Leodowinus

ON ST. LEODOWINUS, OR LUTWINUS, ARCHBISHOP OF TRIER,

ABOUT THE YEAR 713.

COMMENTARIUS PRÆVIUS.

Leodowinus or Lutwinus, archbishop of Trier. (S.)

BY J. P.

§ I. What sort the Saint's Acts are, and which are to be given here.

[ ] Some part of the deeds of this holy Bishop was already long ago given in our Work in volume 1 of March at the fourth day, in the Life of St. Basinus, Some deeds of the Saint given in St. Basinus, volume 1 of March. his maternal uncle and immediate predecessor in the archbishopric of Trier: because, as Basinus's biographer says, the Life of the one could not be set forth without the other. Nevertheless the same author indicates that not everything which could be said about St. Leodowinus was said by him, and refers his reader to a particular little book about his deeds, as follows: What Lutwinus did thereafter, with what fervor of soul he served God, what the course of his life was, how holily, how justly, how piously he lived — he who desires to know, let him have recourse to the little book of his holy deeds, and there he will find everything luminously described. But these things from his deeds, elaborated by us with what brevity we could, we have inserted into this our little treatise for this reason, that from one root Basinus and Lutwinus sprang, and because of the one, etc. Thus far the biographer of St. Basinus, who nowhere either discloses his own name or the age in which he lived. But Henschen in the Commentarius prævius number 5, from the words just recited, conjectured that the author of the Life of St. Basinus was the same as that of St. Leodowinus, so that in the Life of St. Basinus the author refers the reader to the Life of St. Leodowinus, another lucubration of his own. Hence Henschen called the biographer of St. Basinus Nizo, in the eleventh century abbot of Mettlach: whereas for reasons presently to be alleged

he did not doubt that the aforesaid Nizo was the biographer of St. Leodowinus.

[2] There are nevertheless those who for other reasons, and not to be despised, take away from Nizo the Life of St. Leodowinus, His separate Life, which Henschen, who therefore and ascribe it to Thiofrid, in the same eleventh century abbot of the monastery of Echternach within the borders of the duchy of Luxembourg. To Thiofrid it is ascribed by John Roberti of the Society of Jesus in the Life of that same Thiofrid, published in print in the year 1619, and by Christopher Brower, another priest of the same Society, in the Annals of Trier, no mention being made of Nizo. There have been added Mabillon in volume 5 of the Benedictine Annals page 136; Calmet in volume 4 of the History of Lorraine, published in the year 1751, column 920; and the Benedictine writers of the Congregation of St. Maur in volume 9 of the Literary History of France; and since these latter of set purpose attack Henschen's opinion, they must here be heard. At page 509, citing in the margin Brower and Mabillon, they pronounce thus: Thiofrid also of his own genius or composition (de sa façon) left in prose the Life of St. Liutwinus or Ludwinus, at the beginning of the eighth century bishop at Trier. He had dedicated it to Udo, archbishop of that same church from the year 1067 until 1078… But it is unknown even today what became of that Work. The learned Father Henschen, whom in that matter M. Baillet followed (nay, also Le Cointe and others), wished to transfer its honor to Nizo, whom others name Mizo, abbot of Mettlach, by whom there is extant a Life of St. Basinus, another of the bishops of Trier before St. Liutwinus, whose maternal uncle he was. To establish this, the first of those critics brings forward as an argument a passage from Nizo's writing. But this, more attentively considered, proves altogether the contrary.

[3] was reproved by some, wrongly and preposterously Let us halt our step here for a little and subjoin to each of the assertions contained in this criticism its own answer. The first, which is reduced to this: Thiofrid wrote a Life of St. Leodowinus; is true. The second: It is not known what became of it or what was done with it; is obscure to us. The third: Henschen wished to transfer its honor to Nizo; is in some sense true. The fourth: For this end Henschen produced a passage from Nizo, or from the Life of St. Basinus; is absolutely false. The fifth: The Life of St. Basinus was composed by Nizo; is not probable in the opinion of Henschen's adversaries. The truth of the first assertion and the obscurity of the second I shall show, after I have explained the answers to the three latter. The third assertion is therefore true, if by the word transfer it be permitted to understand that Henschen wished to attribute the honor of composing the Life of St. Leodowinus to that author to whom for just causes he judged it should be attributed. But he had just causes for attributing it to the abbot of Mettlach, and both the Life itself of St. Leodowinus and the prologue or dedicatory letter prefixed to it supplied them.

[4] for just causes For in one copy the prologue began thus: To the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, to Uto, archbishop of the holy church of Trier… Nithardus and… the flock of the brethren of Mettlach: in another thus: To the sanctuary etc., to Uto … abbot Nizo and… the flock of Mettlach. Then the author, going on, always in the person of several, namely of the abbot and the monks of Mettlach, excuses at length that, unequal to so great a Work, we attempt (these are the very words of the prologue) to set before all the orthodox as examples of virtue the praises of bishop Luitwinus, our special patron and father, hidden even until these our times and the times of your archiepiscopate under the soot of silence. Further, in that whole prologue there occurs not one word from which Henschen could even suspect that the author was not an inhabitant of the abbey of Mettlach: where St. Leodowinus rested in body; where as founder and patron he was venerated with special honor; where he shone with miracles, some of which the author or authors testify were done in their presence, saying toward the end of the Life: For, to omit how many things we have heard and our fathers have told us, … if we should wish to commit to writing only those things which we have seen with our eyes, which we have beheld and our hands have handled, we should exceed the measure of a volume. These things being so, to whom else would Henschen have assigned that Life than to the abbot of Mettlach, who dedicated it to the archbishop in his own name and that of his own, without mention of any other author? But he called that abbot Nizo rather than Nithardus, because Nizo's date better agreed with the archiepiscopate of Uto or Udo of Trier.

[5] And so Henschen, judging from what has already been cited that the author of the Life of St. Leodowinus was sufficiently known to him, ascribed it to Nizo abbot of Mettlach, and finding no name of an author in the Life of St. Basinus, argued from the words recited at number 1 in this manner: The author of both Lives is the same; the author of the Life of St. Leodowinus is Nizo; therefore also of the Life of St. Basinus. Whence appears first the falsity of the fourth assertion brought against Henschen; as though he had brought forward a text from the Life of St. Basinus in order to ascribe the Life of St. Leodowinus to Nizo, whereas Nizo's name was known to him from no other source than from the Life of Leodowinus itself. It appears secondly that Henschen's adversaries proceeded not attentively enough; when, taking away from Nizo the Life of St. Leodowinus, they nevertheless acknowledged him as the biographer of St. Basinus: since whether both Lives were written by the same author, as Henschen thought, or by a different one, as they afterwards contend at length, there remains in their opinion not even the slightest foundation why Nizo rather than another should be believed the biographer of St. Basinus. Now to the first assertion, which I have confessed to be true.

[6] That some Life of St. Leodowinus was composed by him Thiofrid, abbot of Echternach, himself testifies, that Thiofrid abbot of Echternach in the Proem of the Work which he entitled Flowers of the epitaph of the Saints, and dedicated to Bruno archbishop of Trier, whom he addresses thus: Put therefore the last hand to my Work, and out of your goodwill toward me cut away the superfluous, fill up the gaps, correct the errors, and, taking counsel by the example of your predecessor and foster-father and kinsman by blood, Udo the archbishop of eternal memory, who confirmed by the examination of his testimony the Life of Lutwinus, of the highest sanctity and of the people's gladness, scratched out by me with such style as I have. Likewise in the Proem to the Life of St. Willibrord, which we have in manuscript, where Thiofrid thus admonishes his brethren of Echternach: Nor let it move your prudence if in the praises of so great a hierarch my eloquence does not burst forth with deep utterance like a river running down from a mountain: because, since I had before dictated the Life of Lutwinus, of the highest sanctity and of the people's gladness, archbishop of the holy see of Trier, and had scattered the Flowers of the epitaph of the Saints through four volumes, I poured out with all the flowing veins of my wit whatever from the fountain of life the abundance of divine loving-kindness deigned to pour into me. These things are plain.

[7] is the true author It remains that we see whether the Life composed by Thiofrid is the same which Henschen mentioned as written by Nizo, or rather a different one; for St. Leodowinus obtained various biographers, as we shall show from copies of the Life of various kinds. We are altogether persuaded for many reasons that it is the same. First, Henschen's was dedicated to archbishop Udo; Thiofrid asserts that his own was approved by Udo. Second, the aforesaid John Roberti in the Life of Thiofrid, prefixed to the Flowers of the epitaph of the Saints published in the year 1619, at §6 recites from the Life of St. Leodowinus, which at §8 he places in the first place among the writings of Thiofrid seen by him, the following: In our memory too, such bright luminaries of the world, such magnificent names of men shone there (at Mettlach), that he who was reckoned the least among them in rank was held most worthy of the summit of the highest honor, and whatever church obtained a rector from among them was, as the world by the radiance of the sun, so enlightened by the light of his doctrine and virtues: which words are read only in the copies of Henschen's Life. Third, in the said copies the same style appears as in Thiofrid's other Works, the same manner of thinking, often the same composition of words, nay the employment of the same expressions. Let us give specimens.

[8] we believe, yet so Thiofrid in his proem dedicates his Flowers thus to archbishop Bruno: Therefore, O both my safeguard and my sweet glory … I consecrate this little book … to your name. In the prologue of the often-mentioned Life of St. Leodowinus the same verse of Horace is directed to archbishop Udo: Therefore, O both our safeguard and our sweet glory … deign to receive this little spiritual gift of monastic men: and after a few words it goes on thus: And when you have weighed with how many vigils and how much sweat this has cost us, if it is not to be blotted out, cut away the superfluous, fill up the gaps, pour light into what is little clear: which last words you have almost the same at number 6 from the proem to the Flowers. In the proem of the Life of St. Willibrord Thiofrid calls St. Jerome the most excellent of the interpreters of divine Scripture, Terence the noblest of the comic poets: in the prologue of the Life of St. Leodowinus the former is called the most eminent of the interpreters of divine Scripture; the latter the most excellent of the comic poets; and in both places this phrase is employed: to misuse one's labor in writing prologues, in the one place applied to the doctor, in the other said of the comedian. But let these suffice.

[9] that Nizo and the monks of Mettlach adopted it. We are persuaded therefore that that Life of St. Leodowinus was truly composed by Thiofrid; but so that he both employed Nizo's name and put on the persons both of that abbot and of the monks of Mettlach, who adopted his vigils, as he calls them, and his sweat, and offered the Work as their own to archbishop Udo: which Henschen ought not to have divined while he was illustrating the Acts of St. Basinus. Thus we are confident that the honor of the composition has been abundantly restored to Thiofrid; but we do not sufficiently understand what the writers of the Literary History of France meant by their second assertion: It is not known what was done with that Work, or what became of it (ce qu'est devenu cet ouvrage), the Life of St. Leodowinus: since they had nevertheless read this in Henschen: We have some Acts sent to us from a Trier manuscript, both of St. Basinus and of St. Lutwinus his nephew, written by the same author… He is Nizo, abbot of the monastery of Mettlach… He inscribed the Life of this his patron (Lutwinus) to Udo archbishop of Trier. For either they believed that the Life which here Henschen ascribed to Nizo is that of which Thiofrid was the author, or they did not believe it. If they did not believe it, on what ground did they reprove Henschen for wishing to transfer to Nizo the honor of a Work owed to Thiofrid? If they did believe it, they knew then that that Life was preserved among us. Nay, they hint that they believed it in the same place, saying: But since the laborious continuators of Bolland will, as it is right to hope, have taken care that it (the Life of St. Leodowinus) be brought back to light (l'auront fait reparoître), other arguments, even more solid, will be able to be drawn from it for confirming what we have already laid down; namely that its author is Thiofrid.

[10] The arguments which for that end seemed to us most suitable we have now brought forward, so that for reasons and accordingly we have so far satisfied their expectation; nothing, however, moves us to comply with the other part; that is, I say, to commit to the press Thiofrid's — so I shall henceforth call him — exceedingly lengthy lucubration. Not the author's date, since three and

more centuries later than St. Leodowinus. Not the authority of the documents which he followed, since he himself confesses that scanty material lighted his way for putting the Work together. Which, he says, perhaps would not unjustly be objected, namely that this our little Work is rather a Sermon than the text of a history, is not to be ascribed to our negligence, because, since so many excellent deeds of so great a Father have been abolished in oblivion either by the lack of writers or by the carelessness of our forefathers, and for that reason our material is scanty, as it is our concern to abridge many things, so it is to expand a few, and to say some things in praise of the apostolic Man, whence the studious reader may profit and be more vehemently kindled to the love of spiritual grace. We have the example of good men, by which we think it lawful for us to do what they did. For Augustine, flying over the summits of the mountains like an eagle in his Exposition on John, and likewise in the book on the City of God, uses a useful train of discourse: and Jerome in the Life of Malchus the monk proceeds by a far broader path; likewise in the Life of Paula he expands and prolongs the brevity of his material with manifold excursions and topographies [*]. These things sufficiently hint that a great part of the long narrative proceeded from Thiofrid's own genius. As concerns the examples of the holy Fathers adduced, namely of St. Jerome: it is far from being a like case. For what Jerome narrates about St. Malchus he professes to have received from his own mouth: and of Paula he was the director both at Rome and at Bethlehem, and accordingly, although here and there he lingers rather long over the description of the places which Paula visited on her journeys, yet what Jerome reports about her deeds and virtues admits no suspicion of fiction.

[11] Finally, neither does Thiofrid's style move us, about which it is well to hear John Roberti, alleged here who examined his chief little Works and illustrated the Flowers of the Saints with notes. In the Life of Thiofrid §7 Roberti greatly commends the man's erudition for that century; but about his style he subjoins this: There is in him an immense abundance of words and sentences; his periods are rounded and as if drawn in a circle with compasses: but the same for the most part are too long, and so encumbered and beguiling the drowsy reader… He is frequent in allegories, antitheses, allusions to the Scriptures, to histories, to the poets. His affectation of Greek words offends the more delicate ears. You see that I am not acting as Thiofrid's encomiast, since I also expose his faults; although I willingly attribute them to the century and to the lack of a master. But let us also give a specimen, from which the reader may somehow perceive the fairness of this judgment, and may judge that it is not deservedly to be lamented that we abstain from printing the whole Work. Thiofrid begins the Life of St. Leodowinus from the names and stock of his parents; he says that his mother was Gunza, sister of Basinus the excellent archbishop of Trier; his father Gerwinus, who, drawing the line of his family from the most powerful kings of the Franks, imposed on his Son in the water of holy baptism, by a certain presage of things to come, the name Lutwin.

[12] we do not judge Then he runs on in this manner: Truly an apt and mystical congruence of the names of both father and Son! Because Gerwin means BEARING or DESIRING WINE: but Lutwin, since according to the mouth and organ of the Holy Spirit, David, wine gladdens the heart of man, is interpreted THE GLADNESS OF THE PEOPLE. And what more congruous than that, by the divine providence foreordaining it, from him who bears or desires wine there should be born the gladness of the people, and that in the name of each there should be signified beforehand what was to be in the work of each? In the name of each wine sounds, which gladdens God and men: but by a different prerogative of merits the father was called Gerwin, because, since according to the assertion of the most subtle Augustine men have been made by God out of water into wine, he produced wine, namely a Son endowed with the sweetness of divine wisdom, one who would make drunk with the wine of compunction the people of God's acquisition. And the son obtained the name Lutwin, because he was to serve the wine which at the nuptials of Christ and the Church the steward of the feast admired: and this at the font of baptism, as one who would rear the sons of God's adoption upon the water of refreshment, which flowed with the wine of redemption from the side of the Redeemer, and would show forth the health-bringing fountain which, flowing from the house of the Lord, waters the torrent of thorns. Doubtless it was done by divine dispensation that he should be named Lutwin and should speak by his name that saying of the Psalmist which his tongue could not yet speak: They shall be inebriated with the plenty of your house, and you shall give them to drink of the torrent of your pleasure.

[13] worthy of the press. For as one who was to be a hierarch, he was to dispense the divine Sacraments abundantly and to inebriate the offspring of holy mother Church with the wine of unspeakable sweetness. With wine, I say, most sweet, which was pressed from that cluster of which in the Song of Songs the bride sings to the bridegroom: O my beloved is to me a cluster of cypress in the vineyards of Engedi! Therefore, as one who was to take the chalice of salvation and through it to gladden the heart of the faithful people, through that chalice beyond doubt of which the Holy Spirit says through the Psalmist: And how excellent is your inebriating chalice; rightly by God's dispensation was Lutwin, sprung from his father Gerwin, named, that is, the gladness of the people; and as the Mediator of God and men, being in his assumed humanity to have both persons of priest and king, drew the origin of his flesh from both tribes, so he who was nobly to govern a chosen race, a royal priesthood, drew the branch of his family from both royal and priestly stock.

[14] [We shall print two shorter Lives, one of which may be called a synopsis of Thiofrid;] Let the kindly reader pardon me, whose patience I have perhaps abused by reciting so lengthy an allusion of the writer. I judged it in some way necessary, lest, as Henschen was reproved because, though for just causes, he had attributed that Life to another than the one to whom it was due, so we too should be censured for not bringing forth from darkness into light a Work esteemed by some more highly than is right. Certainly otherwise, even setting aside the longer question about its true author, I should have indicated in a few words why I judge that two other Lives of St. Leodowinus are to be preferred to it, of which we must now treat. Neither discloses its author's name, neither the certain time in which it was written. Both are much shorter, and one indeed, which lacks a prologue, is so composed that if the frequent excursions be struck out of Thiofrid's, of which I have already exhibited a specimen, what remains would make up this shorter Life, arranged not only in the same order but also framed in almost the same words: so that there is no doubt that the shorter one either lighted Thiofrid's way, or was abridged from his Work. If the former, which is not altogether removed from likelihood, since Thiofrid himself signifies that scanty material was expanded by him, the shorter is also preferable by the title of antiquity. If the latter, even so the reader will have Thiofrid's Work, but purged of its more useless excursions. We shall give it as by an anonymous author from a manuscript of St. Maximin of Trier, but only in the second place, because the other seems more ancient.

[15] The author of this one, a man, so far as appears, sincere, prefaces thus: the other seems more ancient. Although therefore his memory (St. Leodowinus's) is perpetually inserted in the book of life, yet no account in books about his life has yet chanced to come down to us which would give a certain knowledge of his deeds. But certain things about him handed down to us by the diligence of the first men, and certain things hitherto spread abroad by popular report, I shall begin to narrate, trusting in his help. By these words he declares plainly enough that in his time no collection of our Saint's deeds existed, at least none that he knew of; and if one had existed, he does not seem to have been able to be ignorant of it, since he was a monk of Mettlach, as I conjecture from the inscription: Here begins the prologue to the Life of our most holy father and patron Lutwinus; and then from the prologue itself, in which he calls the Saint our special father. Brower judged the same in the Annals of Trier at the year 718, where, treating of Milo, St. Leodowinus's son, he cites an ancient writer of Mettlach and reports his text from a manuscript of the said monastery, which is manifestly taken from this Life, although perhaps through the carelessness of the copyists its words differ a little from our copy, which is noted as received from a Trier manuscript by Father Gerlach Hoen. Further, why I have said only that this Life seems more ancient than the rest, and not that it certainly is, I shall declare in the Annotations. Besides the three Lives thus far enumerated, we have a fourth drawn from a manuscript of St. Salvator of Utrecht, which will be of no use here, as differing from the others, especially from the Trier one of St. Maximin, only in its brevity, and extracted thence perhaps for the lessons of the divine Office. A fifth besides Marc Antoine Dominicy cites, of whose worth the reader will judge from what is to be said in the following §.

* otherwise: of history

§ II. The Saint's parents and illustrious family; the bishopric of Trier.

[ ] He had illustrious parents; but they do not deserve credit That our Saint had parents most illustrious by race all the biographers hand down by unanimous consent. The often-praised Thiofrid and the anonymous writer of St. Maximin (by this name I shall henceforth distinguish the author of the Life to be printed in the second place from him who composed the one to be given in the first place, whom I shall call the anonymous writer of Mettlach) say that Gerwinus, Leodowinus's father, drew the line of his family from the most powerful kings of the Franks; but that Gunza, his mother, was noble, or, as Thiofrid has it, equally noble. With these the author of the Life of St. Basinus in volume 1 of March agrees about the father; but he marks Gunza with the title of duchess, as being the sister of Basinus, who according to him was a duke, sprung from the dukes of upper Austrasia. Our anonymous writer of Mettlach says that the Saint was of royal race, sprung from Gerwinus and Gunza, most noble forebears. Higher flies Adalbert of Andernach — so the aforesaid Marc Antoine Dominicy calls the author of a Life of St. Leodowinus, a fragment of which he exhibits among the documents appended to his Ansbert's Family Revived, page 18, framed in these words: In the time of Childebert or Hildebert, the second king of that name of the Franks and Austrasians, there was a certain chief man of senatorial dignity and of royal race, his father being Gerwinus, son of Dagobert king of the Franks, and his mother Gonza, daughter of Arnoald duke of Lorraine, sprung from most noble forebears [*]; who in the font of regeneration took the name Lutwinus; who when already grown embraced with a great privilege of love his maternal uncle Basinus archbishop of Trier, and the brother of his mother Gonza.

[17] what is reported about his genealogy But before we begin the series of the narrative, since the birth of Lord Gerwinus is known to all, we have thought it just to narrate the genealogy of the lady Gonza and the origin of the name Lothreich. She was sprung from the dukes of Lorraine, her father being Arnoald and her mother Oda, daughter of Gozo duke of Swabia. This Arnoald had as father Ansbert duke of Lorraine, and as mother Blitildis, daughter of Clothar king of the Franks, etc. I, Adalbert, unworthy abbot of Moyenmoutier, what I have written about the birth of the holy father Lutwinus, I received from the holy father himself, not only in words but also in writings. If Dominicy had either given more, or if a copy of that Life had come to our hands from elsewhere, perhaps it would be made clear from the context what that Adalbert

wished to be understood by the latter words, which, taken as they stand, clearly signify that the author lived with St. Leodowinus and learned from him what he asserts about his forebears. But they are far from deserving credit. For besides that the author writes things which a contemporary of St. Leodowinus could not have known, Moyenmoutier, in French Moyenmoutier, built in the seventh century by St. Hidulf archbishop of Trier, had no abbot named Adalbert before the middle of the tenth century; before, I say, that Adalbert who about the year 963 translated the body of that same St. Hidulf, as was said in the Commentarius prævius to the Acts of this archbishop in volume III of July.

[18] by Adalbert, Nevertheless, even if the aforesaid words admitted another sense, not even then should I wish to attribute that Life to Adalbert, abbot of Moyenmoutier in the tenth century, lest I be forced to charge a man whom I read to have been in all things distinguished and venerable with notable ignorance in historical matters, when he calls Arnoald and Ansbert, Gunza's father and grandfather as he asserts, dukes of Lorraine, and promises to give the origin of the name Lotreich, as though it were more ancient than our Saint; whereas nevertheless that word only began to be used in the ninth century, when a part of Austrasia was called Lotharingia or Lothariana, commonly Lotrich or Lotreich, from king Lothar the son of the emperor of the same name. But even setting these things aside, the authority of a writer of the tenth century would not suffice for us to assent to what he hands down about Gerwinus; whose birth, namely, he says is known to all, and whose father he confidently pronounces to have been Dagobert king of the Franks; whereas nevertheless no one is found before him, nor anyone whom I know after him, who has either given Dagobert a son Gerwinus, or Gerwinus a father Dagobert.

[19] I prefer therefore to believe that that Life was fabricated or interpolated by a fabulist far more recent than Adalbert abbot of Moyenmoutier, an author probably in disguise. who undertook to declare the stock of Gerwinus and Gunza, St. Leodowinus's parents, less distinctly expressed in the Acts, and, in order to add weight to his own inventions, feigned himself contemporary with the Saint, yet not cunning enough to assume the name and dignity of a man who was known from elsewhere to have lived in those times. Finally I do not think it should be doubted that the fabulist had before his eyes our Life to be printed in the first place. For he began in exactly the same way and retained the same words, only those things being added which he invented for his own purpose, and which for distinction I here enclose in brackets: In the time of Childebert or Hildebert, the second of that name king of the Franks and Austrasians there was a certain chief man of senatorial dignity and of royal race, his father being Gerwinus son of Dagobert king of the Franks and his mother Gunza daughter of Arnoald duke of Lorraine, sprung from most noble forebears [*], who in the font of regeneration took the name Lutwinus. Probably those will detect more interpolations of this kind who, having the whole lucubration of that disguised author, may wish to compare it with the aforesaid Life of our anonymous writer; but, considering the arguments which we have brought forward to strip off his mask, about those interpolations, unless they can be confirmed by more ancient testimony, he will probably pass the same judgment as we upon the fabricated genealogy of St. Leodowinus; namely, that it deserves no credit at all.

[20] With firmer assent we admit that he was a powerful man and marked with the title of duke, He was a duke; whether of royal stock on account of the diploma of Egbert archbishop of Trier, by which he confirms the donations made to the church of St. Paulinus both by himself and by others, whom he recounts in a long list, and in the first place our Saint in these words: On this condition too (I have willed it to be stable and firm, as he had premised) whatever Luthuinus the duke, converted to a monk, and afterwards holy archbishop of this see, conferred in Brambach and in Birkenfeld, in churches or in all other appurtenances, to be held by the brethren serving God and St. Paulinus. That diploma, which may be seen entire in Brower volume 1 of the Annals of Trier page 484, is not indeed the testimony of a contemporary or near-contemporary, being given only in the year 981, about two hundred and seventy years after the Saint's death: nevertheless enumerations and confirmations of ancient donations of this kind in more recent diplomas make it a most probable conjecture that there then existed older charters or documents from which what is recorded about the several donations was taken.

[21] The biographers do not give such confidence; the first of whom, is not sufficiently proved. The time of his birth uncertain; as it seems to us more ancient than the rest, confesses that he narrates his matter partly from tradition, we know not whether received in writing or only by word of mouth, partly from popular report. Moreover, even if we lay down that some things were received in writing, since they are mixed with others, in what way will they be distinguished? On this occasion, therefore, lest the same observation recur too often, let the reader deign to remember that we hold what is reported by the biographers, unless we shall have warned otherwise or shall have confirmed it from more ancient documents, in the same place as the royal lineage of St. Leodowinus asserted by them. About the place of his birth both more recent and older writers are deeply silent; nor do we find anything determined as to the year of his birth. If we were to stand by the reckonings of St. Basinus's biographer, he would not have been born before the year 670, about which Childeric II obtained the monarchy; for he writes thus: When king Childeric was ordering the monarchy of the kingdom, … Gunza … married … a chief man … named Gerwinus… from whom she received a son… Lutwinus. But those reckonings do not please. For it is established that St. Leodowinus was a bishop in the year 698, and accordingly they not only do not allow him the age required for the episcopate, but not even time enough for the rest of his deeds. For indeed according to the same biographer Leodowinus when grown took a wife, raised offspring, dwelt at court, was of the king's council, and, his wife being dead, professed the monastic life in the monastery of Mettlach built by himself, and thence at last was called to the episcopate. Long, therefore, had he been born before Childeric took up the monarchy.

[22] his name variously written by various writers. The name given to the Saint at baptism is uttered in different ways, as could already be noticed in the cited texts of various writers, and may be seen more fully in Le Cointe at the year 698 number 3, and in Solier in the supplements to Usuard at the twenty-ninth day of September; the more common ways of writing are Lutwinus, Luitwinus, and Liutwinus; but, as Brower rightly observes, the ancients called him Leodowinus: nay, the Saint himself so expressed his name in the charters which he subscribed. Three such charters the most illustrious Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, bishop of Myriophyton, suffragan of Trier, exhibits in volume 1 of the Diplomatic History of Trier from page 90; to the first and third of which he appended his name thus: Leodowinus bishop; to the second: I, Leodwinus, bishop, or, as Martène has it in volume 1 of the Amplissima Collectio column 10, Leotwinus. For that reason, among so many variations, I have judged that the word Leodowinus should be preferred, and so I have consistently written; where I was not reciting the words of others, which the aforesaid Le Cointe too commonly observed in the Annals of the Franks. Since, however, in our biographers I read Lutwinus, and that appellation seemed to have prevailed among more recent writers, I have added to the title of the Commentary or Lutwinus, about the etymology of which word I shall observe something in the Annotations.

[23] It is now established that he was a bishop To the same Annotations I reserve whatever requires elucidation in the Acts up to Leodowinus's entry upon the episcopate, of which now. According to our biographers, at the time when St. Leodowinus was practicing the monastic life in the monastery of Mettlach, Basinus died, in whose place he was substituted by the unanimous consent of the people of Trier. That he succeeded Basinus when he was dead is handed down also in the Deeds of the Treveri in Calmet, among the proofs of volume 1 of the History of Lorraine column XIX. To these there have been added Johann Enen in the Marrow of the Deeds of the Treveri, and with others Brower in the Annals at the year 697, saying: About that time too, on the fourth of the Nones of March, Basinus bishop of the Treveri closed his last day; then, some things being interposed: The church of Trier, widowed of a shepherd… decrees to hand itself over to Lutwinus… and to commend to him its flock. But this opinion was generally and deservedly abandoned as soon as the charters mentioned above began to be more attentively considered. For from them it is evidently drawn out both that Basinus lived after the year 697 and that, while he lived, Leodowinus was a bishop.

[24] in the year 698, while Basinus was bishop, Those charters contain the donations which St. Irmina, daughter of king Dagobert II, made to the monastery of Echternach founded by her. And the first, in which the Saint speaks thus: By the inspiration of Christ's mercy, by the counsel of apostolic men, our fathers, the lords Basinus and Leotwinus, bishops … in my own village which is called Echternach … I built a little monastery, is noted as written at Trier on the day of the Kalends of November in the fourth year of our lord Childebert the king, that is, of Christ 698, since, as Pagi proves, Childebert began to reign before the end of March in the year 695. To that charter these subscribe in this order: I, Irmina, in the name of Christ have read over this donation. Basinus bishop. Leodowinus bishop. In the same order the same men sign the second charter, drawn up in the same year on the day of the Kalends of December, and in the same order the third, which belongs to the following year according to these notes: This little charter of donation was made on the day of the Kalends of July in the fifth year of the reign of our lord Childebert the king. A fourth Charter besides is exhibited in the aforesaid Hontheim page 101, which is marked as made at Trier on the eighth of the Ides of May in the tenth year of Childebert the king, that is, of Christ 704, and to which after Irmina Basinus alone subscribes as bishop. Hence what I said at the end of the preceding number becomes manifest.

[25] But in what way were Basinus and Leodowinus bishops at the same time? but in what way is not so agreed among all In volume 1 of the Belgian Diplomas page 243, where Irmina's charter cited by us in the first place is extant, this note is subjoined: Leotwinus or Leodewinus, unless I am mistaken, was the successor of his maternal uncle Basinus in the bishopric or archbishopric of Trier: whom others name Ledwinus or Lutwinus, and write that he was abbot and founder of the monastery of Mettlach. But while his maternal uncle was living, Leodewinus or Ledwinus could have been a bishop ordained for the conversion of the heathen, after the manner of that age. Another way is opened by Johann Wiltheim, a priest of the Society of Jesus, praised by the most illustrious Hontheim in volume 1 page 90. According to Wiltheim, then, Basinus, having abdicated the episcopate, withdrew into the Trier monastery of St. Maximin, in which he had before lived as a monk, and Leodowinus was substituted for him in the episcopate. By either way we reach the end which we seek; we understand in what way Basinus and Leodowinus could be bishops at the same time. Yet the learned even today hold the second as the plainer. And indeed the note in Le Mire is offered only as a conjecture; Wiltheim's opinion rests perhaps on a more solid foundation. Perhaps, I say, for since Wiltheim at the beginning of the last century undertook to write the History of the Trier monastery of St. Maximin, in the sixth book of which he died at Luxembourg in the year 1636, it is right to conjecture that he detected among the ancient records and documents of the said monastery something

whence he might draw out that St. Basinus lived at the end of his life in that monastery in which he was in fact buried.

[26] Add that, even if we grant that Wiltheim's is a mere conjecture, it is agreed. it is at least no less likely than the annotation in Le Mire, nor does either of the two so explain the matter that the charters to which Basinus and Leodowinus subscribed together as bishops may be reconciled with the assertions of the biographers. For as according to Wiltheim it is false that St. Leodowinus ascended the see of Trier only after Basinus's death, as the biographers will have it, so the annotator's conjecture denies that, while St. Leodowinus was practicing the monastic life in the monastery of Mettlach and, as the first biographer expressly has it, was humbling himself under the authority of his abbot, archbishop Basinus died, and that he himself, much resisting, as the second biographer adds, was carried off from the monastery to the episcopate. Since before Basinus's death Leodowinus had already long governed the church of Trier in Wiltheim's opinion, but in the annotator's opinion, while Basinus was governing the said church, he was himself a bishop ordained for the conversion of the heathen, certainly from the year 698 until 704, in which Basinus was still living.

* forebears

* otherwise: forebears

§ III. The bishoprics of Reims and Laon wrongly ascribed to him; a miracle suspected of fable; the likely origin of both fabulous traditions.

[ ] That the Saint was not at once bishop at Trier, Reims, and Laon, There is another thing too, which, handed down by our biographers and by the authors of the Deeds of the Treveri, and adopted by others, is now generally rejected by the learned. The anonymous writer of Mettlach comprises it in the following words: When therefore he had ruled the hearts of his subjects by the examination of universal discretion, and had so allured all his neighbors by the fragrance of his virtues that the citizens of Reims and likewise of Laon, who had lately lost their people's shepherd, asked to be governed by his most upright rule. Which burden the holy Father, overcome by brotherly charity, God so disposing it, undertook; and, upheld by the support of the threefold Deity, alone happily administered the helms of three cities. At more length the other anonymous writer, and in few words the authors of the Deeds of the Treveri: He succeeded bishop Basinus … and presided over the people of Reims and of Laon. Finally, to pass over more recent writers, Scheckmann after Johann Enen says this: He succeeded Basinus. He rendered himself so illustrious by the great spiritual splendor of prelates that he was taken as bishop both by the people of Reims and of Laon. All add that Leodowinus died at Reims, and that indeed in such a way that you understand it to have happened while he was actually governing three churches at once.

[28] is proved by many arguments To these assertions there is opposed first that neither in the catalogues of the bishops of Reims nor in those of Laon has any place been granted to Leodowinus. Secondly, that the see of Reims at least does not seem to have been vacant throughout the whole time in which the Saint occupied that of Trier, and certainly was not vacant in the year 713, about which we shall show that he died. For, as Flodoard witnesses in book 2 chapter XI of the History of the church of Reims, blessed Rigobert succeeded lord Reolus in the bishopric of Reims. But Rigobert already occupied the see of Reims from the second year of king Clovis III, that is, according to the reckonings now more received, of Christ 692, and held it until 717. The first is shown from the Privilege given to the monks of Der by Bertoendus bishop of Châlons, suffragan of the metropolis of Reims. It is extant in volume 10 of d'Achery's Spicilegium page 627 and has this exordium: To the holy lords and to those presiding on the heights of the apostolic pontifical chair of the highest summit, brothers in Christ or fellow-bishops, Rigobert the metropolitan, Basinus, Stephen, Adalbert, Alo, Madalgarius, I, though unworthy in my order, yet bishop of Châlons, suppliant send greeting in the Lord. Then the privilege is said to have been granted at the request of king Clovis and Pippin Mayor of the palace, and after many things it closes thus: Done and given publicly at Reims, which the month of February made on the fifteenth day, in the second year of our glorious lord Clovis the king. At that time, as we learn from the catalogues of bishops, Basinus, who elsewhere is commonly written Bainus, governed the church of Thérouanne, Adalbert or Adolbert that of Soissons, Madalgarius that of Laon, all then suffragans of the metropolis of Reims; the sees of Stephen and Alo I have not been able to find. But to return to my purpose, the church of Reims therefore had Rigobert as bishop in the year 692, or at any rate in the year 694, which I add for the sake of those who contend that the second year of king Clovis must be deferred to that year. But the church of Reims had that same Rigobert as bishop down to the year 717; which we prove by undoubted testimonies.

[29] Flodoard, praised above, when he had said: Blessed Rigobert succeeded lord Reolus, and by the testimonies of the ancients and had narrated his chief deeds, especially the goods and privileges with which he both himself enriched his church and took care that it should be enriched by king Dagobert II and others, begins chapter 12 thus: At length, a quarrel having arisen between king Chilperic and Charles, the son of the aforesaid Pippin (of Herstal), and Raginfrid the mayor of the palace, that Charles, passing near the city of Reims, is reported to have called to blessed Rigobert, stationed above the gate of the city, that he should order that same gate to be opened for him, so that he might be able to go to the church of the holy Mother of God to pray. To him urging this with repeated calls the man of the Lord is reported to have answered that he would not open it to him before he knew what end the quarrel that had begun would take, lest perhaps he should betray the city committed to him to be plundered by him who had already plundered the goods of several other cities. To this Charles is asserted to have threatened furiously that if he returned a victor in peace, that same man of God would no longer remain safe in that city… And so the aforesaid Charles, as soon as he had gained the principate by war, drove from his bishopric this man of the Lord Rigobert, his own patron, who (as is handed down) had received him from the holy font, and gave this bishopric to a certain Milo, a cleric by tonsure only, because he had gone forth with him to war. Thus Flodoard, in agreement with what, about Rigobert's expulsion and Milo's intrusion, in the very eighth century in which they happened, Adrian I the Roman Pontiff wrote back to Tilpin archbishop of Reims in the following words, in the same place chapter 13: Your fraternity has reported to us that, discord arising among the Franks, the archbishop of Reims, Rigobert by name, was cast down and expelled from his see against the canons … only because he did not before consent to the part of him who afterwards took that part of that kingdom into his own power … and the bishopric was given … by secular powers to a certain Milo, a cleric by tonsure only, etc.

[30] Hincmar, in the following century bishop of Reims, records similar things about Milo in the prologue to the Life of St. Remigius the bishop, it is proved. and attributes the evils which at that time befell this and other churches to the contentions and wars between Charles Martel and Raginfrid, mayor of Chilperic. Some of his words will be given below. Finally the biographer of St. Rigobert in our Work volume 1 of January page 176 exhibits the whole history at length, and writes that this Saint's expulsion from his see happened after Charles's battle in the field of Vinchy against Chilperic and Raginfrid. The battle at Vinchy in the district of Cambrai all by unanimous consent bind to the year 717, which was the second of king Chilperic: hence many attach Rigobert's expulsion to the same year, judging that it followed soon after the battle; others deny this and place the expulsion later: but it is not the place here to discuss that question further. What was to the purpose here was to show that from the year 692 or 694 the church of Reims had no other bishop than Rigobert until 717, and we judge that this has been clearly done by the testimonies cited; and thence we conclude that it is not probable that Leodowinus occupied the sees of Trier, Reims, and Laon at once; nay, that it is certain that he did not occupy that of Reims when he died about the year 713.

[31] Hence the miracle becomes more suspect From the improbability of one assertion, so clearly shown, there arises a great suspicion — to say nothing harsher — about the truth of another which the authors of the Deeds of the Treveri assert, and our same biographers, and especially the anonymous writer of Mettlach in these words: At a certain time, when he (St. Leodowinus) was to celebrate the order of sacred grades with the clergy of Reims, there were present also messengers of the people of Laon, asking that he should bestow the same office upon them. But since the Man of God wished to satisfy both, he is reported to have asked the heavenly Clemency that what they could not do by their own efficacy [*] his omnipotence might deign to supply. The eternal Arbiter at once heard from on high the purity of his prayer, and, the law of the sun being broken, so prolonged the day that, the office being fully performed for the citizens of the city of Reims, coming to Laon he likewise performed it at a suitable time. Of the absolute possibility of this miracle no one but an atheist will doubt; but prodigies of this kind, in order to command full belief, require a greater likelihood in their circumstances and a greater authority in their writers. For since the people of Reims certainly had their own bishop, the conferring of sacred Orders in another's diocese lessens the likelihood of the miracle. It could indeed be replied that this happened with the consent of, and at the request of, the bishops of Laon and of Reims, on account of illness or some other inconvenience or hindrance; but these are mere conjectures.

[32] which the biographers narrate to have been done at Reims and Laon. Besides, I do not discover a sufficiently urgent cause why the messengers of Laon should have asked for a thing which they knew to be impossible to the powers of nature alone, or why the Saint should so greatly have desired to satisfy them that for that end he asked a miracle from God. Finally, neither do I sufficiently perceive why the memory of that matter should have been preserved among the people of Trier, and not likewise among those of Reims and Laon, for whose sake and in whose sight so memorable a prodigy would have been wrought. Add to these the weak authority of the documents on which the tradition of the miracle rests: first, of the Deeds of the Treveri or History of Trier, which had no author more ancient than the ninth century, and which is sprinkled with many fables, as is agreed today among the learned and was abundantly proved in volume IV of September at the fourteenth day in the Commentary on the Deeds of St. Maternus the bishop: secondly, of our biographers, who most probably drew that prodigy from the same source as the improbable episcopate of St. Leodowinus over three churches at once: namely from tradition and popular report, to which as the foundation of his narrative the biographer, in my opinion the first of all, has recourse; or at any rate from the said History of Trier, which, although fabulous in many things, I nevertheless reckon more ancient than our Acts. And in it the matters here in controversy, and others pertaining to the Saint, are thus recorded in Calmet: His maternal uncle Basinus being dead, he (Lutvinus) succeeded him as bishop, being elected, and presided over the people of Reims and of Laon, in which two, on one day, by God's grant, he celebrated the consecration of sacred Orders. He died at Reims and, brought back by his son Milo to the people of Trier, a divine sign being given, was buried at Mettlach [*]. Let us unfold the last words somewhat, perhaps thus attaining at least by conjecture whence the traditions of St. Leodowinus's threefold episcopate and of the prodigious conferring of Orders took their origin.

[33] That the Saint died at Reims all likewise hand down after our biographers He is believed to have died at Reims, who have embraced the opinion of his threefold episcopate: nor have I found one

even among the adversaries of the said opinion who has absolutely attacked his death in the city of Reims: although there are not wanting those who, evading that question, have assigned no place of death; probably because they neither trusted the testimony of the History of Trier, nor were furnished with arguments by which either to confirm or to refute it. Peter Merssaeus Cratepolius in the Annals of the archbishops of Trier, making no mention of St. Leodowinus's presidency at Reims or Laon, none of the miraculous conferring of Orders, says: At length, when he had set out for Reims to a general council, he died there. We do not know whether he received this from some document endowed with authority, or asserted it gratuitously in order to conform himself to the common tradition about the place of his death, and to assign some cause or other why the Saint set out for Reims. There could indeed have been several causes for going there; but since no other more approved is brought forward, we do not wish to be here more difficult than Le Cointe at the year 713 number 20, saying thus: We do not deny that Luitwinus died at Reims and was buried at Mettlach; nor do we deny that he set out for Reims to be present at a general council, that is, at a synod convoked from both Belgic provinces, although the Acts of that council are not extant.

[34] That St. Leodowinus had a son named Milo, begotten of a lawful marriage whose bishopric at the same time before he bade farewell to the world, as is handed down in the Acts and indicated in the History of Trier, is likewise an opinion received by all, or at least attacked by no one whom I know. This Milo, according to our Acts, was substituted by the people of Trier for his deceased Father in the episcopal see. But according to the History of Trier he seized his father's chair by a tyrannical invasion, having thrust out St. Chlodulf, formerly bishop of Metz, whom the people of Trier had put in Leodowinus's place. But here again the History obtrudes a fable. Chlodulf, whose Acts were arranged at the eighth day of June, has no place in the ancient catalogues of the bishops of Trier, nor, even if against the common opinion of the learned today it were proved that he occupied that see for some time, could he have been substituted for St. Leodowinus, before whose death he had himself long since died. More correctly and more conformably to the Acts and to the Catalogues of Trier that succession is set forth in the Fragment on the Deeds of the bishops of Trier, which Mabillon published in part 2 of the third Benedictine Century page 612. For there, the death and burial of St. Leodowinus being narrated in the same words recited at number 32 from the History, it is presently added: After whom Milo his son discharged the priestly office among the Treveri and at Reims; at first indeed an imitator of his Father, afterwards he became a Tyrant, and nothing in him shone of clerical honor or life except the tonsure alone.

[35] Those words: At first indeed an imitator of his Father, not obscurely signify Milo his son occupied along with that of Trier; that some bishopric was justly and lawfully governed by Milo for at least a little while, and that beyond doubt the one of Trier; since that of Reims, according to the testimonies cited above, he usurped, St. Rigobert having been expelled against the canons. In this milder sense perhaps that text of Hincmar in the Preface to the Life of St. Remigius must be understood: So that a certain Milo, a cleric by tonsure, in morals and habit and act an irreligious layman, usurping the bishoprics of Reims and of Trier, ruined them together for about forty years. So in our manuscript copy. However that may be, it is certainly established that Milo held the bishopric of both churches, and that suffices for forming such conjectures as we may about the origin of the tradition of St. Leodowinus's threefold episcopate. The writers of Trier of the ninth or tenth century knew that St. Leodowinus was certainly their bishop; they knew too that Milo was theirs, and besides bishop of Reims; and hence they easily concluded that Milo was his Father's successor in the see of Reims as well as of Trier, especially while they believed and perhaps certainly knew that Leodowinus had died at Reims.

[36] whence perhaps arose the tradition of a threefold episcopate But, you say, whence was born the tradition of St. Leodowinus's bishopric of Laon? I suspect that it is a mere ornament of history, invented to this end, that St. Leodowinus might not be inferior in the number of his bishoprics to St. Maternus, who was read to have presided over three churches at once, those of Trier, Cologne, and Tongres. And indeed those two holy Bishops were equal in many things, or more truly perhaps I shall say, were made equal by the writers. Maternus presided by pontifical right over three cities (Trier, Cologne, and Tongres), in each of which he is reported to have celebrated the divine Office on one and the same Easter day. These are the words of the often-mentioned Deeds or History of Trier. Leodowinus, according to the same History, as bishop of Trier presided over the people both of Reims and of Laon, in which two, on one day, by God's grant, he celebrated the consecration of sacred Orders. Maternus died at Cologne … whose death being learned, the people of Trier presently set out for Cologne, demanding back their shepherd. They long disputed about the body with the people of Cologne and of Tongres; until by the counsel of an appearing angel the quarrel was settled. Leodowinus died at Reims, and, as the same History witnesses, being brought back by his son Milo to the people of Trier, a divine sign being given, was buried [at] Mettlach: and as our first biographer witnesses: The men of Trier … having learned of the death of the gracious Bishop (Leodowinus) … hastened swiftly to the city of Reims with Milo, and carried off to their own place the sacred treasure, obtained with great difficulty but by God's nod.

[37] and was afterwards adorned with circumstances from the Acts of St. Maternus. The body of St. Maternus, as the History reports, being placed by an angel's warning on a ship, so that it might be borne where God willed, no steersman guiding it, was directed against the waves to the shore of Trier. The body of St. Leodowinus, as the biographer narrates, having been carried as far as Trier, could in no way be brought into the city: A counsel therefore being held among the chief men about so unexpected a matter, they placed the most holy pledge, the oarsman being removed, upon a vessel, all together asking the Governor of the world that he would grant it to be directed thither where his will was. Presently therefore the ship swims along the channel of the Moselle against the current … enters the river Saar, makes for Mettlach. In volume IV of September, where we treated of St. Maternus, we signified our judgment about his prodigies, already touched on on this occasion. But those things which are here attributed to St. Leodowinus we reckon among things not sufficiently proved, and, on account of the likeness noted with those others, also among the more suspect.

* read: posset

* otherwise: to Mettlach

§ IV. The year of his death; his burial; his epitaph; the translation of his body; his cult; his relics.

[ ] The Saint died about the year 713; I shall not here discuss the opinions or assertions of various writers about the Saint's year of death. I shall bring forward the foundations of one only, which is today the most common, and which places his death about the year of Christ 713. Milo, St. Leodowinus's immediate successor in the see of Trier, ruined this and the see of Reims for about forty years, as is clear from Hincmar's testimony in the preface to the Life of St. Remigius. And Milo died in the year 753, as is even now commonly laid down, and is chiefly deduced from the time in which Tilpin after Milo's death governed the church of Reims as its lawful shepherd. That time Hincmar expressed by these notes in Tilpin's Epitaph in Flodoard book 2 chapter 17: For more than forty years; but the author of the Appendix to the same Flodoard expressed the end of Tilpin's life by these: Tilpin the archbishop having died in the twenty-third year after Carloman handed over to the church of Reims the estate of Novilliacum, he held, etc. Carloman made this donation, according to what is premised in the same place, in the fourth year of his reign and the last of his life, which was of Christ 771; and accordingly Tilpin died in the year 794, the twenty-third from the donation made, and the forty-first from the death of Milo as laid down, which number of years squares with Hincmar's notes: For more than forty years. Flodoard, however, gives Tilpin forty-seven years of episcopate, and hence Le Cointe contends that his death must be deferred to the year of Christ 800. But that question ought not to detain us: since even in Le Cointe's opinion, going backward, we arrive at 753, the last of Milo's life and the first of Tilpin's episcopate. But since for about forty years, as Hincmar witnesses, Milo ruined both bishoprics, and it does not appear likely that he did this while Leodowinus was alive, the latter's death does not seem able to be more rightly fixed than about the year 713, when he probably began to occupy the see of Trier; although only a few years afterwards, namely about 717, he at the same time usurped that of Reims. Nor does Hincmar's text refuse such an exposition, as it is exhibited in our manuscript copy of the Life of St. Remigius, for in it the particle about is expressly added, which in Brower, where the text is recited, was omitted.

[39] The Saint died at Reims, and thence his sacred body was translated to Mettlach, buried at Mettlach he shone with miracles; as the common tradition set forth above reports. Buried there, he shone with very frequent miracles, and was shining even then when his Acts were collected, as both our anonymous writers testify; and the second indeed in these words: For, to omit how many things we have heard; but [*] if we should wish to commit to writing only those things which we have seen with our eyes, we should exceed the measure of a volume. Both assert in general that the blind were given sight, the sick restored to health, the possessed freed from a demon, etc. But neither unfolds the history of any particular miracle. To the Acts indeed to be printed in the first place there is subjoined in our manuscript collection an Account of certain miracles; but no other connection is discerned between this and those which would persuade that both lucubrations proceeded from the same author. On the contrary, the Account has a new prologue, and in it some things are narrated about St. Leodowinus and his son Milo, which, if the author had been the same, he would either not have repeated here fittingly enough, as being already in part said in the Acts, or would more suitably for clarity's sake have inserted into the Acts themselves. The reader will be able to perceive this more fully from the prologue itself and from the Annotations to be subjoined to it. Further, from the same prologue it will appear that the author was an inhabitant of the monastery of Mettlach and wrote in the eleventh century of Christ: but from the account of the miracles which are ascribed to St. Leodowinus it will be possible to conjecture that his cult and veneration were notable in those times. On account of that celebrity of his cult it probably came about that the church of the said monastery was also called by his name by the ancients. Certainly the authors of the Deeds or History of Trier so called it in Calmet chapter 40 in these words: Some say that he handed over the goods of the churches of holy Eucharius and of holy Lutwinus to his own princes in benefice — the matter concerns Hetti, in the ninth century bishop of Trier.

[40] The verses cut on the tomb are perhaps not more ancient Brower in book 7 of the Annals of Trier writes thus about the Saint's burial in the church of Mettlach at the year 718: He has a tomb of lofty workmanship, a shrine being set apart for him from the chief building. Ancient verses cut on the sepulchre attest the greatness of his memory; worthy indeed, if you measure by their faith; but, if by their number and polish, rough and shaggy. But it is surely base thus to be led by the sense of the ears and by the allurements of words, so that of truth

and of faith the simplicity should be broken, as it were by their enticements.

Here the notable father Luitwinus, the fountain of piety, Whose sacred pledges rest in this tomb, Once, when he abounded in copious riches, Was made a monk; hereafter to be a pattern to many, Here breaking with all his strength the fires of the flesh. After these things, the pledge of the archimandrite coming upon him, And having obtained the sheepfold of the flock of the city of Trier, As shepherd he led that life itself full of virtues. At last with the palm he happily departed to the stars, Granting the effect of their prayers to all who ask him. Wherefore pour out prayers to him with a faithful mind, That the plague may continually be far off, the citizen being safe.

[41] than the fifteenth century, in which the body was translated, There is nothing that I would add to Brower's judgment about the number and polish of the verses. We too neither disdain nor ever suppress documents on account of the roughness or hardness of their style; of whatever sort they be, they are precious, provided they have antiquity, truth, and trustworthiness joined together: nay, as our plan requires, we sometimes set before the eyes of our readers insipid documents, destitute of those three qualities, especially when they are not too lengthy and thus far unpublished, so that they may themselves judge how justly they are rejected as false or fabulous. Those little verses therefore, however rough and shaggy, would be very precious to us, if Brower had added some certain indication for establishing their notable antiquity, namely a greater antiquity than that of our Acts and of the other testimonies which we have already given for the ancient cult and the greatness of St. Leodowinus's memory. He says they were cut on the sepulchre; on what sepulchre? On that in which the sacred body was first laid? Or on another, into which it was afterwards transferred? For that the body was changed in place Bucelin testifies in part 2 of Sacred Germany page 232: but he leaves us uncertain whether it was taken together with the tomb or sarcophagus, or was taken out of it when worn away by age and laid in a new one, on which that metrical epitaph could then first have been inscribed. But in this case how little the little verses would be commended for their antiquity, Bucelin's words will make manifest, comprising the time of the translation: Tilmann, requested from the monastery of Prüm, a most praiseworthy prelate (of Mettlach), who in the year of Christ 1494 translated the body of Bl. Luitwinus, to whom he erected an altar, on which he had a panel painted elegant to a marvel, as also on the high altar, and adorned the monastery with various buildings, died 1504.

[42] Moreover, since the date of the little verses is so far uncertain, and wrongly with Trithemius no one will wonder why we have not adduced their authority to confirm in some degree the credit of our Acts, with which in most things they agree. For what strength could the little verses bring to the Acts, while we deservedly fear that they are far more recent than they? I said that in most things they agree with the Acts; because I wish that faulty line to be excepted:

After these things, the pledge of the archimandrite coming upon him;

by which words the author doubtless denoted that St. Leodowinus, before he entered upon the episcopate, was abbot of the monastery of Mettlach; as Johann Trithemius expressly asserted in On the illustrious Men of the Order of St. Benedict book 3 chapter 188, saying: In which (monastery of Mettlach, Leodowinus), laying aside his hair, was first made a monk, then abbot there, and last of all, as we have said, bishop of the Treveri. Trithemius repeats the same in the same work book 4 chapter 72, and in it he had as supporters Arnold Wion in the Notes to the Benedictine Martyrology on the twenty-ninth of September, Bucelin on the same day in his Menology, and the aforesaid Brower at the year 697 in the margin. But the first biographer contradicts, saying that while the Saint was humbling himself under the authority of his abbot, and entangling himself with the brethren in the bond of charity, so that in the advance of virtues none was higher than he, in the contempt of humility none was found lower, archbishop Basinus died and he was substituted for him. Silent too about the abbatial dignity are the second biographer, the authors of the Life of St. Basinus, and of the Deeds or History of Trier.

[43] Hence the distrust of the epitaph's antiquity grows: for if at the time in which those authors wrote the little verses had existed cut on the sepulchre, what would have moved the first, a monk according to what has been said above of that same monastery, to speak in such a way as so openly to deny the dignity asserted for St. Leodowinus in the verses? What the others, who were wont rather to increase than to lessen the Saint's honors, to pass over this one thing in silence? Trithemius's authority is here of no weight; for besides that he wrote only at the end of the fifteenth century or the beginning of the sixteenth, he erred in other things too. In the cited book 3 he says that the Saint flourished in the year of the Lord 730, in book 4 in the year of the Lord 770, in both places later than the truth. Opposed too to the antiquity of the little verses and to Trithemius is the deep silence about the abbatial dignity here in controversy in the sacred Calendars, both published and unpublished, except in the aforesaid Menology of Bucelin and perhaps a few others not more ancient, among which not even the Benedictine Martyrology can be numbered; since Wion made St. Leodowinus an abbot only in the Notes to it, taken from Trithemius.

[44] Nevertheless, when you hear sacred Calendars, do not understand those classic genuine Martyrologies of Rabanus, Ado, Notker, The sacred Calendars in which his name Usuard, and the like, who were nearer to St. Leodowinus, in which not even his name is to be read. Understand the supplements to Usuard and Calendars of this kind composed long after the Saint's times. From the aforesaid Supplements I set first today's announcement of the Usuard published at Cologne and Lübeck in the year 1490, that is, four years before the translation of the sacred body reported above: In the monastery of Mettlach [*] near Trier, the deposition of holy Lutwinus, bishop of Trier and confessor, who first was a duke in France, and, building a monastery there, was made a monk; then he becomes archbishop of Trier, shining with many miracles, and afterwards rested in the Lord. More concise are the Announcements of the other Supplements, which, that you may at the same time notice the diversity of the name among various writers indicated before, I transfer here. The Danish codex, which seemed to Solier not more recent than the fourteenth century, has as follows: At Trier, of holy Lincwinus the bishop. The Brussels one: At Trier in the monastery of Mettlach, the deposition of holy Lindeminus, archbishop and confessor. The Register of the Charterhouse of Utrecht: Of Lutwinus, bishop of Trier. Greven's edition: At Trier, of holy Ludwinus, bishop and confessor. Molanus's editions: On the same day, in the monastery of Mettlach near Trier, the birthday of holy Loutwinus, archbishop and confessor of that same aforesaid city. To these I add our Florarium of Saints, written in the fifteenth century: At Trier in the monastery of Mettlach, the deposition of holy Lintwinus, bishop and confessor, who, while he was still a layman, set nothing before the divine service, and enriched the places of the Saints with most ample gifts.

[45] is inscribed; in the Office of the diocese of Trier The Saint's memory is extant also in the very ancient Martyrology of the Trier monastery of St. Maximin, which Martène and Durand published in volume 6 of the Amplissima Collectio from column 637, and which they testified was written eight hundred years ago and bears the name of the venerable Bede, although they did not dare to assert it a pure offspring of Bede, warning besides that to the entry of the twenty-ninth day of September this following announcement had been added by another hand: On the same day, of St. Liutwinus the archbishop. Thus far the Saint has not obtained a place in the Roman Martyrology; but he is celebrated in the Benedictine ones, in the German, the Gallican, and commonly in other more recent ones, whose words I forbear to recite for brevity's sake. As concerns his present-day cult, nothing about it in particular offers itself to be observed: that a yearly commemoration of him is made on this day in the Office of St. Michael the archangel we learn from the Lectionary or Proper of the Saints of Trier, which for the sake of those who recite the Roman Office was published there in print in the year 1645, and which has a proper ninth lesson about him, which I transfer here.

[46] a commemoration of him is made with a proper lesson: Lutwinus, nephew by a sister of his predecessor holy Basinus, a worthy successor of royal blood. He, first spurning riches, taken with the beauty of virtue and the pursuit of wisdom, began to profess himself a monk in the monastery of Mettlach by the streams of the Saar, which he himself had founded: then, being called from the obscurity of private life to the lofty episcopal summit, he flourished through his whole life with a notable preaching of virtue and innocence of morals. He induced blessed Irmina by his consent and counsels to confer splendid possessions on St. Willibrord. Among the several churches which he furnished with things pertaining to worship and adornment, he enlarged the church of holy Paulinus with magnificent estates: at the same time also he undertook the oversight of the churches of Reims and Laon at the request of the faithful people. Nor, forgetting his native community of Mettlach, he increased it with possessions and privileges. Finally, broken in the strength of his body and full of good works, when he had presided over the church twenty-one years, having ended his mortal life at Reims, he departed to the Lord in the year of Christ seven hundred and eighteen, on the third of the Kalends of October. Whose body, which his son Milo, whom he had before begotten in marriage, translated thence, by God's sign was laid in an honorable tomb in the monastery of Mettlach.

[47] Many observations could here be made upon what is contained in that Lesson; At Mettlach he is doubtless venerated more solemnly, and perhaps but most we have already partly touched in passing in the preceding sections, partly discussed more laboriously, and the rest we shall elucidate in the Annotations. With what yearly cult he is honored among the people of Mettlach we cannot say for certain, documents being lacking; nevertheless, since they have been accustomed, as is clear from what has been said before, to acknowledge him as their Founder, to call him Patron and to venerate him, and since their church has been enriched with the treasure of his sacred body, it does not seem to be doubted that this cult always was, and even now is, most solemn. It is likely too that in certain particular churches, either because they were of old increased in goods by him, or because they possess his relics, the yearly memory of the Saint is kept with a more festive rite than throughout the whole diocese of Trier.

[48] Among these perhaps in the first place is to be mentioned, also elsewhere, where relics are preserved. and therefore is expressly named in the Lesson, the church of St. Paulinus, which, as the lesson reports, was increased by him with many goods, as is established from the words of Egbert, in the tenth century bishop of Trier, given at number 20. There is added our manuscript Martyrology or Calendar, marked in the upper margin with these characters: Of Trier, of St. Paulinus, of the proper Saints. For in it at the twenty-ninth day of September, without any mention of another Saint, the following are read: In the monastery of Mettlach near Trier, the birthday of St. Lutwinus, archbishop and confessor of the said city. Further, in the monastery of holy Mary at the Martyrs, which within the city of Trier (these are the words of the most illustrious Hontheim, volume 1 of the Diplomatic History page 74) on the bank of the Moselle is believed to have arisen under archbishop Ludwinus and by his favor and patronage, among various relics of the Saints there is preserved a finger of holy Lutwinus the archbishop, as Scheckmann writes in the Marrow of the Deeds of the Treveri page 57. Relics of the same are recorded also in the little book on the Relics, Bulls, privileges, etc., of the Trier monastery of St. Martin, which little book was published in print at Cologne in the year 1514. Likewise in another little book on the Relics and indulgences

of the Trier monastery of St. Maximin; and finally in a Treatise printed in German on the Relics which are at Trier in the greater church; but what or of what sort the relics of St. Leodowinus in these three churches are is not declared.

* perhaps: si

* of Mettlach

LIFE

of slight authority

By an anonymous monk of Mettlach

From a Trier manuscript.

Leodowinus or Lutwinus, archbishop of Trier. (S.)

BHL Number: 4955

BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.

PROLOGUE

The author indicates Great profit of edification ^a does it confer upon us, that the reader be always exercised in reading the deeds of the pious; while either, terrified by the vengeance taken on the wicked among them, he shrinks from doing the like, or, allured by the reward of the upright, he desires by imitating their life to deserve such things. For all the variety of scripture proclaims the Founder of things by the manifold narration of deeds, as having been discovered by the gift of his own grace; and either by the rectitude of justice shown to the wicked, or by the mildness of gentleness bestowed on the just according to their merits, invites to the acknowledgment of the Creator. There is therefore no such usefulness [*] of the writer, nor is there any brevity of the scripture itself, resting as it does upon divine authority, in which some examples of life cannot be searched out, if there be one who studiously examines its inner parts.

[2] that the Saint's deeds had thus far been collected by no one. Whence, entering upon a certain beginning of a work of narration, I first with counsel [] admonish the reader, and I ask all into whose hands or ears these things may perhaps come, not to inquire curiously by whom or in what manner these same things were said; but to see what of edification they have in themselves, or whose merits they proclaim. For it is in my mind, out of the life of our special father Lutwinus, as out of a certain meadow of the greenest pleasantness, filled with flowers of every kind, to pluck out certain notable marks of his virtues, lest the deeds of so great a Man be passed over in silence … ^b Although therefore his memory is perpetually inserted in the book of life, yet no account in books about his life has yet chanced to come down to us which would give a certain knowledge of his deeds. But certain things about him handed down to us [] by the diligence of the first men, and certain things hitherto spread abroad by popular report, I shall begin to narrate, trusting in his help, lest the bushel of oblivion hide the lamp of such a Man. Not therefore do I approach these things as though I were sufficient for so great a work, but that these same things may nevertheless be ennobled by a clearer eloquence ^c.

ANNOTATIONS.

* perhaps: vilitas

* perhaps: consulte

* abounds: nobis

SINGLE CHAPTER

The Saint, illustrious by race In the time therefore of king Childebert ^a there was a certain chief man of senatorial dignity and of royal race, sprung from most noble forebears, his father being Gerwinus and his mother Gunza; who in the font of regeneration took the name Lutwinus ^b. He, when already grown, took a wife like himself in race, and, the Lord advancing him to secular dignity, obtained the honor of the dukedom of the whole kingdom of the Franks ^c. He was so assiduous a reliever of the needy, so gentle a consoler of the wretched and the sorrowful, so bountiful a bestower of alms, and finally shone forth as so complete a performer of an innocent life, that if we should wish to unfold with the pen only the works of his piety, we should seem to exceed the course of our narration.

[4] To him too there was supplied a very great abundance of earthly goods, and powerful, adorns holy places with his goods; and an affluence of momentary happiness smiled upon him abundantly. In these, however, he did not presume to fix his heart; he preferred rather to subject them to himself than himself to them. Although he enjoyed the royal sweetness [*] of love above all men, as one who understood this to be more powerful and more useful than the rest, yet he did not place the anchor of his mind in these, but desired to be enrolled in the ranks of the soldiers of the heavenly Emperor; and while he was engaging himself in every way in the pursuits of holy things, yet, that he might advance still further [and] attain the summit of perfection, he determined to strip himself of everything that seemed subject to him ^d, and, as one unencumbered, to follow Christ, who promised him a hundredfold. For first he gave to holy places, and especially to those of the city of Trier, most ample sums of money, and all the rest which he had he wished to bestow for building dwellings for suitable monks. When he had tried to build in some places, and by God's nod full effect had not followed, he turned aside to the place of Mettlach, and there, if the divine will breathed favorably, he wished to build a monastery.

[5] Which place was for this reason exceedingly pleasing and very well known to him, at Mettlach, being admonished, as is reported, by a divine sign, because he had traversed all its windings, searching out the lairs of wild beasts in continual hunting. For, with the wooded ridges of mountains projecting on every side, and a river cutting through the midst of the pleasantness of the valley, it received the fitting name Mediolacum, and afforded a most suitable range for the woodland beasts. It pleased the Divinity also to disclose by certain signs that that same place would be worthy to be devoted to his services. For on a certain occasion [*], as faithful antiquity hands down to posterity, when Lutwinus, the Man full of God, had come from the hunt into this solitude, and had given his weary limbs to rest, a light sleep crept over his wearied members; but an eagle with outspread wings protected from heaven the face of the sleeper from the heat of the burning sun.

[6] Struck by this strange thing, his armor-bearer recounted everything in order to him when he awoke. To whom, however, he himself under a great adjuration forbade that these things should ever become known to any man while he lived. he builds churches to St. Denis, And so the holy Man, gathering that heavenly grace favored him, began there to set up an oratory to God in honor of the precious martyr Denis, and placed in it the pledges of that martyr and of many other Saints. The day of its dedication is noted at that article of the same Calendar on which the solemnity of that martyr's martyrdom is celebrated by lawful custom ^e. The solemnity too of this dedication, according to the decrees appointed by posterity, a multitude of people frequents each year with yearly devotion, and honors that same church emulously with candles and other offerings, because it is the first-founded, established for the salvation not only of that place but also of the region lying round about. And when the prayer is completed and Mass has been heard with festive solemnity, each one receives from the guardian of the monastery a piece of bread with wine; and thus, giving thanks to holy Denis and acclaiming good fortune to those who dwell in the place, each returns gladly to his own.

[7] Then all his labor is bestowed [*] there upon building a monastery, to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to St. Peter, together with a monastery, and, having gathered craftsmen of such work, he strove that it might be completed the sooner. He therefore set up an oratory in the name of the prince of the Apostles, and a basilica to the honor of the highest Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, to whose guardianship he assigned the place together with all things belonging to it. On the day of its dedication he handed over to those who were to serve there a thousand manses ^f, and did not cease daily to enrich it with necessary things and with various pledges of the Saints: and, that there might not be lacking there men serving God who should continually offer to the highest Pontiff the victims of heart and mouth, he gathered there a worthy congregation, poor indeed in revenue, but having inestimable treasures of merits; to which he gave so great an abundance of his revenues as should suffice. Over these too he set an abbot, a man to be reckoned equal in all things to the perfect, and commanded that they should live according to the institutes of the regular life. After therefore he had earnestly fulfilled everything which the need of the inhabitants required, and had left Christ the heir of his goods, he himself, poor, wished to associate himself with the poor and little flock, to whom it pleased the Father to give the kingdom. For, some being associated with him who desired to enter upon the same purpose, he consecrated his vow of going to that most beloved place and of his intention to the everlasting sacred Virgin Mary: that by the worthy merits of her intercessions before God the beginnings of his conversion might accord with a fitting end of works.

[8] in which he too embraces the religious life Then, the unanimous consent of the brethren being called together, he humbly asked to be admitted into their society, and, laying aside his beard with the secular habit, he received the tonsure of the Lord's heirs with the garb of monastic profession. But what works of holy pursuits he performed in that same monastery, or what fastings and continual exercises of prayer with insistence upon vigils, and finally all the works of an angelic life on earth, what need is there to note with the pen, since by the crown of eternal reward we can infer the quality of the struggle? Who, although under the monastic habit he lived as one inglorious and of no account, and, as far as he could, hid under the enclosure of the monastery the glory of his famous nobility, yet the heavenly Arbiter would not have the lamp of so great brightness covered under the bushel of obscurity, but decreed that it should be set higher upon the candlestick of the Church: so that, in order that it might become known to all abundantly and more highly in the profession of a most humble purpose than he had formerly remained in lay nobility, he made him shine with miracles and flash with many: namely to give light to the blind, to take away every plague of infirmity, and to trouble the power of demons in the possessed.

[9] and shining with outstanding virtues But too lofty is the perfection of spiritual works, and deeper the performance of heavenly virtues; the worker therefore of such signs thus distinguished himself from the number of those who at the end of the world boast themselves before the Judge for the variety of signs: since he himself was more watchful in healing the diseases of souls than of bodies. He set himself forth therefore as an instruction and an evident example to all, in what manner they might be free from vices, which are the diseases of souls, and might be able to attain the eminence of virtues, which are the health and flower of the inner man. When therefore he pours into those who were in the blindness of unbelief the true light, which is Christ, did he not grant the desired light to the blind? And when he took away from hands always ready for plunder, and from feet turned aside from the way of God, the occasion of perversity, and showed the abundance of his own estates, whereby their hands might exert themselves upon works of piety and where they might set their feet upon the narrow path of God's commandments, he himself being shown as their guide, did he not restore to the maimed and the lame the due offices of hands and feet?

[10] he shines forth, Also, when followers of various heresies were converted by his teaching to the uniform likeness of the Catholic faith, the filth of the leprosy of their former error being cast off, they were restored by him from lepers to men of one color, within the decrees of mother Church. But if any, by reason of the enormity of their crimes and of a harmful

despairing by reason of the foulness of their life, fall into the pit of death, and through the preaching of that most illustrious fruitfulness rise up again to the hope of pardon and to the glory of the everlasting life that is to be won; dead indeed in spirit, through him they rise again from the death of the soul. For although he was mighty in Mettlach in such and like tokens of the virtues, and, like the sun, which as it is about to rise sends ahead on every side the most brilliant signs of its rising that illumine the world, so that he might shine in character and in virtues, he humbled himself under the command of his abbot, and bound himself to the brethren with the bond of charity, so that in the advancement of the virtues none might be found higher than himself, and in the contempt of humility none more cast down ^g.

[11] At that juncture of time the archbishop of the Treverans, Basinus by name, Upon the death of his uncle Basinus, the uncle, that is, of the aforesaid father Lutwinus, being released from the bond of mortality, passed happily out of this life, and blessedly ascended, on the fourth of the Nones of March, to gaze everlastingly upon the face of the eternal King ^h. Deprived of his fatherly care, the Treverans with devout affection desired to deserve one equal to the former in the merit of virtues, and altogether like him in the noble comeliness of his manners. When therefore that most valiant athlete Lutwinus was contending untiringly in the arena of such a struggle against the incitements of the prince of this world, and when that Man, more eminent than all the world in merits, was practising an apostolic life in his manner of living under the Rule of the monastery already named, the same Treverans, roused by the marks of his virtues and drawn by the kinship of his holy nobility, are said to have come together into such unanimous consent that the people in throngs, together with the dignity of the nobles, were seen to elect this most holy Man, namely Lutwinus, as their bishop ⁱ; at which time Hildericus ^k, king of the Franks, ruled the realm together with Grimoald, the son of the prince Pippin, that is, the Mayor of the palace, and these most willingly assented * to their wishes, affirming that by his merit the sacred priesthood would belong to that church.

[12] Presently indeed the Father of the highest sanctity was, out of the monastery, invested by the blessing of the bishops with the summit of the city of the Treverans, he becomes bishop of the Treverans, and was ordained chief pontiff. Having therefore obtained the pontifical summit, he did not forget the rigour of his monastic profession; but under the norm of right governance his accustomed humility ever forewarned that a higher * rank should think humble things; and the more eminent honour animated the humble man with happy hope to hope for higher things. On the very day, too, on which he received the habit of holy conversion, on that same day the divine election promoted him to be archbishop, so that by a marvellous manner of concord his tonsuring and his ordination ran together into one, upon the eleventh day of the Kalends of December, a day ever worthily to be remembered.

[13] What manner of man he showed himself, by compassionating the fallen, by rebuking sinners, and while he piously discharges that office, by bearing hard upon the proud ^l, by rejoicing with the humble and the just, through his priestly decrees — of this the living merits about his dry bones bear witness. He also, not forgetting the monastery in which he had exercised his spiritual warfare, and taking thought likewise for the advantage of its inhabitants in time to come, handed over that same monastery with its dependencies to the prince of the apostles , over whose chair he presided, and decreed that for the rest it should belong to the men of the bishops of the Treverans. For his life was sincere and praiseworthy, and pleasing to God and to men for the merit of his sanctity, nor was there any perverse thing in him which the author of evils could find. Indeed he had fenced himself about with a royal defence, that not one of the sheep entrusted to him might be lacking from the number when the reckoning was to be rendered, and that as their leader he might worthily join himself both to their order and to their fellowship.

[14] When therefore he had governed the hearts of all his subjects by the examination of discretion, and the fragrance of his virtues had so drawn all his neighbours ^m, that the citizens of Reims and likewise those of Laon, who had lately been without a pastor of the people, he is called at once to the see of Reims and to that of Laon, begged to be governed by his most upright rule. This weight the holy Father, overcome by brotherly charity, and God so disposing it, took upon himself; and supported by the aid of the threefold Deity, he alone happily administered the helms of three men. O Man happy in all things, O man secure of the everlasting reward! to whom is committed a second time the stewardship of those things of which he had already made the Lord ⁿ his heir. Truly faithful, and faithfully true is the Lord, who without doubt renders all that he has promised, and who repays his faithful servant on earth twofold for what he has left behind; and prepares for them a hundredfold with the glory of everlasting life in heaven. When therefore the provident Pastor was bearing with anxious mind the care of the sheep entrusted to him, and was labouring that they might be made worthy of the sheepfolds of the highest Shepherd, a certain prodigy of miracle is said to have occurred, which it is not fitting to withdraw from the knowledge of posterity.

[15] and, as they say, he is made illustrious by a signal miracle. He dies At length on a certain occasion, when he was to celebrate the order of the sacred grades for the clergy of Reims, there were present also messengers of the people of Laon, asking that he bestow the same office upon them. But the Man of God, wishing to satisfy both parties, is said to have besought the heavenly Clemency that what they could not * accomplish by their own efficacy, He would deign to supply by His omnipotence. His purity of prayer the eternal Arbiter straightway heard from on high, and, the law of the sun being broken, He so prolonged the day that, the office having been fully performed for the citizens of the city of Reims, he came to Laon and there likewise carried it through at a fitting time ^o. When afterwards, upon the completion of the ordinations, he was returning to the city of Reims for the sake of provision, and, persevering for some while occupied in the will of the Divinity, was panting after the rest of eternal glory, at last he happily reached the goal of the course of his life, and passed over on the third of the Kalends of October to possess with the Saints the rewards of his labours [p].

[16] at Reims; he is translated He had already a son, Milo by name, who, as some say, had degenerated overmuch and had strayed by an evil path from the road of his father's rectitude; although he was left heir of his goods and successor of his honours. For succeeding his Father, he held the bishopric of the Treverans and of Reims alike for forty years [q], and he was an effective enough helper to the Treverans in bringing back the remains of his Father to the see of his first bride. And so the Treverans, when the death of the kindly Prelate was known, being straightway moved by filial affection, hastened with Milo swiftly to the city of Reims, and carried off to their own place the sacred treasure, obtained with great difficulty but by the nod of God. At length, when they were prosperously bringing the holy Pontiff into his own city and wished to set him worthily in the place over which he had presided, they suffered difficulty and were in no way able to accomplish it; because in truth he seemed rather to seek a place of humiliation than of honour. A counsel therefore being taken among the chief men concerning so unlooked-for a matter, they placed the most holy pledge upon a ship, with no oarsman aboard, asking in common of the Governor of the world that He would grant it be directed thither where His will was.

[17] to Mettlach, and by various prodigies Presently therefore the ship swims up the channel of the Moselle against the current, by the living power of the Pontiff alone; and, with a throng of peoples accompanying and crying out in the praise of God, it enters the river Saar [r]. But when by angelic guidance, as we believe, they were making for Mettlach over long stretches of water, and the excellent Confessor of Christ was drawing nearer to the place now most dear to him, suddenly all the bells of the monastery sounded of themselves by divine power; and announced beforehand to the inhabitants a great joy with amazement of wonder. The college of the holy congregation went forth to meet him with a multitude of the people, and received him who had once been a sharer of their manner of life, but was then a great Patron with God, and devoutly bore him into the place dear to him with an array of immense honour, and laid him in a tomb worthy of such great merits.

[18] In which place divine benefits so abound, by his intercession, and he is renowned for miracles. that nowhere are more frequent miracles recorded as done. The orbs of the blind are enlightened; deaf ears are opened *; mute mouths are unloosed; the plagues of all fevers receive their remedies. Indeed those possessed by demons so frequently experience the tokens of his powers, that, were they to be told, they might perhaps seem incredible to those who hear. To the afflicted also he obtains swift consolation, and he imparts to those who ask the efficacy of all their prayers. A swift Expeller of enemies, he stands forth in all things as the gentle Helper of his own, nor does he forsake by his suffrages in protecting those in whom he has taken pleasure, whatever place they be in [s].

ANNOTATIONS.

p. That he died about the year 713 is now generally admitted; concerning the day here assigned all are agreed.

q. In the Commentarius prævius, nos. 29 and 34 and following, we have brought forward the testimonies of the ancients, from which you may learn what sort of man that Milo was, and by what means he occupied the see of Reims along with that of Trier.

r. That river, which others call Saravus, Saroa, Sarra and Sara, rising in Lorraine, washes Mettlach, the famous monastery of the Order of St. Benedict of which frequent mention has already been made, and thereafter, not far from Trier, flows into the Moselle.

s. There is appended in the manuscript an epilogue or closing clause, in which the author everlasting of the most holy

Trinity, he says, are to be rendered, on account of St. Leodowinus having been granted to the people of Trier and of Mettlach. But I have not judged it worth printing; because his phrases, as the reader could observe also in what precedes, are throughout ungraceful and badly twisted, and, in all likelihood through the carelessness of the copyists, are from time to time so corrupted that the true sense can scarcely, or not even scarcely, be reached.

read dulcedine*

add tempore*

read impendit*

read cunctaque*

iidem*

read annuerunt*

perhaps altiorem*

principi*

perhaps juris*

read posset*

read reserantur*

ANOTHER LIFE

Of no better quality

By an anonymous author.

From a manuscript of St. Maximin of Trier.

Leodowinus or Lutwinus, archbishop of Trier. (S.)

BHL Number: 4957, 4956

BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.

Sprung of an illustrious stock God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named, has more especially prevented and exalted with the grace of His Spirit very many of the Saints whom, before the shape of unshaped matter and its adornment, He foreknew and predestined more especially to be made conformable to the image of His Son, and has granted either that they should be known in the world before they were born, and have names before they had bodies, or that names should be imposed ^a upon them or changed when they were already born, by which it might be foresignified how illustrious, how magnificent their merits would be in their working. But, to say nothing of the rest, a certain man of the first rank, drawing the line of his descent from the most powerful kings of the Franks, Gerwinus by name, happy in his wife Gunza, the sister of the excellent Basinus of Trier , of noble race and character, but destined to be happier still in his Offspring, begot a son, upon whom, in the water of holy baptism, he imposed the name Lutwinus, by a certain presage of things to come. For, as one who was to be a hierarch , he was to dispense the divine Sacraments, and to make drunk the people of holy mother Church with the wine of unspeakable sweetness ^b.

[2] But this man of so great a name and merit, when he had put away the things that belonged to a little child, he takes an illustrious wife; he sets humility although he already wished to be crucified to the world, yet, weighing that the life of man is a temptation upon the earth, resolved advisedly to keep himself within himself, lest, hastening unadvisedly to rise above himself, he should fall below himself. According therefore to the decree of divine providence he took a wife, distinguished by the titles of her parents, of whom he begot a son, Milo by name, his successor in the see of Trier. Being destined to have care of the Church of God, he strove to be one that ruled his own house well. Chaste was his house; because, although by the divine munificence he possessed immoderate riches, as being the offspring of most wealthy princes, and holding under Childebert king of France the dukedom of Belgic Gaul ^c, mindful of that great divine saying, "If riches abound, set not your heart upon them," he chose rather to set his goods beneath himself than himself beneath his goods, and rather to scatter them and bestow them upon the poor than, after the manner of the rich of this world, to be proudly wise and to hope in the uncertainty of riches.

[3] This was his labour, this his work, this his study: and the practice of good works before wealth and power; to become rich in works, to communicate to the good, to lay up for himself a good foundation, that he might lay hold on eternal life; and to make of his kinship with royal blood, and his affluence of wealth, and the insignia of power, the matter of humility and of holy conversation . That catalogue of virtues which Job, the example of patience, breathed upon by the spirit of truth, records of himself, is agreed to have shone forth in him; for he always feared God as though the waves were swelling above him, nor did he rejoice over his riches. Renowned for gentleness and mercy, with modest shamefastness he vied with the abstinence of innocence, and thus, the less he sought the glory of the world, the more he attained it: seeing that he was — and this is the most difficult thing — both vigorous in battle and good and provident in counsel. The king began to transact almost all his affairs through him, to hold him above his friends, and to embrace him more and more day by day: since neither his counsel nor his undertaking was in vain, and by munificence of soul and skill of wit he surpassed all the nobles of the realm. He took care to render the things that are Caesar's to Caesar, and the things that are God's to God; nothing did he set before the divine service.

[4] He embraced with a love * of privilege his uncle, munificent toward sacred buildings, namely holy Basinus, archbishop of the metropolis of Belgic Gaul, the pattern of all virtues, and by his saving admonitions he was renewed day by day according to the inward man. First indeed, upon the admonitions of that most sacred prelate, he enriched with most ample gifts the places of the Saints, and especially those that are in the city of Trier. Then, that which he had longed for by expectation all the days of his life, he set his mind with the utmost intention of soul upon building a monastery on his own estate. And when he had long deliberated with himself about a suitable place, at length the Lord deigned to show beforehand, by the showing of a most excellent miracle, that out of so many most opulent towns of that lordship He had chosen Mettlach for Himself as an inheritance ^d.

[5] At length, while the holy man Lutwinus of so great renown was engaged in the business of hunting, being admonished at Mettlach by a divine the sun already scorching the middle of the day, driving his horse spent with running and with the heat down from the ridges of the mountains, he laid his weary head in the lap of his armour-bearer, and, as a figure of his repose now in that same place, admitted sleep into his eyes and was refreshed with a light and happy slumber . And behold, by the decree of divine providence a bird, an eagle, a bird most keen in sharpness of sight, balanced itself by its own weight in the air, and with wings spread over the face of the sleeping man, performing the office of a canopy, defended him from the intemperance of the heat. The irrational eagle, accustomed to gaze on the rays of the sun with unblinking eyes, overshadowed the rational eagle, to whom it was granted by God, flying with the wing of contemplation, to pass beyond the morning stars, and to fix the unblinking edge of his mind upon the brightness of the Sun of justice.

[6] token, he builds churches O Man, sanctuary of the Holy Spirit! O layman, an example of virtue to all ecclesiastical orders! O place, marked out beforehand by so signal and magnificent a privilege of election, whose spiritual building is declared before its bodily one, whose living stones, to be built up thereon, before its material ones! Therefore blessed Lutwinus, made certain by divine revelation concerning the election of so great a place, commanded, with the utmost threatening, his confidant and companion to shut up the glory of so great a vision under the seal of silence, to the very end of his life, for the safeguarding of the highest humility, after the example of the Saviour transfigured on the mountain before His disciples. But where above all an oratory to God, where a guest-house, and lastly where each of the workshops for the pursuits of a more retired life were to be built, he designated by a subtle weighing of reason: and, workmen having been summoned, he first built a church in honour of the precious martyr Dionysius, and caused it to be consecrated, the relics of that athlete and of very many other Saints having been laid up there.

[7] and founds a monastery Thereafter, like a wise architect, he laid the foundation of an oratory and a basilica, hastened the structure of the wall, and by the help of the eternal Wisdom in a short time completed the desired work. Then, the sacred orders being summoned, he dedicated the oratory to the name of Peter the prince of the Apostles; but the basilica to the honour of the gate shut in the house of the Lord, the chosen Theotokos, the glorious Virgin Mary ^e; he enriched the sacred altars abundantly with a most precious treasure of holy relics, adorned them with ecclesiastical ornaments, brought in the hallowed vessels and all that he had vowed, and on the same day handed over a thousand mansi as a dowry of the church of Mettlach by a ratified grant, and confirmed it by testament. But since God is delighted rather with living than with material stones, he gathered into the sanctuary of God precious stones, namely men of the highest religion, dead to the world but living to God, whose life was the teaching of virtue.

[8] and there, bidding farewell to the world, Therefore when the Man of so great a name was delighted with so great a brightness of the spiritual lamps gathered by him, he was unwilling any longer to defer the vow which he had vowed to the Lord. He went therefore to the royal court and made known to the king the secret of his heart, and humbly besought that with his agreement it might be lawful for him to serve as a soldier of the Eternal. But the king, when he had perceived his will, grieved that he should be deprived of the intimacy of so great a Duke, upon whose prudence, as upon a most solid column, the commonwealth of the Franks rested; who, by sparing the subject and warring down the proud, had governed the times of his dukedom with great prudence: nevertheless, weighing his unchangeable will, he released him from his military oaths, and, licence to depart having been given, bathed abundantly in tears, he commended himself with all his house and kingdom to his merits. The tears of the courtiers too followed him, whom they saw of his own accord descending from so great a summit of goods and of dignity.

[9] he puts on the monk's habit, And so, all things having been arranged with reasonable provision, and taking thought for the … ^f advantages of that same place of his repose, he handed it over, according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, with all its dependencies, to Peter the key-bearer of the heavenly court, and by a ratified right of grant caused it to pass into the right of the holy mother church of Trier. After this * delay, the burden of Egyptian servitude being cast off, free and unencumbered, he followed the footsteps of the humility of Christ, and chose those riches, to meditate in the law of the Lord day and night. Indeed, laying aside the secular habit, he put on the monastic habit, and on the eleventh of the Kalends of December laid down the locks of his hair. Good Jesus, what joy was there then, what rivers of tears flowed forth, who could worthily follow out with his pen? Yet while all around were weeping, he alone stood firm with cheerful countenance, and remained fixed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

[10] But afterwards, as before in the carnal, so now he laboured to be brave in the spiritual warfare; and applies himself singularly to the virtues. so that already at the very outset of his conversion he could be numbered among the perfect. He removed from himself all the instruments of a laxer life and all secular hindrances, and, reckoning as nothing the labours of his former manner of life, and remembering that some of his brethren, called at early morning, some at the third hour or the sixth, or at any rate at the ninth, had borne the burden of the day and the heat, while he himself had been brought in as it were about the eleventh, he strove to labour more abundantly than all of them. And amid these marks of an angelic manner of life so great a grace of signs shone forth, that, while the tongue of the flesh was silent, the glorious miracles wrought by him, the divine clemency granting it, everywhere proclaimed him. For whosoever, hesitating nothing in faith, sought healing of him, returned safe, having received soundness both of soul and of body.

[11] Meanwhile his uncle Basinus of surpassing sanctity, Upon the death of Basinus the base ^g of the temple of God, and its support, wondrously distinguished with mystic lions and oxen in relief *, paid the debt of the flesh on the fourth of the Nones of March, and he who long sitting by the rivers of Babylon had wept while he remembered Sion, came with praise into Sion. And when the clergy and people of Trier both grieved for the hardship of their bereavement and rejoiced at the glorification of their pastor, and were deliberating with pious devotion about substituting a successor of equal merit, by divine inspiration one opinion settled upon them all: that they could choose none more worthy of the glory of so great a dignity than blessed Lutwinus, whom both the nearest line of blood, and indeed the excellence of his sanctity, made equal to his merits. With the concordant assent of all, therefore, an embassy having been sent to Hildericus ^h, at that time the most vigorous king of the Franks, they were not cheated of their desire.

[12] For the king, gladdened that a star of so great brightness should shine within the bounds of his realm, struggling against it, he is raised to the see of Trier assented to their just petition, and Lutwinus of most excellent merit

he judged should be raised to the summit of the pontificate. But when the king's edict and the consent of the election of the people of Trier became known to the Man of God, as though unworthy of so great an honour *, he humbly attempted to excuse himself, lest, when by occasion of the pastoral care he should endure the affairs of secular men, he might slip back, under colour of ecclesiastical government, into the glory of the world which he had cast away. But the more he resisted, the more he stirred up the zeal of all toward himself, and by refusing he deserved what he was unwilling to be; and he was the worthier the more he cried out that he was unworthy. He is snatched from the bosom of a more retired life, he is anointed with the oil of blessing by his fellows, and from a sheep is made the Pastor and Ruler of the city of Trier.

[13] And so, raised in the highest gladness of clergy and people to the pontifical chair, the bishopric, which he directs most perfectly, he remembered that, while he was placed in the monastery, all fleeting things lay beneath him; but now, as Leader of the army of the Lord of Sabaoth, as once in his earthly dukedom he had set a wall before the camps of his own men, so now he set one before the house of Israel, and girded with the sword of the word of God he went up against the adversary, and drew up a terrible ordered line of battle against the powers of the air, and being made a pattern to the flock, he taught nothing that he did not himself do, according to what Paul says: "Be ye imitators of me, as I also am of Christ." You would have seen a second Paul made all things to all men, that he might gain all. You would have seen that, though he was set on the citadel of contemplation — and this is the most difficult thing — one man ⁱ so conformed and fitted himself to the condition of all the persons that came to him, that every one recognized himself in him, and by recognizing came to his senses, and advanced in the virtues: with the weak, weak; a staff for the blind, food for the hungry, the hope of the wretched, the solace of mourners: he rejoiced with them that rejoiced, he wept with them that wept.

[14] together with the churches of Reims and Laon, But that from a few instances you may guess the common desire of all: the people of Reims and of Laon, alike bereft of their pastor, without any delay of election came with one mind and one and the same judgment to the metropolis of Trier, where so bright a star was gleaming, and with most insistent prayer and devotion humbly besought that he would deign to be their leader and pastor going before them; and to him, piously resisting, they reasonably objected that he ought not to be burdened by the government of three churches: since Paul, the special preacher of the Gentiles, had his daily instance, the solicitude of all the churches. Therefore, in the mystery of the everlasting Unity and undivided Trinity, he undertook the office of a single governance over three most renowned cities, and so ruled them all as though he ruled one; so bestowed his care upon each, as though he bestowed it not upon all; his mind was so divided among the several churches that in the administration of them all it seemed undivided. For now he made illustrious by his visitation his first see of Trier, now the city of Reims, now the church of Laon ^k. To all he paid the debt, to each in due season he divided the evangelical wheat in equal measure. We indeed have heard and known innumerable marvels which the divine operation wrought through him. But out of so great an abundance it pleases us to bring forward one; so excellent and magnificent that from that one all the rest may without hesitation be proved ^l.

[15] and in these two, on one day, by a signal miracle Therefore, when on a certain day the glorious prelate Lutwinus was to celebrate the consecration of the sacred orders in the holy church of Reims, the envoys of the people of Laon besought with the utmost insistence that an ordination be celebrated in their church also. But neither the space of time nor the interval of the places permitted this. Yet the Man of so great charity and benevolence, since he greatly desired to fulfil his brothers' desire, offered in the sight of the divine Majesty the gift of his prayers, and with hands raised to heaven besought the divine Clemency that He who gave the sun not to move against Gabaon until the Israelite nation should avenge itself upon its enemies, would with like power fix the orbit of that same * sun immovably, until he himself should complete the solemnities of the Masses at Laon. Nor was there delay: the sun, whose nature is to be in eternal motion, stood immovable in its course and order; and lost the laws of its own nature, and, naturally movable, ceased as it were to be moved.

[16] he is said to have conferred the sacred orders. He who by his potent rays forbids the stars to move, and stays the wandering courses of the planets in their station, was himself forbidden to go, and being stationary was not moved from his station; until by the most brilliant sun of Gaul, namely blessed Lutwinus, the divine Office was solemnly and in its own time completed at Reims and at Laon ^m. There was not afterward so long a day, the Lord obeying the voice of a Man, because the mouth of the Lord obeyed the mouth of the Lord. The divine Majesty called forth * signs and changed wonders, and as under the old law in Joshua, so under grace it exalted with the glory of so great and the same miracle its precious Lutwinus. But he, reckoning so great a miracle an evident token of the divine condescension and clemency toward him, when the divine Office had been celebrated at Laon, returned to Reims.

[17] Learning therefore by divine revelation that he was shortly to be taken up from the face of iniquity into rest, He dies at Reims he chastised his body more sharply and brought it into subjection. Thereupon he fell into a grave weakness of body; nay rather, he found what he had long desired: to put off the tunic of the body, which is corrupted, and to put on the robe of incorruption. Persevering therefore unshaken in the confession and praise of the undivided Trinity, on the third of the Kalends of October he passed from the lake of misery to behold with unveiled face the glory of the Lord. And he who while among men led an angelic life, by divine dispensation on that day on which the Church celebrates the memory of the Angels, rendered up his spirit to his Creator by the hand of the archangel Michael.

[18] But to the distinguished funeral of so great a Father the whole neighbourhood ran together, with a great concourse of bishops and of the whole ecclesiastical order and of the city, with the utmost grief of all. and a vehement sadness affected the hearts of all. For what ears were so hard as to hear of the death of so pious a Father, or who could see without tears so precious a pearl broken? Who would wish to be absent, who would wish to excuse himself from the office of so great a funeral? Who would not hasten, who would not thrust himself into the obsequies of him who was loved by all, as being a Man admirable in every kind of virtue? The whole multitude of the poor and needy cried out with tearful voice that they had lost a merciful Father and foster-father. Happy the sons of the holy churches of Reims and Laon, between whose hands that divine spirit flew away to its own seat in the palace of heaven.

[19] And so, when the clergy and people of Trier had learned by a true report of the departure of their excellent Pastor, The men of Trier, the people of Reims resisting in vain, they exulted at his ineffable and undoubted glory in the heavens; but for their own bereavement, which sometimes is wont even to double grief, they grieved for a twofold cause. First indeed, because they had so unexpectedly lost him whom they had sent from them in health; and next, because they reckoned that the people of Reims had been preferred to them by him, since it was most evident that these had been consoled by his last word and sight, and had laid up a precious treasure among themselves. Yet when the pain of so great a wound was healed, they raised Milo his son, by royal decree, to the episcopal chair. But when concerning the treasure of the most precious body of St. Lutwinus a long altercation, sprung from a fountain of piety, was drawn out between the men of Trier and the citizens of Reims — to whom at that time the same men of Trier had come with Milo their elected leader, who out of reverence and love for his Predecessor had upon that same arrival been enthroned as prelate of the people of Reims — the former indeed claiming back him whom they had furnished, since they might have had him alive to themselves alone but had yielded to a brother's bereavement; the latter on the contrary defending him whom they had laid up dead, as one bestowed by God; and both sides alleging many and reasonable causes: at last, by a certain power of divine strength and by the help of the aforesaid Milo, the men of Reims * being overcome, the people of Trier, blessed by God, translated out of France the pearl of inestimable price, the body of the most eminent Lutwinus, just as they had translated the precious body of Maximinus out of Aquitaine ⁿ, and Paulinus, beheaded in Phrygia for the defence of the Catholic faith ^o.

[20] And when they were endeavouring to convey the most longed-for body of so great a Patron into the city of Trier by the channel of the Moselle, obtain the body, and by a prodigy the ship, laden with so sacred a burden, an obstacle of divine power being set against it, could by no human art, by no oarsman *, be brought over to the nearer bank. The sailors fell upon the benches, they beat their breasts with the oars; but they were able rather either to go about in a circle or to go backward than to go forward. The liquid element became as it were solid, and the water, easily yielding to solid matter and navigable, seemed to be impassable: and when so great a miracle was being wrought in the sight of the city, which came forth entire to meet its Prelate — now a Consul of heaven — with vast exultation and with the loudest acclamation of praises, astonishment and vast wonder shook the minds of all who beheld. Truly it began to seem marvellous to them that they were indeed visited by the most sacred form of their beloved Pastor, but that no opportunity was given for him to be carried within the walls of the city. They hesitated therefore; but at length the eternal wisdom, enlightening the minds of the chief men of the city, revealed to them the secret of its counsel: that, the oarsman being removed and all human guidance ceasing, they should commit the ship — lifted rather by the lightening of so great a burden than pressed by its weight — to be steered by the helm of Him who gave a way in the sea and a path in many waters.

[21] by one Therefore, the counsel being divinely inspired and approved by all, and the steering-oar withdrawn, and the sacred bier left in the stern, all, with hearts lifted upward, awaited on the shore the effect of the divine will. Nor was there delay: the ship, hanging in the flood, and to be revered by the very winds and tempests for reverence of Him whom it bore, forsaken by men and steered by angels, is borne against the down-flowing waves, and, with the throng of clergy and people following along the bank of the channel with hymns and prayers, is carried over by a new manner of sailing, unheard of by all, into the mouth of the Saar . You knew not, church of Mettlach, you knew not what joys this raft was bringing you, what gifts of a precious treasure. The Lord has restored to you your renowned one. Why say more? The ship, the bearer of so great a joy, destitute of human steering but steered by an angelic ministry, cut the waves more tranquilly; and when already it was reaching the borders of the most longed-for place and was making for the inner bank, our Lord — as though then for the first time He were beginning to glorify His elect and to declare his merits to the world — with an unwonted and signal miracle, since * a little before his passing He had wondrously glorified him at Reims and at Laon and in the translation at Trier, gloriously honoured him also in the sight of his special sons, whom he first begot in Christ Jesus and appointed to himself as coheirs of Christ in his inheritance, and heaped signs upon signs, and multiplied joys upon joys.

[22] and by another, made illustrious For all the bells of the monastery, against the laws of nature, sounded without any human motion or ringing, and, as though, hanging on high, they had first seen from aloft the pledges of their sweet Patron, they announced beforehand that these were being brought over, and by their unwonted sound they went forth * to meet so great a salvation, the astonished city and all the neighbourhood. Therefore with the utmost alacrity and the utmost devotion, as a swarm of bees from their hives, so from their cells to meet him

the unanimous assembly of the brethren rushed forth to the crown of their head. Every sex too, every age and condition, strangers and neighbours, ran to meet the most holy relics of so brilliant a sun of Gaul, and received them with as great gladness as if they beheld him living and present: and joys unhoped-for and magnificent above all made rivers of tears to overflow in them. For all in common gloried in the Lord that they had received back their Lord and Father, now one of the highest princes of the heavenly court, whose very many benefits, and those of his forefathers, they remembered toward themselves and toward their forefathers.

[23] Yet no one dared to touch the ship, whose Leader he himself was, they lay him in the church of Mettlach: until it put in with its angelic oarsman. But then, when it reached the landing-place, the lord archbishop Milo, with distinguished priests putting their necks beneath his father's bier, and out of the multitude of the whole ecclesiastical order and people, some following, some singing psalms, and all sounding forth with one voice in the praises of Christ, translated the most holy body into the basilica of the Queen of heaven and earth, namely of the Mother of God and Virgin Mary, which he himself had built, and laid it in a becomingly adorned sarcophagus. And because Lutwinus, precious to the Lord, had been in the exile of this life the good odour of Christ, in every place there so abounded the fragrance of so great an odour that it overcame all spices; so that the church was thought a paradise, the gathering of men a company of angels and of holy souls, and it was believed that the Lord God had come into His holy temple.

[24] But what tongue, what prudent man could worthily set forth where he continues to shine with miracles. how often and with how magnificent a radiance of signs and powers so bright a star gleams there. For an infinite multitude of the sick, of the blind, the lame, the withered, and the possessed, and every diversity of infirmities, if the faith of the petitioners deserve it, is cured by the merits of so great a Patron. For, to pass over how many things we have heard, if we should wish to commit to writing but * those things only which we have seen with our own eyes, we should exceed the measure of a volume. Therefore, having gained the longed-for harbour after the weariness of a long voyage, let us take breath, and sing the mercy and praise of the Lord for ever over the multitude of His good gifts, which through the merits of holy Lutwinus He has bestowed on us. To whom be praise and glory for ever. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

elsewhere is added archipræsulis*

Hierarcha*

elsewhere is added habuit*

eo*

elsewhere is added asperas*

amoris*

* that is, a horse

elsewhere sopore*

elsewhere lapidum*

elsewhere conniventia*

elsewhere nec*

read anaglyphis*

honore*

elsewhere ejusdem*

read innovavit*

iidem*

repetentibus*

Remensibus*

elsewhere is added nullo*

Saroæ*

oras*

perhaps eum*

read exciverunt*

si*

MIRACLES

By an anonymous eleventh-century monk of Mettlach

From a manuscript of Trier.

Leodowinus or Lutwinus, archbishop of Trier. (S.)

BHL Number: 4959

BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.

PROLOGUE.

About to write the miracles The miracles which Christ our God works at the tombs of the Saints by his pious condescension, and by which it is made plain how great their merits are with him, are by no man's carelessness of negligence to be hidden from posterity, but out of love of them are to be spread abroad by word and by writing. For the soul is lifted up at the working of signs, and the mind takes fire with heavenly desire, when it sees the Saints living by their virtues, and perceives that they stand in the sight of the supreme King. He who asks becomes therefore the more assured of obtaining his prayers, where he sees signs abound for the merits of the Saints. For a man incurs a great expiation of guilt if, to the honour of the Saints, he does not disclose to those ignorant of them the benefits divinely given to men. Whence I have reckoned it a fault not to commit * to writing the miracles which the heavenly loving-kindness declares through our special patron Luitwinus. But let it be permitted first to set down some things about the condition of this place.

[2] Being therefore set in the bishopric, the worthily-to-be-remembered father Luitwinus, the author prefaces some matters about the Saint and about his monastery. concerning the goods which had come to him by hereditary right, or which he had purchased for a price, made a charter of testament, by which he handed over those same goods to the place of Mettlach, to the brethren serving God there, and had proclaimed by apostolic authority that they should be condemned at the judgment, if they should suffer any to trouble them in these goods. In the twelfth year therefore of king Childebert this writing of the donation was made, and in the six hundred and ninety-sixth year of the Lord's Incarnation ^a. By this point of time it is declared in what course of years holy Luitwinus flourished. But the end and the deeds of Milo his son are worthy of memory, although Hincmar bishop of Reims describes him as a subverter of his own bishopric ^b… Now let the intention of the heart return to the narrating of the miracles of our common patron Luitwinus ^c.

ANNOTATIONS.

perhaps nullius*

read sunt*

read non tradere*

A deaf man, warned in sleep, to Mettlach A certain countryman therefore of Losma ^a, having ears deprived of voices, heard in his dreams a heavenly miracle — as afterwards appeared — saying to him: "When the sun with its radiance has driven away the blindness of the dark night, and has restored their eyes to mortals, set out on your way, making for Mettlach, and humbly ask abbot Remigius ^b to unstop your closed ears." He, rising glad from his bed in the morning, told his neighbours what he had heard in the night. And as they journeyed together, he went on as far as the monastery.

Having entered it, he began with importunate voice to call out for Remigius, and to ask all whom he saw that the abbot might be shown to him. And when the astonished brethren stood about him and asked for what business he wanted the abbot, "I am," said he, "a wretch, my lord, and by a long-lasting calamity * of infirmity have been made deaf: but the voice of the divine loving-kindness foretold to me as I lay at rest, that abbot Remigius should unlock my closed ears with the key of prayer."

[4] makes his way thither, and receives his hearing: They led him therefore to the abbot, relating the vision of the aforesaid matter, and begging likewise that he would not deny what was hoped for; but that, having compassion, he would impart to the wretched man what had been shown concerning him. But the abbot, having protested in every way that he was unworthy of such a deed, yet overcome by the prayer of the brethren and the outcry of the deaf man, ordered that some of the liquid of the holy oil, which had been consecrated for the use of the sick, be brought, and meanwhile gave himself to prayer with him and with the brethren before the altar of St. Luitwinus. Thereupon he had risen from prayer, and had poured the sacred oil with his finger into the ears of Christ's servant ^c, and straightway the ears, closed before, were unlocked, so that he himself cried out that he had heard most plainly the voices of all who spoke, although they spoke softly. Then the clergy with uplifted voices sang in praise of God Te Deum laudamus, and the gathering of the people sang together Kyrie eleison. He, having received his hearing, returned rejoicing to his own home, and did not cease to announce to all how great things the Lord had done for him through the merits of holy Luitwinus.

[5] a woman out of her mind is restored to her senses; There was also in the same village a certain woman, Richeza by name, who, having fallen into madness, was carried in a wagon by her people to Mettlach: and she, along with the insanity by which she was tormented, was so afflicted by continual fasting and wakefulness that how she survived might be a matter of wonder; since bodily life cannot be sustained without the support of food and sleep. For her recovery, therefore, the brethren laboured long and much, and with prayers besought that their Patron would be her intercessor with God. At last therefore, by the pious help of that intercessor, she felt the divine power within her, and, sound of mind and whole, returned home on her own feet, who before had come on the feet of others: nor did she forget so great a grace bestowed on her from heaven; but every year she frequented the anniversary festival of holy Luitwinus, offering her vows.

[6] a man possessed is set free: Among the nation of the English there was a certain man possessed by a demon, who had come to Mettlach to be cleansed, and, approaching the door of the church, said: "Ho, Luitwinus! Over long stretches of country I have come a stranger to your threshold; you have drawn me to you by the rope of your power." When therefore the brethren learned the man's country and affliction from those who had come with him, and poured out most earnestly continual prayers for him to the Lord, it pleased the most high God that the foreigner should be cleansed, through the merit of His Servant, from the venomous filth of the serpent; that those near at hand might conceive in all things a surer hope of obtaining help. Each of the priests, therefore, celebrated over the possessed man in order both adjurations and Masses. Last of all the whole congregation came to make supplication for him. And when the adjurations had gone before and the Sacraments of our redemption had been completed, while the Prior, beginning the litany, named the titles of the Saints in order, and in the repetition said, "Holy Luitwinus, pray for us," the demon, terrified by the power of such a name, fled from the man, and by his departure made plain, by so great an excellence of merits, that he was deprived of his former dwelling. But the Englishman could not complain that he had endured the labour of so great a journey in vain: since he carried back to his own nation the name and the merit and the power granted to him from heaven by that Saint.

[7] A certain woman of unsound mind, of the abbey of Tholey ^d, her people brought to Mettlach, those out of their minds and with intent mind besought the suffrages of holy Luitwinus for her health: and the fierce keeper of the church made her rest, walled about with relics of the Saints and with the holy Gospels read over her, in one of the vaults of the tower, and enjoined one of the brethren to guard her with unsleeping care. And she, when she was roused at cockcrow, by the merits of the pious father Luitwinus, at whose tomb she had lain that first night, rose up in the most complete soundness of mind and body: wondering only in what place she was, or by whose help she had been brought thither.

[8] Once when the brethren were celebrating the evening synaxis, recover their senses; a certain man seized by a spirit of error entered the church, and, singing out with certain mad and wretched gesticulations, terrified his kinsfolk who saw and heard him: and when the celebration of vespers was ended, he followed those same brethren as they went in procession to the church of St. Mary, about to sing vespers of All Saints, repeating his songs, and went round about the place of the tomb of holy Luitwinus again and again in his frenzy, ceaselessly plying his own chants. But a certain brother made him, wearied with his repeated circuits, sit down on a bench; and, a prayer having been poured out for him, said certain blessings over him with a piece of the wood of the saving Cross: and straightway, by the prayers of holy Luitwinus, in his error he began to behave so much more gently that, when the brethren went to the fire — for it was the harshness of winter cold, and he himself was thinly clad — he quietly followed them and quietly refreshed his body with food and drink. Thereafter he had taken a place of rest for the night in that same tower; and when he had passed it in gentle sleep, morning being come, he rose up in possession of a perfectly sound mind, and, taking his wallet and his poor baggage, giving praises to God and thanks to the brethren, he set out whole upon his journey to his own home: and for some years, as a token of the grace conferred upon him from heaven in that place, on the Lord's Supper he deserved not to be cast out with the many, as a stranger, but to be received with the chosen poor of Christ for the washing of feet, as one of the household.

[9] In Mercia ^e a certain Gezo, weighed down by infirmity, when his wife was busy at the harvest and he was left alone and unguarded, was seized by so dire a vexation of the demon that the hostile force could not otherwise be restrained from injuring men than by binding the wretch to the ground for a while with ropes, his feet and hands stretched out and fastened to the earth, and thus taking away from his feet also the power of going and from his hands the power of harming. He is afterward lifted by his father-in-law into a wagon, and, bound with ropes to the timbers of the same wagon, and brought to Mettlach, he is set down thus entangled before the altar of St. Mary. But by the merits of the same glorious Mother of God, and by the prayers of holy Luitwinus, at evening his bonds were made * to fall away, and, his mind being recovered, he was wholly rid of the demon: and, recovering in a short time from his former infirmity, he returned to his own home rejoicing and whole, all marvelling and glorifying God for the merits of holy Luitwinus, calling to mind indeed what manner of man he had come, and seeing what manner of man he had returned.

[10] and those beset The wife of a certain soldier Anselm, Waldrada by name, had been seized by a most wicked and most crafty demon, and by many who were most certain of the recovery of her health through the merits of holy Luitwinus she was carried to Mettlach. With her misfortune the brethren had inmost compassion, and were so zealous in asking their common patron holy Luitwinus for her recovery, that they took turns with one another by night and by day, and that frequent celebrations of Masses and psalmody, and whatever could be devised for such a case, were plied about her without intermission. But the venom of the serpentine wickedness could not be driven out of her, and the dreadful inhabitant did not suffer himself to be easily torn from the dwelling he had unjustly usurped: nay, through the night demons were heard applauding one another and calling to each other from afar. Moreover, the ancient waylayer, to strike the watchers with fear, made a noise of horror as of the tower falling in * above their heads. But, adjured with the commanding voice of one of the watchers in the name of Christ, he departed.

[11] by demons Thereafter they put her, bound with a rope, into water consecrated with the greater blessing ^f, and, adjuring the tyrant with the strongest exorcisms, and calling upon the holy name of Christ, they stood about her with many relics of the Saints. In the midst of this the wretched woman is lifted out of the water lifeless, and is found as before full of the diabolic invasion. Then four priests vested themselves as for Mass, and, standing over her in the form of a cross and toward the four quarters of the world, read the Passions of the Lord set forth by the four Evangelists, beginning … ^g. When these had been read through, she fell half-dead to the ground, and after a little while, taking up her strength, she feigned that she was freed; and when the bystanders saw this, believing her freed, clergy and people lifted up praises to God in heaven for her cleansing. Carried home in this pretence, she remained for a while among her own people like the rest, and quiet. But the ancient enemy, who knows no rest, vexed her anew with the former madness of his fury. Until, at the next purification of St. Mary, which was at hand, he wholly forsook her by the merits of the same Mother of the Lord. This honour therefore the loving Mother of God made her own, nor did she suffer the prayer of the faithful, so often poured out before her, to be forgotten: but, admonished by the prayers of the pious father Luitwinus, and showing the bowels of her loving-kindness to those who called upon her, on the day of her own lights she restored her to her former health and drove from her the minister of the prince of darkness.

[12] brought to Mettlach A certain father of the household of St. Sixtus brought his daughter to Mettlach, deceived by the error of a malignant spirit, and bitterly afflicted by her friends with most grievous beatings with rods; as if by the affliction of the body she might put off the madness of the mind. But no escape from madness came to the wretched girl; rather the malignant one rejoiced that a twofold torment was in her. For many days therefore the brethren laboured for her and sought the patronage of their common Patron for her health: and the kindly Father, giving heed to the petition of their inmost affection, imparted the most complete grace of soundness , and by the gifts of his healing she returned home with glad mind and wholly sound. And she, not ungrateful for the grace conferred upon her, most often paid with thanksgiving the debts of her vows to her Saviour *.

[13] While certain faithful men were journeying, as was their custom, through the places of the Saints for the sake of prayer, being led thither, they found a certain woman in a wood in demoniac error; who told them her affliction as best she could, and related that she had been abandoned by her own people out of weariness of that same affliction. Bringing her with them to the monastery, and telling of the distresses of her infirmity, on the next day they brought her back to her own home perfectly sound by the merits of holy Luitwinus, affirming that she was thereafter in no way assailed by her former madness.

[14] From Bezerinca a sister led a girl named Richeza, full of a demon, to her own Patron, are freed by the merits of the Saint. and held it for certain in her mind that the kindly one would not deny to his own nursling those remedies of loving-kindness which he distributed bountifully to strangers. Nor did this hope deceive her, nor did she complain that she had trusted such things in vain of so great a Patron. By the prayers of the brethren, therefore, she returned with her sister to her own home perfectly sound by the merits of holy Luitwinus, and did not cease to frequent the threshold of her most loving Cleanser with the vow of offerings. Many also of both sexes and of divers ages have experienced in the expulsion of demons the merits of the same holy Luitwinus, worthy in God's sight … ^h. It is plain therefore that holy Luitwinus, because he conquered every kind of wickedness of the vices, the instigators of them being overcome by God's help, has prevailed ⁱ: since, living with God, he is armed with a singular power against the demons for the love of the faithful

so often do we see him drive them out of others. But we have heard also of other deeds of signs in the same monastery through his merits, and have seen them done, which it has pleased us to attach to the present account.

[15] A certain woman, called Ruozela, sprung from the eastern region of the Gauls, A woman recovers her walking and a sound mind. lacking the use of her feet in walking and made bereft of mind through the death of her son, killed by robbers, though out of her wits deserved through the merits of St. Simeon ^k soundness in one leg, and left behind the cart in which she was being carried thither to Trier. Supporting herself therefore with a staff, she chances to walk toward Mettlach, and on the day of the dedication of the basilica of the Apostles, which always falls in mid-May, in the midst of the solemnities of the Masses, before so great a multitude of clergy and people, her madness being laid aside, she is made sound and whole by the merits of holy Luitwinus. What outcry and praise was there raised in the honour of God, no one is able to tell. She was afterward kept by many, that they might support her for the name of Christ; but, hindered very often by various mishaps of infirmity, she left them and returned to Mettlach; and she who in truth had obtained the fullest soundness of holy Luitwinus in his own place, had wished likewise to be sustained by the sustenance of the same monastery ^l.

ANNOTATIONS.

calamitate*

perhaps perferri*

perhaps indultæ gratiæ*

perhaps deposito* is to be added

perhaps suos*

or fracta*?

add potest or solet*

read frequentarent*

read in laqueari*

read sospitatis*

perhaps dono*

perhaps salvatori*