Ursio

ON ST. URSIO, CONFESSOR, PERHAPS A MONK,

IN THE DIOCESE OF TROYES IN GAUL.

BEFORE THE MIDDLE OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.

CRITICAL SYLLOGE.

Ursio, confessor, perhaps a monk, in the diocese of Troyes in Gaul. (S.)

BY C. S.

St. Ursio, about whom, apart from his cult, everything is uncertain, several Martyrologies commemorate on this twenty-ninth day of September. He is announced today Our manuscript Florarium of Saints has as follows: At Troyes, of blessed Ursio, monk and confessor. The Lübeck-Cologne edition of the enlarged Martyrology of Usuard agrees (for the genuine one is silent about him), saying in just so many words: At Troyes, of blessed Ursio, monk and confessor. Greven and Molanus also recite exactly the same, except that the latter omitted the title of confessor, the former that of Blessed. In agreement with these, on the same day, Maurolico says: At Troyes, of blessed Ursio the monk; Felici: Ursio a monk at Troyes; Philippus Ferrarius in his general Catalogue: At Troyes in Gaul, of St. Ursio the monk; and Castellanus in his universal Martyrology: At Isle in the diocese of Troyes, St. Ursio the monk. Nicolas Des-Guerrois, to be praised below, moreover names the Martyrologies of two particular places, namely of St. Loup and of the monastery of Saint-Pierre-aux-Celles near Troyes, in which he asserts there is read on the same day: At Troyes, of Bl. Ursio the confessor, without the added word monk.

[2] More at length Saussay praised him in the Gallican Martyrology, in several Martyrologies, where he says: On the same day (the twenty-ninth of September), at Troyes, the deposition of St. Ursio, who, a disciple of St. Aventinus, deacon of St. Loup and a hermit, having traversed the wrestling-school of the divine good pleasure by the same advances as he, and having climbed the summit of Evangelical perfection, came to the enjoyment of the heavenly fatherland. In that very Isle, in which, separated from the world, he had served God with a pure service, he was buried, and shone with such testimonies of sanctity that a basilica was thereupon built there for the veneration of his memory, in which St. Maurelius, at the admonition of the holy bishops Hilary, Martin, and Anianus, appearing to Bl. Leo the abbot, promoted [*] (that he might thus enjoy the fellowship of so great a guest on earth as in heaven) to be entombed after his happy passing. Thus Saussay, which things will come to be examined below.

[3] The Benedictines too, as a nursling of their own Order, also in the Benedictine ones. have inscribed him in their Martyrologies on this same day. Hugues Ménard announces him thus: In the territory of Troyes, the deposition of St. Ursio, monk and confessor. Arnold Wion in book 3 of the Lignum Vitae: At Troyes, of St. Ursio the monk; Benedict Dorgain in his Calendar: Of St. Ursio the monk; Mabillon in the Index of Saints of the first Benedictine Century: Ursio a monk of Troyes is recorded in the Life of St. Leo abbot of Mantenay: and finally Gabriel Bucelin celebrates him in his Benedictine Menology thus: In the territory of Troyes, the deposition of St. Ursio, monk and confessor. He was a disciple of St. Loup the abbot, afterwards bishop of Troyes, a monk of the monastery of Isle, on account of whose excellent sanctity the church of that place was afterwards consecrated to his honor and name. Thus far the Martyrologies about St. Ursio at the twenty-ninth day of September, which is reported to have been his birthday in heaven, that is, the day of his death. Besides, in some the translation of him together with St. Maurelius is also noted at the twenty-ninth of April, which I shall recite below at number 17.

[4] His Acts either never existed, I have read no one who said that the Acts of St. Ursio had been seen by him or exist anywhere; nor did Nicolas Camuzat anywhere find them, who published a Storehouse of the sacred antiquities of the diocese of Troyes from diligently sought-out documents. Of the martyrologists cited, Wion noted only this to his announcement: Of him Molanus in the place cited (in the supplements to Usuard), Maurolico and Felici on this day. For the rest he is obscure to me. Ménard in book 1 of the Observations says: Mention is made of him on this day in the Calendar of the monastery of Celles near Troyes, and in the Life of St. Leo the abbot in Nicolas Camuzat in the historical Miscellanies. Ferrarius cites only Molanus in the Additions, Maurolico, and the monastic Martyrology: Bucelin says that his elogium was woven by him out of Nicolas Camuzat, Hugues Ménard, and various French writers; finally Mabillon cites only the Life of St. Leo. Thus some received from others and by their own conjectures enlarged or diminished it.

[5] or perished; nevertheless Des-Guerrois Nicolas Des-Guerrois, already named above, in his Ecclesiastical History of Troyes published in French in the year 1637, at the year of Christ 545, chapter 6, asserts indeed that his history has been lost, but proves by no indication that it ever existed. Nevertheless in the same place from chapter 3 he composed a certain elogium of him, which, those parts being cut away which do not make for our purpose, I shall here recount in Latin from the French, so that the studious reader may gather from it what is, or at least was in the past century, the opinion of the people of Troyes about this St. Ursio. It is to be known that the village which is two leagues to the south of Troyes, called Isles (in French Isles), was anciently a place famous enough in our diocese, because it was the retreat or seed-bed of many Saints who lived and died in it, or whose relics were laid there, and afterwards translated thence elsewhere. Now Isle enjoys the title of a marquisate… There is there a wealthy parish benefice and a very ancient priory, erected by St. Robert, founder of the monasteries of Molesme and Cîteaux, and the cloister of the priory and the monastic house are still to be seen today.

[6] wove an elogium of him, in which More than five hundred years before St. Robert there was in the same place an old monastery, consecrated to God under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (as it is still today), and besides the church which survives there was another, dedicated to the name of St. Ursio, one of the most ancient Saints of that same place, which no longer stands, or, if it stands, is contained within that which is now to be seen; about which matter nothing certain can be affirmed. The beginnings and as it were the cradle of this old monastery are unknown, because the records have perished; yet from the Life of St. Leo and some Martyrologies it is drawn out that notable Saints dwelt in it, namely St. Ursio, St. Maurelius, the venerable Aventinus the abbot, and holy Fidolus, who succeeded him in the government of that place. And so St. Ursio was one of the first holy priests, superiors or abbots of this sacred house, who gathered upright clerics or monks into it to serve God: for that place was full of devotion, of frequent prayer, of deep silence, of eminent sanctity, and in short like a little earthly paradise, in which nevertheless no serpent was found.

[7] All, joined in the Holy Spirit, lived regularly; his monkhood, his date and dwelling are asserted, and since, after the manner of the first Christians, there was but one heart and soul of them all, their rule (besides the precepts of St. Ursio, which all carefully obeyed) was the Gospel (for the rule of St. Benedict was not yet known or born…), and the pattern of their life was Jesus Christ… Their zeal was to fast much, always to bear injuries patiently, to spurn the world and the world's delights, to persist almost continually in psalms and prayers, to do good to all as much as they could; in short, to lead a life not human but angelic, after the standard of the ancient monks of St. Pachomius and others like them. In this house St. Ursio was father, whose disciples were Saints: in it he died, and shone with so many miracles that God canonized him by the voice of the people… In the same place a beautiful church was founded, dedicated to God in his name, not

far from the stream Ozain, on that slope where the church of Isle is to be seen. In the same religious house many bodies of Saints rested, … and among the rest the body of St. Ursio, whose feast is kept on the twenty-ninth day of September, which is believed to have been the day of his death, but the year is unknown. There is extant an honorable mention of him in the Life of St. Leo. Thus far the aforesaid Des-Guerrois, whose assertions I shall now examine.

[8] Nicolas Camuzat in the Storehouse of Troyes, folio 357, published from the Breviary of the church of Troyes a brief Life of St. Leo, which pleased others too. abbot of Mantenay in the same diocese, which our Henschen too reprinted in our Work at the twenty-fifth day of May, on which St. Leo is venerated, and which Des-Guerrois praised just now. In it SS. Hilary, Martin, and Anianus are said to have appeared to St. Leo and to have foretold him that his blessed death was at hand, and, to give sure credence, to have added: And so, that you may believe the more certainly, the venerable man Maurelius the priest, snatched from this light, has departed to the Lord. Therefore on the second day at first dawn arise, and with that praise of which he is worthy bury him in the basilica of St. Ursio. Then he, going swiftly, faithfully fulfilled what had been said to him, and returned to his monastery. Of St. Maurelius the priest our Henschen also treated at the twenty-first of May, and laid down with the other writers that both he and St. Leo of Mantenay flourished in the sixth century. We have therefore that some church of St. Ursio existed in the sixth century in the diocese of Troyes; but in what determined place it stood, or who that St. Ursio was, is not clear from this.

[9] But Camuzat himself in his Notes to the Life of St. Fidolus recounted the passage adduced from the Life of St. Leo a little differently, in this manner: For these things the Life of St. Leo is cited The venerable man Maurelius, having discharged his office at the monastery of Isle, snatched from this light, departed to the Lord, etc. But Ménard in book 1 of the Observations, on St. Ursio, takes this up thus, and argues so: In order to prove (Camuzat) that the monastery of St. Aventinus, whose disciple St. Fidolus was, was formerly in the little town of Isle, which is two leagues distant from the city of Troyes, he says thus: "The words subjoined, which are inserted into the history of St. Leo, strengthen it: The venerable Maurelius, having discharged his office at the monastery of Isle." For those words are added: Having discharged his office at the monastery of Isle; which seem to have been omitted by the copyists in the Life of St. Leo. But in Camuzat's Notes the word priest seems to be lacking. And so, that the sense may be complete, this period of the Life of St. Leo seems to be restored to its integrity in this way: "And so, that you may believe the more certainly, the venerable man Maurelius, having discharged the office of priest at the monastery of Isle, snatched from this light, departed to the Lord, etc."

[10] abbot of Mantenay, from which we have indeed But that island (so Ménard goes on) lies about seven miles distant from the city of Troyes; and in it St. Aventinus first led the eremitic life; as is clear from the Acts of that same St. Aventinus in Camuzat in the Storehouse of the sacred antiquities of the church of Troyes, in these words: "Thereupon he withdrew of his own accord, and sought an island about seven thousand paces distant from the city of Troyes, which the channel of the Seine and the river Ozain encircle after the fashion of a crown." From these things it follows first that St. Ursio was a monk in that same island; since the aforesaid holy prelates (Hilary, Martin, and Anianus) admonish St. Leo the abbot to bury St. Maurelius, a monk of that same island, in the church of St. Ursio, which was doubtless in that same island. For to what purpose would these Saints have wished him to be buried on another's soil?

[11] that some church of St. Ursio Then, that he was a disciple of St. Aventinus, or lived there a little after him about the times of Clovis I and his sons: since St. Aventinus was the first hermit of that island (here the word "was" seems to have to be placed after the word "island"), a deacon of St. Loup bishop of Troyes; as Gregory of Tours reports in chapter 68 of the Glory of the confessors; or of St. Camelianus, the successor of St. Loup, as is found in the Acts of St. Aventinus: he could have been of both. Finally, that after his death this church was dedicated under his patronage. These are the things which about St. Ursio, in so great an obscurity of antiquity, I have been able to attain by conjecture. Thus far Ménard, forming conjectures because of the want of documents, which how much they are to be valued let us see; for by the same labor we shall judge of the assertions of Nicolas Des-Guerrois, to whom Ménard gave the lead, and whom, if you except some circumstances, he followed. That the place in which St. Aventinus's monastery stood is not established may be seen in our Work at the fourth day of February in the Commentarius prævius to the Life of that Saint, §1; but certainly the island seven miles distant from the city of Troyes must be said, from that same Life, praised by Ménard and reprinted by Bolland in the same place, to have been not the place of the monastery but the retreat of his solitary life.

[12] existed about the middle of the sixth century; As concerns St. Maurelius, our Henschen, treating of him at the twenty-first of May, as I said just now, produced nothing which proves that he was a monk, and therefore called him only a priest. But in whatever place that monastery of St. Aventinus stood, let us suppose for a moment that the aforesaid church of St. Ursio was added to it, and that holy Maurelius was a monk, and ministered in divine things there and was buried there. Let us suppose, I say, these things as certain; will it thence be permitted by a sufficiently prudent conjecture to gather that St. Ursio, because a church dedicated in his name stood there, was also a disciple of St. Aventinus and a monk of the same monastery? It would perhaps be somehow permissible, if St. Ursio's monkhood and date were established from elsewhere, neither of which is certain. Not the date; for they only trace this back from the time in which St. Aventinus lived, whose disciple they wish him to have been, but do not prove it. Nor the monkhood either, for which no sufficiently ancient witness is produced.

[13] Certainly in the Life of St. Leo of Mantenay he is no more said to have been a monk but it is not proved that that Ursio was a monk in that same monastery than a bishop or a martyr. In the Martyrologies of St. Loup of Troyes and of the monastery of Celles, reported at number 1, he is called indeed a confessor, but not a monk; which is again the case in the same ones at the twenty-ninth day of April, where the translation of the sacred body is treated, as we shall see in its place. But of the other martyrologists whom I have adduced, who called St. Ursio a monk, the most ancient is the author of our manuscript Florarium, which was completed only in the year 1486, that is, at least nine hundred years after we learn from the often-praised Life of St. Leo that the aforesaid church of St. Ursio already existed. What therefore out of all these should persuade me of that St. Ursio's monkhood? Nay, who will declare that that very church, if it was annexed to St. Aventinus's monastery, was not erected by Aventinus himself to another Saint, more ancient than he? Certainly in the fifth century there flourished St. Ursus bishop of Troyes, whom Des-Guerrois at the year of Christ 426, chapter 1, says is called Ursio in the old manuscript Martyrology of the monastery of Arremar, in French Montier-la-Celle Ramey. What if that church was dedicated to him?

[14] The aforesaid Des-Guerrois denies it, and warns that Ursus is to be distinguished from Ursio, because Ursus was a bishop, and a disciple of St. Aventinus. nor is he ever read to have been a monk; because he is at least a hundred years more ancient than Ursio; because he died not on the twenty-ninth day of September but on the twenty-fifth of July: and because in all the other Martyrologies he is called not Ursio but Ursus. What is to be laid down from these things, gather from what has been said above: nor indeed would it be strange if nothing at all were known about the monkhood of St. Ursus the bishop, even if he had at some time been a monk, since that same Saint has become known only from the Martyrologies, from which too he is believed to have died on the twenty-fifth day of July, and from his cult; all his other deeds being buried in deep silence, as may be seen in our Work at the aforecited day of July, where he was briefly treated. As concerns the names, Ursus and Ursio are so akin that Ursus could easily have been changed into Ursio as much by the biographer of St. Leo as by the martyrologist of Arremar. Nevertheless for distinguishing the two there makes, besides whatever variety of name, first the agreement of the martyrologists, announcing Ursus at the twenty-fifth day of July and Ursio at the twenty-ninth of September.

[15] Second, the sacred relics make for it: for the body of St. Ursus the bishop two churches of Troyes claim for themselves, the cathedral of St. Peter and the collegiate of St. Stephen; but the body of St. Ursio none, so far as I know, except the church of the monastery of Saint-Pierre-aux-Celles, of which there will be discussion below. Nor again is the authority of the martyrologists who called St. Ursio a monk altogether to be rejected, since they perhaps drew it from more ancient sources. There is added that, as Des-Guerrois testifies, in the writings of the monastery of Saint-Pierre-aux-Celles he is also said to have been a monk: for although he does not declare of what sort those writings are, it is clear from it that St. Ursio is held there too for a monk; nor does a reason appear why that sacred body which the monks of Celles possess, if it were that of a bishop of Troyes, would rather have been believed to be a monk's. For which reason I, in a matter so doubtful, not daring to establish anything certain, although I judge that Ursio is to be distinguished from Ursus the bishop, have nevertheless ascribed to him the title of monk only doubtfully.

[16] but certainly he was not a Benedictine. But all these things I thought should be treated somewhat more at length, that the studious reader may discern on how tottering a foundation rest the things which are said about St. Ursio's monkhood under St. Aventinus's mastership, and the things which Des-Guerrois added besides about his headship in the monastery of Isle. Moreover the same writer denies that he can be ascribed to the Order of St. Benedict, because he lays down that he died before St. Maurus brought the Benedictine institutes into Gaul in the year 543; which Le Cointe too observed in volume 1 of the Frankish Annals at the year 525, number 13. And indeed it is most probable that he died earlier, who already from the time of the death of St. Leo of Mantenay, that is, about the middle of the sixth century, had a church dedicated in his name. It remains that we speak of his translation to the monastery of Saint-Pierre-aux-Celles.

[17] His relics were translated to the monastery of Celles, The Martyrology of the church of St. Loup of Troyes, in the aforesaid Des-Guerrois, obscurely announces that translation on the twenty-ninth day of April in these words: Of the blessed confessors Ursio and Maurelius. On the same authority, the Martyrology of Saint-Pierre-aux-Celles at the same day of April says more explicitly: The translation of SS. Ursio and Maurellius, confessors, from the village which is called Isle to the monastery of St. Peter, which is called Isle Germanica. With the former agrees the Florarium

our manuscript, the supplements to Usuard in the Lübeck-Cologne edition and in Greven, about which our Elders at the aforecited day among the Prætermissi noted these things: The Translation of SS. Ursio and Maurelius is indicated in the Martyrology of Saint-Pierre-aux-Celles, in a Carmelite manuscript, and in another printed at Cologne and Lübeck in the year 1490, in Greven's Supplement, and in the margin of the manuscript Florarium. Of these Maurilius is venerated on the twenty-first of May, and Ursio on the twenty-ninth of September. This monastery of the Order of St. Benedict, founded in the seventh century in the suburb of the city of Troyes by St. Frodobert the abbot, is read variously named; namely: of Celles, of St. Peter of Isle Germanica, of St. Peter de Cella, and the Cell of St. Bobinus; and in French, Montier-la-Celle. He who wishes for more about it may consult the deeds of that same holy abbot, given and illustrated in our Work at the eighth day of January, on which he is venerated.

[18] but for an unknown cause and at an unknown time. Of the relics of both Saints preserved there Des-Guerrois says briefly thus in French: The sacred relics of these two holy confessors Ursio and Maurelius lie in a very ancient shrine behind the high altar of that same church, in the second recess toward the monastery. But at what time or on what occasion they were brought there neither did he know, nor have I learned from elsewhere. Nor had he learned more about St. Ursio, who added there in French: Although it would have been a pleasure to us to write fuller Acts about these Saints (Maurelius and Ursio) to their memory and to the glory of God, we can say nothing further, because their Lives have perished.

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