Accordingly, after narrating the death of Werric or Wedericus of Avesnes, who according to what was related in §2 of the preliminary Commentary had burnt the testament of St. Hiltrudis, lest by that testimony he should be compelled to restore the goods of the church of Liessies, he passes on to Theodoric, the son and heir of Wedericus, who, to expiate his father's crime, at the instigation and with the cooperation of his wife Ada, built at Liessies a church with a monastery, and enriched it with many goods by which monks should be maintained, to be substituted for the clerks or canons. The new church, the see of Cambrai being vacant, Bartholomew, bishop of Laon, a kinsman of Ada, consecrated, who also, supplying timber and beams, advanced the building and adorned the church with various and precious ornaments.

[4] The care of the monastery and church was committed to Rainer, abbot of the monastery of Crespin, also in Hainaut, by the anonymous monk of Liessies, who nevertheless from other sources who, when he saw that the church had now so multiplied (the words are the author's, by which he means to signify a sufficient number of cenobites) that it was fitting, the said Theodoric being still alive, to set an abbot over it, appointed and ordained as abbot of Liessies Gunter, who was Prior of the monastery of Crespin… This ordination of Gunter … was made in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand ninety-six. And Gunter governed the monks of Liessies for the space of twenty years, surviving the said lord Theodoric by one year. So the anonymous author, but not without error and a disturbance of the events. The error lurks in the number of years which is attributed to the rule of abbot Gunter; for thus he would have to be said to have prolonged his life until the year 1116, which is repugnant to the common opinion of writers; for Vinchant, Brasseur, the brothers de Sainte-Marthe, and Denis de Sainte-Marthe bind the death of Gunter to the year 1107.

[5] Lespee in his manuscript Little Book of the Chronicles of Liessies, marking in the margin the same year 1107, is here and there to be corrected indicates the death of Gunter in these words: Abbot Gunter … surviving lord Theodoric by one year only, full of days yielded to fate in the twelfth year of his pastoral administration, on the eighth day of December. Hence I scarcely doubt that into the anonymous author's little Work in de Guise, or rather in the French abridger of de Guise's Annals, there crept XX for XII. To this also makes what both the anonymous author and Lespee relate about the death of Theodoric: for if Gunter governed for twenty years, and therefore lived until the year 1116, Theodoric too would have lived until the year 1115. But these things cannot be reconciled with what Herman, a contemporary author, writes in the Narrative of the Restoration of the abbey of St. Martin of Tournai, tom. 12 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, p. 414: Our abbot Odo, he says, when after about the twelfth year of his conversion he had been promoted to the bishopric of the city of Cambrai, the kinsmen of the same Theodoric, being saddened that he had no offspring by his wife, accused them before the same bishop of being related in the fourth line of consanguinity, and on an appointed day confirmed it by oath; and thus by ecclesiastical judgment, when they had now remained together more than twenty years, they caused that marriage to be dissolved. And scarcely half a year had passed, when behold, the aforesaid Theodoric, going into the wood to hunt, is beset by an ambush laid by Isaac of Berlaimont and slain, and, brought back to the monastery of Liessies which he had built, is buried in the chapter house before the abbot's seat. Blessed Odo, abbot of St. Martin, was raised to the see of Cambrai in the year 1105, and was called to heavenly glory in the year 1113 on the nineteenth day of June, at which day his Acts have been given and illustrated among us. If therefore Theodoric had remained among the living until the year 1115, he would certainly have lived, not half a year only, as Herman has it, but a year and a half after the dissolution of the marriage by Odo, even if it were certain that that dissolution of the marriage was made in Odo's last year. But I believe that it was made at the beginning of Odo's episcopate, so that Theodoric was slain at the end of the year 1106, and abbot Gunter died in the month of December of the following year, according to the testimonies just adduced.

[6] or explained. A disturbance of events betrays itself in the anonymous author in what is related of the consecration of the church of Liessies by Bartholomew, bishop of Laon, in such a way indeed as if that consecration had happened before Gunter was appointed abbot, that is, before the year 1096: which cannot stand with right chronology; since Bartholomew was not raised to the mitre of Laon before the year

1113, as may be seen in the enlarged Gallia Christiana, tom. 9, col. 528 and following. It must therefore be said either that the church was not consecrated by Bartholomew, or that in the anonymous author those things were confused which he furnished before and after his entry upon the episcopate — namely so that before it he supplied timber and beams for the building of the church, but after it consecrated the same. The latter Lespee makes more probable to me in the little manuscript book several times cited, where he in some measure avoided that confusion. First, relating the building of the monastery and church, he mentions also the beams and timber supplied by Bartholomew, whom nevertheless he too prematurely calls bishop; then, having related the introduction of the monks, the appointment of abbot Gunter, his death, and the election of a successor, he marks in the margin the year 1113 and thus proceeds: The third church of Liessies is dedicated by Bartholomew, bishop of Laon, saving nevertheless the right and reverence of the church of Cambrai, at that time lacking a bishop.

[7] The new church consecrated in the twelfth century, The year 1113 marked was according to what has already been said the first of bishop Bartholomew, and in that year indeed — which, as Lespee, so also the anonymous monk of Liessies seems studiously to have observed — the bishopric of Cambrai was vacant, namely from the nineteenth day of the month of June, on which blessed Odo died, until the year 1115. Now the aforesaid Bartholomew was the nephew, through her sister, of Ada the restorer of the monastery: so that it may easily be conceived that he, with the consent of the clergy of Cambrai, at the beginning of his episcopate performed there this function of his dignity for the sake of his aunt, who, being separated from Theodoric, had more closely joined herself to that church. We have as witnesses here the anonymous monk of Liessies, Lespee, and the contemporary Herman, whose words I copy from tom. 12 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, p. 415: And the same lady, being separated from her husband, at once, leaving secular pomp, went to the aforesaid monastery, nor yet did she wholly give up her property, but, having built for herself a house of stone next to the church, being unwilling to burden the church, she lived on her own revenues until the end, and frequently bestowed on the monks what was needful. The anonymous author adds that Ada survived Theodoric by thirteen years, Lespee by fourteen; but since he, according to the chronological order adopted by us also, bound the death of Theodoric to the year 1106, and the death of Ada to 1119, he probably counted incomplete years at both ends: his words are these: The lady Ada, her husband lord Theodoric having died, left the world in the year 1106; who, despising secular pomp and honors, ordered a house to be built for her on the southern side, and there, serving God well and constantly for fourteen years, ended her life with a blessed end in the year of the Lord 1119, on the sixteenth day of January, being buried near her husband.

[8] Ada's example was afterward followed, according to Lespee, by several other noble matrons, and among these Agnes, in which same century Agnes, likewise lady of Avesnes daughter of Anselm lord of Ribemont, and wife of Goswin lord of Avesnes, who succeeded Theodoric of Avesnes his uncle, who died without children. Of her the praised author treats particularly, because she likewise was an outstanding benefactress of the monastery and church of Liessies; and we judge that her memory should be renewed, because she seems to have been signally devoted to St. Hiltrudis and to have advanced her cult. Herman of Tournai must again be heard before the rest, tom. 12 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, p. 415: But the aforesaid Agnes, he says, his wife (namely of Goswin, whom he had before said embraced the monastic life at Liessies, died, and was buried beside his uncle Theodoric), imitating the lady Ada, leaving secular pomp, went to the same monastery, and, living on her own revenues, had golden chalices and candlesticks and many other precious ornaments made for that church.

[9] This withdrawal of Agnes to the church of Liessies Lespee binds to the year 1126, caused to be made for the Saint's relics and then, her virtues and pious munificence being greatly praised, at the year 1128 subjoins the following: Moreover, at her own expense she ordered to be made a bier of blessed Hiltrudis, covered on every side with very thin plates of silver, in which were laid the relics of the same Virgin, enclosed within a little ivory casket. The anonymous monk of Liessies in the French abridger of de Guise has thus: The aforesaid lady Agnes ordered a bier of saint Hiltrudis and of saint Lambert to be made; and many other precious ornaments, such as chalices, chasubles, albs, and reliquaries, all of which she gave to the church: then, some things being interposed, he adds that Agnes lived there for thirty-six years after her withdrawal from the world, and hints that she was known to himself, the author, saying: I well remember that the lady Agnes, when any matter had to be transacted, would mount the horses of abbot Helgot, and by her prudence often settled for the church business of great weight, which the said abbot had not been able to accomplish. As to the number of Agnes's years Lespee agrees with the anonymous author, and coming to the year 1162, says: The lady Agnes happily closed her last day in this year on the second day of March: she is buried in the monastery of Liessies. Hence is again confirmed the age of the anonymous author, whom I indicated in the preliminary Commentary at num. 14 to have been born before the year 1147. I return to the Saint's bier or reliquary.

[10] Philippe Brasseur in the Cimeliarchium of the church of Liessies, published in print at Mons in Hainaut in the year 1645, a precious shrine, relates these things to the present purpose, p. 113: The venerable body of the same (St. Hiltrudis) was raised about the year 1004 by Herluin, bishop of Cambrai, which the illustrious Agnes, lady of Avesnes, in the year 1128 adorned with a silver bier, the statues of the apostles being set around its circuit. Of this ancient shrine it will not be out of place to have here produced a description, because for its antiquity it is beautiful.

A description of the ancient shrine of St. Hiltrudis.

On one transverse side is read this verse upon the cornice:

“These garlands of the two signify the fruit of justice.”

And on this side stand blessed Guntard and St. Hiltrudis.

On the other transverse side is read also this verse:

“Thus shall come confusion to the reprobate, glory to the Saints.”

In the middle of this side is beheld Christ sitting on his throne, having on his left a cross, and on his right a lance with a sponge, and beneath it is written:

The coming of the Son of Man to judgment.

Along the length of the shrine, next to the ridge of the roof, on one side these things are read:

When the last trumpet shall sound, the world shall fall, and man shall rise; And corrupted flesh shall put on that being which endures.

[11] which is here described, On this roof these figures are beheld on the same side: namely God in the middle pouring out with both hands from fiery vessels fire upon the world; likewise two angels, one on the right and the other on the left, calling with the trumpet to judgment the dead, who rise from their tombs. Beneath these figures verses are read:

These, living in the flesh and fearing God, Overcame the world, and were zealous to follow Christ.

Which verses were said of the Apostles, who, six in number, separated by columns, appear on one side in this order: Peter, Andrew, John, James, Bartholomew, and Thomas, each with the instruments of his passion in one hand, and in the other with the particular province or city which they converted by their preaching. On the other side of the roof, next to the ridge, these verses are written:

Thus together shall we come to the scales of justice, Where we shall receive rewards or punishments according to our merits.

In the very middle of the roof is represented the judgment of God with a scale, weighing the deeds of each, where also is read written:

The dreadful judgment of God.

From the two ends angels cry with the trumpet, rousing the dead, and other angels nearer the middle send those roused to be examined at the judgment; and beneath this judgment these two final verses are set:

Wherefore each one, showing the struggles of his own life, Shall be our judge and shall sit with the Lord.

And beneath these the remaining six Apostles with the instruments of their passion, as above, are seen seated: namely Paul, James, Philip, Matthew, Simon, and Jude. Such is the aforedescribed shrine, and it endures to this day. Thus far Brasseur, presently subjoining that a new and more elegant shrine was made in his time, that is, before the middle of the century just past, and that the bones of St. Hiltrudis were translated into it, as we shall record in its place.

[12] and perhaps another, in which a part of them was placed. The same author in the same place, p. 90 and following, being about to treat of the remains of St. Lambert, assigns another reliquary, and that a very ancient one, since from it he proves that SS. Lambert and Hiltrudis are the most ancient patrons of the church of Liessies. And he recounts all the patrons in this order: Further, as patron of the church of Liessies there was taken by the illustrious count Wibert of Poitou, in the year 751, St. Lambert, bishop of Liège and martyr; to whom in the process of time there were added St. Etto, an Irish bishop; the holy Thomas, bishop of Canterbury and likewise martyr; and St. Hiltrudis, virgin, endower of the monastery of Liessies. Then after a few words he adds this admonition: But meanwhile St. Lambert and St. Hiltrudis excel in antiquity of time, of which fact a very tall gilded reliquary gives assurance, containing a notable particle of each Saint, on whose back at the top is thus read: “St. Lambert and St. Hiltrudis, as Patrons, obtain a blessing from God for their monastery of Liessies.” He brings forward no other note whence you might conjecture at what time or by whose care that reliquary was made; since nevertheless, according to the anonymous monk of Liessies, whose words I gave at num. 9, Agnes, lady of Avesnes, caused a bier or shrine to be made for laying up the sacred remains of St. Lambert, and other reliquaries for the church of Liessies, I strongly suspect that the reliquary mentioned by Brasseur is one of these monuments of the same matron's pious munificence.

§ II. Miracles; a chapel and a statue erected to her; new and very elegant reliquaries; a twofold festival each year; her relics in other places.

[ ] Miracles wrought in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. From the twelfth century, of which we treated in the preceding §, down to the sixteenth century nothing particular concerning the Saint offers itself to be noted except some miracles which happened in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, and which teach us at least this, that the veneration of the faithful toward her and their confidence in her patronage was always continued. We have them written down at the foot of the Life of St. Hiltrudis from a codex of Liessies with the following annotation: Reverend Father, it has seemed to me useful (our abbot consenting) here to subscribe certain notable miracles wrought by the powers and merits of saint Hiltrudis, to be inserted (if you shall so judge it expedient) into her Life. Which indeed I have gathered from the Chronicles of our monastery: they were of old faithfully observed, written down, and noted by our predecessors, who also added the number of the years in the margin, as I too have here added. The same, and no more, with the years likewise added, Lespee inserted into his manuscript Little Book of the Chronicles of Liessies: a varying reading occurs here and there, but of slight moment, as will be seen from what is noted in the margin.

[14] In the year 1231. Three girls of the village which is called Anor, Three demoniacs delivered; grievously vexed by a demon, are delivered by the mercy of God and the merits of blessed Hiltrudis in the church of Liessies. It was assuredly fitting

that the virgin Hiltrudis, being invoked, should bring aid to girlish miseries. The girls therefore are set before the Virgin's bier, that, loosed from the fetters of the enemy, they might return healed with firm step to their own homes. Meanwhile the girls suffered before the Virgin's sarcophagus, they suffered miserably; and they knew neither how to fear death nor how to hope for life: they lay confounded, and God knew the cause of their torment; the blessed Virgin prays * in heaven: the girls are healed at her memorial. The people, lifting their palms on high, call the girls happy, whom God deigned to look upon with an eye of mercy.

[15] In the year 1400. A certain swineherd, feeding his pigs, two drowned men entered the waters, I know not by what necessity impelled, and was drowned. And he, no one knowing it, lay that day suffocated in the waves, until, being sought by his parents, he was found miserably rolling at the bottom with his body stretched out and his hair spread abroad. Presently, a great concourse of people being held there, he is drawn out and is devoted by his people to the holy Hiltrudis. Being carried to the threshold of the blessed Virgin, his body being reanimated, he rose up unharmed. Then the whole * church resounded with the voices of the people praising God, because by the clemency of God and the merits of blessed Hiltrudis they had not been cheated of their desire.

[16] restored to life; In the year 1428. A certain little child, playing at Liessies near a ditch full of water, by chance, his guardian being away, fell headlong into it, ending his life together with his tender age. He, being drawn out thence already stiff, is carried to the basilica of the holy Hiltrudis, in which, before the eyes of all, gradually stirring, he is restored to life.

[17] another snatched from danger; In the same year at Sora a monk of Trivium, walking somewhat incautiously toward evening, being driven over a great precipice, fell into a ditch. And while he was falling, with a pious affection of mind he invoked the name of saint Hiltrudis, and, feeling her help most swiftly, he floated on the surface and was drawn out sound by the neighbors running thither at a quick pace, not without great admiration and astonishment of all.

[18] to a deaf man the faculty of hearing restored. In the year 1429. There was in the house of Liessies a doorkeeper somewhat deaf, to whom it was signified by signs that he should depart, because he could no longer perform the office assigned him. Understanding these things, he was saddened beyond measure. And when he was preparing to depart on the morrow, and was already packing his little bundles, yet first fleeing to the help of prayer, he strove to beseech God with suppliant mind that by the merits of Hiltrudis the virgin he might deserve to receive his hearing. For in the middle of the night, drawing sighs from the depth of his heart, he turned his prayer to blessed Hiltrudis, saying: Come, Virgin of Christ, long had I hoped that I should persevere in thy house until my last day; and behold, tomorrow like a dry log I shall be cast out from the fellowship of thy servants. Succor, I pray, a poor wretch. Having spoken thus, he fell asleep. But rising in the morning, he testified that he had received a most acute use of hearing. Ascribing that miracle to the holy Hiltrudis, he was wont to tell all with cheerful mind how great was the Virgin's kindness toward those who love her.

Knowledge of the places named in this account, so far as I myself could attain it, I have reserved to this place, lest I should break the thread. Anorte, otherwise Anor and Aulnore, the place mentioned at num. 14, is marked among the geographers of Hainaut on the borders of Picardy. Sora, the place assigned at num. 17, is probably that which among the same is written Sorle, and sometimes Sore, and is set scarcely a mile from the abbey of Liessies. But Trivium, which seems to be set here as a proper place-name, I do not find: perhaps it was an estate belonging to the monks of Liessies, and committed to the care of that monk who believed that he had escaped danger by the benefit of St. Hiltrudis. Piously indeed and deservedly he believed it, since as he fell he invoked the aid of that Saint, although the fact is not such that it can certainly be proved miraculous. For since he slipped from a precipice into water, I do not see why he could not naturally have floated unharmed and been drawn out by those running up. I come to the sixteenth century.

[19] [The choir of the church and a new chapel dedicated to the Saint in the sixteenth century;] With how great care and diligence in that century the venerable abbot of Liessies, Louis de Blois, labored for sacred things and for increasing the honors of the Saints, his biographer relates at length among us in tom. 1 of January, p. 446 and following. Among the sacred buildings erected by him two are mentioned which pertain more closely to our Saint, namely the august mass of the choir with its principal altar, whose elegance is there described, and a chapel for laying up with veneration, cleanliness, and security the bodies of the Saints and their sacred bones and relics. For the choir, as Brasseur testifies in the Cimeliarchium of Liessies several times cited, p. 91, was erected in the year 1543 by lord de Blois for the four Patrons (SS. Lambert, Etto, Thomas of Canterbury, and Hiltrudis), and, according to the same Brasseur, p. 113, an inscription was set upon the wall of the presbytery on the left side, containing an elogium of the holy Virgin in these words: Hiltrudis, a noble virgin, the sweetest daughter of Wibert and Ada, excelling in wondrous beauty of body, but more excellent in her burning charity toward God, when, given and consecrated to Christ in this place, she had happily led a solitary life, at length, her spirit being rendered to heaven, was buried at the north side of the sacred altar in the year 799. And the chapel, which Brasseur, p. 74, says was built behind the principal altar, was chiefly and by name consecrated to the same Virgin, as is clear from the inscription which the same author asserts was affixed to the inner door, and thus sets forth: To the holy virgin Hiltrudis, most dear bride of the immortal Spouse, and to the other most blessed Citizens of heaven (whose sacred relics the church of Liessies rejoices with pious thankfulness to possess by God's benefit), the structure of this treasury was erected in the year from the Incarnation of the common Redeemer Jesus Christ 1543.

[20] Emulating the piety of de Blois, the most reverend lord Antoine de Winghe, abbot of Liessies, illustrated by various monuments and precious ornaments the glory of the Saints and especially of St. Hiltrudis, in the seventeenth century, in the restored chapel a statue erected to her; and first indeed the chapel just mentioned, because, the words are Brasseur's, p. 76, by reason of the dampness and situation of the place it hindered the entire preservation of the sacred things laid up there, he caused to be destroyed, and built in the same place another more magnificent and more capacious, of octagonal form, with a double vault, upper and lower, the one for beauty and against fire, the other against corruption. The whole work within is altogether most elegant. Here the author interposes some things by which he graphically describes its elegance and that of the paintings, and thus proceeds: On this side and that, around the circuit of the chapel, are cupboards, fitted for honorably laying up the sacred relics, with statues of Saints, male and female, most delicately and most ingeniously carved, interwoven at each of their little doors: but above these cupboards stand on this side and that two statues of white stone, exceeding the natural stature of a man, fashioned with no less elegance, and set upon their thrones excellently adorned: of which one represents St. Hiltrudis, the other St. Etto, etc.

[21] Another monument of veneration toward the holy Virgin, her head placed in a silver bust left by the same de Winghe, is a silver statue upon which her sacred head was set, and about which Brasseur again relates these things, p. 118: But the head also, separated from the said sacred body, exists in a silver statue, which represents the same St. Hiltrudis fashioned as far as the waist, with a lamp in her right hand and a palm in her left, displaying around its circuit her life and deeds expressed with wondrous artifice on silver plates. This is the inscription in front: S. Hiltrudis, virgin. Round about, at each of the images relating the Virgin's deeds, it is laconically read thus: “She refuses a bridegroom. She flees by night.” “She receives the veil. Her brother consoles her. She renders up her soul. Her body is raised.” A rather long plate affixed to the back of the aforesaid statue contains this epigraph: The bones of the sacred head of blessed Hiltrudis, virgin, endower and patroness of the monks of Liessies, separated from the sacred body in the year 1586 by the work of lord Nicolas le Francq, the thirty-sixth abbot, were by the care of lord Antoine de Winghe, the thirty-seventh abbot, in the year 1618 enclosed in this adorned statue. The praised lord Nicolas le Franc, according to the brothers de Sainte-Marthe and Denis de Sainte-Marthe, presided over the monks of Liessies from the year 1578 until 1610; but he who is here marked as the thirty-sixth abbot is set by the brothers de Sainte-Marthe only as the thirty-fifth, and on the contrary by Denis as the thirty-seventh, and the same difference is kept throughout in Nicolas's next successor, lord Antoine de Winghe, who died at Mons in Hainaut in the year 1637 and was buried in the church of the Society of Jesus. The cause of the difference is this. In the brothers de Sainte-Marthe the series of abbots is begun only from the restoration of the monastery, and thus, Guntard the brother of St. Hiltrudis being omitted, Gunter is set as the first; and moreover there is not there reckoned among the abbots Maurice the second, called Paganus, who, according to Lespee, being elected in the month of November of the year 1331, was in the following January on the Epiphany of the Lord removed by the ordinary judge. On the contrary Denis inscribed both in his catalogue, and calls Guntard, the brother of St. Hiltrudis, the first, and Maurice the twenty-second. But he who had charge of the inscription just given either began the series of abbots only from the restoration of the monastery and among these acknowledged Maurice, or counted the abbots from the first beginnings of the monastery and excluded Maurice.

[22] and the rest of her body placed in a shrine Nor did the zeal of the praised abbot de Winghe toward St. Hiltrudis stop here. Elegant indeed was the old reliquary, as is clear from the description given in the preceding §; nevertheless he caused another far more elegant to be made at Paris, says Brasseur, p. 116, where he also describes it as follows: Now this new shrine is of notable form and chasing, three feet long and as many high, above which rises an angel, sitting upon the very front, who by his posture and gesture presents the form of a little boy scattering flowers on this side and that. But let us pass from the description to the inscription: it displays a twofold inscription on either side. On one thou readest thus:

TO GOD, BEST AND GREATEST.

“Sacred to St. Hiltrudis, virgin of Liessies, who, after spurning carnal nuptials, was admitted with the prudent virgins into the chamber of the heavenly Spouse, whose virginal bones are here laid up.”

On the opposite side thou readest thus:

“The sacred bones of St. Hiltrudis, virgin, fleeing a mortal bridegroom for the love of Christ, their patroness and endower, Antoine the abbot and the monks of Liessies adorned with this monument in the year 1630.”

“Serve the Lord in gladness.”

[33] most elegant. The same Brasseur, in his Panegyric of the Saints of Hainaut, drawn out in heroic verses, p. 88, having celebrated the deeds and praises of St. Hiltrudis, thus sings of the reliquary:

Nor would I be silent that the bones of the said Virgin With a magnificent bier (to which none in art be second) Lately adorned the abbot of illustrious name, De Winghe, graced with the eternal praise of his deeds.

That that work was completed while de Winghe was still alive the year 1630 inscribed indicates; nevertheless the sacred bones of the Virgin were placed in it only four years after the abbot's death, which happened, according to what was said before, in the year 1637. Brasseur must here be heard again in the Cimeliarchium, p. 117: In which monument indeed (at length in the year 1641, on the twelfth of May) the bones of the aforesaid Virgin were laid up at Mons by the most illustrious lord François Vanderburch, archbishop of Cambrai, who, in the aforementioned

day, which fell on a Sunday and marked the anniversary raising of the holy Hiltrudis, celebrated three things very solemnly; namely the translation of the said sacred body; the first consecration of the chapel of the house of Liessies; and the imposing of the sacred mitre, then first granted to the monastery of Liessies by Pope Urban VIII, upon the very reverend lord Thomas Luytens, a great throng of nobles and magnates standing by meanwhile and at the same time offering congratulation.

[24] It might here be asked what anniversary raising of St. Hiltrudis was kept in the year 1641 on the twelfth day of May falling on a Sunday. The raising of her body is kept every year at Liessies; I answer: that very one was kept which in part 2 of the Acts, num. 19, is said to have been performed by Erluin, bishop of Cambrai, namely in the year 1004, as I showed in the Annotations at letter g, and that indeed on the seventeenth day of September, as I proved in the same place from the Liessies Auctarium of the Martyrology of venerable Bede, with which Molanus and others agree. For since the seventeenth day of September was hindered by the feast of St. Lambert, patron of the monks of Liessies, and in the same month recurred the chief festival of our Saint, likewise their patroness, they transferred the anniversary celebration of the raising, not to the twelfth day of May, but to the Sunday within the Octave of the Lord's Ascension, which Sunday in the year 1641 fell on the said day of May. So Brasseur teaches me in his poetic Calendar of the Saints and festivals of Hainaut in two places. First at the seventeenth day of September, where under this title:

At Liessies, the raising of S. Hiltrudis, V., in the year 1004, it is thus read:

Saint Lambert raises Hiltrudis; on the day when Christ ascended to the stars, they keep the feast each year.

Secondly among the movable feasts, with these words marked in the margin: Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension, and with this title prefixed: At Liessies, the procession, or the raising of St. Hiltrudis; he has thus:

Lambert bore Hiltrudis from the ground; from his day the pomp to be performed was brought back.

[25] The same author in the Cimeliarchium, p. 119. For the rest, he says, but the feast with an Octave and a vigil St. Hiltrudis is wont to be honored at Liessies with a twofold feast, namely on the twenty-seventh of September and on the Sunday before Pentecost, when there is a frequent pilgrimage to her for the curing of fevers; and not a few have both experienced and likewise testified that by her merits they have recovered health. There is also a fountain distant not a league and a half from Liessies, from which the same Virgin, once fleeing an earthly bridegroom and already espoused in mind to the heavenly one, drank, and which she was seen to bless: for those sick of fever come to it even today for a healing remedy, not without happy and frequent success… By way of a conclusion it may be added that the said St. Hiltrudis and the three other co-patrons of the said church are magnificently set above the doors of the panel of the chief altar, with this distich above their heads:

Thou seest in this mirror with what Patrons Liessies is adorned, and whose protection she enjoys.

To our manuscript copy of the Acts, taken from the Annals of de Guise, a few things have been added, from which we may gather the celebration of the chief feast of our Saint: and first indeed, from the proper Masses of the church of Liessies, both manuscript and printed in the year 1640, the beginning of the Mass is designated as Gaudeamus omnes; then there is subjoined a proper canticle or Sequence, as they call it, which it has not seemed good to copy out; and at last it is added that it is kept through an Octave with a vigil, in which vigil the Mass Dilexisti is said, and the following prayer: O God, who dost gladden us by the solemnity of blessed Hiltrudis thy virgin, grant in thy mercy that we may be helped by the merits of her by whose examples of chastity we are enlightened.

[26] A printed Office, perhaps for other churches. I have also a printed Office of hers, to which this title is prefixed: On the feast of saint Hiltrudis, virgin not martyr, which is celebrated on the fifth Kalends of October: Double, as in the common of a virgin, except those things which are here proper. The prayer is this: O God, who didst kindle thy beloved bride, blessed Hiltrudis the virgin, to contempt of the world and to love of thee on earth, that thou mightest gloriously crown the same, when loosed from the flesh, in heaven; grant us by her merits and intercessions to despise the vanity of the world and to pant continually after eternal goods. Through our Lord, etc. The lessons of the first Nocturn are noted as to be taken from the occurring Scripture; those of the second Nocturn are proper, namely extracted from the Acts published by us; but those of the third Nocturn from the Homily on the Gospel: The kingdom of heaven is like to ten virgins; as in the common. It is not declared where, when, or for whom it was printed; the types, however, appear sufficiently recent. It is credible that it was printed for the sake of those who in other places of the diocese of Cambrai celebrate her festival; but whether outside that diocese (excepting the city of Douai) she has any special cult anywhere, I have not hitherto ascertained.

[27] Relics at Douai; likewise at Mons, and an altar. But I except Douai, a city of the diocese of Arras, because there at least her relics exist in the collegiate church of St. Peter. I have here as witness Raissius in the Hierogazophylacium Belgicum, p. 409, where among the relics of the Saints which are preserved in the said church, and especially in a silver reliquary having on the outside images of the Savior, of the Virgin Mother of God, and of six Apostles, he recounts something of the bones of the glorious virgin Hiltrudis, whose body is seen at Liessies in an honorable shrine. For the rest, at Mons in Hainaut also, which is a city of the diocese of Cambrai, some relics of St. Hiltrudis are set forth for the veneration of the faithful, and an altar is seen consecrated to her name in the oratory of the house belonging to the monks of Liessies, which by the now usual name we call the Refuge. That oratory the most reverend abbot Thomas Luytens caused to be built in the year 1639, while he was there in exile with his monks on account of the wars, and dedicated the first altar to SS. Lambert and Thomas of Canterbury, martyrs, the second to St. Etto, the third to St. Hiltrudis, as Brasseur writes in the Cimeliarchium, p. 125, adding that in the same Refuge a certain reliquary is set out at table for pilgrims, in which on the front part there stands something of SS. Agapitus, Etto, and Hiltrudis.

* Lespee, erat

* the same, omne

* the same, meretur

* the same adds beata