Laurus

ON ST. LAURUS, PRIEST AND ABBOT,

IN THE DIOCESE OF SAINT-MALO AMONG THE ARMORICANS.

IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY

HISTORICAL SYLLOGE.

Laurus, priest and abbot, in the diocese of Saint-Malo among the Armoricans. (S.)

BY C. S.

§ I. His memory in a few Martyrologies: a church dedicated to his name: his cult in Armorica and at Tours: Lives cited by others, and from these some of his deeds are reviewed.

Very obscure are the deeds of this holy Confessor, and his memory known to few martyrologists. He is announced today in the diocese of Saint-Malo, To begin with these, as usual, the Lübeck-Cologne edition of the enlarged Martyrology of Usuard, published in the year 1490, in Sollier among the additions at the XXX day of September, wrongly adorning him with episcopal dignity, announces him thus: On the same day, of St. Laurus, bishop and confessor. Greven, more rightly omitting the title of bishop and adding the grade of the priesthood, says in the same place: Of Laurus, priest and confessor. In our manuscript Florarium Sanctorum too, on this same day, but with the Saint's name corrupted, is read: Likewise of St. Taurus, priest and confessor; where there is no doubt that for Taurus must be read Laurus, and that today's Saint is meant. More clearly speaks Chastelain in the Supplement to his universal Martyrology, page 1008, in which, calling him in French Lery and in Latin Laurus, he also noted the place of his cult, and added what the tradition there is about his condition while he lived. Take his words in Latin from the French.

[2] Near St. Méen of Gaël (in French he has: Pres de Saint-Mein de Gails) in the diocese of Saint-Malo, [where he has a church, and is honoured in the abbeys of St. Méen in the same place,] St. Laurus the priest, with whose name one of the churches of that district is marked, and in the same place

he is said to have been chaplain of St. Judicaël. In these Martyrologies alone have I found St. Laurus announced: for (what I wonder at the more) he has no place even in du Saussay's Gallican one: yet his cult, from what is to be said, is certainly ancient. From the agreement too of the aforesaid martyrologists on the XXX day of September it becomes most likely that St. Laurus is honoured on that day as patron in the church dedicated to his name, or at any rate was formerly so honoured. On the same day, but with a notice about transferring the Office of twelve Lessons on account of the feast of St. Jerome, he is inscribed in the manuscript Calendar of the fifteenth century of the abbey of St. Méen, in Lobineau at the end of his work on the Saints and other persons of eminent piety (as he calls them) of Armorican Brittany, page 1. Thus it is read there: The day before the Kalends of October. Of St. Jerome. On the same day, of Laurus the abbot, it is transferred, XII Lessons.

[3] Again another place and day of cult is assigned by Mabillon in the Acts of the Saints of his Order, Century V, and in the Tours abbey of St. Julian, to which his body was translated. page 145, writing thus: His feast was lately kept at St. Julian's on the first day of October: now it has been put off to the following day on account of the double feast of St. Remigius. He speaks here of the famous and ancient abbey of St. Julian of the Order of St. Benedict near the city of Tours, to which we shall say that the body of St. Laurus was translated and religiously preserved at least down to the times of the Huguenots. This sacred pledge was there, in the year, as we believe, 1458, on the XXII day of January, most solemnly transferred into a new shrine by John Bernard, archbishop of Tours, and it was decreed and enjoined by the same archbishop upon the Religious of the said monastery and their successors … that henceforth each year they should festively celebrate this day of the translation, and solemnize it with the due and fitting divine services. St. Laurus therefore had this annual festival day of translation also, in common with other Saints whose bodies were then elevated at the same time. But of these things we shall have to treat more at length below, after I have set forth the few things we know about the Saint's deeds and age.

[4] A Life cited by an anonymous writer of the eleventh century That his Life was once written, an anonymous writer teaches in the manuscript Chronicle of the aforesaid monastery of Tours, which Mabillon mentions in his Benedictine Century V, page 134, saying this: I read a fragment of the Chronicle of that place, written five hundred years ago, which Chronicle was divided into two little books, in the first of which was contained THE FIRST INSTITUTION OF THE ABBEY, THE IMPIOUS DESTRUCTION OF THAT INSTITUTION, THE PIOUS RESTORATION AFTER THE DESTRUCTION; in the second, its state from the restoration. He makes mention of the same Chronicle again in volume 1 of the Benedictine Annals, at the year of Christ 595, number 64, where he affirms that its author flourished in the eleventh century. Further, that anonymous writer, on the occasion of the body of St. Laurus which was then kept in that monastery, after a very brief elogium of the same Saint, as Mabillon witnesses, added: And since the book of his Life teaches his life, let it suffice to have commended at least the sum of his life. But that this Life cited by the anonymous writer, which probably was brought to Tours with the Saint's body, has perished, Mabillon judged in both places, nor has it come into our hands.

[5] seems to have perished; another, so far as appears, Albert le Grand likewise by no means found it; who, although he wrote professedly about the Saints of Armorican Brittany and published a fairly thick volume in quarto, yet so kept silence about Laurus that he too seems to have been unknown to him. But it may be doubted whether it was this or another that Lobineau had, who in volume 1 of the History of Armorican Brittany often cites the Acts of St. Laurus; for which reason, since that other work of his which I said he published about the Saints of Armorica was not in our Museum, I procured it through a friend at Paris. In it, at page 157 and the two following, reviewing the deeds of St. Laurus, he affirms that he used three manuscript monuments in writing them. The chief, from which he thinks the other two were made, is a mutilated Latin Life, whence he received it he does not indicate, but about its author he observes three things. The first is that he lived in the parish, or village, whose church I have said is sacred to his name. The second, that he wrote before the incursions of the Normans into that part of the Gauls. The third, finally, that he lived in the ninth century.

[6] For his dwelling-place he cites the Life itself: the second he proves from the fact Lobineau had, from which and from two other manuscripts that the author says that the body of St. Laurus rested in that church of his while he was writing, from which he denies that it was carried off before the harassing of Armorica by the Normans. The last he establishes because in the same Life the author relates that he was present at the funeral or burial of a certain priest performed in the same church according to the Roman rite, or, as the Roman Order teaches. For Lobineau observes that the Roman Order was first introduced into Gaul by Charlemagne, and that the biographer without doubt purposely added those words, because the use of that Order was then recent there. This observation of Lobineau pleases me; for although under Pepin, Charlemagne's father, the Roman rite had already begun to be used in Gaul, yet under Charles it was more firmly established. About the biographer's condition we have this besides, that he himself, as Lobineau testifies, says that he had clerics and disciples to the number of about thirty-three, and that he was a kinsman of the priest who then presided over the church of St. Laurus. Besides this Life, Lobineau had a manuscript Breviary, which he thinks once belonged to the church of St. Laurus, and which he received from the abbey of Montfort in Armorican Brittany; and another manuscript Life divided into Lessons, which the count of Plélo-Bréhand, lord of Saint-Lery, had communicated to him. He adds that these and the said Lessons of the Breviary serve as mutual supplements, and that all are drawn from that earlier Life.

[7] Would that Lobineau had made public that mutilated Life and, to fill up its gaps, at least one or other set of the Lessons, He published the Saint's Acts in French. so that I might be able to determine something more certain about its value. For since he, in the Preface to the said work, warns the reader that he refrained from publishing the Acts of the Saints which he used in writing, lest he should be compelled to publish fables along with true things, and so give occasion to over-licentious critics of finding fault even with what in them is true — since, I say, Lobineau gives this warning, I remain in uncertainty whether this Life of St. Laurus too does not labour under fables which might rightly make it suspect not only to lovers of a more licentious criticism, but even to lovers of sound criticism. Indeed he would have done better if, despising the harsher wits, he had added the Acts, such as he used, in their original idiom at the end of the work, so that each might have its own value assigned it, and the genuine ones might more handsomely show themselves without any smoke of suspicion. That the author of the Life of which we treat was not strict in admitting little traditions, there is an argument in what Lobineau reports from it about St. Laurus's stone tomb, which he himself while living had brought to him from Brouërech by two untamed bulls: of which matter there will be talk again below.

[8] Since therefore I have nothing more certain, I shall in the first place review those few things A few things are quoted which the anonymous writer of Tours which the anonymous writer of Tours cited above culled in the eleventh century from a Life of a time and author unknown to me, and which Mabillon copied from him in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict; then I shall also exhibit in compendium Lobineau's narration from his manuscripts, which I have mentioned. But lest the reader confuse Mabillon's words with the sayings of the anonymous writer of Tours, I shall distinguish the latter from his discourse by added inverted commas. Thus then it runs: The writer of the fragment adds that Laurus, sprung from Brittany, left his country and parents; but that in their place he found "Judicaël, the excellent duke of the Britons," who proved his helper in all things. "By whose help, a monastery having been made, he flourished in all sanctity with those subject to him, and both by word and by example profited many greatly. Whose noble life was most religious in the sight of men, and in the sight of the Lord was precious."

[9] noted about him; as also the things which Lobineau "Whose lofty heraldings of sanctity the glory of miracles does not cease to heap up: for through his sanctity, both in life and after death, weakness is restored and infirmity healed; especially in that place where he departed from the world, where by the signs that are wrought his ashes live. And since the book of his Life teaches his life, let it suffice to have commended at least the sum of his life." These things, and no more, does the said anonymous writer say about the deeds of St. Laurus in Mabillon: now let us hear Lobineau relating the same from his manuscript monuments. Take his words in Latin from the French. His Acts, which we do not have entire, and which seem to have been composed in the ninth century, do not teach in what region that holy Man was born: there is, however, reason to suspect that he was sprung from Brouërech, that is, from the district of Vannes (du pays de Vannes). He lived FAMOUS FOR WORLDLY DIGNITY (these words are the Latin biographer's) and was noble by origin, but drew a greater splendour from his virtues than from the distinguished lineage of his forefathers.

[10] from his manuscripts cited above He was enriched with heavenly gifts: with patience in adversity, with a profound humility accompanied by a perpetual sweetness of manners; and with an insatiable charity, which continually kept him intent on the needs of others; nor could difficulties, however great, delay him where the glory of God and the salvation of souls were concerned. Constantly adhering to the plan of life which he had set before himself, he followed an institute of exact discipline, always more inclined to obey than to command. Such was St. Laurus, when, about to obey the special grace by which he was called to a more perfect kind of life, he left his country, his wealth and his parents, to migrate into a region in which he should be unknown. He passed therefore into the District beyond the Wood (in Armorican Poutre-coet), where he was kindly received by St. Judicaël, king or prince of the Britons of Domnonia, who was wont to reside at Gaël or in its neighbourhood.

[11] a little more at length By chance at that time a certain other man of remarkable holiness, named Elocau, at the persuasion of Bili, chaplain of Morona, Judicaël's royal consort, had left the solitary cell which he had built on the bank of the river Domée, and, migrating elsewhere, had left it furnished with the equipment fitting an anchorite. This place, and whatever belonged to it, Judicaël gave to St. Laurus, and he resolved to pass the rest of his life in it. He built there a cell or little monastery, which thenceforth bore his name, and which, whether by the fault common to all ancient buildings or through being overthrown afterwards by the Normans, is today only a middling parish, keeping the name and the tomb of St. Laurus. Here the Saint continued the exercises of a plainly heavenly life, and to all the neighbouring dwellers by his words and examples, and also by the miracles with which God rewarded the prayers and faith of those who took refuge with him,

he profited very greatly. In the same place, after a life long enough, being seized by illness at a very advanced age, he died.

[12] As soon as his death had been made known, there was a concourse from every side to his funeral rites, and these were honourably celebrated. His body was placed in a stone tomb which he himself had prepared, and had had brought to him from Brouërech on a wagon by two untamed bulls. reviewed in French in his Life. The writer of the Acts affirms that this was handed down to him by the elders. The detail about the bulls is indifferent, but not the rest, since from these things we learn that this holy Man placed the chief part of Christian philosophy in the continual meditation of death. The same writer of the Acts says that the body of St. Laurus remained in the same place down to his own times and was there while he wrote, and was made illustrious by God with frequent miracles; from which it is clear that he wrote before the devastations of the Normans, since it is established that the body of St. Laurus was afterwards translated thence to the city of Tours and placed in the abbey of St. Julian; to which translation nothing but the persecution of those barbarians could have given occasion. Thus far Lobineau, whose narration let us now weigh a little.

[13] Let us begin from his native country. Venetia, otherwise Dariorigum, once the capital of the Veneti in Celtic Gaul, Born in Greater or Lesser Britain, leaving his country, now an episcopal city of Lower Brittany under the archbishop of Tours, in the vernacular called Vannes, is distant about two French leagues from the Aquitanian Ocean towards the North, founded near the estuary le Morbihan, and, if Blaeu's geographical Table is correct, is scarcely fifteen French miles distant from the village of Saint-Lery, that is, from the place where St. Laurus led his anchoretic life and died. But if the Saint withdrew into that place from the district of Vannes, he may indeed be said to have left his parents and the house of his birth, but less rightly his country; and if he was strong in nobility of family and in wealth, he could scarcely have been unknown in so near a place, or have dwelt long unknown. Mabillon, reported above from the anonymous writer of Tours, has only that he was sprung from Brittany; where whether Lesser Britain, that is Armorica, or Greater, that is England, is meant, is unascertained by me; but if it were allowed to interpret it in the latter way, both difficulties would vanish.

[14] The nobility of birth asserted for him by Lobineau I cannot confirm from elsewhere, he is given by St. Judicaël, king of the Britons in Armorica, unless perhaps to this are to be referred those words of the anonymous writer of Tours: Whose noble life was most religious in the sight of men, and in the sight of the Lord was precious. The time in which the Saint flourished we learn from the reign or principate of St. Judicaël, by whom both agree that he was kindly received and munificently helped. Now St. Judicaël held the kingdom or duchy of the Armorican Britons while Dagobert I reigned in France, in whose fourteenth year he subjected himself and his people to him, as Fredegar testifies in his Chronicle, chapter 78, of Ruinart's edition, in which he is called Judacaile, and is said to have been religious and greatly fearing God. He himself afterwards embraced the monastic life and died holily, and is honoured on the XVI day of December, on which day he is inscribed in several Martyrologies. St. Laurus therefore lived and flourished in sanctity in Armorica in the seventh century, but whether he died after or before its middle is uncertain. About Bili and Elocau I have found nothing further.

[15] About the place in which he spent his solitary life, Lobineau had premised in the same place with a cell or little monastery, whose site is inquired into, that there was formerly a vast wood, which, running from the borders of the bishopric of Rennes as far as that of Quimper, separated the Northern region of Armorican Brittany from the Southern; and that for this reason the Northern part was wont to be called in Latin the District beyond the Wood, in Armorican Pou-tre-coet, which word was afterwards changed into Porhoet, although the Porhoet of this time extends less widely than the ancient Pou-tre-coet, or District beyond the Wood. And he writes that this region was inhabited by many holy men, among whom St. Laurus was one. He said above, at number XI, that his cell or little monastery was situated by the river which he calls in Latin the Doma, in the vernacular Doueff. In Blaeu's geographical Table of the duchy of Brittany the village of Saint-Lery is in fact placed by a certain stream which, being received there by the river Men, is carried by it below Rennes into the river Vicinonia, commonly la Vilaine.

[16] and is determined: here the Saint lived with some disciples. Not far from Saint-Lery towards the North is marked Gaël, and presently Saint-Méen, that is, the monastery of St. Méen, so that I cannot doubt that this is the place which St. Laurus inhabited, and where Chastelain announced him in his Universal Martyrology, in the words given at number 2. Hence Mabillon's suspicion seems to me not sufficiently likely, who both in the Acts of the Saints, Century V, page 134, and in volume 1 of the Annals at the year of Christ 595, number 64, doubts whether the monastery of St. Laurus was not that called of St. John of Gaël, and afterwards of St. Méen. Certainly that Saint-Lery and Saint-Méen are different places is certain from the situation of each. Lobineau also doubts on what ground the title of abbot is ascribed to St. Laurus. In the ancient Chronicle (he says in French words) which mentions this translation (to be mentioned below), and in the ancient Calendar of the abbey of St. Méen, St. Laurus is called ABBOT; either because he really presided over monks, as his Acts seem to suggest when they call him Doctor; or because that title was given him merely after the manner of the writers of the Eastern church, by whom all ancient monks of any name are styled ABBOTS.

[17] [and he died, being for that reason called abbot: the present state of the monastery.] But I for my part do not see why we must here have recourse to the custom of the Easterners; since the anonymous writer of Tours too, from the Life which he had, wrote expressly about the Saint: By whose (Judicaël's) help, a monastery having been made, he flourished in all sanctity with those subject to him. I suspect therefore that St. Laurus in the cell received from St. Judicaël at first indeed began a solitary life, but that after the fame of his sanctity was spread abroad he could not but admit at least a few disciples, and build for their instruction some small monastery (the holy king or prince Judicaël willingly meeting the expense). With these things the tradition may also stand which, as Chastelain cited at number 2 testifies, is held in the Saint's own parish, that he was chaplain to St. Judicaël: for since Laurus was a priest, and had a monastery not far from Gaël, he could easily at some time have served him in sacred things. Perhaps, however (and not long after St. Laurus's death), that monastery, such as it was, passed into the right of the monastery of St. Méen, to whose abbot at least down to the seventeenth century belonged, and perhaps even now belongs, the presentation to the cure of the church of St. Laurus, which is to this day parochial, as we have from the Book of benefices (or, as they say in French, le Pouillié des benefices) of the archbishopric of Tours, published at Paris in the year 1648, in which among the benefices of the bishopric of Saint-Malo is listed the parochial church of St. Laurus (in French eglise parochiale de saint Liri), and it is added: The abbot of St. Méen presents, the bishop confers.

§ II. The Saint's tomb in Armorica: the translation of his body to the Tours monastery of St. Julian: its burial in the earth there and its two elevations.

In the ninth century his body was still honoured in his own church, That when the Saint was dead his obsequies were performed according to his merits by his disciples and by the neighbouring people, who had venerated him while living, I do not at all doubt; and I believe that his sacred body was deposited in the stone tomb which the writer of the Acts cited by Lobineau could have seen. Nor can I deny that the holy Abbot procured that tomb for himself while he lived, that from the sight of this too he might turn over in his pious mind a continual memory of death. But that he had the same brought to him by two untamed bulls yoked to a wagon, I shall not so readily grant that biographer, although he cites the sayings of the elders. For why should we believe that untamed bulls were employed for that business, when no reason for this design is given or appears? To me at least this seems one of those little traditions which, born of an uncertain author, easily find credit with the common people because they bring marvels. More certain are the things we have about the Saint's body, both from the same biographer, probably a writer of the ninth century, as has been said, and from the anonymous writer of Tours, and from the instrument of John, archbishop of Tours.

[19] The first, as Lobineau testifies, asserts that the body of St. Laurus, about whose priest's murder a few things are noted. while he was writing, still rested there in his own church, and that there then presided over his little monastery a priest named Wiegrial, his own kinsman, a man conspicuous for Christian eloquence and integrity of life, about whose shameful murder by two of his disciples, and about what followed it, he speaks at somewhat greater length in the same place: I shall relate only the few things that pertain to St. Laurus. He writes therefore that the kinsmen of the slain man, during the funeral rites performed as the Roman Order teaches, at which the author was present, prostrated themselves before the tomb of St. Laurus and asked him to reveal the authors of the impious murder; and that the same prayers were repeated, both by them and by the rest of the people who were present, after the burial, that God, with St. Laurus interceding, would point out those wicked men by some sign. He adds that, as all were returning home, there were noticed by one of them on the garments of the murderers drops of blood not yet washed away, and that by this sign it came about that they were seized and confessed their crime. And having confessed, with their hands first cut off (the words are those of the Latin Life) they were hung upon two [*] stakes, a noose being set beneath them, as is the custom for robbers to suffer.

[20] These things I have judged should be noted about the body of St. Laurus as still resting and honoured in the ninth century in that church of his. In the same century it was translated to the Tours monastery of St. Julian That it was at some time translated thence to the famous monastery of St. Julian, formerly situated outside, now within, the walls of the city of Tours, is certain from what is to be said. Mabillon in volume 1 of the Annals at the year of Christ 595, number 62, has this to our purpose: This monastery (that of St. Julian at Tours) is read to have been overthrown both by the Saracens in the principate of Charles Tudites, or Martel, and in the following century by the Northmen. Then the relics of the Saints which were kept there were hidden in the ground, and at length, when the monastery had been restored by bishop Theotolo, are read in old parchments to have been dug up and found; which, if they were not torn but entire, we should have a greater knowledge of that monastery. For an author of the eleventh century (the anonymous writer of Tours, whom I have already mentioned in the preceding §) had comprised the deeds done there, though in a rude style, in two books …

[21] and there, from fear of the barbarians, buried in the ground, From the first book it was possible to draw a commemoration only of certain relics which were discovered there: namely of the bodies of SS. Blevileguetus, bishop of Vannes, Laurus the abbot, and Antony the monk, about whom he reports some things from the tradition of the elders: besides these of St. Albinus, whose

altar he says contains a jar full of his relics. That this Tours monastery of St. Julian was overthrown in the ninth century by the Normans or Danes is related also by the author of the Chronicle of Tours and by another writer of a short History of the same monastery, published by Edmond Martène and Ursin Durand in volume 5 of the Writers, as also by Maan in his Metropolitan church of Tours. For which reason, since from what has been said above it seems certain that the body of St. Laurus was still in Armorica in the ninth century, it must be determined that it was in the same century (most probably from fear of those same barbarians) carried to Tours for the sake of asylum, and here too, when destruction from the same threatened, was in good time committed to the ground with the other pledges of the Saints.

[22] [and in the tenth century again raised from the earth; and again in the fourth century] The said writers agree that the monastery of St. Julian was restored and endowed by Theotolo, bishop of Tours; which he accomplished about the middle of the tenth century, and he summoned his old friend St. Odo, the famous abbot of Cluny, who was then staying in the monastery of Fleury, that he might establish in the monastery of Tours also the discipline which he had restored there. The body of St. Laurus therefore was raised at Tours from its hiding-place in the earth about, or before, the middle of the tenth century, nor is there any reason for us to hold suspect the testimony of Mabillon's anonymous writer, with which both the times and the occasion excellently agree. A second festive elevation of the same and of other pledges of the Saints at once was made there in the fifteenth century, that is, their transfer into new reliquaries by John, archbishop of Tours, the most serene queen of the French, Mary, honouring the solemnity by her presence, with her daughter Magdalen, with princely men and other nobles of the kingdom. John's letters given on this matter I transfer hither from the recension of Mabillon in the Benedictine Century V, page 143 and the following.

[23] that same body and the bodies and relics of other Saints John by divine mercy archbishop of Tours, to all who shall inspect the present letters, everlasting salvation in the Lord. Whatever of praise or honour we bestow upon the Saints of God, that we show to Him, as the Prophet witnesses, bidding God be praised in his Saints. When therefore brother William of good memory, now deceased, formerly abbot of the monastery of St. Julian of Tours, of the Order of St. Benedict, was weighing that, although the church of the said monastery was adorned with the bodies, relics and presence of very many Saints, by whose suffrages and prayers, and those of the other glorious Saints who rest in this our city, not only the monastery itself but also the whole city flourished with prosperous successes, yet those bodies and relics were less reverently laid up, and the honour due to them was not shown: moved therefore by devout affection, the aforesaid abbot caused to be made, while he lived, five wooden chests, adorned within with silver and gold, hoping to have relics and bodies of this kind placed in them. Yet being forestalled by death, as it pleased the Lord, he could not by himself carry out the business proposed.

[24] But the venerable and religious brethren adhering to his desires, by John, archbishop of Tours, in the presence of Mary, queen of the French, Robert the present abbot and the whole convent of the said monastery, greatly desiring to accomplish those things, devoutly besought us that we would deign to place the relics and bodies in the places prepared for that purpose, as aforesaid. We make known therefore that we, embracing with the highest affection the pious life of the late brother William the said abbot and of the said venerable present abbot and convent, to the glory and magnificence of almighty God, on the day of the date of these presents, in the sight of the most Christian lady, the lady Mary, most illustrious queen of the French, and of the lady Magdalen her renowned daughter, and of the noble princes, the lords John duke of Bourbon and James count of La Marche, and of very many other barons, knights and noble persons, and also of the venerable and circumspect men written below, with our own hands transferred those bodies and relics from the old sarcophagi into the new chests, previously sanctified and blessed by us according to the rite of the Church, and laid them up in the following order.

[25] Namely, in the first chest, towards the dormitory of the oft-mentioned monastery, the body of St. Paul, bishop of Léon; with her daughter and many nobles, in the second chest, the body of St. Antony, abbot of the said monastery of St. Julian of Tours; but in the third and middle and larger chest, parts of the bodies of St. Pantaleon and St. Columba, together with several other relics whose names are unknown to us. In the fourth chest, the body of St. Odo, first abbot of Cluny and afterwards of the said monastery of St. Julian. In the fifth and last chest, the body of St. Laurus the abbot. These translations being thus made, we closed the chests from without with silver and gilded doors or fastenings, and, trusting in the divine mercy, fortified them with our blessing, decreeing and enjoining upon the said Religious and their successors, as by these presents we decree and enjoin, that henceforth each year they should festively celebrate this day of the translation and solemnize it with the due and fitting divine services. In faith and testimony of all and each of the premises we have caused two letters of ours to be made thereupon and signed by the notaries written below, and to be strengthened by the appending of our seal; of which we have enclosed one in the aforesaid larger chest, and have granted the other to the aforesaid abbot and convent to be laid up in the treasury of the church.

[26] Given in the aforesaid monastery on the twenty-second day of January, were placed in new shrines and solemnly elevated: in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and seven, in the presence of and assisting us the venerable fathers, brothers Guido of Marmoutier near Tours, Robert of the aforesaid St. Julian, and Peter of Cormery, abbots of our diocese of the said Order; and the circumspect men the lords John Campidenarius, doctor of decrees, preceptor general of St. Antony of Thuin in Germany and orator of the most illustrious prince the lord Duke of Austria; William le Picart treasurer, John Preselli archdeacon Beyond the Loire, John Nuloti archdeacon of Tours, Nicholas Perturelli Official, Victor Hugnetus, William Joubert canon of our church of Tours, and also James of Cormeray claustral Prior and infirmarian, John Præpositi almoner, Philip Præpositi chamberlain, John Charretier sacristan, William Du Vieu hosteller, John Guibert cantor, Guido Auger succentor, William Boutet of Bou, and Michael Belloneau of La Guerche, James Auderon of Châteauregnault, Peter Audebert of Saint-Antoine, John Selion of Bueil, Robert Helonis of Ambillou, Priors; William de Linaye, John Fafeu, Peter Joulain deacon, Peter Sourdeau, John Lensant, Aimeric of Mondanier, John de Fonte, John Budet, Andrew of France and John de Turre, Religious of the said monastery of St. Julian, with several others. So signed, Thouar and Magistri.

[27] yet not in the year 1407, as the copy has it, Thus far Mabillon from his own exemplar, in which, however, that the year of Christ (which Lobineau, citing him, also retained) has been faultily written, the chief persons mentioned in it prove. To begin from the head: in that year 1407 the archiepiscopal chair of Tours was held by Amelius, whom the brothers Sainte-Marthe in the Gallia Christiana surname de Maillé, but John Maan in the Metropolitan church of Tours, page 156, de Brolio. According to their Catalogues no John after Amelius sat in that see before John Bernardi or Bernard, whose archiepiscopate the said Maan carries from the year 1442 to 1466, the Sainte-Marthes almost agreeing. In the same year 1407 there reigned in France Charles VI, whose only wife was Isabella of Bavaria, nor do I find a Magdalen among their children. But their son Charles VII, who succeeded his father in the kingdom in the year 1422, had as consort Mary of Anjou, daughter of Louis king of Sicily, and by her, after numerous offspring, had also Magdalen, afterwards betrothed to Ladislaus of Austria, king of Bohemia and Hungary; who beyond all doubt is that very Magdalen who, as John archbishop of Tours testified in the letters given, was present with her mother queen Mary at the aforesaid elevation.

[28] but 1457, or, as we now speak, 1458, It is therefore certain that this solemnity happened many years after Christ 1407; but to what year it is to be bound remains to be inquired. As regards the two named abbots of St. Julian, namely William and Robert, of whom the first is said to have prepared five reliquaries for the sacred relics, the other to have obtained their elevation: the Sainte-Marthes in volume 4 of the Gallia Christiana, page 546, do indeed have in the series of those abbots successors of these names following next upon one another, of whom the later is noted as presiding in the year 1407; but they also list afterwards another like pair, namely William de la Saugere in the year 1440, and his next successor Robert III in the year 1457, holding the same abbey. In the same place, page 592, in the Catalogue of the abbots of Marmoutier near Tours, Guido Virgier is read to have been abbot of that place from the year 1453 to 1458, in which he is said to have yielded to his nephew. Again at page 304 Peter Berthelot is placed among the abbots of Cormery in the diocese of Tours from the year 1434 to 1476, in which he died. The times of these prelacies too, therefore, coincided with the archiepiscopate of John Bernardi, so that they could have assisted at the oft-mentioned elevation.

[29] at which time all the persons mentioned in the instrument In the said Maan, in the Appendix, page 258, in the Catalogue of the Treasurers of the church of Tours, William le Picard is named from the year 1442, nor is mention made of his successor before the year 1496. At page 260 John Preselli is reported from the year 1448 to 1466 among the archdeacons, not indeed Beyond the Loire, but Beyond the Vienne. Finally I do not find John Nuloti among the archdeacons of Tours there; but at page 260, among the greater archpriests, John Mulot is listed from the year 1451 to 1466; whether these two last are the same as those named in the said instrument I should not dare to say; but you would seek these too in vain in the aforesaid catalogues at the year 1407. From what has been alleged it appears to me most likely that the word fiftieth has dropped out in Mabillon, or in the copy which he used; and that for the year of Christ 1407 must be read 1457, in which all the aforesaid persons could have been present at this solemnity. Then, since the French of that time commonly used to begin their years from Easter, the XXII day of January of the year 1457 belongs, by the custom now received, to the year 1458.

[30] These things being laid down, there also occurs at the same time a particular reason for the same year 1458; could have been present at the said solemnity. namely the occasion on which the aforesaid illustrious persons seem to have honoured this elevation by their presence. Ladislaus of Austria, the young king of Hungary and Bohemia, had in the month of October 1457 sent his envoys with great pomp and retinue from the royal city of Prague into France, that they might bring to him the aforesaid Magdalen his bride; as may be read more fully in Bohuslav Balbín in his Epitome of Bohemian affairs, book 5, chapter 3. Further, Charles VII king of the French, the father of Magdalen, received these envoys with royal magnificence and detained them in the city of Tours, until everything for conducting the royal bride in a manner befitting her dignity

should be prepared. But while these things were being done at Tours, Ladislaus in the month of November of the same year died at Prague by a truly untimely death, and the unexpected news of this was brought into France before Magdalen had set out on the journey. The court of Charles VII was therefore at Tours at the end of the year 1457, and there it could easily have remained in part until the XXII day of January of the year immediately following, and on this occasion queen Mary with her daughter Magdalen and the said princes and illustrious men could have been present to behold the oft-mentioned elevation of the sacred bodies.

[31] Thus far concerning the time of the famous translation of St. Laurus: Certain things are observed but lest anyone hold it suspect because it is read in the same letters that the body of St. Paul, bishop of Léon, was then elevated together with the body of St. Laurus, whereas the body of that same St. Paul was carried from Armorica to Fleury at least as early as the tenth century, and remained there until the times of the Huguenots, as was said in our Work at the XII day of March, on which he is honoured — lest anyone, I say, raise from this a doubt also about the body of St. Laurus formerly preserved at Tours, it will be useful to have observed a few things. The case of the two is not the same: for first indeed the anonymous writer of the eleventh century, so far as Mabillon could read in his little book, expressly listed the body of St. Laurus the abbot among the relics of the Saints buried in the ground in the church of St. Julian at Tours and elevated about the middle of the tenth century, and that this is our Armorican Saint is proved by the summary of the Life which he briefly added: whereas on the contrary he mentions by not a word the body, relics, or even the name of St. Paul of Léon, just as if the latter had been quite unknown to him.

[32] Secondly, that the body of St. Paul was translated in the tenth century from Armorica to the monastery of Fleury, Aimoin, a monk of that monastery, testifies in book 3 of the Miracles of St. Benedict; for asserting the ancient possession of St. Laurus's body nor has anyone (so far as I know) disputed its possession with the monks of Fleury down to the Calvinist storm; so that the things said about the body of that holy bishop as kept in the church of St. Julian at Tours in the fifteenth century, in the said letters of the archbishop, ought to be suspect. Quite the contrary happened in the case of St. Laurus; for no one besides the monks of Tours has claimed his body for himself from the eleventh century onwards. The Armoricans do indeed show, as has been said, and venerate his tomb in the church of his name in the diocese of Saint-Malo, but they confess that it is empty of the body. And this rightly agrees with the sayings of the anonymous writer of Tours, who, while he ascribes the body of St. Laurus to his own monastery, yet suggests that his tomb in Armorica, where he had premised that he lived, was famous in his own time also, that is, in the eleventh century, when he says that he was then too made illustrious by God with miracles, especially in that place where he departed from the world, where by the signs that are wrought his ashes live.

[33] to be asserted for the Tours abbey of St. Julian, And so, whatever be the case about the body of St. Paul, bishop of Léon, it would be in vain that from this there should be called in doubt what we have reported about the ancient translation of St. Laurus's body to the Tours monastery of St. Julian, and the twofold elevation there made in the tenth and fifteenth centuries. As regards St. Paul, authority stands, I confess, for the monks of Fleury. For which reason I remain in doubt whether the monks of Tours at some time received some part of the sacred body from those of Fleury, which afterwards by a common enough usage began to be called the body; or whether those same monks of Tours by human error believed the body of another Saint to be that of St. Paul of Léon. The first assuredly does not shrink from likelihood, especially since there probably was a certain close intimacy between the two monasteries, because, as was said above, both had St. Odo of Cluny as the restorer of their discipline in the tenth century. The second, which is more uncertain, is somewhat suggested to me by the fact that in the aforesaid last elevation no mention is made of St. Blevileguetus, bishop of Vannes, whose body, however, Mabillon affirmed from the frequently cited anonymous writer to have been raised from the ground in the tenth century together with the bodies of SS. Laurus and Antony.

[34] where perhaps some relics of him survive. Further, to return to St. Laurus, whether his body, or some part of it, still survives today in the abbey of St. Julian at Tours or elsewhere, or whether — which is the more to be feared — it was burnt or scattered in that common and lamentable havoc of sacred things by the Huguenots in the sixteenth century, we have not sufficiently ascertained. Jacques de Longueval, a priest of our Society, in volume 3 of the History of the Gallican church, page 509, nevertheless indicates that at least some relics of him are preserved in that place down to our times, writing thus in French: St. Laurus, honoured in Armorican Brittany and in the Tours monastery of St. Julian, where his relics rest, led a monastic life in the dominion and in the time of king Judicaël, in the parish which retains his name. But however that be, from what was said at number 3 it is established that the monks of St. Julian at Tours went on, even after that calamity, celebrating the same Saint with an annual ecclesiastical Office.

nay, duos*