k
 
 THE MONKS OF THE WEST 
 
 VOLUME THE SECOND
 
 THE 
 
 MONKS OF THE WEST 
 
 FROM ST. BENEDICT TO ST. BERNARD 
 
 BY THE 
 
 COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT 
 
 MEMBER OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE 
 
 REV. F. A. GASQUET, D.D., O.S.B. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 "HENRY VIII. AND THE ENGLISH MONASTERIES" 
 
 FIDE ET VERITATE 
 
 IN SIX VOLUMES 
 
 ; , . .VOLUME TliE .SECOND 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN C. NIMMO 
 
 14 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND 
 MDCCCXCVI 
 
 -
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press
 
 PAOK 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK V 
 
 St. Gregory the Great. — Monastic Italy and Spain in 
 
 the Sixth and Seventh Centuries i 
 
 BOOK VI 
 
 The Monks under the First Merovingians . . 1 1 1 
 
 BOOK VII 
 
 St. Columbanus. — The Irish in Gaul and the Colonies 
 
 of Luxeuil 239 
 
 BOOK VIII 
 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF THE BRITISH ISLES 
 
 I. GREAT BRITAIN BEFORE THE CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS 365 
 
 II. THE SAINTS AND MONKS OF WALES 387 
 
 III. MONASTIC IRELAND AFTER ST. PATRICK . . . . 42 1
 
 BOOK V 
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT. — MONASTIC ITALY AND 
 SPAIN IN THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH CENTURIES 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 Cassiodorus : his monastic retreat and his Christian academy at Viviers 
 in Calabria. — The disciples of Benedict in Sicily : martyrdom of St. 
 Placidus.— Benedictine Mission and Martyr Monks in Italy. — 
 Kavages of the Lombards : they overthrow Farfa and Novalese. — First 
 destruction of Monte Cassino. 
 
 St. Gregory the Great : his birth, his conversion ; he becomes a 
 monk at the monastery of St. Andrea ; his alms and fasts. — He is nuncio 
 at Constantinople, afterwards abbot of his monastery ; his severity against 
 individual property. — His desire to go to convert the Angles : the Romans 
 detain him. — He is elected Pope, to his very great grief : his plaintive 
 letters on leaving the cloister. — State of the world and of the Church at 
 his accession. — Italy at once abandoned and ground down by the Byzantine 
 emperors.— Relations op Gregory with the Lombards : he defends 
 Rome against them. —Homilies on Ezekiel interrupted. — Mediation be- 
 tween Byzantium and the Lombards : Agilulf and Theodelinda. — Conver- 
 sion of the Lombards. — Dialogues on the ancient monks. — His struggles 
 against the Greeks. — Conflict with John the Faster, Patriarch of Con- 
 stantinople, with reference to the title of universal bishop : he desires for 
 himself only the title of servant of the servants of God. — Conflict with the 
 Emperor Maurice : law against the admission of soldiers to monasteries ; 
 celebrated letter to Maurice. — Maurice dethroned and slain by Phocas : 
 congratulations of Gregory to the new emperor ; contrast to his courage 
 and habitual rectitude. — He turns towards the new races, becomes their 
 ally and instructor, and thus begins to emancipate the Church and the 
 West from the Byzantine yoke. — His relations with the Franks and 
 THE BURGUNDIANS : Virgilius of Aries ; Brunehaut ; letter to the young 
 king Childebert. — Celebrated charter of Autun, in which the temporal 
 supremacy of the Papacy over royalty is proclaimed. — Relations with the 
 bishops of Neustria. — His respect for the episcopate and for the freedom 
 of episcopal elections. — His vast correspondence : universal vigilance. — 
 VOL. II. A
 
 2 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 Order re-established in St. Peter's patrimony. — He protects peasants, free- 
 men, slaves, Jews. — His conduct towards the pagans and the Donatists. — 
 Services rendered to the Liturgy and religious art : Gregorian Chants ; 
 musical education. — Ridiculous slander respecting his antipathy to classical 
 literature. — His WRITINGS : The Sacramentary , The Pastoral, The Morals : 
 letters and homilies.— He is the fourth great doctor of the Church. — His 
 extreme humility. — He remains always a monk, and renders the most 
 signal services to the monastic order : he confirms the rule of St. Benedict 
 at the Council of Rome, and shields the liberty and property of the monks. 
 — Exemptions. — Rigorous distinction between monastic life and the eccle- 
 siastical state. — Monastic discipline is reformed and enforced. — History of 
 Venantius, the married monk. — Nunneries. — Gregory watches over the 
 freedom and sincerity of vocations. — Catella, the young slave. — The Abbey 
 of Classe, at Ravenna, protected against the metropolitan ; monastic foun- 
 dations in Isauria and Jerusalem. — He always regrets the cloistral life, 
 and habitually surrounds himself with monks ; he makes them bishops and 
 legates. — Charities and monastic hospitality. — His cruel sufferings; his 
 last letters. — He dies. — Ingratitude of the Romans. — He is avenged by 
 posterity. — His true greatness. 
 
 The Monks in Spain : origin of the order in Spain conquered by the 
 Arian Visigoths. — St. Donatus, St. Emilian, St. Martin of Dumes.— St. 
 Leander, monk and bishop of Seville. — School of Seville. — Martyrdom of 
 Hermenegild ; exile of Leander : he meets St. Gregory at Constantinople ; 
 their mutual tenderness. — Conversion of King Recarede and of the Vi.sigoth 
 nation, under the auspices of Leander : their relations with Gregory. — 
 The family of Leander : his sister Florentine. — His brother Isadore : action 
 of the latter on the monastic order and Spain ; his writings.— St. Braulius. 
 — Visigothic formula of monastic foundations. — School of Toledo : Abbey 
 of Agali. — Ildefonso of Toledo, monk and bishop, the most popular saint 
 of that period. — Councils of Toledo : part played by the bishops ; inter- 
 vention of the laity : decrees and doctrines upon royalty. — Harshness 
 against the Jews. — The Fuero Juezgo, issued by the Councils of Toledo. — 
 King Wamba made monk in spite of himself. — Monastic extension in Lusi- 
 tania. — St. Fructuosus and his hind. — The monks dwell on the shores of 
 the Ocean waiting for the conquest and invasion of the New World.
 
 BOOK V 
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 Quemadmodum radii solis contingunt quidem terrain, sed ibi sunt unde 
 mittuntur, sic animus magnus et sacer, et in hoc demissus ut pro- 
 pius divina nossemus, conversatur quidem nobiscum, sed hseret ori- 
 gini suae ; illinc pendet, illinc spectat ac nititur. — Seneca, Epist. 41. 
 
 I. — Monastic Italy in the Sixth Century. 
 
 Even before the death of Benedict, the most illustrious of 
 his contemporaries had sought in monastic life an interval 
 of repose and freedom between his public career and his 
 grave. Cassiodorus, who had been for thirty years the 
 honour and light of the Gothic monarchy, the minister and 
 the friend of five kings, abandoned the court of Ravenna 
 and all his offices and dignities, 1 towards the year 538, to 
 found, at the extremity of Italy, a monastery called Viviers 
 ( Vivaria), which at one time seemed destined to rival Monte 
 Cassino itself in importance. 
 
 Cassiodorus belonged to the high Roman nobility : his 
 ancestors had seats at once in the senates of Rome and 
 Constantinople. His fortune was immense. Successively 
 a senator, a quaestor, and prefect of the pretorium, he was 
 the last of the great men who held the office of consul, 
 which Justinian abolished. He obtained, finally, that title 
 of patrician which Clovis and Charlemagne considered them- 
 
 1 "Repulsis in Ravennati urbe sollicitudinibus dignitatum et curis 
 S33cularibus." — CASSIOD., Prcef. in Psalm. 
 
 3
 
 4 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 selves honoured in receiving. His credit survived all the 
 revolutions of that terrible age. He was successively the 
 minister of Odoacer, of Theodoric, of his daughter Amala- 
 sontha, and of his grandson Athalaric, who made him prefect 
 of the pretorium. He retained that office under the kings 
 Theodatus and Vitiges. He allied in his own person the 
 virtues of the old Romans to those of the new Christians, 
 as in his titles the dignities of the republic were conjoined 
 to those of the empire. Full of respect for the popes and 
 bishops, he was also full of solicitude for the people. An 
 intelligent and courageous mediator between the Barbarian 
 conquerors and the conquered population, he was able to 
 give to the Ostrogoth royalty that protecting and civilising 
 character which it retained for some time. 
 
 To him must be attributed the finest portion of the great 
 reign of Theodoric, who would have deserved to be the fore- 
 runner of Charlemagne, if he had contracted with the Church 
 that alliance which alone could guarantee and fertilise the 
 future. But, although an Arian, this great prince long pro- 
 tected the religious liberty of the Catholics ; and during the 
 greater part of his reign, the Church gained more by his 
 benevolent indifference than by the oppressive and trifling 
 intervention of the crowned theologians who reigned in By- 
 zantium. Influenced by his pious and orthodox minister, he 
 said, nobly and wisely, that to him, as king, nothiug beyond 
 reverence with regard to ecclesiastical affairs pertained. 1 
 Cassiodorus, who filled the office of chancellor under him, 
 showed in his official acts the great principles he held, and 
 which most Christian doctors up to that time had appealed to. 
 We cannot," said he, in the name of Theodoric, " com- 
 mand religion, for no man can be forced to believe against 
 his will ; " 2 and to one of his successors, " Since God suffers 
 
 1 " Nee aliquid ad se praeter reverentiam de ecclesiasticis negotiis 
 pertinere." 
 
 2 " Religionem imperare non possumus, quia nemo cogitur ut credat 
 invitus. ''—Letter of Theodoric to the Jews, ap. Cassiod., lib. ii. ep. 27.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 5 
 
 several religions, we dare not impose one alone. We re- 
 member to have read, that a sacrifice to God must be made 
 voluntarily, and not in obedience to a master. A man who 
 attempts to act otherwise evidently opposes himself to the 
 Divine commands." l Two centuries after the peace of the 
 Church, he continued thus faithful to the great apologists 
 of the time of the imperial persecutions : to Tertullian, who 
 said, " Religion forbids us to constrain any one to be re- 
 ligious ; she would have consent, and not constraint ; " " and 
 to Lactantius, according to whom, " To defend religion, one 
 must know how to die, and not how to kill." ' 
 
 Afterwards, when, unfaithful to his earliest policy, Theo- 
 doric arrogated to himself the right of interfering in the 
 election of the Roman pontiffs — when he had dishonoured 
 the end of his career by cruelties of which Boethius, Sym- 
 machus, and the holy pope, John I., were victims — when 
 his daughter Amalasontha, whose reign was so happy for 
 Italy, had perished by assassination — Oassiodorus, who, 
 amongst all those crimes, had devoted all his energies and 
 perseverance to preserve authority from its own excesses, to 
 soften the manners of the Goths, and guarantee the rights 
 of the Romans, grew weary of that superhuman task. No 
 danger nor disgrace threatened him, for all the sovereigns 
 who, after Theodoric, succeeded each other on the bloody 
 throne of Ravenna, seem to have vied in seeking or conciliat- 
 ing him ; but he had experienced enough of it. He was 
 nearly seventy years old ; fifty years had been passed in the 
 most elevated employments ; he had wielded a power almost 
 
 1 "Cum Divinitas patiatur diversas religiones esse, nos unam non aude- 
 mus imponere. Retenimus enim legisse nos voluntarie sacrificandum 
 esse Domino, non cujusquam cogentis imperio. Quod qui aliter facere 
 tentaverit, evidenter coelestibus jussionibus obviavit." — Letter of Theodatus 
 to Justinian, ap. CASSIOD., lib. x. ep. 26. 
 
 2 "Non est religionis cogere religionem, quas sponte suscipi debet, non 
 vi." — Ad Scapulam, in fin. 
 
 s " Defendenda religio est non occidendo, sed moriendo ; non sasvitia, 
 sed patientia ; non scelere, sed fide."
 
 6 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 sovereign, but always tempered by reason and faith. He 
 resolved to end his life in monastic solitude. With him 
 disappeared the glory and prosperity of the kingdom of the 
 Goths in Italy. 
 
 This was the first, after the downfall of the Roman 
 empire, of these striking conversions, an innumerable series 
 of which will pass before our eyes, which, even in the highest 
 ranks of the new society, sought out the great ones of the 
 world, to teach them how to expiate their grandeur, to rest 
 from their power, and to put an interval between the agita- 
 tions of the world and the judgment of God. 
 
 But in assuming the monastic frock, Cassiodorus seems 
 to have recommenced to live. This religious profession 
 offered as many attractions to his soul as employments to 
 his activity. The monastery of Viviers, which he had built 
 on the patrimonial estate where he was born, at the ex- 
 tremity of Calabria, on the shores of the Gulf of Squillace, 
 took its name from numerous vivaria, or fish-ponds, which 
 had been hollowed in the rock. It was a delightful dwell- 
 ing, which he has described affectionately in terms worthy 
 of that delicious region, where the azure sea bathes a shore 
 clad with incomparable and perpetual verdure. The build- 
 ing was vast and magnificent ; at a distance it appeared 
 like an entire town. There were two monasteries for the 
 numerous disciples who collected round the illustrious old 
 man. Besides these, some who believed themselves called 
 to a life more austere than that of the cenobites whose 
 dwelling extended along the smiling shores of the sea, found, 
 by ascending the mountain which overlooked them, isolated 
 cells where they could taste in all its purity the delight of 
 absolute solitude. 1 
 
 Cassiodorus himself, successively a monk and abbot, 
 passed nearly thirty years in that retreat, occupied in 
 
 1 " Habetis Montis Castelli secreta suavia, ubi, velut anachoretae, prse- 
 stante Domino, feliciter esse possitis, ... si prius in corde vestro praepa- 
 ratus sit adscensus." — Cassiod., De Instit. Divin. Litter., c. 19.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 7 
 
 governing his community, and uniting the study of litera- 
 ture and science with the pursuit of spiritual life. During 
 his political career, he had made use of his power, with 
 energy and solicitude, to maintain public education and 
 intellectual life in that poor Italy, which was periodically 
 overrun by floods of ignorant and rude conquerors. He has 
 been declared, not without reason, the hero and restorer of 
 knowledge in the sixth century. 1 As soon as he became a 
 monk, he made his monastery a kind of Christian academy, 
 and the principal centre of the literary activity of his time. 
 He had there collected an immense library ; he imposed 
 upon his monks a complete and severe plan of study. His 
 own example enforced his precepts ; he instructed them 
 with unwearied zeal in the Holy Scriptures, for the study 
 of which he, in concert with Pope Agapetus, had attempted 
 in vain to establish public professors in Rome. He added 
 to this the study of the seven liberal arts, and profane litera- 
 ture in general. It was at Viviers that he composed most 
 of his works, and especially his famous Treatise wpon the 
 Teaching of Sacred Literature? a kind of elementary ency- 
 clopaedia, which was the code of monastic education, and 
 served long as a programme to the intellectual education 
 of the new nations. At eighty-three he had the courage 
 to commence a treatise upon orthography, in order to assist 
 in the correction of ancient copies of the holy books. 
 
 Cassiodorus thus gave, amid his numerous community, 
 one of the first and most illustrious models of that alliance 
 of monastic and intellectual life which has distinguished the 
 monastic order. The literary enthusiasm which inspired the 
 noble old man served only to redouble his zeal for the strict 
 observance of monastic regularity. " God grant to us 
 grace," he wrote, " to be like the untiring oxen to cultivate 
 
 1 F. DE Sainte-Marthe, Vie de Cassiodore, 1684. Compare MABILLON, 
 Annal. Bened., lib. v. c. 24, 27. 
 
 2 De Institutione Divinarum Litterarum. " Quern monachi omnes accurate 
 legere deberent." — Mabillon, I. c.
 
 8 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 the field of our Lord with the plough of observance and 
 regular exercises." l It is scarcely known what rule he 
 adopted. Some have believed that it was that of St. Bene- 
 dict ; but he has made no special mention of it in recom- 
 mending his monks to follow the rules of the Fathers 
 generally, along with the orders of their own superior, and 
 to consult the institutes of Cassianus. 2 However, a strong 
 analogy may at least be recognised between the usages 
 practised at Viviers and the great example of St. Benedict, 
 in the directions given by Cassiodorus on the subject of 
 manual labour. He desires that those who are not capable 
 of study, or of transcribing manuscript, should apply them- 
 selves to agriculture and gardening, especially for the relief 
 of guests and of the infirm. 3 Like Benedict, he recom- 
 mended them to bestow an affectionate solicitude upon 
 travellers, and upon the poor and sick in the neighbourhood. 
 Like Benedict, he desired that the cultivators of monastic 
 lands should share in the temporal and spiritual wellbeing 
 of monastic life. " Instruct your peasants in good morals ; 
 oppress them not with heavy or new burdens ; call them 
 often to your festivals, that they may not blush, if there is 
 occasion for it, for belonging to you, and yet resembling you 
 so little." 4 In short, he seems to follow the rule of Bene- 
 dict, even in its least details, in that which concerns the 
 nocturnal and almost perpetual psalms which characterised 
 monastic worship, and which he explains as follows to his 
 numerous disciples : " During the silence of night, the voices 
 of men bursting forth in chants and in words sung by art 
 and measure brings us back to Him from whom the divine 
 word came to us, for the salvation of the human race. . . . 
 All who sing form but a single voice, and we mingle our 
 music with the praises of God, chanted by angels, although 
 we cannot hear them." 5 
 
 i In Prcef. Explic. Psalm. 2 De Div. Litt., c. 32 and 29. 
 
 3 Ibid., c. 28. 4 Ibid., c. 32. 
 
 Prcef at. in Psalter.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 9 
 
 Into the same region where the Roman minister of the 
 Gothic kingdom completed his glorious career, but beyond 
 these Straits of Faro, which doubtless exhibited then, as 
 now, an enchanting scene of nature, other monks had like- 
 wise penetrated. The cherished disciple of St. Benedict, 
 the son of the rich senator who had so generously endowed 
 the new-born community of Subiaco, the young Placidus, 
 had brought to Sicily the name and rule of his master. He 
 had been sent there to recover the eighteen estates situated 
 in that island, which his father had given to the abbot of 
 Monte Cassino, and the profits of which had been lost by 
 unfaithful stewardship. He remained there, and established 
 towards the year 534, at Messina, the first Benedictine 
 monastery which was formed out of Italy. Placidus col- 
 lected there thirty monks, but was too soon interrupted in 
 his work of religious colonisation. 1 He perished with two 
 of his brethren and his young sister Flavia, tortured and 
 slain by a band of Moorish pirates, still pagans, and who, 
 like so many other ruffians, made the monks the principal 
 victims of their fury. The children of St. Benedict inaugu- 
 rated thus the long series of their struggles and victories. 
 The blood of Placidus watered the seeds of the order in 
 Sicily, where its harvest, even up to our own days, has been 
 so abundant. 2 
 
 We have said that the monks came to replace the martyrs, 
 but that often also they imitated and joined their band. It 
 was thus during the rise of the Benedictine order in Italy. 
 Its extension was rapid during the last years of Benedict's 
 life, and especially after his death. The tomb where the holy 
 
 1 We do not venture to relate here many very interesting features in the 
 life of the first disciple of St. Benedict, because his Acts, attributed to one 
 of his companions, the monk Gordian, have undergone very numerous 
 interpolations, according to the unanimous opinion of Baronius, Mabillon, 
 and the Bollandists. 
 
 2 There were at that time, and subsequently, many monasteries in Sicily 
 inhabited by Greek monks, who followed the rule of St. Basil. — Yepes, 
 Chronica General., ii. 2.
 
 IO ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 remains of the great legislator rested, under the guardian- 
 ship of a line of fervent disciples constantly renewed, became 
 the spring from which a new life flowed forth upon the penin- 
 sula. 1 Most of the ancient monasteries adopted the rule 
 which flourished at Monte Cassino. It spread through 
 Latium in the environs of Lake Fucino, where the holy 
 abbot Equitius, shod with nailed shoes, made hay with his 
 monks, and returned, after the hot and laborious day, with 
 his scythe on his shoulder like any other labourer. 2 It was 
 carried to the summit of Mount Soracte, where more than 
 one brave solitary, well worthy of practising it, waited its 
 coming, and where the gentle prior Nonnosus laboured .on the 
 rocky sides of the mountain celebrated by Virgil and Horace, 
 to make gardens and olive orchards for the use of his 
 brethren. 3 It prevailed in several of the twenty-two re- 
 ligious houses which already existed at Rome. 4 It soon 
 extended into the isles of the Mediterranean and Adriatic, 
 which we have seen to be already occupied by monks, and 
 especially into those which lay near the coast of Naples, 
 whither, under the hideous tyranny of the first Caesars, men 
 accused of high treason had been banished, and where the 
 love of heavenly things and spiritual freedom retained many 
 voluntary exiles. Thus, throughout the whole peninsula, 
 numerous companies of monks laboriously struggled, amidst 
 the general confusion, against the depravity of Roman man- 
 ners, against the violence of the Barbarians. Their lives 
 afforded these lessons of austere virtue and miraculous 
 power, the memory of which St. Gregory the Great has 
 associated in his Dialogues with that of their holy patri- 
 
 1 " Te monachorum turbas diu noctuque concelebrant, corpus tuum in 
 medio positum servantes, quod largos miraculorum fluvios effudit." — 
 Menkes de VEglise Grccque, ap. Dom GUERANGER, Careme, p. 581. 
 
 2 " Clavatis calceatus caligis, falcem ferrariam in collo deferens venie- 
 bat."— S. Greg., Dial, lib. 4. 
 
 3 V. S. Gregor., Dial., lib. i. c. 7, on Nonnosus and Anastasius. 
 
 4 Baronius, Martyrol. , 5 Dec. Amongst these the monasteries of St. 
 Sabas and St. Erasmus held the first rank.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT I I 
 
 arch. They died as they had lived, and braved martyrdom 
 in public places as well as in the depth of woods. Upon 
 the faith of that great doctor, the faithful have related from 
 generation to generation, how the monk Herculanus, Bishop 
 of Perugia, when that city was besieged and destroyed by 
 the Goths under Totila, was sacrificed amid tortures, as the 
 principal author of the resistance ; how, in the Roman Cam- 
 pagna, the abbot Suranus was slain by the Lombards, who 
 found him hidden in the hollow of an oak ; and how, else- 
 where, the same Lombards hung the monks, two by two, to 
 the same tree. 1 
 
 For the Lombards were already there. Scarcely had the 
 Goths, who fell into their premature decay after Theodoric 
 and Cassiodorus, disappeared, when a new race of Barbarians 
 crossed the Alps and descended upon Italy. They were 
 proud, intelligent, and warlike, Arian by name, but still, 
 in fact, half-pagan, and a thousand times more cruel and 
 dreaded than the Goths. 2 Under Alboin and his succes- 
 sors they ravaged the peninsula without pity, trampling 
 under foot Greeks and Romans, Catholics and Arians, 
 priests and laymen. Ruined cities, desecrated churches, 
 murdered bishops and clergy, and exterminated nations, 
 were everywhere seen in their track. 3 These ferocious con- 
 querors reaped everything, and left only a desert behind 
 them. The end of the world was supposed to have come. 4 
 They were especially furious against monks and monasteries. 
 They burned and destroyed, among others, two considerable 
 abbeys, the origin of which is unknown : Novalese, situated 
 upon a plateau on the south side of the Piedmontese Alps ; 
 
 1 S. Greg., Dial., iv. 21. 
 
 2 Their first invasion took place in 568, at the solicitation of Narses. 
 
 3 ANASTASIUS, Liber Pontif., c. 32. 
 
 4 " Mox effera gens Longobardorum de vagina suae habitationis educta 
 in nostram cervicem grassata est, atque humanum genus . . . succisum 
 aruit. . . . Depopulatse urbes, . . . destructa monasteria virorum ac femi- 
 narum, . . . occupaverunt bestiae loca quas prius multitudo hominum 
 tenebat."— S. Gregor. Magn., Dial, iii. 38, Epist., iii. 29.
 
 12 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 and Farfa, which imagined itself secure, hid among the fresh 
 foliage of the Sabine woods, sung by Ovid — 
 
 " Et amoense Farfaris umbrae." 
 
 These names, destined to be so celebrated in religious 
 history, yet the first appearance of which is marked by 
 disaster, must be noted. 
 
 A great number of monks received martyrdom from the 
 hands of these new persecutors ; others, hunted from their 
 first asylum, and wandering through the different parts of 
 Italy, carried with them the seeds of monastic life into 
 countries which, without that storm, they might never have 
 reached. 
 
 Finally, the Lombards ascended Monte Cassino, and pil- 
 laged and burned that already famous sanctuary, according 
 to the prediction of Benedict, forty years before; but, as he 
 had also predicted, 1 they could destroy nothing which had 
 life, and did not take a single monk. Although the attack 
 of the Lombards took place by night, and while the monks 
 were asleep, they were all able to flee, bearing with them, 
 as their entire fortune, the rule written by their founder, 
 with the measure of wine and the pound of bread which he 
 had prescribed. 2 They took refuge at Rome ; Pope Pelagius 
 II. 3 gave them a paternal reception, and permitted them to 
 build, near the Lateran palace, a monastery in which the 
 children of Benedict were to await for a century and a half 
 the happy day which was to witness their return to their 
 holy mountain. 4 
 
 1 " Res, non animas." — Epist., iv. 17. 
 
 2 In 580, under Bonitus, fourth abbot after St. Benedict. 
 
 3 According to Yepes and some other authors, this pope, like his prede- 
 cessor, Benedict I., was a monk ; but we find no proof of this assertion. 
 
 4 They only returned to Monte Cassino about 730, under the abbot 
 Petronatius.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 1 3 
 
 II. — Gregory the Great, Monk and Pope. 
 
 But ere long a monk ascended for the first time the 
 apostolical See. This monk, the most illustrious of all those 
 who have been reckoned among the sovereign pontiffs, was 
 to shine there with a splendour which none of his prede- 
 cessors had equalled, and which flowed back, like a supreme 
 sanction, upon the institute from which he came. Gregory, 
 who alone among men has received, by universal consent, the 
 double surname of Saint and Great, will be an everlasting 
 honour to the Benedictine order as to the papacy. By his 
 genius, but especially by the charm and ascendancy of his 
 virtue, he was destined to organise the temporal power of the 
 popes, to develop and regulate their spiritual sovereignty, to 
 found their paternal supremacy over the new-born crowns 
 and races which were to become the great nations of the 
 future, and to be called France, Spain, and England. It 
 was he, indeed, who inaugurated the middle ages, modern 
 society, and Christian civilisation. 
 
 Issued, like St. Benedict, from one of the most illustrious 
 races of ancient Rome, the son of a rich senator, and descen- 
 dant of Pope Felix III., of the Anicia family, 2 Gregory was 
 early called to filled a dignified place, which, in the midst of 
 modern Rome, the vassal of Byzantium, and subject to the 
 ceaseless insults of the Barbarians, retained some shadow of 
 ancient Roman grandeur. He was praetor of Rome during 
 the first invasions of the Lombards and the religious troubles 
 stirred up by the fifth general council. In the exercise of 
 this office he gained the hearts of the Romans, while habitu- 
 ating himself to the management of public business, and 
 while acquiring a taste for luxury and display of earthly 
 grandeur, in which he still believed he might serve God 
 
 1 Compare Don PlTRA, Histoire de St. Legcr, Introduction. 
 
 2 " Ex noblissima et antiquissima Aniciorum familia." — Joan. DlAC 
 in Vit. S. Greg. Magn. He was born probably in 540, and died in 604.
 
 14 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 without reproach. But God required him elsewhere. 
 Gregory hesitated long, inspired by the divine breath, but 
 retained, led back and fascinated to the world, by the attrac- 
 tions and habits of secular life. At last he yielded to the 
 influence of his intimate and close relations with the refugees 
 of Monte Cassino, the successors and disciples of Benedict ; l 
 and then, obeying the grace which enlightened him, he 
 abruptly broke every tie, devoted his wealth to the en- 
 dowment of six new monasteries in Sicily, and established in 
 his own palace in Rome, upon the Coelian hill, a seventh, 
 dedicated to St. Andrew, into which he introduced the 
 Benedictine rule, and where he himself became a monk. 2 
 He sold all that remained of his patrimony to distribute it 
 to the poor; and Rome, which had seen the young and 
 wealthy patrician traverse its streets in robes of silk covered 
 with jewels, now saw him, with admiration, clothed like a 
 beggar, serving, in his own person, the beggars lodged in 
 the hospital which he had built at the gate of his paternal 
 house, now changed into a monastery. 3 
 
 Once a monk, he would be nothing less than a model of 
 
 1 " Diu longeque conversionis gratiam distuli, et postquam ccelesti sum 
 desiderio afflatus, sseculari habitu contegi melius putavi. Apparebatur 
 enim mihi jam de asternitatis amore quid quaererem : sed inolita me con- 
 suetudo devinxerat, ne exteriorem cultum mutarem. Cumque adhuc me 
 cogeret animus . . . cceperunt multa me ex ejusdem mundi cura succres- 
 cere, ut in eo jam non specie, sed, quod est gravius, mente retinerer." — 
 Prccfat. ad Job. The Benedictines who brought about his conversion were 
 Constantine, disciple and successor of St. Benedict at Monte Cassino ; 
 Simplicius, third abbot of Monte Cassino ; and Valentinian, abbot of 
 Latran. 
 
 2 "Mutato repente sseculi habitu."— Paul. Diac, Vit. S. Greg., c. 3. 
 Yepes and Mabillon have proved beyond question, against Baronius, that 
 St. Gregory professed the rule of St. Benedict.— Act. SS. 0. S. B. Prozf. in 
 i. sac. § vii. See also his life by his Benedictine editors, lib. i. c. 3. This 
 monastery of St. Andrew, which now bears the name of St. Gregory, has 
 been since given to the Camaldules, and from it, thirteen centuries after, 
 issued another Gregory, pope and monk, Gregory XVI. 
 
 3 " Qui ante serico contextu ac gemmis micantibus solitus erat per urbem 
 procedere trabeatus, post vili contectus tegmine ministrabat pauper ipse 
 pauperibus." — Paul. Diac, c. 2.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT I 5 
 
 monks, and practised with the utmost rigour all the austeri- 
 ties sanctioned by the rule, applying himself specially at the 
 same time to the study of the Holy Scriptures. He ate 
 only pulse which his mother, who had become a nun since 
 her widowhood, sent him to his convent, already soaked, in 
 a silver porringer. This porringer was the only remnant 
 of his ancient splendour, and did not remain long in his 
 hands, for one day a shipwrecked sailor came several times 
 to beg from him while he was writing in his cell, and finding 
 no money in his purse, he gave him that relic of his former 
 wealth. Long after, Gregory saw the shipwrecked man, 
 who appeared to him under the form of his guardian angel, 
 and instructed him that from that day God had destined 
 him to govern His Church, and to be the successor of Peter, 
 whose charity he had imitated. 1 
 
 Continually engaged in prayer, reading, writing, or dic- 
 tation, he persisted in pushing the severity of his fasts to 
 such an extent that his health succumbed, and his life 
 itself was in danger. He fell so often into fainting fits, 
 that more than once, as he himself relates, he should have 
 sunk under them, had not his brethren supported him with 
 more substantial food." In consequence of having attempted 
 to do more than others, he was soon obliged to relinquish 
 even the most ordinary fasts, which everybody observed. 
 He was in despair at not being able to fast even upon 
 Easter eve, a day on which even the little children fast, 
 says his biographer : and aided by the prayers of a holy 
 abbot of Spoleto who had become a monk with him at St. 
 Andrea, he obtained from God the grace of strength to 
 observe that fast at least. But he remained weak and 
 
 1 " Crudis leguminibus pascebatur. . . . Matris argenteam quaa cum 
 infusis leguminibus mitti solita erat. . . . Ego sum naufragus ille qui 
 quondam veni ad te, quando scribebas in cella. . . . Ab illo destinavit te 
 Dominus fieri prassulem S. suae Ecclesise." — Joan. Diacon., Vit. S. Greg., 
 i. 10, and ii. 23. 
 
 2 " Nisi me frequenter fratres cibo reficerent, vitalis mihi spiritus fundi- 
 tus intercidi videretur." — Dial., iii. 33.
 
 1 6 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 sickly all his life, and when he left his monastery, it was 
 with health irreparably ruined. 
 
 Pope Benedict I. drew him first from the cloister in 577, 
 to raise him to the dignity of one of the seven cardinal- 
 deacons or regionaries, who presided over the seven principal 
 divisions of Borne. He yielded, against his own will, to 
 the authority of the pontiff. " When a ship," said he, " is 
 not well moored in port, the storm seizes it, even on the 
 most secure coast. Thus I am plunged again into the 
 ocean of the world, under an ecclesiastical pretext. I learn 
 to appreciate the peace of the monastery by losing it, though 
 I have not been sufficiently careful of defending while I 
 possessed it." 1 It was still worse when Pope Pelagius II. 
 sent him, as Apocrisiarius or Nuncio, to the Emperor 
 Tiberius. During this involuntary absence he was accom- 
 panied by several monks of the community, devoting him- 
 self with them to study and reading, and following, as much 
 as possible, all the observances of the rule. " By their 
 example," he wrote, " I attach myself to the coast of prayer, 
 as with the cable of an anchor, while my soul is tossed upon 
 the waves of public life." 2 
 
 He discharged the duties of his office, nevertheless, with 
 reputation and success, re-established between the Holy See 
 and the Byzantine court the friendly relations which had 
 been interrupted by the Lombard invasion, and neglected 
 no means to obtain from Tiberius and his successor, Maurice, 
 the help demanded by Rome and Italy against the terrible 
 invasions, and the more and more oppressive domination, of 
 the Lombards. He also learnt to know the shifts and sub- 
 terfuges which the Byzantine spirit already employed against 
 
 1 "Navem incaute religatam . . . tempestas excutit ; repent e me sub 
 prsetextu ecclesiastici ordinis in causarum saecularium pelago referi, et 
 quietem monasterii, quia habendo non fortiter tenui, quam stricte tenenda 
 fuerit, perdendo cognovi." — Pra>fat. ad Job. 
 
 2 "Ad orationis placidum littus, quasi ancborae fune. . . . Dum cau- 
 sarum ssecularium vertiginibus fluctuaret."— Prcef. Moralium. Compare 
 Dial, iii. 36 ; Joan. DiAC, i. 26; Bede, Hist. Eccl, ii. I.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT I 7 
 
 Roman unity and authority. He brought the patriarch 
 Eutychus, who denied the actual resurrection of the body, 
 to an edifying retractation. 
 
 After six years of this honourable and laborious exile, he 
 returned to Rome, and regained the peaceful shelter of his 
 monastery of St. Andrea, the monks of which elected him 
 abbot soon after his return. 1 He enjoyed there for some 
 time longer the delights of the life which he had chosen. 
 Tenderly cherished by his brethren, he took a paternal 
 share in their trials and spiritual crosses, provided for their 
 temporal and spiritual necessities, and specially rejoiced in 
 the holy death of several among them. He has related the 
 details of these in his Dialogues, and seems to breathe in 
 them the perfume of heaven. But the affectionate kind- 
 ness which always inspired him did not prevent him from 
 maintaining with scrupulous severity the requirements of 
 the rule. He threw into a ditch the body of a monk, who 
 had been a skilful physician, and in whose possession three 
 pieces of gold were found, in contempt of the article of the 
 rule which interdicted all individual property. The three 
 pieces of gold were thrown upon the body, in presence of 
 all the monks, whilst they repeated aloud the words of the 
 verse, " Pecunia tua tecum sit in perditionem." When this 
 act of justice was accomplished, mercy took its sway once 
 more in the heart of the abbot, who caused mass to be 
 celebrated for thirty days successively to deliver this poor 
 soul from purgatory. 2 
 
 This tender solicitude for souls was on the point of 
 separating him from his dear monastery and from Rome. 
 
 1 The chronological order of these first events in the public life of St. 
 Gregory has been finally established, in the work of the Mecklenburg pastor, 
 Lau, Gregor der Grosse, nach seinem Leben und seiner Lehre geschildert, 
 Leipzig, 1845. T Be history of the great pontiff is there written with eru- 
 dition and as much impartiality as can be looked for from a Protestant 
 minister. Compare S. Gregorii Vita ex ejus Scriptis Adornata, lib. i. c. 5, 
 in the large edition of his works by the Benedictines. 
 
 2 Dial., vi. 55. 
 
 VOL. II. B
 
 1 8 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 Everybody knows how he saw exhibited in the market some 
 poor pagan children, of extraordinary beauty and fairness, 
 who were said to be of the country of the Angles, to which 
 he answered, that they were made to become angels. 1 On 
 which occasion, hastening to the pope, he begged him to 
 send missionaries into that great island of Britain, where 
 the pagans sold such slaves ; failing others, offered himself 
 for this work ; surprised the pontiff into consent, and pre- 
 pared instantly for his departure. But when they under- 
 stood his intention, the love with which the Romans had 
 formerly regarded him was re-awakened. They surrounded 
 the pope as he went to St. Peter's; they cried to him, 
 " You have offended St. Peter ; you have ruined Rome in 
 allowing Gregory to leave us." The astonished pope yielded 
 to the popular voice. He sent messengers after Gregory, 
 who overtook him at three days' journey from Rome ; they 
 led him back forcibly to his monastery. It was not as a 
 missionary, but as a pope, that he was to win England to 
 the Church. 
 
 In 590, Pelagius II. died of the plague, which then 
 depopulated Rome. Gregory was immediately elected pope 
 by the unanimous voice of the senate, the people, and the 
 clergy. It was in vain that he refused, and appealed to the 
 Emperor Maurice not to confirm his election. The Romans 
 intercepted his letter ; the imperial confirmation arrived. 
 Then he disguised himself, and, fleeing from Rome to seek 
 some unknown retreat, wandered three days in the woods. 
 He was followed, discovered, and a second time led back to 
 Rome, but this time to reign there. He bowed his head, 
 weeping, under the yoke imposed upon him by the divine 
 will, and the unanimity of his fellow- citizens. 2 
 
 1 "Bene Angli quasi angeli, quia angelicos vultus habent et tales in 
 coelis angelorum decet esse concives." — Joan. Diac, i. 21. 
 
 2 "Infirmitatis meas conscius secretiora loca petere decreveram. . . . 
 Jugo conditoris subdidi cervicem." — Epist., vii. 4, edit. Benedict. In refer- 
 ring to the epistles, we have almost always followed the order established
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 19 
 
 It was during the interval between his election and the 
 imperial confirmation that, in the hope of turning back the 
 scourge of the plague, he caused the famous procession of 
 three days (in which, for the first time, all the abbots of the 
 Koman monasteries appeared with their monks, and all the 
 abbesses with their nuns) to be celebrated. Whilst these 
 communities defiled before Gregory, he saw an angel appear 
 upon the summit of the Hadrian Mole, putting back his 
 sword into its sheath, the image of which, standing upon 
 the colossal mausoleum, has given its name to the Castle of 
 St. Angelo, and perpetuated to our own day the recollection 
 of St. Gregory's vision. 1 
 
 The supreme pontificate, perhaps, never fell upon a soul 
 more disturbed and afflicted than that of the monk who saw 
 himself thus condemned to exchange the peace of the cloister 
 for the cares of the government of the universal Church, and 
 the special defence of the interests of Italy. Not only then, 
 but during all his life, he did not cease to lament his fate. 
 His sadness displayed itself first in his answers to the con- 
 gratulations which reached him from all quarters : " I have 
 lost," he wrote to the sister of the emperor, " the profound 
 joys of repose. I seem to have been elevated in external 
 things, but in spiritual I have fallen. ... I endeavour 
 daily to withdraw from the world and from the flesh, to see 
 heavenly joys in the spirit. . . . Neither desiring nor fear- 
 ing anything in this world, I felt myself above everything. 
 But the storm of temptation has cast me all at once among 
 alarms and terrors ; lor, though still I fear nothing for 
 myself, I fear much for those of whom I have the charge." ' 
 To the patrician Narses : " I am so overcome with melan- 
 in the edition of the Benedictines, which differs considerably from the 
 ancient classification, quoted by Mabillon, Fleurs, &c. " Decretum 
 generalitatis evadere nequivit. . . . Capitur, trahitur, consecratur." — 
 Joan. Diac, Vit. Greg., i. 41. 
 
 1 Compare Greg. Turonens., Hist. Franc, x. i. ; Paul. Diac, Be Gcst. 
 Longob., iii. 25 ; JOAN. DlAC, Vit. Greg., i. 41. 
 
 2 " Alta quietis mea? gaudia perdidi." — Epist., i. 5.
 
 20 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 choly, that I can scarcely speak; the darkness of grief 
 assails the eyes of my soul ; I see nothing that is not sad, 
 and everything which is supposed to please me appears to 
 me lamentable. For I cannot cease to see from what a 
 height of tranquillity I have fallen, and to what a height of 
 embarrassment I have ascended." l To Andrew, of the rank 
 called Illustrious : " When you hear of my promotion to the 
 episcopate, weep, if you love me ; for there are so many 
 temporal occupations here, that I find myself by this dignity 
 almost separated from the love of God." 2 To the patrician 
 John, who had contributed to his election : " I complain of 
 your love, which has drawn me from the repose which you 
 know I sought. God reward you with eternal gifts for 
 your good intention, but I pray Him deliver me, as He 
 shall please, from so many perils; for, as my sins deserve, I 
 have become bishop, not only of the Romans, but of these 
 Lombards who acknowledge only the right of the sword, 
 and whose favour is torture. See how much your patronage 
 has brought me." 3 Then, taking up once more these images 
 which he loved to borrow from maritime life, he said to his 
 intimate friend Leander, Bishop of Toledo, whom he had 
 met at Constantinople : " I am here so beaten by the waves 
 of this world, that I despair of being able to guide to port 
 this rotten old vessel with which God has charged me. . . . 
 I must hold the helm amid a thousand difficulties. ... I 
 already hear the bell of shipwreck ringing. ... I weep 
 when I recall the peaceful shore which I have left, and sigh 
 in perceiving afar that which I cannot attain." 
 
 One day, long after, when, more than ever overwhelmed 
 by the burden of secular affairs, he had withdrawn into a 
 secret place, to give himself up to silence and sadness, he 
 was joined there by the deacon Peter, his pupil, the friend of 
 
 1 Epist., i. 6. " "Si me diligitis, plangite." — Ibid., i. 30. 
 
 3 " Quorum synthicae spathas sunt, et gratia poena. Ecce ubi patrocinia 
 vestra me perduxerunt." — Ibid., i. 31. 
 
 4 " Vetustam ac putrescentem navim. . . . Flens reminiscor quod per- 
 didi mese placidum littus quietis." — Ibid., i. 43.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 2 1 
 
 his youth and companion of his beloved studies. " Has 
 some new trouble happened to you," said the young man, 
 " that you are thus sadder thau usual ? " " My grief," an- 
 swered the pontiff, " is that of all my days, always old by 
 custom, and always new by its daily increase. 1 My poor 
 soul recalls what it was of old in our monastery, when it 
 soared over everything changeable and transitory ; when it 
 dreamt only of heaven ; when by contemplation it escaped 
 from the cloister of this body which enclosed it ; when it 
 loved death as the entrance of life. And now, because of 
 my pastoral charge, it must bear the burdens of the men of 
 the world, and soil itself in this dust. And when, after 
 having exhausted itself without, it comes back to its internal 
 retreat, it returns with diminished forces. I meditate on all 
 I have suffered and lost. I see myself tossed by the ocean 
 and broken by the tempest. When I think of my former 
 life, I seem to look back towards the shore. And what 
 is still more sad, when thus shaken by the storm, I can 
 scarcely perceive the port which I have left." " 
 
 These exclamations of profound grief tell us all that we re- 
 quire to know of the influence of this cloistral life, which swayed 
 to such an extent the holy soul of the greatest man of his age. 
 
 It is true that the condition of the world and the Church, 
 at the advent of Gregory, exhibited only causes of grief and 
 
 1 " Quadam die . . . secretum locum petii amicum mceroris . . . dilec- 
 tissimus filius meus Petrus . . . mihi a primsevo juventutis flore amicitiis 
 familiariter obstrictus. . . . Num quidquam novi. . . . Moeror, Petre, 
 quem quotidie patior, et semper mihi per usum vetus est, et semper per 
 augmentum novus." — Prcefat. ad Dialog. 
 
 2 "Infelix animus meus occupationis sua3 pulsatus vulnere meminit 
 qualis aliquando in monasterio fuit, quomodo ei labentia cuncta subter 
 erant. . . . Quod etiam retentus corpore ipsa jam carnis claustra con- 
 templationem transibat, quod mortem quoque, qua? pene cunctis poena 
 est, videlicet ut ingressum vita? et laboris prasmium amabat. At nunc 
 . . . et post tarn pulchram quietis suae speciem terreni actus pulvere 
 fcedatur. . . . Ecce etenim nunc magni maris fluctibus quatior, atque in 
 navi multis tempestatis validae procellis inlidor : et cum prioris vita? 
 recolo, quasi post tergum reductis oculis viso littore suspiro . . . vix 
 jam portem valeo videre quem reliqui." — Procem. ad Dicdoy.
 
 2 2 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 alarm. An obstinate, although restrained schism, which 
 dated from the fifth general council, 1 and which had lasted 
 forty years, consumed the powers of the clergy. The 
 papacy, always dependent on the Byzantine emperors, and 
 unceasingly humiliated by them, did not even find, in the 
 arm of these distrustful and incapable masters, the support 
 which it needed against its enemies from within and with- 
 out. Within the shadow of their throne flourished those 
 patriarchs of Constantinople, whose ambition already aspired 
 to the title of universal, and who were to end by rending 
 the Church in twain. Africa was a prey to the Donatists ; 
 Spain was entirely Arian ; England had fallen back into 
 idolatry ; in Gaul, despite the Catholic faith professed by 
 the successors of Clovis, simony polluted the Church, and the 
 struggles of Fredegond and Brunehaut distressed all Chris- 
 tians ; in the East, the Avars and Persians threatened or 
 ravaged the empire. But nothing was more lamentable 
 than the state of Italy. As if the scourge of God, floods, 
 plague, and famine, were not enough, men rent each other 
 with contentions, and disorders of all kind invaded the 
 Church, following in the steps of persecution and war. 
 The Lombards, who from being pagans had become Arians, 
 believed that by persecuting furiously the Roman Church 
 they would secure their power against the Greeks ; they 
 regarded the papacy as the servant of the Byzantine court, 
 and consequently as their own habitual enemy. The Greek 
 emperors, on their side, accused the popes of treason, be- 
 cause they did not sacrifice everything to the necessities of 
 imperial policy, or of usurpation, because they took upon 
 themselves the task of providing for the public necessities 
 when the inaction or powerlessness of the lieutenants of 
 Caesar became too evident. In reality, the successors of 
 Constantine, with an instinctive perception of the future, 
 perceived already, in the successors of St. Peter, the 
 power which God had destined to replace their decrepid 
 1 The second of Constantinople, in 553.
 
 ST. GKEGORY THE GREAT 23 
 
 sovereignty, in Italy and over that city in which the 
 imagination of Christendom still placed the centre of 
 the empire and the cause of its existence. Thence came 
 their tortuous, oppressive, and inconsistent policy. They 
 would be obeyed as masters, by nations whom they knew 
 not how to defend ; and as, amid the ruins which despot- 
 ism had everywhere accumulated, the papacy alone was seen 
 standing, they willingly made the popes responsible for the 
 consequences of their own weakness. 
 
 The poor monk who showed so much despair when he 
 was thrown into that whirlpool by the unanimous voice of 
 the Romans, could yet perceive with a bold and clear glance 
 the dangers of the situation, and adopt a line of conduct 
 which was a manifest realisation of the infallible promises of 
 Jesus Christ. He founded the temporal greatness of the Holy 
 See, and the progress of its spiritual authority, upon the basis, 
 long immovable, of the gratitude and admiration of nations. 
 
 First of all, and especially, he concerned himself with the 
 Lombards. Although he has perhaps judged too severely 
 in his writings this proud and intelligent race, whose courage 
 and legislative powers have attracted the attention of pos- 
 terity, and who were a hundred times more worthy than 
 the degenerate Greco-Romans, whose authority he loyally 
 endeavoured to re-establish in Italy, Gregory used in his 
 intercourse with them no means that were not legitimate 
 and honourable. He had a right, after long and laborious 
 negotiations with them, to bear this testimony to himself, 
 " Had I been willing to lend myself to the destruction of 
 the Lombards, that nation would have had to-day neither 
 kings, dukes, nor counts, and would have been a prey to 
 irremediable confusion ; but because I fear God I would 
 not assist in the ruin of any." * He doubtless alluded to 
 the treacheries planned by the exarchs of Ravenna, who 
 were the emperor's viceroys in Italy, by which they at- 
 tempted to make up for their military inferiority before the 
 1 Epist., iv. 47, 5. — He wrote this in 598.
 
 24 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 Lombards. The Roman exarch was, by his animosity and 
 cowardice, one of the principal afflictions of Gregory's life. 
 After having broken the peace with the Lombards, and thus 
 justified the renewed hostilities of their dukes Ariulf x and 
 Arigis 2 in Central and Southern Italy, he abandoned Rome 
 and Naples without defence, and notwithstanding interdicted 
 the pope from treating with the invaders. It was then that 
 Gregory displayed all the resolution of a valiant captain, 
 with all the authority of a sovereign. He did not content 
 himself with complaining bitterly to the Emperor Maurice 
 of the desertion of Italy, and that, in order to guard Perugia, 
 Rome had been left defenceless. " I was obliged," he wrote 
 to him, " to see with my own eyes the Romans led into 
 France with ropes round their necks, like dogs, to be sold 
 in the market." 3 But he himself provided what was most 
 urgent, wrote to the military leaders to encourage them in 
 resistance, pointed out to the soldiers assembled at Naples 
 the leader whom they should follow, fed the people, paid the 
 troops their wages and the Barbarians their contributions of 
 war, all at the expense of the ecclesiastical treasury. " The 
 emperor," he wrote to the empress, " has a treasurer for his 
 troops at Ravenna, but as for me, I am the treasurer of the 
 Lombards at Rome." 4 
 
 At a later period, the king of the Lombards, Agilulf, dis- 
 gusted by the renewed treachery of the imperial exarch, 
 laid siege to Rome itself. Gregory, who was, above every- 
 thing else, a bishop, and watched over the spiritual interests 
 of the Romans with still more care than he exerted for their 
 material defence, was then expounding the prophet Ezekiel 
 in his sermons. He interrupted his discourses more than 
 once to breathe out his grief, and to deplore the misfortunes 
 of the eternal city. " Two things specially trouble me," he 
 
 1 Duke of Spoleto. 2 Duke of Benevento. 
 
 3 "Quodoculis meis cernerem Romanos more canum in collis funibus 
 ligatos. . . . Qui ad Franciam ducebantur venales." — Epist., v. 40. 
 
 4 Ibid,, v. 21.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 25 
 
 said, when he was asked at least to explain the last chapters 
 of the prophet upon the re-establishment of the temple : 
 " the obscurity of the text, and the news that King Agi- 
 lulf has passed the Po on his way to besiege us. Judge, 
 my brethren, how a poor soul, thus troubled and distracted, 
 can penetrate into such mysteries." l And again, " What 
 does the world contain which can please us ? . . . We see 
 nothing but sadness, we hear only groans. . . . Rome, once 
 mistress of the world, how do we see her fallen ! Where is 
 the senate ? where is the people ? But why speak I of 
 men ? The very buildings are destroyed and the walls 
 crumble down. . . . Once her princes and chiefs spread 
 themselves over all the earth to possess it. The sons of 
 worldly men hastened hither to advance themselves in the 
 world. Now that she is deserted and ruined, no man comes 
 here to seek his fortune : there is no power remaining to 
 oppress the poor." After a time he announced that he 
 should stop his preaching : " Let no one blame me if I put 
 an end to this discourse. You all perceive how our tribu- 
 lations increase. The sword and death are everywhere. 
 Some return to us with their hands cut off, with the news 
 that others are taken or killed. I must be silent, because 
 my soul is weary of life." 2 
 
 Agilulf, however, for some unknown reason, did not suc- 
 ceed in taking Rome. All the surrounding country was 
 once more devastated, and the incurable desolation and un- 
 wholesome barrenness of the Roman Campagna dates from 
 this period ; but the city was spared. Gregory could verify 
 the prophecy of St. Benedict, who had predicted that Rome, 
 condemned to the most cruel trials, should sink back upon 
 herself, but should not be destroyed. 3 He could still con- 
 
 1 Homil. 18. 
 
 2 " Undique gladiis, . . . undique mortis periculum. . . . Alii detrun- 
 catis manibus. . . . Taedet animam meam vitas mese." — Homil. ult. in 
 Ezechid. 
 
 3 " Roma a gentilibus non exterminabitur, sed ... in semetipsa mar- 
 cescet. " — Dial., ii. 15.
 
 26 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 tinue to watch over these crumbling walls, these overthrown 
 palaces, these buildings worn out with extreme old age. 1 
 But, as a reward for his generous and useful efforts, he 
 received only new denunciations from the exarch, and a 
 reprimand from the emperor, who reproached him in insult- 
 ing terms with his simplicity. " I understand," the pope 
 replied to him, "what the language of your serene missives 
 means : you find that I have acted like a fool, and you are 
 right. If I had not acted like a fool I should not have 
 borne all that I have borne for you among the swords of the 
 Lombards." 2 He succeeded at last, after nine years' exer- 
 tions, in overcoming the Byzantine repugnance to acknow- 
 ledge any right whatever on the side of the Lombards, and 
 concluded a peace between the two powers which made 
 Italy, exhausted by thirty years of war and brigandage, 
 thrill with joy. It was of short duration ; but when hos- 
 tilities recommenced, he entered into direct negotiation with 
 King Agilulf, and obtained from that prince a special truce 
 for Rome and its surrounding territory. He had besides 
 found a powerful advocate with the Lombard king in the 
 person of the illustrious Queen Theodelinda, who was the 
 Clotilde of these last conquerors of Italy. This princess, a 
 Bavarian and Catholic by birth, the widow of King Autharis 
 by her first marriage, had so gained the heart of the Lom- 
 bards, that they conferred upon her the right of designating 
 his successor by marrying whomsoever she thought most 
 worthy of reigning with her. In this way she had given 
 her hand and crown to Duke Agilulf, in the same year as 
 that in which Gregory ascended the Holy See. These two 
 noble hearts soon understood each other. The queen was 
 always the faithful friend of the pope ; she served as a 
 
 i " Dissoluta moenia, eversas domos, . . . sedificia longo senio lassata." 
 — Dial., ii. 15. 
 
 2 " In serenissimis jussionibus dominorum pietas . . . urbanse simplici- 
 tatis vocabulo me fatuum appellat. . . . Simplex denuncior : constat procul 
 dubio quia fatuus appellor . . . quod ita esse ego quoque confiteor." — 
 Epist., v. 40.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 27 
 
 medium of communication between him and her husband. 
 It is not certain whether she succeeded in converting the 
 latter, 1 but her gentle influence led the entire Lombard 
 nation, little by little, from Arianism to the Catholic faith. 
 Gregory, from the very beginning of his pontificate, had ex- 
 horted the Italian bishops to make special exertions for the 
 conversion of these formidable enemies of orthodoxy. It is 
 believed that the queen was powerfully aided in this work 
 by the Dialogues which Gregory had compiled from the 
 narratives of the first disciples and successors of St. Bene- 
 dict, and in which he related the life of that patriarch of the 
 monastic order, and the marvels of fervour and penitence 
 exhibited by the monks who were imbued with his spirit. 
 This work was dedicated to the Lombard queen, as if to 
 enable her to show to the devastators of Italy proofs of the 
 sanctity and moral greatness with which the orthodox faith 
 alone could endow the vanquished. 
 
 It was thus that Gregory snatched Rome from the yoke 
 of conquest. He not only preserved her from the Lom- 
 bards, but sheltered her from the violence of all the petty 
 tyrants of the neighbourhood, who rose amidst the universal 
 confusion. But his soul was consumed, says one of his his- 
 torians, by the fire of perpetual alarms concerning the fate 
 of his children, and that consecrated soil which he regarded 
 as their inheritance. 3 We can understand now how the 
 patriotism of popes, such as Gregory, created their temporal 
 power, and how, " sole guardians of Rome, they remained its 
 masters." 4 
 
 However, he required still more constancy and courage to 
 contend with the Greeks, with that Eastern Empire which 
 was represented by functionaries whose odious exactions had 
 
 1 St. Columba, in a letter written in 607, speaks of him as still an 
 Arian. 
 
 2 Epist., i. 29. 
 
 3 " Urebant incessanter ejus animum filiorum hinc inde discrimina nun- 
 tiata." — Paul. Diac, c. 13. 
 
 4 OzANAM, Unpublished Fragment on St. Gregory.
 
 28 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 quite as great a share in the despair of the people as the 
 ravages of the Barbarians, and whose malice was more 
 dreadful, as he wrote, than the sword of the Lombards : 
 " They can only kill our bodies, while the imperial judges 
 devour our souls by their rapine and fraud." l Elsewhere 
 he denounces to the empress the officers who, in Sardinia, 
 sold to the pagans for money the permission to sacrifice to 
 their idols, and continued to collect that impost from those 
 who had been baptized, and who, in Corsica, overwhelmed 
 the inhabitants with such burdens that they were reduced 
 to selling their children and fleeing to seek refuge among 
 the Lombards. 2 It was the same in Sicily, and the re- 
 venues provided by their extortions were to be employed in 
 the defence of Italy. But, said Gregory to the empress, 
 " it might be suggested to the emperor that it would be 
 better to give up some expenses in Italy, in order to dry 
 the tears of the oppressed in Sicily. 3 I say this briefly, and 
 only that the supreme Judge may not impute my silence to 
 me as a crime." 
 
 The entire life of Gregory was then a struggle with the 
 Byzantine spirit, with the patriarch of Constantinople, who 
 aimed at supplanting the Boman pontiff, as well as with the 
 emperor, who would have dominated Italy without defending 
 her, and ruled the Church as if she had been only a province 
 of his empire. God had sent him, before his pontificate, to 
 Constantinople, that he might the better understand that 
 field of battle 4 in which he won for the Church more than 
 one difficult victory. 
 
 Among so many conflicts — through which Gregory always 
 maintained the rights and dignities of the Holy See, con- 
 
 1 "Ejus in nos malitia gladios Longobardoruni vicit, ita ut benigniores 
 videantur hostes, quia nos interiniunt, quam Reipublicse judices, qui nos 
 . . . rapinis atque fallaciis in cogitatione consumunt." — Epist., v. 42. 
 
 2 Ibid., v. 41. 
 
 3 " Sed ego suggero ad hoc, ut, etsi minus expense in Italia tribuantur, 
 a suo tamen imperio oppressorum lacrymas compescat." — Ibid., v. 41. 
 
 4 Dom Pitra., Hist, de S. Leger, Introduction.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 29 
 
 ciliating, at the same time, with extraordinary precautions, 
 the arrogance of the Byzantine court — we shall dwell only 
 on that one which arose between him and the patriarch 
 of Constantinople, John, surnamed the Faster. Relying on 
 the support of most of the Eastern bishops, faithful to the 
 proud pretensions which for two centuries past had been 
 entertained by the bishops of the imperial residence, and 
 preluding thus the disastrous ambition of his successors, this 
 monk, who had begun by a pretence of refusing the episco- 
 pate, took in his acts the title of oecumenical or universal 
 patriarch. Gregory stood up with as much vigour as autho- 
 rity against this strange pretension. He did not draw back 
 before the emperor, who openly sided with the bishop of 
 his new capital, and although deserted in the struggle by 
 the two other patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria, who 
 would have been equally wounded by the usurpation of him 
 of Constantinople, Gregory persevered, during all his pontifi- 
 cate, 1 in his resistance to that wretched assumption, in which 
 he perceived less an attempt upon the unity and authority 
 of the universal Church, than an excess of pride on one 
 side and adulation on the other, which disgusted his humble 
 and generous soul. 2 
 
 " What ! " he wrote to the emperor, " St. Peter, who re- 
 ceived the keys of heaven and earth, the power of binding 
 and loosing, the charge and primacy of the whole Church, 
 was never called universal apostle ; and yet my pious brother 
 
 1 The contest was renewed under Phocas. Neither the emperor nor the 
 patriarch would yield. If Gregory did not obtain the victory, he at least 
 paved the way for that of his successor Boniface III., under whom the 
 emperor Phocas forbade the patriarch the use of the contested title ; but 
 during the following reign, under Heraclius, it was resumed by the patri- 
 arch Sergius. In return, the popes then resumed the right to confirm the 
 patriarchs of Constantinople — a right from which the latter had been 
 emancipated for a century, and which Photius did not succeed in over- 
 throwing until three centuries later.— Baeonius, AnnaL, ad 606. Latj., 
 p. 165. 
 
 2 " Quousque pestem universalis nominis ab ipsis etiam subdolis adula- 
 torum labiis penitus abstulisset." — Joan. Diac, Vit., iii. c. 59.
 
 30 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 John would name himself universal bishop. I must needs 
 exclaim, O tempora ! mores ! All Europe is in the power 
 of the Barbarians. The cities are overthrown, the castles 
 are in ruins, the provinces are depopulated, the soil has no 
 longer hands to cultivate it ; idolaters pursue the faithful 
 even to death. And priests who should prostrate them- 
 selves in the courts of the temple in dust and ashes, seek 
 after titles of vanity ! " He took care to explain to the 
 emperor that he did not defend his own cause, but that of the 
 whole Church, which was scandalised by such an unheard-of 
 pretension. He reminded him that Nestorius and Macedo- 
 nius, both bishops of Constantinople, had both been heretics 
 and heresiarchs. He added : " For me, I am the ser- 
 vant of all the priests as long as they live in a manner 
 becoming the priesthood : but if any one raises his head 
 against God and against the laws of our fathers, I am con- 
 fident that he shall not make me bow mine, even with the 
 sword." x 
 
 Gregory was so much the more bold in combating the 
 dangerous vanity of the Byzantine patriarch, that he him- 
 self had displayed on all occasions a sincere and practical 
 humility. His vast correspondence and all the acts of his 
 life furnish a thousand touching proofs of it. He had im- 
 pressed the seal of this humility upon the papacy itself, by 
 adopting, first of all the popes, in the preamble of his official 
 documents, the fine title of Servant of the servants of God, 
 which has become the distinctive title of his successors. He 
 had expressly refused the same name of universal bishop or 
 pope, which had been given him by the patriarch of Alex- 
 andria. His magnanimous humility displays itself fully in 
 
 1 " Et vir sanctissimus consacerdos meus Joannes. . . . Exclamare com- 
 pellor ac dicere : tempora ! O mores ! Ecce cuncta in Europae partibus. 
 . . . Et tamen sacerdotes qui in pavimento et cinere flentes jacere debue- 
 runt. . . . Numquid ego hac in re . . . propriam causam defendo. . . . 
 Ego cunctorum sacerdotum servus sum. . . . Nam qui contra Dominum 
 . . . suam cervicem erigit, . . . confido quia meam sibi nee cum gladiis 
 flectet." — EpisL, v. 20.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 31 
 
 these noble words of his letter to this patriarch. " I desire 
 to increase in virtue and not in words. I do not consider 
 myself honoured in that which dishonours my brethren. It 
 is the honour of the universal Church which honours me. 
 It is the strength and greatness of my brethren in the epis- 
 copate which does me honour. I feel myself truly honoured 
 only when I see that no man refuses to another the honour 
 due to him. Away with those words which inflate vanity 
 and wound charity ! . . . The holy Council of Chalcedon 
 and other Fathers have offered this title to my predecessors, 
 but none of them has ever used it, that they might guard 
 their own honour in the sight of God, by seeking here below 
 the honour of all the priesthood." 
 
 This weighty difference, another of which we shall speak 
 regarding the prohibition addressed to soldiers to their be- 
 coming monks, and especially that which arose between the 
 pope and the emperor touching the irregular election of the 
 metropolitan of Salona, contributed to render almost perma- 
 nent the misunderstanding between them. That Eastern 
 world which was so soon to become the prey of Islam, was 
 obstinate in ignoring its best chance of salvation, in alienat- 
 ing the nations and Churches of the West, and in weakening 
 by a minute and vexatious despotism the Christian life which 
 had blossomed with so much promise in its bosom. Gregory 
 had to exercise an incessant vigilance, to prevent the immense 
 army of lay officials, from the emperor down to the meanest 
 agent of the treasury, from encroaching upon the rights and 
 liberties of the Church, and especially from relaxing or 
 attempting to break the ties of subordination which con- 
 nected individual churches with the Holy See. And he 
 had also to reconcile this permanent and universal resistance 
 
 1 " Ego non verbis quaere- prosperari, sed moribus ; nee honorem meum 
 esse deputo in quo fratres meos honorem suum perdere cognosco. Meus 
 namque honor est honor universalis Ecclesice. Meus honor est fratrum meorum 
 solidus vigor. Turn ergo vere honoratus sum, cum singulis quibusque honor 
 debitus non negatur. . . . Recedant verba quas vanitatem inflant, caritatem 
 vulnerant." — Epist., viii. c. 30.
 
 3 2 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 with the submission which he professed and practised, to 
 the best of his power, towards the empire in temporal affairs. 
 In claiming for the Church an almost absolute liberty and 
 sovereignty in spiritual matters, he did not hesitate to declare 
 himself the humble subject of Caesar. From thence came 
 that singular medley of immovable resolution and humble 
 protestations which appears in his correspondence with the 
 Caesars. However, though he always spoke and often acted 
 as a docile subject of the successors of Augustus and Con- 
 stantino, they were not slow to understand that they had 
 something else to deal with in this bishop, who was at once 
 the direct successor of Peter, the patriarch of the entire West, 
 and the greatest proprietor in Italy, and who had already 
 occupied the place of mediator between the Barbarians and 
 the Empire. 
 
 We find this mixture of extreme humility and energetic 
 resistance in another struggle, which the constant and 
 natural concern of Gregory for the rights and interests of 
 monastic life had led him into, in the beginning of his 
 pontificate. The Emperor Maurice had published an edict 
 which interdicted public functionaries and soldiers from 
 entering either into the ranks of the clergy or into a monas- 
 tery. Gregory approved the first clause of this law, which 
 interdicted public functionaries from holding ecclesiastical 
 offices : " for," said he, " these people prefer rather to change 
 their occupation, than to leave the world." * But, always 
 a monk in his heart, he protested against the measure rela- 
 tive to monastic life, in a letter celebrated for its eloquence 
 and ability, and which must not be omitted here. He 
 begins by declaring that he speaks not as pope, but as an 
 individual, the obliged friend of the emperor, which explains 
 the humble character of certain passages ; but he soon rises 
 to all the loftiness of spiritual power and the freedom of 
 souls. 
 
 " The man who fails to be sincere in what he says or 
 1 "Mutare saeculum, non relinquere." — Epist., iii. 65.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 33 
 
 does to the serene emperors 1 is responsible towards God. 
 For myself, the unworthy servant of your piety, I speak 
 neither as bishop nor as subject, but by the right which 
 I find in my heart. 2 For, serene lord, you were my master 
 before you became master of all. ... I confess to my masters 
 that this law has filled me with terror, for it closes the way 
 of heaven to many. . . . There are many who can lead a 
 Christian life in the world. But there are also many who 
 cannot be saved, but by forsaking all things. . . . 
 
 " And who am I but dust, and a worm of the earth, who 
 venture to speak thus to my masters ? 3 However, when I 
 see this law interfere with God, the Master of the world, I 
 cannot keep silence. For this power over the human race 
 has been bestowed from on high upon my masters, that they 
 might help those who would do well to open up the way to 
 heaven, and make the earthly kingdom serve the heavenly. 
 Yet here it is forbidden to him who has once been enrolled 
 in the terrestrial army to enter, unless when an invalid or 
 in retirement, into the service of our Lord. ... It is thus 
 that Christ answers by me, the last of His servants and yours : 
 1 I have made thee, from a secretary, count of the guards ; 
 from count, Cassar ; from Csesar, emperor ; if that was not 
 enough, I have made thee also father of an emperor. I have 
 put My priests under thy power, and thou withdrawest thy 
 soldiers from My service ! ' 4 Sire, say to your servant what 
 you can answer to Him who, at the day of judgment, shall 
 speak to you thus. 5 
 
 " Perhaps it is supposed that none of these men are truly 
 
 1 He speaks in the plural, because Maurice had associated his son Theo- 
 dosius in the imperial power in 591. 
 
 s " Neque ut episcopus, neque ut servus jure reipublica?, sed jure privato 
 loquor." 
 
 3 "Ego autem hasc dominis meis loquens, quid sum, nisi pulvis et 
 vermis ? " 
 
 4 " Ego te de notario comitem excubitorum. . . . Sacerdotes meos tuas 
 manui commisi." 
 
 5 " Responde, rogo, piissime domine, servo tuo, quid venienti e haac 
 dicenti responsurus es ? " 
 
 VOL. II. C
 
 34 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 converted ; but I, your unworthy servant, have known many 
 soldiers converted in my lifetime, who have, in the monas- 
 teries, given an example of every virtue, and even worked 
 miracles. Yet this law interdicts every similar conversion. 
 Inquire, I beseech you, what emperor it was who made a 
 similar law, and see whether it becomes you to imitate him. 1 
 And consider besides that men would be prevented from 
 leaving the world at a time when the end of the world 
 approaches. For the time is not distant when, amidst the 
 burning of heaven and earth, in the universal conflagra- 
 tion of the elements, surrounded by angels and archangels, 
 thrones, dominions, and powers, the terrible Judge shall 
 appear. When He would pardon all your sins, if He did 
 not find this single law directed against Himself, what, I 
 pray you, will be your excuse ? I conjure you by that 
 terrible Judge, not to make your tears, your fasts, your 
 many prayers, useless before God, but to soften or abrogate 
 this law, for the army of my masters shall increase so much 
 the more against the army of the enemy, as the army of 
 God shall increase in prayer. 
 
 " In submission, however, to your command, I have for- 
 warded this same law into the different provinces, and be- 
 cause it is not in accordance with the will of God Almighty, 
 I warn you of it by this supplication. I have thus fulfilled 
 my duty on both sides — have rendered obedience to the 
 emperor, and have not been silent concerning that which 
 seemed to me in opposition to God." 
 
 Modest and humble as this letter was, he did not venture 
 to send it to the emperor by his resident representative, but 
 confided it to one of Maurice's physicians, who was a private 
 friend of his own, that it might be presented privately, and 
 at a favourable moment. The immediate effect of this pro- 
 test is not known, but it was listened to, for a subsequent 
 letter of the pope to the metropolitans of Italy and Illyria 
 
 1 He says in a subsequent letter that this was Julian the Apostate. 
 
 2 Epist. , hi. 65.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 3 5 
 
 enjoins them not to receive soldiers into monasteries till 
 after a three years' novitiate, and adds, that the emperor 
 consented to these conditions. 1 
 
 These perpetual contests with the Byzantine court may 
 explain, without excusing, the conduct of Gregory at the 
 death of the Emperor Maurice. This prince, infected, like 
 all his predecessors, with a mania for interfering in ecclesi- 
 astical affairs, and interfering with all the weight of absolute 
 power, was very superior to most of them. Gregory him- 
 self has more than once done justice to his faith and piety, 
 to his zeal for the Church and respect for her canons. 2 He 
 acknowledged that in his reign no heretic dared open his 
 mouth. 3 Almost the only thing with which the emperor 
 could be reproached, was his avarice. After twenty years 
 of an undistinguished reign, he unfortunately abandoned 
 twelve thousand captives of his army to the sword of the 
 Avars, who massacred the whole on his refusal to ransom 
 them. From this circumstance arose a military revolt, 
 which placed Phocas upon the throne. This wretch not 
 only murdered the Emperor Maurice, gouty, and incapable 
 of defending himself, but also his six sons, whom he caused 
 to be put to death under the eyes of their father, without 
 even sparing the youngest, who was still at the breast, and 
 whom his nurse would have saved by putting her own child 
 in his place ; but Maurice, who would not have his child 
 preserved at such a cost, disclosed that pious deception to 
 the murderers. He died like a Christian hero, repeating 
 the words of the psalm, " Thou art just, Lord, and Thy 
 judgment is right." He had before entreated God to expiate 
 his sins by a violent death in this world, that he might be 
 spared from suffering in the other. This massacre did not 
 satisfy Phocas, who sacrificed the empress and her three 
 daughters, the brother of Maurice, and a multitude of others 
 in his train. The monster then sent his own image and 
 
 1 Epist., viii. 5. 2 Ibid., v. 43, and xi. 25. 
 
 3 Ibid., x. 46.
 
 36 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 that of his wife to Rome, where the senate and people re- 
 ceived them with acclamation. 
 
 Gregory unfortunately joined in these mean acclamations. 
 He carried these images of his new masters, bathed in inno- 
 cent blood, into the oratory of the Lateran palace. 1 After- 
 wards he addressed extraordinary congratulations to Phocas, 
 not in the surprise of the first moment, but seven months 
 after the crime. 2 " God," said he, " the sovereign arbiter of 
 the life of man, sometimes raises up one to punish the crimes 
 of many, as we have experienced in our long affliction ; and 
 sometimes to console the afflicted hearts of many, He raises 
 another whose mercy fills them with joy, as we hope from 
 your piety. Therefore we feel strengthened by the abun- 
 dance of our joy, congratulating ourselves that your goodness 
 has attained the imperial dignity. Let heaven and earth 
 rejoice with us ! " 3 He also wrote to the new empress : 
 " No tongue can express, nor mind conceive, the gratitude 
 which we owe to God, that your Serenity has attained the 
 empire, and that we are delivered from the hard burden we 
 have so long endured, and to which has succeeded a gentle 
 yoke which we can bear. Let choirs of angels and voices of 
 men unite with us to thank the Creator ! " 4 It is true, that 
 in this same letter to Phocas, and in a subsequent one, he 
 points out to him the duties of his charge, exhorts him to 
 amend the errors of past reigns, and supplicates him so to 
 rule, that under him all may enjoy their possessions and his 
 freedom in peace. " For," says he, " there is this difference 
 between the barbarous kings and the emperors of the republic, 
 that the former rule over slaves, and the latter over free 
 
 1 Joan. Diac, iv. 20. 
 
 2 JEpisL, xiii. 31. Data mense Junii, indictione vi. 
 
 3 "De qua exultationis abundantia roborari nos citius credimns, qui 
 benignitatem vestrse pietatis ad imperiale fastigium pervenisse gaudemus. 
 Lastentur coeli et exultet terra," &c. — Ibid. 
 
 4 " Qua? lingua loqui, quis animus cogitare sufScit quantas de serenitate 
 vestri imperii omnipotent! Deo gratias debemus. . . . Reddatur ergo 
 Creatori ab hymnodicis angelorum choris gloria in coelo." — Ibid., xiii. 39.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 37 
 
 men." l This was precisely the reverse of the truth : it was, 
 besides, a melancholy and guilty homage rendered to a man 
 who was to become one of the most odious tyrants of his age, 
 and who had gained the empire by a crime without parallel 
 even in the annals of that infamous history. 
 
 This is the only stain upon the life of Gregory. We do 
 not attempt either to conceal or excuse it. It can scarcely 
 be explained by recalling all the vexations he had suffered 
 from Maurice and his agents, annoyances of which he always 
 complained energetically, though he did not fail to do justice 
 to the undeniable piety of the old emperor, 2 who, like all his 
 predecessors, imagined himself entitled to judge and direct 
 the affairs of the Church, but was in no respect a persecutor. 
 Perhaps, too, Gregory adopted this means to secure the help 
 which he implored from Phocas against the new incursions 
 of the Lombards, 3 or to mollify beforehand the already 
 threatening intentions of the tyrant. 4 We have seen that 
 he mingled advice and indirect lessons with his congratu- 
 lations. It must also be remembered that these flatteries, 
 which we find so repugnant from the pen of our holy and 
 great pope, were in some sort the official language of those 
 times ; they resulted from the general debasement of public 
 manners, and from the tone of the language invariably used 
 then at each change of reign. His motives were undoubtedly 
 pure. Notwithstanding, a stain remains upon his memory, 
 and a shadow upon the history of the Church, which is so 
 consoling and full of light in this age of storms and dark- 
 
 1 " Reformetur jam singulis sub jugo imperii pii libertas sua. Hoc 
 namque inter reges gentium et imperatores reipublicse distat, quod reges 
 gentium domini servorum sunt, imperatores vero reipublicas domini libe- 
 rorum." — Epist., xii. 31. 
 
 2 Compare Epist., v. 43, to the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, 
 and xi. 25, to Maximus of Salona, where he says expressly of Maurice, 
 " Omnibus notum est piissimos dominos disciplinam servare, et in causis 
 sacerdotalibus non miscere." 
 
 3 Compare Epist., xiii. 38. 
 
 4 "His laudibus novos principes demulcebat, . . . quia non eos ad 
 tyrannidem venturos esse putabat." — Joan. Diac, iv. 23. 
 
 - 
 -
 
 38 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 uess. But among the greatest and holiest of mortals, virtue, 
 like human wisdom, always falls short in some respect. 
 
 Gregory, who died sixteen months after the advent of 
 Phocas, had no time either to expiate or repair that weak- 
 ness. No doubt he would have done it, if occasion had been 
 given him. His life demonstrated nothing more clearly than 
 his boldness in presence of danger, and his immovable per- 
 severance in the pursuit of right and truth, whenever he 
 perceived them. All his career justifies the noble words 
 which he wrote to his apocrisarius or nuncio at Constanti- 
 nople : " You ought to know how I feel, I who have resolved 
 to die rather than see the chair of St. Peter degenerate in 
 my lifetime. You know my disposition ; I bear long, but 
 when I have once resolved to endure no longer, I face 
 all dangers with joy." 1 Save in the deplorable instance 
 which we have pointed out, he always showed himself 
 faithful to the instructions which he gave to an Illyrian 
 bishop who lamented over the iniquity of the imperial 
 judges : " Your duty is to assist for the cause of the poor 
 and oppressed. If you do not succeed, God will remember 
 the intention ; seek above all things to gain Him who reads 
 hearts. As for human terrors and favours, they are but a 
 smoke which vanishes before the lightest breath. Be assured 
 that it is impossible to please God and the wicked at the 
 same time ; consider yourself most agreeable to God when 
 you perceive yourself odious to perverse men. However, 
 even in defending the poor, be grave and moderate." 
 
 But to perceive in all their purity the greatness of his 
 
 1 " Mores meos bene cognitos habes, quia dm porto. Sed, si semel 
 deliberavero non portare, contra pericula lastus vado." — Epist., iv. 47. 
 Tbe point in question was the affair of Maximus of Salona : the letter is 
 addressed to Sabinian, who was afterwards his successor. 
 
 2 " Fraternitas tua opponere se pro pauperibus, pro oppressis debet. In 
 omni quod agis inspectorem cordis appete habere placatum. . . . Nam 
 humani terrores et gratia fumo sunt similes, qui leni aura raptus evanescit. 
 Hoc certissime scito quod placere Deo sine pravis hominibus displicere 
 nullus potest. . . . Ipsa tamen defensio pauperum moderata et gravis sit." 
 — Epist., x. 35.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 39 
 
 soul and the influence of his genius upon the doctrines of 
 the Church, it is necessary to turn from that Lower Empire 
 which was condemned to irremediable decay, and where 
 the seeds of schism budded in the bosom of abject ser- 
 vitude. Life and honour were elsewhere. Gregory was 
 aware of it. 
 
 He did not content himself with the imposing position 
 of defender of Rome, protector of Italy, and mediator 
 between the Greeks and Lombards. He did more. In 
 turning towards the Germanic nations, he showed the way 
 by which the Eoman Church, and with her the mind and 
 future fate of the West, could be emancipated from the 
 dishonouring yoke of Byzantium. 
 
 The Roman empire existed no longer in its first form. 
 That climax of disgrace had come to an end. The civilised 
 world was escaping from that absolute dominion exercised 
 by monsters or adventurers, which has been admired in 
 our own days by some base souls worthy of having lived 
 under Caracalla or Arcadius. The human race had at last 
 perceived its own shame. The yoke of a free nation, how- 
 ever cruel and iniquitous, may be borne without blushing ; 
 but to obey a nation itself enslaved by the most repellent 
 despotism, is to ask too much of human baseness. The 
 whole world was then in insurrection against Rome, and 
 the insurrection had everywhere triumphed. 
 
 It was necessary that the victorious Barbarians, and 
 those countries which had been revivified by the rude 
 experience of conquest, should be kept from identifying 
 in a common reprobation the odious phantom of old 
 imperial Rome, and that young Church, the sovereign see 
 of which God, by a secret miracle of His providence, had 
 established in the very centre of the empire which had 
 persecuted her so cruelly, which she had in vain attempted 
 to regenerate after having converted it, but which she 
 was shortly to eclipse and replace in the world. It was 
 necessary to keep Constantinople from imagining itself the
 
 4<D ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 heir of Rome, and planting its degrading and egotistical 
 dominion beside the protecting, and up to this time irre- 
 proachable, authority of the popes. The Franks, the 
 Visigoths, the Lombards, and the Anglo-Saxons, entered 
 on the scene ; they inaugurated the destiny of races which, 
 after the course of thirteen centuries, are still at the head 
 of humanity ; they would willingly bow their youthful and 
 unsubdued force before the pure and new-born majesty of 
 the Church, but not before the decrepid servitude of the 
 Byzantine empire. 
 
 Gregory was the man predestined to the salutary and 
 decisive work of transition. The spiritual and temporal 
 independence of the West manifested itself in him. He 
 was the first pope who paid special attention to the 
 Western races, and associated himself, by directing it, with 
 the progress of the German conquerors. He was their 
 friend, their educator, and their master. To assimilate 
 them to the Church, to adapt her to their instincts and 
 reason, without compromising the traditional element and 
 sovereign authority, the immovable centre of which was to 
 remain standing in the midst of desolated Rome, nothing 
 less would suffice than the tender and patient genius of 
 Gregory and his successors. 
 
 Long crushed between the Lombards and Byzantines, 
 between the unsoftened ferocity of the Barbarians and the 
 vexatious decrepitude of despotism, Gregory, with that 
 instinctive perception of future events which God some- 
 times grants to pure souls, sought elsewhere a support for 
 the Roman Church. His eyes were directed to the new 
 races, who were scarcely less ferocious than the Lombards, 
 but who did not, like them, weigh upon Italy and Rome, 
 and who already exhibited elements of strength and con- 
 tinuance. 
 
 The West separated itself more and more from the 
 East. 1 The patriarch of Constantinople, despite the proud 
 1 LAU., op. cit., pp. 179 and 189.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 4 1 
 
 titles with which he concealed his servitude, gradually- 
 fell into the first rank of the imperial household. The 
 patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, were 
 about to be swept away by Islamism. Rome alone re- 
 mained standing, incessantly insulted, but not yet enslaved. 
 Africa and Illyria, which were still attached to the patri- 
 archate of the West, of which Rome was the see, were 
 soon to fall, one under the sword of the Arabs, the other, 
 to identify itself with the domains of the Caesar of Con- 
 stantinople. But the great Churches of the new northern 
 kingdom could make up, and more than make up, for 
 that loss. 
 
 The rupture of all political ties between the Roman 
 empire and Gaul, Spain, and Britain, had naturally 
 loosened the links which attached the Churches of these 
 countries to Rome. To renew these links, and to preserve 
 the Church from sinking under the feudal institutions 
 which were to prevail in the new order of social affairs, 
 the best thing that could be done was to form alliances 
 with the Germanic races which had replaced Roman 
 dominion. Gregory took that glorious and salutary initia- 
 tive. We shall see further on what he did for Spain and 
 Great Britain. Let us first exhibit his choice of Gaul, the 
 Church and kingdom of the Franks, to become the nucleus 
 of the great Germanic Christendom. He thus attached to 
 himself the only nation among the Barbarians which, while 
 Arianism prevailed everywhere, remained orthodox. He 
 founded the alliance which, two centuries after, finally freed 
 the Holy See from every foreign yoke, from Byzantine 
 dominion, as well as from the violence of the Lombards. 
 
 It does not appear that he called the Franks to the help 
 of Italy against the Lombards, like his predecessor, Pela- 
 gius II. ; they had come already, and three Frank invasions 
 had produced only an increase of calamity to the inhabitants 
 of the northern part of the peninsula. He took another 
 1 In 580, 589, and 590.
 
 42 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 way, and entered, in the first place, into the closest rela- 
 tions with the Church of Gaul, on account of lands which 
 the Roman Church possessed in Provence, and which had 
 been long deserted, like all the other vast territories which 
 already constituted the patrimony of St. Peter. A holy 
 monk of the isle of Lerins, Virgilius, was then bishop of 
 Aries, and metropolitan of Provence. Gregory gave him 
 the pallium, without prejudice to the rights of the metro- 
 politan, and made him his vicar in the domains of King 
 Childebert, enjoining him specially to devote himself to 
 the work of rooting out the radical vices of the Gallo-Frank 
 Church, which were simony, and the election of laymen to 
 bishoprics. 1 He took occasion from this to address himself 
 directly to the young king, Childebert II., who reigned in 
 Burgundy and Austrasia, and to his mother Brunehaut, as 
 much to recommend Virgilius to their support in the execu- 
 tion of the apostolical decrees, as to ask their protection for 
 the priest Candidus, whom he had charged with the ad- 
 ministration of the pontifical possessions in Gaul. It is in 
 one of these letters to Brunehaut that we find, on the 
 subject of the education which she had given to her 
 descendants, and other virtues supposed to belong to her, 
 those emphatic compliments with which he has been so 
 often reproached, and which agree so little with all that 
 we know of the life of that too notorious princess. But it 
 cannot be denied, that along with these praises, borrowed 
 from the adulatory style of the Byzantine court, the forms 
 of which he had too much accustomed himself to imitate, 
 Gregory addressed to the young king Childebert the noblest 
 language which had ever been addressed by a pontiff to a 
 king. He began, in the words which follow, to make 
 audible that great papal voice which, for a thousand years, 
 was to be the supreme organ of justice and humanity to 
 princes and nations : — " As much as the royal dignity is 
 above common men, your throne elevates you above the 
 
 1 Epist., iv. 50.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 43 
 
 other thrones of nations. It is a small thing to be a king 
 when others are so, but it is a great thing to be a Catholic, 
 when others do not share the same honour. As a great 
 lamp shines with all the brilliancy of its light in the deepest 
 darkness of night, so the splendour of your faith shines 
 amid the voluntary obscurity of other nations. ... In 
 order, then, to surpass other men in works as well as in 
 faith, let not your Excellency cease to show yourself 
 merciful to your subjects. If there are things which 
 offend you, punish none without discussion. You shall 
 please the King of kings best when, restraining your 
 authority, you believe yourself to have less privilege than 
 power." 1 
 
 After the premature death of Childebert II. in 596, 
 and during the minority of his heirs, Brunehaut, who was 
 regent of his two kingdoms, the east and south-east of 
 Gaul, continued an increasingly close and frequent inter- 
 course with Gregory. She asked the pallium for the 
 Bishop of Autun, and he accorded that envied distinction 
 to the Burgundian prelate, only while insisting anew upon 
 the necessity of extirpating simony, destroying the remnants 
 of idolatry, which still mingled with the Christianity of the 
 Franks and Burgondes, reforming the scandalous life of 
 some priests who lived with women, and lastly, putting an 
 end to that invasion of unprepared laymen into the priest- 
 hood, and even into the episcopate, which he energetically 
 called the heresy of neophytes? 
 
 He sent to her, in the quality of legate, and in order to 
 hold a council for the cure of these irregularities, Cyriac, 
 the abbot of his own monastery of St. Andrea at Rome. 
 This council was never assembled ; but Brunehaut, and her 
 
 1 "Si qua sunt quae ejus animum offendere valeant, ea indiscussa non 
 sinat. Tunc enim vere Regi regum . . . amplius placebit, si, potestatem 
 suam restringens, minus sibi credideret licere quam potest." — Epist., vi. 6. 
 Do not these words anticipate the fine maxim of our old jurisconsult 
 Bodin, " Universal power does not give universal right " ? 
 
 2 Episl., vii. 5. Compare x. 33, xi. 63, 69.
 
 44 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 grandson Thierry, king of Burgundy, sent an embassy to 
 Gregory in 602, to negotiate, by his mediation, a treaty 
 of alliance, offensive and defensive, with the Byzantine 
 emperor, against the Avars, who threatened the empire 
 and the Frank kingdoms equally. The political and social 
 part played by the papacy developed itself thus gradually 
 and naturally under the pontificate of the first monk who 
 had occupied the chair of St. Peter. The murder of 
 Maurice, it is true, prevented the success of this negotia- 
 tion ; but the Burgundian ambassador was charged, besides, 
 to obtain from the pope the confirmation of two monasteries 
 and an hospital, which Brunehaut had founded at Autun. 
 
 It was then, and at the express request of the Frankish 
 crown, that Gregory issued that famous charter, in which, 
 for the first time, the direct subordination of temporal 
 power to spiritual is clearly set forth and recognised. The 
 inviolability of persons and property, and the electoral free- 
 dom of the three new monastic communities of Autun, 
 were placed under the safeguard of papal authority, and of 
 a penalty which is thus declared : " If any king, bishop, 
 judge, or other secular person, knowing this constitution, 
 shall venture to infringe it, let him be deprived of the 
 dignity of his power and honour, and let him know that 
 he has rendered himself guilty before the tribunal of God. 
 And if he does not restore that which he has wickedly 
 taken away, or lament with fit penitence the unlawful acts 
 he has done, let him be debarred from the holy body and 
 blood of our God and Saviour, and remain subject in the 
 eternal judgment to a severe retribution." ' 
 
 1 The one for women, dedicated to our Lady and St. John ; the other 
 for men, dedicated to St. Martin : the hospital in honour of St. Ando- 
 chius was also a monastery for monks. 
 
 2 " Si quis vero regum, sacerdotum, judicum, personarumque secula- 
 rium hanc constitutionis nostra; paginam agnoscens, contra earn venire 
 tentaverit, potestatis honorisque sui dignitate careat reumque se divino 
 judicio de perpetrata iniquitate cognoscat. Et nisi vel ea qua? ab illo 
 male ablata sunt restituerit, vel digna pcenitentia illicite acta defleverit,
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 45 
 
 Thus the hand of the Church began to write, but with 
 the consent of the elective and limited royalty of conquering 
 races, that new law of the West which, five centuries later 
 than the monk Gregory I., was to be appealed to and applied 
 in its full extent by the monk Gregory VII. and his suc- 
 cessors. Nothing can better depict the difference of senti- 
 ment and attitude displayed by the papacy towards the 
 kings of the Germanic nations and the Byzantine emperors, 
 than the contrast between this document and the almost 
 passive obedience which St. Gregory professed to the im- 
 perial court, even in his most energetic protests against 
 certain of its acts. And nothing contradicts more entirely 
 the chimerical distinction between the Roman emperors 
 and the Barbarian kings, which he attempts to establish in 
 his letter to Phocas. 
 
 Gregory did not confine himself to these relations with 
 the princes and bishops of Austrasia and Burgundy. He 
 wrote to Clotharius II., king of Neustria, and to the prin- 
 cipal bishops of that portion of Gaul, recommending them 
 to undertake the work of converting the Anglo-Saxons, the 
 object of his special predilection, which he had never lost 
 sight of amid the most serious troubles, and in which 
 Brunehaut co-operated zealously. On this account he also 
 entered into correspondence with the principal bishops of the 
 north and west of Gaul : he enjoined them, as he had urged 
 the bishops of Burgundy and Austrasia, with the most 
 earnest entreaties, to combat the various ecclesiastical abuses, 
 unlawful ordinations, and specially simony, which he every- 
 where calls heresy, and which made frightful progress every 
 
 a sacratissimo corpore ac sanguine Dei et Domini nostri Redemptoris 
 J. C. alienus fiat atque in asterno examine districtas ultioni subjaceat." — 
 Epist., xiii. 8, 9, 10. Oudin and Launoy have disputed the authenticity 
 of this clause, but it has been put beyond a doubt by Mabillon and the 
 Benedictine editors of St. Gregory the Great. There are three similar 
 charters for the three monasteries. Yepes gives a fourth, not unlike them 
 in the main, in favour of the monastery of St. Medard, at Soissons, but it 
 is unanimously regarded as false.
 
 46 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 day, disguising itself under a thousand different forms, 
 infecting already all the grades of the ecclesiastical hierarchy 
 in all Christian countries, and threatening to consume like 
 a cancer the vigour and beauty of the Church, thanks to 
 the connivance and complicity of too many bishops. 1 
 
 In all his relations with the bishops, not only of Gaul, 
 but of entire Christendom, he always manifested the affec- 
 tionate respect with which the episcopal character and form 
 inspired him, and which he had so eloquently expressed in 
 the contest touching the title of universal patriarch. " God 
 forbid," he wrote, " that I should desire to infringe the 
 decrees of our ancestors in any Church, to the prejudice of 
 my colleagues in the priesthood; for I should thus injure 
 myself by interfering with the rights of my brethren." 
 And, elsewhere, " Receive this as certain in matters of 
 ecclesiastical privilege, that we will preserve its rights to 
 each individual Church, as we defend our own. ... I 
 desire to honour by every means my brethren in the epis- 
 copate." 2 At the same time he gave to the jurisdiction of 
 the Holy See a range and authority which had never been 
 better established. He extended it even to Jerusalem, and 
 beyond the extremities of the Roman world, to Ireland and 
 Iberia. He replied to applications for advice from Caucasus, 
 and encouraged the attempts made to convert Persia. He 
 reduced to due limits the power of the metropolitans, who 
 seemed disposed to assume an authority superior to that of 
 the other bishops, and independent of the Holy See ; he 
 settled that none of them should be ordained without the 
 confirmation of the pope. His struggles with the metro- 
 politans of Cagliari, of Ravenna, and, above all, of Salona, 
 
 1 " Has pestiferas haereses cernens per sacerdotum conniventiam sive 
 tacit urnitatem magis ruagisque diffusis muneribus quasi pestifer cancer 
 . . . corrodere . . . ac corrumpere." — Joan. Diac, Vit. S. Greg., iii. 4. 
 
 2 "Mihi injuriam facio, si patrum nieorum jura perturbo." — Epist., ii. 
 25. " Sicut nostra defendimus, ita singulis quibusque Ecclesiis sua jura 
 servamus. . . . Fratres meos per omnia honorare cupio." — Epist., ii. 47. 
 Compare i. 23, iii. 29.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 47 
 
 were among the greatest trials of his pontificate ; but he 
 overcame all resistance. His vigilant eye and eloquent 
 voice everywhere stimulated the re-establishment and exact 
 observance of the canons, and especially the freedom of 
 episcopal elections, which were then in the hands of the 
 clergy and people of each diocese. Very urgent motives 
 were necessary to induce him to limit that liberty, or 
 even indirectly to interfere in that choice. During the 
 vacancy of the see of Milan, when it was announced to him 
 that one of his most intimate friends would be elected, he 
 answered, " I have long resolved never to meddle, for the 
 advantage of any one whatsoever, in the collation of spiritual 
 charges : I shall confine myself to following with my prayers 
 the election which you are about to make, in order that 
 God may grant you a pastor who will lead you in the 
 pastures of the divine word." 1 
 
 But the less he was disposed to interfere in the designa- 
 tion of those elected, the more he required that they should 
 rigidly fulfil the conditions of canonical laws. 2 He did not 
 simply refuse to recognise a person elected contrary to the 
 canons ; he excluded him from all ecclesiastical dignities, 
 and sometimes went so far as to subject him to a peni- 
 tentiary detention in some monastery, in company with the 
 bishops who had consecrated him. 3 He did not hesitate to 
 depose the bishops who showed themselves unworthy of their 
 charge. 4 Upon those whom he judged worthy he exercised 
 an attentive and indefatigable watchfulness, to constrain 
 them to residence, to pastoral visits, and to that great art 
 of preaching which he himself practised with so much 
 eloquence and assiduity even amid the harassments of the 
 supreme pontificate. He recommended them to make their 
 
 1 "Quia antiquaa mes deliberationis intentio est ad suscipienda pas- 
 toralis curse onera pro nullius unquam misceri persona, orationibus pro- 
 sequor electionem vestram." — Epist., iii. 29. .... 
 
 2 LAU., op. cit., p. 115. 3 Epist., xiii. 45. 
 4 For example, Demetrius, Bishop of Naples.
 
 48 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 internal life in harmony with the external solemnity of their 
 functions and pious demonstrations ; for, said he, prayer is 
 vain if conduct is evil. 1 He was not content with regular 
 morals and irreproachable faith; he would have them besides 
 sufficiently endowed with energy and capacity ; for " in our 
 times," he said, " we must confide power into the hands of 
 those who will not be solely engrossed by the salvation 
 of souls, but will also be mindful of the defence and 
 temporal interests of their inferiors." 2 His truly paternal 
 authority disdained puerile and troublesome homage. He 
 turned away with repugnance from the exaggerated de- 
 monstrations of respect towards himself in which certain 
 bishops took pleasure. " I love not," he said, " these vain 
 and foolish exaggerations." 3 He fixed for every five years, 
 instead of every three, the term of the periodical and obli- 
 gatory visit of the bishops to Rome. The priests and all 
 the orders of the ecclesiastical hierarchy were objects of the 
 same solicitude and severe vigilance. 
 
 His vast correspondence testifies at once to the unwearied 
 activity of his administration, his ardent zeal for justice 
 and discipline, and the increasing development of questions 
 of canonical law and discipline which began to replace, 
 especially in the West, the dogmatic questions which had 
 been sufficiently elaborated in the five general councils held 
 up to that time. 
 
 Those argus eyes which incessantly superintended the 
 Christian world 4 did not pass over the vast domains of 
 the Church which, under the name of the patrimony of 
 St. Peter, were already formed, not only in Gaul, as has 
 been already seen, but in Africa, Corsica, Dalmatia, Sicily, 
 
 1 "Nam inanis fit oratio, ubi prava est actio." — Epist., xi. 51, to the 
 bishops of Sicily. 
 
 2 " Talis hoc tempore in arce regiminis . . . qui . . . de extrinseca sub- 
 jectorum utilitate et cautela sciat esse sollicitus." — Ibid., x. 62. 
 
 3 " Quia vana et stulta superfluitas noc delectat." — Ibid., i. 36. 
 
 4 " Velut argus quidem luminosissimus per totitus mundi latitudinem 
 . . . oculos circumtulerit." — Joan. DiAC, ii. 55.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 49 
 
 and especially in the south of Italy. Before Gregory, 
 negligence and confusion reigned everywhere in these lands. 
 He neglected no means of re-establishing order and re- 
 storing thera to their just value. His letters show that 
 he considered no detail beneath him to attain that end, 
 and that it was his special endeavour to rule them with 
 the most exact justice. The spirit of the disciple of St. 
 Benedict, the monk who, careful, attentive, and just, appre- 
 ciated so highly the rights of labour, is evident at every 
 step. He wrote to Peter, the administrator of the Roman 
 Church in Sicily, that letter which deserves to be inscribed 
 by the side of the noblest titles of the papacy : " We under- 
 stand that the price paid for corn to the peasant subjects 
 of the Church is lowered in times of abundance : we desire 
 that they shall always be paid according to the current 
 price. . . . We forbid that the farmers shall pay more than 
 the rate fixed in their lease ; and we shall withdraw all the 
 disgraceful exactions which shall exceed the sums prescribed 
 in proportion to their ability. And in order that no one 
 after our death may be able to impose these burdens anew, 
 let them be invested in their lands by a written form which 
 shall state the sum which each one has to pay. . . . We would 
 not have the coffers of the Church soiled with sordid gains." x 
 The devoted friend of the peasants, who had scarcely 
 escaped from the deadly pressure of Roman taxation when 
 they fell into the hands of the Barbarian conquerors, less 
 skilfully rapacious but more brutal, he especially employed 
 his power in reducing their burdens, guaranteeing the 
 freedom of their marriages, the security of their possessions, 
 
 1 "Quia nos acculum Ecclesise ex lucris turpibus nolumus inquinari." — 
 Epist., i. 44. Compare ii. 32. In the last we find this often-quoted 
 passage, which indicates at once the simplicity and modesty of the great 
 man: — "You have sent me a bad horse and five good asses. I cannot 
 mount the horse because it is bad, nor the asses because they are asses ; 
 if you would help to support us, send us things which are suitable to 
 us." The ecclesiastical domains in Sicily maintained four hundred 
 stallions. 
 
 VOL. II. D
 
 50 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 and the inviolability of their inheritances. He placed at 
 the head of his domains, in each province, no longer lay- 
 men, but ecclesiastics imbued with his own spirit, from 
 whom he exacted a promise before the tomb of St. Peter, 
 that they would manage the patrimony of the Church as 
 the treasury of labourers and the poor. He extended this 
 solicitude even beyond the limits of his own possessions ; 
 and it is pleasant to see the head of the universal Church 
 turn from his struggles with Byzantium and the Lombards 
 to take in hand the interest of some obscure husbandmen of 
 the island of Sardinia. " I have learned," he wrote to the 
 Bishop of Cagliari, " that certain laymen, charged with the 
 administration of your patrimony, have committed depre- 
 dations to the detriment of your peasants, and refused to 
 render an account : it becomes you, after having examined 
 into this with the utmost rigour, to decide, according to the 
 justice of the case, between your peasants and these men, 
 in order to make them if possible disgorge their prey." 1 
 
 He was everywhere the man of justice and freedom. It 
 was not alone the interests of the Church, its possessions 
 and vassals, which inspired his zeal. He endeavoured to 
 defend the rights and liberty of all, by the influence of his 
 spiritual authority and the freedom of his pontifical language, 
 against the exactions, the arbitrary violence, and cruelty of 
 the imperial magistrates; 2 and, addressing himself to the 
 ex-consul Leontius, the envoy of the Emperor Maurice, he 
 set down this great principle of Christian policy, always 
 ignored, but always undeniable : " You should watch over 
 the liberty of those whom you judge as over your own ; and 
 if you would hinder your superiors from trampling your 
 
 1 " In rusticorum vestrorum deprsedationibus . . . deprehensi. . . . 
 Convenit inter eos Ecclesiaeque vestrte rusticos causam examinari sub- 
 tilius." — Epist., ix. 65. 
 
 2 " Libertateni uniuscujusque hominis contra judicum insolentias liberis 
 vocibus defendebat . . . cunctorum judicum cupiditates vel scelera 
 quasi cuneo frenoque pontificii sui . . . restringebat." — Joan. DiAC, 
 ii. 47, 48.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 5 I 
 
 freedom under foot, know how to honour and guard that of 
 your inferiors." x 
 
 All who were oppressed, all the victims of power or 
 wickedness, found in him a champion. 2 He interfered in- 
 dignantly concerning " the atrocious and unheard-of crime " 
 committed by a vassal of the diocese of Messina, in carrying 
 away his godson's youug wife to sell her to another : and 
 threatened with canonical punishment not the guilty person 
 only, but the bishop of the diocese who left such attempts 
 unpunished. 3 
 
 It might be said that he anticipated the abolition of slavery 
 in this preamble to an act of enfranchisement. " Since the 
 Redeemer and Creator of the world made Himself incarnate 
 in the form of humanity, in order to break the chain of our 
 slavery by the grace of freedom, and to restore us to our 
 pristine liberty, it is well and wise to restore the benefit 
 of original liberty to men whom nature has made free, and 
 whom the laws of men have bowed under the yoke of servi- 
 tude. For this reason we make you, Montanus and Thomas, 
 servants of the holy Roman Church, which we also serve 
 with the help of God, free from this day, and Roman citizens, 
 and we make over to you all your stock of money." 4 Even 
 in his theological expositions, in his commentaries on Job, 
 this image of slavery still pursues him : " The penitent sinner 
 here below," says he, " is like a slave who has fled from his 
 master, but who is not yet free : he has deserted his sins 
 by contrition, but he must still fear the chastisement. He 
 will be truly enfranchised, truly free, only in heaven, where 
 
 1 " Libertatem eorurn . . . ut vestram specialiter attendere debetis . . . 
 subjectorum vestrorum honorando libertatem custodite." — Epist., x. 51. 
 
 2 " Ab adversis potestatibus prasgravatos fortissimus miles Christi Grego- 
 rius viriliter defendebat." — Joan. Diac. , iv. 21. 
 
 3 Epist., vi. 13. 
 
 4 " Dirupto quo tenebamur capti vinculo servitutis . . . salubriter agitur, 
 si homines, quos ab initio natura liberos protulit, et jus gentium jugo sub- 
 stituit servitutis, in ea qua nati f uerant manumittentis libertate reddantur." 
 — Ibid., vi. 12.
 
 5 2 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 he can no longer doubt his pardon, where he shall lose even 
 the recollection of h'is fault, and where he shall taste the 
 serenity and joy of freedom." l 
 
 Until this terrible stain of slavery could be entirely effaced 
 in the full light of Christianity, Gregory ordained that every 
 pagan or Jewish slave who desired to become a Christian 
 should be freed at the cost of the Church : above all, he 
 would not suffer Christians to remain the slaves of Jews. 
 When he could not free them otherwise by legal means, he 
 caused them to be redeemed out of the ecclesiastical treasury. 2 
 However, he checked energetically the rigorous measures and 
 popular violence to which the Jews, in the midst of new- 
 born Christendom, were already exposed. His conduct and 
 precepts on this subject formed a striking contrast to 
 the odious persecution then inflicted by the intolerant zeal 
 of the new Christians in Gaul and Spain upon the children 
 of Israel. 3 He strictly interdicted the bishops of Aries and 
 Marseilles from baptizing them by force. He obliged the 
 bishops of Terracina, of Palermo, and Cagliari to restore to 
 them the synagogues from which they had been expelled. 
 " It is by gentleness," he wrote to these prelates, " by bene- 
 volence and exhortations that we must lead the unbelievers 
 back to unity, lest we alienate by terrors and menaces those 
 whom charitable preaching and the fear of the last judgment 
 shall not have established in the faith. We must use such 
 moderation with them that they will not resist us ; but we 
 must never constrain them against their will, since it is 
 written, ' Offer yourselves a willing sacrifice.' " 
 
 1 " Servus ergo hie jam fugit dominum, sed liber non est. . . . Ibi ergo 
 . . . ubi jam . . . de ejus indulgentia liber exsultet." — Moral., i. iv. c. 36. 
 
 3 "Si quos Christianorum pro longitudine itineris per provincias ab 
 Hebraeorum servitio per legalem violentiam liberare non poterat, suis pretiis 
 redumendos esse censebat." — Joan. Diac, iv. 44. Compare 46. 
 
 3 Chilperic, king of Neustria, had them baptized by force in 582. Sigi- 
 bert, king of the Visigoths, made a law in 613 to scourge and exile from 
 Spain all Jews who would not consent to be baptized. 
 
 4 Epist, i. 35 ; vii. 5, 2.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 5 3 
 
 It may be affirmed that this sentiment of intelligent and 
 liberal charity was the leading principle of his generous 
 efforts to root out the remains of paganism, as well as those 
 of heresy and schism, from the countries where his authority 
 transcended every other. And if he sometimes appears to 
 derogate from this by rigorous measures, which we lament 
 to find in the history of so noble a life, it must be acknow- 
 ledged that these fell always far short of the severity autho- 
 rised by the laws and manners of his time. Thus it is 
 lamentable to see him lend his authority to the corporal 
 punishment of the Barbaricians, 1 a pagan tribe from Africa, 
 whom the Vandals had left in the island of Sardinia ; and 
 elsewhere to enjoin, now that a higher rate of taxes should 
 be exacted from the pagans who refused to be converted, 2 
 and now that the Jews should be allured to baptism by the 
 bait of taking off a third from the rent of their farms. 
 
 For this proceeding he gave the melancholy reason which 
 has since served other proselytisers : " If they are not sincerely 
 converted themselves, their children at least will be baptized 
 with better will." s But even this was an improvement 
 upon the custom of judges and even bishops, who made the 
 peasants pay for permission to worship their gods, and even 
 continued to extort that tribute after these pagans had been 
 converted. He was careful to interdict all vexatious taxes 
 imposed upon old or new Catholics under pretence of heresy, 
 and every kind of violence against schismatics, however 
 obstinate. 4 He succeeded, notwithstanding, in destroying 
 
 1 " Jam Barbaricinos, Sardos et Campaniae rusticos, tarn praedicationibus 
 quam verberibus emendatos a paganizandi vanitate removerat." — Joan. 
 Diac, iii. i. 
 
 2 Epist., iv. 26. I cannot but recall here that, in the eighteenth century, 
 the Puritans of Maryland employed precisely the same means, when they 
 had the majority, to pervert the Catholics whom they had received into 
 that colony, which was founded on the express stipulation of religious 
 liberty for all. — See Ed. Laboulaye, Histoire des Etats-Unis, t. i. 
 
 3 Epist. , v. 8. This was repeated by Mme. de Maintenon after the revo- 
 cation of the Edict of Nantes. 
 
 4 "Sub praetextu haeresis affligi quempiam veraciter profitentem fidem
 
 54 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 in Africa the heresy of the Donatists, which had lasted 
 nearly two centuries, and which had consumed the strength 
 of St. Augustine : he proceeded in this matter with as much 
 prudence as energy, respecting the ancient customs which 
 were not contrary to the Catholic faith, and refusing to 
 approve of the too rigorous measures decreed by the Council 
 of Carthage against all bishops who did not pursue the 
 heretics with sufficient ardour. 1 After this council, held in 
 594, the Donatists disappear from history. 
 
 He had also the good fortune to terminate the schism of 
 Aquileia, which had for half a century separated from the 
 body of the Church the bishops of Venetia and Istria, obsti- 
 nate defenders of the three chapters condemned at the fifth 
 general council ; and although this schism was founded 
 upon a sort of insurrection of Latin or Italian feeling 
 against the intemperate interference of the Eastern emperors 
 on theological questions, Gregory had specially to contend 
 with the artifices used by Byzantine agents to keep up that 
 division. 
 
 The services which he rendered to the Liturgy are well 
 known. In that particular, no pope has equalled him. 
 Completing and putting in order the work of his predeces- 
 sors, he gave its definitive form to the holy sacrifice of the 
 mass, and the worship of the Roman Church, in that cele- 
 brated Sacramentary which, retouched and added to during 
 following ages, remains the most august monument of litur- 
 gical science. It may also be said that he created, and by 
 anticipation saved, Christian art, by fixing, long before the 
 persecution of the iconoclasts made that the duty of the 
 Church, the true doctrine respecting the worship of images, 
 
 catholicam non sinamus." — Epist, v. 15. " Schismaticos ad recipiendani 
 satisfactionem venire invitabat, quibus etiarn, si nusquam ad unitatem 
 Ecclesia? redire voluissent, nullam se facturum violentiam promittebat." — 
 Joan. Diac, v. 37 ; Epist., iv. 49. Let us observe also his extreme gentle- 
 ness towards certain Christians of the island of Corsica who had relapsed 
 into paganism. — Epist., viii. 1. 
 1 Epist., v. 5.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 5 5 
 
 in that fine letter to the Bishop of Marseilles, in which he 
 reproves him for having, in the excess of his zeal against 
 idolatry, broken the statues of the saints, and reminds him 
 that through all antiquity the history of the saints has been 
 represented in pictures ; that painting is to the ignorant 
 what writing is to those who can read, and that images are 
 principally useful to the poor. 1 
 
 But his name is specially associated, in the history of 
 Catholic worship, with that branch of religious art which is 
 identified with worship itself, and which is of the utmost 
 moment to the piety as to the innocent joy of the Christian 
 people. 2 
 
 The name of the Gregorian Chant reminds us of his 
 solicitude for collecting the ancient melodies of the Church, 
 in order to subject them to the rules of harmony, and 
 to arrange them according to the requirements of divine 
 worship. He had the glory of giving to ecclesiastical music 
 that sweet and solemn, and, at the same time, popular 
 and durable character, which has descended through ages, 
 and to which we must always return after the most pro- 
 longed aberrations of frivolity and innovation. He made 
 out himself, in his Antiphonary, the collection of ancient 
 and new chants ; he composed the texts and music of several 
 hymns which are still used by the Church ; he established 
 at Kome the celebrated school of religious music, to which 
 Gaul, Germany, England, all the Christian nations, came in 
 turn, trying with more or less success to assimilate their 
 voices to the purity of Italian modulations. 3 A pleasant 
 
 i Epist., xi. 13. 
 
 2 In several churches, and during several centuries, a prose, in honour 
 of St. Gregory, was sung before the introit of the first Sunday of Advent, 
 in which occur the following verses : — 
 
 " Tradidit hie cantum populis normamque canendi, 
 Quod Domino laudes referant noctuque dieque." 
 
 — Gerbert, De Cant, et Mus. Saerii, t. i. lib. 2, ap. Latj. 245. 
 
 3 All musical historians have quoted the grotesque description which the 
 Italian biographer of St. Gregory gives of the efforts of the Germans and
 
 56 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 legend, much esteemed in the middle ages, shows the great 
 effect which the services of Gregory had produced on all 
 nations. According to this tale, it was in considering the 
 fascination exercised by profane music, that he was led to 
 inquire whether he could not, like David, consecrate music 
 to the service of God. And as he dreamt of this subject 
 one night, he had a vision in which the Church appeared to 
 him under the form of a muse, magnificently adorned, who, 
 while she wrote her songs, gathered all her children under 
 the folds of her mantle ; and upon this mantle was written 
 the whole art of music, with all the forms of its tones, notes, 
 and neumes, and various measures and symphonies. The 
 pope prayed God to give him the power of recollecting all 
 that he saw ; and after he awoke, a dove appeared, who 
 dictated to him the musical compositions with which he has 
 enriched the Church. 1 
 
 A more authentic memorial is that of the little chamber 
 which he occupied in the school of music, which he had 
 established near the Lateran, and where, three centuries 
 after his death, the bed upon which he reclined while singing 
 was still to be seen, and the whip with which he corrected 
 the children, whose musical education he thus watched over. 2 
 
 Must we now condescend to refute, after the example 
 of many other writers, the calumnious accusations brought 
 against Gregory by blind enemies, and sometimes by im- 
 
 French of the ninth century, to harmonise the songs of the Gregorian 
 school : " Alpina siquidem corpora vocum suarum tonitruis altisone perre- 
 pentia, susceptae modulationis dulcedinem, proprie non resultant : quia 
 bibuli gutturis barbara levitas, dum in flexionibus et repercussionibus 
 mitem nititur edere cantilenam, naturali quodam fragore, quasi plaustra 
 per gradus confuse sonantia rigidas voces jactat." — Joan. Diac, ii. 7. 
 
 1 "Vidit sanctam Ecclesiam ornatam et compositam quae quasi musa 
 cantum suum componit . . . quasi gallina pullos . . . et quasi sub uno 
 dragmse tegmine tabellulae, ubi scripta erat ars musica, nomina tonorum 
 et neumatum numeri." — Jo ANN. PRESBYT., Be Musica qaomodo per B. 
 Gregorum perinventa, lib. iii., ap. Gerbert, op. cit., lib. ii. par. ii. c. i. 
 
 2 " Ubi usque hodie lectus ejus in quo recubans modulabatur, et flagelluni 
 ipsius . . . cum authentico antiphonario reservatur." — Joan. Diac, I. c.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 57 
 
 prudent admirers, on the subject of his supposed contempt 
 for literature and science? He is accused of having de- 
 stroyed the ancient monuments of Rome, burnt the Palatine 
 library, destroyed the writings of Cicero and Titus Livius, 
 expelled the mathematicians from Rome, and reprimanded 
 Bishop Didier of Vienne for teaching grammar to children. 
 None of these imputations, except the last, is founded upon 
 any authority earlier than the twelfth century. 1 The most 
 authentic evidence, on the contrary, exhibits him to us as 
 educated in the schools, as nourished by the wise discipline 
 of ancient Rome, and surrounded by the most learned priests 
 and monks of his time, making the seven liberal arts, as 
 his biographer says, noble pillars of the portico of the 
 apostolical chair. 2 
 
 His contemporary, Gregory of Tours, who visited him in 
 Rome, says of him, that he was unequalled for grammar, 
 dialectics, and rhetoric. 3 He had, doubtless, made many 
 efforts to root out paganism, which perpetuated itself in 
 the literary tastes and popular habits of that Italy, where 
 a short time before St. Benedict had found a temple of 
 Apollo upon the summit of Monte Cassino. He disapproved 
 of bestowing exclusive attention upon mythological subjects, 
 but never either wrote or commanded anything against the 
 study of humane or classical literature. He has, on the 
 contrary, proved at length that this study was a useful 
 preparation and indispensable help to the understanding 
 of sacred literature. He regarded the disgust of certain 
 Christians for literary studies as a temptation of the devil, 
 and added : " The devils know well that the knowledge of 
 
 1 The first author who has mentioned this, and with praise, is John of 
 Salisbury, who died in 1183. 
 
 2 " Septemplicibus artibus veluti columnis noblissimorum totidem lapi- 
 dum apostolicae sedis atrium fulciebat. "— Joan. Diac, ii. 13. Compare 
 ibid., c. 14. 
 
 3 " Litteris grammaticis dialecticisque ac rhetoricis ita erat institutus 
 ut nulli in urbe ipsa putaretur esse secundus." — Greg. Tueon., Hist. 
 Franc, X. I.
 
 58 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 profane literature helps us to understand sacred literature. 
 In dissuading us from this study, they act as the Philis- 
 tines did, when they interdicted the Israelites from making 
 swords or lances, and obliged that nation to come to them 
 for the sharpening of their axes and ploughshares." 1 
 
 He reproved the Bishop of Vienne only for devoting 
 himself to reading and teaching the profane poets, to the 
 prejudice of the dignity of his charge, and represented to 
 him that the praises of Jupiter did not come fitly from the 
 same lips which uttered those of Jesus Christ. 2 It is by an 
 exaggeration of humility that, in the dedication of his book 
 upon Job, he shows a scorn of grammar and barbarity of 
 language which is nowhere to be found in his writings. 
 He certainly did not write the Latin of Cicero or even of 
 Tacitus, but he contributed as much as St. Augustine to 
 form the new Latin, the Christian Latin, destined to be- 
 come the language of the pulpit and the school, and from 
 which all our modern languages have proceeded. 3 
 
 It cannot be expected that we should examine, even pass- 
 ingly, the writings of St. Gregory the Great. They largely 
 contributed to procure him this surname ; which implies that 
 they are equal to his glory, and have largely contributed to 
 the happy influence of his genius upon the destinies of the 
 Church. 
 
 In an age when everything seemed giving way, and in 
 which it was necessary to struggle, not only against the 
 quibbles of heresy, but especially against exhausted courage, 
 the despair of the vanquished, and the savage pride of the 
 
 1 "Ad hoc tantum liberates artes discendse sunt ut per instructionem 
 illarum divina eloquentia subtilius intelligatur. ... A nonnullorum cordi- 
 bns discendi desiderium maligni spiritus tollunt, ut et ssecularia nesciant 
 et ad sublimitatem spiritualium non pertingant. Aperte quidem dasmones 
 sciunt quia, dum saecularibus litteris instruimur, in spiritualibus adjuva- 
 mur. . . . Cum nos ea discere dissuadent, quid aliud quam ne lanceam ut 
 gladium faciamus praecavent ? "—Liv. v. in Primum, Regum, c. xxx. § 30. 
 
 - " Quia in uno se ore cum Jovis laudibus laudes Christi non capiunt." 
 — Epirt., xi. 54. 
 
 3 Ozanam, fragment already quoted.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 59 
 
 conquerors, he concerns himself less with the necessities of 
 the intellect than with the purification and elevation of the 
 human will. Many of the Fathers of the Church have 
 surpassed him in style and eloquence ; his style is too re- 
 dundant, too evidently marked by the rhetorical habits of a 
 declining age ; but no man ever understood the human soul 
 better, analysed more closely its miseries and necessities, or 
 indicated with greater clearness and energy the remedy for 
 these evils. No one has spoken or written with an austerity 
 greater or better acknowledged by posterity ; no one has so 
 completely set forth the constitution and doctrine of the 
 Church. We have already spoken of his Sacramentary, 
 which determined the chants, the language and the form 
 of the liturgy, and also of his Dialogues, which have been 
 the model of the hagiography of the middle ages. Let us 
 further refer to his Pastoral, in which he has collected the 
 rules which should regulate the vocation, life, and doctrine 
 of pastors, and where he mingles his instructions with 
 touching and noble reflections upon his own infirmity. It 
 has been said with justice that this book gave form and life 
 to the entire hierarchical body, and made the bishops who 
 have made modern nations. 1 Then came his admirable 
 works upon Holy Scripture ; and above all, the thirty-five 
 books of Moralia, or commentaries on the Book of Job, 
 begun at Constantinople before his election, and continued 
 during his pontificate, which popularised the secrets of 
 asceticism by developing the loftiest traditions of Biblical 
 interpretation, and were worthy of becoming, through all 
 the middle ages, the text-book of moral theology. In our 
 own days, the portion of his works which is read with 
 greatest interest are his thirteen volumes of Epistles, the 
 collection of that immense correspondence by which he con- 
 ducted, day by day, and according to the necessities of the 
 time, the usual legislation of the Church, in which his un- 
 wearied eye visited from Ireland to Caucasus the furthest 
 1 Ozanam, unpublished fragment.
 
 60 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 corners of the Christian world, and in which he has traced 
 at the same time a living picture of his own age, and the 
 annals of that great government of souls, and even of 
 temporal interests, which he exercised with so much justice, 
 prudence, activity, wisdom, and compassion. 
 
 He was, besides, an eloquent and unwearied preacher, 
 and esteemed it of the highest importance that this duty- 
 should be fulfilled by other bishops as it was by himself. 1 
 He devoted himself to this without intermission, even in 
 the most serious difficulties of his charge. He was prone 
 to deride those sacred orators who sometimes did not speak 
 enough, and sometimes spoke too much ; wordy in superfluous 
 matters, mute in things necessary. 2 His twenty-two homilies 
 on Ezekiel were delivered by him before the people, as has 
 been formerly mentioned, during the siege of Rome by the 
 Lombards. Of his forty homilies upon the Gospel, twenty 
 were preached by himself, and the other twenty were read 
 to the people by a notary, in consequence of the personal 
 sufferings which prevented him from ascending the pulpit. 
 
 A theologian, a philosopher, and an orator, he is worthy 
 of taking his place by that triple title, in the veneration 
 of Christendom, beside Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, to 
 be ranked with them among the four great doctors of the 
 Western Church, and to take his place thus in the first 
 rank of that order of which he himself has said : " In 
 Ecclesia ordo doctorum quasi rex praesidet, quern fidelium 
 suorum turba circumstat." 3 
 
 He would never have judged himself worthy of such an 
 honour, for he despised his own works. He composed his 
 Morals only at the entreaty of his friend St. Leander, and 
 before sending him the work which was dedicated to him, 
 desired to submit it to the judgment of the various monas- 
 teries in Rome. He did not suppose it adapted to become 
 
 1 Regula Pastoralis, part iii. c. 25. 
 
 2 "Verbosus in superfluis, mutus in necessariis." 
 
 3 Moral., lib. xx. c. 5.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 6 1 
 
 a means of instruction to the Christian world, and was dis- 
 tressed that, in his lifetime, a bishop had read it in public. 
 " So long as I live, I desire, if I succeed in saying some- 
 thing that is good, that men should not know of it." 1 We 
 recognise the humility of the pontiff in the tale which informs 
 us how, seeing a Persian abbot prostrate himself at his feet, 
 he himself knelt before the Oriental to prevent such a 
 homage. 2 
 
 His humility as a monk should be also acknowledged 
 here ; which reminds us that it is our special business to 
 show the monk in the great pope, of whom we have, per- 
 haps, spoken at too great length. In his public life, in his 
 immortal reign, and especially in his writings, everything 
 bears the ineffaceable impression of his monastic education 
 and spirit. It only remains for us to tell what he did to 
 regulate and increase the progress of the order of which he 
 was, after St. Benedict, the principal ornament, the second 
 legislator, and, according to some, the true founder in the 
 West. 
 
 Of the services rendered to his order by the first monk 
 who was raised to the papacy, that biography of the holy 
 patriarch which is contained in the second book of the 
 Dialogues, and which no one since then has ever undertaken 
 to do over again, must hold the highest place. But he did 
 still more in completing and sanctioning the rule of Bene- 
 dict by the supreme authority of the apostolical see. In 
 the Council of Rome in 595, he solemnly approved and 
 confirmed this rule. 3 In the Council of 601, he gave a 
 
 1 " Necque enim volo, dum in hac carne sum, si qua dixisse me contigit, 
 ea facile hominibus innotesci." — Epist., xii. 24. 
 
 2 SOPHRONIUS, Pratum Spirituale, ap. YEPES, t. i. p. 424. 
 
 3 Baeonius, Annal., ad an. 595, ex NS. Sublacensi. The authenticity 
 of this charter has been disputed, but it is evident that Gregory sanctioned 
 the rule of St. Benedict either then, or afterwards, by Canon VII. of the 
 Second Council of Douzy, near Sedan, in 874, which says : " Eadem regula 
 S. Spiritu promulgata et laudis auctoritate B. papas Gregorii inter canonicas 
 scripturas et catholicorum doctorum scripta teneri decreta est."
 
 62 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 constitution destined to establish and guarantee the freedom 
 of the 'monks. 1 This decree commences thus : " The charge 
 which we formerly filled as head of a monastery, has taught 
 us how necessary it is to provide for the tranquillity and 
 security of the monks ; and as we know that most of them 
 have had to suffer much oppression and injustice at the 
 hands of the bishops, it concerns our fraternal feeling to 
 provide for their future repose." Then, in the name of 
 Jesus Christ and St. Peter, he interdicts bishops as well 
 as secular persons from diminishing the property, re- 
 venues, or titles of monasteries. He ordains that disputes 
 relative to the land claimed in the name of episcopal 
 churches should be decided by the abbots or other arbi- 
 trators fearing God. He arranges that after the death of 
 every abbot, his successor should be chosen by the free and 
 unanimous consent of the community, and drawn from its 
 own bosom ; that once elected and ordained without fraud 
 or bribery, the abbot could only be deprived of the govern- 
 ment of the monastery for crimes provided for by the canons. 
 No monk could be taken from his monastery to be employed 
 in the duties of the secular clergy. Monks ordained priests 
 by the consent of the abbot must leave the monastery. The 
 bishops are further forbidden to proceed with inventories of 
 monastic goods after the death of the abbot, to celebrate 
 public masses in the churches of the monks, drawing the 
 crowd and women there, as also from erecting their own 
 pulpit, or exercising the slightest authority there, except at 
 the desire of the abbot. 2 We desire, said the pope in con- 
 
 1 "Decretum Constituti nomine appellari solitum. . . . Decretum 
 Gregorii papas de libertate monachorum." — Not. ad. ConciL, ed. Colctti, 
 
 t. vi. p. 1343. 
 
 2 " Quam sit necessarium monachorum quieti prospicere . . . anteactum 
 nos officium quod in regimine ccenobii exhibuimus informat, et quia in 
 plerisque monasteriis multa a prsesulibus prarjudicia et gravamina mona- 
 chos pertulisse cognovimus, oportet ut nostras fraternitatis provisio de 
 futura eorum quiete salubri disponat ordinatione. . . . Ut nullus episco- 
 porum seu ssecularium ultra praesumat . . . non extraneus eligatur, nisi
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 63 
 
 eluding the proclamation of his decree, that this passage 
 written by us should be always and inviolably observed by 
 the bishops, in order that the monks may not be turned 
 aside from divine service by any trouble or vexation on the 
 part of ecclesiastics or secular persons. All the bishops 
 present at the council answered : " We rejoice in the freedom 
 of the monks, and confirm all that your holiness ordains." * 
 And all signed, to the number of twenty, with fourteen 
 cardinal priests, and four deacons of the Roman Church. 
 
 Amid the disorders and conflicts which agitated the 
 Church and wasted Christendom, the work of St. Benedict 
 was thus invested with the highest sanction existing upon 
 earth. The free choice of its chiefs, and the inviolability 
 of its property, the two fundamental principles of every 
 independent and regular society, were guaranteed to the 
 monastic order by the most solemn act, emanating from a 
 pope who remembered, and considered himself honoured in 
 remembering, that he had been a monk. 
 
 Along with this general liberty assured to the entire 
 order, Gregory had conceded analogous and special privi- 
 leges to several monasteries. He may be regarded as the 
 principal author of what has since been called exemptions? 
 In releasing the great communities of Gaul and Italy in 
 various essential points from episcopal jurisdiction, he e vi- 
 de eadem congregatione, quern sibi propria voluntate concors fratrum 
 societas elegerit. . . . Hanc scriptorum nostrorum paginam omni futuro 
 tempore ab episcopis firmam statuimus illibatamque servari." — Concil., I. c. 
 
 1 "Libertati monachorum congaudemus, et quaa nunc de his statuit 
 Beatitudo Vestra firmamus." — Ibid. 
 
 2 Several examples of these are instanced prior to his pontificate, and 
 as far back as the first years of the sixth century, but they are not of a 
 sufficiently authentic character. Some authors, however, among others 
 Thomassin (Vctus et Nova Disciplina, pars i. lib. iii. c. 30), have main- 
 tained that, by his concessions, Gregory did not lessen the spiritual 
 jurisdiction of the bishops over the communities. This appears difficult 
 to prove in presence of the text, which is of a very different tenor. The 
 first exemption given to a monastery in Gaul was by St. Gregory to a 
 community of women founded in honour of John Cassianus, at Marseilles. 
 —Epist., vii. 12.
 
 64 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 dently had in view only to fortify them in spiritual life, 
 and to form so many centres of energetic resistance against 
 the disorders which the different invasions and struggles of 
 diverse races among themselves had made frequent in the 
 ranks of the secular clergy. He said expressly to a com- 
 munity at Rimini, in conferring upon it the exemption it 
 solicited : " You must now all the more be occupied with 
 the work of God, all the more assiduous in prayer, for other- 
 wise you should appear not to have sought greater security 
 for your orisons, but only, which God forbid ! to secure your 
 laxness from episcopal severity." 
 
 It was also with this aim that he endeavoured to enforce 
 a rigorous distinction between the ecclesiastical condition 
 and monastic life, a distinction which completely disap- 
 peared in after times. He would not suffer either a priest 
 or a deacon to become an abbot, or even a mere monk, 
 unless he gave up his clerical functions ; for, said he, 
 " there are some who, feigning to live as monks, are am- 
 bitious of being placed at the head of monasteries, which 
 they destroy by their manner of life." s He was very will- 
 ing that there should be monks in the priesthood to celebrate 
 mass in the communities ; 3 above all, he had no intention 
 of interdicting the elevation of monks to sacerdotal or epis- 
 copal dignity, of which there were several instances under 
 his pontificate. But every monk called to an ecclesiastical 
 office or benefice was to leave his monastery, never to re- 
 turn. 4 They had to choose between the clerical office and 
 monastic life ; for, according to Gregory, each of these 
 
 1 Epist., ii. 42, ad Luminosum abbatem. 
 
 2 " Dum hi fingunt se religiose vivere, monasteriis prseponi appetunt, 
 et per eorum vitam monasteria destruuntur." — Epist., v. 1. 
 
 3 Epist., vi. 42. 
 
 * Concil. de 601, p. 1343, ex. Cod. Flaviniac. Compare Epist., vii. 43. He 
 would not consent that Urbicus, abbot of St. Hermes and general superior 
 of the Sicilian monasteries, should be elected Archbishop of Palermo, 
 " ne eum ad altiora producenda, minorem se ipso fieri missum in fluctibus 
 compellerat."
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 65 
 
 vocations is so great in itself, that no man can acquit him- 
 self in it worthily ; and far from being able to exercise them 
 together, they mutually injure each other. 1 The experience 
 of Catholic ages has corrected upon that point the pious 
 foresight of Gregory : and even in his own lifetime the new 
 sees established in England by his disciples were rilled only 
 by monks. 
 
 If the experience of monastic life which he had acquired 
 as an abbot helped him to use his authority as pope to pro- 
 mote the peace and freedom of the monks — if he every- 
 where displayed a constant and efficient solicitude for the 
 consolidation of the order — he always insisted at the same 
 time upon the maintenance and establishment of the strictest 
 discipline. At the time of his advent to the Holy See that 
 discipline was already much relaxed. Monks wandered here 
 and there, some expelled from their asylums by the Lom- 
 bards, some voluntary deserters from a retirement which 
 they had left in consequence of the too severe authority of 
 one abbot, or the contagious laxness of another. The spirit 
 of the world, the desire of property, the habit of rebellion 
 or license, penetrated into the cloisters which still remained 
 standing and inhabited. Gregory devoted himself to the 
 work of monastic reform, and succeeded in it. He invited 
 the assistance sometimes of the abbots themselves, some- 
 times of the bishops, and still more frequently of the dej "en- 
 sores, procurators or syndics of the Roman Church, whom 
 he maintained in every province. He deposed without pity 
 all the abbots who lived an irregular life. 2 He forbade the 
 
 1 " Satis enim incongruum est, ut cum unum ex his pro sui magnitudine 
 diligenter quis non possit explere, ad utrumque judicetur idoneus ; sicque 
 invicem et ecclesiasticus ordo vitae monachicas et ecclesiasticis utilitatibus 
 regula monachatus impediat." — Epist., iv. 21. This did not prevent many- 
 writers of his time from calling the monks indiscriminately monachi or 
 clerici: see especially Gregory of Tours, Be Gloria Mart, lib. i. c 75. 
 Compare Mabillon, Prcef. in sac. Bened. See also, in book iv., a reference 
 to cap. 52 of the Rule of St. Benedict, upon the originally lax character of 
 the monastic order. 
 
 2 Epist., iii. 23, v. 3, 6. 
 
 VOL. II. E
 
 66 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 bishops to afford shelter to rebellious or vagabond monks, 
 or those who were excommunicated by their abbots. 1 He 
 would not have the Religious wander over the country or 
 from one house to another. 2 To deprive both abbots and 
 monks of all pretext for leaving their monastery, he ordained 
 that each should have a secular and paid procurator. He 
 watched especially over the strict observance of monastic 
 continence, to such an extent that monasteries of the two 
 sexes were withdrawn to a distance from each other, and 
 women were rigorously forbidden to enter, upon any pre- 
 text whatever, into communities of men. In the islands 
 of the Italian coast, already peopled with monks, 3 and to 
 which the inhabitants of Campania fleeing from the Bar- 
 barians had found a refuge, he commanded the rector of the 
 pontifical patrimony to remove all the women. 
 
 He was specially desirous to seek out and shut up those 
 monks who had left their communities in order to marry, 
 and against whom the Council of Chalcedon had pronounced 
 excommunication. 4 But even in applying these austere laws, 
 the tender charity and amiable cordiality which distinguished 
 his character always reappeared. A patrician of Syracuse, 
 named Venantius, a great friend of Gregory, became a monk 
 like him ; but was afterwards disgusted with monastic life, 
 and married. When Gregory became pope, one of his first 
 cares was to recall himself to the recollection of his old 
 friend, in order to enlighten him upon the seriousness of his 
 condition. " Many fools believed," he wrote to him, " that 
 when I became a bishop I should cease to see you or address 
 
 1 Epist., vii. 35. An African abbot, called Cum quo Deus, had com- 
 plained to him that his monks fled when he enforced a strict observance 
 of the rule. 
 
 2 Epist., i. 41, 42, &c. 
 
 3 Especially in the islands of Monte Christo and Gorgone. The life in 
 these island monasteries was so difficult that Gregory forbade the recep- 
 tion of young people under eighteen, and ordered that all who were below 
 that age should be sent back to Rome. 
 
 4 Epist., i. 42.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 67 
 
 you by letter : but it shall not be so, for my charge itself 
 forbids me to be silent. ... I will speak to you whether 
 it pleases you or not, . . . because I desire above all either 
 to save you, or at least not to be responsible for your loss. 
 You know what habit you have worn, and into what an 
 abyss you have fallen. ... If Ananias merited the death 
 you know of, for having stolen from God the pieces of money 
 which he had offered to Him, think what you should merit 
 who have stolen away from God not money, but yourself, 
 after having dedicated yourself to Him under the monastic 
 habit. I know well that as soon as my letter arrives, you 
 will assemble your friends and literary clients, and consult 
 upon this vital question those who have abetted your death. 
 These people, like those who led you to crime, tell you only 
 what will please you, because they love not yourself but 
 what you have. If you need a counsellor take me, I be- 
 seech you. No one could be more faithful, for it is you 
 I love, and not your fortune. May Almighty God teach 
 your heart to understand how much my heart loves and 
 embraces you in everything that does not offend divine 
 grace. And if you believe that I love you, come to the 
 threshold of the apostles, and make use of me as your 
 adviser. If you distrust the excess of my zeal, I offer 
 you the advice of the whole Church, and I will willingly 
 subscribe to whatever they decide by common accord." 
 
 Venantius was deaf to the voice of the pontiff. Gregory 
 notwithstanding remained his friend ; he continued to write 
 to him and also to his wife. 2 Ten years later, when they 
 were both old and sick, he returned to the affectionate elo- 
 quence of his first exhortations. He entreated the Bishop of 
 
 1 " Multi hominum stulti . . . putaverunt . . . te alloqui et per epistolas 
 frequentare recusarem. ... In quo habitu fueris recolis ... ad quid sis 
 delapsus agnoscis. . . . Scio quia cum epistola niea suscipitur, protinus 
 amici conveniunt, literati clientes vocantur. . . . Consiliarium, rogo, me 
 suscipe. . . . Quidquid omnibus fieri salubriter placet, ego in nullo contra- 
 dico." — Epist., i. 34. 
 
 - Ibid., ix. 123.
 
 68 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 Syracuse to neglect no means of leading Venantius, now a 
 widower, to take again, if only on bis deathbed, the monastic 
 habit ; and after the death of his friend he took under his 
 special protection the two daughters whom he had left ex- 
 posed to all kinds of dangers. The pope interested himself 
 with his usual zeal in their fate and fortune ; he wrote to 
 them himself, engaged them to come to Rome to be near him, 
 and was as a father to these orphans, whom he always called 
 his dearest daughters. 1 
 
 He took an equal interest in the discipline and prosperity 
 of female convents. 2 The three sisters of his father had been 
 nuns, and this domestic tie naturally increased his interest 
 and enlightened his vigilance in respect to communities of 
 virgins consecrated to God. A decree of his predecessor, 
 Leo. I., in conformity with several ancient councils, and 
 confirmed by a law of the Emperor Majorian in 458, had 
 ordained that nuns should not receive the veil and the solemn 
 benediction without a novitiate which lasted up to their 
 fortieth year. 3 Gregory ordained that the abbesses, chosen 
 by the communities, should be at least sixty, and should 
 possess an irreproachable reputation. 4 His paternal gene- 
 
 1 "Dulcissimae filia?." — Epist., xi. 35, 36, 78. 
 
 2 Epist., iv. 9 ; v. 6, 24. There were from the first nuns of several kinds ; 
 most of them lived in communities, but others were solitary recluses, or, 
 indeed, lived in their families, wearing the veil : various errors resulted 
 from these last two methods, to which the popes and councils put an end. 
 In his Dialogues St. Gregory speaks of several holy nuns, entitling them 
 Ancilla Cliristi, Deo devota, confessa reclusa ; he gives them also the name of 
 monialis, which was afterwards the term generally used. 
 
 The three aunts of St. Gregory were nuns of some domestic order ; he 
 speaks of them thus : " Tres pater meus sorores habuit, quae cunctse tres 
 sacra? virgines fuerunt . . . uno omnes ardore converse, uno eodemque 
 tempore sacratae, sub districtione regulari degentes, in domo propria 
 socialem vitam ducebant." — Horn. 38, in Evang. 
 
 3 These decrees only applied to the benediction or solemn profession, 
 and did not prevent young girls from consecrating their virginity to God 
 from infancy, as has been proved by a multitude of examples. This ques- 
 tion has been thoroughly discussed by Thomassin, Vetus et Nova Ecclesioz 
 Disciplina, pars. i. lib. 3, c. 58. 
 
 4 Epist, iv. 11.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 69 
 
 rosity provided for the necessities of the nuns who had taken 
 refuge at Rome from the ruined monasteries of Italy, to the 
 number of three thousand, and who suffered much from the 
 cold during the hard winter of 597, leading all the while a 
 most edifying life. " Rome owes to their prayers, their 
 tears, and fasts," he wrote to the sister of the Emperor 
 Maurice, " its deliverance from the swords of the Lombards." * 
 
 It has been already seen with what rigour he pursued, 
 as abbot, among the Religious, that offence which monastic 
 phraseology called peculiarity or the vice of personal pro- 
 perty. As pope, he displayed the same severity. He re- 
 fused to confirm the election of an abbot whom he knew to 
 be stained with this vice. " I know that he loves property," 
 he wrote, " which shows that he has not the heart of a monk. 
 ... If this love existed among us, there would be neither 
 concord nor charity. What is monastic life, if not contempt 
 of the world ? and how can we say that we despise the 
 world if we seek it again ? " 2 The monks were debarred 
 from making wills, as well as from possessing property of 
 their own. In a council held at Rome in 600, the abbot 
 Probus, who had succeeded Gregory as superior of the 
 monastery of St. Andrea, obtained, by special grace, the 
 power of making his will in favour of his son, and that only 
 in consequence of the pope's declaration that, being a mere 
 recluse, he had been, in spite of himself, made abbot of a 
 monastery in which he was not even a monk, without time 
 being given him to dispose of his possessions before entering. 
 
 The legitimacy and sincerity of religious vocations was 
 still further the object of Gregory's special vigilance. It is 
 evident from his writings that he had particularly studied 
 the conditions proper to enlighten and decide Christians 
 upon their spiritual vocation. In religious life itself, he 
 would have none give himself up to a life of contemplation 
 
 1 Epist., vii. 26. 
 
 2 " Cognovi quod peculiaritati studeat, quae res maxime testatur eum cor 
 . monachi non habere." — Ibid., xii. 24.
 
 JO ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 until he had been long and seriously tried in active life. 
 " In order." he said. " to attain the citadel of contemplation, 
 vou must begrin bv exercising yourself in the field of labour." 
 He insists at length upon the dangers of contemplative life 
 for unquiet and presumptuous minds, who run the risk, by 
 pride, of aspiring to surpass the powers of intellect, and of 
 leading the weak astray, while they wandered astray them- 
 selves. " Whoever," he adds, " would devote himself to con- 
 templation ought necessarily to examine himself thoroughly, 
 to ascertain to what point he can love. For it is love 
 which is the lever of the soul. This alone can raise it up, 
 and, snatching it from the world, give it full power of 
 wing, and make it soar into the skies." l 
 
 This intelligent study of the moral and internal life of 
 the Eeligious rendered him only more attentive to the 
 means by which the always increasing population of the 
 monasteries was kep' up. He enjoined a married man, 
 who had become a monk in a Sicilian convent without the 
 consent and simultaneous conversion of his wife, to return 
 to her, marking thus, in his letter, the difference between 
 divine and human laws concerning the indissolubility of 
 marriage. 2 He forbade the superiors to give the monks the 
 tonsure — that is, to receive them finally into the monastic 
 order — before they had proved their conversion by a two 
 years' novitiate : this was a year more than St. Benedict 
 had fixea. 3 He was especially desirous that this serious 
 novitiate, during which the lay dress was still worn, should 
 try the disposition of the multitude of laymen, and above 
 all, of slaves, belonging either to the Church or to secular 
 masters, who sought an asylum in the monasteries, in order 
 to change human servitude for the service of God. In the 
 ;. .-■ <:: the decree which dea t with this matter In the 
 
 1 ' Necesse est ut quisquis ad contemplationem studia properat se 
 
 metipsum subriliter interroget, quantum ama: Machina quippe mentis 
 is am oris : quag hanc dum a mundo estrahit, in alta sustollit." — 
 Moralia, liv. vi. c. 37. 
 
 2 Epki., si 50. 3 Ibid., x. 24.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GEEAT /I 
 
 Council at Rome in 595, it is said, "If we allow this to go 
 on, all the lands of the Church will be abandoned ; and if 
 we repulse them without examination, we take away some- 
 thing from God who has given us all. It is necessary, then, 
 that he who would give himself to God should first be tried 
 in bis secular dress, in order that, if his conduct shows the 
 sincerity of his desire, he may be freed from the servitude 
 of man to embrace a more rigorous service." 1 Slaves could 
 become monks, according to a law of Justinian, without the 
 consent of their masters, but had to be enfranchised by 
 payment of their value : the slave who had become a monk, 
 and showed himself unfaithful to his new vocation, ran the 
 risk of being sent back to his former master. 2 
 
 In all this vast correspondence, by which Gregory in a 
 manner took possession of the West for the papacy, I know 
 not a more touching letter than one which he addressed to 
 the sub-deacon of the Roman Church in Campania, on the 
 subject of a young slave who was desirous of becoming a 
 nun. " I understand that the defensor Felix possesses a 
 young woman called Catella, who seeks with tears and 
 vehement desire to take the veil, but whose master will not 
 
 1 "Cum ad clericalem professionem tarn ex ecclesiastica qnam ex 
 saecnlari militia quotidie poene innumerabilis multitudo confineret, ne- 
 quaquam eos ad ecclesiastici decoris officium, sed ad capiendum solum- 
 modo monachicum propositum . . . suscipiendos censebat." — Joas. Diac, 
 ii. 16. " Multos de ecclesiastica farnilia sen saeculari militia novimus ad 
 omnipotentis Dei servitimn festinare ut ab humana servitute liberi in 
 divino servitio valeant familiarius in mona?teriis conversari. . . . Necesse 
 est nt qnisqnis ex juris ecclesiastici vel sgecularis militias servitute Dei ad 
 servitium converti desiderat, probetur prius in laico habitn, et si mores 
 ejus ... in monasterio, servire permittatur ut ab bumano servitio liber 
 recedat qui in divino amore distrietiorem subire appetit servitutem.'" — 
 
 . iv. 44, ed. Coletti, Append, v. ed. Bened. Mabillon [Ann. Bened., lib. 
 viii. c. 61), Fleury (lib. 35, c. 43), and Lau (p. 236), are all agreed in apply- 
 ing the terms of this decree to slaves. Such grave authorities must be 
 respected ; yet, in recurring to the expressions of John the Deacon, which 
 we quote above, we should be tempted to believe that it did not refer 
 to those who fled from slavery properly so called, but only the ordinary 
 service of the Church and State, or of secular life. 
 
 2 Episi., v. c. 34.
 
 72 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 permit her to assume it. Now, I desire that you go to 
 Felix and demand of him the soul of this girl : you shall 
 pay him the price he wants, and send her here under the 
 charge of competent persons, who will conduct her to a 
 monastery. And do it speedily, that your delay may not 
 put this soul in danger." 1 
 
 His exertions for the propagation of the Benedictine 
 order were powerful and perpetual. He devoted a portion 
 of the patrimony of the Church to found new monasteries 
 in Italy. He erected the earliest religious houses in the 
 island of Corsica. He confided to the monks the guardian- 
 ship and service of several ancient churches, like that of St. 
 Pancratius at Rome, and especially that of St. Apollinaris 
 or Classe, near Ravenna, a celebrated and sumptuous basilica, 
 built by Justinian at the capital of the Byzantine and 
 Ostrogoth government in Italy, upon the site chosen by 
 Augustus as a port for his fleets in the Adriatic. 2 This 
 new monastery, destined to become one of the principal 
 centres of monastic life in Italy, received from Gregory the 
 most extended privileges, to protect it against the encroach- 
 ments of the clergy of Ravenna, who were noted for their 
 readiness to invade the neighbouring monasteries. The 
 Archbishop of Ravenna, Marinian, although he had himself 
 been a monk with Gregory, and was his old friend, saw 
 with displeasure that great community exempted from his 
 full jurisdiction, and this was the occasion of one of the 
 disputes which disturbed their old friendship. 3 
 
 These new foundations did not make him forget the old 
 homes of monastic fervour. He congratulated the abbot of 
 Lerins on the satisfactory account which he had transmitted 
 by his legate Augustine, of the regularity and unanimity 
 
 1 " Volumus ut experientia tua prsefaturn Felicem adeat, atque puellae 
 ejusdern animam sollicite requirat . . . pretiuni ejusdem puellas suae 
 domino praebeat. . . . Ita vero age, ut non per lentam actionem tuam." — 
 Epist., iii. 40. 
 
 a Fabbei, Memor. di Ravenna, pp. 103, 113, 339. 
 
 3 Epist., vi. 29.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 73 
 
 which still reigned in that famous isle. It is touching to 
 see the apostle of England acting thus as intermediary 
 between the great pope who had issued from the new Bene- 
 dictine order, and the most illustrious monastery of ancient 
 Gaul ; and we love to learn, by the letter of St. Gregory, 
 that his paternal heart appreciated the alms which came 
 from Lerins in the shape of dishes and spoons sent by the 
 abbot for the service of the poor in Rome. 1 
 
 He extended his protection to the monks in the East as 
 well as in the West. In the beginning of his pontificate, 
 he interfered with energy and perseverance between the 
 patriarch of Constantinople and the abbot of the mountains 
 of Isauria, in Asia Minor, who was accused of heresy, and 
 whom the patriarch had caused to be beaten in one of the 
 churches of the imperial city. Through this prolonged 
 contest, he maintained, with his usual constancy, the obser- 
 vance of canons and the rights of innocence, which were 
 equally outraged by the haughty rival of Roman supremacy. 2 
 He gave to another abbot of Isauria a grant from the revenues 
 of the Roman Church more considerable than he asked, to 
 relieve the necessities of his distant monastery. 3 He sent 
 beds and clothing to St. John Climachus, abbot of Mount 
 Sinai, for the pilgrims who sought that sanctuary. 4 He 
 sent monks from his own convent in Rome to Jerusalem, to 
 found an hospital there. The rule of St. Benedict, carried 
 thus upon the wings of charity, penetrated into the East, 
 and established itself amid the sons of Basil to await the 
 Crusaders. 5 
 
 In his great correspondence he never ceased to extol and 
 regret monastic life. Overwhelmed with cares, labours, and 
 struggles, his thoughts always returned to the happy days 
 which he had passed under the Benedictine frock. " I 
 sailed before the wind," he wrote to his friend St. Leander, 
 
 1 " Cochleares et circulos." — Epist., vi. 56. 
 
 2 Ibid., iii. 53; vi. 66 ; vii. 34. 3 Ibid., v. 38. 
 
 * Ibid., xi. 1. 5 Joan. Diac, ii. 52.
 
 74 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 Bishop of Seville, " when I led a tranquil life in the cloister : 
 now the tempest has seized me ; I have lost my course ; my 
 mind has made shipwreck. Beaten by the waves, I seek 
 the plank of your intercession for me, in order that, not 
 being worthy to return rich with my ship safe and sound 
 into port, I may at least struggle to shore by that plank." 1 
 He indemnified himself as he best could, by surrounding 
 himself with his former brethren ; and procured a decree 
 for that purpose from the council held at Rome in 595, 
 that the lay and secular officers who rendered private service 
 to the popes should be replaced by clerical attendants, and 
 even by monks chosen with care, to be witnesses of his 
 entire life. With those whom he had thus procured to be 
 the familiar companions of his privacy, he applied himself 
 to follow as far as possible, in his studies, occupations, and 
 daily and nightly prayers, the customs of a monastery ; so 
 that the pontifical palace offered a picture of that church of 
 the apostolical times of which monastic life was the most 
 faithful image. 2 
 
 Most of the monks whom he thus associated with his 
 daily labours were drawn from his old monastery of St. 
 Andrea, in the inhabitants of which he had always an 
 affectionate confidence. He promoted several to the epis- 
 copate, the most notable of whom were Maximin and 
 Marinian, 3 whom he made archbishops — one in Sicily, the 
 
 1 "Quasi prospero vento navigabam. . . . Saltern post damna ad littus 
 per tabulara reducar."— Epist., ix. 121. 
 
 2 " Rernotis a suo cubiculo sascularibus, clericos ibi prudentissimos con- 
 siliaros familiaresque delegit, . . . monachorum vero sanctissimos sibi 
 farniliares elegit. . . . Cum quibus die noctuque versatus nihil monastic* 
 perfectionis in palatio, nihil pontificalis institutionis in Ecclesia dereliquit. 
 . . . Cum eruditissimis clericis religiosissimi monachi. . . . Talem ecclesiam 
 Romanam exhibuit qualis prima sub Apostolis fuit." — JOAN. DlAC, ii. 12. 
 
 3 Marinian, who had long lived in the same monastery with Gregory, 
 was elected, in spite of his own reluctance, and despairing of success, by 
 the people of Ravenna, whose two previous elections the pope had re- 
 fused to confirm. Gregory had, in the end, on more than one occasion, 
 to reprimand and oppose his old friend.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 75 
 
 other at Ravenna ; and afterwards Augustine, who was the 
 apostle and first metropolitan of England. He loved to 
 employ them as his legates, and to make them his repre- 
 sentatives with princes whose alliance he sought in the 
 interests of the Church. Probus, whom we have already 
 mentioned, and who succeeded him as abbot of St. Andrea, 
 established peace between the king of the Lombards and 
 the exarch of Ravenna ; and Cyriac, who succeeded Probus 
 in the government of the same abbey, was successively sent, 
 as legate in Sardinia, to preach the faith to the unbelievers, 
 and to Queen Brunehaut in Burgundy, and King Recarede 
 in Spain, to root out simony, and the intrusion of laymen 
 into the episcopate. The pope was not always equally 
 fortunate in the bestowal of his confidence : witness that 
 Greek monk, Andrew, who served as his interpreter in his 
 correspondence with the Eastern bishops (for Gregory knew 
 no Greek), and who had to be punished for falsifying his 
 translations, and attributing to the pontiff expressions which 
 he had never used. 1 
 
 Surrounded and assisted by his dear companions of old, 
 Gregory brought from his monastery into the exercise of 
 the sovereign pontificate that prodigality of alms and un- 
 wearied solicitude for the poor which he had learned and 
 long practised at St. Andrea. He invited twelve poor 
 pilgrims to his table every day, and served them, after 
 having washed their hands or their feet, as he was accus- 
 tomed to do while an abbot. 2 Every month he distributed 
 to his poor, according to the season, corn, wine, cheese, 
 vegetables, fish, and oil ; adding perfumes and other more 
 delicate presents for the considerable people of the town, 
 so as to make them regard the Church as the storehouse of 
 the world. 3 He organised the regular service of charity in 
 Rome with wise zeal ; and carriages traversed the various 
 
 1 Epist., vii. 32 ; xi. 74. 2 Jo AN. DlAC, ii. 22, 23. 
 
 3 " Ita ut nihil aliud quam communia qusedam horrea communis puta- 
 retur Ecclesia." — Ibid., 26.
 
 y6 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 quarters and streets daily, carrying help to the sick poor 
 and those who were ashamed to beg ; 1 to the latter he sent 
 dishes from his own table, which he blessed for the use of 
 his poor friends, before he touched his own repast. Two 
 centuries after his death, the voluminous list of the poor 
 who shared his alms in Rome, and also in the surrounding 
 towns and on the coast, was still preserved. 2 A beggar 
 having been found dead in a distant quarter of the town, 
 he feared that the unfortunate man had died of famine, 
 and, reproaching himself with having been his murderer, 
 he abstained for several days from celebrating mass. 3 
 
 This spirit, so sensitive to the grief of others, was itself 
 a prey to the most painful infirmities. The gout made the 
 last years of his life a kind of martyrdom. The cry of pain 
 appears in many of his letters. " For nearly two years," he 
 wrote to the patriarch of Alexandria, " I have been im- 
 prisoned to my bed by such pangs of gout that I can scarcely 
 rise for two or three hours on great holidays to celebrate 
 solemn mass. And the intensity of the pain compels me 
 immediately to lie down again, that I may be able to endure 
 my torture, by giving free course to my groans. . . . My 
 illness will neither leave me nor kill me. I entreat your 
 holiness to pray for me, that I may be soon delivered, and 
 receive that freedom which you know, and which is the 
 glory of the children of God." 4 To a pious patrician lady, 
 whom he forbade to call herself his servant, and who suffered 
 from the same malady : " My body," he said, " is wasted as 
 if it was already in the coffin ; I cannot leave my bed. If 
 gout can reduce to such a point the corpulent mass you 
 have known me, how shall it fare with your always attenu- 
 
 1 " Quotidianis diebus per omnes regionum vicos, vel compita . . . per 
 constitutes veredarios. . . . Verecundioribus . . . ostiatim dirigere cura- 
 bat scutellam." — Joan. DlAC, ii. 28. 
 
 2 "Prasgrande volumen." — Ibid. 
 s Ibid. 
 
 4 " Ut cruciatum meum possim interrumpente gemitu tolerare. ... In 
 illam quam bene nostis libertatem gloriae filiorum Dei." — Epist., xi. 32.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 77 
 
 ated frame ? " 1 And finally, to his former brother, the 
 Archbishop of Ravenna : " For a long time I have ceased to 
 get up ; sometimes I am tortured by the gout, sometimes a 
 kind of burning pain spreads over all my body, and takes 
 all courage from me. ... I say, in a word, I am infected 
 with this pernicious humour to such an extent, that life is 
 a burden to me, and that I wait for and desire death as the 
 sole remedy. Provided only that my sins, which these pangs 
 ought to purify, be not aggravated by my murmurs ! " 2 
 
 His own suffering did not render him less attentive to 
 the misery of his neighbour. From his bed of pain he 
 wrote to the same Marinian, his old friend and companion 
 in monastic life : " A man from Ravenna has plunged me 
 into grief by telling me that you were attacked by blood- 
 spitting. We have consulted all the physicians with the 
 greatest care upon your case, and transmit to you what 
 they say. Silence and repose are necessary to you above 
 everything ; you will scarcely find them in your metropolis. 
 . . . You must come to me before the summer, in order 
 that I, helpless though I am, may specially watch your 
 illness, and be the guardian of your repose, for the doctors 
 say that the danger is specially great in summer. ... It 
 is very important that you should return to your church 
 cured. And then for myself, who am so near death, if God 
 call me before thee, I would die in thine arms. ... If 
 thou comest, come with few servants, for thou shalt lodge in 
 my palace, and the people of this church will serve thee." 3 
 
 " It is fine," says one of our contemporaries who knows 
 the secrets of sanctity and charity, " to see an existence so 
 
 l " Quern qualis fuerim nostis. ... Si ergo mei molem corporis, . . . 
 quid de vestro corpore sentiam, quod nimis siccum ante dolores fuit ? " — 
 Epist., xi. 44. 2 Tbid., xi. 32. 
 
 3 "Veniente quodam Ravennate homine. . . . Sollicite et singillatim 
 eos quos hie doctos lectione novimus medicos tenuimus inquiri . . . ut 
 . . . ego ... in quantum valeo, quietem tuam custodiam. . . . Ipse 
 valde sum debilis. . . . Inter tuas manus transire debeam . . . cum paucis 
 tibi veniendum est, quia mecum in episcopio manens." — Ibid., xi. 33.
 
 78 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 short and troubled suffice for such works. We love to find 
 human weakness in great men. Antique heroism is made 
 of marble and bronze ; we admire, but we do not imitate it. 
 But Christianity has put the souls of heroes in hearts of flesh. 
 It destroys nothing of the innocent weakness of nature ; it 
 finds its strength there. We are not made of stone." 
 
 Amid these insupportable sufferings, and up to his last 
 moments, he continued with unwearied activity to dictate his 
 correspondence, and to concern himself with the interests of 
 the Church and of monasteries. One of his last epistles was 
 to solicit the punishment of a soldier who had seduced a nun. 2 
 He died on the 12th March 604, aged nearly fifty-five, in 
 the thirteenth year of his pontificate. He was buried in St. 
 Peter's ; and in the epitaph engraved on his tomb, it is said, 
 that " after having conformed all his actions to his doctrine, 
 the consul of God went to enjoy eternal triumph." 
 
 He had, like so many other great hearts, to struggle with 
 ingratitude, not only during his life, but after his death. If 
 we may believe his biographer, Rome was afflicted with a 
 great famine under his successor Sabinian, who put an end 
 to the charities which Gregory had granted to the poor, on 
 the plea that there was nothing remaining in the treasury 
 of the Church. The enemies of the deceased pope then ex- 
 cited the people against him, calling him the prodigal and 
 waster of Roman patrimony ; and that ungrateful people, 
 whom he had loved and helped so much, began to burn his 
 writings, as if to annihilate or dishonour his memory. But 
 one of the monks who had followed him from the monastery 
 to the pontifical palace, his friend, the deacon Peter, inter- 
 posed. He represented to the incendiaries that these writ- 
 ings were already spread through the entire world, and that 
 it was, besides, sacrilege to burn the work of a holy doctor, 
 
 1 OzANAM, unpublished fragment. 2 Epist., xiv. 10. 
 
 3 " Iniplebatque actu quidquid sermone docebat. . . . 
 Hisque, Dei consul factus, lastare triumphis, 
 Nam mercedem operum jam sine fine tenes."
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 79 
 
 upon whom he swore he had himself seen the Holy Spirit 
 hovering under the form of a dove. 1 And as if to confirm 
 his oath, after having ended his address, he breathed forth 
 his last sigh, a valiant witness of truth and friendship. 2 
 
 Posterity has sufficiently avenged Gregory of that wrong. 
 In him it has recognised a man whose name stands out like 
 a pharos in the night of the past. The highest personifica- 
 tion of that papacy which neglected no exertions to save the 
 East, and which vivified the West by delivering it from the 
 Byzantine yoke, is found in him. The judgment of St. Ilde- 
 fonso, who was almost his contemporary, and who declared 
 that he was greater than Anthony in sanctity, Cyprian in 
 eloquence, and Augustine in knowledge, has been repeated 
 by posterity. 3 
 
 Bossuet has summed up his life with that terseness 
 which includes everything, and which belongs only to him- 
 self. " This great pope . . . subdued the Lombards ; saved 
 Rome and Italy, though the emperors could give him no 
 assistance ; repressed the new-born pride of the patriarchs 
 of Constantinople ; enlightened the whole Church by his 
 doctrine; governed the East and the West with as much 
 vigour as humility ; and gave to the world a perfect model 
 of ecclesiastical government." 
 
 Let us, however, add and repeat, to justify ourselves for 
 lingering thus upon his pontificate, that he was the restorer 
 of monastic discipline, the protector, propagator, and legis- 
 lator of the monks of the West ; that he had nothing more 
 at heart than the interests of monastic life ; finally, that it 
 was the Benedictine order which gave to the Church him 
 whom no one would have hesitated to call the greatest of 
 the popes, had not the same order, five centuries later, pro- 
 duced St. Gregory VII. 
 
 1 Thence the custom, in art, during the middle ages, of always repre- 
 senting St. Gregory with a dove whispering to him. 
 
 2 "Confessor veritatis meruit sepeliri." — Joan. Diac, vi. 69. Compare 
 Paul. Diac, Vit. Greg., c. 24. 3 Be Vir. Illustr., c. 1.
 
 8o ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 The human race, in its weakness and folly, has always 
 decreed the highest place in its admiration to conquerors, 
 governors of nations, and masters of the world, who have 
 done great things, but who have done them only by great 
 means, with a frightful expense of men, money, and false- 
 hood, trampling laws, morality, and sworn faith under foot. 
 A detestable error, which renders the ignorant and innocent 
 involuntary accomplices of all these startling crimes, the ap- 
 plauses of which they echo from one to the other. The 
 merit of success is small when the conqueror shrinks at 
 nothing, and recoils from no sacrifice of life, virtue, or truth. 
 Even in its human aspect, supreme greatness is not there. 
 That consists in working great results by small means, in 
 triumphing over strength by weakness, and specially in 
 surmounting obstacles and vanquishing adversaries with a 
 respect for law, virtue, and truth. This is what Gregory 
 desired and what he accomplished. He is truly Gregory 
 the Great, because he issued irreproachable from numberless 
 and boundless difficulties ; because he gave as a foundation 
 to the increasing grandeur of the Holy See, the renown of 
 his virtue, the candour of his innocence, the humble and 
 inexhaustible tenderness of his heart. 
 
 III. — The Monks in Spain. 
 
 We shall shortly be called upon to exhibit the all-powerful 
 influence of St. Gregory, as pope and monk, upon the great 
 and celebrated island which owes to him its final conversion 
 to the Christian faith ; but at present it is fit that we should 
 cast a glance upon another country, the destinies of the 
 Church and monastic order in which are also connected, 
 though less directly, with his memory. Let us cross Spain 
 before we reach England. 
 
 During the time of his residence as nuncio at Constan- 
 tinople, towards the year 580, Gregory, as has been seen, 
 met with a Spanish monk called Leander, who was
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 8 1 
 
 honoured by the double consecration of the bishopric and 
 exile. 
 
 Spain, from the time of the great invasion of the Roman 
 empire by the Germanic races, had been shared among the 
 Sueves, Alans, and Vandals, and had finally fallen into the 
 hands of the Visigoths, who had for two centuries estab- 
 lished themselves there, and who were now, by union with 
 the kingdom of the Sueves in 585, its sole masters. These 
 Visigoths were considered the least barbarous of the Bar- 
 barians. They certainly could appreciate and respect better 
 than the others the work of Roman and Christian civilisation, 
 in those regions from whence Seneca and Lucan, Quintillian 
 and Silius, had thrown so much lustre on the decline of 
 Roman literature, and from whence, succeeding many illus- 
 trious martyrs, the Fathers of the Council of Elvira, such 
 as the great Bishop Osius, who presided at the Council of 
 Nicasa, had honoured and consoled the Church in her deci- 
 sive struggles against imperial persecution. But like all the 
 Gothic race, like Theodoric and the other successors of Alaric, 
 the Visigoths had received Christianity only through the 
 channel of Arianism ; through their means Spain was now 
 overrun by it. This was the scourge from which she was 
 delivered by the monk of Seville, the friend of Gregory. 
 
 However, before the time of Gregory and Leander, and 
 even before St. Benedict, Christian Spain had already be- 
 come acquainted with the monastic order, and found in it a 
 precious succour against the Arianism of her conquerors. 
 Authorities are not agreed upon the precise date of its intro- 
 duction into the Iberian peninsula. 1 According to some, it 
 was the African St. Donatus who, flying with seventy monks 
 from the Barbarians, was received in Valentia by a noble lady 
 called Minicea, and founded, with her help, the monastery 
 
 1 The work entitled, Vindicia Antiquitatum Monasticarum Hispanice adv. 
 Caiet. Cennium, Opera. D. Gabr. Mar. SCARMALLII, Abbat. SS. Flor.etLucill., 
 Arrettii, 1752, may be consulted on the subject. Scarmaglio even quotes 
 a decree of the Council of Saragossa, in 381, which already made mention 
 of the monks. — Dissert- ii. c 1, No. 5. 
 
 VOL. II. F
 
 82 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 of Servitanum, the most ancient in Spain. 1 It is certain 
 that every province and canton had soon its monastery. 
 The mountains which stretched from the Pyrenees towards 
 the Ebro, in Biscay and Navarre, were peopled with hermits 
 who gradually adopted a life in common, conforming gene- 
 rally to the rule of St. Benedict. It was professed 2 by St. 
 Emilian, who was one of the most celebrated and popular 
 monks of Spain. At first a shepherd in the mountains of 
 La Eioja, in Aragon, he led his flocks to the wildest gorges, 
 and, charming the solitude by the sounds of his guitar, 
 learned to open his soul to celestial harmonies. He became 
 a hermit, and lived thus for forty years ; then he became a 
 monk and abbot, and died a centenarian in 574, after having 
 startled by his miracles and austerities the two nations, the 
 Sueves and Visigoths, who still disputed the possession of 
 the country. 3 
 
 The Sueves, who occupied the entire north-east of Spain, 
 and who were much attached to Arianism, had for their 
 apostle, at the same period, a monk named Martin, born in 
 Hungary, like his famous namesake, St. Martin of Tours. 
 He introduced the rule of St. Benedict into the regions 
 which are now Galicia and the northern part of Portugal. 
 He was himself the abbot of Dumes, at the gates of the 
 
 1 From the acts of the Councils of 516 and 524, it is apparent that there 
 had been monks in Spain before the middle of the sixth century, the time 
 generally assigned to the coming of St. Donatus. Mabill., Prcef. in scec. 1, 
 Bened., n. 23 and 72 ; Ann. Bened., lib. iii. c. 26-37 5 BULTEAU, t. i. pp. 
 3°5. 317. According to others, the most ancient monastery of Spain was 
 Asane,near Huesca.in Aragon, founded about 506, and of which St. Victorian 
 was abbot for sixty years. Fortunatus says of him, in his epitaph— 
 
 " Plurima per patriam monachorum examina fundens, 
 Floribus seternis mellificavit apes." 
 
 2 Act. SS. 0. B. Prcef. in scec. 1, § 74, and t. i. p. 197. 
 
 3 See his life by St. Braulio, Bishop of Saragossa in the seventh century, 
 ap. Act. SS. 0. B., t. i. p. 197. "Minabat oves ad interiora montium. . . . 
 Citharam vehebat, ne ad greges custodiam torpor impeditamentum." — 
 Ibid., p. 200. The monastery founded over his tomb, and called San Milan 
 of Cogolla, became one of the most important in Spain.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 83 
 
 metropolitan city of Braga, of which he became bishop, 
 remaining at the same time abbot of his monastery. 1 By 
 his writings, his virtues, and his influence, he led back the 
 greater part of the Sueve nation to Catholic unity, at least 
 for a time, and until the new persecution which preceded the 
 great defeat of Arianism. 
 
 But the victory of orthodoxy was final, and the extension 
 of the Benedictine order became a great fact for the Church 
 and Spain, only under the pontificate of Gregory, and by 
 the preponderating influence of an illustrious and holy family, 
 the first glory of which was the monk-bishop Leander. 
 
 Born in that Andalusia where the Vandals had fortunately 
 left only their name, Leander was the son of a duke, pro- 
 bably of Greco-Roman race, 2 but whose eldest daughter 
 married Leuvigild, the king of the Visigoths. He em- 
 braced monastic life early, and drew from it that spirit of 
 self-devotion and discipline which gained him the honour of 
 exercising supreme influence over the future destiny of his 
 country. He was a monk at Seville itself, which had been 
 up to that time the capital of the Visigoth kings, and of 
 which he became metropolitan bishop in S79- 3 I n that 
 city which was considered the holy city, the Jerusalem of 
 the south of Spain, he formed, under the shadow of his see, 
 a school, which was designed to extend at once the orthodox 
 faith and the study of all the arts and sciences. 4 He himself 
 presided over the exercises of the learned masters and nume- 
 rous pupils whom he attracted to it. Among these pupils were 
 the two sons of the king, his own nephews, Hermenegild and 
 
 1 Dumes was erected into a bishopric in 562, and this St. Martin died in 
 580. Gregory of Tours makes mention of him, Hist, v. 38, and De Mirac. 
 S. Martini, i. II. 
 
 2 This is implied in his name, Severianus, and those of all his children : 
 Leander, Isidore, Fulgentius, Theodora, Florentine. The Byzantine em- 
 perors had still some possessions in Spain. 
 
 * He was also bishop for some time of St. Claude of Leon, in the north 
 of Spain. — Yepes, Cent. Secund. Compare Act. SS. 0. B., t. i. p. 372. 
 
 4 M. PAbbe Bourret published in 1855 a remarkable thesis, entitled 
 L'Ecole Chr6tienne de Sdville sous la Monarchie des Visigoths.
 
 84 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 Recarede. He succeeded in winning over from Arianism 
 the elder of the two, and his example was followed by many- 
 others. Hermenegild was confirmed in the faith of Nicaea 
 by his wife Ingonde, a French princess of the orthodox race 
 of Clovis, the daughter of King Sigebert, and of the cele- 
 brated Brunehaut, who was herself the daughter of a king 
 of the Visigoths. The young Ingonde resisted heroically 
 the brutal violence which her mother-in-law employed to 
 make her embrace Arianism, and gave thus to her husband 
 an example of that constancy which was afterwards to lead 
 him to martyrdom. 
 
 Leuvigild, in transferring the capital of the kingdom of 
 the Visigoths from Seville to Toledo, had associated his eldest 
 son with himself in the government, and assigned him Seville 
 for his residence. But soon persecution arose, and with it 
 civil war. Leuvigild shrank from no means of extending 
 heresy ; he gained over even some bishops, and condemned 
 to prison or exile those who, like Leander, resisted his violence. 
 He won about the same time the crown of the Sueves, a nation 
 then scarcely restored to the orthodox faith, and carried per- 
 secution and all its terrors among them. The holy abbot 
 Vincent was sacrificed, with twelve of his monks, before the 
 door of his own monastery at Leon, for refusing to deny the 
 divinity of the Son of God, as set forth in the Nicaean creed. 1 
 His tyranny respected civil liberty no more than liberty 
 of conscience, and the Visigoth nobility no more than the 
 conquered nations ; he attacked by persecution, exile, and 
 torture, all the most considerable persons in his kingdom. 2 
 
 1 Yepes attributes this martyrdom to a king of the Sueves, and places it 
 in the year 554 ; but Mabillon agrees with Baronius in fixing the date 584, 
 and under the reign of Leuvigild. Compare Act. SS. 0. B., t. i. p. 287, 
 and Ann. Bened., lib. vii. c. 27. 
 
 2 " Exstitit et quibusdam suarum perniciosus. Nam vi cupiditatis et 
 livoris, quoscumque potentes ac nobiles vidit, aut capite damnavit, aut 
 opibus ablatis proscripsit." — S. Isidori, Chronic, era 608. The holy his- 
 torian adds that he was the first among the Visigoth kings who affected to 
 sit on a throne, and to wear a royal mantle. " Nam ante eum et habitus 
 et consessus omnis ut genti, ita et regibus erat."— Ibid.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 85 
 
 Leander, describing the state of his country under the yoke 
 of the persecutor, says, that a man truly free was no longer 
 to be seen, and that, by a just judgment of God, the soil 
 itself, taken from its lawful proprietors, had lost its former 
 fertility. 1 The unnatural father ended by besieging his son 
 in Seville. The young king, made prisoner after a long 
 resistance, and obliged to receive the communion from the 
 hands of an Arian bishop, preferred to die, and was slain in 
 his prison, on Easter eve of the year 586. 
 
 The monasteries which already existed in Spain naturally 
 suffered much in that war. In one of these, dedicated to 
 St. Martin, and situated between Sagonte and Carthagena, 
 the monks, on the approach of the royal army, abandoned 
 their old abbot and took flight, with the intention of conceal- 
 ing themselves in an island of the sea. The Goths arrived, 
 and sacked the defenceless monastery, where they found the 
 abbot alone, bowed down by age, but kept erect by virtue, as 
 says Gregory of Tours, to whom we owe the tale. One of 
 them drew his sword to kill the abbot, but, as he was about 
 to strike, fell back and died. At this sight the others fled. 
 Leuvigild himself, when informed of the fact, was touched by 
 it, and ordered the restitution of everything that had been 
 taken from the monastery, thus saved by the courage and 
 sanctity of the old abbot. 2 
 
 It was during this struggle between father and son, which 
 lasted several years, and before he was himself exiled, that 
 Leander was sent by Hermenegild to Constantinople, to claim 
 the aid of the Byzantine emperors, who had still retained 
 some possessions in Spain, with their garrisons. It was there 
 
 1 " Ego expertus loquor, sic perdidisset statum et speciem illam patriam, 
 ut nee liber quisquam circa supersit, nee terra ipsa solita sit ubertate 
 fecunda, et non sine Dei judicio. Terra enim cives erepti sunt et concessa 
 extraneo, mox ut dignitatem perdidit, caruit et feconditate." — S. Leandk., 
 De Instit. Virgin., c. ult. 
 
 2 " Cum exercitus . . . ut assolet, graviter loca sancta concuteret. . . . 
 Abbatem senio incurvatum sed sanctitate erectum." — Greg. Tur., De Glor. 
 Confess., c. 12.
 
 86 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 that the monk-bishop, the envoy of a princely martyr to 
 orthodoxy, met that other monk set apart for the highest 
 destiny, and that one of these tender and strong friendships 
 of which it is pleasant to find so many examples in the lives 
 of the saints, was formed between Gregory and Leander. 
 The brotherly entreaties of Leander induced the holy doctor 
 to undertake the greatest of his works, the Commentary upon 
 Job, which is also called the Moralia of St. Gregory. The 
 intimate and lasting tenderness which united these two great 
 men, and which continued through the premature infirmities 
 of which both were victims, 1 shines through various portions 
 of the correspondence of Gregory, and dictated to him those 
 accents which breathe across so many intervening centuries 
 the immortal perfume of real love. " Absent in the body," 
 wrote the pope to his friend, " you are always present to my 
 eyes, for I bear your lineaments graven on my heart. . . . 
 You can read in your own heart what an ardent thirst I have 
 to see you, for you love me sufficiently for that. . . . What 
 a cruel distance separates us ! I send you my books. Read 
 them with care, and then weep over my sins, since I appear 
 to know so well that which I do so ill. My letter is very 
 short ; it will show you how much I am overwhelmed by the 
 business and storms of my Church since I write so briefly to 
 him I love most in the world." 2 And later, " I have received 
 your letter, written with the pen of charity. It is in your 
 heart that you have dipped your pen. The wise and worthy 
 men who have heard it read, have been at once moved to the 
 depth of their hearts. Each of them offered you the hand of 
 love ; they seemed not only to have heard you, but to see 
 you with the gentleness of your soul. They were all inspired 
 with admiration, and that flame lighted in your hearers 
 
 1 "De podagra vero molestia Sanctitas Vestra . . . affligetur, cujus 
 dolore assiduo et ipse vehementer attritus sum."— S. Greg., Ep., ix. 121. 
 
 2 " Quatn absentem corpore,pr£esentem mihi te semper intueor,quia vultus 
 tui imaginem intra cordis viscera impressam porto." — Epist., i. 41. "Quanto 
 ardore videre te sitiam, quia valde me diligis, in tui tabulis cordis leges 
 . . . quando ei parum loquor quern magis omnibus diligo." — Hid., v. 49.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 87 
 
 demonstrated your own ; for no man can light the sacred fire 
 in others without being himself consumed by it." x 
 
 However, the excess of evil hastened its end, and the 
 Church was about to attain a sudden and complete triumph. 
 The tyrant Leuvigild, the parricide-king, 2 struck by a mortal 
 sickness, was seized with remorse ; upon his deathbed he 
 ordained the recall of Leander, and gave him as a guide 
 to his son and successor Recarede, recommending the latter 
 to embrace the Catholic faith. The new king, who had 
 been, like his brother, the pupil of Leander, hastened to 
 obey. He became a Catholic immediately, and undertook 
 the conversion of his people. After long controversies with 
 the Arian clergy, he succeeded in overcoming all resistance, 
 but by discussion, and not by force. 3 Four years after his 
 accession to the throne, having confirmed his reign by bril- 
 liant victories over the Franks, he proclaimed, at the third 
 Council of Toledo, the abjuration of Arianism by the united 
 nation of Goths and Sueves. The king there declared that 
 the illustrious nation of Goths, separated up to that time 
 by the perversity of its doctors from the universal Church, 
 returned to unity, and demanded to be instructed in orthodox 
 Catholic doctrine. He placed in the hands of the bishops 
 his profession of faith, written by his own hand, along with 
 that of eight Arian bishops, of his nobility, and of all his 
 people. 
 
 Leander, in his capacity of pope's legate, naturally pre- 
 sided at this great assembly, in which sat seventy-eight 
 bishops, and the deliberations of which were eminently 
 
 1 " Solius charitatis calamo scriptam. Ex corde enim lingua tinxerat 
 quod in chartae pagina refundebat. . . . Nisi enim prius in se faces ardeant, 
 alium non succendunt." — Epist., ix. 121. 
 
 2 "Pater vero perfidus et parricida." — S. Greg., loc. cit. 
 
 3 " Sacerdotes sectse Arianas sapienti colloquio aggressus, ratione potius 
 quam imperio converti ad Catholicam fidem facit, gentemque omnium 
 Gothorum ac Suevorum ad unitatem et pacem revocat Ecclesiee Chris- 
 tiana?. " — JOANNIS abbatis BlCLARENSlS Chronic, ap. Hispania Ulustr., 1066, 
 t. iv. p. 137.
 
 88 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 assisted by another monk, Eutropius, abbot of that monas- 
 tery of Servitanum, which was considered the most ancient 
 in Spain. 1 A third monk, John, who had been exiled like 
 Leander, and had consoled his exile by founding a great 
 monastery under the rule of St. Benedict in Catalonia, re- 
 corded the great transformation of which he was witness 
 in a chronicle by which the series of monastic historians 
 was begun in Spain. 2 
 
 Thus was accomplished in the Peninsula, under the auspices 
 of a great pope and a great bishop, both monks and close 
 friends, the triumph of that orthodoxy which found for ten 
 centuries a true champion in the Spanish nation, where, even 
 amid decay and downfall, its instinct and tradition are still 
 preserved. 
 
 Leander hastened to announce the triumph of truth, and 
 the thorough conversion of the king, his nephew, to Gregory, 
 who showed himself always affectionately interested in the 
 new conquests of the Church. He recommended Leander 
 to watch attentively over the soul of the prince, lest pride 
 and impurity should come to stain his young orthodoxy. 
 Recarede entered into direct correspondence with the pope. 
 In order to render himself more agreeable to a pontiff who 
 had learnt in the cloister how to govern the Church, he 
 took for his representatives abbots chosen with care from 
 the Spanish monasteries, 3 to whom he intrusted the pre- 
 sents which he intended for Gregory. But they were ship- 
 wrecked, and lost everything upon rocks near Marseilles. 
 Recarede was not discouraged, and afterwards sent a golden 
 chalice to the pope, with a letter in semi-barbarous Latin, 
 but full of heart. He entreated the pope, who wrote to 
 
 1 " Summa tamen synodalis negotii penes sanctum Leandrum . . . et 
 beatissimum Eutropium monasterii Servitani abbatem fuit."— Joannis 
 abbatis BiCLARENSIS Chronic, ap. Hispania Illustr., 1608, t. iv. p. 137. 
 
 2 S. ISIDORI, Be Script. Eccl. ; MARIANA, Be Jleb. Hispan., lib. v. c. 13. 
 See the letter from the Bishop of Barcelona, respecting the site of this 
 monastery of Biclara or Vilclara, in Mabillon, Ann. Bened., lib. iii. c. 35. 
 
 3 "Ex monasteriis abbates elegimus." — Apud S. Greg., Epist., ix. 61.
 
 The Elder of the House of Exile Reads Aloud
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 89 
 
 so many, to write to him also, and added, " Those who are 
 divided by earth and sea, the grace of Jesus Christ seems 
 often to attract to each other; those who have never seen 
 you rejoice in your fame. Never forget to recommend us 
 to God, I and my people, whom you have seen in your own 
 time gained to Christ : the breadth of the world separates 
 us, but may charity unite us ! " 1 Like the Frank kings, 
 Recarede afterwards desired the good offices of the pope 
 with the Byzantine court, in which all the Barbarian princes 
 always saw a reflection of ancient Roman grandeur. Gregory 
 on his side responded to him with affection and in detail : 
 he insisted upon the conditions of eternal salvation, warned 
 him especially against temptations to pride and anger, and 
 proved that the conversion of his people could not have 
 a better guarantee than the humility of his soul and the 
 purity of his life. 2 He sent this answer by his friend the 
 abbot Cyriac, whom he calls the " father of our monastery," 
 and whom he made his legate in Spain, confiding to him 
 the care of proceeding against simony and the intrusion of 
 laymen into the episcopate, as he had already done in France. 
 He sent the pallium on the same occasion to Leander, who 
 preceded his friend to the tomb by some years, dying at the 
 same time as King Recarede in 601. Spain has always 
 honoured in him her doctor and apostle, the principal instru- 
 ment of her return to Catholic unity. 4 
 
 All his family were associated in this work. His father 
 and mother had been, like himself, exiled for the faith, and 
 died in that exile. His brother Fulgentius, a bishop like 
 
 1 "Nonnunquam solet ut quos spatia terrarum sive maria dividunt, 
 Christi gratia ceu visibiliter glutinare. . . . Nos gentesque nostras . . . 
 quae vestris sunt a Christi acquisita temporibus . . . ut . . . quos orbis 
 latitudo dissociat . . . vera charitas convalescat. " 
 
 2 Epist., ix. 122. 
 
 3 " Monasterii nostri patrem." — Ibid., ix. 120. 
 
 4 " Adeo ut non immerito eum colant Hispani tanquam gentis suae doc- 
 torem et apostolum, cui potissimum debet Hispania quod et rectam fidem 
 et Catholicos habeat reges." — D'Achery, Act. SS. 0. B., t. i. p. 376.
 
 9° ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 himself, shared his combats and his victory. His sister 
 Florentine, embracing monastic life, became the superior 
 of forty convents and a thousand nuns, and by her know- 
 ledge, her virtue, and even by her sacred songs, was worthy 
 of taking her place at the head of all the illustrious nuns 
 whom the country of St. Theresa has given to the Church. 1 
 Leander, who loved her tenderly, wrote for her use a special 
 rule. 2 
 
 " I have considered," he says to her in the preamble of 
 this rule, " dearest sister, what wealth or patrimony I could 
 leave to thee ; many fallacious things have occurred to my 
 mind, which I have driven away as troublesome flies are 
 brushed away by the hand. Of all that I have seen under 
 the sun, there is nothing worthy of thee. It is above the 
 skies that we must seek the true wealth, the gift of holy 
 virginity. ... I am not capable, beloved sister, of extolling 
 it enough. It is an ineffable and hidden gift. What all 
 the saints hope one day to be, what the entire Church 
 expects to become after the resurrection, you are already. 
 . . . You are the fine flour of the body of the Church, and 
 her purest leaven ; you are the offering already accepted by 
 God, and consecrated upon His celestial altars. 3 Christ is 
 already thy spouse, thy father, thy friend, thy inheritance, 
 thy ransom, thy Lord, and thy God." 
 
 He warns her against all intimacy with lay women, whom 
 he calls syrens and instruments of Satan. 4 He condemns 
 the error of those who believed they could consecrate their 
 virginity to God without shutting themselves up in a monas- 
 tery, by remaining in their families or in isolated cells, in 
 the midst of cities, among all the cares of domestic life. 5 
 
 1 She died in 603. 
 
 2 De Institutione Yirginum et Contemptu Mundi, divided into twenty-one 
 chapters. 
 
 3 " Perquirenti mihi, soror carissima, . . . mnltse rerum fallacium occur- 
 rebant imagines, quas cum ut importunas muscas manu mentis abigerem. 
 . . . Vos estis prima delibatio corporis Ecclesise : vos ex tota corporis 
 massa oblationes." — Prcef. Regul. 4 Cap. 1. 5 Cap. 17.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 9 1 
 
 He affirms that regular monastic life is identically conformed 
 to that which was led by the Apostles. He reminds that 
 daughter of a noble race, that sister and aunt of Visigoth 
 kings, of the obligations imposed upon her by Christian 
 equality, and directs her to regard as her equals even the 
 slaves who, like her, had assumed the veil. " Their birth 
 made them slaves, their profession has made them thy 
 sisters. Let nothing remind them of their ancient servi- 
 tude. She who combats by thy side for Christ under the 
 banner of virginity should enjoy a liberty equal to thine. 
 In accepting them for thy sisters, thou shalt have them so 
 much the more for servants, that they will obey thee not by 
 the obligation of servitude, but by the freedom of charity. 
 Not that your humility should tempt them to pride. 
 Charity tempers everything, and will conduct you all to the 
 frontier of the same peace, without exalting her who has 
 sacrificed power, and without humiliating her who was born 
 poor or enslaved." * It is pleasant to find in that great 
 mind the indications of fraternal affection and domestic 
 recollections. " Seek not," said he, playing upon the name 
 of their mother Turtur, who had also ended her days in the 
 cloister, " to steal away from the roof where the turtle lays 
 her little ones. Thou art the daughter of innocence and 
 candour, thou who hast had the turtle-dove for thy mother. 
 But love still more the Church, that other mystic turtle- 
 dove, who travails with thee every day for Jesus Christ. 
 Repose thy old age on her bosom, as thou sleptst of old 
 upon the heart of her who cared for thy infancy. 2 . . . Ah, 
 well-beloved sister, understand the ardent desire which 
 inspires the heart of thy brother to see thee with Christ. 
 . . . Thou art the better part of myself. Woe to me if 
 another take thy crown ! Thou art my bulwark with 
 
 i Cap. 12 and 13. 
 
 2 " Simplicitatis filia es quae turture matre nata es. Turturem pro matre 
 respice. Turturem pro magistra attende, et quas te Christo quotidie affec- 
 tibus generat, chariorem qua nata es matrem reputa ... sit tibi dulce 
 ejus gremium provectae quod erat infantis gratissimum." — Cap. 21.
 
 92 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 Christ, my cherished pledge, my holy Host, through whom 
 I shall be worthy to issue out of the abyss of my sins." 1 
 
 Florentine had yet another brother younger, but not less 
 illustrious than Leander, who loved her as much, since he 
 has dedicated to her one of the greatest monuments of his 
 genius. 2 Isidore was the last born of that high-destined 
 family. Before succeeding Leander upon the metropolitan 
 see of Seville, he was the pupil of his elder brother, who 
 loved him like a son, but who used him with so much severity 
 that the young Isidore, fearing the energetic and frequent 
 corrections of his brother, 3 fled one day from the school at 
 Seville. After having wandered for some time through the 
 country, exhausted by thirst and fatigue, the child seated 
 himself near a well, and looked with curiosity at the hollows 
 worn in its edge. He asked himself who had done that, 
 when a woman who came to draw water from the well, and 
 who was greatly struck with the beauty and humble inno- 
 cence of the scholar, explained to him that the drops of 
 water falling incessantly on the same spot had hollowed the 
 stone. Then the child returned into himself, and thought, 
 that if the hard stone was hollowed thus drop by drop by 
 the water, his mind would also yield to the print of instruc- 
 tion. 4 He returned accordingly to his brother, and com- 
 pleted his education so well, that he was shortly master of 
 Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and became the active fellow- 
 labourer of Leander in the work of Arian conversion. 
 
 He lived long in a cell where his brother kept him shut 
 
 1 " Senti fratris concupiscentiam velle te esse cum Christo. . . . Tu quse 
 pars melior nostri es corporis. . . . Tu apud Christum tutamen meum, tu, 
 charissima, meum pignus." — Prcefat. 
 
 2 His treatise De Fide Catholica. 
 
 3 " Non parcebat virgis, et laudatus est in illo. . . . Puerili permotus 
 timore, verbera magistri metuens." — Lucas Tudensis, Vit. S. hid., ap. 
 BollAStd., t. i. Apr., p. 331. 
 
 4 " Aspexit prsegrande saxum tortuosis foraminibus perforatum. . . . 
 Mulier super pulchritudine pueri admodum mirata. . . . Quis vel ad quid 
 lapidis hujus foramina. . . . Et si lapis durissimus mollis aquae frequenti 
 instillatione cavatur, quanto niagis ego homo ! " — Ibid.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 93 
 
 up to prevent him from wandering, giving him the most 
 learned masters of the time. It is not absolutely proved 
 that he was a monk, though many have maintained it. 
 But it is difficult to doubt it when we read the Rule 
 which he wrote, in twenty-three chapters, for the use of the 
 Religious of his own country, and which is little more than 
 an extract of the Benedictine Rule, with which his brother 
 Leander had made him familiar. 
 
 Curious details upon the means by which the order re- 
 cruited its ranks from the most various classes, and the 
 lowest conditions of life, are to be found here, as in another 
 of his works upon the Duty of the Monks. This information 
 is communicated to us in wise and noble words, which 
 breathe, with more precision and eloquence than anywhere 
 else, the doctrine of the equality of souls before God 
 and the Church, but where we also perceive the curb im- 
 posed by justice and reason on the pride of the newly 
 emancipated. " Our holy army," says Isidore, " fills up its 
 ranks not only with freemen, but especially with those of 
 servile condition, who come to seek freedom in the cloister. 
 Men come also from rustic life, from laborious professions, 
 from plebeian labours, and with so much more advantage as 
 they are better inured to labour. It would be a serious 
 fault not to admit them." "We must not inquire," he adds, 
 " whether the novice be rich or poor, bond or free, young or 
 old ; neither age nor condition matters among monks ; for 
 God has made no difference between the soul of the slave 
 and that of the free man. . . . Many plebeians have ex- 
 hibited brilliant virtues, and are worthy to be raised above 
 nobles. . . . But let not those who come out of poverty to 
 enter the cloister swell with pride to see themselves the 
 equals of those who appeared to be something in the world. 
 It would be an unworthy thing if, where the rich, giving 
 up all worldly splendour, descend to humility, the poor 
 should allow themselves to rise into arrogance. . . . They 
 ought, on the contrary, to put aside all vanity, to understand
 
 94 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 humbly their new position, and never to forget their former 
 poverty." l 
 
 Monk or not, Isidore distinguished himself by his zeal for 
 monastic interests when on the death of Leander he became 
 Bishop of Seville, and the oracle of the Spanish Church. 2 
 He presided at that Council of Seville which, in 619, pro- 
 nounced the anathema against bishops or priests who should 
 attempt to disturb or despoil the monasteries. 3 
 
 During the forty years of his episcopate, his knowledge, 
 zeal, and authority consolidated the happy revolution and 
 religious and literary revival of which his brother had been 
 the chief author. He completed the destruction of Arianism, 
 stifled the new heresy of the Acephales, continued, strength- 
 ened, and enriched the vast educational work of which Seville 
 was the centre, and which, by means of the fourth Council of 
 Toledo, he extended to all the Episcopal Churches of Spain, 
 prescribing everywhere the study of Greek and Hebrew. He 
 was, besides, the compiler of that Spanish liturgy so poetic 
 and imposing, which, under the name of Mozarabic, survived 
 the ruin of the Visigoth Church, and was worthy of being 
 resuscitated by the great Ximenes. 
 
 A fertile writer, unwearied and profoundly learned, he 
 wrote, among many other works, a history of the Goths, their 
 conquests and government in Spain. He made Aristotle 
 
 1 " Veniunt non solum liberi, sed plerumque ex conditione servili vel 
 propter hoc potius liberandi. Veniunt quoque ex vita rustica, et ex opi- 
 ficum exercitatione, . . . et ex plebeio labore, tanto utique felicius, 
 quanto fortius educati." — S. Isidoki, Be Offic. Eccles., c. 15 ; Be Monach., 
 c. 5. " Quia inter servi et liberi animam nulla est apud Deum differ- 
 entia. . . . Non extollantur in superbiaro, quia se ibi sequales aspiciunt 
 iis qui aliquid in sseculo videbantur." — Regula, c. 4. Finally Isidore pro- 
 hibited, in his rule, the reception into the monastery of slaves whom their 
 masters had not set free. 
 
 2 Compare BOLLAND., loc. cit., and MABILLON, Act. SS. 0. B. scec. ii. in 
 Prcetermissis. "Monastici quoque instituti per Hispaniam promotor, et 
 amplificator eximius, plura construxit monasteria." — Offic. Sanctorum in 
 Brev. Rom. ad usum Hispanios, Matr. 1678, die 4 April. 
 
 3 Can. x. ; ap. Coletti, Concil., t. v. p. 1407.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 95 
 
 known to the new nations of the West long before the 
 Arabs came to bring him again into fashion. He has 
 preserved to us a multitude of classical fragments which 
 without his care would have perished for ever, by condens- 
 ing all the knowledge of antiquity and of his own time, 
 the seven liberal arts, philological tradition, medicine, law, 
 natural history, geography, and even the mechanical arts, in 
 that vast encyclopedia which, under the name of a treatise on 
 Etymology or on The Origin of Things, was, with the analogous 
 work of the monk Cassiodorus, the school manual of the middle 
 ages. 1 It has been said of him with justice that he was the 
 last philosopher of the ancient world, 2 and the first Christian 
 who arranged for Christians the knowledge of antiquity. 
 
 Isidore died in 636 ; but the light which he had thrown 
 in floods upon Spain and the Church was not extinguished 
 with him. He had numerous disciples, of whom St. Ilde- 
 fonso was the most illustrious, but among whom we must 
 name, in passing, Braulius, Bishop of Saragossa, who has 
 been characterised as the most eloquent writer of Gothic 
 Spain ; and King Sisebut, a learned prince, who had a 
 double merit, according to a Benedictine historian, in his 
 love for literature, as being at once a king and a Goth. 3 
 
 Most of the Visigoth kings distinguished themselves by 
 their liberality towards monasteries. The only authentic 
 charter which remains of the Yisigothic period, is a dona- 
 tion made in 646, by King Chindaswinde, to the monastery 
 of Compludo. This charter is signed by the king, by the 
 queen Reciberga, by St. Eugene, Archbishop of Toledo, 
 and two other bishops, by five counts, and four abbots, 
 among whom we remark the name of Ildefonso, destined 
 to the highest honour. 4 But the great- number of similar 
 
 1 OzANAM, La Civilisation Chrttienne chez les Francs, c. 9. 
 
 2 CUVIEE. 
 
 3 "Lo que es mucho para aquello tiempo que siendo Rey et Godo, se 
 aplicava las letras." — Yepes, Cent. Secund., p. 48. 
 
 4 Yepes, Coronica General del Orden de S. Benoit, vol. ii. p. 174, and 
 Append., Esritura 13.
 
 96 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 donations is proved by the general and official formula on 
 which these acts were modelled, and which French erudition 
 has lately brought to light. The king who would found or 
 endow a community addressed himself to the saint whose 
 relics were to be placed in the new church, and spoke a 
 language which seems to make even these legal forms pal- 
 pitate with the ardent breath of Spanish faith. " Glorious 
 lord and happy conqueror," he is made to say, "we have 
 decreed that henceforth, in the place where the treasure of 
 your sacred body reposes, there should be a congregation of 
 monks, destined to serve God and honour your memory, 
 according to the custom of the Fathers, who have estab- 
 lished the rule of monastic life. We offer to your glorious 
 memory such and such a portion of our patrimony to sup- 
 port the church and its light, its incense and its sacrifices, 
 to supply the regulated food and clothing of the monks, the 
 help of the poor, and that travellers may be received there. 
 . . . We will that this donation, made to efface our sins, 
 should be perpetual ; that neither priest nor prelate may 
 have power to alienate it. We warn future abbots, in cen- 
 turies to come, not to dissolve, by carelessness or irregu- 
 larity, the bond which we here form. And you who shall 
 reign after us, we adjure you by the empire of the eternal God 
 (and may God deign to preserve the nation and kingdom of 
 the Goths to the end of the world !) take heed that nothing 
 is taken away or mutilated in these oblations, by which we 
 would propitiate God for our own salvation, and that of all 
 the Goths ! Glorious martyr, accept this gift, and present 
 it before God." 1 In this formula, as in the Charter of 
 Compludo, appear already those formidable imprecations, so 
 universal during the middle ages, against the violators and 
 
 1 " Formula quam facit rex qui Ecclesiam cedificans monasterium facere 
 voluerit. — Domino glorioso et triumphatori beatissimo. . . . Juxta Patrum 
 more (sic) qui monachis normam vitae posuerunt. . . . Per Eetates succiduas 
 futures prcemonemus abbates. . . . Per asterni regis imperium (sic Deus 
 Gothorum gentem et regnum usque in finem sasculi conservare dignetur !) 
 . . ." — E. DE Rozi^RE, Formulcs Visigothiques Ine'dites, No. 9, 1854.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 97 
 
 robbers of holy things, which threaten them with the fate 
 of Sodom and Gomorrah, and which assign them a place in 
 hell beside Dathan, Abiram, and Judas Iscariot. 
 
 The development of the monastic institution kept pace 
 with that of literature and Christian piety, under the influ- 
 ence of the great doctors produced by monastic life in Spain. 
 St. Ildefonso, who signed the Charter of Compludo, in whom 
 Leander and Isidore seemed to live again, and who was the 
 most popular of the Spanish saints, issued like them from 
 the famous school of Seville : but he was also connected 
 with another centre of knowledge and ecclesiastical educa- 
 tion created by the monastic spirit. At the gates of Toledo, 
 which, since the union of the whole territory of Spain under 
 the sceptre of the Visigoth kings, had replaced Seville as 
 the capital of the Visigoth kingdom, rose the monastery of 
 Agali, founded in the sixth century. In the following age, 
 it was a nursery of saints and doctors, and the most cele- 
 brated abbey of the Peninsula. Six metropolitan bishops 
 of Toledo * came from it in succession, and among them 
 Helladius, a young lord of the first nobility, the friend 
 and fellow-student of Leander, who, like him, early re- 
 nounced the world, and had lived long at Agali, in com- 
 panionship with the Religious, and was pleased to be 
 employed in carrying faggots to the abbatial oven, 2 before 
 he himself became a monk. When he became bishop 
 after having been abbot of the monastery, he instituted 
 the great school which his successors vied with each other 
 in developing. 
 
 1 Aurasius, died in 614 ; Helladius, died in 632 ; St. Just, who presided 
 with St. Isidore at the fourth Council of Toledo, died in 635 ; Eugene II. , 
 a monk from infancy, presided at the fifth, sixth, and seventh Councils of 
 Toledo, and died in 646 ; Eugene III., who was the most distinguished 
 poet of Gothic Spain (v. Bourket, op. citat.), presided at the eighth, ninth, 
 and tenth Councils of Toledo, and died in 658 ; lastly, Ildefonso, nephew 
 of the preceding, died in 667. The three first and Ildefonso were not only 
 monks, but abbots of Agali. 
 
 2 S. HlLDEPHONS., De Virib. IUustr., c. 7. 
 
 VOL. II. G
 
 98 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 Ildefonso, born at Toledo, of a family allied to the blood- 
 royal, received at first in Seville, for twelve years, the instruc- 
 tions of Isidore, and then, returning to his own birth-place, 
 despite the violent opposition of his family, became a monk 
 at Agali. Another kind of violence, that of the unanimous 
 voice of the people and clergy of Toledo, was needed to 
 draw him from thence, and place him upon the metropolitan 
 see. He too cultivated history and poetry with success ; his 
 ascetic writings take an honourable place in the religious 
 literature of the time. But it was his ardent devotion to 
 the holy Virgin, whose perpetual virginity he defended 
 against the heresy of the Helvidians, which gained him the 
 first place in the love and memory of the Spanish people. 
 The miraculous visions which testified the gratitude of 
 Mary for the efforts of his defending zeal, 1 and the relics of 
 them which he left to the church of Toledo, after having 
 warmed the devotion of the Spaniards for their great saint 
 Alonzo, received, a thousand years after his death, a new 
 consecration from the genius of Calderon. 2 
 
 Leander, Isidore, and Ildefonso were the illustrious repre- 
 sentatives of intellectual life in a time from which it had 
 almost everywhere disappeared. These laborious, learned, 
 and eloquent ecclesiastics, full of zeal for knowledge and 
 study, as well as for religion, secured in Spain the future 
 existence of Christian literature and literary traditions, 
 which were everywhere else interrupted, or threatened by 
 the storms of invasion, and the establishment of the Bar- 
 
 1 During the night of the feast of the Expectatio Partus B. M. V., St. 
 Leocadia, whose relics he had discovered, appeared to him and said, " O 
 Ildefonse ! per te vivit Domina mea, quae cceli culmina tenet." In order 
 to secure a palpable token of this vision, he seized the sword of King 
 Receswinth, who accompanied him, and cut off a portion of the veil of the 
 saint, which afterwards became a much venerated relic. — Breviar. Roman, 
 in prop. Cleri Romani, ad 23 Januar. Another night, he saw the holy Virgin 
 herself seated on the episcopal throne, in the apse of his cathedral, which 
 was illuminated by that presence, and on which he never afterwards ven- 
 tured to seat himself. 
 
 3 See the drama, by Calderon, entitled La Virgen del Sacrario.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 99 
 
 barians. They made their country the intellectual light of 
 the Christian world in the seventh century. 
 
 After them come all the admirable bishops and monks, 
 issued from the blood or spiritual family of these three 
 great men, who were, as they themselves had been, the soul 
 of the famous Councils of Toledo. It is well known that 
 these councils were the strength and glory of Gothic Spain ; 
 and that out of their bosom came, purified by the sacerdotal 
 spirit, that Visigothic legislation which modern knowledge 
 has nobly vindicated, 1 and placed in the first rank of the 
 laws of ancient Christendom, for the boldness, depth, and 
 equity of its views. 
 
 Leander and Isidore, the two illustrious brothers, gave to 
 these assemblies the political and legislative character which 
 they retained for a century, and which has fixed upon them 
 the special attention of historians. 2 Doubtless, in the 
 
 1 GuiZOT, Hist, dc la Civilisation, vol. i. ; Hist, des Origincs du Gouveme- 
 ment Repre'sentatif, lee. 25, and Revue Francaise of November 1828. 
 
 2 The following is the chronological list of the Councils which were 
 held at Toledo from the conversion of the Visigoths to the conquest of 
 Spain by the Moors. (Those numbered First and Second are previous, 
 and date, the first 400, and the second 531.) 
 
 The Third, in 589, composed of 65 bishops, presided over by Leander, 
 published 23 decrees or canons. 
 
 Two Councils held in 597 and 610, the decrees of which were first pub- 
 lished by Garcia Loasia in the sixteenth century, have not been comprised 
 in the ordinary numeration, so as not to disarrange the traditional order. 
 
 The Fourth, in 633 : 62 bishops ; 75 canons. St. Isidore signs first. 
 
 The Fifth, in 636 : 20 bishops ; 9 canons. 
 
 The Sixth, in 638 : 52 bishops ; 19 canons. 
 
 The Seventh, in 646 : 28 bishops ; 6 canons. 
 
 The Eighth, in 653 : 52 bishops ; 10 abbots, among whom was Ildefonso, 
 abbot of Agali ; 12 canons. 
 
 The Ninth, in 655 : 16 bishops; 6 abbots, among them Ildefonso; 17 
 canons. 
 
 The Tenth, in 656 : 20 bishops, among them the monk St. Fructueux, 
 Archbishop of Braga, of whom we shall speak hereafter ; 7 canons. 
 
 The Eleventh, in 675 : 19 bishops, 6 abbots ; 16 canons. 
 
 The Twelfth, in 681 : 35 bishops, 4 abbots ; 13 canons. 
 
 The Thirteenth, in 683 : 48 bishops, 5 abbots ; 13 canons. 
 
 The Fourteenth, in 684 : 17 bishops, 6 abbots ; 12 canons.
 
 100 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 eighteen assemblies held at Toledo, from the conversion of 
 the Visigoths to the conquest of Spain by the Moors, religious 
 matters always occupied the first place. Questions touching 
 doctrine, ecclesiastical hierarchy, and discipline, the inde- 
 pendence and regularity of monasteries, 1 the general and 
 detailed aspect of spiritual interests, formed the subject of 
 most of the decisions issued by these Councils. Doubtless, 
 also, the bishops played a preponderating part, by number as 
 by authority. But lords and lay dignitaries figured there 
 also : entering the first time with the king, who almost 
 always took the initiative as regards questions which were 
 to be dealt with, these laymen withdrew with him ; but after 
 having left the bishops three days to discuss spiritual affairs 
 alone, they returned to take part in the final deliberations. 
 They were there by virtue of a recognised right : they 
 signed the decrees like the bishops. Besides, the consent 
 of what was then called the people — that is, of all the 
 military nobility of the Gothic nation — seems to have been 
 often asked and expressed to give validity to the decisions 
 of the king, the bishops, and the proceres. 2. 
 
 The Fifteenth, in 688 : 61 bishops, 8 abbots. 
 
 The Sixteenth, in 693 : 59 bishops, 5 abbots ; 13 canons. 
 
 The Seventeenth, in 694 : 8 canons ; no signatures. 
 
 The Eighteenth, and last, in 701. 
 
 Many of these bishops proceeded from the monastic order, or ended 
 their days in it. — Yepes, Cent. Secund. This collection includes, besides, 
 the signatures of proxies of absent bishops, and those of a crowd of counts 
 and lay proceres. 
 
 1 The Fourth, held in 633, under the presidency of Isidore, showed itself 
 especially zealous for the liberty of the monks, guaranteeing to priests the 
 liberty of embracing monastic life, interdicting bishops from all molesta- 
 tion or usurpation injurious to the monasteries, and prohibiting the return 
 to the world of all professed monks. 
 
 The Ninth, held in 655, saw the necessity of putting a curb on the 
 munificence of bishops towards monasteries, by prohibiting them from 
 disposing of more than a fiftieth of the episcopal patrimony in favour of 
 these foundations. 
 
 2 See Councils Eighth, Fourteenth, Sixteenth, but especially the canon 
 of the Fourth, in 633, which renders valid the deposition of Swinthila, 
 after having taken the advice of the nation.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT IOI 
 
 Thus constituted, these memorable assemblies exercised 
 power, spiritual and temporal, political and civil, legislative 
 and judiciary, in all its fulness : all the great affairs of the 
 kingdom were discussed there ; and this kingdom embraced 
 not only the whole of Spain, which the Visigoths had suc- 
 ceeded in purging from the last vestiges of Greco-Roman 
 power, but also the Narbonnaise, the bishops of which took 
 their places at Toledo with those of the Peninsula. They 
 made laws and kings. They regulated the conditions of 
 the elective monarchy, too often ignored in practice by the 
 sanguinary violence of pretenders, or of successors designated 
 to the throne. And although the accomplished acts which 
 they found it best to sanction had too often substituted 
 violence for right, they always condemned in principle every 
 candidate whose claims were not founded on an election by 
 the nobility and clergy, upon the purity of his Gothic origin, 
 and the uprightness of his character. 1 
 
 After having established that the king was only the 
 representative and delegate of the people, they seem to 
 have accorded to him a kind of counter-advantage, by 
 attributing to his authority a fulness which contrasts with 
 the limitations imposed upon their princes by the traditional 
 freedom of the Germanic races, who were best acquainted 
 with the means of recognising at once the rights of blood, 
 and restraining the exercise of power. But never, it must 
 be acknowledged, has the sovereign power been addressed 
 in language more noble than that of the fourth Council of 
 Toledo, speaking by the mouth of Isidore and his colleagues 
 to King Sisenand and his successors. " You who are 
 actually king, and all you, the princes of the future, we 
 
 1 " Def uncto in pace principe, primates totius gentis cum sacerdotibus 
 successorem regni communi concilio constituant." — Cone. iv. can. 74. 
 " Quern nee electio omnium provehit, nee Gothicae gentis nobilitas ad 
 hunc honoris apicem trahit, sit . . . anathemati condemnatus." — Cone. v. 
 can. 3. " Nullus sub religionis habitu detonsus . . . servilem originem 
 trahens, vel extraneae gentis homo, nisi genere et moribus dignus." — Cone. 
 xvi. can. 17.
 
 102 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 humbly adjure you to be gentle and moderate towards your 
 subjects, to govern with justice and piety the nations which 
 God has confided to you, and thus to pay your debt to 
 Christ who has made you kings. Let none among you 
 decide by himself in causes which concern life or property, 
 but let the crime of the accused be proved in a public sitting 
 with the chiefs of the people, and by an open judgment. 
 Be gentle even in your severity : by means of such modera- 
 tion the kings will be content with the people, the people 
 with the kings, and God with both. As for the future 
 kings, this is the sentence we publish concerning them. If 
 any one among them, in opposition to the laws, for pride or 
 royal pomp, or covetousness, oppresses or vexes his people, 
 may he be accursed by the Lord Christ, and for ever sepa- 
 rated from God ! " * 
 
 But the kings, who listened humbly to such lessons, prac- 
 tised them little. The councils were not the less obliged to 
 interfere energetically in order to repress the rapacity of 
 the kings, and the subaltern insolence of certain officers 
 drawn by them from the servile classes. " When," said the 
 Fathers of the eighth council, held in 653, at which the 
 monk Eugenius presided as Bishop of Toledo, and where 
 Ildefonso already sat as abbot of Agali, " when in time past 
 the frightful avidity of the princes has thrown itself upon 
 the goods of the people, and wildly sought to increase its 
 wealth by the tears of its subjects, we have been inspired 
 by a breath from on high, after having granted to the sub- 
 jects laws of respectful obedience, to put a check also upon 
 the excesses of the princes." 2 And the Fathers of the 
 
 1 "Te quoque prassentem regem futurosque sequentium aetatum prin- 
 cipes. . . . Ne quisquam vestrum solus in caussis capitum aut rerum 
 sententiam ferat, sed consensu publico cum rectoribus. ... Si quis ex eis 
 contra reverentiam legum superba dominatione et fastu regio . . . cru- 
 delissimam potestatem in populo exercuerit." — Cone. iv. caji. 75. 
 
 2 " Cum immoderatior aviditas principum sese prona diffunderet in 
 spoliis populorum . . . nobis est divinitus inspiratum ut, quia subjectis 
 leges reverential dederamus, principum quoque excessus retinaculum 
 temperantiaa poneremus." — Concil. viii., ap. Coletti, t. viii. p. 428.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 103 
 
 thirteenth council, in 683, decreed as follows: "We know 
 that many slaves and freedmen, raised by order of the king 
 to palatine offices, and affecting to arrogate to themselves a 
 power which the baseness of their origin interdicts, having 
 become by their new dignity the equals of their lords, have 
 made themselves the murderers of their former masters, even 
 of those who gave them their freedom. Therefore, from 
 this time, we debar any serf or freedman (except those of 
 the treasury) from admission into a palatine office." * 
 
 Unhappily, the efforts of these assemblies to restrain the 
 excesses of the princes and their servants lacked, like those 
 of the nobles and clergy, a lasting guarantee and sanction. 
 The Goths of Spain, permitting the Roman spirit and 
 manners to gain too rapid a sway over them, gradually lost 
 the traditions of Germanic institutions and liberties. Un- 
 accustomed to those assemblies of free men and that practice 
 of military virtue which were always kept up among the 
 Franks, they knew no way of establishing the necessary 
 counterpoise to the violence of the kings, which ended by 
 overthrowing the monarchy of the Visigoths under the 
 sword of the Arabs. 
 
 We can still recognise in their ceaseless but always im- 
 potent decrees against the Jews, whom they baptized by 
 force, and furiously pursued even into private and domestic 
 life, that implacable character of Spanish religion which, 
 two centuries before, had disgusted the great soul of St. 
 Martin against the persecutors of the Priscillianists, 2 and 
 which has almost always failed of its aim by exceeding it, 
 as is proved by the important part, more important here 
 than anywhere else, played by Jews, and even by Jewesses, 
 in the history of the middle ages in Spain. By a deplorable 
 inconsistency, these pitiless measures had been preceded by 
 the example of the persuasions employed unaided by King 
 Eecarede in the conversion of the Arian priests, 3 by the 
 
 1 Concil. iii. Tolet, can. 6, ap. Coletti, t. vii. 1471. 
 
 2 See above, vol. i. p. 342. 3 See above, vol. ii. p. 87.
 
 104 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 formal censure of St. Isidore against the proselytising fana- 
 ticism of the Visigoth kings, and by that deliverance of 
 the Council of 633, which breathes the intelligent tolera- 
 tion of victorious Christianity : " None can be saved who do 
 not desire it. As man fell by listening of his own will to 
 the serpent, so, upon the call of divine grace, man is saved, 
 and believes only by the voluntary conversion of his own 
 soul. It is not by force but by free will that they can be 
 persuaded to conversion." * 
 
 It is well known, besides, that most of the laws passed by 
 the Council of Toledo concerning political affairs are em- 
 bodied in that celebrated code, which, under the name of 
 Liber or Forum Judicum (in the Castilian language, Fuero 
 Jn< zgo\ is the principal basis of Spanish legislation, and one 
 of the most curious monuments of the legislative history of 
 Christian nations. St. Isidore is believed to have been the 
 first compiler of this record, in which the kings and bishops 
 successively entered, along with the decrees of the councils, 
 the ancient Gothic customs, and some fragments of Roman 
 law. 2 It was reviewed and arranged by order of King 
 Egica in the sixteenth Council of Toledo, in 693. This 
 code survived Gothic Spain ; through all the wretchedness 
 of the Arab conquest, and the heroic struggle of the Spanish 
 race against Islamism, its spirit continued to animate the 
 princes and assemblies, and its luminous trace through 
 history has always aided Spanish patriotism in recalling its 
 Christian origin. 
 
 1 " De Judaeis hoc prsecepit sancta synodus : nemini deinceps ad creden- 
 dum vim inferre. . . . Non enim tales inviti salvandi sunt, Bed volentes : 
 sicut enim homo, etc. . . . Ergo non vi, sed libera arbitrii facultate, ut 
 convertantur suadendi sunt, non potius impellendi." — Concti. Toletan. iv., 
 can. 57. But immediately after, it must be confessed, it is added that 
 those who had been forced to become Christians in the time of King 
 Sisebut should be obliged to remain such, for this very doubtful reason : 
 " Oportet ut fidem etiam, quam vi et necessitate susceperunt, tenere 
 cogantur, ne nomen divinum blasphemetur, et fides quam susceperunt vilis 
 ac contemptibilis habeatur ! " 
 
 2 AREVALO, Isidoriana, C 92.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 105 
 
 The influence of the clergy is visible in the didactic style 
 of its language, and still more in the general spirit of equity 
 which has dictated its principal regulations, in the guaran- 
 tees granted to slaves, but especially in the penalties, which, 
 different from all other Barbarian codes, attempt to propor- 
 tion punishment, not to the material injury done or to the 
 rank of the culprit, but to the morality of the act. 1 The 
 fusion of the two races, conquering and conquered, is also 
 made apparent by the absence of all those distinctions of 
 right or penalty which, in the laws of other Germanic 
 nations, marked the different origin of races which in- 
 habited the same country. There is good reason for 
 regretting that this celebrated code was written during 
 an age in which the primitive genius of the Goths was 
 weakened, and in which Roman civilisation had too much 
 effaced the strong individuality of Germanic institutions 
 and national customs. 2 But the old law of the Germans 
 may yet be found in the theory of royal rights, which 
 recognises no other legitimate title of power than that 
 which results from the morality and justice of its possessors. 
 We shall see that theory retain all its force amid the great 
 struggles between the priesthood and the empire, and shall 
 hear, even in the times of Gregory VII., the voice of the 
 bishops and monks apply against the emperors the axiom 
 which the Visigothic code had set forth so energetically : 
 " Rex eris, si recte facis : si autem non facis, rex non eris." 
 
 In 680 the bishops made a singular use of this right of 
 deposition, in the case of the old king Wamba, who, after a 
 glorious reign, being sick and poisoned by a Greek, had re- 
 ceived the monastic habit and tonsure from the hands of 
 the archbishop while he was supposed to be in extremity, 
 according to a pious custom of the time, habitual to those 
 who desired to make a public repentance before dying. 
 When he came to himself, he thought himself obliged to 
 
 1 ALBERT Du Boys, Histoire du Droit Criminel des Peuples Europdens. 
 
 2 E. DE RoziERE, Formules Visigothiques, Introd.
 
 106 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 ratify the vow which he had appeared to make, 1 and named 
 as his successor Count Erwige, the son of the man who had 
 poisoned him. He entered into a monastery, and lived 
 there seven years, in holy obedience to his new duties ; in 
 the meantime, the bishops, met in the twelfth Council of 
 Toledo, relieved his subjects from their oaths of fidelity, and 
 anathematised the enemies of the new king. They after- 
 wards decreed a canon which took into consideration the 
 case of those who, having desired the penitence (that is, the 
 tonsure and monastic habit) while they were in good health, 
 and having received it without asking it during their illness, 
 were desirous of returning to military life under pretence 
 that they could not be bound by a vow which they had not 
 made ; their return is formally interdicted, because they are 
 regarded as pledged, like children who have received baptism 
 without being conscious of it. But the same canon forbids 
 bishops to give the penitence to those who do not ask it, 
 under pain of a year's excommunication. 2 Everything is 
 obscure and strange in this history, which, nevertheless, is 
 too closely connected with monastic annals to be passed in 
 silence. This, however, was not the first time that kings had 
 been obliged to become monks in Spain ; a century before, 
 one of the last kings of the Sueves had been made a monk 
 against his will by a usurper : and the latter had been im- 
 mediately after attacked and overcome by Leovigild, who 
 forced him, in his turn, to enter the cloister, and added the 
 kingdom of the Sueves to that of the Visigoths. But Leovi- 
 gild was an Arian persecutor, and an orthodox council might 
 have found better examples. 3 
 
 1 ' ' Sive," says Mariana (De Reb. Hisp., vi. 14), " animi magnitudine rursus 
 spernentis, quae alii per ignes ferrumque petunt ; sive desperatione regnum 
 recuperandi, cum Erwigius rerum potiretur." 
 
 2 Can. 2. 
 
 3 If a French historian is to be believed, another king of the Goths, the 
 young Tolga, after two years' reign, was deposed by an insurrection of the 
 nobility, in 642, and forced to become a monk. " Tolganam degradatum 
 ad honorem clericati fecit." — Fkedegak, c. 82.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 107 
 
 In this very country of the Sueves, during the greater 
 part of the seventh century, the true monastic spirit shed all 
 its lustre in the person of St. Fructuosus. " God created at 
 this time," says a contemporary monk, " two great suns to 
 light these western shores with the rays of that flaming 
 truth which shone from the Apostolic See : the one, Isidore 
 of Seville, relighted among us, by his eloquence, his writings, 
 his wisdom, and active industry, the great light of dogmatic 
 truth issued by the supreme chair of Rome ; the other, 
 Fructuosus, by the immaculate innocence of his life, by 
 the spiritual fire of his contemplations, made the virtues of 
 the first Fathers of the desert, and the prodigies of the The- 
 baid, shine into our hearts." 1 Issued from the blood-royal, 
 and son of a general of the Gothic army, the young Fruc- 
 tuosus, when taken by his father into one of his estates upon 
 the frontiers of Galicia to take account of his flocks, secretly 
 noted in his soul a site for a future monastery in that wild 
 country. His parents being dead, he withdrew, after having 
 studied humane and sacred literature at Palencia, into the 
 desert which he had chosen as a child, and built a monas- 
 tery, which he endowed with all he had, and where he was 
 shortly joined by a numerous band of monks. 2 But he him- 
 self, flying from the renown of his virtue, took refuge in the 
 woods and most precipitous rocks, that he might be forgotten 
 by all. One day while praying in a secluded spot in a forest, 
 a labourer who passed by took him for a fugitive slave, ques- 
 tioned him, and, dissatisfied with his answers, overwhelmed 
 him with blows, and led him by a rope round his neck to a 
 place where he was recognised. 3 Another time, like St. 
 
 1 "Poslquam ... a Sede Romana, prima S. Ecclesise Cathedra, fidei 
 catholicae dogmatum fulgurans rutilaret immensitas . . . atque ex iEgypto 
 . . . hujus occiduas plagaa exigua perlucerat extrernitas. . . . Divina pietas 
 duas inluminavit lucernas, etc." — Vit. S. Fructuosi, auct. S. VALERIO, abb., 
 ap. Act. SS. O. S. B., scec. ii. p. 557. 
 
 2 That of Compludo (in the diocese of Astorga), which has been discussed 
 before, on occasion of the charter of King Cyndaswynde, in 646. 
 
 3 " Lo tria con nn garrote." — Yepes, p. 175.
 
 108 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 Benedict, he was taken for a wild beast. A hunter, seeing 
 him covered merely with a goat-skin, and prostrated upon 
 the summit of a rock, had aimed an arrow at him, when he 
 perceived, by seeing him lift his hands to heaven, that it 
 was a man occupied in prayer. 1 
 
 On another occasion, a hind, pursued by the huntsman 
 and almost hunted down, threw herself into the folds of the 
 solitary's tunic. He saved her, and took her with him to 
 the monastery ; and the story runs that the monk and the 
 wild creature loved each other tenderly. The hind followed 
 him everywhere, slept at the foot of his bed, and bleated 
 incessantly when he was absent. He sent her back more 
 than once into the wood ; but she always again found the 
 road to his cell, or the footsteps of her liberator. One day 
 at last she was killed by a young man who had no goodwill 
 to the monks. Fructuosus was absent some days on a jour- 
 ney ; on his return he was astonished not to see his hind 
 running to meet him, and when he heard of her death, he 
 was seized with grief, his knees trembled under him, and he 
 threw himself upon the floor of the church. Whether he 
 did this to ask of God the punishment of the cruel man, is 
 not told ; but the latter fell sick soon after, and begged the 
 abbot to come to his aid. Fructuosus avenged himself 
 nobly, and like a Christian : he went to heal the murderer 
 of his hind, and restored him to health of soul as well as to 
 health of body. 2 
 
 It is pleasant to see such gracious and innocent tender- 
 ness in times so rude, as well as in those strong souls, born 
 to reign and draw nations after their footsteps. The example 
 
 1 " Locanemorosa, argis densissima, asperaet fragosa . . . capreis pelli- 
 bus indutus. In cujusdam rupis gradibus . . . quidam arcistes . . . cum 
 librasset ictum ut dimitteret sagittam." — Yepes, c. 4. 
 
 2 " Victabestiola . . . sub vire Dei amphibalum ingressa est . . . si vel 
 paululum ab ea recederet, nunquam balare cessaret, quousque ad earn 
 denuo rediret ... in lectulum ad pedes ejus recubaret . . . Sanctissimus 
 vir ad monasterium regressus, sollicite requisivit quidnam causae esset cur 
 caprea sua ei solita more tunc minime occurreret . . . Qui mox genua sua 
 summo cum dolore flectens." — Ibid., c. 10.
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 109 
 
 of the young Gothic noble, whom love of penitence had 
 driven into solitude, became so contagious, that he had to 
 build other monasteries to receive the immense choir of 
 converts who pressed upon his steps. 1 The number became 
 so great, that the duke of one of the provinces wrote to the 
 king to warn him that if some obstacle was not interposed, 
 the country would be so entirely depopulated, that there 
 would remain nobody to fill up the ranks of the army. The 
 women imitated the men ; Fructuosus received one day a 
 letter from a young girl of noble family, named Benedicta, 
 betrothed to a garding — that is, to one of the principal 
 officers of the Yisigothic court — telling him that she had 
 escaped from her father's house, that she was wandering in 
 the woods not far from the monastery, and begging him to 
 have pity on her as upon a sheep which he must snatch 
 from the fangs of the wolf. He received her, and built for 
 her a little cell in the forest, which shortly became the 
 centre of a community of eighty nuns, where mothers often 
 came with their daughters to consecrate themselves to God. 
 The garding endeavoured in vain to recover his betrothed : 
 he compelled the superior of the new monastery to bring to 
 him her who had fled from him : she came, but refused to 
 look at him, and he remained mute in her presence. Then 
 the royal judge said, " Leave her to serve the Lord, and find 
 for yourself another wife." 2 
 
 We cannot record all the marvellous incidents in the life 
 of the monastic patriarch of Lusitania. We can only say 
 that his austerities and endless journeys did not prevent him 
 from cultivating literature, from recommending its study to 
 his monks, nor even from giving himself to poetry ; for 
 some of his verses are still extant. 3 In the regulations 
 
 1 " Ut catervatim undique concurrentium agmina conversorum immensus 
 fieret chorus." — Yepes, c. 15. 
 
 2 " De prsesentia regis levavit judicem, qui inter eos examineret judicii 
 veritatem, comitem Angelate . . . Dimitte earn Domino servire, et quaere 
 tibi aliam uxorem." — Ibid., c. 17. 
 
 3 S. FbucTUOSI Carmina, ap. FLOKEZ, Espana Sagrada.
 
 IIO ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 which he composed for his different houses, we find that 
 they kept great flocks of sheep, the profit of which furnished 
 them with means for the assistance of the poor, for redeem- 
 ing captives, and exercising hospitality. One monk was 
 specially charged with the superintendence of the shepherds. 
 Some years before his death Fructuosus was, against his 
 will, elevated to the archiepiscopal see of Braga, by the 
 unanimous suffrages of the tenth Council of Toledo. But 
 he did not cease to practise the rule of monastic life, and to 
 build new monasteries. And soon, thanks to his unwearied 
 activity, he had covered Cantabria and Lusitania with com- 
 munities of both sexes. He had surveyed all the coasts of 
 Spain from Cape Finisterre to Cape St. Vincent, crossing the 
 embouchure of the rivers which were to be named Douro 
 and Guadalquivir, reaching the promontories, the gulfs, and 
 the islands, even to the spot where Cadiz was to be, 1 and 
 seeking everywhere asylums for prayer and solitude. Thanks 
 to him, the extreme frontier of the West will be guarded by 
 a line of monastic garrisons. The great waves of the ocean 
 rushing from the shores of another hemisphere, from that 
 half of the world still unknown to Christians, will be met by 
 the gaze and the prayers of the monks from the lofty cliffs 
 of the Iberian peninsula. There they shall stand firm, 
 awaiting the Mohammedan invasion ; there they shall en- 
 dure and survive it ; there they shall preserve a nucleus 
 of faith and Christian virtue, for those incomparable days 
 when, from those shores freed by unwearied heroism, Spain 
 and Portugal shall spring forth to discover a new world, and 
 to plant the cross in Africa, in Asia, and in America. 
 
 1 " Cum prasfatam Gaditanam ingressus fuisset insulani . . . sedificavit 
 sanctum ope Die monasterium." — Valerius, c. 14. The particulars of the 
 numerous foundations of St. Fructuosus may be seen in the great work of 
 Antonio de Yepes, Coronica General de la Orden de San Benito, folio, 1609, 
 centuria ii. pp. 175, 187, 223, and following pages. This work, despite its 
 inaccuracies, so often exposed by Mabillon, is invaluable for everything 
 connected with monastic Spain.
 
 BOOK VI 
 
 THE MONKS UNDER THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 I. Gaul Conquered by the Franks. —State of Gaul under the 
 Roman Empire. — Relative benefits from the invasion of the Barbarians. 
 — The Franks arrest and beat back the other Barbarians. — Character 
 of the government of the Franks in Gaul : equality of the Gauls and 
 Franks. — Fatal contact of Frank barbarity and the depravity of the 
 Gallo-Romans. — The nobility of the two races restrain the kings, who 
 incline to autocracy and the Roman system of taxation. — The Franks 
 alone escape Arianism : they respect the liberty of religion. — Munificence 
 of the Merovingians towards the monasteries, strangely mixed with their 
 vices and crimes. — The monks secure the civilising influence of the 
 Church over the Franks. 
 
 II. Arrival of the Benedictines in Gaul. — St. Maur at Glanfeuil 
 in Anjou. — Propagation of the Benedictine rule. — First encounter of 
 Frank royalty with the sons of St. Benedict. — Theodebert and St. Maur. 
 
 III. Previous Relations between the Merovingians and the 
 Monks. — Clovis and his sons. — Foundation of Micy, near Orleans. — Clovis 
 and St. Maixent. — St. Leobin tortured by the Franks. — The sister and 
 daughter of Clovis become nuns : The latter founds St. Pierre-le-Vif at 
 Sens. — The monasteries of Auvergne, ransom of prisoners and refuge of 
 slaves: Basolus and Porcianus. — Thierry I. and St. Nizier.— Clodomir, 
 the Abbot Avitus, and St. Cloud. — The tonsure and the forced vocations. 
 — Childebert, the monastic king par excellence : his relations with St. 
 Eusice in Berry, and St. Marculph in Neustria. — Emigration of the 
 British monks into Armorica : continued existence of Paganism in that 
 peninsula : poetical traditions. — Conversion of Armorica by the British 
 emigrants. — The Christian bards : Ysulio and the blind Herve. — Armorican 
 monasteries : Rhuys ; St. Matthew of the Land's End ; Landevenec ; Dol ; 
 Samson, Abbot of Dol, and Archbishop. — The seven saints of Brittany, 
 bishops and monks. — Their intercourse with Childebert. — St. Germain, 
 Bishop of Paris ; Abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres. — Clotaire I. and St. 
 Medard. — Gregory of Tours and the sons of Clotaire. — Note on the
 
 I I 2 SUMMARY 
 
 foundations of King Gontran in Burgundy.— The Abbot Aredius protests 
 against the fiscal system of Chilperic, and frees his serfs.— Maternal love 
 and monastic song. 
 
 IV. St. Radegund. — Her origin and her captivity. — Clotaire makes 
 her his wife.— Note on St. Consortia.— Radegund takes the veil from the 
 hands of St. Medard, establishes herself at Poitiers, and founds there 
 the monastery of St. Croix.— Clotaire wishes to reclaim her : St. Germain 
 prevents him.— Cloister life of Radegund.— Her journey to Aries.— Her 
 relations with Fortunatus.— Her poetry.— Her indifference to the outer 
 world; her solicitude for peace among the Merovingian princes.— Her 
 austerities.— Her friendship for the Benedictine St. Junian. — They both 
 died on the same day.— Revolt of the nuns of St. Croix under Chrodield and 
 Basine, princesses of the Merovingian blood. — This occurs at the time of 
 the arrival of Columba, the great Celtic missionary, in Gaul. 
 
 V. The Monks and Nature. — State of the forests of Gaul from the 
 fifth to the seventh century.— Invasion of solitude; St. Liephard at 
 Meung-sur-Loire : deserts in Gaul.— The monks in the forests. — St. Seine 
 in Burgundy.— St. Imier in Jura.— St, Junian in Limousin. — The anchorites 
 of the woods transformed into monks by the multitude which followed 
 them.— St. Laumer in Perche.— St. Magloire in Armorica and Jersey.— 
 Donations of Prankish nobles, some accepted, others refused ; St. Laumer 
 once more ; popular discontents. — St. Malo. 
 
 The monks and the brigands : St. Seine and St. Evroul— The monks 
 and the hunters : Brachio and the wild boar, at Menat.— Right of shelter 
 for game.— St. Calais and his buffalo ; Childebert and Ultrogotha.— St. 
 Marculph and his hare.— St. Giles and his hind.— The Abbess Ninnok.— 
 St Desle and Clotaire II. — St. Basle and his wild boar. — St. Laumer and 
 his hind.— Supernatural empire of the monks over the animals, the con- 
 sequence of man's return to innocence.— Miracles in History.— Vives, 
 Titus Livius, De Maistre.— The monks and the wild beasts in the Thebaid. 
 — Gerasimus and his lion.— St. Martin and his plungeons.— St. Benedict 
 and his raven.— The monks and the birds in Gaul : St. Maxent ; St. Valery ; 
 St Calais- St. Malo; St. Magloire. — Sites of monasteries indicated by 
 animals : Fecamp.— St. Thierry ; St. Berchaire at Hautvilliers.— Domesti- 
 cation of fallow-deer by the monks : Celtic legends : the wolves and stags : 
 Herve, Pol de Leon, Colodocus.— St. Leonor and the stags at the plough. 
 —Agricultural works of the monks in the forest.— Clearing.— St. Brieuc. 
 
 Fruit-trees. Various occupations. — Influence of their example on the 
 
 rural populations.— St. Fiacre and his garden.— Karilef and his treasure.— 
 Theodulph and his plough.— Solicitude of the monks for the spiritual 
 welfare of the peasants. — Council of Rouen.— The forest canticle, the 
 monastic spring in the woods.
 
 BOOK VI 
 
 THE MONKS UNDER THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 
 
 Si quid hoc in opere vobis pneclarum videbitur, id veterum est, iis im- 
 pertite quam merentur laudem. At me sicubi conjectura fefellit, 
 si non sum scriptorum sententiam probe assecutus, si adulterinum 
 aliquod scriptum pro legitimo suscepi, si respui quod rectum erat 
 et purum, date veniam et me admonete. — Bollandus, Acta Sanc- 
 torum, t. i. p. xliv. (e). 
 
 I. — Gaul Conquered by the Franks 
 
 We have overstepped the course of time to indicate all that 
 monastic institutions owe to the greatest of popes, and what 
 they became in the Iberian peninsula under leaders imbued 
 with his spirit. We must now go back a century and cross 
 the Alps and Pyrenees, to concentrate our narrative in Gaul, 
 in that country where Marmoutier, Lerins, Condat, and other 
 great foundations had not exhausted the monastic impulse, 
 and where Providence destined the Benedictine tree to shoot 
 out its most vigorous and productive branches. 
 
 In the year of St. Benedict's birth, Clovis began to reign 
 over the Salian Franks, and during the whole lifetime of 
 the patriarch, Gaul, disputed by the Franks against the 
 Goths and Burgundians, gradually yielded to the powerful 
 pressure of the Merovingians and their conquering bands. 
 The evils which accompanied that conquest are known. 
 But the condition to which the rule of Kome had reduced 
 Gaul when the Franks, coming last after so many other 
 Barbarians, took it for their prey, should not be forgotten. 
 Under the emperors, Bome had carried corruption into all 
 
 VOL. II. " 3 H
 
 I 1 4 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 the provinces of the world which under the republic she 
 had conquered. Tacitus shows us that every seat of Roman 
 administration was a permanent school of oppression and 
 depravity, where avarice and sensuality reigned always in- 
 satiable and unpunished. 1 Of the old Gauls who had over- 
 run Spain, Italy, Greece, and even Asia Minor ; who had 
 filled the world with the din of their arms and the terror 
 of their name ; who had conquered Rome ; whom Rome 
 had afterwards vanquished and enslaved, but whom she had 
 never surpassed nor even equalled in heroism and greatness 
 of soul, — of these men none remained. The tyranny of the 
 Caesars had annihilated them. In vain their sons rose 
 under Augustus, Tiberius, Nero, and Vespasian, protesting 
 thus against the pretended amelioration in the fate of the 
 Roman provinces under the empire. Vainly, from age to 
 age, had Gaul, in despair of regaining her independence, 
 attempted to cheat her misery by imposing Gaulish empe- 
 rors on Rome. In vain the insurgent and half-Christian 
 Bagaudes had meditated the substitution of a kind of 
 Gaulish empire in place of the Roman. Ground down by 
 the merciless millstone of the imperial government and 
 taxation, Gaul had lost its nationality, its civil and muni- 
 cipal institutions, its territorial wealth, its ancient Celtic 
 tongue, and even its name, one after the other ; its inhabi- 
 tants were known only under the name of Romans, a name 
 which for them was the symbol of decrepitude and shame. 2 
 In place of their ancient national worship — Druidical sac- 
 rifices, which were interdicted under pain of death — the 
 hideous idolatry of the Caesars, whom a vile senate declared 
 divine, was imposed upon them. That dauntless courage 
 which had hitherto pointed them out to the admiration of 
 
 1 Compare Doellinger, Heidenthum und Judenthum, p. 728. 
 
 2 "The state of the Gauls under the imperial government was one of 
 the most debasing and cruel political slavery." — Mile, de Lezardiere, 
 Theories des Lois Politiques de la France. " The title of Roman citizens 
 which the Gauls bore had long belonged only to slaves." — Mably, 
 Observations sur VHistoire de France, t. i. p. 243.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I I 5 
 
 the world, had disappeared with their liberty. 1 The ruling 
 classes were enslaved and degraded, while the lower ranks 
 of the people had gained nothing : on the contrary, in 
 proportion to the extension of great estates, the husband- 
 men found their lot aggravated, and the universal servitude 
 weighed upon them with a crushing yoke. The free clients 
 of whom Cassar speaks had disappeared. The Gaulish chiefs, 
 transformed into degenerate patricians, had the vast estates 
 on which they scarcely ever lived cultivated by slaves, like 
 the plantations of our colonies before the emancipation of 
 the negroes. 2 It has been calculated that there scarcely 
 remained, in the time of Constantine, a million of freemen 
 in all that immense region. 3 
 
 The Church alone remained erect, the sole asylum of 
 human dignity and freedom, under this frightful oppression. 
 She alone put some check upon injustice and tyranny, miti- 
 gated the overwhelming poverty of the people, encouraged 
 agriculture in her own lands, retained in her bosom the 
 memory and practice of popular election, and assured 
 Defenders, in the persons of her bishops, to cities abandoned 
 or ransomed by their magistrates. But her influence, far 
 from being preponderant, could only struggle imperfectly 
 against the universal decay, and had no power to reproduce 
 those civic virtues which were stifled like the free cities under 
 the cosmopolitan despotism of the emperors. 4 Four centuries 
 of Roman government had been enough to divest Gaul of all 
 law and order in civil affairs, as well as of all national and 
 
 i " Amissa virtute pariter et libertate." — Tacitus, Agric, ii.; Ann., xi. 
 18 ; Germ., 28. Dc-ELLINGER, Heidenthum und Judenthum, p. 611-613. 
 
 2 See the excellent summary of the oppression and ruin of the Gauls 
 under Roman dominion, which is given, after many other writers, by Sir 
 James Stephen, Lectures on the History of France (London), 1859, t. i. 
 p. 57. As to the details, M. Guizot, in his Fssais sur VHistoire de France, 
 and his second lesson of the course for 1824, has been surpassed as yet 
 by none, except perhaps by Le Huerou, in chap. viii. of his Origines 
 Merovingiennes (Paris), 1843. 
 
 3 Henri Martin, Histoire de France, t. i. p. 292, 4th edition. 
 
 4 Stephen, loc. cit. ; H. Martin, p. 332.
 
 Il6 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 personal independence. How could such a population, de- 
 based and exhausted by a rule, the very weakness of which 
 increased its minute and imbecile tyranny, resist the re- 
 peated inroads of the Barbarians ? The Arverne aristocracy 
 alone, which seemed to be animated still by the spirit of 
 the great Vercingetorix, and which had retained popular 
 sympathy by some unknown means, struggled with the 
 obstinacy of despair against the Visigoths in the first 
 place, and then against the sons of Clovis. Everywhere 
 else the Barbarian domination was accepted as a kind of 
 deliverance. 
 
 And indeed it actually was such, for the German nations 
 brought with them that manly energy which the serfs of the 
 empire lacked. Life had everywhere ebbed away ; the con- 
 querors brought a new life to the soil which they invaded, as 
 well as to the men whom they incorporated under their 
 victorious sway. All that remained of the nobility of Gaul 
 saw them appear with terror ; but what had the rural colonists 
 and humble townspeople to lose by this change of masters ? 
 On the contrary, they could only gain by the destruction of 
 that Roman system of taxation, the most rapacious that was 
 ever dreamed of. To take for themselves a portion, the half 
 or a third, of landed property and slaves, as did the Bur- 
 gundians and Visigoths, but at the same time to exempt the 
 remainder from all those exactions which under the Romans 
 compelled the landowners to abandon all they possessed to 
 the treasury, was to bring an evident and real relief to an 
 insupportable state of things. 1 
 
 As for the Franks, there is no evidence that they ever 
 decreed general confiscations. The discoveries of modern 
 study have proved, on the contrary, that they generally 
 respected the private property of the Gallo-Romans. Accord- 
 ing to all appearance, they contented themselves with the 
 
 1 PAUL Roth., Gesehichte der Benefizialwesens ; LEO, Ursprung des Deut- 
 schen Volkes und Reiches, p. 324 ; CANTU, Storia degV Italiani, ch. 63 ; Stephen, 
 loc. cit., p. 300; Le HUEROU, p. 268.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 11 7 
 
 lands which were at first conceded to them by the emperors, 
 and with the vast stretches of uncultivated soil abandoned in 
 consequence of the universal impoverishment, which they 
 shared among themselves by lot, and which were called 
 allodia, while their kings appropriated the immense estates 
 of the imperial treasury. Let us add, that in expelling the 
 Roman magistrates, they seem to have interfered little with 
 municipal government, but to have left the principal part of 
 it in the hands of the bishops, and we shall be able to con- 
 ceive how, as the latest of our historians affirms, the mass of 
 the people had more horror for the pedantic and systematic 
 oppression of the empire, than for the brutal and capricious 
 sway of the Barbarians. 1 
 
 Besides, the Romans of the empire, as has been often 
 remarked, carried into Gaul a principle proper to themselves, 
 the fatal principle of the supremacy of cities. The Germans, 
 on the contrary, in their primitive state, knew no life but that 
 of the fields, a rural and sylvan existence. The village was, 
 as it may still be seen in India, the foundations of their 
 national life. In conquering Gaul, they restored life to its 
 plains ; they created there the village, the free and rural 
 community, and emancipated them from the sway of towns ; 
 they constituted there the most influential element in the 
 new nationality. This preponderance was only more and 
 more manifested and consolidated in proportion as the feudal 
 system developed itself and struck root in the soil. 
 
 The Franks conferred, besides, a crowning service on 
 Gaul, which she had looked for in vain from the last 
 emperors. St. Jerome has left us a formidable list of the 
 Barbarian nations which had invaded her lands under im- 
 perial rule. " The countries that lie between the Alps and 
 Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the sea, have been de- 
 vastated by the Quade, the Vandal, the Sarmate, the Alain, 
 the Gepid, the Herule, the Burgonde, the Aleman, and oh 
 
 1 Henei Martin, p. 354. Le Huerou furnishes proof of this by un- 
 deniable evidence, op. cit., p. 251.
 
 I 1 8 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 supreme calamity ! by the Hun." l Coming after all these 
 ferocious predecessors, each of whom, except the Burgondes, 
 had only passed through Gaul like a tempest, the Franks 
 debarred from entrance the other pagan nations who pressed 
 upon their steps. They turned against the current by 
 which they had themselves been brought. They made 
 vigorous head against the Alemans, the Saxons, the Slaves, 
 and the Avars, who, but for them, would have crossed the 
 Ehine and invaded Gaul. Becoming Christians, not in a 
 body or all at once in the train of Clovis, as has been 
 erroneously supposed, but very gradually and slowly, 2 they 
 set their face against the enemies of Christendom. They 
 remained, long after their conversion, as wild, fierce, and 
 cruel as before. They were not transformed in a day. Two 
 centuries of fratricidal wars between the Merovingian kings 
 demonstrate this only too clearly, while they also prove the 
 superstitious veneration, the pagan idolatry, which the Franks 
 entertained for that long-haired dynasty, the scions of which 
 they deposed and murdered one by one, but apart from 
 which no one among them had yet dreamt of seeking chiefs 
 of a different race. 
 
 Their barbarism cannot be denied ; we must not only 
 believe all that historians have said of them, but add that 
 here, as throughout all antiquity, these narratives are far 
 from reaching the full extent "of unknown tyranny, un- 
 
 i Epist. ad Ageruchiam, t. iv. p. 748, edit. 1706. 
 
 a More than a century after Clovis, we still find pagans among Franks 
 of the most elevated rank. St. Lupus, Bishop of Sens, exiled by Clotaire 
 II. about 615, was intrusted to the care of a duke called Boson, who was 
 still pagan, and who occupied the shores of the Oise : " Ubi erant templa 
 phanatica a decurionibus culta . . . prsedictum ducem vitali tinxit in 
 lavacro, plurimumque Francorum exercitum, qui adhuc erroris detinebatur 
 laqueis, illuminavit per baptismum."— Act. SS. Boll and., t. 1 Sept., p. 
 259. The second successor of St. Colomba at Bobbio, the Abbot Bertulf, 
 who died in 640, was of pagan birth, although a near relation of St. Arnoul, 
 Bishop of Metz. It will be seen hereafter, that a great proportion of the 
 Franks established in Belgium remained idolaters even in the eighth 
 century.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I 1 9 
 
 punished rapine, and unavenged destruction." * But we 
 must not believe that the Franks were, as has been assumed, 
 less civilised, less human, and greater oppressors than the 
 other Barbarians. In no point of view do they deserve a 
 lower place than the Visigoths or Burgundians. They had 
 evidently as much inclination and attraction towards the 
 cultivation of the mind and literature. The chapel which 
 the Merovingian kings instituted in the earliest times of 
 their conversion, with the school which was immediately 
 attached to it, as an inseparable appendage to the royal 
 residence, became soon a nursery of zealous and learned 
 clerks, where the young Frank and Gallo-Roman nobility 
 drew such instruction as was best adapted to their time and 
 habits. The important charges of the Church and court 
 were given to those who had distinguished themselves 
 there. 2 All the biographies of the saints are unanimous in 
 stating this fact ; and Gregory of Tours confirms it, by 
 speaking of the palatine erudition as of a kind of ecclesi- 
 astical and political novitiate which was in active operation 
 under the grandsons of Clovis. 3 
 
 It is still more certain that the oppression of the Gallo- 
 Romans by the Franks was never systematic, nor so specially 
 cruel and complete, as a theory cleverly upheld in our own 
 days, but contradicted by all contemporary writers, would 
 have it to be. Doubtless, in the north-east district of Gaul, 
 which was the first occupied by the Franks, who were then 
 entirely pagan, the Roman population was cruelly spoiled 
 and maltreated, if not entirely exterminated. But after 
 their conversion, in proportion as they approached the Loire, 
 and especially when they spread themselves to the south of 
 that river, the Gallo-Romans are seen to have preserved all 
 
 1 OzANAM, Etudes German., t. ii. p. 502. 
 
 2 Numerous and precise details on this subject are to be found in 
 L'Histoire de St. Liger, by Dom Pitra, p. 114, and Appendix. This word 
 chapel, as synonymous with oratory, is derived, according to Ducange, from 
 the little cape or cloak of St Martin, which was one of the most noted 
 Merovingian relics. 3 Vit. S. Aredii Abbatis, c. 3.
 
 120 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 their property, and to have enjoyed absolutely the same 
 rights as their conquerors. Among the Franks, as among 
 the Gauls, poor men, artisans and slaves, are to be seen, as 
 well as rich men and nobles. The nobles of Gaul, and 
 members of those families called senatorial, occupied the 
 same rank as under the Roman empire, and were associated 
 in the court and military retinue of the Merovingian kings 
 with the leudes and antrustions of Frankish race. The 
 Gallo-Romans are everywhere found in the highest ranks, 
 not only in the Church, where they had, up to the end 
 of the sixth century, almost exclusive possession of the 
 bishoprics, but among the companions of the king, among 
 the dukes and counts, at the head of armies, and even in 
 the offices of the royal household, which might well have 
 been exclusively reserved for the companions and compatriots 
 of the prince. 
 
 It is at the same time necessary to remark the difference 
 established by the Salic law in the rate of compensation due 
 for murders committed upon the Franks and upon the 
 Romans, from which we perceive that the life of a Roman 
 is estimated at half the value only of that of a Frank. 
 Except that single particular, in which the natural pride of 
 the victor manifests itself, no trace of radical distinction is 
 to be found between the conquering and conquered races. 
 The Gallo-Roman retained his private rights, but was sub- 
 ject to the same laws and obtained the same guarantees as 
 the Frank. As for public rights, he was exposed, like the 
 Frank, but not more than he, to the atrocious violences 
 which daily broke out in that society, and which were as 
 often originated by himself as by the Frank or Burgun- 
 dian. 1 For there were Gallo-Romans as deeply imbued as 
 the Barbarians with that ferocity which is inspired by the 
 
 1 Roth and Leo, in the works already quoted, and Waitz (Deutsche Ver- 
 fassungs Geschichte), have shown beyond dispute this identity of position 
 between the Frankish and Gaulish nobility under the Merovingian sway : 
 the Abbe Dubos had made it the basis of his absurd system on the absence 
 of all conquest.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 121 
 
 possession of uncontrolled wealth and strength. They had 
 their share in almost all the crimes and treacheries which 
 appear in the annals of this unhappy period. It has been 
 said with justice, " The greatest evil of Barbarian govern- 
 ment was perhaps the influence of the greedy and corrupt 
 Romans, who insinuated themselves into the confidence of 
 their new masters." l It is to them especially that those 
 refinements of debauchery and perfidy, which it is so sur- 
 prising to find amid the savage brutality of the German 
 tribes, should be attributed. They instructed their con- 
 querors in the art of oppression, and taught them how to 
 degrade their compatriots, by means which the natural 
 obtuseness of the Goths and Teutons could never have 
 suggested. The Barbarians derived no advantage from their 
 contact with the Roman world, depraved as it was under 
 the empire. They brought with them manly virtues, of 
 which the conquered race had lost even the recollection ; 
 but they borrowed, at the same time, abject and contagious 
 vices, of which the Germanic world had no conception. 
 They found Christianity there ; but before they yielded to 
 its beneficent influence, they had time to plunge into all 
 the baseness and debauchery of a civilisation corrupted 
 long before it was vanquished. The patriarchal system of 
 government which characterised the ancient Germans, in 
 their relations with their children and slaves as well as with 
 their chiefs, fell into ruin in contact with that contagious 
 depravity. 
 
 At a later period, when the Christian spirit had estab- 
 lished its empire, and when all the old Roman remains 
 had been absorbed and transformed by the German element 
 under the first Carlovingians, the evil lessened, and if it did 
 not disappear completely, all the nations of Christendom at 
 least could constitute themselves under laws and manners 
 which they needed neither to blush for nor to complain of. 
 
 i Henri Martin, t. i. p. 394. Compare Augustin Thierry, Recits 
 Merov., t. ii. p. 45, and Albert Du BOYS, Histoire du Droit Criminel.
 
 122 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 But at the period of which we treat nothing could be more 
 sad than the first fusion of Germanic barbarism and Roman 
 corruption. All the excesses of a savage condition were 
 then combined with the vices of a civilisation learnedly 
 depraved. From this perverse and fatal origin flow these 
 revolting abuses of seignorial right, which, continued and 
 developed by the course of time, debased the feudal system 
 and made it so unpopular. And here we must seek the 
 secret of these monstrous examples of treason and ferocity 
 which appear on almost every page of the narrative of 
 Gregory of Tours, and throw a sanguinary light upon the 
 early pages of our history. 
 
 Thence, also, came the attempts of the Merovingian kings 
 to re-establish and aggravate the Roman system of taxation. 
 Sometimes it was the churches from which they exacted the 
 payment of a third of their revenues; 1 sometimes it was 
 the poll-tax which they tried to establish, not, as among the 
 Romans, upon the plebeians without landed property, but 
 upon all, and first on the Franks themselves. But here 
 the old Germanic law took the upper hand. Even in the 
 absence of the national assemblies, which seem to have been 
 suspended during the reign of Clovis and his immediate 
 successors, 2 the resistance was energetic and triumphant. 
 The Merovingian kings had vainly manifested an inclination 
 to imitate the despotism of the Roman emperors, for they 
 had always to reckon with the Frank nobles, who would not 
 renounce the freedom of their ancestors upon soil conquered 
 by themselves, and who, reinforced by the descendants of 
 the old chivalrous races of Gaul, 3 soon formed around the 
 throne an aristocracy at once civil and warlike, free and 
 powerful, as proud of its origin as of its rights, and resolved 
 
 1 Greg. Tur., iv. 2. 
 
 2 Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungs Geschichte, tit. ii. p. 480. 
 
 3 The Equites, of whom Csesar speaks, with their dependants, whose 
 analogy with German manners he did not understand, and whose position 
 he has not sufficiently distinguished from servitude.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 123 
 
 not to be reduced to the vile level of the Roman senate. 1 
 According to the old privilege of German freedom, they 
 assumed the right of speaking out on every subject, inter- 
 fering actively in all public interests, resisting all usurpa- 
 tions, and striking down the guilty. 2 Their superstitious 
 regard for the Merovingian blood, their traditional devotion 
 to the person of the chief, led them to fill domestic offices 
 about the persons of their kings, which among the ancient 
 Romans were reserved for slaves, but which bore no servile 
 character among the German races, and were, on the con- 
 trary, the privilege of the principal men of the nation, who 
 were called trusty. 2. But this loyalty did not prevent them 
 from opposing to the violence of their master other out- 
 breaks of violence not less dreadful, and often not less 
 illegitimate. " Farewell," said a deputation of Austrasian 
 lords to King Gontran of Burgundy, grandson of Clovis — 
 " farewell, oh king ! we take leave of thee, reminding thee 
 that the axe which has broken the head of thy brethren is 
 still bright ; and it shall be thy brains next which it will 
 dash out." 4 
 
 By what prodigious change did these scarcely-baptized 
 Barbarians become the cherished nation of the Church, 
 and the chosen race of Christendom ? This will be seen 
 by the following narrative. In the meantime, it must be 
 acknowledged that, by a singular privilege, they were never 
 Arians. They alone, among all the Barbarian conquerors 
 of the empire, never permitted their energy and simplicity 
 to become the victims of that heresy, which exercised 
 
 1 Terms which prove the great importance attached to birth are to be 
 found on every page of the contemporary authors, and especially in the 
 Lives of the Saints : seniores, potentes, mcliores, nobiles. . . . Claro stcmmate 
 ortus. . . . Ex progenie celsa Francorum Prosapia Francorum altis satis et 
 nobilibus parentibus, &c. Compare Waitz, op. cit. 
 
 2 Aug. Thierky, R6cits Mdrovingiens, tit. ii. p. 95. 
 
 3 Antrustion, man in the confidence {trust) of the chief, a term translated 
 in the Latin version of the Salic law by that of conviva regis. 
 
 4 " Valedicimns tibi, o rex. . . . Scimus solidam esse securim . . . 
 celerius tuum librabit defixa cerebrum." — GREG. TURON., lib. vii. c. 14.
 
 124 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 an inexplicable ascendancy over all the Germanic tribes, and 
 which, overcome among the old Christians, formed for itself a 
 triumphant asylum among their conquerors. Closing Gaul 
 against the other Barbarians, and assuring Catholic unity 
 within her by pursuing heresy without open persecution, 
 was to render two crowning services to new-born Christen- 
 dom. South of the Loire, the Catholic population, which 
 was too well aware of the persecutions raised against the 
 orthodox clergy in Spain and Africa by the Arian Barbarians, 
 passionately longed for the government of the Franks. 1 It 
 was for this reason that St. Remy said to the detractors of 
 Clovis, " Much must be pardoned to him who has been the 
 propagator of the faith, and the saviour of provinces." 
 This explains without justifying those terms of adulation 
 which most of the ecclesiastical writers have addressed to 
 princes whose public and private life was stained with 
 atrocious crimes. Different from the Byzantine emperors, 
 who interposed the authority of the state in spiritual affairs 
 on all occasions, and who believed themselves better theo- 
 logians than the bishops, they meddled little in theology, 
 and, except in the too numerous cases where they tampered 
 with the freedom of episcopal elections in favour of their 
 domestics or followers, they left the Church entirely inde- 
 pendent in matters of faith and discipline. They displayed, 
 also, great liberality to the bishops and monks : they did 
 not content themselves with restoring to the Church all that 
 had been taken from her ; they selected from the immense 
 possessions which had become crown-lands by conquest, at 
 the same time as they divided the land into benefices for 
 their trusty laymen, other vast territories, mostly unculti- 
 vated, desert, or covered with inaccessible forests, with 
 which they endowed the principal monasteries erected 
 during the Merovingian period. 2 The great farms, or 
 
 i " Amore desiderabili." — Greg. Tukon., Hist. Eccl, lib. ii. c. 23. 
 2 The royal treasury is mentioned in the first well-authenticated charter of 
 Clovis, in favour of the Abbey of Micy, near Orleans. — Ap. Beequigny, No. 6.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I 25 
 
 towns, where the Frankish kings held their court, in the 
 centre of agricultural labours, were repeatedly transformed 
 into religious establishments. 1 
 
 And yet they were sad Christians. While they respected 
 the freedom of the Catholic faith, and made external pro- 
 fession of it, they violated without scruple all its precepts, 
 and at the same time the simplest laws of humanity. After 
 having prostrated themselves before the tomb of some holy 
 martyr or confessor, after having distinguished themselves 
 by the choice of an irreproachable bishop, after having 
 listened respectfully to the voice of a pontiff or monk, we 
 see them, sometimes in outbreaks of fury, sometimes by 
 cold-blooded cruelties, give full course to the evil instincts 
 of their savage nature. Their incredible perversity was 
 most apparent in the domestic tragedies, the fratricidal 
 executions and assassinations, of which Clovis gave the first 
 example, and which marked the history of his son and 
 grandson with an ineffaceable stain. Polygamy and perjury 
 mingled in their daily life with a semi-pagan superstition ; 
 and in reading these bloody biographies, scarcely lightened 
 by some transient gleams of faith or humility, it is difficult 
 to believe that, in embracing Christianity, they gave up a 
 single pagan vice or adopted a single Christian virtue. 
 
 It was against this barbarity of the soul, far more alarm- 
 ing than grossness and violence of manners, that the Church 
 triumphantly struggled. From the midst of these frightful 
 disorders, of this double current of corruption and ferocity, 
 the pure and resplendent light of Christian sanctity was about 
 to rise. But the secular clergy, itself tainted by the general 
 demoralisation of the two races, was not sufficient for this 
 task. 2 They needed the powerful and soon preponderating 
 
 1 For example, Ebreuil, in Auvergne. 
 
 2 Leo {op. cit.) has very justly remarked, that owing to the demoralisa- 
 tion of the native clergy, the complete conversion of the Franks was a 
 longer and more arduous task to the ecclesiastical and monastic apostles of 
 Gaul than the conversion of England, or even of Germany, had been, where 
 all was done in a single stroke by a body of foreign missionaries and monks.
 
 126 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 assistance of the monastic army. It did not fail : the 
 Church and France owe to it the decisive victory of 
 Christian civilisation over a race much more difficult to 
 subdue than the degenerate subjects of Rome or Byzantium. 
 While the Franks, coming from the north, completed the 
 subjugation of Gaul, the Benedictines were about to approach 
 from the south, and superimpose a pacific and beneficent 
 dominion upon the Germanic Barbarian conquest. The 
 junction and union of these forces, so unequal in their 
 civilising power, were destined to exercise a sovereign 
 influence over the future of our country. 
 
 II. — Arrival of the Benedictines in Gaul. 
 
 The fame of Benedict and his work had not been slow 
 to cross the frontiers of Italy ; it resounded specially into 
 Gaul. A year before the death of the patriarch, two envoys 
 arrived at Monte Cassino from the Gallo-Roman prelate, 
 Innocent, Bishop of Mans, who, not content with forty 
 monasteries which had arisen during his episcopacy in the 
 country of the Cenomans, still desired to see his diocese 
 enriched by a colony formed by the disciples of the new 
 legislator of cenobites in Italy. Benedict confided this 
 mission to the dearest and most fervent of his disciples, a 
 young deacon named Maurus, of patrician origin like him- 
 self, who had worthily prepared himself for these distant 
 labours by outdoing the austerities of the Rule, and who 
 seemed to be regarded by the whole community as the 
 natural successor of their founder. He gave him four 
 companions (one of whom has written the history of the 
 mission a ), and bestowed upon him a copy of the Rule, 
 
 1 The Life of St. Maur, by his companion, Faustus, has suffered some 
 grievous interpolations in the ninth century, according to the Acta 
 Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti, by D'Achery and Mabillon. Father Pape- 
 broch (ap. Bolland. d. 16 and 22 May) regards it as completely menda- 
 cious. But the authenticity of his mission, and of the principal features
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I 27 
 
 written with his own hand, together with the weights for 
 the bread and the measure for the wine which should be 
 allotted to each monk every day, to serve as unchanging 
 types of that abstinence which was to be one of the strongest 
 points of the new institution. 
 
 At the head of this handful of missionaries, who went to 
 sow afar the seed destined to produce so great a harvest, 
 Maurus came down from Monte Cassino, crossed Italy and 
 the Alps, paused at Agaune, the sanctuary which the Bur- 
 gundian monarch had just raised over the relics of the Theban 
 legion, 1 then went into the Jura to visit the colonies of Condat, 
 and doubtless to make the rule of his master known there. 
 Arrived upon the banks of the Loire, and repulsed by the 
 successor of the bishop who had called him, he stopped in 
 Anjou, which was then governed by a viscount called Florus, 
 in the name and under the authority of the king of Austrasia, 
 Theodebert, the grandson of Clovis. This viscount offered 
 one of his estates to the disciple of Benedict, that he might 
 establish his colony there, besides giving one of his sons to 
 become a monk, and announcing his own intention of con- 
 secrating himself to God. Maurus accepted the gift, but 
 only by a formal donation, and before witnesses ; " for," he 
 said to the Frank lord, " our observances require peace and 
 security above all." ' In this estate, bathed by the waters of 
 
 of his biography, contested by Basnage and Baillet, has been victoriously 
 demonstrated by Mabillon himself (Prcef. in Scec. I., Act. SS. 0. S. B.), and, 
 above all, by Dom Ruinart in the Appendix of Vol. I. of the Annates Bene- 
 dictines of Mabillon. Compare, also, the learned Histoirc des Eveques du 
 Mans, by Dom Piolin, a Benedictine of Solesmes, 1851, t. i. p. 237. This 
 last work includes some very valuable details on the propagation of cloistral 
 life in Maine during the sixth century. 
 
 1 See above, vol. i. p. 370. 
 
 2 " Observatio Ordinis nostri summam deposcit quietem et securitatem. 
 . . . Te tradente nobis coram testibus. . . . Scripto Testamento tradidit 
 ei omnia et de suo jure in ejus delegavit potestatem atque dominium." — 
 Vit. S. Mauri, c. 42, 43. This passage may be one of the interpolations of 
 the ninth century pointed out by Mabillon ; nevertheless, we have instanced 
 it as one of the first examples of the forms employed for donations of this 
 nature, so numerous subsequent to the sixth century in Gaul.
 
 128 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 the Loire, he founded the monastery of Glanfeuil, which 
 afterwards took his own name. 1 The site of this monastery, 
 now lost among the vineyards of Anjou, merits the grateful 
 glance of every traveller who is not insensible to the advan- 
 tages which flowed from that first Benedictine colony over 
 entire France. 
 
 With a touching and legitimate reminiscence of ancient 
 monastic glory, Maurus consecrated one of the four churches 
 or chapels of his new abbey to St. Martin, who had founded, 
 at no great distance and on the banks of the same river, the 
 still celebrated sanctuary of Marmoutier, 2 and another to St. 
 Severin, that Roman monk who, on the banks of the Danube, 
 subdued the ferocity of the Barbarians while he blessed the 
 future of Odoacer. The beloved son of St. Benedict spent 
 forty years at the head of his French colony : he saw as 
 many as a hundred and forty monks officiate there ; and 
 when he died, after having lived apart for two years in an 
 isolated cell, to prepare himself in silence for appearing 
 before God, 3 he had dropped into the soil of Gaul a germ 
 which could neither perish nor be exhausted ; and which, a 
 thousand years after, was to produce under the very name 
 of the modest founder of Glanfeuil a new efflorescence of mon- 
 astic genius, destined to become the synonym of laborious 
 learning, and one of the most undisputed glories of France. 4 
 
 1 St. Maur-sur- Loire. The relics of Maurus remained there until the ninth 
 century, when, for fear of the Normans, they were transferred to St. Maur- 
 les-Fosses, near Paris, another monastery which will be often mentioned. 
 
 2 See vol. i. p. 344. To judge of the influence which was exercised over 
 Gaul by the great Martin, founder of Marmoutier, two centuries after his 
 lifetime, we must read the four books by Gregory of Tours, entitled Dc 
 Miraculis S. Martini, of which the Sociiti de VHistoire de France has just 
 published a new edition, revised by M. Bordier. 
 
 3 " Biennio ante mortem siluit sejunctus ab hominibus, et solus in superni 
 inspectoris oculis habitavit secum." — Breviarium Monasticum. 
 
 4 The brotherhood of St. Maur, immortalised by the works of Mabillon, 
 Montfaucon, Ruinart, and many others, was created in 1618. It sprang 
 from the association formed by various very ancient abbeys for the adop- 
 tion of the reform introduced at the end of the sixteenth century in the 
 monasteries of Lorraine by Dom Didier de la Cour, abbot of St. Vanne.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 1 29 
 
 A certain obscurity hangs over the early progress of the 
 Benedictine rule in Gaul after the first foundation of St. 
 Maur. We have already pointed out the progress of ceno- 
 bitical life due to the great schools of Marmoutier, Lerins, 
 and Condat, before the age of St. Benedict. This progress 
 did not diminish after him, since eighty new establishments 
 can be reckoned during the course of the sixth century alone 
 in the valleys of the Saone and Rhone, ninety-four between 
 the Pyrenees and the Loire, fifty-four from the Loire to the 
 Vosges, and ten from the Vosges to the Rhine. 1 This was 
 a renewed and more complete conversion of that great country. 
 Each province by degrees received for its apostles holy monks, 
 who were also often bishops, and who founded at the same 
 time dioceses and monasteries, the latter destined to be cita- 
 dels and nurseries of the diocesan clergy. 2 
 
 The councils of the Gauls were more and more frequently 
 occupied with questions of monastic discipline, without, 
 however, noting any special congregation. They showed 
 themselves animated by the spirit which dictated the famous 
 canon of the General Council of Chalcedon in 451, in virtue 
 of which monks were placed under the control of bishops. 
 That of Agde, in 511, renewed the prohibition against 
 founding new monasteries without the knowledge of the 
 bishop. Those of Orleans (511, and especially 533), of 
 Epaone (517), and of Aries (558), completely subjected 
 monasteries to the authority and superintendence of the 
 bishops. The abbots could neither be absent nor dispose 
 of any of the property of the community without episcopal 
 permission ; once a year they were to wait upon their 
 bishop to receive his advice, and if need were his correc- 
 tions. 3 The Council held in the Basilica of St. Martin at 
 
 1 M. Mignet has taken these numbers from the Benedictine Annals of 
 Mabillon. See his fine Mimoire sur la Conversion de V Alkmagne far les 
 Moines, p. 32. 
 
 2 " Ut urbis esset munimentum."— Vie de S. Domnole, bishop and founder 
 of St. Vincent-du-Mans, c. 4, ap. Bolland., 16 Maii. 
 
 3 Concil. Aurel., an. 511, c. 19. 
 
 VOL. II. I
 
 130 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 Tours, in 567, which quotes Seneca in its fourteenth Canon 
 in favour of the precautions to be taken against the scandal 
 of incontinence, pronounces the penalty of excommunication 
 in Canon XV. against every monk who should marry, and 
 against every judge who should refuse to declare the dis- 
 solution of such a marriage. But by the great number of 
 different rules and successive reforms, and still more by the 
 narratives of violence and abuse which Gregory of Tours has 
 honestly transmitted to us, the resistance met with by the 
 Christian ideal of monastic life may well be understood. 
 
 How did all these communities, so numerous and diverse, 
 come to recognise the Benedictine Eule as that which was 
 to ensure their existence and prosperity ? This can only be 
 discovered in some houses more or less celebrated. It was 
 not the work of one of those sudden, radical, and ephemeral 
 transformations to which modern history has accustomed 
 us ; it was the slow and instinctive progress of an insti- 
 tution which sought the conditions of permanent durability. 
 The conquest was made gradually and imperceptibly. 1 But 
 it is undeniable that this progress was universal, despite the 
 formidable rivalry of the Rule of St. Columba ; and not less 
 undeniable is the fact, that the mission of St. Maurus was 
 the channel by which the sovereign paternity of the Italian 
 legislator extended by degrees to all the monasteries of Gaul. 2 
 
 This mission marks out besides, in history, the first en- 
 counter of the Benedictine order with that French monarchy, 
 
 1 " Nunquam nobis venit in mentem ut asserere velimus omnia aut 
 pleraque Galliarum monasteria, adveniente Mauro, Benedictinam regu- 
 lam statim admisisse. . . . Quse postea sensim sine sensu ita per alia 
 monasteria sequentibus annis propagata fuerit, donee tandem sola 
 prasvaluerit in toto Galliarum imperio." — D. Ruinart, in Ajjpend. Annal. 
 Bened., torn. i. p. 636. 
 
 2 The formal testimony of St. Odillon, the celebrated abbot of Clnny, 
 is as follows : " Post Sancti Benedicti ex hac vita migrationem, per 
 Beatum Maurum illius discipulum omnis pene Gallia ejus institutiones et 
 religionis instituta suscepit, atque per eumdem Maurem, eosque quos ille 
 ad justitiam erudivit, per longa temporum spatia, eadem religio ad perfec- 
 tionis cumulum excrevit." — Odilo, Vit. S. Maioli, ap. Surium, 11 Maii.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I 3 I 
 
 then only dawning under the shield of Clovis and his de- 
 scendants, but which we shall see through many centuries 
 the faithful and grateful ally of the sons of St. Benedict. 
 The district of Anjou in which Glanfeuil was situated fell 
 to the lot of that grandson of Clovis, named Theodebert, 1 
 who reigned at Metz and over Austrasia. It was he from 
 whom the Viscount Florus, according to tradition, had to 
 obtain, first the necessary authority for the establishment 
 of the foreign monks, and then permission to enrol himself 
 among them. This king, celebrated in the history of the 
 Merovingians for his exploits in Aquitaine against the Visi- 
 goths, and in Italy against the imperial forces, consented 
 very reluctantly to part with one of his principal officers, 
 and only after having himself visited the new colony. He 
 came with all the pomp which the race of Clovis were so 
 prompt to borrow from the fallen empire ; but, clothed in 
 his purple as he was, as soon as he perceived Maur, the 
 Frank king prostrated himself before the Roman monk, as 
 Totila prostrated himself before Benedict, entreating the 
 abbot to pray for him, and to inscribe his name among those 
 of the brethren. He presented his young son to the com- 
 munity, desired that the monks who had come from Monte 
 Cassino with the abbot might be specially pointed out to 
 
 1 Professor Roth, in his important work entitled Geschichte der Beneficial- 
 wesens (Erlangen, 1850, p. 440), takes pains to show the fictitious character 
 of this narrative, grounding his argument on the fact that, in the division 
 of Gaul among the Frankish kings, Anjou belonged, not to Theodebert, 
 but to Childebert, and that this province only fell at a later period into 
 the hands of a king of Austrasia of the same name, Theodebert II., who 
 reigned from 596 to 602. But we can answer with Ruinart, that nothing 
 is less certain than the exact limitation of the provinces with which the 
 sons of Clovis constituted the different parts of their kingdoms, and 
 nothing more strange than the subdivision of all the territory situated 
 south of the Loire. Another learned contemporary who has devoted his 
 attention to the origin of Frank royalty, Professor Leo, proves that 
 Thierry, the father of Theodebert, and the eldest of the sons of Clovis, 
 exercised a sort of sovereignty over the estates of his brothers, and that 
 his possessions surrounded all parts of the patrimonies of the latter. — See 
 Des Deittschen Volkes Ursprung und Werden, 1854, p. 353.
 
 I3 2 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 him, asked their names, and embraced them and also their 
 brethren. Then he surveyed the monastic precincts, ate 
 with the monks in the refectory, and before he went away, 
 desired that the chief of his scribes should make out on the 
 spot, and seal with his ring, the donation of an estate be- 
 longing to the crown, which he intended to bestow on the 
 monastery. Floras afterwards obtained the king's consent 
 to witness his profession as a monk. After having added 
 new gifts to his first donation, the viscount freed and por- 
 tioned twenty of his slaves ; then, having laid his military 
 sword-belt on the altar, he knelt before the king, who, at 
 the request of the abbot, cut the first lock of his hair ; the 
 tonsure was then completed by the other nobles present. 
 Before leaving the monastery the king desired to see his old 
 friend in the monastic dress ; he exhorted him to do honour 
 to that new habit, as he had done honour to secular life, then 
 threw himself into the arms of Florus and wept there before 
 he withdrew, carrying with him the benediction of the abbot. 1 
 
 Thus the Frank king and the Benedictine became ac- 
 quainted with each other, and these two forces which were 
 to found France, to direct and represent her during long 
 centuries, stood face to face for the first time. 
 
 Admitting even that this tale may have been embel- 
 lished, in its minute details, by the imagination of after 
 ages, it is worthy of being remembered as a sort of type of 
 those intimate and cordial relations which began to exist 
 from that time between the princes of Germanic race and 
 the monks, and which are to be found almost on every page 
 of their double history. 
 
 1 " Regali indutus purpura humiliter prostratus. . . . Qui cum nos digito 
 designasset, in parte nos stare prsecipiens, intuebatur attentius, nomen 
 unius cujusque sciscitans. . . . Ansebaldum, qui scriptoribus testamen- 
 torum regalium praaerat . . . ut de ejus annulo regali firmaret more. . . . 
 Cingulum militise . . . super altare mittens. . . . Rex primus de coma 
 capitis ejus totondit. . . . Florum sibi amantissimum ad se deduci prae- 
 cepit, qui . . . monacbali jam indutus habitu . . . diutius in osculis ejus 
 immoratur."— FAUSTUS, Vit. S. Mauri, c. 49-52.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I 33 
 
 III. — Previous Relations between the Merovingians 
 and the Monks. 
 
 God hath not given us the spirit of fear ; but of power, and of 
 love, and of a sound mind. — 2 Tim. i. 7. 
 
 This was not, however, the first time that the Mero- 
 vingians had met the monks on their way. By the 
 side of bishops, who personified the gentle and strong 
 majesty of the Church, and whose children the Franks 
 had just declared themselves to be, they had everywhere 
 discovered, sometimes, isolated recluses, sometimes monks 
 living in a community whose strange privations, painful 
 labours, and irreproachable virtues bore eloquent witness 
 to the moral grandeur of Christian doctrines. The life of 
 these kings, divided between war and the chase, brought 
 them perpetually in contact with those whom all the world 
 agreed in calling men of God, whether in the towns and 
 rural districts ravaged by their soldiers, or in the forests 
 hunted by their hounds. In spite of all we have said 
 regarding the strange and hateful mixture of deceit and 
 ferocity, wild incontinence and savage pride, which charac- 
 terised the Merovingian princes, in spite of the fatal alloy 
 which Gallo- Roman corruption, immediately after their 
 conversion and conquest, added to the traditional barbarity 
 of the race, it is impossible to deny the sincerity of their 
 faith, and the influence which Christian virtue and penitence 
 almost always exercised upon them. They passed with a 
 rapidity which now seems incomprehensible from the atro- 
 cious excesses of their native cruelty to passionate demon- 
 strations of contrition and humility. After having directed 
 massacres or executions which rank among the most odious 
 recollections of history, we see them listening with respect, 
 and pardoning without difficulty the warning of a bold chief, 
 or still more frequently of a pontiff or monk. For it was 
 almost always monks or bishops who had been trained in
 
 134 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 cloistral life, who drew from them, in the name of God, a 
 tardy and incomplete homage to justice and humanity. 
 
 Clovis himself paid repeated tribute to these virtues. 
 The foundation of several abbeys has been attributed to 
 him, though without sufficient proof. 1 But one charter of 
 his is received as authentic, in which a profession of his 
 faith in the indivisible and co-substantial Trinity, which 
 proves his title to be considered the sole Catholic king 
 existing in Christendom, which was then wasted by Arian- 
 ism, precedes a grant of land and an exemption from imposts 
 in favour of a monastery near Orleans, which soon became 
 celebrated under the name of Micy, and then of St. Mesmin. 
 This last name was derived from Maximin, one of the 
 leaders of the little colony of Arverne monks, whom Clovis 
 established there under the direction of the holy priest 
 Euspicius, who had gained his heart at the siege of Verdun, 
 by his mission into the besieging camp itself to implore 
 mercy for the Gallo-Eoman insurgents in that town. 2 He 
 had given them an estate belonging to the royal fiscus or 
 treasury, situated at the point of the peninsula formed by 
 the Loire and Loiret at the junction of their waters, in 
 order, as his charter states, that these Religious should be 
 no longer strangers and travellers among the Franks. 3 
 
 1 Molosme, St. Michael of Tonnerre, Nesle, &c. 
 
 2 Vit. S. Maximini, abb. Miciac, n. 4 to 9. Ap. ACT. SS. O. S. B., t. i. 
 p. 564, ed. Venet. 
 
 3 "Inter Francos peregrini." — Brequigny, who, in his great collection 
 (Diplomata Chartce, <L-c, t. i., Preface, p. 8; Paris, 1791, folio), disputes all 
 the diplomas attributed to Clovis for Reomaus, St. Pierre-le-Vif, &c, 
 acknowledges the authenticity of that given by Clovis to St. Euspicius 
 and to St. Maximin for Micy. The memory of this famous abbey has been 
 revived in our days by the secondary seminary of the diocese of Orleans, 
 established at La Chapelle St. Mesmin, not far from the site of Micy. 
 On the opposite shore of the Loire, by an example of respect for antiquity 
 very rare among us, the grotto where the body of St. Maximin was de- 
 posited has been restored and preserved by the care of M. Collin, chief 
 engineer of the navigation of the Loire, and has been since devoted to 
 divine service, and inaugurated by M. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, 13th 
 June 1858.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 135 
 
 A legend long popular in Touraine declares the fine 
 abbatial Church of St. Julian, near Tours, to mark the spot 
 where the conqueror of the Visigoths stopped to bestow 
 his alms, when, on horseback and with the crown on his 
 head, he came to offer thanksgivings to St. Martin for his 
 victory at Vouille. 1 
 
 Another tradition, recorded by Gregory of Tours, shows 
 still better the feeling which consoled and animated the 
 inhabitants of Gaul, when they saw their dreaded conquerors 
 bow before the sanctity of monks of their own race. This 
 tradition relates that, during the march of the army of 
 Clovis across Poitou to encounter Alaric, a band of Franks 
 attacked a monastery, governed by a holy monk named 
 Maxentius, 2 from Agde in Septimania ; one of the Bar- 
 barians had raised his sword to kill the abbot, when his 
 arm was suddenly paralysed, and his companions were 
 struck with blindness around him. Clovis, when he heard 
 of the miracle, hastened to the monk, and, on his knees, 
 begged mercy for the assassins. 3 The spot where the 
 victor of Syagrius and Alaric knelt before a Gallo-Roman 
 monk, and acknowledged a force more invincible than all 
 the Eoman or Barbarian arms, was shown for several cen- 
 turies in the church of the monastery. 
 
 But it was not always with such impunity that the monks 
 were exposed to contact with their ferocious conquerors, and 
 evil often fell upon them while representing religion, with 
 all the benefits and progress that flowed from it, to the eyes 
 of the sanguinary and covetous hordes, whose fury might 
 sometimes be repressed by the power of a Clovis, but whose 
 chiefs were ordinarily the first to give the example of vio- 
 lence. These Franks who were so zealous for orthodoxy, 
 
 i Martyrology of 1469, quoted by Salmon, Recueil des Chroniques de 
 Touraine, p. 53- 
 
 2 This monastery has become the town of St. Maixent (Deux Sevres). 
 
 3 " Qui locus in quo idem princeps ad pedes sancti viri jacuerat in eodem 
 monasterio usque in hodiernum diem apparet." — Act. SS. Bolland., d. 25 
 Junii, p. 172. Compare GREG. Tub., Mist., lib. ii. c. 37.
 
 136 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 and who boasted of fighting for the Church against the 
 Burgundians and Arian Visigoths, did not hesitate when 
 their passions were inflamed to subject the most orthodox 
 priests and monks to barbarous usage. Thus we see, in one 
 of their invasions of Burgundy, a solitary of the famous 
 monastery of the island Barbe, on the Saone near Lyons, 
 given up to the most cruel tortures by a detachment of 
 Franks who had invaded that sanctuary, called by some the 
 most ancient in Gaul. His name was Leobin, and he had 
 been a shepherd before he became a monk. All the other 
 Religious had fled except himself and another old monk, 
 who, urged by the invaders to show them where the wealth 
 of the monastery was hidden, answered that he did not 
 know, but that Leobin was acquainted with everything. 
 The Franks, finding that Leobin would not answer their 
 questions, put him to the torture with an ingenious cruelty 
 which seems to have been borrowed rather from Oriental 
 than Germanic habits. They tied cords tightly round his 
 head, beat him upon the soles of his feet, plunged him over 
 and over again into the water, drawing him out only when 
 he was almost suffocated. The courageous monk resisted all 
 these agonies without speaking. Then they left him more 
 dead than alive. He recovered, however, and was called 
 some years after to the episcopal see of Chartres, by Childe- 
 bert, one of the sons of Clovis, who had himself led the attack 
 to which the pious bishop had all but fallen victim. 1 
 
 Clovis had a sister named Albofied, who, baptized at the 
 same time as himself, had embraced conventual life. She 
 died soon after, and Clovis lamented her so deeply that St. 
 Remy had to remind him of the duties of his royal charge. 
 " There is no room," wrote the apostle of the Franks, " for 
 lamenting that sister whose virginal flower spreads forth its 
 
 1 "Dura Francorum dura ferocitatis contra Burgundiones bella concita- 
 re t. . . ." — Vit. S. Leobini, c. 5-14 ; ap. Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. i. Clovis himself 
 invaded Burgundy in 500 ; his sons in 523 and in 532. St. Leobin having 
 become bishop in 547, it is probable that his adventure at the Ile-Barbe 
 relates to the last of these invasions, directed by Clotaire and Childebert.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 137 
 
 perfume in the presence of God, and who has received a 
 celestial crown as the reward of her virginity. My lord, 
 chase this grief from your heart, your kingdom remains to 
 you to be governed. You are the head of nations, and the 
 weight of their government lies upon you." 
 
 He had also a daughter called Theodechild, who also, as 
 it is supposed, consecrated her virginity to God. Her 
 existence can be traced only by some scanty lines in the 
 works of Gregory of Tours and the other chronicles of the 
 time. They permit us to salute her in passing as a sweet 
 and consoling apparition amid the horrors and violence of 
 the awe in which she lived. She founded near the Gallo- 
 Roman cathedral city of Sens a monastery in honour of St. 
 Peter and St. Paul, in imitation of that which her father 
 and mother had built near Paris, to the south of the Seine, 
 and where St. Genevieve was buried. Theodechild estab- 
 lished monks in this foundation, which since took the name 
 of St. Pierre-le-Vif ; she chose her burial-place there, after 
 having made a grant to them of all that she had possessed 
 or acquired in France and Aquitaine — that is, on both sides 
 of the Loire. 2 An act of generous pity on the part of the 
 
 1 "Sacrata non est lugenda, quas fragrat in conspectu Domini flore vir- 
 gineo, et corona tecta quam pro virginitate suscepit. . . . Dominus rneus, 
 repelle de corde tuo tristitiam . . . regnum sagacius gubernate. . . . Mce- 
 roris torpore discusso . . . manet vobis regnum administrandum. . . . 
 Populorum caput estis et regimen sustinetus." — Ap. Labbe, Concil., t. iv. 
 p. 1268. Compare S. Greg. Tub., Hist, ii. 31. 
 
 2 "Monachos ut, sub abbatis imperio, Deo cunctis diebus deservirent. 
 . . . Quidquid de possesso seu de acquisito." This testament is to be 
 found among the collections of Odorannus, a learned monk of St. Pierre- 
 le-Vif in the eleventh century, published by Cardinal Mai, in vol. ix. of his 
 Spicilegium Romanum, p. 62. Fortunatus, the poet of the Merovingian 
 princesses, wrote the epitaph of Theodechild. Odorannus quotes another 
 epitaph as follows : — 
 
 " Hunc regina locum monachis construxit ab imo 
 
 Theuchildis rebus nobilitando suis. 
 Cujus nunc, licet hoc corpus claudatur in antro, 
 
 Spiritus astrigero vivit in axe Deo. 
 Implorans rectis pastoribus euge beatum 
 
 Det sapientibus hinc neumata digna Deus ! "
 
 138 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 royal foundress worthily inaugurated the annals of this 
 famous monastery. Basolus, who had been named duke of 
 Aquitaine by Gessalic, king of Aquitaine and the Visigoths, 
 was made prisoner by Clovis in a last combat, and was con- 
 ducted chained to Sens. While his guards led him to the 
 dungeon where he expected to be put to death, he met 
 Theodechild, the daughter of his conqueror, upon his way. 
 She immediately resolved to beg the life and liberty of the 
 captive. Clovis long resisted her entreaties, but yielded at 
 length on condition that the vanquished chief should be 
 sent to the monastery which his daughter had just estab- 
 lished, and should have his head shaven and become a 
 monk. Basolus appears to have adopted his new profession 
 willingly, for he gave to St. Peter all the estates he pos- 
 sessed in Auvergne, and thus founded the monastery and 
 town of Mauriac in the mountains of Cantal. 1 
 
 These monasteries of Auvergne and elsewhere where the 
 victors and vanquished often met, were already an asylum 
 for all kinds of unfortunate persons. Gregory of Tours has 
 preserved to us the memory of a young Arverne slave, Por- 
 tianus, who, flying from the severity of his master, took 
 refuge in a monastery : the Barbarian pursued and seized him, 
 but, being suddenly struck with blindness, restored the fugi- 
 tive to the sanctuary in order to obtain the cure he desired. 
 The slave became a monk and then abbot, and governed 
 the monastery, from which he came forth one day to confront 
 and reprimand the French king Thierry, son of Clovis, in his 
 destroying march through Auvergne. 2 After his death, the 
 abbey, which his sanctity had made illustrious, took his name, 
 and transmitted it to the existing town of St. Pour^ain. 3 
 
 It is to Gregory of Tours again that we owe the knowledge 
 
 1 " Mauriac is now an under- prefecture of Cantal. This monastery was 
 restored in 1 100 by Raoul of Escorailles, who placed nuns there, stipulating 
 that all the abbesses should be chosen from his descendants."- — Branche, 
 Monasteres d' Auvergne, p. 63. Compare Mabillon, Annal., lib. vi. c. 30. 
 
 2 GREG. TURON., Vit. Patr., c. 5. 
 
 3 A district country town in Allier.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 139 
 
 how Thierry, king of Metz, the first-born of Clovis, and 
 chief of these Ripuarian Franks who formed the kingdom of 
 Austrasia, father of that Theodebert who was the protector of 
 St. Maurus, received humbly the free remonstrances which 
 the abbot Nizier addressed to him publicly against the im- 
 morality of his life. Far from having any grudge against 
 him, this king elevated him to the episcopal see of Treves. 
 He sent several of his principal officers to the monastery to 
 bring the abbot to Treves. At the last stage from the town, 
 these lords turned their horses loose in the midst of the har- 
 vest. At this sight the abbot Nizier said to them indig- 
 nantly, " Withdraw your horses immediately from the harvest 
 of the poor, or I will excommunicate you." " What ! " said 
 the Franks, amazed at the boldness of the monk, " thou art 
 not yet a bishop, and already thou threatenest us with excom- 
 munication ? " " The king," said the monk, " has brought 
 me from my monastery to make me a bishop : let the will of 
 God be done ; but as for the will of the king, it shall not be 
 done when it is set upon evil, at least while I can hinder 
 it." And thereupon he himself drove the horses out of the 
 field which they were destroying. During all his episcopate, 
 King Thierry and his son Theodebert, who were of dissolute 
 habits, like all the Merovingians, had to bear the apostolical 
 zeal of Nizier. He always said, " I am ready to die for 
 justice." He also braved the terrible Clotaire, to whom he 
 refused the sacraments, and whose death alone delivered him 
 from the exile to which he had been sentenced. 1 
 
 Clodimir, king of Orleans, the second of the sons of Clovis, 
 was similarly confronted by the noble form of a monk, 
 Avitus, abbot of that monastery of Micy, in the Orleannais, 
 which his father had founded, who appeared before him 
 
 1 "Expellite quantocius equos vesteos a segete pauperis, alioquin re- 
 movebo vos a communione mea. . . . Qusenam est hsec causa quam loqueris ? 
 Adhuc cum episcopalem apicem non es adeptus, et jam. . . . Fiat voluntas 
 Dei : nam et regis voluntas in omnibus malis, me obsistente, non adim- 
 plebiter. . . . Libenter moriar pro justitia." — GREG. Tueon., Be Vitis 
 Patrum, c. 17.
 
 140 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 when, on the eve of undertaking his second campaign 
 against the Burgundians, he desired to disembarrass himself 
 of his prisoner, King Sigismund, who had vainly sought a 
 refuge in his beloved cloister of Agaune. The monk came 
 to remind him of the rights of pity, and to predict the 
 sentence of divine justice. " king ! " said the abbot, 
 " think of God : if thou givest up thy project, if thou art 
 merciful to these captives, God will be with thee, and thou 
 shalt conquer again ; but if thou slayest them, thou and thine 
 shall meet the same fate." * Clodimir answered, " It is a 
 fool's advice to bid a man leave his enemy behind him." 
 He killed Sigismund, his wife, and two children, and threw 
 them into a well. But the prediction of Avitus was accom- 
 plished. Clodimir was vanquished and slain ; his head, 
 fixed at the end of a spear, was carried in triumph along 
 the Burgundian ranks. The fate of his children is known ; 
 how his brothers Childebert and Clotaire, fortifying them- 
 selves by an expression which escaped from their mother 
 Clotilde, who had said that she would rather see her grand- 
 children dead than shaven? massacred the two eldest ; and 
 
 1 " Si respiciens Deum emendaveris consilium tuum, ut hos homines 
 interfici Don patriaris, erit Deus tecum." — Greg. Tuk., Hist, lib. iii. c. 5. 
 
 2 It is probable that this had nothing to do with the monastic tonsure, 
 but simply concerned the shortening of that long hair which was, with 
 the Franks, as it is with the peasant of Lower Brittany at the present 
 time, the sign of freedom, and was a special attribute of the Merovingians, 
 and token of their dynasty and hereditary right. " Solemne est Francorum 
 regibus nunquam tonderi. . . . Caesaries toto decenter eis in humeros pro- 
 pendet." — Agathi^e Histor., ap. THIERRY, BAcits Meroving., t. ii. p. 17. 
 "A Merovingian prince could suffer this temporary loss in two different 
 ways : either the hair was cut in the manner of the Franks— that is to 
 say, to the top of the neck — or cut very short in the Roman fashion ; and 
 this kind of degradation, more humiliating than the other, was generally 
 accompanied by the ecclesiastical tonsure." — Ibid. Moreover, the kings 
 and grandees of the Merovingian era learned early and practised often the 
 odious custom of imposing forced vocations on the dispossessed princes, 
 and inflicting the tonsure upon them against their will. The history of 
 Merovee, son of Chilperic, and husband of Brunehaut, degraded by the 
 tonsure at the order of Fredegonde, is universally known. Another ex- 
 ample, still more striking, is that of Thierry III., king of Neustria, deposed
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I4I 
 
 how the third escaped their knife only by receiving the 
 monastic tonsure and the name of St. Cloud, one of the 
 best-known monastic names in our history. 
 
 These ferocious assassins nevertheless yielded in their 
 turn to the influence of the lessons and examples given 
 by the monks. Childebert especially would have been the 
 monastic king par excellence could we believe all the legends, 
 which probably concentrate in him various anecdotes rela- 
 tive to other princes of the same name or race. Some of 
 these are worthy of recollection from their authentic indi- 
 vidual characteristics, or from the light they throw on con- 
 temporary history. Such a tale is that which informs us 
 how the first king of Paris, when crossing Berry to meet 
 the Visigoths, paused at the door of the cell occupied by 
 the monk Eusice, and offered to him fifty pieces of gold. 
 " Why do you give this to me ? " said the old recluse ; " give 
 it to the poor ; it is enough for me to be able to pray to 
 God for my sins. However, march on, you will be victorious, 
 and then you can do all you would." Childebert bent his 
 heavy locks under the hand of the solitary to receive his 
 blessing, and promised, if his prophecy was fulfilled, to re- 
 turn and build him a church. The prediction was fulfilled, 
 and the king kept his promise. After he had defeated the 
 Visigoths and taken Narbonne their capital, he built, 1 upon 
 
 in 670 by the great rebels against the tyranny of Ebroin, and succeeded 
 by his brother Childeric II. His brother asked him what should be done 
 to him ; he answered, " What they will : unjustly deposed, I wait the 
 judgment of the King of heaven." "Tunc ad monasterium S. Martyris 
 Dionysii residere est jussus ibique est salvatus, donee crinem quem ampu- 
 taverant enutriret : et Deus coeli, quem se judicem est habere professus, 
 feliciter postmodum ipsum permisit regnare." — Anon. Jiduen. Yit. S. Leo- 
 degarii, c. 3. 
 
 1 At Selles in Berry, near Romorantin. " Quid mihi ista profers ? . . . 
 Vade et victoriam obtinebis, et quod volueris ages." — Greg. Turon., De 
 Glor. Confess., c. 82. " Crinigeram cervicem sancti manibus . . . iriclinat." 
 — DOM Bouquet, iii. 129. Eusice began his career as a monk at Perrecy, 
 in Burgundy {Patriciacum), which at a later period became one of the most 
 celebrated priories of the Benedictine order.
 
 142 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 the banks of the Cher, a monastery and church, in which 
 the solitary was buried. This donation was increased by 
 the offering made by the noble Vulfin, one of the principal 
 Franks of the army, who, in the distribution of rewards made 
 by Childebert at the end of his campaign, having asked and 
 obtained a grant of crown lands, or what was already called 
 an honour, upon the same banks of the Cher, hastened to 
 pay this tribute to the holy monk by whose fame he had 
 been fascinated. 1 
 
 This Eusice or Eusitius must have been, according to the 
 evidence of his name, of Roman or Gallo-Roman origin, like 
 all the other monks whom we have noted up to this point ; 
 but Childebert entertained friendly relations of the same 
 kind with another monk whose name, Marculph, points him 
 out as a Frank, and who was the first of all the holy monks 
 whose name betrayed that origin. 2 He was of a rich and 
 powerful race established in the country of Bayeux, and the 
 union of the proud independence of the Frank with the 
 rigorous austerity of the monk is everywhere apparent in 
 the narrative of his life. He had devoted the first half of 
 his existence to preaching the faith to the inhabitants of 
 Cotentin ; from thence we see him set out, mounted on his 
 ass, to meet King Childebert on the day of a great festival, 
 in the midst of his feudal lords, and asking of him a grant 
 of land on which to build a monastery where the king and 
 the commonwealth of the Franks might be prayed for. It 
 was not the habitual adulation of the Romans of the Lower 
 Empire which he used to gain the monarch's ear. "Mercy 
 
 1 ' ' Vulfinus ejusdem generis vir nobilissimus . . . remunerationis suae 
 premium . . . prsestolabatur . . . nihil petiit sibi dari nisi super Chari 
 fluvium quern rex habebat honorem." — Vit. S. Eusicii, ap. Labbe, Nov. 
 Bill. MSS.,ii. 375. 
 
 2 Among the holy monks whose name indicates a German origin, I see 
 before Marculph or Marcoul, who died in 558, only Theodoric or Thierry, 
 who died in 533, a disciple of St. Remy, the first great abbot of the great 
 monastery near Reims, which retains his name, and from which William 
 of St. Thierry, the annalist of the twelfth century, derives his.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 143 
 
 and peace to thee, from Jesus Christ," lie said, " illustrious 
 prince : thou art seated on the throne of royal majesty, but 
 thou shouldest not forget that thou art mortal, and that 
 pride must not make thee despise thy fellow-creatures. 
 Recall to thy mind that text of the wise man : ' Men have 
 made thee a prince ; be not exalted, but be as one of them 
 in the midst of them.' Be just even in thy clemency, and 
 mix pity even with thy justice." Childebert granted his 
 request. But scarcely had he accomplished this first foun- 
 dation, when, for the better enjoyment of the charms of 
 solitude, Marculph took refuge in an island on the coast of 
 Brittany, inhabited only by a handful of fishers. A nume- 
 rous band of Saxon pirates having made a descent upon 
 this island, the poor Bretons came trembling and kneeling 
 to the Frank monk. " Be of good courage," he said to 
 them ; " if you trust my counsel, take your weapons, march 
 against your enemy, and the God who overthrew Pharaoh 
 will fight for you." They listened to him, put the Saxons 
 to flight, and a second foundation marks the spot of that 
 victory achieved over the piratical pagans by innocence and 
 faith, inspired by the courage of a monk. 1 
 
 These Saxons who troubled the solitude of the holy 
 Marculph in his island had long invaded and sacked Great 
 Britain. To escape from their bloody yoke an army of 
 
 1 " Ex nobilissimis ditissimisque christianissimis Bajocassinis civibus 
 exortus. . . . Asello cui sedere consueverat ascenso. . . . Cum Rex niulta 
 suorum procerum turba. . . . Licet in solio majestatis sedeas, tamen te 
 unum mortalium esse considerans. . . . Tibi subditis et cum justitia 
 parcis, et cum pietate corrigis. . . . Pro tua totiusque reipublicse salute 
 sedulo oraturi. . . . Piratse ... ex inexhaustis scaturiginibus gentis 
 Saxonicse prorumpentes. ... Si meis vultis acquiescere monitis, arma 
 constanter capessite. . . . Pro vobis ipse pugnabit, qui quondam Pharao- 
 nem," &c— Acta SS. 0. S. B., torn. i. pp. 120, 124. This island, called 
 Agnus or Agna in the two lives of St. Marculph, is probably that of Harme 
 or Herms, near Guernsey. The translation of the relics of St. Marcoul, in 
 the ninth century, proved the foundation of the great monastery of Corbeni 
 (Corpus Benedictum), between Laon and Reims, where the kings of France 
 went to pray after their coronation and obtained power to cure scrofula, 
 saying, " The king touches thee, God cures thee."
 
 144 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 British monks, guiding an entire tribe of men and women, 
 freemen and slaves, embarked in vessels not made of wood, 
 but of skins sewn together, 1 singing or rather howling, under 
 their full sails, the lamentations of the Psalmist, 2 and came 
 to seek an asylum in Armorica, and make for themselves 
 another country. This emigration lasted more than a 
 century ; and threw a new, but equally Celtic population 
 into that portion of Gaul which Roman taxation and 
 Barbarian invasion had injured least, and where the ancient 
 Celtic worship had retained most vitality. 
 
 With the exception of three or four episcopal cities, 
 almost all the Armorican peninsula was still pagan in the 
 sixth century. All the symbols and rites, the myths and 
 arcanas of paganism seemed to be concentrated in that wild 
 and misty country, where the avenues and circles of erect 
 stones, the dolmens and menhirs, rose, sometimes amid im- 
 mense forests of oak and holly, or moors covered by impene- 
 trable thickets of furze, sometimes upon the high granite 
 
 1 " Quin et Arrnoricus piratam Saxona tract us 
 Sperabat ; cui pelle salum sulcare Britannum 
 Ludus, et assu to glaucum mare findere lembo." 
 
 — SlD. Apollin., Paneg. ad Avitum, v. 369. 
 
 Festus Avienus, who lived at the end of the fourth century, in his 
 curious poem, entitled Ora Maritima, speaks also of these leather boats 
 used by the British : — 
 
 " Navigia junctis semper apt ant. pellibus, 
 Corioque vastum saspe percurrunt salum." 
 
 — Edit. Panckoucke, p. no. 
 
 Legendary lore has sometimes transformed them into troughs of stone, 
 which, after having been used as beds by the holy missionaries during 
 their solitary life in Great Britain, served them as skiffs to cross the 
 British Channel, and land in Armorica. See the legends of St. Ninnoc 
 and St. Budoc, in the Propre or special prayers of the ancient dioceses of 
 Dol and Leon. Albert le Grand, Vie des SS. de Bretagne, ed. Miorcec 
 de Kerdanet, 1839. 
 
 2 "Cum ululatu magno ceu celeusmatis vice, hoc modo sub velorum 
 sinibus cantantes : Dedisti nos tanquam oves escarum." — GlLDAS, De Excidio 
 Britannia.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 1 45 
 
 rocks of that coast, rent and hollowed out by the unwearied 
 ocean tides which beat upon it from the north, south, and 
 west. In one of the isles of this extremity of Gaul, Homer 
 and Plutarch have placed the prison where Saturn was held 
 captive by his son Jupiter, under the guard of the giant 
 Briareus. Here too, according to most of the poets, was 
 the dwelling-place of the genii and the heroes, the garden 
 of the Hesperides and the Elysian fields. Elsewhere, but 
 still in the same archipelago of almost inaccessible islands, 
 the Druidesses celebrated at night, and by torchlight, those 
 mysteries, which, like those of Eleusis and Samothrace, were 
 shut out from the approach of man, and filled with terror 
 the soul of the boatman who beheld them from afar. Human 
 sacrifices, and especially those of children, were practised 
 here, as among the Carthaginians, in honour of Saturn. 1 
 Other priestesses, vowed like the Roman Vestals to per- 
 petual virginity, and, like the German Velleda, invested 
 with the gift of prophecy, raised and calmed the sea at their 
 pleasure, cured diseases, and foretold future events to those 
 who were bold enough to consult them in their island of 
 Sein, situated at the furthest point of Armorica, upon 
 that frightful coast of Cornouaille, bristling with rocks, in 
 that bay which is still called the Bay of the Dead, and 
 where popular tradition sees the skeletons of the ship- 
 wrecked wandering by night asking a shroud and a 
 grave. 2 
 
 Tradition has never failed to people the coasts of Armo- 
 rica with phantoms. It was there, according to Claudian, 
 that Ulysses offered libations of blood to the manes of 
 his fathers, troubling the repose of the dead ; there that 
 the husbandman hears incessantly the plaintive accents 
 and faint sound made by the manes whose flight agitates 
 
 1 See the legend of St. Riok. 
 
 2 Artemidorus, apud Strabon., lib. iv. p. 198 ; Pomponius Mela, 
 lib. iii. c. 6 ; Hersart de la Villemarque, Chants Populaires de la 
 Bretagne, t. ii., La Fiancee en Enfer. 
 
 VOL. II. K
 
 146 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 the air, and where pale phantoms wander before his 
 terrified eyes. 
 
 " Est locus extremum qua pandit Gallia littus, 
 Oceani prsetentus aquis, ubi fertur Ulysses, 
 Sanguine libato, populum movisse silentem. 
 Ulic umbrarum tenui stridore volantum 
 Flebilis auditur questus, simulacra coloni 
 Pallida defunctasque vident migrare figuras." * 
 
 This tradition lasted till the end of the sixth century, 
 and extended to the extremities of the Roman world. Pro- 
 copius, the contemporary of the sons of Clovis, narrates 
 that the fishermen who inhabited these coasts had been 
 exempted by the conquering Franks from the payment of 
 tribute, because they were obliged to convey the souls of 
 the defunct to Great Britain. " Towards midnight," says 
 the Byzantine historian, " some one knocks at their door ; 
 they are called in a low voice ; they rise and hasten to the 
 shore ; they find there strange boats, in which they see no 
 one, but which they must row across the sea ; and these 
 boats are so full of invisible passengers that they seem 
 ready to sink, and are scarcely a finger-breadth above the 
 level of the water. In less than an hour the journey is 
 accomplished, though in their own boats they could scarcely 
 do it in a night. Arrived at the end, the vessels are so 
 entirely emptied that you can see their keel. All remain 
 invisible ; but the sailors hear a voice which calls the 
 travelling souls one by one, addressing each by the title 
 which it has borne, and adding to this the name of its 
 father, or, if a woman, of her husband." 2 
 
 1 In Rufinum, lib. i. v. 123. 
 
 2 "Intempesta nocte . . . se ad opus obscura voce acciri audiunt . . . 
 apprebendunt remos et naves sentiunt tot vectoribus onustas ut ad sum- 
 mam usque tabulam immersse. . . . Nullum vident nee navigantem nee 
 navi egredientem : solum asserunt audire se vocem, quse vectorum singu- 
 lorum nomina tradere excipientibus. ... Si quse feminse . . . viros . . . 
 nominatim inclamant." — Procop., De BeUo Gothico, lib. iv. c. 20.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 147 
 
 Upon this soil, long adopted by legendary poetry as its 
 special possession, a swarm of monastic missionaries de- 
 scended at the head of a population already Christian. They 
 came to ask shelter from their brethren, issued from the 
 same race and speaking the same language. The leaders 
 of the British monks who disembarked with their army of 
 disciples upon the Armorican shore, undertook to pay for 
 the hospitality they received by the gift of the true faith, 
 and they succeeded. They gave their name and worship 
 to their new country. They preached Christianity in the 
 language common to all the Celtic races, and resembling 
 that which is still spoken by the peasants of Lower Brittany. 
 They implanted in the Armorican Britain, in this Brittany 
 of ours, that faith which remains so firmly rooted there. 
 " The sun," says a Breton monk of the seventeenth century, 
 apostrophising one of these prophets from beyond the sea, 
 " has never lighted a country where, since you banished 
 idolatry, the true faith has been held with more constant 
 and unchanging faithfulness. For thirteen centuries no 
 kind of infidelity has stained the language by means of 
 which you preached Jesus Christ, and the man has yet to 
 be born who has heard a Breton preach in the Breton 
 tongue any other than the Catholic faith." * 
 
 This peaceful conquest was not made without resistance. 
 The British monks encountered enemies upon the soil of 
 Gaul almost as terrible as those from whose persecution 
 they fled. Celtic paganism defended itself desperately. The 
 bards attempted to rouse the people against the strangers 
 who audaciously brought a new religion into the inviolable 
 sanctuary of Druidism. The prophetic menaces launched 
 by one of these poets of the old religion against the new 
 
 1 " Le soleil n'a jamais eclaire de canton oil ayt paru une plus constante 
 et invariable fidelity dans la vraye foy, depuis que vous en avez banni 
 l'idolastrie. II y a treize siecles qu'aucune espece d'infidelite' n'a souille" 
 la langue qui vous a servy d'organe pour prescber Jesus-Cbrist, et il est a 
 naistre qui ayt vu un Breton bretonnant prescher une autre religion que 
 la Catbolique." — Fatber Maunoir Epistre au glorieux St. Corentin, 1659.
 
 148 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 apostles has often been quoted : " A day comes when the 
 men of Christ shall be pursued, when they shall be hunted 
 like deer. They shall die by bands and battalions. Then 
 the mill-wheel shall grind small ; the blood of the monks 
 shall serve as water to turn it." 1 
 
 Thirteen centuries passed before new pagans, a thousand 
 times more atrocious and less excusable than the compatriots 
 of the bard Gwenchlan, appeared to verify that prophecy. 
 But in olden time it seemed to die out under the success 
 and blessings with which the British monks had covered 
 Armorica. 
 
 They also carried with them their poetry, which shortly 
 superseded the Druidical poetry, purifying without effacing 
 it. For they also, faithful to the immemorial traditions 
 of the Celtic race, had bards in their ranks. The famous 
 Taliesin, who took the title of prince of the bards, prophets, 
 and Druids of the West, and who is supposed to have been 
 converted by the monk Gildas, accompanied them into 
 Armorica. 2 But bards who have since taken their place 
 among the Saints were pointed out among this number. 
 Such was Sulio, or Ysulio, who, while still a child playing 
 in the gardens of his father, the Lord of Powys, heard 
 monks passing harp in hand, singing the praises of God, 
 and was so fascinated with the beauty of their hymns that 
 he followed them to learn how to compose and sing these 
 noble songs. His brothers hastened to announce his flight 
 to their father, who sent thirty armed men, with orders to 
 slay the abbot and bring back his son. But the child had 
 already gone to Armorica and found refuge in the monastery 
 of which, at a later period, he was prior. 3 
 
 1 HERSART de LA VlLLEMARQUE, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, vol. 
 i. pp. 20, 38. 
 
 2 INGOMAR, Vit. Judicaelis, apud D. MORICE, Hist, de Bretagne, proofs, 
 vol. i. Compare La Villemarque, p. 9, and Kerdanet, editor of Albert 
 le Grand, p. 218. 
 
 3 DOM LOBINEAU, Vie des Saints de Bretagne, p. 253 ; LA VlLLEMARQUE, 
 op. cit., p. 11,
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 149 
 
 Such was also Herve, whose name ought to take place 
 among the sweetest recollections of Christian poetry. He 
 was the son of the bard Hyvernion, who had appeared 
 among the numerous minstrels whom the Merovingian 
 kings loved to collect round their table. 1 This island bard 
 had charmed King Childebert ; " he was," says the old 
 Breton legend, " so perfect a musician and composer of 
 ballads and songs." 2 He had come to Armorica to marry 
 a young orphan of Leon, whom an angel had showed him 
 in a dream, saying to him, " You shall meet her to-morrow, 
 upon your way, near the fountain ; her name is Eivanonn." 
 He met her accordingly ; she was of the same profession as 
 himself, and sang, " Although I am but a poor flower on the 
 waterside, it is I who am called the Little Queen of the 
 Fountain." He married her, and of this marriage was born 
 a blind child, whom his parents named Herve (that is, 
 bitter), and who, from the age of seven, went about the 
 country seeking alms and singing the hymns composed by 
 his mother. The blind orphan was afterwards initiated by 
 his uncle into cenobitical life, and was placed at the head 
 of the school adjoining his monastery, where he could put 
 in practice the aphorism which Breton tradition ascribes to 
 him, " It is better to instruct a little child than to gather wealth 
 for him ; " 3 and where he taught his pupils songs, of which 
 the modern Breton still retains some trace in the following 
 childish version : — 
 
 " Approach, my little children ; come and hear a new 
 song which I have composed expressly for you ; take pains 
 to remember it entirely. 
 
 1 The Italian Fortunatus has preserved to us the remembrance of these 
 concerts, where, with lyre in hand, he took his part, whilst "the Bar- 
 barian," says he, "played on the harp, the Greek on the instrument of 
 Homer, and the Breton on the Celtic rote."— La Villemarqtje, Legende 
 Celtique, p. 232. 
 
 2 Albert le GRAND, Vie des Saints de Bretagne, ed. Kerdanet, p. 313. 
 
 3 The following is another of his aphorisms : " He who does not answer 
 to the rudder must answer to the rocks."
 
 I50 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 " When you awake in your bed, offer your heart to the 
 good God, make the sign of the cross, and say with faith, 
 hope, and love : 
 
 " Say : My God, I give thee my heart, my body, and my 
 soul ; make me to be a good man, or else to die before my 
 time. 
 
 " When you see a raven fly, think that the devil is as 
 black and as wicked ; when you see a little white dove fly, 
 think that your angel is as sweet and as white." 
 
 After the conversion of the country, the missionary 
 bishops, compatriots of the father of Herve, would have 
 drawn him from his retreat to confer the priesthood upon 
 him, and to give him a seat in their synods. But he 
 always preferred his little monastery hidden in the woods. 
 Although blind, he had himself been the architect of his 
 little church, the care of which he intrusted to a very 
 young girl, his niece and cousin, educated by his mother, 
 and named Christina, " a Christian in name as in fact," x 
 whom the Breton legend, placing her amid the disciples 
 of the saint, compares to a little white dove among the 
 crows. 2 Three days before his death, when secluded in the 
 church which he had built, he was thrown into an ecstasy. 
 The eyes of the poor blind man opened to contemplate the 
 heaven over his head, and he began to sing a last song, 
 which is still repeated in his country : — 
 
 " I see heaven opened ; heaven, my country, I would fly 
 to it. ... I see there my father and mother in glory and 
 beauty ; I see my brethren, the men of my own country. 
 Choirs of angels, supported by wings, float round their 
 heads like so many bees in a flowery field." 
 
 The third day after this vision, he told Christina to make 
 his bed, not as usually, but with a stone for the pillow and 
 ashes for the couch. " When the black angel shall come 
 to seek me, let him find me lying upon ashes." Christina, 
 
 1 Albert le Grand, p. 321, ed. Miorcec. 
 ■ La Villemarque, p. 279.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I5 1 
 
 while she obeyed, said to him, " My uncle, if you love me, 
 ask God that I may follow you without delay, as the boat 
 follows the current." Her prayer was granted. At the 
 moment when Herve expired, the little Christina, " throwing 
 herself at his feet, died there also." * Herve, the blind monk, 
 continues to our own day the patron of mendicant singers, 
 who still chant his legend in Breton verse ; and there has 
 long been shown, in a little church in Lower Brittany, a 
 worm-eaten oaken cradle, in which the bard and his poet- 
 wife, whom God made the parents of Herve, put him to 
 sleep with their songs. 3 This poetry is surely of as much 
 value as that of Claudian and the Druids. 
 
 But we must leave the too attractive regions of poetry to 
 return to the domain of history, which is often, and here 
 especially, to be distinguished with difficulty from that of 
 the legend. Without entering into details of the immigra- 
 tion of these Bretons into Armorica, it is enough to say that 
 fifty years after their appearance the Gospel reigned in the 
 peninsula. Monks, either cenobites or solitary, held the 
 place of all the other clergy for several centuries, and 
 exercised over the soul and imagination of the Armorican 
 people a priestly empire which still continues. Innumer- 
 able monasteries rose on all the principal points of the 
 territory, especially on the sea-coast. Among those which 
 date back to this age, we must note Khuys, which was 
 afterwards made illustrious by becoming the retreat of 
 Abelard. It was founded at that time upon the peninsula 
 of Morbihan, by one of the most distinguished British 
 
 1 Albert le Grand, p. 321. 
 
 2 At St. Jean-Keran, parish of Tre'flaoue'nan. 
 
 3 This beautiful legend of St. Herve, which is so popular in Bretagne, 
 formerly related with charming simplicity, from the ancient Breton brevi- 
 aries, by the Dominican Albert de Morlaix (1636), and reproduced after 
 him by the Bollandists, in volume v. of June, p. 365, has been recently 
 revised, with as much taste as learning, by the Viscount Hersart de la 
 Villemarqu£, member of the Institute, in his Legende Celtique (St. Brieuc, 
 1859). To this is added the Breton version of the legend in verse, and 
 some poems attributed to the saint.
 
 152 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 emigrants, the abbot Gildas, called the Wise, and this 
 abbey reckoned among its monks the Saxon Dunstan, who 
 had been carried away from his native island by pirates, 
 and became, under the name of Goustan, the special patron 
 of sailors, as is shown by the verses still sung by the sailors' 
 wives of Croisic : — 
 
 "St. Goustan 
 
 Notre ami, 
 Ramenez nos maris : 
 
 St. Goustan 
 
 Notre amant, 
 Ramenez nos parents." 
 
 At the extreme point of the peninsula and of Gaul, on 
 the height of the promontory so fitly named Finisterre, rose 
 an abbey in honour of St. Matthew the Evangelist, whose 
 head had been stolen from Egypt by the Armorican navi- 
 gators, and which long bore the name of St. Matthew of the 
 Land's End. The terrible rocks at its feet are still called 
 the Monks, and an archipelago of neighbouring islands has 
 received the Breton name of Aber-Beniguet (or Benedict), 
 in memory, perhaps, of the patriarch of the monks of the 
 West. Those of St. Matthew kept up a lighthouse for the 
 safety of mariners in these dangerous seas, opposite that 
 terrible strait of the Raz, which no man, according to the 
 Breton saying, ever passed without fear or grief, and which 
 has inspired the well-known distich : " My God, help me 
 to cross the Raz, for my boat is so little, and the sea is 
 so great," l 
 
 But the most ancient and celebrated of all these sanctu- 
 aries was that of Landevenec, which became the most active 
 centre for the extension of Christianity, as well as of 
 manual and literary labour, in Western Gaul. Its founder 
 
 1 Albert le Grand, pp. 203 and 209. Compare Vic de St. Tanneguy, p. 
 771, who founded this abbey, and is supposed to have been one of the 
 family of Chastel, of which Tanneguy du Chastel was the great repre- 
 sentative in the fifteenth century.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I 5 3 
 
 was Guennole^ born in Armorica of an emigrant father, 
 who, after having passed three years upon a rock beaten by 
 the waves, chose for his disciples a wooded site hidden in a 
 creek of the road of Brest, with an exposure towards the 
 rising sud, sheltered from the terrible west wind, where the 
 sea sighed at the feet of delicious gardens. His biographer 
 has preserved to us the impression made upon the Breton 
 monks by this dwelling-place, which appeared a paradise to 
 them after the bleak and cold coasts where they had been 
 hitherto established. " One could not die there," he says ; 
 and, in order that the Religious might see the end of their 
 pilgrimage, Guennole" had to change their habitation to a 
 site further off, but still to the east, where death was re- 
 stored to its rights, but where, for long, the monks died 
 only according to their age. 1 
 
 The name of Guennole" continues popular in Brittany, 
 like that of many other holy abbots, come from beyond 
 seas, or born in Armorica of emigrant parents. It is 
 impossible to enumerate their works. 2 Let us only state 
 
 1 "Locus erat amoenissimus, ab onini vento intangibilis nisi ab orien- 
 tali, velut quidam paradisus ad ortum solis conspicuus. . . . Primum per 
 annos singulos in flores et germina prorumpens, ultima folia amittens 
 . . . bortus omnigeno fiorum colore decoratus. . . . In eo ubi erant loco 
 mori non poterant, licet fierent seniores. Rogato itaque super his S. 
 Guingaleo, transierunt in alium locum ad ortum solis. . . . Extunc vero 
 inceperunt assumi a Domino e senioribus patres, qui primi erant." — 
 GUEDESTAN, Vita S. Winevaloci, ap. BOLLAND., t. i. Martii, pp. 259, 260. 
 It is supposed that Guennole" had been educated by St. Patrick, the 
 apostle of Ireland, and that the rule followed at Landevenec was that 
 of St. Columba, or Colomb-Kill, of whom there shall be further mention. 
 The Benedictine rule was only introduced there under Louis le Debon- 
 naire. 
 
 2 This is so much the less to be regretted, as the subject has been nobly 
 treated by M. de la Borderie, in his Discours sur les Saints de Bretagne, at 
 the Congress of Lorient, October 2, 1848. He has collected there the best 
 part of the varied and instructive details interspersed through the lives of 
 the saints published in the Acta SS. by Mabillon and by the Bollandists. 
 The verdict of the latter upon all the Breton legends ought not, however, 
 to be omitted : " Ad stuporem magis quam ad imitationem collecta." — 
 Tom. vi. Junii, p. 572.
 
 154 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 that the principal communities formed by these monastic 
 missionaries were soon transformed into bishoprics. Such, 
 especially, was Dol, destined to become the ecclesiastical 
 metropolis of Armorica, and founded by Samson, perhaps 
 the most illustrious among the numerous apostles of the 
 British emigration. Samson of Dol, and his six suffragans, 
 all monks, missionaries, and bishops like himself — namely, 
 Paul of Leon, Tugdual of Treguier, Corentin of Quimper, 
 Paterae of Vannes, Brieuc and Malo, of the two dioceses 
 which have taken and retained their names — have been 
 sometimes called the Seven Saints of Brittany. An anec- 
 dote, told of the Bishop Paterae, may be quoted as a curious 
 example of the subordination of the suffragans to their 
 metropolitan : Having received at Vannes the letter of St. 
 Samson, convoking a provincial synod, " as he was taking 
 off his boots, having still a boot upon one foot, he read it on 
 the moment, and, incontinently getting to horse, followed 
 the messengers, and presented himself at the synod with 
 one boot ! Ml Paterae, as his name indicates, was the only 
 one of these saints who was not of insular British race, as 
 Vannes was the only diocese among the seven which did not 
 owe its origin to a monastery of British emigrants. 2 
 
 Although Armorica, thus converted and repeopled by 
 British emigrants, had never been entirely conquered by 
 the Pranks, and was governed by the native and indepen- 
 dent Counts of Vannes, Cornouaille Leon, and Treguier, it 
 recognised in some degree the supremacy of Childebert, 
 whose share of the territories of Clovis extended farthest to 
 the west. 
 
 This incomplete and ephemeral supremacy of the Frank 
 kings, 3 which was afterwards re-established with difficulty 
 
 1 Albert le Grand, p. 248. 
 
 2 Nantes and Eennes were of Gallo-Roman origin, and dependencies of 
 the metropolis of Tours. 
 
 3 "Francorum quidem regibus cfetera subditi, at semper vacui tributo," 
 says Procopius in the passage quoted above on the inhabitants of the sea- 
 shore.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 155 
 
 by Dagobert and Louis the Debonnaire, seems to have been 
 specially recognised and appealed to by the British mission- 
 aries. Tugdual, abbot and founder of Treguier, was raised 
 to the episcopate only with the consent of Childebert, in 
 whose court he was at the time of his election. The same 
 was the case in respect to Paul Aurelian, first bishop of 
 Leon, and recognised as such by Childebert, upon the ex- 
 press request of the count of the province. 1 Finally, the 
 metropolitan Samson, being still only abbot of Dol, had to 
 interfere in his own person with Childebert to obtain the 
 deliverance of one of the native princes, who had been 
 robbed of his inheritance and imprisoned by a tyrannical 
 lieutenant of the Frank king. 2 Childebert, in spite of the 
 violent resistance of the queen, whose antrustion this officer 
 was, granted the prayer of the British missionary, and over- 
 whelmed him with gifts and honours. He had even, accord- 
 ing to tradition, placed in perpetuity, under the sway of the 
 monastery of Dol, various of the Channel islands, among 
 others that of Jersey, then deserted, and which has since, 
 thanks to monastic culture, become a marvel of fertility and 
 agricultural wealth, with a population six times more dense 
 than that of France. 
 
 By one of these contrasts so frequent in the history of 
 the Merovingians, the Queen Ultrogoth, whom the legend 
 of St. Samson represents as furious against the monastic 
 missionary, is extolled by others as the faithful coadjutrice 
 of the monks. 3 She is always associated by the gratitude 
 
 1 BOLLAND., t. ii. Mart., p. 119. "The holy abbot Armel, one of the 
 apostles of Lower Brittany, lived for seven years in the neighbourhood of 
 Childebert." — Propr. Yenetense, ap. Albert le Grand, p. 523. 
 
 2 "Dicunt ei injustum super eos, ac violentum, externumque judicem 
 venisse." — Act. SS. O. S. B., t. i. p. 167. It is this officer who is called in 
 the legends of S. Samson, S. Juval, S. Leonor, S. Tugdual, and S. Herve, 
 Conomor or Kon-mor— that is to say, the Great Chief. He governed Dom- 
 nonia, which comprised almost all Armorica, and was taken into the pri- 
 vate service of Queen Ultrogoth, or, as the Franks say, into her trust. Com- 
 pare DoM LOBINEAU, Saints de Bretagne, pp. 59, 91, 94, 105, III, ed. of 1725. 
 
 3 " Adjutrix fidelis monachorum." — Ann. Bened., lib. v. c. 43.
 
 156 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 of monks and believers with the memory of her husband, 
 for having joined with him in founding, at the gates of 
 Paris, the great monastery, afterwards so celebrated under 
 the name of St. Germain-des-Pr^s. This church, which 
 appears to have been one of the finest monuments of the 
 Merovingian age, the organs and painted glass of which, two 
 beautiful creations of Catholic art, 1 were even then admired, 
 had first been built by Childebert in honour of the martyr 
 St. Vincent, whose tunic he had carried off from the Arian 
 Visigoths at the time of his victorious invasion of Spain. 
 He bestowed it upon the monks with the consent of the 
 Bishop of Paris, Germain, himself a monk, and formerly 
 abbot of St. Symphorian of Autun. 
 
 "One day," says the Breton legend, "the abbot of Dol 
 and the Bishop of Paris talked together about their monas- 
 teries. ... St. Samson said that his monks were such good 
 managers, and so careful of their beehives, that besides the 
 honey, of which they had an abundant supply, they had 
 more wax than they could use in the church during the 
 whole year ; but that the country not being fit for the 
 growth of vines, they had a great dearth of wine. And 
 we, on the contrary, said St. Germain, have vineyards in 
 abundance, and a much greater quantity of wine than is 
 wanted for the supply of the monastery ; but we are 
 obliged to buy wax for the church. If it pleases you, 
 we will give you every year the tenth part of our wine, and 
 you shall furnish us with wax to light our church. Samson 
 accepted the offer, and the two monasteries mutually accom- 
 modated each other during the life of the saints." 
 
 The Parisian abbey afterwards received the name of St. 
 Germain, who continued always a monk in the exercise of 
 his episcopal charge, 3 and who himself exempted the new 
 
 1 VENANTIUS FORTUNATUS, Carmina, ii. 10 and n. 
 
 2 Albert le Grand, p. 422. 
 
 3 "Adeptus gradum curse pastoralis, de reliquo monachus persistebat." 
 — Albert le Grand, Vit. S. Oermani, c. 12.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I 5 7 
 
 monastery from episcopal jurisdiction. As long as he lived 
 he exercised the most salutary influence over the Merovin- 
 gian kings. He consequently became one of the most 
 popular saints that the monastic order has given to the 
 Church ; and the Parisians long narrated, among other tales 
 of his inexhaustible charity, how, " esteeming the voice of 
 the poor more than the gift of the king," he had sold, 1 in 
 order to buy back a slave, the costly horse which the king 
 had given him, charging him to keep it for himself. 
 
 Childebert died in his arms, and was buried in the church 
 of the monastery which he had endowed so richly, with the 
 consent of all the Frankish and Neustrian chiefs.' 2 At his 
 death his brother Clotaire became the sole king of the 
 Frank monarchy. He too, despite his too certain ferocity, 
 had known and loved the monks : he also desired to be 
 buried in the church of the monastery which he had 
 founded in his capital of Soissons under the name of St. 
 Medard, which was that of a great bishop (the son of a 
 Frank and a Eoman woman) whose virtues he had admired, 
 and whose words he had sometimes listened to. He testi- 
 fied his faith and his too just errors, when dying, in these 
 words, which Gregory of Tours has preserved to us : " What 
 must be the power of that King of heaven, who makes the 
 most powerful kings of the earth die thus as He pleases ? " 3 
 
 The great figure of St. Gregory of Tours overshadows all 
 the second generation of the descendants of Clovis and those 
 bloody struggles between the sons of Clotaire, of which he 
 has left an undying picture in his famous narrative, restored 
 
 1 Chroniques de St. Dcnys, liv. iii. c. 5. Compare VenaST. Fort., c. 22. 
 
 2 " Cum consensu et voluntate Francorum et Neustrasiorum." The 
 authenticity of this famous charter, so often disputed, has been maintained 
 by Mabillon. The dedication took place on the same day as the death of 
 the king, December 23, 558. This date is confirmed by M. Guerard in his 
 admirable edition of the Polyptique d'Irminon, t. i. p. 907-913. The first 
 abbot was Droctoveus, whom Germain brought from his ancient monastery 
 of St. Symphorian, at Autun. 
 
 3 Hist. Eccl. Franc, iii. 21.
 
 158 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 and sometimes altered by the pen of the greatest historian 
 of our day. 1 Some have looked on him as a monk, 2 and we 
 would fain feel ourselves entitled to claim his pure glory for 
 the monastic order ; what is certain is, that he was by far 
 the most honest and illustrious person of the times which he 
 has described. Saddened and sometimes deeply discouraged 
 by those horrors of which he was the witness and annalist, 
 his soul was always superior to his fortune, and even to his 
 talents. Without losing sight of that profound respect for 
 the sovereign power with which the traditions of his family 
 and his Roman predilections inspired him, he never hesi- 
 tated to make a stand when it was necessary against the 
 grandsons of Clovis, and especially against Chilperic, whom 
 he called the Herod and Nero of his age ; an atrocious and 
 ridiculous tyrant, who dreamt, among all his crimes, of 
 increasing the number of the letters of the alphabet, and of 
 reducing that of the persons of the Trinity. 
 
 Gregory laboured with all his might, not for monarchical 
 unity, which no one dreamt of in these days, but for the 
 union of the Merovingian race as the sole means of consoli- 
 dating and justifying the sway of the Franks in Gaul. The 
 history of France has inspired few finer pages than this 
 preamble to his fifth book, in which, addressing himself to 
 all those princes unbridled alike in ferocity and profligacy, 
 he exclaims : — 
 
 " I am weary of narrating all the changes of these civil 
 wars, which waste the kingdom and nation of the Franks. 
 . . . What are you doing, kings ? What would you ? 
 What seek you ? What is wanting to you ? You inhabit 
 delightful houses, your cellars overflow with wine, corn, and 
 oil, and your coffers with gold and silver. One thing alone 
 you lack, the grace of God, because you will not have peace. 
 Why will you always take or covet the goods of others ? 
 
 1 Recits Merovingiens, by M. Augustin Thierry, who has, however, ren- 
 dered full homage to the talent and character of his model. 
 
 2 "Haud constat," says Mabillon, Ann. Bened., lib. viii. c. 62.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I 5 9 
 
 ... If civil war is sweet to thee, king ! give thyself 
 to that which the Apostle has revealed to us in the heart of 
 man, to the war of the Spirit against the flesh ; overcome 
 thy vices by thy virtues : and then, enfranchised, thou shalt 
 freely serve Christ, who is thy chief, after having been the 
 bond-slave of evil." x 
 
 Amid the lifelike and varied narratives of the father of 
 our history, it would be easy to glean facts which belong to 
 our subject, and to show, among the grandsons of Clovis, 
 some who, like Gontran of Burgundy 2 and Sigebert of 
 Austrasia, were the friends of the monks and founders of 
 new monasteries ; and some who, like Chilperic and his son 
 during their incursions south of the Loire, abandoned the 
 monastic sanctuaries to the flames, the monks to death or 
 exile, and the nuns to the brutal insults of their soldiers. 3 
 It will be better worth our while to suspend that arid 
 nomenclature, and pause a moment upon the noble attitude 
 
 1 " Si ite, o rex ! bellum civile delectat, illud quod Apostolus in hominem 
 agi meminit, exerce, ut spiritus concupiscat adversus carnem (Galat. v. 17), et 
 vitia virtutibus cedant ; et tu, liber, capiti tuo, id est, Christo, servias, qui 
 quondam radici malorum servieras compeditus." — Lib. v., Prologus. 
 
 2 Gontran, son of Clotaire I., King of Orleans, afterwards of Burgundy, 
 founded, about 577, at the gate of his new capital of Chalon-sur-Saone, a 
 celebrated abbey under the patronage of St. Marcel, at the very place 
 where this martyr was immolated by the Romans, and where he remained 
 for three days alive, half-buried in a pit, praying for his executioners, 
 and for that land of Burgundy which he fertilised with his blood. In his 
 deed of endowment, Gontran says — " I see with grief that as a punishment 
 of your sins the churches built for the service of God fall to decay by the 
 excessive ambition of the princes, and the too great neglect of the prelates." 
 He desired the new abbey to be regulated after the model of Agaune, the 
 great monastery of the Burgonde kingdom, which had preceded Mero- 
 vingian Burgundy, and consequently introduced there the Laus Perennis. 
 He followed the same course at St. Benigne, a monastery erected at Dijon 
 over the tomb of another apostle and martyr of Burgundy. Gontran 
 caused himself to be interred in the monastery which he had founded, as 
 his father Clotaire had been at St. Medard, and his uncle Childebert at St. 
 Germain-des-Pres. St. Marcel, converted into a priory of the order of 
 Cluny in 1060, has since been celebrated as the scene of the retreat and 
 death of Abelard. 
 
 3 Gkeg. Turon., iv. 48.
 
 160 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 of a Gallo- Roman monk, 1 whom Gregory knew well, whose 
 history he has related to us, and in whom monastic life 
 seems to have developed a lively and tender solicitude for 
 the misery of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 Aredius, born at Limoges of an exalted family, had been 
 recommended or given as a hostage, in his childhood, to the 
 Frank king Theodebert, the same whom we have seen 
 giving so cordial a welcome to the sons of St. Benedict at 
 Glanfeuil. Aredius soon brought himself into so much 
 favour with this prince that he became his secretary, or, as 
 it was already called, his chancellor. 2 This was an office 
 which then began to acquire great importance, and the 
 holders of which repeatedly entered the ranks of the mon- 
 astic order. That monk, called Nizier, who had become 
 Bishop of Treves, and whose courage and humanity we have 
 already recorded, imagined that he saw the stamp of celestial 
 grace in the face of the young courtier whom he met in the 
 palace. He led him to his cell, where he spoke to him of 
 God, and, in bringing him to a knowledge of religious truth, 
 inspired him with an inclination for cloister life. A dove 
 which, during these confidential interviews, came incessantly 
 to the young and gentle Aredius to perch on his head or 
 
 1 Hist. Eccl. Francor., lib. x. c. 29. Two other Lives of St. Aredius also 
 exist (ap. Bolland., t. vi. August., p. 175). The first and shortest, Vita 
 Prima, is by an anonymous contemporary. The second, Vita Prolixior, is 
 attributed by Mabillon, who has published it in his Analecta (p. 198), to 
 Gregory of Tours himself ; but Ruinart {Opera Greg. Tur., p. 1285) and the 
 Bollandists have shown that this was incorrect. However, Gregory speaks 
 of him in several other parts of his works. (Hist. Franc, lib. viii. c. 15 
 and 27. Be Mirac. S. Juliani, c. 40. Be Virtut. S. Martini, ii. 39. Be Gloria 
 Confess., c. 9.) 
 
 2 " Parentela nobli generatus. . . . Nobilissima videlicet origine. . . . 
 Valde ingenuus. . . . Theodeberto regi traditus, aulicis palatinis adjungi- 
 tur. . . . Ut cancellarius prior ante conspectum regis adsisteret. . . . 
 Cancellarii sortitus offlcium."— Ubi supra, Le Huerou, founding upon some 
 document whose origin he does not state (Sanctus Aridius, Lemovicensis 
 abbas, apud Theodebertum cancellarius, quce prior erat militia palatina), 
 savs that this charge was the most eminent post in the Court of the 
 Merovingians. — Instit. Merov., i. 383.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS l6l 
 
 shoulder, still further convinced the prelate that the Holy 
 Spirit was to inspire his pupil. 1 He permitted him, how- 
 ever, to return to his own country, to his mother Pelagia, 
 who had no children but himself. But when he returned 
 to his native Limousin, Aredius took no thought of his 
 fields or his vineyards, which he gave up to his mother, 
 charging her to provide for the subsistence of the little 
 community which he formed on one of his estates, filling 
 up its numbers principally from the people of his house, 2 and 
 which became the origin of a town, named after him St. 
 Yrieix. 3 
 
 He had first intended to seclude himself in a cavern, but, 
 at the prayer of his mother, he transferred his monastery to 
 a more agreeable site. He divided his time between agri- 
 cultural labour and study ; he specially transcribed with his 
 own hand copies of the Holy Scriptures and liturgical books, 
 which he took pleasure in distributing among the churches 
 of the neighbouring dioceses. The poor and the sick 
 crowded to him like bees to the hive. 4 He helped the one 
 and cured the other. He went to Tours every year out of 
 his cloister to celebrate the feast of St. Martin, and, with 
 many prayers, to kiss the tomb of the great bishop ; then 
 crossing the Loire, went to Marmoutier, to rebaptize him- 
 self in the monastic spirit, by visiting all the spots where 
 
 1 "Nescio quid in vultu ejus cernens divinum. . . . Cum ingressi in 
 cellulam de iis quae ad Deum pertinent confabularentur . . ." — Greg. 
 Tur., loc. cit. 
 
 2 " Sive exercitium agrorum, sive cultus vinearum . . . Ex familia pro- 
 pria tonsuratos instruit monachos." — Ibid. In his History, Gregory says 
 that he followed the rules of Cassianus, St. Basil, and other abbots, qui 
 vwnasterialem vitam instituerunt. He makes no special mention of St. 
 Benedict ; but in the Vita prolixior, written by an eye-witness of the 
 miracles which were performed on the tomb of Aredius at the end of the 
 sixth century, everything bears the stamp of the Benedictine rule. Com- 
 pare Bolland., loc. cit. 
 
 3 Now a district county-town in the Haute-Vienne. 
 
 4 "In villis amoenis. . • Incumbens lectioni . . . laborans per agros, 
 alimoniam corpori quasrebat. . . . Codices sacros. . . . Multitudo pauperum 
 velut apes ad alvearium confluebant ad eum." — Vita prolixior, p. 200. 
 
 VOL. II. L
 
 1 62 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 Martin had knelt in prayer, or which he had sanctified by 
 song ; he carried back with him, as a medicine for his sick, 
 the water of the well which Martin had opened by his own 
 labour. There he met the bishop Gregory, whose intimate 
 friend he became, and who has preserved to us all these 
 details. 1 
 
 He continued in the meantime to keep up his intercourse 
 with the Merovingian princes, and by this means interfered 
 on behalf of the oppressed population. More than once, 
 when the tributes and villain-tax were applied with too 
 much severity to the cities of the Gauls, according to lists 
 which the kings had made out, he hastened to ask a dimi- 
 nution of that intolerable burden. One day when, going 
 through Paris, he had travelled secretly and in haste as far 
 as Braine, where King Cbilperic then was, the latter, who 
 was sick of a fever, when informed of his arrival, imme- 
 diately ordered him to be brought, in hope to obtain a cure 
 by the prayers of the servant of God. But Aredius, while 
 feeling his pulse, could speak of nothing but the object of 
 his journey. The king, touched or terrified by his remon- 
 strances, delivered up to him the lists of the contributions 
 which weighed so cruelly upon the poor people. Then the 
 abbot lighted a great fire and burned the fatal registers 
 with his own hands, in the presence of a numerous crowd. 
 He had before announced that the king would be healed, 
 but that his sons should die in his stead, which happened 
 as he said. 2 
 
 1 " Beatum sepulcrum orando deosculans. . . . Anno transito . . . cuncta 
 circuit, cuncta peragrat. . . ."-De Mar. S. Mart., ii. 39. Compare iii. 24. 
 
 2 " Accidit ut populis tributa vel census a regibus f uissent descripta : 
 quae conditio universis urbibus per Gallias constitutis summopere est 
 adhibita. Pro hac se vir reverentissimus pietate motus ad regis prsesen- 
 tiam properavit, ut suggestionem daret pro civibus, qui gravi censu pub- 
 lico fuerant edicto adscripti. . . . Alio quoque tempore, pro hujuscemodi 
 conditione properavit itinere. . . . Ccepit cum manibus suis palpare. . . . 
 Libros ipsos, quibus inscriptus pro gravi censu populus regni ejus tene- 
 batur afflictus. . . . Jussit prunas parari. . . . Apprebensos manibus 
 ipsis libros, multis etiam circumstantibus, incendio concremavit."— Vita
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 1 63 
 
 On another occasion, having heard that there were 
 several persons condemned to death at Limoges, he went 
 from his monastery to the town, to consult upon the means 
 of saving them. Here popular tradition is carried away by 
 the memory of that compassion for all kinds of misfortunes 
 with which the heart of the holy abbot overflowed. It 
 records, that as soon as he approached the prison, the doors 
 turned on their hinges of themselves, and all the locks were 
 broken, as well as the chains of the captives, who were thus 
 enabled to escape, and seek aD inviolable asylum at the 
 tomb of St. Martial, the first apostle of Limousin. 1 
 
 A still more authentic memorial of his solicitude for his 
 inferiors remains to us in his will, written twenty years 
 before his death, and confirmed on the eve of that day 
 when, full of years and labours. 2 he appeared before God. 
 By this document he places his monastery and monks, his 
 villa of Excideuil with all the serfs or mancipia who cul- 
 tivated his vineyards, and whose names and families he 
 enumerates carefully, under the protection of the church of 
 St. Martin of Tours, which was then the most venerated 
 sanctuary in Gaul. He stipulates expressly that certain 
 
 prolixior, p. 203. The Bollandists (p. 190) and Ruinart think that this king, 
 who is not named in the contemporary narrative, was Chilperic I., king of 
 Neustria, and son of Clotaire ; but it is singular that Gregory of Tours, who 
 knew Aredius so well, has not named him in relating how Fredegond and 
 Chilperic decided on burning the taxing lists after the death of their three 
 sons. — Hist. Franc, lib. i. c. 35. 
 
 1 " Confestim . . . velut magno ferientis impulsu confractae serae, dis- 
 sipati cardines ostia carceris patefacta, et omnia vincula compeditorum 
 resoluta sunt." — Vita prolixior, p. 201. Gregory of Tours relates another 
 incident which shows to what an extent the monks were then regarded as 
 the natural and powerful protectors of the condemned. A criminal was 
 condemned to death ; when he had been hung, the rope broke, and he 
 fell to the ground without being hurt. They hung him anew. On this 
 news, the abbot of the nearest monastery ran to the count, or judge of 
 the district, to intercede for him ; and after having obtained the life of 
 the culprit, he brought him to the monastery penitent and saved. — Be 
 Mirac. S. Martini, iii. 53. 
 
 2 "Post labores innumeros viriliter ac fortiter toleratos." — Vita prima, 
 No. 13.
 
 164 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 female vassals, whom he names, should pay only a triens 
 each, yearly, to the monks of his monastery. Finally, he 
 mentions, name by name, fifty men and women, among 
 whom was a certain Lucy, whom he had ransomed from 
 captivity ; he intrusted their freedom to the guardianship 
 of St. Martin. " These are," he says, " my freed men and 
 women, some of whom have been confided to me by my 
 father of blessed memory, and the others I have myself 
 enfranchised for the good of my brother's soul ; I give them 
 to thy charge, my lord St. Martin. And if any man 
 assumes to exact from them what they do not owe, or to 
 disturb and oppress them for any reason whatever, it shall 
 be thy part, St. Martin, to defend them." x 
 
 During the last sufferings of this benefactor of the un- 
 fortunate and the slaves, a poor sick woman, one possessed 
 with a devil, whom the holy abbot had not been able to heal, 
 escaped from the prison where she had been confined, and 
 ran to the monastery, crying — " Come, friends and neigh- 
 bours, make haste ; come, let us hasten to meet the martyrs 
 and confessors who are coming to celebrate the obsequies of 
 our holy abbot. Behold Julian approaching from Brives, 
 Martin from Tours, Martial from our city of Limoges, 
 Saturnin from Toulouse, Denis from Paris, and many others 
 who are in heaven, and to whom you appeal as martyrs 
 and confessors of God." Aredius some time before had 
 
 1 " Volumus ut . . . sub defensione tua, sancte domine Martine, con- 
 sistant . . . cum Lucia quam redemimus captivam. . . . Ita liberos et 
 liberas nostras, quos nobis bonse memorise genitor noster Jocundus per 
 testamentum suum commendavit, similiter et illos quos pro remedio 
 animae bonae memorise fratris nostri Eustadii liberos fecimus tibi, sancte 
 Martine, defensando commendamus. Et si quis eis amplius prater boc 
 quod eis injunctum et in quolibet inquietare aut dominare voluerit, tu, 
 sancte Martine, defendas." — Mabillon, Analecta, p. 209. The authenticity 
 of this testament, mentioned by Gregory of Tours, published and an- 
 notated as authentic by Mabillon and Ruinart, has been disputed by Le 
 Cointe. The Bollandists discuss without deciding this question. It is 
 very long, and contains a multitude of arrangements which make it one 
 of the most curious documents of the period.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 1 65 
 
 predicted his own death to his friend Gregory of Tours, and 
 taken leave of him while kissing the tomb of St. Martin 
 for the last time ; he died above eighty years old ; and the 
 poor possessed woman was cured by his intercession. 
 
 That faith which opened heaven to the eyes of that poor 
 woman, and showed her the apostles whose martyrdom had 
 worked the first conversion of Gaul, standing closer in their 
 ranks to admit the new confessors produced by the monastic 
 order, — that ardent and tender faith naturally inspired the 
 hearts of the Christian women of Gaul, and rendered the 
 cloisters from which issued so many alms, and at the same 
 time so many examples of virtue, more and more dear to 
 them. Those who did not adopt religious life in their own 
 person had brothers or sisters in it, or, dearer still, sons and 
 daughters ; and maternal love thus redoubled their attach- 
 ment to an institution in which all the blessings and duties 
 of Christianity were to them embodied. The same Gregory 
 of Tours whose invaluable narrative enlightens us in the 
 history, not of the early times of our country alone, but 
 also of the human heart, relates a touching incident in con- 
 nection with the famous abbey of Agaune (which we have 
 already mentioned 2 ), which was built in honour of St. 
 Maurice and the martyrs of the Theban legion, on a site 
 near the outlet of the Rhone into the Lake of Geneva, and 
 became the monastic metropolis of the kingdom of Burgundy. 
 A mother had taken her only son to this monastery, where 
 he became a monk, especially instructed and skilful in 
 chanting the liturgical service ; he fell sick and died ; his 
 mother, in despair, came to bury him, and returned every 
 
 1 " Dixit nobis se haud longsevo tempore adhuc in hoc mundo retineri. 
 . . . Vale dicens . . . gratias agens quod priusquam obiret, sepulcrum B. 
 antistitis osculari promeruisset. . . . Currite, cives, exsilite, populi ; exite 
 obviam. . . . Ecce adest Julianus, . . . Martialis ab urbe propria, . . . 
 Dionysius ab urbe Parisiaca, . . . quos vos ut confessores et Dei martyres 
 adoratis." — Greg. Ttjr., x. 29. 
 
 2 See vol. i. p. 370, and vol. ii p. 127, on the occasion of the journey of 
 St. Maur.
 
 1 66 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 day to weep and lament over his tomb. One night she 
 saw St. Maurice in a dream attempting to console her, but 
 answered him, " No, no ; as long as I live I shall always 
 weep my son, my sole child." " But," answered the saint, 
 " he must not be wept for as if he were dead : he is with 
 us, he rejoices in eternal life, and to-morrow at matins, in 
 the monastery, thou shalt hear his voice among the choir of 
 the monks ; and not to-morrow only, but every day as long 
 as thou livest." The mother immediately rose and waited 
 with impatience the first sound of the bell for matins, to 
 hasten to the church of the monks. The precentor having 
 intoned the response, when the monks in full choir took up 
 the anthem, the mother immediately recognised the voice of 
 her dear child. She gave thanks to God ; and every day 
 for the rest of her life, thus deluding her grief and maternal 
 tenderness, the moment she approached the choir, she heard 
 the voice of her well-beloved son mingle in the sweet and 
 holy harmony of the liturgical chant. 1 And to us too it 
 seems to echo across the ages, that voice of the child, vocem 
 infantuli, the purest, the dearest, the most heaven-like 
 melody that the human ear can receive. 
 
 The Armorican legend also stirs that same chord of mater- 
 nal love. It tells us how the mother of the Christian bard, 
 the blind Herve, having consented to place him for seven 
 years apart from her in a cloister, where he was taught to 
 excel in song, went to see him, and said, as she was approach- 
 
 1 "Cucurrit mater orbata ad obsequium funeris plangens . . . per dies 
 singulos veniebat, et super sepulcrum nati sui . . . ejulabat . . . 'Dum 
 advixero, semper deflebo unicum meum, nee unquam migrabor a lacrymis, 
 donee oculos corporis hujus . . . mors concludat. — Scias eum nobiscum 
 habitare et sedentem vitas perennis consortio nostro perfrui. . . . Surge 
 crastina die ad matutinum, et audies vocem ejus inter choros psallentium 
 monachorum. Surgit mulier, longaque ducit suspiria, nee obdormit in 
 strato suo, donee signum ad consurgendum commoveatur a monachis. 
 Ubi cantator responsorium, antipbonam, caterva suscepit monacho- 
 rum, audit genitrix, parvuli vocem cognoscit, et gratias agit Deo. . . . 
 Inpletum est ut omnibus diebus vitas suae vocem audiret infantuli inter 
 reliqua modulamina vocum." — GREG. Tub., De Glor. Martyrum, c. 76.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 1 67 
 
 ing : " I see a procession of monks advancing, and I hear the 
 voice of my son ; if there should be a thousand singing to- 
 gether, I could still distinguish the voice of my Herve. I 
 see my son in a grey habit, with a girdle of rope. God be 
 with you, my son, the clerk ! when, with the help of God, 
 I get to heaven, you shall be warned of it, you shall hear the 
 angels sing." The same evening, after she had so happily seen 
 him, she died ; and her son, the precentor and monastic bard, 
 heard the angels who celebrated her obsequies in heaven. 1 
 
 The noble Aredius, whose death has carried us back into 
 legendary ground, did not leave his cloister only to pray at 
 the tomb of St. Martin, or to seek favour for an oppressed 
 people from the Merovingian kings. He also went every 
 year to visit in a monastery of Poitiers the most illustrious 
 nun of that age, Queen Radegund. 
 
 IV. — St. Radegund. 
 
 I shall die in my nest. — Job xxix. 18. 
 
 Ella giunse e levo ambo le palme, 
 Ficcando gli occhi verso l'oriente, 
 Come dicesse a Dio : d'altro non calme. 
 
 Te lucis ante si divotamente 
 Le use! de bocca e con si dolci note 
 Che fece me a me uscir di mente. 
 
 E l'altre poi dolcemente e divote 
 Seguitar lei per tutto l'inno intero 
 Avendo gli occhi alle superne rote. 
 
 — Purgat., c. viii. 
 
 We have now to contemplate at greater length a sweet 
 and noble figure which appears before us : it is that of the 
 holy queen who gave the first example, so often followed 
 since, of a crowned head bowed under the common discipline 
 of monastic laws. Her holy but troubled life, as fit a subject 
 for the poet as for the historian, was contemporary with all 
 the crimes which soiled the annals of the descendants of 
 
 1 LA VlLLEMARQUri, L6gende Celtique, p. 257.
 
 1 68 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 Clovis. It inaugurates worthily that wonderful action of 
 monastic life upon the women and queens of barbarous 
 nations, which placed a Radegund and a Bathilde upon the 
 throne and the altar, in an age which seemed to be given up 
 as a prey to the Fredegunds and Brunehaults. 
 
 During the expedition of the kings Thierry I. and Clot- 
 aire I. beyond the Rhine, and the war of extermination which 
 they waged against the Thuringians in 529, the daughter of 
 a king of Thuringia fell into the hands of the victors. Her 
 name was Radegund ; 1 and, despite her extreme youth, her 
 precocious beauty fascinated the two brothers to such a point 
 that they had almost come to blows to dispute the possession 
 of her. She fell to Clotaire, the most cruel and debauched 
 of all the sons of Clovis. The young and royal captive, 
 snatched from her family by the right of conquest, amid the 
 carnage and devastation of her country, was taken into one 
 of the villas of Clotaire, where he gave her a careful, and even 
 literary, education, with the intention of one day making her 
 his wife. She had a great taste for study, but, above every- 
 thing, for piety ; and, far from aspiring to share the bed and 
 throne of her ferocious conqueror, she told her young com- 
 panions that she desired nothing so much as martyrdom. 2 
 
 1 We have her life written first by two contemporaries — the poet Fortu- 
 natus, Bishop of Poitiers, and Baudonivia, a nun whom she had brought up ; 
 afterwards by Hildebert of Mans, in the twelfth century. A curious work, 
 entitled the Preuve Historique des Litanies de la Grande Reyne de France 
 Saincte Radegonde, by N. Jean Filleau, Doctor and Regent of the University, 
 Advocate of the King, &c. (Poitiers, 1543, in folio), may also be consulted. 
 Everybody has read the passages referring to her in M. Augustin Thierry's 
 Ricits Merovingiens. M. Edouard de Fleury, in his Histoire de Sainte Rade- 
 gonde (Poitiers, 1843), an d> above all, the learned and lamented Abbot 
 Gorini, in his excellent work, entitled Defense de V Eglise Catholique contre 
 les Erreurs Historiques, &c. (Lyon, 1853, t. ii. ch. 15), have very profitably 
 refuted the numerous errors which detract from the value of the narrative 
 of the illustrious blind historian. 
 
 2 " Vultu elegans. . . . Litteris erudita. . . . Frequenter loquens cum 
 parvulis . . . martyr fieri cupiens." — Act. SS. Bolland.. t. hi. Aug., pp. 
 84, 86. "Elegantissima, speciosa nimis et venusta aspectu." — Vit.S.Juniani, 
 c. 5, ap. Act. SS. 0. S. Ben., t. i. p. 293.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 1 69 
 
 When she was eighteen, and knew that the king was pre- 
 paring everything for their marriage, she escaped by night in 
 a boat, from the house, situated on the Somme, where she had 
 been kept. But she was soon retaken, and Clotaire shortly 
 afterwards added his prisoner to the number of his queens — 
 that is, of the wives whom he elevated above the rank of 
 concubines. 1 He is known to have had six of this degree, 
 two of whom were the widows of his brothers, and two sisters 
 whom he had married at the same time. As for Radegund, 
 he loved her passionately, and more than all the others, at 
 least for a time, even while chafing at her coldness, and the 
 strange contrast which he did not fail to perceive between 
 her and himself. " It is not a queen that I have here," he 
 said — " it is a true nun." 2 The young and beautiful captive 
 naturally sought in religion the only grace which could con- 
 sole her for her marriage, and the only strength which could 
 be respected, though scarcely understood, by the master to 
 whom she was obliged to submit. When the king called her 
 to sup with him, she made him wait till she had finished her 
 pious readings, which enraged Clotaire. But the amorous 
 Barbarian soon attempted to make amends by presents for 
 
 1 Compare Act. SS. Bolland., loc. cit., p. 50. We may be permitted 
 to refer to the learned commentary of the Jesuit hagiographies for the 
 difficulties which are raised, not only by the polygamy of Clotaire, but 
 especially by the question, how Radegund could have taken the veil during 
 the lifetime of her husband. We must do Clotaire the justice to acknow- 
 ledge that, in spite of his unbounded licentiousness, he could respect vir- 
 ginity when it appeared to him consecrated by religion, as is shown in the 
 touching history of Consortia, a rich heiress of Provence, whose immense 
 fortune had drawn around her a crowd of pretenders, and who went to ask 
 of Clotaire the favour of remaining in celibacy in her own domains, the 
 revenue of which was devoted to the Church and to the poor. She obtained 
 it, after having cured one of the daughters of Clotaire of a mortal malady. 
 Subsequently this young princess obtained her brother Sigebert's protec- 
 tion for Consortia, who was again sought in marriage by a Frank noble, 
 that she might keep the liberty which had been promised to her by Clotaire. 
 —Act. SS. O. S. B., t. i. p. 235. 
 
 2 " Quam tanto amore dilexit, ut nihil prseter illam se habere aliquoties 
 f ateretur." — Vit. S. Juniani, loc. cit. " Dicebatur habere se magis frugalem 
 monacham quam reginam." — BOLLAND., p. 69.
 
 170 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 his angry words. During the night she rose from his side 
 to stretch herself upon haircloth until she was half frozen, 
 and could scarcely be restored to warmth by her bed. Her 
 days were devoted to the study of sacred literature, to pro- 
 longed interviews with the students and bishops who came to 
 the court of Soissons, and, above all, to almsgiving, and the 
 management of an hospital which she had founded in that 
 estate of Athies, where she had passed the first years of her 
 captivity, and where she herself waited on the sick women 
 with the most devoted care. 1 
 
 Everything in her life reveals the absolute dominion of the 
 faith of Christ upon her soul, and her passionate desire to 
 serve that faith without reservation or delay. At one time, 
 when her servants had praised the new attraction added to 
 her beauty by a sort of head-dress, ornamented with jewels, 
 which was worn by Barbarian queens, she hastened to lay 
 that diadem upon the altar of the nearest church. 2 And at 
 another, indignant to see in her path a pagan temple, a 
 vestige of that which she regarded as a diabolical superstition, 
 she paused in the midst of her military retinue to order its 
 destruction ; and, in spite of the furious outcries and des- 
 perate resistance of the surrounding population, composed of 
 Franks who were still idolaters, and defended the sanctuary 
 of their national worship with swords and clubs, she remained 
 on horseback in the middle of her train till the building had 
 disappeared in the flames. 3 
 
 1 " Rixas habebat a conjuge, ita ut vicibus multis princeps per munera 
 satisfaceret quod per linguam peccasset. . . . Gelu penetrata . . . vix 
 tepefied poterat vel foco vel lectulo. . . . Morborum curabat putredines, 
 virorum capita diluens." — Bolland., p. 69. 
 
 2 " Quoties . . . more vestiebat de barbaro, a circumstantibus puellis 
 si laudaretur pulcherrimum." — Bolland., p. 69. 
 
 3 " Sseculari pompa se comitante. . . . Fanum quod a Francis colebatur 
 . . . diabolico machinamento. . . . Franci et universa multitudo cum 
 gladiis et fustibus. . . . Regina . . . equum quern sedebat inantea non 
 movit." — Bolland., p. 76. The nun Baudonivia, in relating this anec- 
 dote, says, "Quod audivimus dicimus, et quod vidimus testamur." It is 
 probable that before following the queen into the cloister she was a member 
 of her lay household.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 17 l 
 
 Six years after her marriage, Clotaire killed, without any 
 reason, a young brother of Radegund, the companion of her 
 captivity, whom she loved tenderly. This was the signal of 
 her deliverance. With the permission of her husband, how 
 obtained it is not known, she left Soissons and went to Noyon 
 to the bishop Medard, who had great influence over the king 
 and all the nation. 
 
 She found him at the altar where he was celebrating mass, 
 and besought him to consecrate her to God by giving her the 
 veil. The bishop hesitated and resisted ; the Frank lords 
 who were present surrounded him, brought him down from 
 the altar with violence, and forbade him to consecrate to 
 God a woman whom the king had made a queen by public 
 marriage. Radegund then took from the sacristy the dress 
 of a nun, in which she clothed herself, and, returning to the 
 altar, said to the bishop, " If thou delayest to consecrate me, 
 if thou fearest man more than God, the Good Shepherd will 
 demand an account from thee of the soul of one of His sheep." 
 Medard was thunderstruck by these words, and immediately 
 laid his hands on her, and consecrated her a deaconess. 
 Clotaire himself did not venture at first to interfere with 
 what had been done. The new nun, using her recognised 
 freedom, went from sanctuary to sanctuary, dropping every- 
 where, in the form of offerings, her ornaments and queenly 
 robes. Crossing the Loire, she arrived first at Tours, at the 
 tomb of St. Martin, to which pilgrims and the unfortunate 
 resorted from all parts of Christendom, and where she per- 
 haps found her illustrious mother-in-law Clotilda, who had 
 come to await death near the holy tomb. 2 She afterwards 
 established herself in the lands of Saix, in Poitou, which her 
 husband had granted her ; and there, living a truly recluse 
 life, she began to practise the most rigorous austerities, and 
 
 " Ne velaret regi conjuctam. . . . Reginam non publicanam, sed 
 publicam. . . . Introns in sacrarium, monachica vesta induitur. . . . 
 Quod ille contestationis concussus tonitruo." — Bolland., loc. cit., p. 70. 
 
 2 Mabillon fixes her death in 544. The Bollandists (die 3 Junii) mention 
 no precise date.
 
 172 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 especially lavished her cares upon the poor and sick, and 
 rendered them the most repulsive services. After having 
 bathed the lepers with her own hands, she kissed their dis- 
 gusting sores. " Holy lady," said one of her servants, one 
 day, " who will kiss you, if you thus kiss the lepers ? " 
 " Well," said she, smiling, " if thou dost never kiss me again, 
 that is nothing to me." * 
 
 However, her fame so spread that Clotaire, whose love 
 was revived by absence, set out to reclaim her. 2 She then 
 took refuge at the tomb of St. Hilary, in Poitiers ; and he, 
 again overcome by religious fear, gave her permission to 
 build a monastery for women at Poitiers, and to seclude 
 herself in it. When this cloister was completed, she en- 
 tered it triumphantly amid popular rejoicings, making her 
 way through crowds of spectators, who, after filling all the 
 streets and squares, covered even the roofs of houses from 
 which they could see her pass. 3 
 
 But she was soon assailed by new terrors. She heard 
 that under pretext of devotion Clotaire had arrived at Tours, 
 and that he had arranged to come to Poitiers to seek her 
 whom he called his dear queen. The holy bishop Medard 
 could no longer use his influence to defend her : he was 
 just dead. But the illustrious Bishop of Paris, Germain, 
 was still living : she wrote to him, adjuring him to persuade 
 the king to respect her vow. The bishop sought the king 
 before the tomb of St. Martin, and supplicated him on his 
 knees, weeping, not to go to Poitiers. Clotaire recognised 
 the voice of Radegund through the words of Germain, but 
 recognised at the same time how unworthy he himself was 
 to have for his queen a woman who had always preferred 
 God's will to her own. He knelt in his turn before the 
 bishop, and begged him to go and ask pardon of that saint 
 
 1 " Sanctissima domina, quis te osculabitur, quae sic leprossos complec- 
 teris ? . . . Vere, si me non osculeris, hinc mihi non cura est." — P. 71. 
 
 2 " Fit sonus quasi rex earn iterum vellet accipere." — P. 76. 
 
 3 Bolland., loc. cit., p. 76.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 173 
 
 for all the wrong which evil counsels had made him under- 
 take against her. And from this time he left her in peace. 1 
 Radegund then employed herself in constituting upon a 
 solid foundation the community in which she was to pass 
 the last forty years of her life. This community was very 
 numerous : the queen's presence attracted to it nearly two 
 hundred young girls of various races and conditions, and 
 amongst these Gauls of senatorial family, and Frank prin- 
 cesses of Merovingian blood. 2 But she would not govern 
 them herself, and caused a young girl named Agnes, whom 
 she had herself trained, to be elected abbess. Restricting 
 herself severely to the rank and obligations of a simple nun, 
 she took her turn in cooking, in carrying wood and water, 
 and in cleaning away the filth ; while, notwithstanding, she 
 pursued her studies of the Fathers and the Holy Scriptures, 
 and especially continued with the most courageous persever- 
 ance her care of the poor. 3 But this sincere and active 
 humility did not prevent her from being considered by all 
 the nuns, as well as by the whole Church, the true superior 
 of the monastery which she had founded. At her petition, 
 the bishops of the second Council of Tours sanctioned the 
 irrevocable vows of virgins consecrated to God, according 
 to the rule of St. Cassarius, for she went as far as Aries to 
 study and bring back the wise and severe rule which that 
 great bishop had instituted there, a century before, for the 
 monastery governed by his sister. 4 She had need of that 
 
 1 "Jam per internuntios cognoverat. . . . Quasi devotionis causa . . . 
 ut suam reginam acciperet. . . . Sacramentales litteras fecit. . . . Pro- 
 sternit se et ille ante limina S. Martini pedibus apostolici viri." — Bolland., 
 loc. (At., p. 76. 
 
 2 GREG. Tueon., Be Glor. Confessor., c. 106. 
 
 3 " Monachabus soporantibus calceamenta tergens et ungens. . . . 
 Scopans monasterii plateas . . . secretum etiam opus purgare non tardans, 
 sed scopans ferebat foetores stercorum ; credebat se minorem sibi, si se 
 non nobilitaret servitii vilitate . . . capita lavans egenorum . . . mulieres 
 variis leprae perfusas maculis comprehendens in amplexibus." — Bolland., 
 pp. 68, 72. 
 
 4 See above, vol. i. p. 354.
 
 174 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 protection from without, for the Bishop of Poitiers, Merov^e, 
 showed an inveterate hostility to her all her life. 1 
 
 On the other hand, to adorn still better her dear sanc- 
 tuary, she sent to the Emperor Justin at Constantinople to 
 ask for a fragment of the true cross, which he granted to 
 her. A new Helena, she received with transports of joy the 
 holy relic which gave its name to her monastery ; and the 
 sublime accents of the Vexilla regis and of the Pange lingua 
 echoed for the first time in the ears of the faithful upon 
 the occasion of its arrival — new hymns with which that 
 solemnity inspired the poet Venantius Fortunatus, and 
 which all the Church has sung since then. 
 
 This Fortunatus 2 was an Italian, who, coming to visit 
 the sanctuaries of Gaul, had established himself at Poitiers. 
 He became, long after, the bishop of that city, and the 
 biographer of Radegund, but then was only famed for his 
 poetical talents. The cloistered queen made him her secre- 
 tary, and the intendant of the goods of the monastery. In 
 verses where classic recollections and literary graces mingle 
 perhaps too often with the inspirations of the Catholic faith, 
 he enters into many curious and valuable details of the 
 touching intimacy which existed between himself, the 
 abbess Agnes, and Radegund. 3 He often speaks in the 
 name of the latter, especially in one celebrated passage, 
 where he supposes the queen to retain, after having reached 
 the age of fifty, a poignant and impassioned recollection of 
 her ravaged country, her murdered family, and of a cousin 
 who had by that time found a refuge at Constantinople, and 
 who had perhaps shared the first days of her captivity, when 
 she herself, led into bondage, had left her Germanic father- 
 land for ever. 
 
 1 Greg. Tueon., Hist, lib. ix. c. 39, 40. 
 
 2 Born at Ceneda, near Trevise, in 530. He became Bishop of Poitiers 
 only in 599, twelve years after the death of Radegund. 
 
 3 We refer again to the peremptory refutation which M. Gorini has 
 given to the erroneous suppositions of MM. Ampere and Augustin Thierry 
 with regard to that friendship.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 175 
 
 As it has been said that Radegund herself had dictated 
 these verses, which breathe the sentiment of true poetry, we 
 shall quote some passages, literally translated : — 
 
 " When the wind murmurs, I listen if it brings me some 
 news, but of all my kindred not even a shadow presents 
 itself to me. . . . And thou, Amalafried, gentle son of my 
 father's brother, does no anxiety for me consume thy heart ? 
 Hast thou forgotten what Radegund was to thee in thy 
 earliest years, and how much thou lovedst me, and how thou 
 heldst the place of the father, mother, brother, and sister 
 whom I had lost ? An hour absent from thee seemed to 
 me eternal : now ages pass, and I never hear a word from 
 thee. A whole world now lies betwixt those who loved 
 each other, and who of old were never separate. If others, 
 for pity alone, cross the Alps to seek their lost slaves, where- 
 fore am I forgotten, I who am bound to thee by blood ? 
 Where art thou ? I ask the wind as it sighs, the clouds as 
 they pass ; at least some bird might bring me news of thee. 
 If the holy enclosure of this monastery did not restrain me, 
 thou shouldst see me suddenly appear beside thee. I could 
 cross the stormy seas, in winter, if it was necessary. The 
 tempest that alarms the sailors should cause no fear to me 
 who love thee. If my vessel were dashed to pieces by the 
 tempest, I should cling to a plank to reach thee ; and if I 
 could find nothing to cling to, I should go to thee swimming, 
 exhausted ! If I could but see thee once more, I should deny 
 all the perils of the journey ; and if I died by the way, thou 
 shouldst make me a grave in the sand, and in burying me 
 shouldst weep for her, dead, whose tears, when living, thou 
 disdainedst." * 
 
 1 " Specto libens aliquam si nuntiet aura salutem, 
 
 Nullaque de cunctis umbra parentis adest. . . . 
 
 An quod in absenti te nee mea cura remordet, 
 Affectum dulcem cladis amara tulit ? 
 
 Vel memor esto, tuis primasvis qualis ab annis, 
 Hamalefrede, tibi tunc Radegundes eram. 
 
 Quantam me quondam dulcis dilexeris infans, . . .
 
 176 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 But if the holy recluse permitted the Italian poet to 
 invoke, in her name, those passionate images of the past, 
 of her country, and her young affections, no trace of them 
 appeared in her life. On the contrary, she had concentrated 
 all the warmth of her tenderness upon her monastic family. 
 When she saw all her young and numerous brood collected 
 round her, she constantly addressed them thus : "I love you 
 so much, that I remember no longer that I have had rela- 
 tions and married a king. I no longer love anything but 
 you, young girls whom I have chosen, young flowers whom 
 I have planted — you, my eyes and my life, my rest and my 
 happiness ! " * Thus surrounded, she could forget all the 
 outer world. One evening, as Fortunatus himself relates, 
 towards the close of day, some musicians passed the 
 walls of the monastery dancing and singing loudly. The 
 saint was at prayers with two of her sisters ; one of them 
 said to her gaily, " Madam, these dancers are singing one 
 
 Vixerat in spatium, quo te minus hora referret ; 
 
 Saecula nunc f ugiunt, nee tua verba fero. . . . 
 Inter amatores totusque interjacet orbis. . . . 
 Si famulos alii, pietatis lege, requirunt, 
 
 Cur ego praeterear, sanguine juncta parens ? . . . 
 Quse loca te teneant, si sibilat aura, requiro ; 
 
 Nubila si volites, pendula posco locum. . . . 
 
 Prospera vel veniens nuntia ferret avis ! 
 Sacra monasterii si me non claustra tenerent, 
 
 Improvisa aderam, qua regione sedes. . . . 
 
 Et quod nauta timet non pavitasset amans. . . . 
 
 Ad te venissem, lassa, natante manu. 
 Cum te respicerem, peregrina pericla negassem. . . . 
 
 Vel tumulum manibus ferret arena tuis. . . . 
 Qui spernis vitas fletus, lacrymatus humares." 
 
 M. Augustin Thierry has reproduced the complete text of this poem, en- 
 titled De Excidio Thuringice ex Persona Radegundis, at the end of his Recits 
 Merovingiens, taking advantage of the various readings discovered by M. 
 Guerard. 
 
 1 " In tantum dilexit, ut etiam parentis vel regem conjugem se habuisse, 
 quod frequenter nobis etiam dum praadicabat, dicebat : . . . Vos, lumina ; 
 vos, mea vita ; . . . vos, novella plantatio." — BAUDONIVIA, Monialis 
 JZqualis, ap. BOLLAND., p. 77.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 177 
 
 of the airs which I used to sing myself in old times." 
 " Truly," said the queen, " I wonder that, belonging to the 
 Lord, you can take pleasure in listening to these worldly 
 sounds." " But, indeed," answered the sister, " it is because 
 I hear two or three of my own songs." " Well, well ! as for 
 me," said the queen, " I take God to witness that I have not 
 heard a single note of that profane music." 1 
 
 However, governed by these affections of the cloister 
 and thoughts of heaven as she was, she retained, notwith- 
 standing, an anxious solicitude for the interests of the royal 
 house and the country of her marriage. At the height of 
 the struggles between her daughters-in-law, the atrocious 
 Fredegund and Brunehault, she perpetually interposed to 
 preach peace and reconciliation. The salvation of the 
 country, says the faithful companion of her life, was always 
 in her mind ; she trembled through all her frame when she 
 heard of some new rupture. Although she, perhaps, inclined 
 towards the side of Brunehault and her children, she in- 
 cluded all the Merovingian princes in her love. She wrote 
 to all the kings, one after the other, and then to the prin- 
 cipal lords, adjuring them to watch over the true interests of 
 the people and the country. " Peace between the kings is 
 my victory," she said ; and to obtain this from the celes- 
 tial King, she engaged the prayers of all her community, 
 and redoubled, for her own part, her fasts, penances, and 
 charity. 2 
 
 1 " Inter choraulas et citharas . . . multo fremiti! cantaretur. . . . 
 Domina, recognovi unam de meis canticis a saltantibus praedicari. . . . 
 Vere, Domina, duas et tres hie modo meas canticas audivi quas tenuit." 
 — Venantius Foktunat., ibid., p. 74. These two sketches, which M. 
 Thierry has not thought proper to draw from sources which he has so often 
 quoted, might have sufficed to refute most of his assertions. 
 
 2 " Semper de salute patriae curiasa . . . quia totos diligebat reges. . . . 
 Tota tremebat, et quales litteras uni, tales dirigebat alteri. . . . Ut, eis reg- 
 nantibus, populi et patria salubrior redderetur." — BAUDONIVIA, loc. cit., p, 
 78. Compare p. 80, on Brunehault. This is an excellent answer to that 
 professor who wrote, some years ago, that the word patrie was unknown in 
 the Christian world before the Renaissance. 
 
 VOL. II. M
 
 I78 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 For this woman, who is represented to us as " seeking a 
 sort of compromise between monastic austerity and the 
 softened and elegant habits of civilised society," l was not 
 only the first to practise what she taught to others, but 
 actually inflicted tortures upon herself to reduce her flesh 
 more completely into servitude. It is true that, full of in- 
 dulgence for her companions, she permitted them frequent- 
 intercourse with their friends outside, repasts in common, 
 and even dramatic entertainments, the custom of which was 
 then introduced, and long maintained in the learned com- 
 munities of the middle ages. 2 But she refused for her- 
 self every recreation or softening of the rule. She went 
 so far as to heat a metal cross in the fire and stamp it 
 upon her flesh, which was still too delicate to satisfy 
 her, as the sacred stigmata of her love for the crucified 
 Saviour. 3 
 
 Till the time of her death she wore upon her naked flesh 
 an iron chain, which she had received as a gift from a lord 
 of Poitou, named Junian, who had, like herself, quitted the 
 world for a life of solitude, and who kept together by the 
 bond of charity a numerous body of monks under the rule 
 which the beloved disciple of Benedict had just brought into 
 Gaul. A worthy rival of the charity of Radegund, he sup- 
 ported, at great expense, herds of cattle and rich poultry 
 yards, in order to give the poor peasants oxen for ploughing, 
 clothes, eggs, and cheese, and even fowls for the sick. He 
 wore no other dress than the woollen robes which the queen 
 span for him. They had agreed to pray for each other after 
 their death ; they died on the same day, at the same hour, 
 and the messengers, who left at once the St. Croix of Poitiers 
 
 1 AUC4. THIERRY, Rtcits Mirovingiens, t. ii. p. 153, 7th edition. 
 
 2 " Barbatorias intus eo quod celebraverit. . . . De tabula vero re- 
 spondit, et si lusisset vivente Domna Radegunde. . . . De conviviis ait 
 se nullam novam fecisse consuetudinem, nisi sicut actum est sub Domna 
 Radegunde."— GREG. Tur., Hist., x. 245. Compare MAGNIN, Journal des 
 Savants, May i860. 
 
 3 Venant. Fortunat., loc. cit.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 1 79 
 
 and the cloister inhabited by Junian, met half-way with the 
 same melancholy news. 1 
 
 Gregory of Tours celebrated the funeral of the holy queen, 
 and tells us that even in her coffin her beauty was still dazz- 
 ling. Around this coffin the two hundred nuns whom she 
 had drawn from the world to give them to God, chanted a 
 kind of plaintive eclogue, in which they celebrated the virtues 
 of their abbess and the love with which she inspired them. 
 Then when Gregory conducted the body to the grave, where 
 the seclusion prescribed by the rule of St. Cassarius debarred 
 the nuns from following, he saw them press to the windows, 
 and to the towers and battlements of the monastery, where 
 their lamentations, tears, and the wringing of their hands, 
 rendered a last homage to their royal foundress. 2 Before 
 her death she had made a kind of will, in which she took 
 no title but that of Radegund, sinner, and in which she put 
 her dear monastery under the charge of St. Martin and St. 
 Hilary, adjuring the bishops and kings to treat as spoilers 
 and persecutors of the poor all who should attempt to 
 disturb the community, to change its rule, or dispossess its 
 abbess. 
 
 But it was rather from internal disorders than outside 
 enemies that her work required to be preserved. Even in 
 
 1 " Sub B. Benedict! regula. . . . Tantae charitatis glutino omnem 
 monachorum catervan constrinxerat. . . . Quem S. Radegundis sacrificiis 
 suis fovebat. . . . Nee aliud tegminis habuit, nisi quod ab ilia conficie- 
 batur. . . . Sed et ilia sanctissima catenam ferri ab illo sanctissimo viro 
 accepit. . . . Declarat mandatum ut statim cum a sasculo migrasset 
 nuntiaretur B. Radegundis." — Wulpinus Episc, Vit. S. Juniani, ap. 
 Labbe, Nov. Bibl. MS., t. ii. p. 572. This Junian, abbot of Maire in Poitou, 
 must not be confounded with another St. Junian, hermit, after whom the 
 town of that name in Limousin was called. Compare Bolland., vol. iii. 
 Aug., p. 32, and vol. vii. Octobr., p. 841. 
 
 2 "Reperimus earn jacentem in feretro, cujus sancta facies ita fulgebat 
 ut liliorum rosarumque sperneret pulchritudinem." — Greg. Turon. "Tran- 
 seuntibus nobis sub muro, iterum caterva virginum per fenestras turrium 
 et ipsa quoque muri propugnacula ... ita ut inter sonos fletuum atque 
 conlisiones palmarum." — Be Gloria Confess., c. 106. Compare Magnin, 
 loc. cit.
 
 l8o THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 her own lifetime one of the nuns had escaped over the wall 
 of the abbey, and taking refuge in the church of St. Hilary, 
 had poured forth a hundred calumnies against the abbess. 
 She had been made to re-enter the monastery, hoisted up 
 by ropes, at the same part of the rampart by which she 
 descended, and had acknowledged the falsehood of her 
 accusations against Agnes and Radegund. 1 
 
 After their death matters were still worse. Among the 
 Frank princesses whom she had led or received into the 
 shadow of the sanctuary of St. Croix, there were two who 
 retained all the Barbarian vehemence, and who, far from 
 profiting by the example of the widow of Clotaire, showed 
 themselves only too faithful to the blood of their grandsire. 
 These were Ohrodield, daughter of King Caribert, and the 
 uufortunate Basine, daughter of King Chilperic and Queen 
 Audovere, whom Fredegund, her infamous mother-in-law, 
 had cast into the cloister, after having had her dishonoured 
 by her valets. 2 At the death of the abbess Agnes, who soon 
 followed her benefactress to the grave, Chrodield, irritated 
 at not having been elected in her place, formed a plot against 
 the new abbess Leubovere, and left the monastery with her 
 cousin and forty other nuns, saying, " I go to the kings my 
 relations to let them know the ignominy which has been 
 inflicted on us, for we have been treated here not like the 
 daughters of kings but like the daughters of miserable 
 slaves." Without listening to the remonstrances of the 
 bishops they broke the locks and doors, and went on foot 
 from Poitiers to Tours, where they arrived panting, worn, 
 and exhausted, by roads flooded by the great rains, and 
 without having eaten anything on the road. Chrodield 
 presented herself to Gregory of Tours, who read to the party 
 the sentence of excommunication pronounced by the Council 
 of Tours against nuns guilty of breaking their seclusion, 
 entreated them not to destroy thus the work of the holy 
 queen Radegund, and offered to conduct them back to 
 1 Geeg. Tueon., Hist. Eccl., lib. x. c. 40. 2 Ibid., lib. v. c. 40.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I 8 I 
 
 Poitiers. " No, no," said Chrodield ; " we are going to 
 the kings." 
 
 Gregory succeeded in persuading them to wait at least 
 for the summer. The fine weather having come, Chrodield 
 left her cousin and her companions at Tours, and went to 
 her uncle Gontran, king of Burgundy, who received her 
 well, and named certain bishops to investigate the quarrel. 
 Returning to Tours, she found that several of the fugitives 
 had allowed themselves to be seduced and married. With 
 those that remained she returned to Poitiers, and they in- 
 stalled themselves in the Church of St. Hilary with a troop 
 of robbers and bandits to defend them, saying always, " We 
 are queens, and we will only return to the monastery when 
 the abbess is expelled from it." The metropolitan of Bor- 
 deaux then appeared with the Bishop of Poitiers and two 
 others of his suffragans, and, upon their obstinate refusal to 
 return to their monastery, excommunicated them. But the 
 bandits whom they had hired for their defence attacked the 
 bishops, threw them down upon the pavement of the church, 
 and broke the heads of several deacons in their suite. A 
 panic seized the episcopal train : every man saved himself 
 as he could. Chrodield afterwards sent her followers to 
 seize the lands of the monastery, made the vassals obey her 
 by dint of blows, and threatened always, if she returned to 
 the monastery, to throw the abbess over the walls. King 
 Childebert, the Count of Poitou, and the bishops of the 
 province of Lyons, interfered in turn without any better 
 success. This lasted for a whole year. The cold of winter 
 constrained the rebels to separate, for they had no other 
 shelter than the church, where they could not make a suf- 
 ficient fire to keep themselves warm. 1 
 
 Discords, however, arose between the two cousins, who 
 each assumed to be leader, by her right as a princess of the 
 
 1 " Vado ad parentes meos reges . . . quia non ut filise regum, sed ut 
 malarum ancillarum genitas in hoc loco hurniliamur. . . . Pedestri itinere 
 . . . anhelas et satis exiguae. . . . Nequaquam, sed ad reges ibimus. . . .
 
 I 82 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 royal blood. But Chrodield maintained her supremacy; 
 she took advantage of it to adopt still more violent measures, 
 and sent her troop of bandits against the monastery. They 
 made their way into it by night, with arms in their hands, 
 forcing the doors with axes, and seized the abbess, who, 
 helpless with gout, and scarcely able to walk, was roused by 
 the noise to go and prostrate herself before the shrine which 
 enclosed the true cross. They dragged her, half naked, to 
 the Church of St. Hilary, and shut her up there in the 
 portion inhabited by Basine. Chrodield gave orders to 
 poniard her upon the spot, if the bishop or any other person 
 endeavoured to set her at liberty. After this she pillaged 
 her ancient monastery from top to bottom ; many nuns were 
 wounded, and the servants faithful to the abbess were killed 
 upon the very sepulchre of Radegund. Basine, wounded by 
 the pride of her cousin, took advantage of the neighbour- 
 hood of the captive abbess to attempt a reconciliation with 
 her ; but it was without result. 
 
 These battles and murders continued at a still greater 
 rate, until finally the kings Gontran of Burgundy, and 
 Childebert of Austrasia, uncle and cousin of the two principal 
 culprits, resolved to put an end to this disgraceful scandal. 
 They convoked the bishops anew; but Gregory of Tours 
 declared that they could on no account assemble till sedition 
 had been suppressed by the secular arm. Then the Count 
 of Poitiers, supported apparently by the entire population 
 of the town, made a formal attack upon the basilica built by 
 Radegund, which had been transformed into a citadel. It 
 was in vain that Chrodield ordered a sortie of her satellites, 
 and that, seeing them repulsed, she advanced to meet the 
 besiegers, the cross in her hand, crying, " Do nothing to me, 
 for I am a queen, daughter of a king, cousin and niece of 
 
 Quia reginse sumus, nee prius in monasterium nostrum ingrediemur, nisi 
 abbatissa ejiciatur foras. . . . Cum effractis capitibus. . . . Minans ut 
 . . . abbatissam de muro projectam terra? dejiceret. . . . Propter penuriam 
 ligni. . . ."— Geeg. Tueon., Hist. Eccl, lib. ix. c. 39, 43.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 1 83 
 
 your kings : do nothing to me, or the time will come when 
 I shall avenge myself." Her person was respected. But 
 her bravoes were seized and executed in various ways. 
 Then the bishops proceeded, in the very church which had 
 been thus delivered, to sit in judgment on the contest. 
 Ohrodield, who was not cast down by her defeat, constituted 
 herself the accuser of the abbess ; she reproached this poor 
 bedridden gouty woman with having a man in her service 
 dressed like a woman, with playing dice, eating with secular 
 persons, and other still less serious imputations. She com- 
 plained at the same time that she and her companions had 
 neither food nor clothing, and that they had been beaten. 
 The abbess defended herself without difficulty ; the two 
 princesses were obliged to confess that they had no capital 
 crime, such as homicide or adultery, to allege against her ; 
 whilst the bishops reminded them that some of the nuns of 
 their own party had fallen into sin, in consequence of the 
 disorder into which their leaders had plunged them. Not- 
 withstanding, they refused to ask pardon of the abbess — 
 threatened loudly, on the contrary, to kill her. 1 The bishops 
 then declared them excommunicated, and re-established the 
 abbess in the monastery of which she had been deprived. 
 Even then the rebel princesses did not submit : they went 
 to their cousin, King Childebert, and denounced the abbess 
 to him as sending daily messages to his enemy Fredegund. 
 He was weak enough to recommend his cousins to the 
 bishops who were about to meet for a new council at Metz. 
 But there Basine finally separated from her cousin ; she 
 threw herself at the feet of the bishops, asked their pardon, 
 and promised to return to St. Croix of Poitiers, to live there 
 according to the rule. Chrodield, on the contrary, declared 
 
 1 " Statim cum gladio percute. . . . Nolite super me, quasso, vim inferre, 
 quae sum regina, filia regis, regisque alterius consobrina. . . . Sed vulgus 
 parvipendens. . . . Contra comitem et plebem. . . . Quas credebamus 
 innocentes monachas nobis protulerunt prsegnantes. . . . De ejus interfec- 
 tione tractarent, quod publice sunt professae." — Gkeg. Tueon., Hist. Eccl., 
 lib. x. c. 16.
 
 1 84 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 that she would never set foot in it while the abbess remained 
 there ; and the result was, that they permitted her to live 
 near Poitiers on an estate given her by the king. 
 
 This confused contrast of so many crimes and so many 
 virtues ; these monks, whose charity to their neighbour was 
 only equalled by their severity to themselves, and these 
 bandits commanded by debauched nuns ; these daughters 
 of Frank and German kings, some transfigured by faith and 
 poetry, while others were suffering or inflicting the most 
 infamous outrages ; these kings by turns ferocious and 
 amiable ; this great bishop standing near the tomb of his 
 immortal predecessor, and preaching order and peace to 
 all ; these murders and sacrileges face to face with the im- 
 passioned worship of the most venerable relic ; the boldness 
 and long impunity of crime side by side with so many pro- 
 digies of fervour and austerity ; in a word, this mingled 
 crowd of saints and villains, offers the most faithful picture 
 of the long combat waged by Christian dignity and Chris- 
 tian virtue against the violence of the Barbarians, and the 
 vices of the Gallo-Romans enervated by long subjection to 
 despotism. Monks and nuns were the heroes and instru- 
 ments of that struggle. It lasted for two centuries longer 
 before it gave way to the luminous and powerful age of the 
 first Carlovingians, and was renewed at a later period under 
 new forms and against new assailants. 
 
 In the same year which saw all Gaul south of the Loire 
 disturbed by this scandal, the famous monastery of Luxeuil, 
 founded by a Celtic missionary, St. Columba, and destined 
 to become for a time the monastic metropolis of the Frank 
 dominions, came into being at the other extremity of the 
 country, at the foot of the Vosges, between the Rhone and 
 the Rhine. Here we must hereafter seek the centre of 
 monastic life in Gaul, and study the action of the monks 
 upon the kingdom and people of the Franks.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I 85 
 
 V. — The Monks and Nature. 
 
 The Lord shall comfort Zion : He will comfort all her waste places ; 
 and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like 
 the garden of the Lord ; joy and gladness shall be found therein, 
 thanksgiving, and the voice of melody. — ISA. li. 3. 
 
 But before we study the action of the great Celtic mis- 
 sionary upon the kingdom and people of the Franks, it is 
 important to observe one of the distinct characteristics of 
 the monastic occupation of Gaul. We should greatly deceive 
 ourselves did we suppose that the monks chose the Gallo- 
 Roman cities or populous towns for their principal estab- 
 lishments. Episcopal cities like Poitiers, Aries, or Paris, 
 were not the places which they preferred, nor in which they 
 abounded most. They were almost always to be found there, 
 thanks to the zeal of the bishops who sought and drew them 
 to their neighbourhood. But their own proper impulse, their 
 natural instinct, I know not what current of ideas always 
 swaying them, led them far from towns, and even from the 
 fertile and inhabited rural districts, towards the forests and 
 deserts which then covered the greater part of the soil of 
 our country. 
 
 They took special delight in such situations, where we 
 behold them in close conflict with nature with all her ob- 
 stacles and dangers ; and where we find all that exuberant 
 vigour and life which everywhere distinguishes the spring- 
 time of monastic institutions, and which for two centuries 
 renewed a kind of Thebaid in the forests of Gaul. 
 
 However, between that sombre and wild nature of Europe, 
 transferred from the oppressing grasp of Rome to that of 
 the Barbarians, and the unwearied activity of the solitaries 
 and religious communities, there was less a laborious struggle 
 than an intimate and instinctive alliance, the warm and poetic 
 reflection of which animates many a page of the monastic 
 annals. Nothing can be more attractive than this moral
 
 1 86 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 and material sympathy between monastic life and the life 
 of nature. To him who would devote sufficient leisure and 
 attention to it, there is here a delightful field of study which 
 might fill a whole life. We may be pardoned for lingering 
 a moment on this fascinating subject, confining ourselves, 
 however, to so much only as concerns the monks of Gaul 
 in the sixth and seventh centuries. 
 
 When the disciples of St. Benedict and St. Columba came 
 to settle in Gaul, most of its provinces bore an aspect sadly 
 similar. Roman tyranny and taxation in the first place, 
 and then the ravages of the Barbarian invasions, had changed 
 entire countries into desert and solitary places. That pagus 
 which, in the time of Caesar, had furnished thousands of 
 soldiers against the common enemy, now showed only some 
 few inhabitants scattered over a country allowed to run 
 waste, where a spontaneous and savage vegetation disputed 
 all attempts at culture, and gradually transformed the land 
 into forests. These new forests extended by degrees to the 
 immense clumps of dark and impenetrable wood, which had 
 always covered an important part of the soil of Gaul. 1 One 
 example, among a thousand, will prove the advance of deso- 
 lation. Upon the right bank of the Loire, five leagues below 
 Orleans, in that district which is now the garden of France, 
 the Gallo-Roman castrum of Magdunum, which occupied the 
 site of the existing town of Meung, had completely disap- 
 peared under the woods, when the monk Liephard directed 
 his steps there, accompanied by a single disciple, in the 
 sixth century ; in place of the numerous inhabitants of 
 former times, there stood only trees, the interlaced branches 
 and trunks of which formed a sort of impenetrable barrier. 2 
 
 1 This question has been exquisitely treated by M. Alfred Maury, in his 
 great work entitled Les Forests de la France dans VAntiquite et au Moyen Age, 
 inserted in vol. iv. of the memoirs presented to the Academy for Inscrip- 
 tions and Belles-Lettres. I owe to him several of the details and quota- 
 tions which follow. 
 
 2 " Est autem mons in Aurelianensi pago ... in quo ab antiquis cas- 
 trum fuerat asdificatum, quod crudcli Wandalorum vastatione ad solum
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I 87 
 
 And thus also Columba found nothing but idols abandoned 
 in the midst of the wood, upon that site of Luxeuil which 
 had formerly been occupied by the temples and the baths 
 of the Romans. 1 
 
 These famous Druidical forests, in which the sacrifices of 
 the ancient Gauls were celebrated, and which were conse- 
 crated by the worship of old trees, so universally practised 
 by all pagan antiquity from the banks of the Ganges to 
 those of the Tiber ; these eternal shades, which inspired the 
 Romans with superstitious terror, had not only preserved, 
 but even extended, their formidable empire. The fidelity 
 of the picture drawn by the singer of Pharsalia was more 
 than ever apparent after six centuries had passed : — 
 
 " Lucus erat longo nunquam violatus ab gevo, 
 Obscurum cingens connexis aera ramis, 
 Et gelidas alte submotis solibus umbras. 
 Hunc non ruricolse Panes, nemorumque potentes 
 Silvani, Nymphaeque tenent, sed barbara ritu 
 Sacra Deurn, structge diris altaribus arse . . . 
 Arboribus suus horror iuest.' 1 2 
 
 Where there had not been sufficient time to produce 
 these immense forest-trees whose tops seem to reach the 
 clouds, 3 or these woodland giants which testified to the 
 antiquity of primitive forests, cultivation and population had 
 
 usque dirutum est. Nemine autem remanente habitatore, nemoribus hinc 
 inde succrescentibus, locus idem qui Claris hominum conventibus quondam 
 replebatur, in densissimam, redactus est solitudinem. Cujus abtrusa 
 latibula venerabilis Liephardus petiit." — Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. i. p. 145. 
 Compare the following passage in the life of St. Laumer : " Secessit in 
 locum quern olim priscorum habitatorum manus extruxerat, sed jam vas- 
 titas succrescentium frondium et totum obduxerat." — Ibid., p. 325. 
 
 1 " Ibi imaginum lapidearum densitas vicina saltus densabat." — Jonas, 
 Vit. S. Columbani. 
 
 2 LUCAN., Pharsal., lib. iii. 399. 
 
 3 " Erat silva longum nunquam violata per cevuni, cujus arborum summitas 
 pene nubes pulsabat." — Vit. S. Sequani, c. 7. The words underlined show 
 that the monastic writer of the seventh century knew his Lucan by heart.
 
 1 88 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 not the less disappeared before a lower growth of wood. 
 Certainly magnificent pines, such as those that crown the 
 heights of the Vosges and the sides of the Alps, or oaks, the 
 fallen trunks of which could scarcely be moved by forty 
 men, like that which the abbot Launomar cut down in the 
 vast forest of Perche, were not to be seen everywhere ; * 
 but the fertile soil was everywhere usurped by copsewood, 
 where the maple, the birch, the aspen, and the witch- 
 elm prepared the ground for a more imposing growth of 
 trees, and, still worse, by thickets of thorn and brambles 
 of formidable extent and depth, which arrested the steps 
 and tortured the limbs of the unfortunates who ventured 
 there. 2 These intermediate regions between the great 
 forests and the fields, between the mountains and the culti- 
 vated plains, were with too much justice entitled deserts, 
 because the population had abandoned them till the monks 
 brought back fertility and life. In the northern part of 
 the country, occupied by the Burgundians, on the north of 
 the Rhone alone, six great deserts existed at the end of the 
 sixth century, — the desert of Reome, between Tonnerre and 
 Montbard ; the desert of Morvan ; the desert of Jura ; the 
 desert of the Vosges, where Luxeuil and Lure were about 
 to have birth ; the desert of Switzerland, between Bienne 
 and Lucerne ; and the desert of Gruyere, between the Savine 
 and the Aar. 3 Indeed, the whole extent of Switzerland and 
 Savoy was little else than a vast forest, the name of which 
 alone remains, applied in French to the canton of Vaud 
 
 1 "Vasta tractus Perticse solitudines. . . . Annosam quercum. . . . 
 Immensse molis. . . . Tanti ponderis ut vix a quadraginta viris portaretur." 
 —Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. i. pp. 318, 324. 
 
 2 Spina et vepres : In almost every life of the holy founders of monas- 
 teries we find mention of these vegetable enemies. Thence also the names 
 of several abbeys, Roncereium, the Ronceray, at Angers ; Spinetum, after- 
 wards Boheries ; Spinosus locus, Espinlieu ; Spinalium, Epinal, and other 
 local names which are to be found in almost all our provinces : L'Epine, 
 L'Espinay, La Ronciere, La Bonder, La Ronceraye. 
 
 3 See the excellent map of the first kingdom of Burgundy, by Baron 
 Roget de Belloguet, ap. Memoires de I' Acad, de Dijon, 1847-48, p. 313.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS I 89 
 
 (Pagus Waldensis), and in German to the four primitive 
 cantons of Lucerne, Schwitz, Uri, and Unterwald {Die Wald- 
 stdtte7i), where a border of impenetrable wood surrounded 
 the beautiful lake which unites them. 1 Advancing towards 
 the north, the wooded regions became more and more pro- 
 found and extensive. Even in the provinces least depopu- 
 lated and best cultivated, through the most favourable soils 
 and climates, long wooded lines extended from north to 
 south, and from the rising to the setting sun, connecting 
 the great masses of forests with each other, surrounding and 
 enveloping Gaul as in a vast network of shade and silence. 
 
 We must then imagine Gaul and all the neighbouring 
 countries, the whole extent of France, Switzerland, Belgium, 
 and both banks of the Ehine — that is to say, the richest 
 and most populous countries of modern Europe — covered 
 with forests such as are scarcely to be seen in America, and 
 of which there does not remain the slightest trace in the 
 ancient world. We must figure to ourselves these masses 
 of sombre and impenetrable wood, covering hills and valleys, 
 the high table-land as well as the marshy bottoms ; descend- 
 ing to the banks of the great rivers, and even to the sea ; 
 broken here and there by water-courses which laboriously 
 forced a way for themselves across the roots and fallen trees ; 
 perpetually divided by bogs and marshes, which swallowed 
 up the animals or men who were so ill-advised as to risk 
 themselves there ; and inhabited by innumerable wild beasts, 
 whose ferocity had scarcely been accustomed to fly before 
 man, and of which many different species have since almost 
 completely disappeared from our country. 
 
 To plunge into these terrible forests, to encounter these 
 monstrous animals, the tradition of which remains every- 
 where, and whose bones are still sometimes exhumed, re- 
 quired a courage of which nothing in the existing world can 
 give us an idea. In all that now remains to be conquered 
 
 1 Wald in German means at the same time forest and mountain ; it is the 
 saltus of the Latins. See Maury, op. cit.
 
 190 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 of American forests and deserts, the modern adventurer 
 penetrates armed with all the inventions of industry and 
 mechanical art, provided with all the resources of modern 
 life, sustained by the certainty of success, by the conscious- 
 ness of progress, and urged forward by the immense pressure 
 of civilisation which follows and sustains him. But at that 
 time no such help came to the monk, who attacked these 
 gloomy woods without arms, without sufficient implements, 
 and oiten without a single companion. He came out of a 
 desolated, decrepit, and powerless old world, to plunge into 
 the unknown. But he bore with him a strength which 
 nothing has ever surpassed or equalled, the strength con- 
 ferred by faith in a living God, the protector and rewarder 
 of innocence, by contempt of all material joy, and by an ex- 
 clusive devotion to the spiritual and future life. He thus 
 advanced, undaunted and serene ; and, often without think- 
 ing what he did, opened a road to all the benefits of agri- 
 culture, labour, and Christian civilisation. 
 
 See, then, these men of prayer and penitence, who were 
 at the same time the bold pioneers of Christian civilisation 
 and the modern world ; behold them taming that world of 
 wild and savage nature in a thousand different places. They 
 plunged into the darkness carrying light with them, a light 
 which was never more to be extinguished ; and this light, 
 advancing step by step, lighted everywhere those home-fires 
 which were so many beacons upon the way to heaven, — 
 " from glory to glory," * — and which were to be centres of 
 life and blessing for the people whom they instructed and 
 edified : " In thy light shall we see light." 2 
 
 They entered there, sometimes axe in hand, at the head 
 of a troop of believers scarcely converted, or of pagans sur- 
 prised and indignant, to cut down the sacred trees, and thus 
 root out the popular superstition. But still more frequently 
 they reached these solitudes with one or two disciples at the 
 most, seeking some distant and solitary retreat, out of the 
 
 1 2 Cor. iii. 18. 2 Ps. xxxvi. 9.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 191 
 
 way of men, where they might be allowed to devote them- 
 selves entirely to God. 
 
 No obstacle nor danger arrested them. The more awful 
 the profound darkness of the forest, the more were they 
 attracted to it. 1 When the only paths were so tortuous, 
 narrow, and bristling with thorns, that it was imposssible to 
 move without tearing their clothes, and they could scarcely 
 plant one foot after another in the same line, they ventured 
 on without hesitation. If they had to creep under the inter- 
 laced branches to discover some narrow and gloomy cavern 
 obstructed by stones and briers, they were ready to do it. 
 It was when approaching, on his knees, such a retreat, which 
 the beasts of the forests themselves feared to enter, that the 
 Burgundian priest Sequanus addressed this prayer to God : 
 " Lord, who hast made heaven and earth, who hearest the 
 prayers of him who comes to Thee, from whom everything 
 good proceeds, and without whom all the efforts of human 
 weakness are vain, if Thou ordainest me to establish myself 
 in this solitude, make it known to me, and lead to a good 
 issue the beginning which Thou hast already granted to my 
 devotion." Then, feeling himself inspired and consoled by 
 his prayer, he commenced at that very spot the cell in which 
 originated the abbey and existing town of St. Seine. 2 
 
 Where a natural cavern was wanting, they constructed some 
 shelter, a hut of branches or reeds ; 3 and if there were several, 
 
 1 "Inter opaca quseque memorum et lustra abditissima ferarum." — Vita 
 S. Karileji, c. 9. 
 
 2 " Callis quidam artuosus . . . tatum angustus, atque sentuosus, ut 
 . . . vix pedem pes sequeretur, impediente densitate ramorum . . . vesti- 
 mentorum discerptione. . . . Tunc se curvantes solo tenus. . . . Ita im- 
 plicitaa inter se ramorum frondes . . . ut ipsius etiam feras formidarent 
 accessum. . . . Ad squalidam silvam. . . . Extemplo parvae cellulaa in quo 
 loco genua ad orationem fixerat fundamenta molitus est." — Vit. S. Sequani, 
 c. 7, 8, ap. Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. i. 
 
 3 " Tugurio frondibus contexto." — Vita S. Launom, c. 7. " Cellulam sibi 
 virgis contexens." — Vita S. Lifardi, c. 3. " De virgultis et frondibus con- 
 struxere tugurium. Quod claustro parvulo ejusdem materise circumcin- 
 gentes." — Vita S. Ebrulfi, c. 8.
 
 192 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 an oratory with a little cloister. Sometimes they hollowed 
 out a cell in the rock, where the bed, the seat, and the table 
 were all cut out of the living stone. Sometimes (like St. 
 Calais in a desert of Maine) meeting in the depth of the 
 wood the remains of some ancient forsaken buildings, they 
 transformed them into cells and chapels, by means of branches 
 woven between the fragments of ruined wall. 1 
 
 When the course of the liturgy led them to that magnifi- 
 cent enumeration of the victories of patriarchal faith, made 
 by St. Paul in his epistle to the Hebrews, in which he repre- 
 sents Abraham waiting with confidence in the tents of exile 
 for the eternal city, whose maker and builder was God, 2 they 
 might have applied to themselves that sacred text, " Dwelling 
 in tabernacles." They might well say that their dwelling- 
 places were the tabernacles, that is to say, the tents, the cells 
 of exile. At night, lying upon their stone pallets, and during 
 the day protected against every interruption by the thick 
 foliage and inaccessible passes, they gave themselves up to 
 the delights of prayer and contemplation, to visions of a future 
 life in heaven. 
 
 Sometimes, also, the future destiny of those great works, 
 of which, unawares, they sowed the seed, was instinctively 
 revealed to their thoughts. St. Imier heard the bells of the 
 monastery which was one day to replace his hermitage, echo- 
 ing through the night. " Dear brother," he said to his only 
 companion, " dost thou hear that distant bell that has already 
 waked me three times? " " No," said the servant. But Imier 
 rose, and allowed himself to be guided by this mysterious 
 sound across the high plateau and narrow gorges of the valley 
 of Doubs, as far as the gushing fountain, where he established 
 
 1 " In altitudine eremi. . . . Reperit . . . parietes vetusti aedificii senio 
 labentes, dignitatem tamen pristinam ipsius operis vestigiis protestantes. 
 
 . Cellulam intra parietinas supradicti redificii vimine lento contexit. " — 
 Vita S. Karilefi, c. ii. 
 
 2 " Dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of 
 the same promise : for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose 
 builder and maker is God." — Heb. xi. 9, 10.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 193 
 
 himself, and which has retained his name to the present time. 1 
 Elsewhere in that Limousin, which was so celebrated for the 
 number and austerity of its solitaries, Junian, the son of a 
 companion of Clovis, abandoned everything at the age of 
 fifteen to take shelter in an unknown cell on the banks of 
 the Vienne ; he left it only to pray in the depths of the wood 
 in the shade of a great hawthorn-tree. Under this blossom 
 tree they buried him after forty years of that holy and wild 
 life, and the hawthorn disappeared only to make room for a 
 monastery, which was the origin of the existing town of St. 
 Junian. 2 
 
 The principal aim of all these monks was not to form com- 
 munities in the forests. They sought only solitude there ; 
 they would rather have lived as anchorites than as cenobites. 
 Some, and a great number, after having founded or lived in 
 monasteries, according to the rule of the life in common, 
 aspired to a more perfect existence, and to end their career 
 as St. Benedict had begun his, in some cavern unknown to 
 men. St. Benedict himself had inscribed at the head of his 
 Rule that, to be a good anchorite, it was necessary first to 
 have learned how to strive against the devil under the 
 common rule and with the help of the brethren : this was, 
 according to him, an apprenticeship necessary before engag- 
 ing in what he calls single combat against the temptations 
 of the flesh and the thoughts. 3 Others still more numerous 
 
 1 " Per novem annos breve illud quod quievit super rupes jacuit. . . . 
 Culmen montis ascendit. . . . Per sonitum campanse. . . . Audisne, mi 
 frater, signum quod ego audio ? Nequaquam." — Breviar. MS. de la Bibl. de 
 Berne, ap. TROUILLAT, Monuments de VEvechi de Bale, i. 37. The town of 
 St. Imier is at the present time one of the most flourishing centres of watch- 
 making in the Bernois Jura. 
 
 - " In quodam ipsius silvae cacumine . . . subter quamdam arborem quas 
 spina dicitur, et in vulgari nostro aubespi nuncupatur." — Maleu, Chron. 
 Comodoliacense, p. 14, ed. Arbellot, 1848. Compare Greg. Tur., Be Glor. 
 Confess., c. 103. We have already distinguished this St. Junian from 
 another saint of the same name, abbot of Maire in Poitou, and friend of 
 Radegund. See p. 179. 
 
 3 " Qui non conversionis fervore novitio, sed monasterii probatione diu- 
 turna, didicerunt contra diabolum, multorum solatio jam docti, pugnare ; 
 VOL. II. N
 
 194 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 yielded to the overpowering attraction which led them to 
 the depths of the forests, not only to escape from the dis- 
 cussions, violences, and cruel wars, of which every Christian 
 of that period was the witness and too often the victim, but 
 to flee from contact with other men, and to enjoy silence, 
 peace, and freedom. 
 
 This, however, was a vain hope. Their solitude soon 
 inspired too much envy, and their austerity too much admi- 
 ration, to be long respected. Happy were they who heard 
 only the cries of the wild beasts echoing round their cells : — 
 
 " Nunc exoriri gemitus irreque leonum 
 Vincla recusantum, et sera sub nocte rudentum 
 Ssevire, ac fornise magnorum ululare luporum." 
 
 Often, in fact, when they celebrated the nocturnal service 
 in their chapels, thatched with green leaves or rushes, the 
 howls of the wolves accompanied their voices, and served 
 as a response to the psalmody of their matins. 1 But they 
 feared much more the step and voice of men. Sometimes 
 in the middle of the night, the voluntary exile, who has hid 
 himself here in the hope of remaining for ever forgotten or 
 unknown, hears some one knock at the door of his hut. It 
 is at first only a reverential and timid tap ; he is silent, 
 thinking it a temptation of the devil. It continues : he 
 opens and asks, " What would you with me ? Why do you 
 pursue me into my solitary dwelling ? Who are you ? " He 
 is answered, " A poor sinner, or a young Christian, or an 
 old priest weary of the world." 2 " But what would you with 
 
 et bene instructi fraterna ex acie ad singularern pugnam eremi, securi jam 
 sine consolatione alterius, solo manu vel brachio contra vitia carnis vel 
 cogitationum, Deo auxiliante, sufficiunte pugnare." — Reg., c. i. 
 
 1 " In primis ibidem construxit oratorium de virgultis. . . . Frequenter 
 contigit, sicut ipse nobis referre solebat, quod nocturnis temporibus dum 
 in capella virgea matutinos cantabat, lupus e contra de foris stabat, et 
 quasi psallenti murmurando respondebat." — Order. Vital., lib. iii. p. 
 132, ed. Leprevost. 
 
 2 "Fores ipsius cellulse lento et suavi ictu reverenter pulsare coepit 
 . . . Putans pulsationem hujusmodi ex illusione djemoniaca processisse." 
 — Chron. Oommod., lib. c.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 195 
 
 me ? " " Be saved like you, and with you : learn from you 
 the way of peace and of the kingdom of God." This un- 
 expected and undesired guest must be admitted. The next 
 morning, or the next again, comes another ; and they are 
 followed by others still. The anchorites saw themselves 
 thus changed into cenobites, and monastic life established 
 itself involuntarily and unexpectedly amid the most distant 
 forest. 
 
 Besides, it was vain to flee from solitude to solitude ; 
 they were pursued, seized upon, surrounded, and importuned 
 incessantly, not only by disciples ambitious of living, like 
 them, in silence and prayer, but by the surrounding popula- 
 tions themselves. Reassured and trustful, growing familiar 
 in their turn with the gloomy arches, where these men of 
 peace and blessing, of labour and charity, had gone before 
 them, they followed in their track ; and when they had 
 discovered the hermits, kept up a continued assault, some 
 bringing offerings, others asking alms, prayers, or advice, all 
 seeking the cure of all the troubles both of soul and body. 
 The rich came like the poor, whenever they were afflicted by 
 the hand of God or man. The widows and orphans, the 
 lame and blind, the paralytic and epileptic, the lepers, and, 
 above all, the possessed, appeared in a crowd, in quest of a 
 virtue and knowledge equally supernatural to their eyes. 
 
 The solitaries withdrew with modesty from the exercise 
 of the supernatural power attributed to them. When the 
 abbot Launomar, who being at first a shepherd, had become 
 a student, then the cellarer of a monastery of Chartres, and 
 lastly, an anchorite in the great desert of Perche, which 
 then attracted many lovers of solitude, 1 was discovered, and 
 approached by a crowd of petitioners, among whom was a 
 distressed father who brought his crippled son to be cured 
 
 1 " Inter opaca nemorum. . . . Vasta rectus PerticEe solitudine." — Vit. 
 S. Launomari, c. 5 et 6. " Vastas expetunt Pertesi saltus solitudines." — 
 Vit. S. Karilefi, c. 9. Compare Vit. S. Leobini, c. 6. "Grandem ab homine 
 peccatore poscis rem : tamem nostras sumens eulogias reduc ad propria 
 filium tuum . . . quibus acceptis sanum reduxit nlium."
 
 196 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 — ' You ask too much," said he, " of a sinful man." The 
 same sentiment animated the noble Maglorius, one of the 
 Breton missionaries, and the successor of Samson at Dol. 
 After having abdicated his bishopric to live as a hermit in 
 the isle of Jersey, which Childebert, as has been already- 
 seen, bestowed upon a Breton monastery, the lord of a 
 neighbouring isle, rich in a hundred ploughs, as says the 
 legend, and possessing innumerable fishing-boats, came to 
 ask this saint to restore her speech to his only daughter, 
 who, despite her rich inheritance and rare beauty, could not 
 find a husband because she was dumb. " My son," answered 
 Maglorius, " torment me not : that which you ask is beyond 
 the power of our weakness. When I am sick, I know not 
 whether I am to die or be cured. How, then, having no 
 power over my own life, should I be able to take away any 
 of the other calamities permitted by God ? Return to your 
 house, and offer abundant alms to God, that you may obtain 
 from Him the cure of your daughter." He ended, however, 
 by yielding to the entreaties of the father, who gave him 
 a third part of all his possessions, and by obtaining this 
 miracle from God. 1 
 
 The same Maglorius, in leaving his bishopric for solitude, 
 found himself pursued by a crowd so numerous and eager 
 for instruction and consolation, and at the same time so 
 lavish of gifts and alms, that he was in despair. He told 
 his grief with his face bathed in tears, to his successor in 
 the see of Dol. " No," said he, " I can no longer remain 
 within reach of all these people : I will fly and seek some 
 inaccessible place, where men have never penetrated, nor 
 can penetrate, where no human steps can follow me." The 
 
 1 " Hausit speciem carnis ab arce alti sanguinis. . . . Ad praadicandum 
 populo ejusdem lingua?. . . . Qui licet terram, ut aiunt, centum pene 
 verteret aratris. . . . Divitem censum non sine magno dolore alieno serva- 
 bat hseredi. . . . Huic unica filia jam nubilis et nimia pulchritudine. . . . 
 Sed quia officio lingua? . . . destituta ... a nullo sub nomine dotis ex- 
 petebatur. . . . Fili, noli mini molestus esse, nam hoc quod requiris non 
 est nostrae fragilitatis." — Vila S. Maglorii, c. I, 3, 29.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 197 
 
 bishop listened in silence, and permitted him to pour out 
 all his grief for some hours ; then he mildly reproved him, 
 and showed him that he could not deny to the poor of Christ 
 the true seed of spiritual life, nor refuse to take upon him- 
 self the sweet burden of the people's sorrows, for which God 
 would render him a hundred-fold. Maglorius listened and 
 obeyed him : and shortly, in place of the solitary cell he had 
 dreamt of, found himself at the head of a community of 
 sixty-two monks. 1 
 
 Among the leudes and other possessors of the soil, there 
 were also many to whom gratitude for health restored, or 
 admiration of the virtues displayed by the monks, suggested 
 the thought of associating themselves with their merits and 
 courage by territorial grants, and especially by the conces- 
 sion of these forests of which they were nominally the lords 
 and proprietors, and which they willingly gave up in favour 
 of the servants of God, who had colonised them. Such, 
 among a thousand others, was Ragnosvinthe, a man of 
 illustrious family, and master of vast territorial possessions 
 in the neighbourhood of Chartres ; being apprised that the 
 abbot Launomar had come to establish himself in a corner 
 of his lands, once inhabited, but since swallowed up in the 
 forest, the leude, inspired by the love of Him whose image 
 he venerated in the man of God who had become his guest, 
 transferred to him the perpetual possession of a wooded 
 district, the limits of which were carefully marked out. 2 
 
 1 " Irrigata facie lacrymis, qualia et quanta a multitudine vulgi perpes- 
 sus est retulit. . . . Pro certo noveris me hinc impromptu egressurum, 
 et ad locum ubi nulla existunt hominis vestigia. . . . Hinc recedere et 
 abrupta expetere. . . . Spiritualis alimonise pauperibus Christii qua illis 
 vivere est triticum. . . . Horum populorum molestias circa te exagitatas 
 perspicere debes onus leve." — Vita S. Maglorii, c. 10 et n. 
 
 2 " Vir illustris, satis locuples et latissimorum fundorum possessor. . . . 
 Tactus amoris ejus igne, quern in Dei homine artius venerans attendebat, 
 tradidit ei locum in quern vir sanctus ingressus fuerat . . . et de jure suo 
 in ejus dominationem perpetuo transfudit ipsi et posteris ejus . . . quern 
 etiam propriis finibus optime undique determinavit." — Vita S. Launom., 
 ap. Act. SS. O. S. B., t. i. p. 324.
 
 198 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 The monks did not refuse these gifts when they came 
 from a legitimate and natural source. But we must not 
 believe that they were ready to receive all that came to 
 them from every hand ; for the same Launomar, to whom 
 another noble, feeling himself sick to death, had sent forty 
 sols of gold as the price of the prayers he asked, sent them 
 back at once, suspecting that this sum was the produce of 
 the rapine which the dying man had practised. In vain 
 the bearer of this gift followed him even into his oratory, 
 under pretence of praying with him, and placed the pieces 
 of gold on the altar, taking care to show them, and weigh 
 one by one to make their value apparent. " No," said the 
 abbot, " take back your money, and return to your master ; 
 say to him from me, that this money is ill-gotten, that it 
 cannot either prolong his life or change the sentence of 
 God against his sins. God will not have sacrifices pro- 
 duced by rapine. Let your master make haste to restore 
 what he has taken from others, for he shall die of this 
 disease. As for us, by the goodness of Christ, we are rich 
 enough, and, as long as our faith stands fast, we shall want 
 nothing." * 
 
 However, in spite of this reserve, men were not wanting 
 whom these generous gifts inspired with jealous discontent. 
 Even in Armorica, where devotion towards the monks seemed 
 native to the very soil, with the faith of which these monks 
 were the first apostles, chiefs of the highest rank yielded to 
 this sentiment, and expressed it loudly. The Briton Malo, 
 who had devoted the numerous gifts which he received to 
 endow a monastery of seventy monks attached to his epis- 
 
 1 "Vir nobilis Ermoaldus nomine. . . . Sed devotus miles Domini 
 accipere recusabat. . . . Perge cito, fili. . . . Pecunia hasc mortem 
 divinamque nequit prohibere sententiam, eo quod illius acquisitio injuste 
 facta sit ; pro se laboret, quia morietur. . . . Pecunia ista o homo ! 
 iniqua est. . . . Qui Deo sacrificium de rapina parat. . . . Nuntia 
 domino tuo, ut injuste sublata restituet. . . . Nos Christo propitio bonis 
 omnibus abundamus, et, si fide non infirmamur, nihil nobis deerit." — 
 Vit. S. Launom., pp. 320, 325.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 199 
 
 copal church, was forced to leave his diocese and emigrate 
 a second time, before the outcries of those who denounced 
 him as an invader who intended to bewitch the whole pro- 
 vince, and leave no inheritance to the inhabitants or their 
 descendants. 
 
 Recruits, or importunate followers of another kind, often 
 came to trouble their solitude. The condition of Gaul was 
 but too well adapted to encourage the formation and pro- 
 longed existence of the habits of brigandage, which have 
 kept their ground in many modern countries through all 
 the progress of civilisation, and which are still to be found 
 in our own day in Spain and Italy. Some contented them- 
 selves with stealing the tools of the solitary who had no 
 other wealth, or depriving him of the single cow which he 
 had taken with him ; but, more frequently, they aimed even 
 at the life of the intruders. The forests were the natural 
 resort of these bands of brigands, who lived by theft, and 
 who did not recoil from murder when they could thus rob 
 their victims more completely. They could not without 
 rage see the monks disputing the possession of their hitherto 
 uncontested domain, penetrating farther than they them- 
 selves could do, and in such a way as always to defeat their 
 greediness, by entangling those who followed them in be- 
 wildering complications of the way. 1 And they were always 
 tempted to believe that these strange guests went either to 
 bury or to seek hidden treasure. The abbot Launomar, 
 whose legend unites so many incidents of the forest-life of 
 the monastic founders, found himself one morning surrounded 
 by a troop of bandits, who had spent all the night in seeking 
 for him. But when they saw him appear upon the threshold 
 of his hut of branches, they were afraid, and fell at his 
 feet, praying his pardon. " My children," he said, " what 
 do you ask of me ? What came you to seek here ? " And 
 
 1 "Bo vera a prassepio solventes abduxerunt. . . . Latrunculi . . . 
 nusqnam aditum invenientes quo se de solitudine invia foras extrahere 
 possent." — Vita S. Launom., c. 20.
 
 200 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 when they had confessed their murderous intention, he said 
 to them, " God have pity on you ! Go in peace. Give up 
 your brigandage, that you may merit the mercy of God. 
 As for me, I have no treasure here below. Christ is my 
 only treasure." * 
 
 The monks almost always thus disarmed the brigands by 
 their goodness, gentleness, and venerable aspect ; they led 
 them to repentance, and often even to monastic life, taking 
 them for companions and disciples. 
 
 Sequanus, whose tranquil courage and fervent piety we 
 have already narrated, had been warned that the borders of 
 the impenetrable forest into which he was about to venture 
 were occupied by bands of assassins, who were even called 
 anthropophagi. " No matter," he said to one of his rela- 
 tives, who imagined himself the owner of this region, and 
 who gave him this information ; " show me only the road 
 by which to reach it ; for if my desires are dictated by a 
 divine instinct, all the ferocity of these men will change 
 into the mildness of the dove." And, in fact, when they 
 understood that he had established himself near their caverns, 
 and when they had seen him, the wolves became lambs ; 
 they even became labourers to serve and aid him and his, 
 to cut down the neighbouring trees, to dig the foundations 
 and build the walls of his monastery. 2 
 
 Whilst this occurred near the sources of the Seine, similar 
 events were taking place not far from its mouth. Ebrulph, 
 
 1 "Per totam noctem . . . errantes ut eum interficerent. . . . Puta- 
 bant ilium aliquam pecuniam in deserto servare. Diluculo autem facto, 
 vident se repente in conspectu ejus . . . sub parvo tugurio. . . . Parce 
 nobis, vir Dei, parce. . . . Filioli, ut quid parci vobis petitis ? Cessite a 
 latrociniis. . . . Pecunia vero nostra Christus est." — Act. SS. O. S. B., t. 
 i. pp. 318, 322. 
 
 2 "Est mihi locus hereditario, ni fallor, jure perdebitus, sed loci illius 
 fmitimi, bestiarum more, carnibus humanis ac cruoribus depascuntur. . . . 
 Mihi locum monstra. . . . Erat quippe spelunca latronum. ... Ex lupis 
 quasi oves facti sunt. . . . Instabant structores operis ii qui advenerant 
 finitimi, pars fundaminis consolidare juncturas . . . pars umbrosas silvae 
 uemora detruncare." — Vit. S. Sequani, c. 7, 8.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 201 
 
 a noble Neustrian lord, had given up conjugal life and the 
 favour of kings to betake himself to the wild solitudes of 
 the forest of Ouche, in the Pagus Oximensis, 1 which was the 
 hiding-place of numerous brigands. One of these met him : 
 " Oh, monk ! " he said, " what can bring you into this place ? 
 Do you not see that it is made for bandits and not for 
 hermits ? To dwell here you must live by robbery and the 
 wealth of others. We will not tolerate those who would 
 live by their own labour ; and besides, the soil is barren ; 
 you may take pains to cultivate it, but it will give you back 
 nothing." " I come," answered the saint, " to weep for my 
 sins ; under the protection of God I fear the menaces of 
 no man, nor yet the hardships of any labour. The Lord 
 knoweth how to spread a table for His servants in the wilder- 
 ness ; and thou thyself, if thou wilt, mayst seat thyself at it 
 with me." The brigand said nothing, but returned nest day 
 to join Ebrulph with three loaves baked under the ashes, 
 and a honeycomb : he and his companions became the first 
 monks of the new monastery, afterwards celebrated under 
 the name of its holy founder. 2 The place from which all 
 men fled soon became the refuge of the poor ; alms took the 
 place of robbery, and to such an extent, that one day when 
 a beggar had been sent away because the new-born com- 
 munity had only half a loaf remaining, Ebrulph sent after 
 him to give him that half, trusting for himself and his 
 brethren to the alms of heaven. They wanted so little 
 from him that he was able to found and govern fifteen 
 other monasteries. 3 
 
 1 This name was afterwards translated by the word Jliesmois, and was 
 used to designate an archdeaconry of the diocese of Seez. — J. Dbsnoyees, 
 Topogr. EccUs. de la France au Moyen Age, p. 166. 
 
 2 Ouche, or St. Evroul, in the diocese of Lisieux ; in Latin Uticum, 
 Uticense. 
 
 3 "Admodum nobili ortus prosapia. . . . Nobilitatis lampade clarus, 
 mox innotuit Chlotario regi . . . ceteris praalatus maximum in palatio 
 obtineret locum. . . . Quae silva densitate arborum horribilis, crebris 
 latronum discursibus. . . . O monachi 1 quae turbationis causa nostras
 
 20 2 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 These were not, however, the only encounters or the sole 
 intercourse which their voluntary exile in the woods procured 
 to the monks of the Merovingian age. At the other ex- 
 tremity of the social scale they excited the same feelings 
 of surprise and sympathy. They were perpetually found out 
 and disturbed by kings and nobles, who passed in the chase 
 all the time which was not occupied in war. All the Franks 
 of high rank and their trusty followers gave themselves up to 
 that exercise with a passion which nothing else in their life 
 surpassed. In the vast forests which covered Gaul they 
 found, not only an inexhaustible supply of game, but, above 
 all, animals of size and force so formidable as to offer them 
 all the perils and emotions of war. The elan, the buffalo, 
 the bison, and especially the urus (Auerochs), so famous for 
 its ferocity, were adversaries worthy of the boldest combatant 
 or the most warlike prince. But there, in the midst of the 
 forest, Eeligion awaited them ; and while they thought only 
 of sport, and of pursuing the deer, she raised before them 
 imposing and unexpected sights which filled them with 
 emotion and respect. Sometimes the spectacle of these 
 solitaries, vowed to the service of God, was enough to con- 
 vert to monastic life the cavalier who came upon them 
 suddenly when he reckoned upon striking his prey with 
 spear or javelin. Such was the case with Bracchio, a young 
 Thuringian huntsman, attached to the person of the Frank 
 Duke of Auvergne, and perhaps brought, like Radegund, 
 from his native land, after the conquest of Thuringia by that 
 same son of Clovis who had listened to and honoured the slave 
 Portianus. 1 This Bracchio, still savage like his name, which 
 
 partes coegit adire ? . . . An nescitis quia hie est locus latronum et non 
 heremitarum ? . . . arva infructuosa, vestraque labori ingrata invenistis. 
 . . . Non liabeo, inquit (minister), nisi dimidium panis quern reservo 
 servulis nostris. Nam castera secundum jussum tuum erogavi. . . . Cito 
 curre et largire. . . . Accipe, Domine, eleemosynam quern tibi abbas 
 misit. . . . Ecce ante solis occasum quidam clitellarius pro foribus cellulse 
 visus est, pane et vino sufficienter onustus." — Orderic Vital., lib. vi. pp. 
 609, 612. l See above, p. 13S.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 203 
 
 signifies a bear's cub, passed his life hunting in the vast oak 
 woods which still covered the north of Auvergne. In hot pur- 
 suit of an enormous boar, he was led one day to the threshold 
 of the hermitage in which a noble Auvergnat, named Emilian, 
 whom even the wild animals had learned to respect, lived as 
 an anchorite. The dogs stopped short and dared not attack 
 the boar ; the young hunter alighted from his horse, saluted 
 the old man, and sat down to rest by his side. The Gallo- 
 Roman opened his arms to the German, and spoke to him of 
 the infinite sweetness of solitude with God. The Bear's 
 cub listened, and left him without replying, but already de- 
 cided in his heart. Soon after he applied himself to learn 
 reading and writing, seeking instruction for that purpose 
 from the priests and monks whom he met on his road. At 
 the end of three years he could read the Psalter. Then, his 
 master having died, he went to join Emilian, who bequeathed 
 to him his hermitage, from which he was taken to re-establish 
 relaxed discipline at Menat, in that ancient monastery, the 
 mutilated church of which is still admired on the picturesque 
 banks of the Sioule. 1 
 
 But the most frequent results of these encounters were 
 gifts and foundations suggested to the munificence of princes 
 and great men by recollection of the various and deep im- 
 pressions left upon their souls by the language and aspect 
 of these men of peace and prayer, buried in the depths of 
 the woods. Their intervention in favour of the animals 
 pursued by these powerful hunters, and the right of asylum, 
 so to speak, which they had established for the game in their 
 
 1 " Nomine Braccbio, quod in eorum lingua interpretatur ursi catulus 
 . . . puer discernit non sine grandi admiratione quod aprum, quern in- 
 choaverat sequi ferum, in conspectu senis mansuetum adstare videbat ut 
 agnum." — Greg. Tueon., Vitce Pair., c. 12. Menat is now a district 
 country-town of Puy-de-D6me. The remains of the Abbey of Menat, re- 
 stored in the seventh century by St. Menele, consist of a church still 
 beautiful and curious, which was happily preserved from a modern restora- 
 tion, between 1843 and 1847, by the intelligence and devotion of the curate, 
 M. Maison.
 
 204 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 neighbourhood, almost always led to incidents which, told 
 long after, were transformed and embellished at pleasure, 
 and which, engraved upon the popular memory, associated 
 themselves by an indissoluble link with the fame and great- 
 ness of numerous monasteries whose origin is traced back to 
 these sylvan traditions. 
 
 While the chiefs and dependants of the Gallo-Frank aris- 
 tocracy visited only by intervals, and for the mere pleasure 
 of destruction, the shades under which the entire life of the 
 monks was passed, these recluses naturally lived in a kind 
 of familiarity with the animals which they saw bounding 
 around them, whose instincts and habits they studied at their 
 leisure, and which, in course of time, they easily managed 
 to tame. It might be said that, by a kind of instinctive 
 agreement, they respected each other. In the numberless 
 legends which depict monastic life in the forest, there is not 
 a single example of a monk who was devoured or even 
 threatened by the most ferocious animals ; nor do we ever 
 see that they betook themselves to the chase, even when 
 urged by hunger, by which they sometimes suffered to ex- 
 tremity. How, then, can we wonder that, seeing themselves 
 pursued and struck by pitiless strangers, these animals 
 should seek refuge with the peaceful guests of that solitude 
 which they inhabited together ? and how can we fail to 
 understand why Christian nations, accustomed for ages to 
 find shelter and protection with the monks from every 
 violence, should love to recall these touching legends which 
 consecrate, under a poetical and popular form, the thought, 
 that the dwelling of the saints is the inviolable refuge of 
 weakness pursued by strength ? * 
 
 One of the first and most curious examples of these 
 relations between the king and the monks, in which the 
 
 1 M. Charles Louandre, in an article entitled the Epopie des Animaux 
 {Revue des Deux Mondes, of the 15th December 1853), nas perfectly entered 
 into and described the relations of the monks with the wild animals in the 
 forests of Gaul.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 20 5 
 
 wood and animals served as intermediary influences, is that 
 of Childebert and the holy abbot Karileff. Karileff was a 
 noble Auvergnat, who, having first been led to Menat, and 
 then become the companion of St. Avitus and St. Mesmin 
 at Micy, in the Orleannaise, had ended by taking refuge 
 with two companions in a fertile glade in the woods of 
 Maine. Cultivating this unknown corner of the earth, he 
 lived surrounded by all kinds of animals, and, among others, 
 by a wild buffalo, an animal already rare in that country, 
 and which he had succeeded in taming completely. It was 
 a pleasure, says the legend, to see the old man standing by 
 the side of this monster, occupied in caressing him, gently 
 rubbing him between his horns or along his enormous 
 dewlaps and the folds of flesh round his strong neck ; 
 after which the animal, grateful, but faithful to its instinct, 
 regained at a gallop the depths of the forest. 
 
 Childebert, the son of Clovis, is, as we have already said, 
 the great hero of monastic legends. He must have loved 
 the chase as passionately as any of his ancestors or suc- 
 cessors, for in almost all the legends which mention him he 
 is occupied in this pursuit. Arriving in Maine, with Queen 
 Ultrogoth, to pursue his ordinary sport, he heard with joy 
 that a buffalo, an animal almost unknown by that time, had 
 been seen in the neighbourhood. All is arranged next day 
 that this extraordinary chase may have full success ; the 
 bows and arrows are prepared in haste, the trail of the beast 
 sought at break of day, the dogs first held in leash, then 
 slipped, and giving voice with full mouth ; the historian of 
 the solitary gives us all the details with the gusto of a 
 practised hunter. The terrified buffalo fled to take refuge 
 near the cell of his friend, and when the huntsmen ap- 
 proached they saw the man of God standing beside the 
 beast to protect it. The king was told of it, and, hastening 
 forward indignant, cried in a furious tone, when he saw 
 Karileff in prayer and the buffalo tranquil beside him, " How 
 are you so bold, unknown wretches, as to invade thus an
 
 206 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 unconceded forest of my domain, and to trouble the great- 
 ness of my hunting ? " The monk attempted to calm him, 
 and protested that he had come there only to serve God 
 apart from men, and not to despise the sovereign authority 
 or disturb the royal game. " I order thee," answered the 
 king, " thee and thine, to leave this place instantly ; woe to 
 thee if thou art found here again ! " Having said this he 
 went away scornfully ; but had scarcely taken a few steps 
 when his courser stopped short ; in vain he struck his spurs 
 deep into the bleeding flanks of the horse ; he could not 
 advance a step. A faithful servant warned him to calm 
 himself. Childebert listened to him, returned towards the 
 saint, and alighting, received his blessing, drank of the 
 wine of a little vineyard which the solitary had planted near 
 his cell, and, though he found the wine bad enough, kissed 
 the venerable hand that offered it, and ended by bestowing 
 all the lands of the royal treasury in that neighbourhood 
 upon him, that he might build a monastery there. The 
 saint at first refused the donation, but at length accepted as 
 much ground as he could ride round in a day, mounted on 
 his ass ; and in this enclosure rose the abbey from which 
 has come the existing city of St. Calais. 
 
 Eeturning to the queen, Childebert told her his adven- 
 ture. Ultrogoth, already much interested in the monks, 
 was eager in her turn to see the holy recluse. She sent to 
 
 1 "Parentibus secundum seculi dignitatem clarissimis ortus. . . . Locus 
 tantummodo feris eremique familiarissimis animantibus pervius. . . . Erat 
 spectabile videre bubulum, qui in ea provincia difficile est inventu. . . . 
 Lento ungue setas inter cornua mulcentem, nee non colli toros atque 
 palearia tractantem. ... At ferus hoc contractatu velut benedictione 
 donatus prapeti cursu vastas repetebat solitudines. . . . Signa ejus itineris 
 diu rimata reperiunt . . . acres molossos funibus absolvunt . . . canum 
 latratui credentes. . . . Invenimus in quodam tugurio hominem nobis in- 
 cognitum . . . post tergum illius adstantem bubulum. . . . Unde vobis, o 
 incognita personas ! tanta prsesumptionis audacia, ut ausi sitis . . . nostrse 
 venationis dignitatem . . . mutilare. . . . Est aliquid vini quod parva vitis 
 hie inventa atque exculta elicuit. . . . Poculum rex ... pro dantis digni- 
 tate potius quam pro sui sapore suscepit." — Siviardus, Vita S. Karilefi, c. 
 4, 14, 20.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 20J 
 
 ask his permission to visit him, promising, if he consented, 
 to give him full possession of the entire domain of which he 
 occupied only a part. But Karileff obstinately refused her 
 request. " As long as I live," he said to the envoy of the 
 queen, "I shall never see the face of a woman, and no 
 woman shall ever enter my monastery. And why should 
 this queen be so desirous of seeing a man disfigured by 
 fasts and rural labours, soiled and covered with stains like 
 a chameleon ? Besides, I know the deceptions of the old 
 enemy : we must needs defy, even in the horror of the 
 desert, temptations which made Adam lose Paradise, with 
 the happiness of life and his intercourse with God. Say then 
 to the queen that I will pray for her, but that it does not 
 become a monk to sell the sight of his face to a woman, and 
 that, as for her lands, she must give them to whom she will. 
 Say to her that the monks have no need of great posses- 
 sions, nor she of my blessing ; all that she can hope to have 
 from us, her servants, she will have, remaining in her own 
 house." 1 
 
 The same Childebert, softened and reconciled to the 
 habits of the monks, appears in the legend of St. Marculph, 
 that brave abbot of Ootentin, whose exploits against the 
 Saxon pirates, and friendship with the king of Paris, we 
 have already seen. 2 
 
 Before his death, the abbot of Nanteuil went to ask 
 from the king a confirmation of all the numerous gifts which 
 the monasteries founded by him had already received. As 
 he approached Compiegne, where Childebert then resided, 
 and while he rested from the fatigues of his journey in a 
 field upon the bank of the Oise, the king's huntsmen passed 
 him, pursuing a hare. The animal, after many doubles, 
 
 1 " Omnia fisci illius, in cujus parte resident, ei attribuam. . . . Unde 
 talia reginfe ut tantopere me videre exoptet diutinis chameleontis colo- 
 ribus incultum. . . . Non decet nos . . . vendere nostrum mulieribus 
 aspectum. . . . Fisci sui partem cui libuerit attribuat." — Vita S. Karilefi, 
 c. 28. Compare YEPES, Coronic. General., t. i. pp. 193, 195. 
 
 1 Page 143.
 
 208 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 took refuge under the robe of the abbot. At this sight one 
 of the hunters addressed him rudely : " How darest thou, 
 priest, lay hands upon the king's game ? Restore the hare, 
 or I will cut thy throat." Marculph released the hare ; 
 but the dogs all at once became motionless, the brutal hunts- 
 man fell from his horse, and in falling was seriously injured. 
 At the prayer of his companions in the chase, the saint 
 raised him up and healed him. Then the king, who was 
 hunting in another direction, having heard what had occurred, 
 went to meet his friend, alighted whenever he perceived 
 him, asked his blessing, embraced him tenderly, led him to 
 the castle of Compiegne, to spend the night, and granted 
 him all that he asked, in an act of which Queen Ultrogoth 
 and all the royal vassals present were the witnesses and 
 sureties. 1 
 
 The name of a certain Childebert is also connected in 
 some versions of a famous legend with the memory of one 
 of those holy abbots who were so popular in the middle 
 ages, not only in France, but everywhere, and especially 
 in England and Germany. A young Greek of illustrious 
 birth, named iEgidius, 2 had come, following the steps 
 of Lazarus and of the Magdalene, to the shores of the 
 Mediterranean, and, landing near the mouth of the Rhone, 
 had grown old in solitude, hidden in the depths of a vast 
 forest, without any other nourishment than the milk of a 
 doe which lay in his grotto. But one day as the king of 
 the country, named, according to some, Childebert, king of 
 
 1 "Qua temeritate, clerice, venationem regis invadere prassumpsisti ? 
 Redde earn, alioquin meo gladio interibis. ... Ex equo quern calcaribus 
 utrimque fodiens ut fugientem consequeretur corruens. . . . Mutuis sese 
 complexibus diu deosculati. . . . Castrum pariter intraverunt prsedictum 
 
 prsesentibus regina Ultrogode caeterisque suis optimatibus omnibus 
 attestantibus."— Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. i. p. 124. 
 
 2 We have transformed this into St. Gilles : in English, St. Giles, whose 
 name is borne by a multitude of parishes, and by one of the most populous 
 quarters of London. In Germany, St. iEgidius is counted among the four- 
 teen saints specially invoked in all cases of distress, under the name of 
 Auxiliary Saints, Die Vierzehn Nothhelfer.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 20Q 
 
 the Franks, and to others, Flavian, king of the Goths, 1 was 
 following the chase in this forest, the doe was started and 
 pursued into the cavern by the hunters ; one of them drew 
 an arrow upon her, which struck the hand which the soli- 
 tary raised to protect his companion. The king, touched, 
 as these wild but simple natures almost always were, by the 
 sight of this grand old man, almost naked, caused the 
 wound to be dressed, returned often to see him, and at last 
 made him consent to the erection of a monastery upon the 
 site of his grotto, of which he became abbot, and where he 
 died in great sanctity. Such was, according to popular 
 tradition, 2 the origin of that celebrated and powerful abbey 
 of St. Gilles, which became one of the great pilgrim shrines 
 of the middle ages, and gave birth to a town, the capital of 
 a district whose name was borne with pride by one of the 
 most powerful feudal races, and which retains still a vener- 
 able church, classed among our most remarkable monuments 
 of architecture and sculpture. 
 
 We meet the same incident in the legend of St. Nennok, 
 the young and beautiful daughter of a British king, who 
 gave up a husband whom her father wished to bestow her 
 upon, in order to emigrate to Armorica, and devote herself 
 to monastic life. The prince of the country, pursuing a 
 stag in the neighbourhood of her monastery, saw the animal, 
 half dead with fatigue, take refuge within the holy enclosure, 
 upon which the hounds stopped short, not daring to go 
 farther. Alighting from his horse and entering the church, 
 he found the stag couched at the feet of the young abbess, 
 amid the choir of nuns who were singing the service. He 
 not only granted the animal its life, but himself remained 
 
 1 No such name is known among the Gothic kings : the Bollandists 
 suppose it to refer to King Wamba, who reigned from 672 to 680. 
 
 2 Mabillon (Anna!., t. i. p. 99), and especially the Bollandists (vol. i. 
 Sept.), have issued long dissertations upon the times of St. iEgidius. He 
 has generally been considered as contemporary with St. Caesarius of Aries 
 in the sixth century. The Bollandists say the seventh century, and pro- 
 long his life to the time of Charles Martel. 
 
 VOL. II. O
 
 2IO THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 in the community for a whole week, and at the end of that 
 time laid upon the altar an act of donation, granting the 
 surrounding lands to the monastery, with the addition of 
 three hundred horses and mares, and three hundred head of 
 cattle. 1 It is easy to perceive in this history the popular 
 translation of a more natural incident, of the asylum offered 
 by the abbess Nennok to another daughter of a British king, 
 whom her husband, out of love for monastic life, had for- 
 saken, and who, setting out to seek him through Armorica, 
 had been pursued by a licentious noble, and had found 
 shelter only in the cell of her husband, from whence she 
 passed to the monastery of Lan-Nennok in Plemeur. 2 
 
 It will be seen hereafter how Clotaire II., when he became 
 master of the Frank monarchy, and was hunting in one of 
 the royal forests of Sequania, pursued an enormous boar 
 into the oratory inhabited by an old Irish monk, Deicolus, 
 who had come to Gaul with St. Columba ; and, touched by 
 seeing thi's ferocious beast lying before the little altar where 
 the recluse stranger was at prayer, the king made a dona- 
 tion to him of all the land belonging to the royal treasury 
 in the neighbourhood of his cell. When the donation was 
 made and accepted, the man of God, who had stipulated 
 that the life of the boar should be saved, took care to let 
 him go free, and to protect his flight into the wood. 3 
 
 The great feudal vassals, as passionately fond of the chase 
 as were the kings, and as much occupied with it, yielded, 
 like them, to the influence of the monks when the latter 
 appeared before them to protect the companions of their 
 solitude. Basolus, born of a noble race in Limousin, and 
 
 1 "Cervus ipse fere extinctus lassitudine, ad ecclesiam sanctas Dei 
 famuli conjungit. . . . Dux et ipse veniens descendit . . . cernensque in 
 medio psallentium . . . sanctimonalium choro, ante beata? pedes virginis 
 mansuefactam bestiam jacuisse." — Bolland., t. i. Junii, p. 410. 
 
 2 Albekt le Gband, Vie de St. Efflam, p. 705. 
 
 3 " Singularem maximumque aprum . . . mitis viri Dei cellam ingredi- 
 tur . . . ante altare accubare. . . . Viri Dei jussione absque ullius laesione 
 consueta cum impetu petiit lustra." — Vita S. Deicoli, c. 13.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 2 I I 
 
 founder of the monastery of Viergy, 1 in the hill country of 
 Reims, having built a cell in the depth of the forest, 
 sheltered by a stone cross, and where his whole furniture 
 consisted of a little lectern admirably sculptured, to bear 
 the Holy Scriptures on which he meditated unceasingly, 
 was one day disturbed in his devotions by a great boar, 
 which laid itself at his feet, as if to ask mercy for its life. 
 Following the animal, came on horseback one of the most 
 powerful lords of the neighbourhood, Attila, whom the mere 
 glance of the solitary brought to a standstill, and rendered 
 motionless. He was a good man at bottom, says the legend, 
 though a great hunter : he evidenced this by making a gift 
 to the abbot of all he possessed round the cell. Four cen- 
 turies after, this tradition remained so fresh, that by an 
 agreement, scrupulously observed, the game hunted in the 
 forest of Reims was always spared, both by the dogs and 
 hunters, when it could reach the little wood over which the 
 cross of St. Basle rose. 2 
 
 And it was not only from man, but from other animals 
 that the compassionate solitaries protected the creatures 
 whom they had accepted as guests of their solitude. 
 
 Launomar, of whom we have already quoted several 
 anecdotes, was wandering in his forest of Perche, chanting 
 psalms, when he encountered a doe flying from some wolves. 
 He saw in this the symbol of a Christian soul pursued by 
 devils : he wept for pity, and then cried to the wolves, 
 
 1 Viriziacum — the same which afterwards took the name of St. Basle. 
 This Basolus must not be confounded with the Arverne chief, prisoner 
 of Clovis, and saved by his daughter, who has been mentioned before, 
 page 138. 
 
 2 "Natu et genere nobilissimus. . . . Inter condensa silvarum fruteta 
 . . . quae crux integerrima ibi permanet usque in prsesentem diem. . . . 
 Lectoriolum ligneum sculpture artis pulcherrima specie compositum. . . . 
 Quidam prsepotens . . . venandi gratia (ud illud genus est hominum) 
 . . . sicut erat vir bonus. . . . Hispida bellua quasi vita? suse imploratura 
 presidium. . . . Extunc mos inolevisse . . . et usque hodie observatur, ut 
 si . . . quselibet fuerit venatio, postquam illius intra aggestum silvula?." — 
 ADSO (992), Vita S. Basoli, c. 7, 22, 23.
 
 2 12 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 " Cruel wretches, return to your dens, and leave this poor 
 little animal ; the Lord wills that she should be snatched 
 from your bloody fangs." The wolves stopped at his voice, 
 and turned back upon the road. " See, then," said he to 
 his companion, " how the devil, the most ferocious of 
 wolves, is always seeking some one to devour in the 
 Church of Christ." However, the doe followed him, and 
 he passed two hours in caressing her before he sent her 
 away. 1 
 
 The ancient authors who record these incidents, and 
 many others of the same kind, are unanimous in asserting 
 that this supernatural empire of the old monks over the 
 animal creation, is explained by the primitive innocence 
 which these heroes of penitence and purity had won back, 
 and which placed them once more on a level with Adam 
 and Eve in the terrestrial Paradise. The rage of the 
 ferocious beasts, says one, is subdued into obedience to him 
 who lives the life of the angels, as it was to our first parents 
 before the Fall. 2 The dignity, says another, which we had 
 lost by the transgression of Adam was regained by the 
 obedience of the saints, although the world was no more an 
 Eden to them, and they had to bear the weight of all its 
 distresses. Our first father received from the Creator the 
 right of naming every living creature and subduing them 
 to his will. " Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
 over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that 
 moveth upon the earth." Was it not by the same right 
 that the beasts of the forest obeyed and attached themselves 
 to these holy men like humble disciples ? 3 Is it wonderful, 
 says Bede, that he who faithfully and loyally obeys the 
 Creator of the universe should, in his turn, see all the 
 
 1 "Cruenti persecutores, ad ergastula revertimini . . . hanc vestris 
 eruet illfesam rictibus. . . . Desistite persequi hanc bestiolam. . . . Quam 
 palpans homo Dei manu sua, post duas horas remisit." — Act. SS. 0. S. B., 
 
 t. i. pp. 319. 3 2 4- 
 
 2 Vita S. Launom., ap. Act. SS. O. S. B., t. i. p. 319. 
 
 3 Vita S. Karilefi, c. 23.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 21 3 
 
 creatures obedient to his orders and his wishes ? 1 Two 
 thousand years before Redemption, in the solitudes of 
 Idumea, it had been predicted of the just man reconciled 
 to God that he should live in peace with the wild beasts. 
 "And the beasts of the field shall be at peace with 
 thee." 2 
 
 The dignity of history loses nothing by pausing upon these 
 tales, and the pious trust supported by them. Written by a 
 Christian, and for Christians, history would lie to herself 
 if she affected to deny or ignore the supernatural inter- 
 vention of Providence in the life of the saints chosen by 
 God to guide, console, and edify His faithful people, and, 
 by a holy example, to elevate them above the bonds and 
 necessities of terrestrial life. Certainly fables are some- 
 times mixed with truth ; imagination has allied itself to 
 authentic tradition to alter or supersede it ; and there have 
 even been guilty frauds which have abused the faith and 
 piety of our ancestors. But justice had been done on these 
 by the jealous and learned criticism of those great masters 
 of historic science whom the religious orders have furnished 
 to the world, long before the systematic disdain and ad- 
 venturous theories of our contemporary authorities had 
 profited by some inexactitudes and exaggerations, to throw 
 back the whole of Catholic tradition into the rank of those 
 semi-historic, semi-poetic mythologies, which precede every 
 incomplete civilisation. There is not a writer of authority 
 among us who would hesitate to repeat these fine expressions 
 of a true Christian philosopher : " Some men have supposed 
 it a mark of great piety to tell little lies in favour of the 
 articles of religion. That is as dangerous as it is useless : 
 they thus run the risk of making men doubt what is true 
 out of hatred for that which is false ; and besides, our piety 
 
 1 "Qui enim auctori omnium creaturarum fideliter et integro corde 
 famulatur, non est mirandum si ejus imperiis ac votis omnis creatura 
 deserviat." — Bede, in Vita S. Cuthb., c. 13. 
 
 2 Job v. 23.
 
 214 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 has so many truths to nourish it, that lies exist at their 
 expense, like cowardly soldiers in an army of brave men." 
 
 All Christian writers have spoken and thought thus ; but 
 their minds have been no less influenced by the sentiment 
 which dictated to Titus Livius, a pagan of the age of Augus- 
 tus, these noble words, which no Christian pen would dis- 
 avow : " I am not ignorant that the vulgar spirit which does 
 not desire the interference of the gods in present affairs is 
 opposed to the publication of the wonders of the past ; but 
 whilst I narrate the things of old, it appears to me that my 
 heart itself enters into the period of which I write ; I feel 
 that religious respect constrains me to reproduce in my 
 annals what so many wise men have thought it their duty to 
 collect for posterity." 2 
 
 1 " Fuere qui magnse pietatis loco ducerent mendaciola pro religione 
 confingere : quod et periculosum est, ne veris adimatur fides propter falsa, 
 et minime necessarium ; quoniam proprietate nostra tam multa sunt vera, 
 ut falsa tanquam ignavi milites atque inutiles oneri sint, magis quam 
 auxilio." — Ludov. VlVES, De Tradendis Discipulis, lib. v. 
 
 2 " Non sum nescius ut eadem negligentia qua nihil Deos portendere 
 vulgo nunc credant, neque nuntiari admodum ulla prodigia in publicum, 
 neque in annales referri : cteteruni et mihi, vetustas res scribenti, nescio 
 quo pacto antiquus fit animus : et quasdarn religio tenet, quas illi pruden- 
 tissimi viri publice suscipienda consuerint, ea pro dignis habere, quae in 
 meos annales referam." — Tit. Liv., lib. xliii. c. 13. 
 
 I may be permitted to quote here a fine passage, which has not been 
 sufficiently admired, from Count de Maistre : — 
 
 " With regard to mythology, hear us still further. Without doubt, all re- 
 ligion gives rise to a mythology ; but do not forget, dear Count, what I add 
 to that statement, that the mythology of the Christian religion is always 
 chaste, always useful, and often sublime, without it being possible, by a par- 
 ticular privilege, to confound it with religion itself. . . . Hear, I pray you, 
 a single example ; it is taken from I know not what ascetic book, the name 
 of which has escaped me : — 
 
 " A saint, whose very name I have forgotten, had a vision, in which he 
 saw Satan standing before the throne of God, and, listening, he heard the 
 evil spirit say, ' Why hast Thou condemned me, who have offended Thee but 
 once, whilst Thou savest thousands of men who have offended Thee manj 7 
 times ? ' God answered him, ' Hast thou once asked pardon of Me 1 ' 
 
 " Behold the Christian mythology ! It is the dramatic truth, which has 
 its worth and effect independently of the literal truth, and which even 
 gains nothing by being fact. What matter whether the saint had or had
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 21 5 
 
 The Church, however, could not be answerable for those 
 errors or falsehoods which have crept into some legends. 
 She obliges no one to believe any of these prodigies, even the 
 best verified which we find related in them. But when such 
 events are recorded by serious authors, and especially by 
 contemporaries, the Church, herself founded upon miracles, 
 acknowledges and commends them to the admiration of 
 Christians, as a proof of the faithfulness of His promises, 
 who has said of Himself, that " He will be glorified in His 
 saints," and that " he that believeth on Me, the works that 
 I do shall he do also ; and greater works than these shall 
 he do." 
 
 It is, then, both just and natural to register these pious 
 traditions, without pretending to assign the degree of cer- 
 tainty which belongs to them, or, on the other hand, to put 
 limits to the omnipotence of God. They will not disturb 
 the minds of those who know the legitimate necessities 
 of nations accustomed to live specially by faith, and what 
 are the riches of divine mercy towards humble and faithful 
 hearts. Touching and sincere echoes of the faith of our 
 fathers, they have nourished, charmed, and consoled twenty 
 generations of energetic and fervent Christians during the 
 most productive and brilliant ages of Christendom. Authen- 
 tic or not, there is not one which does not do honour to 
 human nature, and which does not establish some victory of 
 weakness over strength, or good over evil. 
 
 It is certain, besides, that to our forefathers, to the Gallo- 
 Franks, from whom we have the honour of being descended, 
 
 not heard the sublime words which I have just quoted ? The great point 
 is to know that pardon is refused only to him who does not ask it. St. Augus- 
 tine has said, in a manner not less sublime : Dost thou fear God ? conceal 
 thyself in His arms (Vis f ugere a Deo, fuge ad Deum). To you, my dear 
 Count, this is perhaps as striking ; but for the crowd much is necessary. 
 I say perhaps, for, be it said between ourselves, all the world is common- 
 place on this "point ; and I know no person whom dramatic instruction 
 docs not strike more than the finest morals of metaphysics." — Lettres, t. i. 
 P- 235-
 
 2l6 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 the miracle seemed one of the most ordinary and simple con- 
 ditions of the action of God upon the world. 1 The marvels 
 which we have related were received by them as the natural 
 result of innocence restored by sacrifice. To the eyes of 
 recently-converted nations, dazzled by so many great and 
 holy examples, even when their faith remained dull and 
 their manners ferocious, a man completely master of himself 
 became once more master of nature. And the animals who 
 approached these marvellous men were themselves trans- 
 formed, and attained to a clearer intelligence and more 
 lasting gentleness. All kinds of attaching qualities, and 
 natural relations with the existence of men who isolated 
 themselves from their fellow-creatures to live in community 
 with nature, were found in them. Whilst the monastic 
 doctors found pleasure in seeking subjects of instruction, or 
 analogies with the conditions and trials of religious life, in 
 the peculiarities of their instincts and habits, more or less 
 faithfully observed, the faithful united in attributing to the 
 holy monks, as companions, servants, and almost friends, 
 familiar animals whose society peopled their solitude, and 
 whose docility lightened their labours. This intelligence 
 and sympathy with the animals, as with all animate nature, 
 is a distinctive characteristic of the monastic legend. An- 
 tique fables may sometimes reappear there, but always to be 
 transfigured to the advantage of a holy belief or a difficult 
 virtue. 
 
 And the most authentic narratives confirmed these pious 
 traditions. In that history of the Fathers of the Desert 
 which was commenced by St. Athanasius and St. Jerome, 
 there are a thousand incidents, more or less well established, 
 which show us the most ferocious animals at the feet of 
 
 1 DOM PlTRA, Bistoire de St. Liger, p. xcii. 
 
 2 See the curious tract of S. Pierre Damien, De Bono Religiosi Status et 
 Variorum Animantium Tropologis (op. 52), in which he draws an example 
 of monastic virtue from the habits of all the animals, real or fabulous, with 
 which the natural history of his times (such as was set forth in the Besti- 
 aires, the Physiologus, &c. ) had made him acquainted.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 217 
 
 Anthony, Pacome, Macarius, Hilarion, and their emulators. 
 At each page are to be seen the wild asses, the crocodiles, 
 the hippopotami, the hyasnas, and especially the lions, trans- 
 formed into respectful companions, and docile servants of 
 these prodigies of sanctity ; and the conclusion drawn is, not 
 that the animals had reasonable souls, but that God glorified 
 those who devoted themselves to His glory by showing thus 
 how all nature obeyed man before he was shut out from 
 Paradise for his disobedience. Let us confine ourselves to 
 the touching history of Gerasimus, the Christian Androcles, 
 abbot of a monastery on the banks of the Jordan, who 
 had drawn a thorn out of the foot of a lion, and whom 
 the grateful animal would never abandon. The terrible 
 beast was, after a fashion, received as a member of the 
 community : he lived upon milk and boiled herbs like the 
 monks ; he drew water from the Jordan for the wants 
 of the monastery; and when the old abbot died the lion 
 followed him to the grave and died there, howling with 
 grief. 1 
 
 The Gaul, Sulpicius Severus, who must be regarded as the 
 most ancient of our religious annalists, and who had studied 
 monastic institutions in the East, confirms in his Dialogues 
 all that Eastern writers have said on this subject. He relates 
 the facts of which he himself had been witness in the The- 
 baid : how, in traversing the desert, he had seen the monk 
 who accompanied him offer the fruit of the palm to a lion 
 whom they met, which he ate quietly and peacefully like any 
 domestic animal ; and how, in the hut of another solitary, a 
 she-wolf appeared regularly every evening at the supper-hour, 
 and waited at the door till she was called to eat the remains 
 
 1 " Venit leo in monasterium et qurerebat senem suum. . . . Dicebant 
 ei : Migravit senex ad Dominum. . . . Et stans abbas Sabbatius supra se- 
 pulcrum abbatis Gerasimi dixit leoni : Ecce hie senex noster sepultus est : 
 et inclinavit genua supra sepulcrum senis. . . . Cum ergo id leo audisset 
 et vidisset . . . tunc et ipse prostravit se . . . et rugiens ita continuo de- 
 functus est super sepulcrum senis." — Joan. Moschus, Dc Vit. Pair., lib. x. 
 p. 894.
 
 2 18 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 of the little repast, after which she licked the hand of her 
 host, who caressed her familiarly. 1 
 
 Sulpicius Severus wrote, when he had returned into his 
 own country, the life of St. Martin, the first apostle of ceno- 
 bitical life in Gaul. He there relates that 'the great bishop, 
 visiting his diocese and walking along the banks of the Loire, 
 followed by a numerous crowd, perceived the aquatic birds 
 named plungeons pursuing and devouring the fish. " Behold," 
 said he, " the image of the devil : see how he lays his snares 
 for the imprudent, how he devours them, and how he is never 
 satisfied." And immediately he commanded these aquatic 
 birds to leave the waters in which they swam, and to dwell 
 henceforth in the desert. At his voice, says the historian, 
 and to the great admiration of the multitude, the birds, obey- 
 ing him, came out of the river, and flew in a body to the 
 skirts of the neighbouring forests." 
 
 Who does not remember the raven who, according to St. 
 Jerome, carried a half-loaf every day to the hermit Paul, and 
 who brought him a whole one the day that Anthony went 
 to visit him ? Like his great brethren in the East, the 
 patriarch of the Western monks had also his familiar bird, 
 which, however, came to receive its food instead of bringing 
 food to him. St, Gregory the Great, in his biography of 
 Benedict, records that, while still at his first monastery of 
 Subiaco, a raven from the neighbouring forest came to the 
 saint at every meal and was fed out of his own hand. 
 
 1 " Habebam unum ex f ratribus ducem locorum peritum. . . . Fera paulu- 
 lum modesta. . . . Accepit tarn libere quani ullum animal domesticura ; 
 et cum comedisset, abscessit. . . . Alium asque singularem virum vidimus 
 in parvi tugurio . . . lupa ei solita erat adstare coenanti . . . panem qui 
 ccenulse superfuisset. . . . Manu blanda caput triste permulcet."— Sulp. 
 Sever, Dial., i. c. 7. 
 
 2 " Cum suo illo, ut semper frequentissimo . . . comitatu, mergos in 
 flumine conspicatur. . . . Forma, inquit, haec dsemonum est. . . . Itagrege 
 facto omnes in unum ilia? volucres congregate . . . non sine admiratione 
 multorum." — SULP. Sev., Epist., iii. The popular name of Martins-picheurs 
 given to these birds is probably derived from this legend. 
 
 3 " Ad horam refectionis illius ex vicina silva corvus venire consueverat, 
 et panem de manu ejus accipere." — S. Greg. Magn., Dial., ii. 8.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 21 9 
 
 These tales, piously recorded by the highest genius which 
 the Church has possessed, prepare us to listen without sur- 
 prise to many other traits of the familiar intimacy of the 
 monks with the inferior creatures. 
 
 Sometimes wild sparrows, as the legend goes, came down 
 from the trees to gather grains of corn or crumbs of bread 
 from the hand of that abbot Maixent before whom Clovis 
 knelt, on his return from bis victory over Alaric ; and the 
 nations thus learned how great was his humility and gentle- 
 ness. 1 Sometimes other little woodland birds came to seek 
 their food and to be caressed by that Walaric who will 
 shortly appear before us as one of the most illustrious 
 disciples of St. Columba, the apostle of Ponthieu, and the 
 founder of the great monastery of Leuconaus. Charmed 
 with this gentle company, when his disciples approached, 
 and when the larks fluttered terrified round him, he stopped 
 the monks while still at a distance, and signed to them to 
 draw back. " My sons," he said, " do not frighten my little 
 friends, do them no harm : let them satisfy themselves with 
 what we have left." 2 On another occasion Karileff, when 
 binding up and pruning his little vineyard, the poor produce 
 of which he had offered to King Childebert, stifled by the 
 heat, had taken off* his frock and hung it upon an oak ; 
 and when, at the end of the hard day's labour, he took down 
 his monastic habit, he found that a wren, the smallest and 
 most curious bird in our climate, had nestled there and 
 laid an egg. The holy man was so touched with joy and ad- 
 miration, that he passed the whole night in praising God. 
 
 1 " Multoties aves ferae relictis nemorurn ramis. . . . Curn indomiti pas- 
 seres in dextera illius mensfe reliquias colligebant, mansnetudinem et 
 sanctitatem ejus populi compererant." — Vita S. Maxent., c. 3 ; Act., t. i. 
 p. 561. 
 
 - "Ut . . . articulis suis quandocumque vellet, oblitas subs feritatis et 
 quasi domesticas eas palparet. . . . Circumquaque volitantes aves. . . . 
 Filii, non faciamus eis injuriam, sed permittamus eas paululum satiari de 
 micis." — Vita S. Walarici, c. 26. 
 
 3 " Vitem circumfodiendo et superfiua quasque resecando. Sudore laboris 
 coacto, vestimentum quod Cucullam vocant. . . . Avicula perexigua, cujus
 
 2 20 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 A similar anecdote is related of St. Malo, one of the great 
 monastic apostles who has left his name to a diocese in the 
 northern part of Armorica ; but with this difference, that 
 the latter permitted the bird to continue in his mantle till 
 her brood was hatched. 1 Tradition becomes more and more 
 blended with the dreams of imagination in proportion as it 
 penetrates back into Celtic legends ; one of which records 
 that when Keivin, another Breton monk, prayed with his 
 hands extended, the birds laid their eggs there. 2 
 
 The animals naturally sought and preferred to dwell in 
 the domains of masters who were so gentle and paternal ; 
 from which arises the amusing story of the monk Maglorius 
 and Count Loiescon. This rich Armorican count, whom 
 Maglorius had cured of leprosy, made him a gift of the half 
 of a great estate, bathed by the sea. Maglorius having 
 come to take possession, all the birds which filled the woods 
 on the estate, and all the fishes which inhabited its shore, 
 precipitated themselves in a troop towards the portion which 
 came to the monk, as if declaring that they would have no 
 other lord but him. When the count, and particularly his 
 wife, saw the half of the estate which they retained thus de- 
 populated, they were dismayed, and insisted that Maglorius 
 should exchange with them. But when the exchange was 
 made, the birds and fishes immediately followed Maglorius, 
 going and coming, so as always to keep in the portion of 
 the monks. 3 
 
 vocabulum est bitriscus, dum . . . juxta familiareru sibi consuetudinem 
 intima qua?que quadam curiositate perluserat. . . . Insestimabile gaudium 
 cum admiratione mixturn eum occupavit." — Vila S. Karileji, c. 12. 
 
 1 " Dimisit cappani donee, f otis ovis, pullos in tempore excluderet avicula." 
 — Sigeb. Gemblac, Vita S. Maclovii, c. 15, ap. Sur., t. vi. p. 378. Com- 
 pare ACT. SS. O. S. B., t. ii. p. 180. 
 
 2 OzANAM, Etudes Germaniques, t. ii. p. 96. 
 
 3 " Comes valde divitiarum opibus obsitus . . . qui multam in medios 
 erogaverat substantiam. . . . Multitudo copiosa avium mira? magnitudinis 
 et pulchrse . . . captura ingens piscium congeries . . . partem S. Maglorii, 
 ipsius prresentife ac si Domino suo debitas servitutis obsequium prrestans, 
 expetiit."— Mabillon, Act. SS. O. S. B., t. i. p. 212.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 221 
 
 And it was the animals who spontaneously indicated the 
 predestined sites of great monastic foundations. In relating 
 the history of the martyr monk, St. Leger, we shall see the 
 position of Fecamp, on the Neustrian coast, which served 
 him both as a prison and asylum, pointed out to the Duke 
 Ansegise by a stag which he was hunting. 
 
 It was told in Champagne, that when Theodoric, the son 
 of a famous bandit, but himself almoner and secretary to St. 
 Remy, the great apostle of the Franks, desired to found a 
 house which he might himself retire to, and was seeking a 
 site for it, he saw a white eagle hovering in the air, which 
 seemed to mark out by its slow and circular motion the 
 enclosure of the future monastery ; after the erection of the 
 famous abbey, which took the name of St. Thierry, this 
 miraculous eagle appeared in the same place every year. 1 
 
 In the following century, St. Nivard, Archbishop of 
 Reims, visiting his diocese on foot, arrived in the fine 
 country which overlooks the course of the Marne, opposite 
 Epernay ; and finding himself fatigued, slept under the 
 shade of a great beech, on the knees of his companion, 
 Berchaire. During his sleep he saw a dove descend from 
 heaven upon the tree, and, after marking the same circuit 
 three times by flying round it, reascend to the skies. Ber- 
 chaire, who had not slept, saw the same vision. They 
 agreed to build an abbey there, which was called Hautvillers. 
 Berchaire was its first abbot ; and the high altar rose upon 
 the same spot where the tree had stood when the dove 
 alighted, 2 a sweet symbol of the tranquil innocence which 
 was to reign there. 
 
 1 " Mittitur de sublimibus aliger in similitudinem aquihe Angelus. . . . 
 Intelligent devoti cultores Dei continuo divinum esse missum." — Act. SS. 
 0. S. B., scec. i. t. i. p. 597. Compare Feodoabd, Hist. Returns., i. 24 ; 
 BAUGIEE, Memoires Hist, de Champagne, t. i. p. 32. 
 
 2 Act. SS. O. S. B., scec. ii. t. ii. p. 802 ; Baugiee, p. 48. — Similar anec- 
 dotes are related of the foundation of Montfaucon and Avenay, in the 
 same canton. This Berchaire is the same monk of Luxeuil who afterwards 
 founded Montier-en-Der, in the south of Champagne.
 
 22 2 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 But a still closer degree of intercourse between the monks 
 and animated nature appears in the annals of these early- 
 ages. Innumerable are the legends which show these wild 
 animals obedient to the voice of the monks, reduced to a 
 kind of domestic condition by the men of God, obliged to 
 serve and follow them. We shall have to tell, from contem- 
 porary narratives, how the illustrious founder of Luxeuil, St. 
 Columba, in traversing the forests of the southern Vosges, 
 saw the squirrels descend from the trees, to leap upon his 
 hand and hide themselves in the folds of his cowl ; how he 
 made the bears obey him ; and how he passed with safety 
 through troops of wolves, who rubbed against his dress with- 
 out daring to touch him. 1 
 
 The same legends are to be found on the coast of Armo- 
 rica as on the banks of the Danube. Now it is Corbinian, 
 the Frank monk who founded the bishopric of Freysingen, 
 and who, crossing the Tyrol to go to Rome, obliged the bear 
 who had killed one of his baggage-horses to take upon his 
 own back the burden of his victim, and thus to accompany 
 him to Rome. 2 Now it is Samson, the metropolitan of Dol, 
 who, seeing his monks disturbed by the cries of the wild 
 birds, collected them all together one night in the court of 
 the monastery, imposing silence upon them, and the next 
 morning dismissed them, forbidding them to recommence 
 their cry, an interdiction which " they observed inviolably." 3 
 
 Now it is Renan, the anchorite of Cornouaille, who com- 
 manded a wolf to give up the sheep of a poor peasant, which 
 it was carrying away, and who was obeyed on the instant. 
 
 1 JONAS, Yit. S. Columbani, c. 15, 27, 30. 
 
 2 " Mitte super eum sellam saginariam et sterne ilium, et saginam super 
 ilium impone, et due cum aliis caballis in viam nostram. . . . Impositam 
 sibi saginam ipse ursus quasi domesticus equus Eomam usque perduxit, 
 ibique a viro Dei dimissus abiit viam suam." — Aribo, Vita S. Corbin., c. 
 11, ap. Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. iii. An anecdote almost similar is told of St. 
 Martin, abbot of Vertou in Brittany, during his pilgrimage to Rome.— - 
 Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. i. p. 362. 
 
 3 Albert le Grand, p. 423.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 223 
 
 Or, again, the blind Herve, patron of the popular singers of 
 Armorica, whose dog had been devoured by a wolf, and who 
 compelled this wolf humbly to take the dog's place, and, 
 secured in a leash, to accompany him in his wanderings. 1 
 
 The wolves are everywhere to be met with, and appear 
 again in the legend of St. Malo. Forced by his persecutors 
 to hide himself in a solitude of Saintonge, he was discovered 
 by the crowd attracted there to see a tame wolf, which, having 
 devoured the ass of the solitary, came every day to seek the 
 ass's panniers, in order to fill them with the wood which he 
 had to collect in the forest. 2 
 
 But none of the monastic apostles of our little Brittany 
 ever surpassed, in this respect, that Paul who has left his 
 name to the city and diocese of St. Pol-de-Leon, and whose 
 empire over the most ferocious animals was absolute, and 
 of great advantage to the population. Once he compelled 
 a buffalo, who had overthrown and broken in pieces with 
 his horns a cell which a monk had built near the fountain 
 where the animal came to drink, to disappear permanently 
 in the depths of the forest. Another time, he tamed and 
 reduced to a state of domestication a ferocious she-bear and 
 her cubs, whose race was long marked and preserved by the 
 country people. 3 Here it was an enormous bear, who drew 
 
 1 Hersart de la Villemarque, Legende Celtique, p. 264. Albert le 
 Grand relates that St. Herve being once lodged in a manor " very much 
 surrounded by reservoirs and fish-ponds," but in which he was much in- 
 commoded by the croaking of the frogs, he imposed on them everlasting 
 silence, " and immediately the little creatures killed themselves, in as 
 short a time as if they had had their throats cut." — P. 318. 
 
 2 "Viderat quotidie lupum ad horam venire et cum clitellis quas asinus 
 portare solebat prout sustinere poterat ligna deferre."— Fifo S. Maclovii, 
 c. 18, ap. Mabillon. 
 
 3 " Sus silvatica, ad cujus ubera sugent esdependebant porcelluli . . . 
 ferocissima, beati viri molliter blandita, ac si prioribus annis fuit edomita, 
 deinceps permansit domestica, ita ut per plures annos illic duraverit 
 progenies ejus inter reliquos patriae porcos quasi regalis et prascipua." — 
 Bolland., t. ii. Martii, pp. 116, 117. The same incident is found in the 
 legend of St. Imier, founder of the town of that name in the Bernois Jura. 
 — Ap. Trotjillat, Monum. de VEveche de Bale, i. p. 37
 
 2 24 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 back before him, till she fell into a ditch and broke her neck. 
 There it was a crocodile or sea-serpent, who had put the 
 count of the canton to flight with all his soldiers, whom 
 Paul compelled to throw itself into the sea, upon that point 
 of the coast of Cornouaille where a whirlpool called VAbime 
 du Serpent is still shown. 1 
 
 The legend does not stop mid-way : it adds that, seeing 
 the monastery inhabited by his sister upon the sea-shore 
 threatened by the high tides, he made the sea draw back 
 four thousand paces, and commanded the nuns to mark the 
 new boundary of the waters with stones, " which, on the 
 instant, increased into great and high rocks, to bridle the 
 fury of the waves." It is easy to understand how, under 
 the thatched roof of the Celtic peasant's hut, the works of 
 embankment, which were doubtless superintended by the 
 Breton emigrant who was the first bishop of the diocese, 
 should be interpreted thus. 
 
 Traditions relative to the influence exercised by the 
 monks over the wild animals, not only for their personal 
 service, but for the advancement of their labours in the 
 clearance and cultivation of the country, abound especially 
 in Armorica, and the other Celtic countries. Thegonnec, 
 another Breton abbot, had the materials for his church 
 carried by a wolf. And Herve, whom we have just quoted, 
 made a wolf labour like an ox. " It was wonderful," says 
 the lea-end, " to see this wolf live in the same stable with 
 the sheep without harming them, draw the plough, bear 
 burdens, and do everything else like a domestic animal." 2 
 
 In this dramatic struggle of the monks with nature, the 
 wolves, as has been seen, played the most habitual part ; 
 but the stags sometimes disputed with them the first place 
 
 1 Trouillat, Monum., p. 118. With this legend is connected the origin 
 of the house of Kergounadcc, a proper name which signifies, in Breton, he 
 who has no fear, because its progenitor was the only individual in all the 
 parish of Cleder who dared to accompany St. Paul in his expedition against 
 the serpent : " quae non magnam apud nos fidem obtinent," add the prudent 
 Bollandists. 2 Albert le Grand, p. 193.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 225 
 
 in these wonderful transformations. In Ireland two stags 
 drew to its last dwelling-place the body of Kellac, hermit 
 and bishop, assassinated by his four disciples, who, before 
 murdering him, had kept him shut up for a whole night in 
 the hollow of an oak which was as large as a cavern. 1 The 
 abbey of Lancarvan, in Cambria, drew its name and origin 
 from the memory of two stags which the Irish disciples of 
 St. Cadok had yoked to a cart laden with wood for the 
 monastery. 2 Colodocus, hermit and bishop, having refused 
 to give up a stag which had taken refuge in his hermitage 
 to the noble who pursued it, the furious hunter took away 
 seven oxen and a cow which the solitary and his disciples 
 used in their labours. The next morning eight stags came 
 out of the wood, and offered themselves to the yoke to re- 
 place the cattle carried off from him who had saved the life 
 of their companion. 3 
 
 The legend of St. Leonor follows, one of the finest pearls 
 from the precious casket of Celtic tradition. Leonor was 
 one of those monk-bishops who came from the British Islands 
 in the sixth century, like Samson, Maglorius, and Brieuc, 
 to evangelise the Celts of Armorica. Having established 
 himself in a desert position, at the mouth of the Eauce, 
 where he and his sixty disciples could live only on the 
 produce of the chase and fisheries, he saw one day, when 
 praying, a little white bird settle at his feet, which carried 
 in its beak an ear of corn. " There was, then, upon this 
 wild waste some spot where corn could grow, where even 
 some ears of corn were growing." The saint thanked God, 
 and directed one of his monks to follow the bird, who led 
 him to a glade in the neighbouring forest, where some 
 plants of wheat had been preserved by resowing them- 
 selves — the last remnant, perhaps, of a rich cultivation 
 
 1 "In vasti roboris caudicem, ad caveas similitudinem vacuatum, com- 
 pingunt." — BoLLAND., t. i. Mali, p. 106. 
 
 2 La Villemarque, op. cit., p. 156. 
 
 3 Albert le Grand, Vie de St. Ke ou Kenan, surnomme Colodoc, p. 677. 
 VOL. II. P
 
 2 26 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 which had disappeared from these regions with the inhabi- 
 tants who brought it there. At this news the saint intoned 
 the Te Deum ; and the next morning, at break of day, 
 having first sung matins, all the community took the road, 
 with Leonor at their head, towards the forest, to cut it 
 down. This work lasted long: the monks, overcome by 
 fatigue, entreated their father to abandon that overwhelm- 
 ing task, and to seek other soil less hard to labour. He 
 refused to listen to them, telling them it was the devil who 
 sent to them that temptation to idleness. But it was still 
 worse when, the forest cut down, the cleared soil had to be 
 cultivated. Then the monks resolved to leave their leader 
 there, and fly during the night. But they were reassured 
 and consoled by seeing twelve noble stags coming of them- 
 selves to be yoked to the ploughs, like so many pairs of 
 oxen. After having ploughed all day, when they were 
 loosed in the evening, they returned to their lair in the 
 depth of the wood, but only to return on the morning of 
 the next day. This lasted for five weeks and three days, 
 until the new fields were prepared to yield an abundant 
 harvest. After which the twelve stags disappeared, carrying 
 with them the blessing of the bishop emigrant. 1 
 
 The Bollandists, with their habitual prudence, take care 
 to make a protest of their incredulity with respect to these 
 travesties of historic truth. 2 An ingenious and learned man 
 of our own times has pointed out their true and legitimate 
 origin. According to him, after the gradual disappearance 
 of the Grallo-Roman population, the oxen, horses, and dogs had 
 returned to a savage state, and it was in the forests that the 
 British missionaries had to seek these animals to employ them 
 
 1 "Ecce unus passer candidissimus spicam frurnenti in ore tenens . . . 
 Coeperunt lassi deficere. . . . Pater, oramus te ut de loco isto recedas. 
 
 Fessi prse nimio labore. . . . Duodecim grandissimos cervos. . . . 
 Dei virtute domesticos. . . . Benedicens dixit : Ite in pace. . . . Densis- 
 simas sylvas expetunt."— Bolland., t. i. Jul., pp. 121, 125. Compare LA 
 BOEDERIE, Discours sur les Saints Bretons. 
 
 2 Comment. Praev., No. 9.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 2 27 
 
 anew for domestic uses. The miracle consisted in restoring to 
 man the empire and use of the creatures which God has given 
 him for instruments. This redomestication of animals which 
 had relapsed into a savage condition, is one of the most interest- 
 ing episodes in the civilising mission of the ancient cenobites. 1 
 
 However, their whole existence in the forests was a series 
 of painful and persevering labours, of which posterity and 
 the neighbouring populations were to reap the benefit. The 
 mere clearance of the forests, undertaken successively in all 
 quarters of Gaul, and pursued with unwearied constancy by 
 the spade and axe of the monk, was of the greatest service 
 to future generations. The destruction of the woods, which 
 has now become alarming, and even in some cases a real 
 calamity, was then the first of necessities. It was, besides, 
 carried on with prudence and moderation. Ages passed 
 before the scarcity of wood was felt, even in the sad southern 
 provinces from which woodland growth seems to have dis- 
 appeared for ever ; and during these ages the monks con- 
 tinued without intermission to cut down the great masses of 
 f ores t — to pierce them, to divide them, to open them up, and 
 even to make great clearings here and there, which con- 
 tinually increased, and were put into regular cultivation. 
 They carried labour, fertility, human strength and intelli- 
 gence into those solitudes which till then had been abandoned 
 to wild beasts, and to the disorder of spontaneous vegetation. 
 They devoted their entire life to transforming into rich 
 pastures, and fields carefully sown and ploughed, a soil which 
 was bristling with woods and thickets. 
 
 It was not a pleasant, short, or easy task : to accomplish 
 it, all the energy of wills freely submitted to faith, all the 
 perseverance produced by the spirit of association, joined to 
 a severe discipline, was needed. This persevering energy 
 never failed them. Nowhere did they draw back, or 
 restore voluntarily to the desert that which they had once 
 undertaken to reclaim. On the contrary, we see them 
 
 1 La Borderie, op. tit.
 
 22 8 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 reach the extreme limit of human power in their field labours 
 and the standing-ground they gained ; disputing with the 
 ice, the sand, and the rocks, the last fragments of soil that 
 could be cultivated ; installing themselves sometimes in 
 marshes, up to that time supposed inaccessible ; sometimes 
 among fir-woods laden with hoar-frost the whole year through. 
 Sometimes it was necessary to have recourse to fire as the 
 means of opening a road through the wood, and getting rid 
 of the old trunks which would have rendered all cultivation 
 impossible. But most generally it was spade in hand that 
 they went before to clear a space of soil sufficient to be sown 
 or to become a meadow. They began in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the primitive cell, 1 generally placed near 
 a water-course, which helped in the formation of meadows. 
 By degrees the clearing extended further, and even into the 
 thickest shades. Great oaks fell, to be replaced by harvests. 
 These monks, most of whom had studied literature, were 
 doubtless reminded then of the fine verses of Lucan — 
 
 " Tunc omnia late 
 Procunibunt nemora et spoliantur robore silvan . . . 
 Sed fortes treinuere manus, motique verenda 
 Majestate loci . . . 
 
 Procunibunt orni, nodosa impellitur ilex . . . 
 Tunc primum posuere comas, et frond e carentes 
 Admisere diem, propulsaque robore denso 
 Sustinuit se silva cadens." 2 
 
 The humble prose of our monastic annals reproduces this 
 picture a hundred times in Latin less pure and less magnifi- 
 cent, but which has, nevertheless, the powerful charm of 
 reality and simplicity. When St. Brieuc and his eighty 
 monks from Great Britain landed in Armorica, and marked 
 the site on which the town which afterwards bore his name 
 was erected, they proceeded, like the soldiers of Csesar, 
 
 1 "In medio vastas eremi atque condense. . . . Cum monachis suis 
 silvam succidere . . . certabat ut planitiem parare aliquam posset aptam 
 jaciendis seminibus." — Vita S. Launom., c. 8, io. 
 
 - Pharsalia, ill. 394-445.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 229 
 
 into the forests sacred to the Druids. They surveyed the 
 ancient woods at first with curiosity, says the chronicle ; 
 they searched on all sides through these immemorial shades. 
 They reached at last a valley branching out to either hand, 
 the sides of which were everywhere clothed with fresh 
 foliage, and divided by a transparent stream. Immediately 
 they all set to work : they overthrew the great trees, they 
 rooted out the copse, they cut down the brushwood and 
 undergrowth ; in a short time they had converted the im- 
 penetrable thicket into an open plain. This done, they had 
 recourse to the spade and hoe ; they dug and weeded the 
 soil, and wrought it with minute care, thus putting it into 
 a condition to produce abundant harvests. 1 
 
 Frequently they replaced the forest trees with fruit-trees; 
 like that Telio, a British monk, who planted with his own 
 hands, aided by St. Samson, an immense orchard, or, as the 
 legend says, a true forest of fruit-trees, three miles in extent, 
 in the neighbourhood of Dol. 2 To him is attributed the 
 introduction of the apple-tree into Armorica, where cider 
 continues the national beverage. Others planted vines in a 
 favourable exposure, and succeeded in acclimatising it in 
 those northern districts of Gaul afterwards known as Brit- 
 tany, Normandy, and Picardy, where the inhabitants have 
 not succeeded in preserving it. 3 They also gave particular 
 
 1 " Illustrantibus illis arboreta maxima curiosius, annosaque fruteta 
 circumquaque perscrutantibus in vallem binam deveniunt. . . . Vallem 
 nemorum amoenitate confertam perambulans, fontem lucidissimum, aquis 
 prospicuum. . . . Accinguntur omnes operi, diruunt arbores, succidunt 
 fruteta, avellunt vepres spinarumque congeriem, silvamque densissimam 
 in brevi reducunt in planitiem. . . . Vellebant plerumqueglebasligonibus: 
 exolebatur deinceps humus sarculis, sulcisque minutissime exaratis." — Vide 
 de S. Brieuc, by the canon of La Devison, 1627, quoted by La Borderie. 
 
 2 " Magnum nemus." This orchard still existed in the twelfth century, 
 under the name of A rboretum Teliavi et Sansonis. — La BORDERIE, op. cit. , 
 
 P- 39- 
 
 3 "Parva vitis hie inventa atque exculta." — Vita S. Karilefi, c. 16. 
 " Quo tempore a climate meridiano distantem a prasfato ccenobio passus 
 fere quingentos. . . . B. Wandresigilus vineam plantare et excolere 
 coepit."— Vita S. Anspcrti, c. 11.
 
 230 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 attention to the care of bees, as has been already testified 
 by the agreement between the abbot of Dol and the Bishop 
 of Paris. 1 No trade seemed too hard for them, those of the 
 carpenter and mason being as readily adopted as those of 
 the wood-cutter and gardener. One ground, in the mill 
 which he had himself made, the wheat which he was to 
 eat; 2 another hollowed out a reservoir of stone round the 
 fountain which he had discovered, or which had sprung up 
 in answer to his prayers, that others might enjoy it after 
 him ; 3 and grateful posterity has taken care not to forget 
 either the benefit or the benefactor. 
 
 All these men had the text of the Apostle always on their 
 lips, " If any will not work, neither let him eat ; " and that 
 of the psalmist, " Thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands." 
 These texts are perpetually appealed to in their legends, 
 and justly, for they are an epitome of their doctrine 
 and life. 
 
 The influence of such labours and examples rapidly made 
 itself felt upon the rustic populations who lived in the 
 neighbourhood of this new cultivation, or who followed the 
 solitaries into the forest to see their works, and to find in 
 them guides and protectors. From admiration the peasants 
 gladly passed to imitation. Often they became the voluntary 
 coadjutors of the monks, and, without embracing monastic 
 life, aided them to clear the ground and build their dwell- 
 ings. 4 Sometimes the brigands themselves, who at first 
 had sought their lives, or attempted to interdict them from 
 entering the forest, ended by becoming agriculturists after 
 
 1 See above, p. 156. Compare Vita S. Pauli, ap. Bolland., t. ii. Mart., 
 p. 121 ; Vita S. Amati, ap. ACT. SS. O. S. B., t. ii. 
 
 2 Vita S. Gildasii, ap. LA BORDERIE, loc. cit. 
 
 3 " Quern fontem . . . manu sua, ut aque retentor esset, terrestri cir- 
 cumdedit asdificio, et hactenus ob arnorem illius a devotis non ignobili 
 tegitur operculo." — Vita S. Karilefi, c. 9. 
 
 4 " Circa illius eremi . . . quidam hominum rusticali opere tenuem 
 sustentantes vitam habitabant. . . . Dei famulum saepius invisere curabant 
 . . . quo et ffidificandi monasterii adjutores forent." — Ibid., c. 26.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 23 I 
 
 their example. 1 The rapid increase of rural population in the 
 neighbourhood of monastic establishments is thus explained, 
 and also the immense amount of labour which the cenobites 
 could undertake, the results of which exist and astonish us 
 still. 
 
 The richest districts of France trace their prosperity to 
 this origin : witness, amongst a thousand other places, that 
 portion of La Brie between Meaux and Jouarre, once covered 
 by a vast forest, the first inhabitant of which was the Irish 
 monk Fiacre, whose name still continues popular, and whom 
 our gardeners honour as their patron saint, probably with- 
 out knowing anything whatever of his history. He had 
 obtained from the Bishop of Meaux, who was the holder of 
 this forest, permission to cut the wood which covered so 
 much soil as he could surround with a ditch by one day's 
 labour, in order to make a garden of it, and cultivate roots 
 for poor travellers. Long after, the peasants of the environs 
 showed this ditch, six times longer than was expected, and 
 told how the Irish saint had taken his stick and traced a 
 line upon the soil which sank into a ditch under the point, 
 while the great forest trees fell right and left, as if to save 
 him the trouble of cutting them down. 2 Thus was inter- 
 preted the profound impression produced by the labours of 
 these monastic pioneers upon the minds of the people. 
 
 The same occurrence is attributed to St. Goeznou, a 
 British emigrant, and Bishop of Leon, who, having received 
 from a count of the country the gift " of as much land to 
 build a monastery as he could enclose with ditches in one 
 day, took a fork, and, trailing it along the earth, walked for 
 nearly two hours of Brittany, forming a square ; and as he 
 trailed this fork, the earth divided one part from the other, 
 and formed a great ditch, separating the lands given from 
 
 1 "Multi ejusdem silva? latrones . . . aut fiebant monachi . . . aut 
 deserentes latrocinia efficiebantur cultores agri." — Vita S. Ebrulfi, c. 11. 
 
 2 " Tractu baculi terra debiscens patebat, et nemus hinc et inde funditus 
 corruebat. . . . Fossata vero usque in hodiernum diem ab incolis demon- 
 strantur,"— Mabill. Act. SS. O. S. B., r. ii. p. 573.
 
 232 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 those of the giver, which enclosure has always been held in 
 such reverence that of old it served as an asylum and place 
 of refuge to malefactors." x 
 
 In addition to these legends, born of the popular imagi- 
 nation and the grateful memory of ancient generations, it is 
 pleasant to appeal to more certain witnesses by following 
 upon our modern maps the traces of monastic labour through 
 the forests of ancient France, and by observing a multi- 
 tude of localities, the mere names of which indicate wooded 
 districts evidently transformed into fields and plains by the 
 monks. 2 
 
 Is it the authentic narrative of a real incident that we 
 should see in that chapter of the life of the abbot Karilef, 
 where it is said that this saint, moving with his spade the 
 ground he dug round his cell in the forest of Perche, dis- 
 covered a treasure there, over which he rejoiced ardently 
 with his brethren, because it gave him the means at once 
 of helping exiles and pilgrims, and of rewarding the poor 
 peasants who had helped to build his oratory ? Or is it not 
 rather the symbolical form in which the admiration of the 
 people at the sight of so many works, undertaken on such 
 feeble resources, followed by results so excellent, and elevated 
 by a charity so generous, has found expression ? It is 
 added that the abbot and his disciples laboured with the 
 spade because they had no means of working the plough. 3 
 
 But the plough was not long wanting to them anywhere. 
 It was natural that it should be the principal instrument of 
 monastic culture; and it may be said, without exaggeration, 
 
 1 Albert le Grand, p. 660, after the ancient Breviary of Leon. 
 
 2 See some valuable indications given, from the map of Cassini and a 
 multitude of ancient and contemporary authors, by M. Alfred Maury, in 
 chap. v. of his able and curious book, Les Forets de la France. 
 
 3 ' ' Cum quadam die coactis fratribus . . . agriculture in prsedio jam 
 dicto insisteret, ac rostro terram verteret (deerat namqueillisarandi copia) 
 . . . terras glebam saculo detrahens, thesaurum latentem detexit. En, op- 
 timi commilitones, qualiter nostri misericordis Creatoris donis suis nostram 
 exiguitatem nobilitat." — Vita S. Karilcfi, c. 22. This is the last time we 
 shall quote this narrative, so complete and curious.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 233 
 
 that it formed, along with the cross of the Redeemer, the 
 ensign and emblazonry of the entire history of the monks 
 during these early ages. Cruce ct aratro ! In it is summed 
 up the life of one of the great monks of the sixth century, 
 of whom we have yet to speak. Theodulph, born in Aqui- 
 taine, had issued from a long line of ancestors illustrious for 
 nobility as well as for piety. Having become a monk at St. 
 Thierry, near Reims, he was specially desirous to be employed 
 in the agricultural labours of the monastery : two oxen were 
 intrusted to him, whom he led in the plough for twenty-two 
 years. With this yoke he did as much work as other teams 
 accomplished with two, three, or even four of the brethren. 
 There might be some who doubted the good sense of a man 
 so foolish as to employ his life in such labours, and to brave 
 all the intemperance of the seasons like a simple peasant, 
 instead of living like his ancestors on the fruit of his sub- 
 jects' labour. But all admired such a labourer, still more 
 unwearied than his oxen ; for while they rested he replaced 
 the plough by the mattock, the harrow, or the spade ; and 
 when he returned to the monastery after days so well 
 occupied he was always first in the services and psalmody 
 of the night. After these twenty-two years of ploughing he 
 was elected abbot of his community. Then the inhabitants 
 of the nearest village took his plough, and hung it up in 
 their church as a relic. It was so, in fact ; a noble and 
 holy relic of one of those lives of perpetual labour and super- 
 human virtue, whose example has happily exercised a more 
 fruitful and lasting influence than that of the proudest con- 
 querors. It seems to me that we should all contemplate 
 with emotion, if it still existed, that monk's plough, doubly 
 sacred, by religion and by labour, by history and by virtue. 
 For myself, I feel that I should kiss it as willingly as the 
 sword of Charlemagne or the pen of Bossuet. 
 
 The same peasants of the neighbourhood of Reims also 
 admired in their simplicity a great old tree : it was said to 
 have grown from the goad which the abbot Theodulph used
 
 234 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 to prick on his oxen, and which he had one day stuck into 
 the ground, when, leading them from the monastery, he 
 paused on the roadside to mend his damaged plough. 
 
 When he became abbot, Theodulph redoubled his activity 
 in his devotion to all the duties of his charge, and to those 
 which he imposed upon himself in addition, in building a 
 new church in honour of St. Hilary. He was specially 
 assiduous in the services of the monastery, and exacted the 
 same diligence from all the monks. The latter were not all 
 animated by a zeal so impatient of repose. As both abbot 
 and monks cherished the recollections of classic antiquity, 
 one of the Religious once brought forward to him this verse 
 of Horace : — 
 
 " Quod caret alterna requie durabile non est ; " 
 
 to whom Theodulph answered that it was very well for 
 pagans, too careful of their own comfort, but that as for him, 
 he preferred that other, and equally classic text : — 
 
 " Nil sine magno 
 Vita labore dedit mortalibus." 2 
 
 Labour and prayer formed the double sphere in which 
 the existence of the monastic colonisers always flowed, and 
 the double end of their long and unwearied efforts. But they 
 certainly did not think it sufficient to initiate the rustic 
 
 1 "Effulsit prosapia sua . . . aulicorum optimatum generositate . . . 
 honestati rnajorurn suorum jam uniebatur . . . religionis velut ex lineari 
 successione. . . . Juvencos binos, cum quibus ipsi agricultural insudavit 
 bis undecim annos . . . pro variis passionibus aeris et commotionibus 
 temporum. . . . Infatigabilis cum infatigabilibus. . . . Ut cum paulum 
 aratro indulgeret, rostro manuum insisteret. . . . Mundus ista hominis 
 non sani capitis esse judicabat, cum his potius agricolis dominari ille ex 
 progenitorum usu debuisset. . . . Inter ccenobium et villam Melfigiam . . . 
 stimulo spineo terras infixio . . . agricola sanctus aratri correctione oppor- 
 tune incubuit." — BOLLAND., t. i. Mail, p. 97. 
 
 2 " Erat namque quietis impatiens . . . duplicabat cursum laboris sui et 
 officii. . . . Illius notissimi auctoris dictum . . . sibi parcentium ethni- 
 corum remissioni."— Ibid.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 235 
 
 population of Frankish Gaul in the laborious habits and 
 best processes of agriculture. They had still more at heart 
 the cultivation of so many souls infinitely precious in the 
 eyes of God and of the servants of God. By their example 
 and exhortations, by their vigilant charity, and at the same 
 time by their oral instruction, they dug in those rude hearts 
 the deep furrows where they sowed abundantly the seeds of 
 virtue and eternal life. To their example, and above all to 
 their influence, the beneficent solicitude of the provincial 
 Councils of Gaul for the spiritual instruction of the rural 
 population must be attributed. " The priests," says the 
 Council of Rouen, " must warn their parishioners that they 
 ought to permit or cause their neatherds, swineherds, and 
 other herdsmen, their ploughmen, and those who are con- 
 tinually in the fields or woods, and live there like the animals, 
 to attend mass, on Sundays and holidays at least. Those who 
 neglect this shall have to answer for their souls, and shall 
 have to render a severe account. For the Lord when He 
 came upon the earth did not choose orators or nobles for His 
 disciples, but fishers and men of the humblest class ; and it 
 was not to high intelligences, but to the poor shepherds, that 
 the angel announced in the first place the nativity of our 
 Lord." 1 
 
 But how could they have supplied the spiritual necessities 
 of all that population of shepherds and labourers, not nume- 
 rous, and spread over immense regions not more than half 
 inhabited, if the monks had not come to second and succeed 
 the secular clergy, establishing among them at a thousand 
 
 1 " Admonere debent sacerdotes plebes subditas sibi ut huhulcos atque 
 porcarios, vel alios pastorcs, vel aratores, qui in arjris assidue commoranlar, 
 vel in silvis, et ideo velut more pecudum vivunt in dominicis et in aliis festis 
 diebus saltern vel ad missam faciant vel permittant venire : nam et hos 
 Christus pretioso suo sanguine redemit. Quod si neglexerint, pro ani- 
 mabus eorum obsque dubio rationem se reddituros sciant. Siquidem 
 Dominus veniens in hunc mundum non elegit oratores atque nobiliores 
 quosque, sed piscatores atque idiotas sibi discipulos ascivit. . . . Et salva 
 altiore intelligentia, nativitas nostri Redemptoris primo omnium pastoribus 
 ab angelo nunciatur." — Coletti Concilia, t. vii. p. 406.
 
 236 THE MONKS UNDER 
 
 different points, and precisely in the quarters least accessible, 
 their cells and oratories ? These oratories in time became 
 churches ; the cottages of the peasants gathered round them ; 
 the latter were henceforth sure of sharing in all the benefits 
 of spiritual paternity, conferred upon them by men often 
 issuing from the noblest and most powerful races among the 
 masters and conquerors of the country, who voluntarily shared 
 their fatigues and privations, who led a life as hard as, and 
 even harder than, theirs, and who asked of them, in exchange 
 for such services and examples, only that they should join 
 them in praising the Lord. 
 
 Our solitaries, thus becoming, often against their will, the 
 fathers and leaders of a numerous progeny, saw themselves 
 surrounded by a double family, that of their disciples and 
 that of their dependants, the monastic and the rustic com- 
 munity, both united by faith, labour, and common prayer. 
 From the midst of forests so long unapproachable, and deserts 
 henceforward repeopled, arose everywhere the hymn of joy, 
 gratitude, and adoration. The prophecy of Isaiah was verified 
 under their very eyes for them and by them : — " Ye shall go 
 out with joy, and be led forth with peace : the mountains and 
 the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the 
 trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn 
 shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come 
 up the myrtle-tree : and it shall be to the Lord for a name, 
 for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." 
 
 And are not we tempted sometimes to give ear and listen 
 whether some faint echo of that delightful harmony does not 
 float across the ocean of time ? Certainly earth has never 
 raised to heaven a sweeter concert than that of so many 
 pure and pious voices full of faith and enthusiasm, rising 
 from the glades of the ancient forests, from the sides of 
 rocks, and from the banks of waterfalls or torrents, to cele- 
 brate their new-born happiness, like the birds under the 
 leaves, or like our dear little children in their charming 
 
 1 Isaiah lv. 12, 13.
 
 THE FIRST MEROVINGIANS 237 
 
 lispings, when they greet with joyful and innocent confidence 
 the dawn of a day in which they foresee neither storms nor 
 decline. 
 
 The Church has known days more resplendent and more 
 solemn, days better calculated to raise the admiration of 
 sages, the fervour of pious souls, and the unshaken confi- 
 dence of her children ; but I know not if she has ever 
 breathed forth a charm more touching and pure than in the 
 spring-time of monastic life. 
 
 In that Gaul which had borne for five centuries the igno- 
 minious yoke of the Caesars, which had groaned under Bar- 
 barian invasions, and where everything still breathed blood, 
 fire, and carnage, Christian virtue, watered by the spirit of 
 penitence and sacrifice, began to bud everywhere. Every- 
 where faith seemed to blossom like flowers after the winter ; 
 everywhere moral life revived and budded like the verdure 
 of the woods ; everywhere under the ancient arches of the 
 Druidical forests was celebrated the fresh betrothal of the 
 Church with the Frankish people.
 
 BOOK VII 
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS.— THE IRISH IN GAUL AND 
 THE COLONIES OF LUXEUIL 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 Ireland, converted by two slaves, becomes Christian without having 
 been Roman.— Legend of St. Patrick : the bards and the slaves ; St. 
 Bridget ; the light of Kildare. — The Irish monasteries : Bangor : St. Luan. 
 — The Irish missionaries. — Birth and education op St. Columbanus; 
 his mission in Gaul ; his sojourn at Annergray : the wolves and the Sueve 
 brigands. — He settles at Luxeuil ; state of Sequania : great influx of dis- 
 ciples ; Laus perennis. — Episcopal opposition : haughty letter of Colum- 
 banus to a council. — His struggle with Brunehault and Thierry 
 II. : St. Martin of Autun founded by Brunehault : first expulsion of 
 Columbanus ; the young Agilus ; Columbanus at Besan?on ; return to 
 Luxeuil. — He is again expelled : his voyage on the Loire ; arrival at 
 Nantes ; letter to the monks at Luxeuil. — He goes to Clotaire II., king of 
 Neustria, and to Theodebert II., king of Austrasia. — His mission to the 
 Alamans ; St. Gall ; the dialogue of the demons on the lake. — He abandons 
 the conversion of the Sclaves, and returns to Theodebert : defeat and 
 death of this king. — Columbanus crosses the Alps and passes into Lom- 
 bardy. — He founds Bobbio ; his poems ; his remonstrances with Pope 
 Boniface IV. — Clotaire II. recalls him to Gaul : he refuses and dies. — He 
 was neither the enemy of kings nor of popes. — Rule op Columbanus : 
 the Penitential. 
 
 Disciples op Columbanus in Italy and Helvetia.— His successors at 
 Bobbio : Attalus and Bertulph ; the Arian Ariowald and the monk Blidulf. 
 — Abbey of Dissentis in Rhetia : St. Sigisbert.— St. Gall separates from 
 Columbanus ; origin of the abbey called by his name ; the demons again. 
 — Princess Frideburga and her betrothed. — Gall is reconciled to Colum- 
 banus and dies. 
 
 Influence, preponderance, and prosperity of Luxeuil under St. 
 
 Eustace, first successor of Columbanus. — Luxeuil becomes the monastic 
 
 capital of Gaul and the first school of Christianity : bishops and saints 
 
 issue from Luxeuil: Hermenfried of Verdun. — Schism of Agrestin subdued 
 
 239
 
 240 SUMMARY 
 
 at the Council of Macon ; the Irish tonsure ; Note on Bishop Faron and 
 his wife. — The Benedictine rule adopted in conjunction with the institu- 
 tion of Luxeuil. — The double consulate. — St. Walbert, third abbot of 
 Luxeuil. — Exemption accorded by Pope John IV. 
 
 Colonies of Luxeuil in the two Burgundies ; St. Desle at Lure and 
 Clotaire II. — The ducal family of St. Donatus : Komainmoutier re-estab- 
 lished ; the nuns of Jussamoutier ; Beze ; Bregille. — The abbot Hermenfried 
 at Cusance : he kisses the hands of the husbandmen. 
 
 Colonies of Luxeuil in Ranracia : St. Ursanne ; St. Germain of Grandval, 
 first martyr of the Columbanic institution. 
 
 Colonies of Luxeuil in Neustria : St. Wandregisil at Fontenelle : he 
 converted the country of Caux : St. Philibert at Jumieges ; commerce and 
 navigation ; death of four hundred and fifty saints of Jumieges. 
 
 Colonies of Luxeuil in Brie and Champagne : St. Ouen and his brothers ; 
 Jouarre. — St. Agilus at Eebais ; hospitality ; vision of the poor traveller. 
 — Burgundofara braves martyrdom to be made a nun, and when abbess, 
 repels the schismatic Agrestin. — Her brother St. Faron and King Clotaire 
 II. hunting. — St. Fiacre, St. Fursy, St. Frobert at Moutier-la-Celle, St. 
 Berchaire at Hautvillers and Montier-en-Der. — St. Salaberga at Laon. 
 
 Colonies of Luxeuil in Ponthieu : the shepherd Valery, gardener at 
 Luxeuil, founder of Leuconiius. — Popular opposition. — St. Riquier at 
 Centule. 
 
 Colonies of Luxeuil among the Morins : St. Omer and St. Bertin at 
 Sithiu ; change of the name of monasteries. 
 
 The Saints op Remikesiont : Amatus and Romaric ; the double 
 monasteries ; Agrestin at Remiremont ; Romaric and the prime minister 
 Grimoald. — St. Eloysius and Solignac. 
 
 Why was the rule of St. Columbanus rejected and replaced by that of 
 St. Benedict ? The Council of Autun acknowledges only the latter. The 
 Council of Rome in 610 confirmed it. It was identified with the authority 
 of the Holy See, and thus succeeded in governing all.
 
 BOOK VII 
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 Ad has nostras Gallicanas partes S. Columbanus ascendens, Luxoviense 
 construxit monasterium, factus ibi in gentem magnam. — S. Bee- 
 NAEDI, Vita S. Malach., c. 5. 
 
 Si tollis libertatem, tollis et dignitatem. — S. Columbani, Epist. ad 
 Fratres. 
 
 While the missionaries of Monte Cassino planted slowly 
 and obscurely in the new kingdom of the Franks that Order, 
 the observance of which St. Gregory the Great, by his 
 example and by his disciples, regulated and extended every- 
 where, a man had appeared in the Church and in Gaul 
 as the type of a distinct race and spirit. A monk and 
 monastic legislator, like St. Benedict, he at one moment 
 threatened to eclipse and replace the Benedictine institution 
 in the Catholic world. This was St. Columbanus. 
 
 He came from the north, as St. Maur had come from 
 the south. He was born in Ireland : he brought with him 
 a colony of Irish monks ; and his name leads us back to 
 consider that race and country of which he has been the 
 most illustrious representative among us. 
 
 Ireland, that virgin island on which proconsul never set 
 foot, which never knew either the orgies or the exactions of 
 Rome, was also the only place in the world of which the 
 Gospel took possession without bloodshed. It is thus spoken 
 of by Ozanam ; x and certainly no one has described it better, 
 though allowance must be made for the excessive admiration 
 which disposes him to exalt above measure the part played 
 
 1 Etudes Germaniqucs, t. ii. p. 99. 
 VOL. II. 241 Q
 
 242 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 by the Irish from the sixth to the twelfth centuries, attri- 
 buting to them exclusively that impulse of diffusion and 
 expansion, and that thirst for instructing and converting, 
 which characterised the entire Church and monastic order 
 during that long and glorious period. The preponderance 
 of the Irish race in the work of preaching and in the con- 
 version of pagan or semi-Christian nations was only tem- 
 porary, and did not last longer than the seventh century ; 
 but their exertions at that time were so undeniable as to 
 leave France, Switzerland, and Belgium under a debt of 
 everlasting gratitude. This branch of the great family of 
 Celtic nations, known under the name of Hibernians, Scots, 
 or Gaels, and whose descendants and language have survived 
 to our own days in Ireland, in the Highlands of Scotland, 
 in Wales, and in Lower Brittany, had adopted the faith of 
 Christ with enthusiasm ; and, at the moment when Celtic 
 vitality seemed about to perish in Gaul and Great Britain, 
 under the double pressure of Roman decay and Germanic 
 invasion, appeared among all the Christian races as the one 
 most devoted to the Catholic faith, and most zealous for the 
 spread of the Gospel. 1 From the moment that this Green 
 Erin, situated at the extremity of the known world, had seen 
 the sun of faith rise upon her, she had vowed herself to it 
 with an ardent and tender devotion which became her very 
 life. The course of ages has not interrupted this ; the most 
 bloody and implacable of persecutions has not shaken it; 
 the defection of all northern Europe has not led her astray ; 
 and she maintains still, amid the splendours and miseries of 
 modern civilisation and Anglo-Saxon supremacy, an inex- 
 tinguishable centre of faith, where survives, along with the 
 completest orthodoxy, that admirable purity of manners 
 which no conqueror and no adversary has ever been able to 
 dispute, to equal, or to diminish. 
 
 1 " Scottorum gens . . . absque reliquarum gentium legibus, tamen in 
 Christiani vigoris dogmate florens, omnium vicinarum gentium fide prse- 
 pollet." — Jonas, Vita S. Colornb., c. 6, ap. Act. SS. 0. S. B., sac. II.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 243 
 
 The ecclesiastical antiquity and hagiography of Ireland 
 constitute in themselves an entire world of inquiry. We 
 shall be pardoned for not desiring to enter into their inter- 
 minable and somewhat confused perspectives. 1 It will suffice 
 us to detach from this mass of legendary narratives, which 
 modern erudition has not yet been able to clear away, as 
 much as is indispensable to our subject, and will prove the 
 development of the monastic principle, contemporaneous 
 with, but entirely independent of, the diffusion of cenobitical 
 institutions in all the Roman empire and through all the 
 Barbarian races. 
 
 Two slaves brought the faith to Ireland, and at the same 
 time founded monastic life there. Such is at least the 
 popular belief, confirmed by the most credible narratives. 
 
 The Gallo-Roman Patrick, son of a relative of the great 
 St. Martin of Tours, had been seized at sixteen by pirates, 
 and sold as a slave into Ireland, where he kept the flocks of 
 his master, and where hunger, cold, nakedness, and the piti- 
 less severity of his master, initiated him into all the horrors 
 of slavery. Restored to liberty after six years of servitude, 
 and returned to Gaul, he saw always in his dreams the 
 children of the poor Irish pagans whose yoke he had known, 
 holding out to him their little arms. His sleep and his 
 studies were equally disturbed by these visions. It seemed 
 to him that he heard the voice of these innocents asking 
 baptism of him, and crying — " Dear Christian child, return 
 among us ! return to save us ! " 2 After having studied in 
 the great monastic sanctuaries of Marmoutier and Lerins, 
 after having accompanied St. Germain of Auxerre in the 
 mission undertaken by that great champion of orthodoxy to 
 
 1 Lastigan, Ecclesiastical History of Ireland from the First Introduction of 
 Christianity to the Beginning of the Thirteenth Century (Dublin, 1829, 4 vols.), 
 may be consulted with advantage, though without coinciding in its views. 
 
 2 " Vidi in visu de nocte . . . Putabam . . . audire vocem ipsorum . . . 
 Rogamus te, sancte puer, venias et adhuc ambules inter nos. Et valde 
 compunctus sum corde, et amplius non potui legere, et sic expergefactus 
 sum." — Act. SS. Bollaxd., t. ii. Mart., p. 535.
 
 244 ST - COLUMBANUS 
 
 root out the Pelagian heresy so dear to the Celtic races from 
 Great Britain, he went to Eome, obtained there a mission 
 from the Pope St. Celestin, and returned to Ireland as a 
 bishop to preach the faith. The kings, the chiefs, the war- 
 like and impressionable people of Green Erin listened to him, 
 followed him, and testified towards him that impassioned 
 veneration which has become the most popular tradition of 
 the Irish, and which thirteen centuries had not lessened. 
 After thirty-three years of apostleship he died, leaving Ire- 
 land almost entirely converted, and, moreover, filled with 
 schools and communities destined to become a nursery of 
 missionaries for the West. 
 
 Legend and history have vied in taking possession of the 
 life of St. Patrick. 
 
 There is nothing in his legend more poetic than the 
 meeting between the Gallo-Roman apostle and the Irish 
 bards, who formed a hereditary and sacerdotal class. Among 
 them he found his most faithful disciples. Ossian himself, 
 the blind Homer of Ireland, allowed himself to be converted 
 by him, and Patrick listened in his turn as he sang the long 
 epic of Celtic kings and heroes. 1 Harmony was not estab- 
 lished between these two without being preceded by some 
 storms. Patrick threatened with hell the profane warriors 
 whose glory Ossian vaunted, and the bard replied to the 
 apostle, " If thy God was in hell, my heroes would draw him 
 from it." But triumphant truth made peace between poetry 
 and faith. The monasteries founded by Patrick became the 
 asylum and centre of Celtic poetry. When once blessed and 
 transformed, says an old author, the songs of the bards be- 
 came so sweet that the angels of God leant down from heaven 
 to listen to them ; 2 and this explains the reason why the 
 harp of the bards has continued the symbol and emblazonry 
 of Catholic Ireland. 
 
 Nothing is better established in the history of St. Patrick, 
 
 1 OZANAM, ii. 472. 
 
 2 La Villemarque, Ligende Celtique, p. 109.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 245 
 
 than his zeal to preserve the country where he had himself 
 borne the yoke, from the abuses of slavery, and especially 
 from the incursions of the pirates, Britons and Scots, robbers 
 and traffickers in men, who made it a sort of store from which 
 they took their human cattle. The most authentic memorial 
 of the saint which remains to us is his eloquent protest 
 against the king of a British horde, who, landing in the 
 midst of a tribe baptized the evening before, massacred 
 several, and carried off the others to sell them. " Patrick, 
 an ignorant sinner, but constituted bishop in Hibernia, and 
 dwelling among the barbarous nations, because of my love 
 for God, I write these letters with my own hand to be trans- 
 mitted to the soldiers of the tyrant, I say not to my fellow- 
 citizens, nor to the fellow-citizens of the saints of Rome, but 
 to the compatriots of the devil, to the apostate Scots and 
 Picts who live in death, and fatten themselves with the 
 blood of the innocent Christians with whom I have travailed 
 for my God. . . . Does not the divine mercy which I love 
 oblige me to act thus, to defend even those who of old made 
 myself captive and massacred the slaves and servants of my 
 father ? " 1 Elsewhere he praises the courage of the en- 
 slaved girls whom he had converted, and who defended their 
 modesty and faith heroically, against their unworthy masters. 2 
 Men and women were treated then among all the Celtic 
 nations as they were during the last century on the coasts 
 of Africa. Slavery, and the trade in slaves, was still more 
 difficult to root out among them than paganism. 3 And yet 
 
 1 " Inter barbaras gentes proselytus et perfuga, ob amorem Dei. . . . 
 Non dico civibus meis atque civibus sanctorum Romanorurn, sed civibus 
 daemonoruni. . . . Socii Scotorum atque Pictorum apostatarum. . . . Illam 
 gentem qua? me aliquando ccepit, et devastavit servos et ancillas patris 
 mei." — Epistola S. P. ad Christlanos Corolici Tyranni subditos, ap. Bolland., 
 d. 17 Mart., p. 538. 
 
 2 "Sed et illse maxime laborant, quae servitio detinentur, usque ad 
 terrores et minas assidue perferunt." — Confessio S. Patkicii de Vita et 
 Conversation sua, ap. Boll., p. 536. 
 
 3 The slave trade was in full activity in the tenth century between 
 England and Ireland, and the port of Bristol was its principal centre.
 
 246 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 the Christian faith dawned upon Ireland by means of two 
 slaves ! The name of Patrick is associated by an undying 
 link with that of Bridget, the daughter, according to the 
 legend, of a bard and a beautiful captive, whom her master 
 had sent away, like Hagar, at the suggestion of his wife. 
 Born in grief and shame, she was received and baptized, 
 along with her mother, by the disciples of St. Patrick. In 
 vain would her father have taken her back and bestowed 
 her in marriage when her beauty and wisdom became 
 apparent. She devoted herself to God and the poor, and 
 went to live in an oak-wood formerly consecrated to the 
 false gods. The miraculous cures she wrought attracted 
 the crowd, and she soon founded the first female monastery 
 which Ireland had known, under the name of Kildare, the 
 Cell of the Oak. She died there at seventy, after an entire 
 life of love and labour. Upon her tomb immediately rose 
 the inextinguishable flame called the Light of St. Bridget^ 
 which her nuns kept always burning, which the faith and 
 love of an unfortunate people watched over for a thousand 
 years as the signal light of the country, until the triumph 
 of a sacrilegious reform, and which in our own days has 
 been relighted by the muse of a patriot poet. 2 Innumerable 
 convents of women trace their origin to the abbess of Kildare : 
 wherever the Irish monks have penetrated, from Cologne to 
 Seville, churches have been raised in her honour ; and wher- 
 ever, in our own time, British emigration spreads, the name 
 
 1 " Apud Kildariam occurret ignis sanctce Brigidce, quern inextinguibilem 
 vocant ; non quod extingui non posset, sed quod tarn sollicite moniales et 
 sanctas mulieres ignem, suppetente materia, fovent et nutriunt, ut tempore 
 virginis per tot annorum curricula semper mansit inextinctus." — GiRALD. 
 Camb., De Mirabil. Hibern., Disq. 2, c. 34. 
 
 2 " Like the bright lamp that shone in Kildare's holy fane, 
 And burned through long ages of darkness and storm, 
 Is the heart that afflictions have come o'er in vain, 
 Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm ! 
 Erin ! oh Erin ! thus bright through the tears 
 Of a long night of bondage thy spirit appears." 
 
 — Moore, Irish, Melodies.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 247 
 
 of Bridget points out the woman of Irish race. 1 Deprived 
 by persecution and poverty of the means of erecting monu- 
 ments of stone, they testify their unshaken devotion to that 
 dear memory by giving her name to their daughters — a 
 noble and touching homage made by a race, always unfor- 
 tunate and always faithful, to a saint who was like itself, a 
 slave, and like itself, a Catholic. There are glories more 
 noisy and splendid, but are there many which do more 
 honour to human nature ? 2 
 
 The productiveness of the monastic germ planted by 
 Patrick and Bridget was prodigious. In his own lifetime, 
 the apostle of Ireland was astonished to find that he could 
 no longer number the sons and daughters of chieftains who 
 had embraced cloistral life at his bidding. 3 The rude and 
 simple architecture of these primitive monasteries has left a 
 visible trace in the celebrated round towers, spread over the 
 soil of Ireland, which had so long exercised the ingenuity 
 of archaeologists, until contemporary science demonstrated 
 that these monuments were nothing else than the belfries 
 of cathedrals and abbeys erected between the time of the 
 conversion of the island and its conquest by the English. 4 
 Among so many saints who were the successors and emu- 
 
 1 Bridget or Bride. There are still eighteen parishes in Ireland which 
 bear the name of Kilbride, or the church of Bridget. 
 
 2 At the time of the invasion of the Danes, who burned Kildare in 835, 
 the shrine of St. Bridget was removed to the monastery of Downpatrick, 
 where the body of St. Patrick reposed. In 850 the relics of St. Columb- 
 kill were for a like reason brought from the Island of Iona to the same 
 shelter. Thus the three great saints of the Celtic race are to be found 
 assembled in the same tomb. Their solemn translation was celebrated, in 
 1 186, by a legate of Pope Urban III. 
 
 3 " Filii Scotorum et filise regulorum monachi et virgines Christi esse 
 videntur . . . nescimus numerum corum." — Confessio, loc. cit. Mabillon 
 thinks that St. Patrick gave the rule of Marmoutier to his newly-born 
 communities. — Prcef. in I. scec. Bened., cap. i. n. 25. Compare HiEFTEN, 
 Disquisitiones Monastics, p. 57, Antwerpia, 1644, folio. Lanigan believes 
 that there were monks in Ireland even before St. Patrick. 
 
 4 Essay of Mr. Petrie, presented to the Boyal Academy of Ireland in 
 1836.
 
 248 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 lators of St. Patrick, we shall name only one, Luan, whose 
 memory St. Bernard consecrated six centuries afterwards, 
 by affirming that he had himself founded in his own person 
 a hundred monasteries. 1 This Luan was a little shepherd 
 who had been educated by the monks of the immense abbey 
 of Bangor. For shortly the monasteries at Bangor, Clonfert, 
 and elsewhere, became entire towns, each of which enclosed 
 more than three thousand cenobites. The Thebaid reap- 
 peared in Ireland, and the West had no longer anything to 
 envy in the history of the East. 
 
 There was besides an intellectual development, which the 
 Eremites of Egypt had not known. The Irish communi- 
 ties, joined by the monks from Gaul and Home, whom the 
 example of Patrick had drawn upon his steps, 2 entered into 
 rivalry with the great monastic schools of Gaul. They 
 explained Ovid there ; they copied Virgil ; they devoted 
 themselves especially to Greek literature ; they drew back 
 from no inquiry, from no discussion ; they gloried in placing 
 boldness on a level with faith. The young Luan answered 
 the abbot of Bangor, who warned him against the dangers 
 of too engrossing a study of the liberal arts : " If I have 
 the knowledge of God, I shall never offend God ; for they 
 who disobey Him are they who know Him not." Upon 
 which the abbot left him, sayiug, " My son, thou art firm 
 in the faith, and true knowledge will put thee in the right 
 road for heaven." 3 
 
 A characteristic still more distinctive of the Irish monks, 
 as of all their nation, was the imperious necessity of spread- 
 ing themselves without, of seeking or carrying knowledge 
 
 1 S. Bernard., in Vita S. Malachice, c. 6. 
 
 2 In 536, fifty monks from the Continent landed at Cork. 
 
 3 See Ozanam, op. cit., ii. 97, 101, 472, and the curious verses which he 
 
 quotes : — 
 
 " Benchoir bona regula 
 
 Eocta atque divina . . . 
 
 Navis nunquam turbata . . . 
 
 Simplex simul atque docta 
 
 Undecumque invicta. . . ."
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 249 
 
 and faith afar, and of penetrating into the most distant 
 regions to watch or combat paganism. This monastic 
 nation, therefore, became the missionary nation jpar excellence. 
 While some came to Ireland to procure religious instruction, 
 the Irish missionaries launched forth from their island. 
 They covered the land and seas of the West. Unwearied 
 navigators, they landed on the most desert islands ; they 
 overflowed the Continent with their successive immigrations. 1 
 They saw in incessant visions a world known and unknown 
 to be conquered for Christ. The poem of the Pilgrimage of 
 St. Brandan, that monkish Odyssey so celebrated in the 
 middle ages, that popular prelude of the Divina Commedia, 
 shows us the Irish monks in close contact with all the 
 dreams and wonders of the Celtic ideal. Hereafter we shall 
 see them struggling against the reality ; we shall speak of 
 their metropolis upon the rock of Iona, in the Hebrides ; we 
 shall tell what they did for the conversion of Great Britain. 
 But we must follow them first into Gaul, that country from 
 which the Gospel had been carried to them by Patrick. 
 Several had already reached Armorica with that invasion of 
 Celtic refugees which we have described in the preceding 
 Book. But it was only in the end of the sixth century that 
 the action of Ireland upon the countries directly subjected 
 to Frank dominion became decisive. She thus generously 
 repaid her debt to Gaul. She had received Patrick from 
 Gaul ; in return, she sent Columbanus. 
 
 The rival of St. Benedict was born the same year in which 
 the patriarch of Monte Cassino died. Instructed from his 
 infancy in literature and the liberal arts, he had also to 
 struggle early with the temptations of the flesh. His beauty, 
 which attracted all eyes, exposed him, says the monk who 
 has written his life, 2 to the shameless temptations of the 
 
 1 " In exteras etiam nationes, quasi inundatione facta ilia se sanctorum 
 examina effuderunt." — S. Bernardi, Vita S. Malach., c. 5. 
 
 2 Vita S. Columbani Abhatis, Auctore JONA, Monacho Bobicnsi Fere JEquali, 
 ap. Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. ii. This Jonas was of Susa, in Piedmont. He
 
 250 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 beautiful Irish women. It was in vain that he plunged into 
 the study of grammar, rhetoric, geometry, and Holy Scrip- 
 ture. The goad of voluptuousness pricked him perpetually. 
 He went to the cell inhabited by a pious recluse to consult 
 her. " Twelve years ago," she answered him, " I myself 
 left my own house to enter into a war against sin. Inflamed 
 by the fires of youth, thou shalt attempt in vain to escape 
 from thy frailty while thou remainest upon thy native soil. 
 Hast thou forgotten Adam, Samson, David, and Solomon, all 
 lost by the seductions of beauty and love ? Young man, to 
 save thyself, thou must flee." x He listened, believed her, 
 and decided on going away. His mother attempted to deter 
 him, prostrating herself before him upon the threshold of 
 the door ; he crossed that dear obstacle, left the province of 
 Leinster, where he was born, and, after spending some time 
 with a learned doctor, who made him compose a commentary 
 on the Psalms, he found refuge at Bangor, among the many 
 monks still imbued with the primitive fervour which had 
 assembled them there under the cross of the holy abbot 
 Comgall. 
 
 But this first apprenticeship of the holy war was not 
 enough. The adventurous temper of his race, the passion 
 for pilgrimage and preaching, 2 drew him beyond the seas. 
 He heard incessantly the voice which had spoken to Abra- 
 ham echoing in his ears, " Go out of thine own country, and 
 from thy father's house, into the land which I shall show 
 thee." That land was ours. The abbot attempted in vain 
 to retain him. Columbanus, then thirty, left Bangor with 
 
 wrote by order of Attala and Eustace, successors of Columbanus. He 
 quotes Titus Livius and Virgil by tbe side of the Holy Scriptures. His 
 book is one of the most curious monuments of the Merovingian period. 
 
 1 " Liberalium litterarum doctrinis et grammaticorum studiis. . . . Cum 
 eum forma? elegantia . . . omnibus gratum redderet. . . . Lascivarum 
 puellarum in eum suscitavit amores, prascique quas forma corporis. . . . 
 Perge, o juvenis ! perge, evita ruinam." — Jonas, c. 7, 8. 
 
 2 " Scottorum quibus consuetudo peregrinandi jam pene in naturam 
 conversa est." — Walakidus Strabo, Be Mirac. S. Gatti, lib. ii. c. 47. 
 "Qui tironem suum ad futura bella erudierat." — Jonas, c. 9.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 2 5 I 
 
 twelve other monks, crossed Great Britain, and reached 
 Gaul. He found the Catholic faith in existence there, but 
 Christian virtue and ecclesiastical discipline unknown or 
 outraged — thanks to the fury of the wars and the negligence 
 of the bishops. He devoted himself during several years to 
 traversing the country, preaching the Gospel, and especially 
 to giving an example of the humility and charity which he 
 taught to all. Arriving in the course of his apostolical 
 wanderings in Burgundy, he was received there by King 
 Gontran, of all the grandsons of Clovis the one whose life 
 appears to have been least blamable, and who had most 
 sympathy for the monks. His eloquence delighted the king 
 and his lords. Fearing that he would leave them, Gontran 
 offered him whatever he chose if he would remain ; and as 
 the Irishman answered that he had not left his own country 
 to seek wealth, but to follow Christ and bear His cross, the 
 king persisted, and told him that there were in his king- 
 doms many savage and solitary places where he might find 
 the cross and win heaven, but that he must on no account 
 leave Gaul, nor dream of converting other nations, till he 
 had assured the salvation of the Franks and Burgundians. 1 
 Columbanus yielded to his desire, and chose for his 
 dwelling-place the ancient Roman castle of Annegray. 2 
 He led the simplest life there with his companions. He 
 lived for entire weeks without any other food than the 
 grass of the fields, the bark of the trees, and the bilberries 
 which are to be found in our fir-woods ; he received other 
 provisions only from the charity of the neighbours. Often 
 he separated himself from his disciples to plunge alone into 
 
 1 " Ob negligentiam prassulum, religionis virtus pene abolita. . . . 
 Gratus regi et aulicis ob egregiam doctrinse copiam. . . . Ut intra terminos 
 Galliarum resideret. . . . Tantum ne solo nostrse ditionis relicto, ad vicinas 
 transeas nationes . . . ut nostrse saluti provideas." — Jonas, c. ii, 12. 
 Compare Walaf. Strabon., lib. i. c. 2. I refer to the Vie des Saints de 
 Franche-Comte, t. ii., and to vol. vii. of October by the new Bollandists, 
 p. 868, for the divers dates assigned to the journey and sojourn of Colum- 
 banus in France. 
 
 2 Now a hamlet of the commune of Faucogney ( Haute -Saone).
 
 252 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 the woods, and live in common with the animals. There, as 
 afterwards, in his long and close communion with the bare 
 and savage nature of these desert places, nothing alarmed 
 him, nor did he cause fear to any creature. Everything 
 obeyed his voice. The birds, as has been already men- 
 tioned, came to receive his caresses, and the squirrels 
 descended from the tree-tops to hide themselves in the 
 folds of his cowl. He expelled a bear from the cavern 
 which became his cell ; he took from another bear a dead 
 stag, whose skin served to make shoes for his brethren. 
 One day, while he wandered in the depths of the wood, 
 bearing a volume of Holy Scripture on his shoulder, and 
 meditating whether the ferocity of the beasts, who could 
 not sin, was not better than the rage of men, which de- 
 stroyed their souls, he saw a dozen wolves approach and 
 surround him on both sides. He remained motionless, 
 repeating these words, " Deus in adjutorium." The wolves, 
 after having touched his garments with their mouths, see- 
 ing him without fear, passed upon their way. He pursued 
 his, and a few steps farther on heard a noise of human 
 voices, which he recognised as those of a band of German 
 brigands, of the Sueve nation, who then wasted that country. 
 He did not see them ; but he thanked God for having pre- 
 served him from this double danger, in which may be seen 
 a double symbol of the constant struggle which the monks 
 had to maintain in their laborious warfare against the wild 
 forces of nature, and the still more savage barbarity of men. 1 
 At the end of some years, the increasing number of his 
 
 1 "Novem dies jam transierant, quo ver Dei cum suis non alias dapes 
 caperat quam arborum cortices herbasque saltus . . . vel parvulorum 
 pomorum quas Bollucas vulgo appellant. . . . Chamnoaldo Lugduno 
 clavato pontifice, qui ejus et minister et discipulus fuit, cognovimus refe- 
 rente, qui se testabatur saspe vidisse . . . bestias ac aves accersere . , . 
 ferusculam, quam vulgo homines Squirium vocant. . . . Abiit fera mitis 
 nee prorsus est ausa redire. . . . Contra naturam absque murmure . . . 
 cadaver reliquit. . . . Conspicit duodecim lupos advenire . . . ora vesti- 
 menti ejus jungunt . . . interritum relinquunt. . . . Vocem Suevorum 
 multorum per avia aberrantium." — Jonas, c. 14-16, 26, 30.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 253 
 
 disciples obliged him to seek another residence, and by the 
 help of one of the principal ministers of the Frank king, 
 Agnoald, whose wife was a Burgundian of very high family, 1 
 he obtained from Gontran the site of another strong castle 
 named Luxeuil, where there had been Roman baths, magnifi- 
 cently ornamented, and where the idols formerly worshipped 
 by the Gauls were still found in the neighbouring forests. 
 Upon the ruins of these two civilisations the great monastic 
 metropolis of Austrasia and Burgundy was to be planted. 
 
 Luxeuil was situated upon the confines of these two 
 kingdoms, at the foot of the Vosges, and north of that 
 Sequania, the southern part of which had already been for 
 more than a century lighted up by the abbey of Condat. 
 The district which extends over the sides of the Vosges 
 and Jura, since so illustrious and prosperous under the 
 name of Franche- Comtek then consisted, for a range of 
 sixty leagues and a breadth of ten or fifteen, of nothing 
 but parallel chains of inaccessible defiles, divided by im- 
 penetrable forests, and bristling with immense pine-woods, 
 which descended from the heights of the highest mountains 
 to overshadow the course of the rapid and pure streams of 
 the Doubs, Dessoubre, and Loue. The Barbarian invasions, 
 and especially that of Attila, had reduced the Roman towns 
 into ashes, and annihilated all agriculture and population. 
 The forest and the wild beasts had taken possession of that 
 solitude which it was reserved for the disciples of Colum- 
 banus and Benedict to transform into fields and pastures. 2 
 
 Disciples collected abundantly round the Irish coloniser. 
 He could soon count several hundreds of them in the three 
 
 1 "Regis conviva et consiliarius. . . . Conjux ex prasclara Burgun- 
 diorum prosapia. Quanquam ejus industria universa palatii officia 
 gererentur, nee non totius regni querimonia? illius acquissima definitione 
 terminarentur." — Vita S. Agili, c. 1, 3, ap. Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. ii. 
 
 2 " Erat tunc vasta eremus Vosagus nomine . . . aspera vastitate soli- 
 tudinis et scopulorum interpositione loca aspera." — Jonas, c. 12. See the 
 excellent description of Jura and its monastic agriculture, in the Histoire 
 des Grandes Forets de la Gavle, by M. Alpeed MAURY, p. 181.
 
 2 54 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 monasteries which he had built in succession, and which he 
 himself governed. 1 The noble Franks and Burgundians, 
 overawed by the sight of these great creations of work and 
 prayer, brought their sons to him, lavished gifts upon him, 
 and often came to ask him to cut their long hair, the sign 
 of nobility and freedom, and admit them into the ranks of 
 his army. 2 Labour and prayer attained here, under the 
 strong arm of Columbanus, to proportions up to that time 
 unheard of. The multitude of poor serfs and rich lords 
 became so great that he could organise that perpetual 
 service, called Laus perennis, which already existed at 
 Agaune, on the other side of the Jura and Lake Leman, 
 where, night and day, the voices of the monks, " unwearied 
 as those of angels," arose to celebrate the praises of God in 
 an unending song. 3 
 
 Rich and poor were equally bound to the agricultural 
 labours, which Columbanus himself directed. In the nar- 
 rative of the wonders which mingle with every page of his 
 life, they are all to be seen employed successively in plough- 
 
 1 Annegray, Luxeuil, and Fontaines. The biographer of St. Valery 
 gives the number two hundred and twenty ; other authors say six 
 hundred. 
 
 2 " Ibi nobilium liberi undique concurrere nitebantur." — JONAS, c. 17. 
 " Multi non solum de genere Burgundionum, sed etiam Francorum . . . 
 confluxerunt . . . ut omnia sua ad ipsum locum contraderent, et coma 
 capitis deposita." — Walafr. Strabo, c. 2. 
 
 3 S. BERNARD., in Vita S. Malach., c. 6. Compare MABILL., Anna!., lib. 
 viii. n. 10, 16 ; D. PlTRA, Hist, de S. Legcr, p. 301 ; the Vie des Saints de 
 Franche-Comti, t. ii. pp. 25 and 478. This perpetual service, called Laus 
 perennis, was long maintained at St. Maurice, at Remiremont, at St. Denis, 
 and elsewhere. There are also traces of its existence in the first monas- 
 teries of Egypt and Palestine. In the life of St. Mary the Egyptian, in 
 speaking of a monastery near Jordan, are the following words : " Psalleutia 
 ibi erat, incessabiles totius noctis habens stabilitates . . . et in ore psalmi 
 divini absque diminutione."— Rosweyde, Vitce- Patrum, p. 383. Alex- 
 ander, a Syrian monk, who died about 430, founded a special order of 
 monks called Acdmetes, or people who do not sleep. He ruled, first on the 
 shores of the Euphrates, and afterwards at Constantinople, three hundred 
 recluses, divided into six choirs, who relieved each other in singing night 
 and day.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 255 
 
 ing, and mowing, in reaping, and in cutting wood. With 
 the impetuosity natural to him, he made no allowance for 
 any weakness. He required even the sick to thrash the 
 wheat. An article of his rule ordained the monk to go to 
 rest so fatigued that he should fall asleep on the way, and 
 to get up before he had slept sufficiently. It is at the cost 
 of this excessive and perpetual labour that the half of our 
 own country and of ungrateful Europe has been restored to 
 cultivation and life. 1 
 
 Twenty years passed thus, during which the reputation of 
 Columbanus increased and extended afar. But his influence 
 was not undisputed. He displeased one portion of the Gallo- 
 Frank clergy, in the first place, by the Irish peculiarities of 
 his costume and tonsure, perhaps also by the intemperate 
 zeal with which he attempted, in his epistles, to remind the 
 bishops of their duties, and certainly by his obstinate per- 
 severance in celebrating Easter according to Irish usage, on 
 the fourteenth day of the moon, when that day happened on 
 a Sunday, instead of celebrating it, with all the rest of the 
 Church, on the Sunday after the fourteenth day. This 
 peculiarity, at once trifling and oppressive, disturbed his 
 whole life, and weakened his authority ; for his pertinacity 
 on this point reached so far that he actually attempted more 
 than once to bring the Holy See itself to his side. 2 
 
 The details of his struggle with the bishops of Gaul 
 remain unknown ; but the resolution he displayed may be 
 understood by some passage of his letter to the synod or 
 council which met to examine this question. The singular 
 mixture of humility and pride, and the manly and original 
 
 1 " Imperat ut omnes surgant atque messern in area virga casdant. . . . 
 Cum vidisset eos magno labore glebas scindere." — Jonas, c. 20, 23, 28. 
 " Lassus ad stratum veniat, ambulansque dormitet, necdum expleto somno 
 surgere compellatur." — Reg. S. Coltjmbani, c. 9. 
 
 2 He wrote several letters on this subject to St. Gregory the Great, of 
 which there is no trace in the correspondence of this pope, and only one 
 of them has been preserved in the works of Columbanus. In the latter, 
 he says that Satan hindered his three former letters from coming to the 
 hands of Gregory.
 
 256 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 eloquence with which this epistle is stamped, does not 
 conceal what was strange and irregular in the part which 
 he arrogated to himself in the Church. Though he calls 
 himself Columbanus the sinner, it is very apparent that he 
 felt himself the guide and instructor of those to whom he 
 spoke. 
 
 He begins by thanking God that, owing to His grace, so 
 many holy bishops now assemble to consider the interests 
 of faith and morality. He exhorts them to assemble more 
 frequently, despite the dangers and difficulties which they 
 might meet on the road, and wishes them to occupy them- 
 selves, under the presidence of Jesus Christ, not only with 
 the question of Easter, but with other canonical observances 
 cruelly neglected. He prides himself on his own trials, and 
 what he calls the persecution of which he has been the 
 victim. He blames the diversity of customs and variety 
 of traditions in the Church, condemning himself thus 
 by his own mouth, and not perceiving the wisdom of 
 ecclesiastical authority, which seems to have long toler- 
 ated, in himself and his compatriots, the individual and 
 local observance which he would fain have inflicted as a 
 yoke upon all Christendom. He also advocates union be- 
 tween the secular and regular clergy ; and his language 
 then becomes more touching and solemn. " I am not the 
 author of this difference : I have come into these parts, a 
 poor stranger, for the cause of the Christ Saviour, our 
 common God and Lord ; I ask of your holinesses but a 
 single grace : that you will permit me to live in silence in 
 the depth of these forests, near the bones of seventeen breth- 
 ren whom I have already seen die : I shall pray for you with 
 those who remain to me, as I ought, and as I have always 
 done for twelve years. Ah ! let us live with you in this 
 Gaul, where we now are, since we are destined to live with 
 each other in heaven, if we are found worthy to enter there. 
 Despite our lukewarmness, we will follow, the best we can, 
 the doctrines and precepts of our Lord and the apostles.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 257 
 
 These are our weapons, our shield, and our glory. To 
 remain faithful to them we have left our country, and are 
 come among you. It is yours, holy fathers, to determine 
 what must be done with some poor veterans, some old 
 pilgrims, and if it would not be better to console than to 
 disturb them. I dare not go to you for fear of entering 
 into some contention with you, but I confess to you the 
 secrets of my conscience, and how I believe, above all, in 
 the traditions of my country, which is, besides, that of St. 
 Jerome." 
 
 All this is mingled with troublesome calculations about 
 the celebration of Easter, and a great array of Scripture 
 texts. It ends thus: " God forbid that we should delight 
 our enemies — namely, the Jew, heretics, and pagans — by 
 strife among Christians. ... If God guides you to expel 
 me from the desert which I have sought here beyond the 
 seas, I should only say with Jonah, ' Take me up, and cast 
 me forth into the sea ; so shall the sea be calm.' But before 
 you throw me overboard, it is your duty to follow the example 
 of the sailors, and to try first to come to land ; perhaps even 
 it might not be excess of presumption to suggest to you that 
 many men follow the broad way, and that when there are a 
 few who direct themselves to the narrow gate that leads to 
 life, it would be better for you to encourage than to hinder 
 them, lest you fall under the condemnation of that text 
 which says, ' Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
 crites ! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men : 
 for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are 
 entering to go in.' The harder the struggle, the more glorious 
 is the crown. They, says St. Gregory, who do not avoid the 
 visible evil can scarcely believe in the hidden good. For 
 this reason St. Jerome enjoins the bishops to imitate the 
 apostles, and the monks to follow the fathers, who have been 
 perfect. The rules of the priests and those of the monks 
 are very different ; let each keep faithfully the profession 
 which he has embraced, but let all follow the Gospel and 
 
 VOL. II. R
 
 258 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 Christ their head. . . . Yet pray for us, as we, despite our 
 lowliness, pray for you. Regard us not as strangers to you ; 
 for all of us, whether Gauls or Britons, Spaniards or others, 
 are members of the same body. I pray you all, my holy and 
 patient fathers and brethren, to forgive the loquacity and 
 boldness of a man whose task is above his strength." * 
 
 When we think that neither in the life of Columbanus 
 himself, which is written in minute detail, nor in the history 
 of his age, is there any trace of repression or even of serious 
 censure, directed against the foreign monk who thus set him- 
 self forth as a master and judge of the bishops, we cannot 
 but admire this proof of the liberty then enjoyed by Chris- 
 tians, even where the rights of authority might have been 
 most jealously preserved. 
 
 It is, however, doubtful whether this attitude had not 
 
 1 " Dominis Sanctis et in Christo patribus vel fratribus episcopis, presby- 
 teris, crcterisque S. Ecclesire ordinibus, Columba peccatur, salutem in 
 Christo prcemitto.— Gratias ago Deo meo quod mei causa in unum tanti 
 congregati sunt sancti. . . . Utinam ssepius hoc ageretis. . . . Hoc potis- 
 simum debuit vobis inesse studiurn. . . . Multum nocuit nocetque ecclesi- 
 astics paci diversitas morum et varietas traditionum. . . . Unum deposco 
 a vestra sanctitate . . . ut, quia hujus divinitatis auctor non sum, ac pro 
 Christo Salvatore communi Domino et Deo in has terras peregrinus pro- 
 cesserim, ut mihi liceat ... in his silvis silere et vivere juxta ossa nostro- 
 rum fratrum decern et septem defunctorum sicut usque nunc licuit nobis 
 inter vos vixisse duodecim annis, ut provobis, sicut usque nunc fecimus, 
 oremus, ut dubemus. Capiat nos simul, oro, Gallia, quos capiet regnum 
 ccelorum, si boni simus meritis. ... Hi sunt nostri canones, dominica et 
 apostolica mandata. . . . Hsec arma, scutum et gladium . . . haec nos 
 moverunt de patria : hsec et hie servare contendimus, licet tepide ... in 
 his perse verare optamus sicut et seniores nostros facere conspeximus 
 Vos, patres sancti, videte quid faciatis ad istos veteranos pauperes et 
 peregrinos senes. . . . Confiteor conscientirc meas secreta, quod plus credo 
 traditioni patriae mese. . . . Alia enim sunt et alia clericorum et mona- 
 chorum documenta, et longe ab invicem separata. . . . De csetaro, patres, 
 orate pro nobis, sicut et nos facimus, viles licet, pro vobis ; et nolite nos a 
 vobis alianos repulsare : unum enim corporis sumus commembra, sive 
 Galli, sive Britanni, sive Iberi, sive quseque gentes. . . . Date veniam mea? 
 loquacitati ac procacitati supra vires laboranti, patientissimi atque sanctis- 
 simi patres quique et fratres." — Epist. ii. ap. Gallandus, Bibl. Veter. 
 Pair., t. xii. p. 347.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 259 
 
 shaken the influence which the virtues and sanctity of 
 Columbanus had won for him among the Gallo- Franks. 
 But he soon recovered it entirely in the conflict for the 
 honour of Christian morals, which he undertook against 
 Queen Brunehault and her grandson, and which we must 
 relate in some details, because this struggle was the first, 
 and not the least remarkable, of those which arose on various 
 occasions between the monks and Christian kings, who had 
 been so long and naturally allied. 
 
 The Frank government in Gaul was, as is known, naturally 
 divided into three distinct kingdoms, Neustria, Austrasia, 
 and Burgundy. The ancient kingdom of the Burgondes or 
 of Burgundy, finally conquered by the sons of Clovis, had 
 been reconstituted by his grandson Gontran, the same who 
 gave so good a reception to Columbanus, and it was at the 
 northern extremity of this kingdom that Luxeuil was founded. 
 Gontran having died without issue, Burgundy passed to his 
 nephew, the young Childebert II., already king of Austrasia, 
 the son of the celebrated Brunehault. He died shortly after, 
 leaving two sons under age, Theodebert II. and Thierry II. 
 The succession was divided between them : Theodebert had 
 Austrasia, and Thierry, Burgundy ; but their grandmother 
 Brunehault immediately constituted herself their guardian, 
 and took possession of the power royal in the two kingdoms, 
 whilst her terrible enemy, Fredegund, whom Gontran had so 
 justly named the enemy of God and man, governed Neustria 
 in the name of her son Clotaire II., who was also a minor. 
 The whole of Frankish Gaul was thus in the hands of 
 two women, who governed it in the name of three kings, all 
 minors. 1 But shortly the great feudal lords of Austrasia, 
 among whom the indomitable independence of the Franks 
 had been preserved more unbroken than among the Neus- 
 trians, disgusted by the violent and arbitrary bearing of 
 Brunehault, obliged the eldest of her grandsons to expel her 
 
 1 Fredegund died a short time after, in 597, triumphing over all her 
 enemies.
 
 260 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 from his kingdom. She consoled herself by establishing 
 her residence with the young king Thierry in Burgundy, 
 where she continued to exercise over the Burgundian nobles 
 and bishops that haughty and often cruel sway which had 
 made her presence intolerable in Austrasia. 
 
 To identify Brunehault in any degree with her impure and 
 sinister rival, who was at once much more guilty and more 
 prosperous than she, would be to judge her too severely. 
 Gregory of Tours has praised her beauty, her good manners, 
 her prudence and affability ; and Gregory the Great, in con- 
 gratulating the Franks on having so good a queen, honoured 
 her with public eulogiums, especially in his celebrated diploma 
 relative to St. Martin of Autun, which she had built and en- 
 dowed richly upon the spot where the holy Bishop of Tours, 
 going into the country of the Eduens, had destroyed the last 
 sanctuary of vanquished paganism at the peril of his life. 
 This abbey, long celebrated for its wealth and for its flourish- 
 ing schools, became afterwards the sepulchre of Brunehault ; 
 and, nine centuries after her cruel death, a daily distribution 
 to the poor, called the alms of Brunehault? kept her memory 
 popular still. 
 
 But Brunehault, as she grew old, retained only the daunt- 
 less warmth of her early years ; she preserved neither the 
 generosity nor the uprightness. She sacrificed everything 
 to a passion for rule, and to the temptation of re-establishing 
 a kind of Eoman monarchy. 2 This thirst for sovereignty 
 led her so far — she, whose youth had been without reproach 
 — as to encourage her grandsons in that polygamy which 
 seems to have been the melancholy privilege of the Germanic 
 
 1 S. Greg. Magn., Epist., xiii. 6; Greg. Turon., Hist. Eccl., iv. 27. 
 The abbey of St. Martin of Autun possessed, according to the Burgundian 
 tradition, as many as a hundred thousand manses. The church, rebuilt 
 with magnificence in the ninth century, was razed in 1750 by the monks 
 themselves ; they built another, which met with the same fate in 1808. 
 The plough has since then passed over the site of the church and monas- 
 tery. There is a valuable monograph of this abbey published by M. 
 Bulliot, Autun, 1849, 2 vols. 
 
 2 Henri Martin, ii. 106.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 26 I 
 
 and especially of the Merovingian princes. 1 From the fear 
 of having a rival in power and honour near the throne of 
 Thierry, she opposed with all her might every attempt to 
 replace his concubines by a legitimate queen, and when, 
 finally, he determined on espousing a Visigoth princess, 
 Brunehault, though herself the daughter of a Visigoth king, 
 succeeded in disgusting her grandson with his bride, and 
 made him repudiate her at the end of a year. The Bishop 
 of Vienne, St. Didier, who had advised the king to marry, 
 was murdered by the ruffians whom the queen-mother had 
 laid in wait for him. 
 
 However, the young Thierry had religious instincts. He 
 was rejoiced to possess in his kingdom a holy man like 
 Columbanus. He went often to visit him. Irish zeal took 
 advantage of this to reprove him for his disorderly life, and 
 to exhort him to seek the sweetness of a legitimate spouse, 
 that the royal race might flow from an honourable queen 
 and not from prostitution. The young king promised 
 amendment, but Brunehault easily turned him away from 
 these good resolutions. Columbanus having gone to visit 
 her at the manor of Bourcheresse, she presented to him the 
 four sons whom Thierry already had by his concubines. 
 " What would these children with me ? " said the monk. 
 " They are the sons of the king," said the queen ; " streng- 
 then them by thy blessing." " No ! " answered Columbanus, 
 " they shall not reign, for they are of bad origin." From 
 that moment Brunehault swore war to the death against 
 him. She began by debarring the monks of the monastery 
 governed by Columbanus from leaving their convent, and 
 the people from receiving them or giving them the slightest 
 help. Columbanus endeavoured to enlighten Thierry and 
 lead him back to a better way. He went to visit him at 
 his royal seat of Epoisses. Hearing that the abbot had 
 arrived, but would not enter the palace, the king sent him 
 
 1 "Ob nobilitatem plurimis nuptiis ambiuntur." — Tacit., De Mor. Germ., 
 c. 18.
 
 262 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 a sumptuous repast. Columbanus refused to accept anything 
 from the hand of him who forbade the servants of God to 
 have access to the homes of other men, and at the sound of 
 his curse, all the vessels which contained the various meats 
 were miraculously broken in pieces. The king, alarmed by 
 that wonder, came with his grandmother to ask his pardon, 
 and to promise amendment. Columbanus, mollified, returned 
 to his monastery, where he soon learned that Thierry had 
 fallen back into his habitual debauchery. Then he wrote to 
 the king a letter full of vehement reproaches, in which he 
 threatened him with excommunication. 1 
 
 Thus, this stranger, this Irish missionary, the obliged 
 guest of King Gontran, would venture to go the length of 
 excommunicating the king of Burgundy, the heir of his 
 benefactor! Brunehault had no difficulty in raising the 
 principal leudes of the court of Thierry against that unac- 
 customed boldness ; she even undertook to persuade the 
 bishops to interfere in order to censure the rule of the new 
 institution. Excited by all that he heard going on around 
 him, Thierry resolved to take the offensive, and presented 
 himself at Luxeuil to demand a reckoning with the abbot, 
 why he went against the customs of the country, and why 
 the interior of the convent was not open to all Christians, 
 and even to women ; for it was one of the grievances of 
 Brunehault, that Columbanus had interdicted even her, al- 
 though queen, from crossing the threshold of the monastery. 
 The young king went as far as the refectory, saying that he 
 would have the entrance free to all, or that they must give 
 up all royal gifts. Columbanus, with his accustomed bold- 
 ness, said to the king, " If you would violate the severity of 
 our rules, we have no need of your gifts : and if you would 
 
 1 " Gratulabatur quia in termino regni aui B. Columbanum haberet. . . . 
 Ut non potius legitimse conjugis solamine frueretur, ut regalis proles ex 
 honorabili regina proderet, et non ex lupanaribus videretur emergi. . . . 
 Apud Spissiam villam publicam. . . . Litteras verberibus plenas. . . ." — 
 Jonas, c. 31, 32.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 263 
 
 come here to destroy our monastery, know that your kingdom 
 shall be destroyed, with all your race." 
 
 The king was afraid and went out ; but he soon replied : 
 " Thou art in hopes perhaps that I will procure thee the 
 crown of martyrdom ; but I am not fool enough for that ; 
 only, since it pleases thee to live apart from all relation 
 with the secular people, thou hast but to return whence 
 thou earnest, even to thy own country." All the nobles of 
 the royal suite exclaimed that they would no longer tolerate 
 in their land men who thus isolated themselves from the 
 world. Columbanus replied that he would leave his monas- 
 tery only when taken from it by force. He was then taken 
 and conducted to Besancon, to wait there the ultimate orders 
 of the king. 1 After which a sort of blockade was established 
 round Luxeuil to prevent any one from leaving it. 
 
 The monks then recollected that they had among them a 
 young man called Agilus, son of that Agnoald, prime minis- 
 ter of Gontran, who, twenty years before, had obtained for 
 Columbanus the gift of Luxeuil, and who afterwards entrusted 
 his son, then a child, to the Irish abbot to be trained in 
 monastic life. They charged Agilus with the mission of 
 obtaining the abolition of this interdict from the king and 
 queen. The young monk fell into the hands of a nephew 
 of the duke of Sequania, who, under pretence of hunting, 
 guarded the avenues of the monastery ; but by the sign of 
 the cross, he made the sword fall, and withered the arm 
 which was raised to strike him, and was permitted to pro- 
 ceed on his way. By one of those sudden and transitory 
 compunctions so frequent in the life of the Merovingians, 
 Thierry and his grandmother received the envoy of the monks 
 with demonstrations of humility, prostrated themselves before 
 
 1 " Ea maxime pro causa infesta erat eo quod . . . sibi quae regina erat 
 idem contradixerat." — Vita S. Agili, c. 7, ap. ACT. SS. O. S. B., t. ii. " Ut 
 erat audax, atque animo vigens. . . . Si ob hanc causarn hoc in loco venisti. 
 . . . Martyrii coronam me tibi illaturum speras : non esse me tantae demen- 
 tias scias. . . . Quaveneras, ea via repedare studeas. . . . Aulicorum consona 
 voce vota prorumpunt." — Jonas, c. 23.
 
 264 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 him, raised the blockade of the monastery, and even made 
 him costly presents. 1 
 
 But their hearts were not softened in respect to Colum- 
 banus. He, surrounded at Besancon by the respect of all, 
 and left at freedom in the town, took advantage of it to 
 ascend one morning to the height of a rock, on which the 
 citadel is now situated, and which is encircled by the tor- 
 tuous stream of the Doubs. 2 From this height he surveyed 
 the road which led to Luxeuil ; he seemed to investigate there 
 the obstacles which prevented his return. His resolution was 
 taken ; he descended, left the town, and directed his steps 
 towards his monastery. At the news of his return, Thierry 
 and Brunehault sent a count with a cohort of soldiers to lead 
 him back into exile. Then ensued a scene which, during 
 twelve centuries, and even in our own days, has been often 
 repeated between the persecutors and their victims. The 
 messengers of the royal will found him in the choir, chant- 
 ing the service with all his community. " Man of God," they 
 said, " we pray you to obey the king's orders and ours, and 
 to return from whence you came." "No," answered Colum- 
 banus, " after having left my country for the service of Jesus 
 Christ, I cannot think that my Creator means me to return." 
 At these words the count withdrew, leaving the most fero- 
 cious of his soldiers to accomplish the rest. Subdued by the 
 firmness of the abbot, who repeated that he would yield only 
 to force, they threw themselves on their knees before him, 
 
 1 " Sub obtentu venantium . . . observabant exitus monasterii more 
 latronum. . . . Rex et regina . . . humo coram vestigiis illius procum- 
 buut." — Vita S. Agili, c. 7, 8. 
 
 2 The description which Jonas gives of this spot is even at the present 
 time strikingly correct, and was especially so before Louis XIV., after the 
 conquest of Franche-Comte, had demolished the cathedral of St. Etienne 
 and all the buildings which covered the sides of the rock : " Adscendet 
 dominica die in verticem arduum ad cacumen montis illius (ita enim situs 
 urbis habetur, cum domorum densitas in diffuso latere proclivi montis 
 sita sit, prorumpant ardua in sublimibus cacumina qusc undique abscissi 
 fluminis Doux alveo vallante nullatenus commeantibus viam pandit), ibique 
 usque ad medium diei exspectat, si aliquis iter ad monasterium revertendi 
 prohibeat."
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 265 
 
 weeping and entreating him to pardon them, and not to 
 oblige them to use the violence which they were compelled 
 to employ, on pain of their life. At the thought of a danger 
 which was no longer personal to himself, the intrepid Irish- 
 man yielded, and left the sanctuary which he had founded 
 and inhabited for twenty years, but which he was never to 
 see again. 1 
 
 His monks surrounded him with lamentations as if they 
 were following his funeral. He consoled them by telling 
 them that this persecution, far from being ruinous to them, 
 would only promote the increase of " the monastic nation." 
 They would all have followed him into exile ; but a royal 
 order forbade that consolation to any but the monks of Irish 
 or Britannic origin. Brunehault was anxious to free herself 
 from these audacious and independent islanders as well as 
 from their leader, but she had no desire to ruin the great 
 
 1 " Vir Dei, precamur . . . eo itinere quo primurn adventasti. . . . Non 
 reor . . . semel natali solo ob Christi timorem relicto. . . . Eelictis qui- 
 busdam quibus ferocitas animi inerat." — Jonas, c. 36. How can we fail 
 to be struck with the identity of the struggles and triumphs of the Church 
 throughout all ages, when we see what passed at Luxeuil, in 610, renewed, 
 after twelve centuries, against the poor monks in Caucasia ? We read in 
 the Journal des Dtbats of April 23, 1845 : " We publish some details of the 
 expulsion of the Catholic missionaries from the provinces of Caucasia. On 
 the first day of the year, two carts, escorted by Cossacks armed with 
 lances and pistols, stopped before the gate of the convent of Tiflis. Some 
 of the agents of police immediately entered the convent and ordered the 
 monks to get into the carts. The latter declared that they would only 
 surrender to force ; then they entered the church of the convent and knelt 
 before the altar. The agents waited for some time ; but when at the end 
 of an hour they saw that the monks did not manifest any intention of obey- 
 ing, they repeated to them the order to depart. The missionaries answered 
 that they would not voluntarily quit the post which had been confided to 
 them by their spiritual head. This answer was conveyed to General Gurko, 
 governor of Tiflis, who ordered them to be brought out by force and 
 removed into the carts. The order was immediately executed. The mis- 
 sionaries of Gori were expelled in the same manner." — The same journal 
 relates, in its next day's number, how similar violences were exercised, no 
 longer in the Caucasus, but in France, upon the Hospitaller nuns of St. 
 Joseph at Avignon, in the same month of April 1845. Tne expulsion of 
 the Irish and English monks of La Trappe of Melleray, in 1831, bears also 
 some features of resemblance to the history of Luxeuil.
 
 266 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 establishment of which Burgundy was already proud. The 
 saint, accompanied by his Irish brethren, departed into exile. 
 
 The history of his journey, carefully recorded by his dis- 
 ciples, is full of information respecting the places and customs 
 of Frankish Gaul. He was taken through Besancon a second 
 time, then through Autun, Avallon, along the Cure and the 
 Yonne to Auxerre, and from thence to Nevers, where he 
 embarked upon the Loire. He marked each stage of his 
 journey by miraculous cures and other wonders, which, never- 
 theless, did not diminish the rancour which he had excited. 
 On the road to Avallon, he met an equerry of King Thierry, 
 who attempted to pierce him with his lance. At Nevers, at 
 the moment of embarking, a cruel hanger-on of the escort 
 took an oar and struck Lua, one of the most pious of Colum- 
 banus's companions, to quicken his entrance into the boat. 
 The saint cried, " Cruel wretch, what right hast thou to 
 aggravate my trouble ? How darest thou to strike the weary 
 members of Christ ? Kemember that the divine vengeance 
 shall await thee on this spot where thou hast struck the 
 servant of God." And in fact, on his return, this wretch 
 fell into the water and was drowned on the very spot where 
 he had struck Lua. 1 
 
 Arrived at Orleans, he sent two of his brethren into the 
 town to buy provisions ; but no one would either sell or give 
 them anything in opposition to the royal orders. They were 
 treated as outlaws — enemies of the king, whom the Salic 
 law forbade his subjects to receive, under the penalty (enor- 
 mous in those days) of six hundred deniers. Even the 
 churches were closed against them by the king's orders. 
 
 1 "Velut funus subsequentibus. ... Ob multiplicandas plebes mona- 
 chorum hanc esse datam occasionem. . . . Quos sui ortus terra dederat, 
 vel qui a Britannico arvo ipsum secuti. . . . Custos equorum . . . occur- 
 rit. . . . Ubi lento conamine in scapham insilirent. . . . Arrepto remo. . . . 
 Cur crudelis moerorem mibi addis."— Jonas, c. 36, 38, 40. Mabillon (Annal, 
 t. i. p. 293) supposes tbat this Lua might be the Irish saint of whom St. 
 Bernard speaks as having founded a hundred monasteries ; but nothing 
 could be more improbable.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 267 
 
 But, in retracing their steps, they met a Syrian woman, one 
 of that Oriental colony whose presence in Gaul has been 
 already remarked under Childebert I. She asked them 
 whence they came, and, on hearing, offered them hospitality, 
 and gave them all that they needed. " I am a stranger like 
 you," she said, " and I come from the distant sun of the East." 
 She had a blind husband, to whom Columbanus restored sight. 
 The people of Orleans were touched by this incident ; but they 
 dared only testify their veneration for the exile in secret. 1 
 
 Passing before the town of Tours, Columbanus begged to 
 be permitted to pray at the tomb of the great St. Martin, 
 who was equally venerated by the Celts, Romans, and 
 Franks ; but his savage guardians ordered the boatmen to 
 increase the speed of their oars, and keep in the middle of 
 the stream. However, an invisible force stayed the boat ; it 
 directed itself towards the port. Columbanus landed, and 
 spent the night near the holy tomb. The Bishop of Tours 
 found him there, and took him to dine in his house. At 
 table he was asked why he was returning to his own country. 
 He answered, " This dog of a Thierry has hunted me from 
 the home of my brethren." Then one of the company, who 
 was a leude or trusty vassal of the king, said in a low voice, 
 " Would it not be better to give men milk to drink rather 
 than wormwood ? " "I see," answered Columbanus, " that 
 thou wouldst keep thy oath to King Thierry. Well ! say to 
 thy friend and thy lord, that three years from this time he 
 and his children will be destroyed, and that his whole race 
 shall be rooted out by God." " Why do you speak thus, 
 servant of God?" said the leude. "I cannot keep silent," 
 answered the saint, " what God has charged me to speak." 
 
 1 Lex Salica, art. 56, edit. Merkel. Roth, Bencfizialwesen, p. 140. " Regio 
 timore aut vendere aut dare nihil audebant. . . . Nam et ego advena sum 
 ex longinquo Orientis sole . . . vir meus ex eodem genere Syrorum sicut 
 et ego." — Jonas, c. 41. 
 
 2 "Canis me Theodoricus meis a fratribus abegit. . . . Humili voce 
 ... si melius esset lacte potari quam absynthio ? . . . Cognosco te regis 
 Theodorici foedera velle servare. . . . Amico tuo et domino."
 
 268 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 Arrived at Nantes, and on the eve of leaving the soil of 
 Gaul, his thoughts turned towards Luxeuil, and he wrote a 
 letter, which begins thus : "To his dearest sons, his dearest 
 pupils, to his brethren in abstinence, to all the monks, 
 Columbanus the sinner." In this he pours out his heart. 
 Obscure, confused, passionate, interrupted by a thousand 
 different recollections and emotions, this letter is, notwith- 
 standing, the most complete monument of his genius and 
 character which Columbanus has left to us. With these 
 personal sentiments his concern for the present and future 
 destiny of his beloved community of Luxeuil is always 
 mingled. He sets forth the arrangements most likely, as 
 he believes, to guarantee its existence, by purity of elec- 
 tions and internal harmony. He seems even to foresee the 
 immense development of monastic colonies which was to 
 proceed from Luxeuil, in a passage where he says, " Wher- 
 ever sites are suitable, wherever God will build with you, go 
 and multiply, you and the myriads of souls which shall be 
 born of you." 1 
 
 It is specially delightful to see how, in that austere and 
 proud soul, friendship and paternal affection preserve all 
 their rights. He recalls to mind with tender solicitude a 
 brother who was not present at the moment of his farewell ; 
 " Always take care," he says, " of Waldolenus, if he is still 
 with you. May God give him everything that is good : may 
 he become humble : and give him for me the kiss which I 
 could not give him myself." He exhorts his monks to confi- 
 dence, spiritual strength, patience, but, above all, to peace and 
 union. He foresees in that perpetual question about Easter 
 a cause of division ; and he desires that those who would 
 disturb the peace of the house should be dismissed from it. 
 Confessions, counsels, and exhortations crowd upon his pen. 
 He sometimes addresses the whole community, sometimes a 
 monk called Attalus, whom he had named as his successor. 
 
 1 "Si vero vobis placent, et Deus illic vobiscum redificat, crescite ibi 
 benedictione in mille niillia."
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 269 
 
 " Thou knowest, my well-beloved Attalus, how little ad- 
 vantage it is to form only one body if there is not also one 
 heart. . . . As for me, my soul is rent asunder. I have 
 desired to serve everybody, I have trusted everybody, and it 
 has made me almost mad. Be thou wiser than I : I would 
 not see thee taking up the burden under which I have 
 sweated. To bind all in the enclosure of the Rule I have 
 attempted to attach again to the root of our tree all those 
 branches whose frailty had separated them from mine. . . . 
 However, thou art already better acquainted with it than I. 
 Thou wilt know how to adapt its precepts to each. Thou 
 wilt take into account the great diversity of character among 
 men. Thou wilt then diversify thyself, thou wilt multiply 
 thyself for the good of those who shall obey thee with faith 
 and love, and yet must still fear lest that very love should 
 become for thee a danger. But what is this that I do ? 
 Behold how I persuade thee to undertake the immense 
 labour from which I myself have stolen away ! " 
 
 Further on, grief carries him away, and bursts forth only 
 to yield immediately to invincible courage : and the recol- 
 lections of classic antiquity mingle with evangelical instruc- 
 tions to dictate to our Irishman some of the finest and 
 proudest words which Christian genius has ever produced. 
 " I had at first meant to write thee a letter of sorrow and 
 tears, but knowing well that thy heart is overwhelmed with 
 cares and labours, I have changed my style, I have sought 
 to dry thy tears rather than to call them forth. I have 
 permitted only gentleness to be seen outside, and chained 
 down grief in the depths of my soul. But my own tears 
 begin to flow ! I must drive them back ; for it does not 
 become a good soldier to weep in front of the battle. After 
 all, this that has happened to us is nothing new. Is it not 
 what we have preached every day ? Was there not of old 
 a philosopher wiser than the others, who was thrown into 
 prison for maintaining, against the opinion of all, that there 
 was but one God ? The Gospels also are full of all that is
 
 270 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 necessary to encourage us. They were written for that 
 purpose, to teach the true disciples of Christ crucified to 
 follow Him, bearing their cross. Our perils are many : the 
 struggle which threatens us is severe, and the enemy terrible ; 
 but the recompeuse is glorious, and the freedom of our choice 
 is manifest. Without adversaries, no conflict ; and without 
 conflict, no crown. Where the struggle is, there is courage, 
 vigilance, fervour, patience, fidelity, wisdom, firmness, pru- 
 dence; out of the fight,misery and disaster. Thus, then, with- 
 out war, no crown ! And I add, without freedom, no honour ! " 
 However, he had to come to a conclusion, and knew not 
 how to do it ; for he always begins again, and often repeats 
 himself. But others interrupted and put an end to the 
 outpouring of his heart. " While I write," says he, " they 
 come to tell me that the ship is ready — the ship which is 
 to carry me back against my will to my country. . . . The 
 end of my parchment obliges me to finish my letter. Love 
 is not orderly : it is this which has made it confused. I 
 would have abridged everything that I might say every- 
 thing : I have not succeeded. Adieu, dear hearts : pray 
 for me that I may live in God." l 
 
 1 " Dulcissirnis filiis, discentibus carissimis, fratribus frugalibus, cunctis 
 simul monachis. . . . Semper Waldolenum tene . . . humilis fiat : et meum 
 illi da osculum quod tunc festinans non habuit. . . . Tu scis, amantissime 
 Attale . . . quid enim prodest babere corpus, et non habere cor ? . . . 
 Dum volui totos adjuvare . . . et dum omnibus credidi pene, factus sum 
 stultus. Ideo tu prudentior esto : nolo subeas tantum onus, sub quo ego 
 sudavi. . . . Ergo diversus esto, et multiplex ad curam eorum, qui tibi 
 obedierint cum fide et amore : sed tu et ipsum eorum time amorem, quia 
 tibi periculosus erit. . . . Lacrymosam tibi volui scribere epistolam : sed 
 quia scio cor tuum idcirco necessariis tantum allegatis, duris et ipsis 
 arduisque, altero stylo usus sum, malens obturare quam provocare lacry- 
 mas. Foris itaque actus est sermo mitis, intus inclusus est dolor. En 
 promanant lacryma? ; sed melius es obturare fontem : non enim fortis est 
 militis plorare. Non est hoc novum quod nobis contigit : hoc maxime 
 quotidie prasdicabamus. Quidam philosophus olim, sapientior ceteris, eo 
 quod contra omnium opinionem unum Deum esse dixerit, in carcerem 
 trusus est. Evangelia plena sunt de hac causa et inde sunt maxime con- 
 scripta : haec est enim Veritas Evangelii, ut vere Christi crucifixi discipuli
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 27 I 
 
 The bishop and count of Nantes hastened the departure ; 
 but the Irish vessel in which the property and companions 
 of Columbanus were embarked, and to which he was to go 
 in a boat, being then at the mouth of the Loire, was cast 
 back by the waves, and remained three days ashore upon 
 the beach. Then the captain landed the monks and all 
 that belonged to them, and continued his voyage. Colum- 
 banus was permitted to go where he would. 
 
 He directed his steps towards the court of the king of 
 Soissons and Neustria, Clotaire II., who, after an unfortunate 
 war with the kings of Austrasia and Burgundy, had been 
 despoiled of the greater part of Neustria, and reduced to 
 the possession of twelve counties between the right bank of 
 the Seine and the Channel. 1 This son of Fredegund, faith- 
 ful to his mother's hatred for Brunehault and her family, 
 gave a cordial reception to the victim of his enemy, en- 
 deavoured to retain him in his court, received with a good 
 grace the remonstrances which the undaunted apostle, always 
 faithful to his part of public censor, addressed to him upon 
 the disorders of his court, and promised amendment. He 
 consulted Columbanus about the quarrel which had broken 
 out between the two brothers, Theodebert and Thierry, both 
 of whom asked his assistance. Columbanus advised him to 
 have nothing to do with it, since in three years both their 
 kingdoms would fall into his power. He afterwards asked 
 an escort to conduct him to Theodebert, king of Metz, or 
 
 eum sequantur cum cruce. . . . Multa came pericula : cognosce causam 
 belli, glorias ruagnitudinern, fortem non nescias hostem, et libertatem in 
 medio arbitrii. ... Si tollis hostem, tollis et pugnam. Si tollis pugnam, 
 tollis et coronam. ... Si tollis libertatem, tollis dignitatem. . . . Nunc 
 mihi scribenti nuncius supervenit, narrans mihi navem parari. Amor non 
 tenet ordinem ; inde missa confusa est. Totum dicere volui in brevi. 
 Totum non potui. . . . Orate pro me, viscera mea, ut Deo vivam." — 
 Epist., iv., ap. GALLANDUS, Bill. Veter. Patrum, t. xii. p. 349. 
 
 1 Thierry had added, on that occasion, all the country between Seine 
 and Loire to the ancient kingdom of Orleans and Burgundy. This ex- 
 plains why his authority was recognised in all the countries traversed by 
 Columbanus even to Nantes.
 
 272 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 Austrasia, whose states he desired to cross on his way to 
 Italy. Passing through Paris, Meaux, and Champagne, the 
 chief of the Frank nobility brought their children to him, 
 and he blessed many, destined, as shall be seen, to inherit 
 his spirit and extend his work. Theodebert, now at war 
 with his brother Thierry, gave the exiled abbot the same 
 reception as Clotaire II. had done, but was equally unsuc- 
 cessful in retaining him. 
 
 At the court of the king of Austrasia, which was not far 
 from Burgundy, he had the consolation of seeing several of 
 his brethren of Luxeuil, who escaped to rejoin him. At 
 their head, and encouraged by the promises and eager pro- 
 tection of Theodebert, he made up his mind to preach the 
 faith among the still pagan nations who were subject to the 
 Austrasian government, and inhabited the countries about 
 the Rhine. This had always been his ambition, his incli- 
 nation, and the work he preferred. 1 After sixty years of 
 labour devoted to the reform of kings and nations already 
 Christian, he began the second phase of his life — that of 
 preaching to the infidels. 
 
 He consequently embarked upon the Rhine, below May- 
 ence, and ascending this river and its tributaries as far as 
 the Lake of Zurich, remained for some time at Tuggen, 2 
 and at Arbon, finding here and there some traces of Chris- 
 tianity sown under the Roman or Frank government, 3 and 
 
 1 " Mei voti fuit gentes visitare et Evangelium eis a nobis prasdicari : 
 sed fel modo referente eorum teporem, pene meum tulit inde amorem." 
 — Epist. ad Fratres. 
 
 2 The new Bollandists (t. vii. Oct., p. 870) prove that this was not at 
 Zug, as all former historians have said, but at Tuggen, which is situated 
 at the point where the Limmat enters the Lake of Zurich, and which 
 answers to the description of the hagiographer : " Ad caput lacus, in 
 locum qui Tucconia dicitur." — Tit. S. Galli, c. 4. 
 
 3 We shall be pardoned for not giving the legend of St. Fridolin, another 
 Irish monk, to whom was attributed a first mission into Alamannia and 
 the foundation of Sceckingen, on the Rhine, between Bale and Schaff- 
 hausen. Compare Mabillon, Ann. Bened., t. i. p. 221, and Rettbeeg, 
 t. ii. p. 33.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 273 
 
 established himself finally at Bregentz, upon the Lake of 
 Constance, amid the ruins of an ancient Eoman town. The 
 Sueves and Alamans (Alamanni), subject to the Franks 
 since the victory of Clovis at Tolbiac, who then occupied 
 all Eastern Helvetia, were, with all the country between 
 the Aar, the Alps, and the Lech, idolaters, worshippers of 
 the god Woden, and of violent and cruel disposition. In 
 announcing the Gospel to them, Columbanus displayed all 
 the impetuosity of his temper, which age had not lessened. 
 His principal assistant was another Irishman named Gall, 
 who was not less daring than himself, but who was well 
 educated, and had the gift of preaching in the German lan- 
 guage as well as in the Latin. Sometimes they broke the 
 boilers in which the pagans prepared beer, 1 to offer as a 
 sacrifice to Woden ; sometimes they burned the temples, 
 and threw into the lake the gilded idols whom the inhabi- 
 tants showed them as the tutelary gods of their country. 
 Such proceedings naturally excited against them the fury 
 of the natives, and exposed them to great dangers. They 
 had to flee to Zug, from which they were expelled with blows. 
 At Bregentz they had more success, and made some con- 
 versions, but without appeasing the rage, or conciliating 
 the liking, of the mass of the people. The little colony, 
 however, remained there for three years. They resumed 
 cenobitical life. They had at first to contend against 
 hunger : for the inhabitants would give them nothing. 
 They had to live upon wild birds, which came to them 
 like the manna to the children of Israel, or upon woodland 
 fruits, which they had to dispute with the beasts of the 
 forests. But they had soon a garden of vegetables and 
 
 1 The Italian monk who has written the life of Columbanus speaks else- 
 where of beer as the national drink of the races which were not Eoman : 
 " Cerevisia quse ex frumenti et hordei succo excoquitur, quamque pra3 
 caeteris in orbe terrarum gentibus, prseter Scoticas et barbaras gentes 
 quaa oceanum incolunt, usitatur in Gallia, Britannia, Hibernia, Germania, 
 casteraeque quse ab eorum moribus non desiscant." — Compare Vit. S. Sala- 
 bergce, c. 19, ap. ACT. SS. 0. S. B., ii. 407. 
 
 VOL. II. S
 
 274 ST - COLUMBANUS 
 
 fruit-trees. Fish was also a resource ; Columbanus himself 
 made the nets; Gall, the learned and eloquent preacher, 
 threw them into the lake, and had considerable draughts. 
 One night, while he watched in silence in his boat among 
 his nets, he heard the demon of the mountain call to the 
 demon of the waters. " Here I am," answered the latter. 
 " Arise, then," said the first, " and help me to chase away 
 the strangers who have expelled me from my temple ; it 
 will require us both to drive them away." " What good 
 should we do ? " answered the demon of the waters ; " here 
 is one of them upon the waterside whose nets I have tried 
 to break, but I have never succeeded. He prays continu- 
 ally, and never sleeps. It will be labour in vain ; we shall 
 make nothing of it." Then Gall made the sign of the cross, 
 and said to them, " In the name of Jesus Christ, I command 
 you to leave these regions without daring to injure any 
 one." Then he hastened to land and awoke the abbot, who 
 immediately rang the bells for nocturnal service ; but before 
 the first psalm had been intoned, they heard the yells of 
 the demons echoing from the top of the surrounding hills, 
 at first with fury, then losing themselves in the distance, and 
 dying away like the confused voices of a routed army. 1 
 
 1 " Isti sunt dii veteres, et antiqui hujus locis tutores. . . . Non solum 
 latinse, sed etiam barbaricrc sermonis cognitionem non parvam habebat. 
 . . . Ira et furore commoti, gravi indignationis rabie turbidi recesserunt. 
 . . . Audivit daemonem de culmine montis pari suo clamantem qui erat in 
 abditis maris, quo respondente : Adsum : Montanus . . . Consurge . . . 
 in adjutorium mini. . . . Heus quod de tuis calamitatibus narras. . . . 
 En unus illorum est in pelago cui nunquam nocere potero. . . . Audita? 
 sunt dira voces dasmonorum per montium summitates, et quasi disceden- 
 tium ejulatus cum terrore confusus." — Walapr. Strabo., Vit. S. Galli, 
 c. 4, 6, 7, ap. Pertz, Monumcnta, ii. 7; Bolland., t. vii. Oct., p. 884; 
 ACT. SS. O. S. B., ii. 221. Compare Jonas, c. 54, 55 ; Kemble, Saxons in 
 England, t. i. p. 380; lastly, OzANAM, Etudes Gcrmaniques, ii. 122, who, as 
 usual, has completely and nobly discussed the mission of Columbanus and 
 his companions in Helvetia. The monastery of Mehrerau, which Colum- 
 banus founded at the gates of the present town of Bregenz, has just been 
 re-established by a colony of Cistercians, unworthily expelled by the 
 Argovian Radicals from their secular patrimony at Wettingen, near Aarau.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 275 
 
 To this fine legend, which depicts so well all that could 
 move the soul of these intrepid missionaries upon a coast so 
 long inhospitable, we must add the vision which deterred 
 Columbanus from undertaking a still more distant and diffi- 
 cult mission. He was pursued by the thought of bearing 
 the light of the Gospel among the Sclave nations, and 
 especially among the Wendes, whose country extended into 
 the midst of the Germanic races, and to the south of the 
 Danube. Like St. Patrick, the remembrance of the nations 
 who knew not Christ pursued him into his sleep. One 
 night he saw in a dream an angel, who said to him, "The 
 world is before thee ; take the right hand or the left hand, 
 but turn not aside from thy road, if thou wouldst eat the 
 fruit of thy labours." 1 He interpreted this dream into a 
 sign that he should have no success in the enterprise of 
 which he dreamed, and accordingly abandoned it. 
 
 The Sclaves formed, as is well known, with the Celts and 
 Germans, the third of the great races which occupied Central 
 Europe. If Columbanus, a Celt by origin and education, 
 but a monk and missionary for almost all his life among the 
 Germans, had entered the countries already invaded by 
 Sclavonian tribes, his influence would have been brought to 
 bear upon all the families of nations who have predominated 
 in modern Christendom. This glory was denied to him : it 
 was enough for him to have been one of the most illustrious 
 of those intermediary agents who have laboured under the 
 impulse of Christianity for the fusion of the two greatest 
 races of the West. 
 
 During this sojourn at Bregentz, our saint went, it is not 
 known on what occasion, to see King Theodebert, who was 
 still at war with his brother, the king of Burgundy. En- 
 lightened by a presentiment, and inspired by gratitude to 
 this young prince, he counselled him to yield, and take 
 
 1 "Cogitatio in mentem ruit, ut Venetiorum, qui et Sclavi dicuntur, 
 terminos adiret. . . . Cernis quod maneat totus orbis descriptus ? " — 
 Jonas, c. 56. Wendes are still to be found in Styria and Carinthia.
 
 276 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 refuge in the bosom of the Church by becoming a monk, 
 instead of risking at once his kingdom and his salvation. 
 Theodebert had, besides, great need of expiating his sins : 
 very profligate, like all the Merovingians, he had just killed 
 Queen Bilichild, a young slave whom his grandmother 
 Brunehault had made him marry in his youth, in order to 
 be able to take another wife. The advice of Columbanus 
 caused great laughter to the king and all the Franks who 
 surrounded him. " Such a thing has never been heard of," 
 said they, " as that a Frank king should become a monk of 
 his own free will." " Well," said Columbanus, in the middle 
 of their exclamations, " if he will not be a monk of free will, 
 he will be one by force." 1 Saying this, the saint returned 
 to his cell on the banks of Lake Constance. He learned 
 soon after that his persecutor, Thierry, had again invaded 
 the states of his protector Theodebert, and had routed and 
 pursued the latter to the gates of Cologne. The decisive 
 battle between the two brothers took place on the plains of 
 Tolbiac, where their great-grandfather Clovis had founded, 
 by victory, the Christian kingdom of the Franks. 2 Theo- 
 debert was vanquished and taken : Thierry sent him to the 
 implacable Brunehault, who had long disowned him as her 
 grandson, and who, still furious at her expulsion from the 
 kingdom of Austrasia, had his head shaved, made him assume 
 the monastic dress, and shortly after put him to death. 
 
 At the time when the second battle of Tolbiac was going 
 on, Columbanus was wandering in a wood near his retreat 
 with his favourite disciple Cagnoald, a young and noble 
 Frank, son of one of the principal leudes of Theodebert, 
 whom he had brought with him from the neighbourhood of 
 
 1 " Ridiculum excitavit : aiebant enim nunquam se audiisse Merovingum 
 in regno subliniatum voluntarium clericum fuisse. Detestantibus ergo 
 omnibus." — Jonas, c. 57. This recalls the words of Childebert, quoted 
 by Gregory of Tours : " Was ever a Merovingian shaven ? " and the famous 
 saying of Clotilde concerning her grandsons : " Better that they be dead 
 than shaven." See the preceding Book, p. 140, note. 
 
 2 Henbi Maktin, ii. 118.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 277 
 
 Meaux. As he was reading, seated upon the fallen trunk 
 of an old oak, he slept, and saw in a dream the two brothers 
 coming to blows. At his waking he told his companion 
 of this vision, sighing over all that bloodshed. The son of 
 Theodebert's minister answered him, " But, dear father, help 
 Theodebert with your prayers, that he may overcome Thierry, 
 your common enemy." Columbanus answered him, " Thou 
 givest me a foolish counsel ; not such was the will of our 
 Lord, who commands us to pray for our enemies." * 
 
 However, the whole of Austrasia had fallen by the death 
 of Theodebert into the hands of Brunehault and Thierry, 
 and the banks of the upper Khine, where their victim had 
 found a refuge, was a dependency of the Austrasian king- 
 dom. Besides, the inhabitants of the environs of Bregentz, 
 always irritated by the violent destruction of their idols, 
 complained to the duke of the province that these strangers 
 scared the game of the royal chase, by infesting the forests 
 with their presence. Their cows were stolen, two of the 
 monks were even slain in an ambuscade. It was necessary 
 to depart. Columbanus said, "We have found a golden 
 cup, but it is full of serpents. The God whom we serve 
 will lead us elsewhere." He had long desired to go to 
 Italy, and reckoned on a good reception from the king of 
 the Lombards. At the moment of departure, the fiery Gall, 
 seized with fever, asked leave to remain. Columbanus was 
 irritated by this weakness. "Ah, my brother," said he, 
 " art thou already disgusted with the labours I have made 
 thee endure ? But since thou wilt separate thyself from 
 me, I debar thee, as long as I live, from saying mass." ' 
 Poor Gall did not deserve these reproaches : he remained in 
 Helvetia, as will be seen, only to redouble the zeal of his 
 
 1 "Super quercus putrefactse truncum librum legens residebat. . . . 
 Pater mi . . . ut communem debellet hostem." — Jonas, 57. 
 
 2 " Discentes venationem publicam propter illorum infestationem pere- 
 grinorum esse turbatam. . . . Invenimus . . . concham auream, sed vene- 
 natisser pentibus plenam. . . . Scio, frater, jam tibi onerosum esse tantis 
 pro me laboribus fatigari."— Vita S. Galli, c. 8, 9.
 
 278 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 apostolic labours, and to found there one of trie most cele- 
 brated monasteries in Christendom. 
 
 Columbanus kept with him only a single disciple, Attalus, 
 and, notwithstanding, pursued his journey across the Alps. 
 When we picture to ourselves the fatigues and dangers of 
 such an undertaking in the days of Columbanus, we imagine 
 that it was the image and recollection of this course which 
 inspired the beginning of one of the instructions addressed 
 to his monks, in which the unwearied traveller compares life 
 to a journey. 
 
 " Oh mortal life ! how many hast thou deceived, seduced, 
 and blinded ! Thou fliest and art nothing ; thou appearest 
 and art but a shade ; thou risest and art but a vapour ; 
 thou fliest every day, and every day thou comest ; thou fliest 
 in coming, and comest in flying, the same at the point 
 of departure, different at the end ; sweet to the foolish, 
 bitter to the wise ; those who love thee know thee not, and 
 those only know thee who despise thee. What art thou, then, 
 oh human life ? Thou art the way of mortals and not their 
 life ; thou beginnest in sin and endest in death. Thou art 
 then the way of life and not life itself. Thou art only a road, 
 and an unequal road, long for some, short for others ; wide 
 for these, narrow for those ; joyous for some, sad for others, 
 but for all equally rapid and without return. It is necessary, 
 then, oh miserable human life ! to fathom thee, to ques- 
 tion thee, but not to trust in thee. We must traverse thee 
 without dwelling in thee — no one dwells upon a great road : 
 we but march on through it, to reach the country beyond." 1 
 
 The king of the Lombards was that Agilulf, of whom we 
 have already had occasion to speak in connection with St. 
 Gregory the Great ; his wife was Theodelind, the noble rival 
 of Clotilde. He received the venerable exile with respect 
 
 1 " Nullus enim in via habitat, sed ambulat : ut qui ambulant in via 
 habitent in patria." — Instructio v., Quod prcesens vita non sit dicenda Vita, 
 sed Via. I borrow this translation, completing it, from the Vie des Saints 
 de Franche-ComU, t. ii. p. 91.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 279 
 
 and confidence ; and Columbanus had scarcely arrived in 
 Milan when he immediately began to write against the 
 Arians, for this fatal heresy still predominated among the 
 Lombards ; those who had not remained pagan, especially 
 among the nobles, had fallen victims to Arianism. The 
 Irish apostle thus found a new occupation for his missionary 
 zeal, which he could pursue successfully without giving up 
 his love for solitude. Agilulf bestowed upon him a territory 
 called Bobbio, situated in a retired gorge of the Apennines 
 between Genoa and Milan, not far from the famous shores 
 of Trebbia, where Hannibal encamped and vanquished the 
 Romans. An old church, dedicated to St. Peter, was in 
 existence there. Columbanus undertook to restore it, and 
 to add to it a monastery. Despite his age, he shared in 
 the workmen's labours, and bent his old shoulders under 
 the weight of enormous beams of fir- wood, which it seemed 
 impossible to transport across the precipices and perpen- 
 dicular paths of these mountains. This abbey of Bobbio 
 was his last stage. He made it the citadel of orthodoxy 
 against the Arians, and lighted there a focus of knowledge 
 and instruction which was long the light of northern Italy. 1 
 There, as everywhere, and throughout all his life, our 
 saint continued to cultivate those literary studies which had 
 charmed his youth. At sixty-eight he addressed to a friend 
 an epistle in Adonic verse, which everywhere bears the im- 
 pression of those classic recollections which the monks of 
 that period cultivated. He prays him not to despise " these 
 little verses by which Sappho, the illustrious muse, loved to 
 charm her contemporaries, and to prefer for a moment these 
 
 1 " Turn per prserupta saxorum scopula trabes ex abietibus inter densa 
 saltus locis inaccessibilibus csederentur. . . . Suis ac suorum humeris 
 immane pondus imponebat."— Jonas, c. 60. The school and library of 
 Bobbio rank among the most celebrated of the middle ages. Muratori has 
 given a catalogue of 700 manuscripts which they possessed in the tenth 
 century. Thence came the famous palimpsest from which Cardinal Mai 
 has taken the Be Republica of Cicero. The monastery was only suppressed 
 under the French dominion in 1803 : the church still subsists, and serves 
 as a parish church.
 
 2 80 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 frivolous trifles to the most learned productions." 1 He 
 appeals to the recollections of the Golden Fleece, of the 
 judgment of Paris, of Danae's shower of gold, and of the 
 collar of Amphiaraiis. Then his thoughts grew sober as 
 they rose. " Thus I wrote, overwhelmed by the cruel pains 
 of my weak body, and by age, for, while the times hasten 
 their course, I have reached the eighteenth olympiad of my 
 life. Everything passes, and the irreparable days fly away. 
 Live, be strong, be happy, and remind yourself of sad old 
 age." 2 
 
 To this last period of his life also belongs that letter, so 
 differently interpreted, which he wrote to Pope Boniface IV. 
 in the name of King Agilulf, who had scarcely escaped from 
 the bonds of Arianism, when he unluckily undertook to protect 
 the partisans of the Three Chapters, who called in question 
 the orthodoxy of the Holy See, which, according to their 
 view, had placed itself in opposition to a General Council. 3 
 Columbanus wrote from the midst of a mixed population of 
 orthodox and schismatics, of heretics and even of pagans. 
 Evidently little acquainted in his own person with the point 
 at issue, he made himself the organ of the restlessness and 
 
 1 " Inclyta vates 
 Nomine Sapho 
 Versibus istis 
 Dulce solebat 
 Edere Carmen. 
 . . . Doctiloquorum 
 Carmina linquens, 
 Frivola nostra 
 Suscipe lsetus." 
 
 2 Translation by Ozanam. 
 
 3 The Three Chapters (three works by Theodore of Mopsueste, Ibas, and 
 Theodoret were thus named) had been condemned as Ncstorian by the 
 Council of Constantinople (5th oecumenical) in 553, and by Pope Vigilant : 
 a condemnation resisted by the bishops of Africa and Istria as throwing 
 discredit on the Council of Chalcedon, which had, according to them, 
 approved of these writings. The Lombards declared for these bishops, who 
 were tolerated by Gregory the Great on account of their zeal against the 
 Arians ; but under Boniface IV. the quarrel was revived. Agilulf and 
 Theodelind engaged Columbanus in it.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 28 I 
 
 defiance of the party which assumed to be the only one 
 faithful to the doctrine of the Council of Chalcedon against 
 the error of Eutychus. While he appeals, in a series of 
 extravagant and obscure apostrophes, to the indulgence of 
 the pope for a foolish Scot, charged to write on account of a 
 Lombard, a king of the Gentiles, he acquaints the pontiff 
 with the imputations brought against him, and entreats him 
 to prove his orthodoxy and excommunicate his detractors. 
 Doubtless some of the expressions which he employs would 
 be now regarded as disrespectful and justly rejected. But 
 in these young and vigorous times, faith and austerity could 
 be more indulgent. If his letter is impressed with all the 
 frankness and independence of the Celt, of the Briton, a 
 little too biting, 2 as he says himself, it breathes also the 
 tender and filial devotion of a Roman, impassioned in his 
 anxiety for the honour of the Holy See. Let it be judged 
 by this fragment: "I confess that I lament over the bad 
 reputation of the chair of St. Peter in this country. I speak 
 to you not as a stranger, but as a disciple, as a friend, as a 
 servant. I speak freely to our masters, to the pilots of the 
 vessel of the Church, and I say to them, Watch ! and despise 
 not the humble advice of the stranger. We Irish, who 
 inhabit the extremities of the world, are the disciples of 
 St. Peter and St. Paul, and of the other apostles who have 
 written under dictation of the Holy Spirit. We receive 
 nothing more than the apostolic and evangelical doctrine. 
 There has never been either a heretic, a Jew, or a schis- 
 matic among us. The people whom I see here, who bear 
 the burden of many heretics, are jealous ; they disturb them- 
 selves like a frightened flock. Pardon me then, if, swimming 
 among these rocks, I have said some words offensive to pious 
 ears. The native liberty of my race has given me that 
 
 1 "Quando rex gentilis peregrinum scribere, Longobardus, Scotum 
 hebetem rogat . . . quis non mirabitur potiusquam calumniabitur." — 
 Epist. v. ad Bonif. Pap., ed. GALLAND., p. 355. 
 
 2 " Mordacius."
 
 282 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 boldness. With us it is not the person, it is the right 
 which prevails. The love of evangelical peace makes me 
 say everything. We are bound to the chair of St. Peter ; 
 for however great and glorious Home may be, it is this chair 
 which makes her great and glorious among us. Although 
 the name of the ancient city, the glory of Ausonia, has been 
 spread throughout the world as something supremely august, 
 by the too great admiration of the nations, for us you are 
 only august and great since the incarnation of God, since 
 the Spirit of God has breathed upon us, and since the Son of 
 God, in His car drawn by these two ardent coursers of God, 
 Peter and Paul, has crossed the oceans of nations to come 
 to us. Still more, because of the two great apostles of 
 Christ, you are almost celestial, and Rome is the head of the 
 Churches of the whole world, excepting only the prerogative 
 of the place of divine resurrection." * 
 
 The generous fervour of that Irish race, justly proud of 
 having never known the yoke of pagan Rome, and of having 
 waited, before recognising her supremacy, till she had become 
 the Rome of the apostles and martyrs, has never been ex- 
 pressed with more poetic energy. 
 
 But whilst the unwearied missionary had thus recom- 
 menced in Italy his career as a preacher and monastic 
 founder, everything was changed among the Franks to whom 
 he had devoted the half of his life. At the moment when 
 
 1 " Doleo enim, fateor, de infamia cathedrae S. Petri. . . . Ego enim ut 
 amicus, ut discipulus, ut pedissequus vester, non ut alienus loquar : ideo 
 libere eloquar nostris utpote magistris, ac spiritualis navis gubernatoribus, 
 ac mysticis proretis dicens : Vigilate. . . . Noli despicere consiliolum 
 alienigenas. . . . Nullus haereticus, nullus judseus, nullus schismaticus fuit. 
 . . . Populus quem video, dum multos hsereticos sustinet, zelosus est, et 
 cito tanquam grex pavidus turbatur. . . . Libertas paternee consuetudinis, 
 ut ita dicam, me audere ex parte facit. Non enim apud nos persona, sed 
 ratio valet : amor pacis evangelical totum me dicere cogit. ... In duobus 
 illis ferventissimis Dei spiritus equis, Petro et Paulo . . . per mare gentium 
 equitans, turbavit aquas multus . . . et supremus ille auriga currus illius 
 qui est Christus ... ad nos usque pervenit. Ex tunc vos magni estis et 
 clari . . . et, si dici potest, propter geminos apostolos . . . vos prope 
 ccelestes estis et Roma orbis terrarum caput est Ecclesiarum. . . ."
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 283 
 
 the victorious persecutor of Columbanus seemed at the climax 
 of his fortune, when lie had joined the immense domains of 
 the Austrasian kingdom to his own kingdom of Orleans and 
 Burgundy, and when he had only the little state of Clotaire 
 left to conquer, in order to reign over all Gaul and Frankish 
 Germany, King Thierry suddenly died at the age of twenty- 
 six. In vain did Brunehault essay to renew her reign in 
 the name of her great-grandson, the young Sigebert, the 
 eldest of Thierry's children : the leudes of Austrasia, who 
 could never tolerate her haughty rule, and first among them 
 the powerful chief Pepin, from whom the Carlo vingian race 
 proceeded, declared themselves against her. They leagued 
 themselves on one side with the leudes of Burgundy, on the 
 other with Clotaire and his Neustrians, and called the latter 
 to reign over them. Brunehault and the four sons of 
 Thierry were delivered up to him. He slaughtered the two 
 eldest, and showed himself the worthy son of Fredegund by 
 the atrocious sufferings which he inflicted upon her septua- 
 genarian rival. Clotaire II., when he had become by all 
 these crimes the sole king of the Franks and master of 
 Austrasia and Burgundy as well as Neustria, remembered 
 the prediction of Columbanus, and desired to see once more 
 the saint who had prophesied so truly. He charged Eustace, 
 who had succeeded him as abbot at Luxeuil, to go and seek 
 his spiritual father, and sent with him a deputation of 
 nobles, as a security for the good intentions of the king. 
 Columbanus received Eustace gladly, and kept his visitor 
 with him for some time that he might make him thoroughly 
 acquainted with the spirit of the rule, which he was to 
 establish among the " monastic nation " at Luxeuil. But 
 he declined to answer the call of Clotaire : we would fain 
 believe that all the innocent blood which that king had spilt 
 had something to do with this refusal ; but there is nothing 
 to prove it. The abbot confined himself to writing him a 
 letter full of good advice, which, it must be allowed, he had 
 great need of, and recommending to him his beloved abbey
 
 284 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 of Luxeuil, which Clotaire indeed overwhelmed with gifts 
 and favours. 1 
 
 As for Columbanus, he ended as he had begun, by seeking 
 a solitude still more complete than that of the monastery 
 which he had founded at Bobbio. He had found upon the 
 opposite shore of Trebbia, in the side of a great rock, a 
 cavern, which he transformed into a chapel, dedicated to the 
 Holy Virgin : there he passed his last days in fasting and 
 prayer, returning to the monastery only for the Sundays and 
 holidays. After his death this chapel was long venerated 
 and much frequented by afflicted souls ; and three centuries 
 later, the annals of the monastery record, that those who 
 had entered there sad and downcast had left it rejoicing, 
 consoled by the sweet protection of Mary and of Colum- 
 banus. 2 
 
 Such was the life of the illustrious founder of Luxeuil ; 
 less forgotten, we are bound to say, than others as worthy 
 of recollection as himself, his memory has been brought to 
 light anew in our own days, only to be made use of in a 
 spirit hostile to the truth and authority of the Holy See. 3 
 
 What, then, is there in this life which can justify the 
 
 1 "Litteras castigationum affamine plenas Regi dirigit gratissimum 
 munus. . . . Rex velut pignus faederis viri Dei litteras ovans recepit." — 
 Jonas, c. 61. 
 
 2 "Inter caeteras virtutes . . . haac praecipue viguit, sicut ab anteces- 
 soribus nostris audivimus, quod si aliquis tristis illic adveniebat, si ibi 
 aliquam morulam baberet, interventu Sanctas Virginis supradictique viri 
 laetus exinde revertebatur." — Mirac. S. Columh. a Monach. Bohiens. Scec. x., 
 ap. ACT. SS. O. S. B., t. ii. pp. 37, 38. Another tradition attributes to him 
 the discovery of a rare and delicate vegetable in the heart of the rocks 
 which he incessantly travelled over, which does not reproduce itself every 
 year, and which the abbot of Bobbio sent to the kings and princes, pro 
 benedictione S. Columbani. "Nam legumen Pis, quod rustici Berbilmm 
 vocant, ex adventu sui tempore per singulos annos sponte nascitur per 
 illas rupes quas ipsi perambulavit, nullo serente et, quod nobis majus mira- 
 culum videtur, per scissuras petrarum ubi nullus humor adest." — Mirac. S. 
 Columb., c. 5. 
 
 3 M. Gorini, in his Dtfense de VEglisc, t. i., ch. x., has demolished the 
 strange fancies of MM. Alexis de Saint-Priest, Michelet, &c, on the sub- 
 ject of the political and religious character of St. Columbanus.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 285 
 
 assumption which has attempted to raise the founder of 
 Luxeuil into the chief of a political party, an enemy to 
 royalty in his time, and, more than that, a schismatic, a 
 contemner, or at least a rival of the papacy ? Columbanus 
 had neither the virtues nor the vices which make political 
 men ; he contended, not against royalty, but against a single 
 king, and he waged this warfare solely in defence of the 
 purity and dignity of Christian marriage. It is impossible 
 to discover in his biography, so full of minute details, the 
 least trace of a political tendency. Far from being an enemy 
 to royalty, he was, without controversy, of all the great 
 monks of his time, the one who had the most frequent and 
 cordial intercourse with contemporary kings : with Clotaire, 
 king of the Neustrians ; Theodebert, king of the Austrasians ; 
 Agilulf, king of the Lombards. But he knew that virtue 
 and truth are made for kings as well as for nations. History 
 should admire in him monastic integrity struggling with 
 the retrograde paganism of Merovingian polygamy, and the 
 foreign missionary and solitary taking up at once, in face of 
 the conquerors of Gaul, the freedom of the prophets of the 
 ancient law against the crowned profligate : " I will speak of 
 thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed." 
 This was the case, and nothing else ; this is sufficient for his 
 glory. 
 
 In respect to the Holy See, if some traces of the harsh 
 independence of his race and the frank boldness of his 
 character are to be found in his language — if he must be 
 blamed for defending and imposing on others, with weari- 
 some obstinacy, the local and special observances of his own 
 country — if he made himself ridiculous by offering advice to 
 Pope Boniface IV. on a theological question, which he him- 
 self confesses he had not studied — it must be added that, 
 even in his most vehement words, nothing implied the 
 slightest doubt of the supreme authority of the Horn an See. 
 He says expressly that the pillar of the Church stands 
 always firm at Rome ; he expressly entitles the pope the
 
 2 86 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 pastor of pastors, and the prince of the chiefs, whose duty it 
 is to protect the army of the Lord in its perils, to organise 
 everything, to regulate the order of war, to stimulate the 
 captains, and, finally, to engage in the combat, marching 
 himself at the head of the soldiers of God. 1 
 
 This pretended Luther of the seventh century has then 
 no right to any of those sympathies which have been 
 recently bestowed on him. They have been addressed to 
 the wrong individual. He was never the enemy of either 
 kino-s or bishops. He was a formidable rival only to St. 
 Benedict. Neither in his writings nor his life is there any- 
 thing to indicate that this rivalry was intentional : it sprang 
 naturally from his independent mind, strongly individual 
 and even eccentric, from the passionate attachment with 
 which he inspired so large a number of disciples, from the 
 missionary impulse which he evidently possessed, but, above 
 all, from the Rule which he believed it his duty to write for 
 the use of the monastic nation which he had collected under 
 his crosier. 2 He never mentions the Rule of St. Benedict, 
 though it was impossible that he could be ignorant of its 
 existence, especially after he had gone to Lombardy. 3 But 
 he desired to introduce into Gaul a durable monument of 
 the religious spirit of his country, of that powerful impulse 
 which had fertilised monastic Ireland, and formed those 
 immense collections of monks where, if he is to be believed, 
 
 1 Epist. v. ad Bonifacium. " Pulcherrimo omnium totius Europae Eccle- 
 siarum capiti. . . . Pastor urn pastori." 
 
 2 "His ergo in locis Monachorum plebibus constitutis. . . . Regulam 
 quam tenerent Spiritu Sancto repletus condidit." 
 
 3 Mabillon has fully acknowledged, in opposition to Yepes and Trithe- 
 mius, that the Rule of Columbanus was not a simple modification of the 
 Rule of Benedict ; but it is impossible to admit the proof by which he 
 assumes to establish that Columbanus, attracted to Italy by the fame of 
 Benedict himself, had adopted the Rule of his predecessor and had intro- 
 duced it at Bobbio. Contrary to all his habits, the prince of erudite 
 Christians does not quote, in this instance, any contemporary text, or any 
 fact, and limits himself to suppositions which neither agree with the life 
 nor with the character of Columbanus.— Compare Prcsfat. in Scec. ii.. No. 
 14, and in Scec. iv., n. 129-135.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 287 
 
 such a discipline reigned, that as many as a thousand abbots 
 recognised the laws of a single superior, and such a union 
 that, in certain houses, since their first foundation, there 
 had never been a single dispute. 1 
 
 This Eule, at once shorter, less distinct, and more severe 
 than that of St. Benedict, agrees with it, notwithstanding, in 
 its essential particulars, as the Benedictine Rule approaches, 
 in many points, to the rules of the great solitaries of the 
 East. It is not given to man, not even to the man of genius, 
 to isolate himself from the efforts and experience of his pre- 
 decessors, and no truly practical genius has attempted or 
 even desired it. The first of the ten chapters which form 
 the Rule of Columbanus treats of obedience ; it was to be 
 absolute and passive ; there is no reservation, as in that of 
 Benedict, of a judicious exercise of power on the part of the 
 abbot or of the advisers by whom he was to be surrounded. 
 The second imposes perpetual silence upon the monks, except 
 for useful or necessary causes. The third reduces their food 
 to the lowest rate possible : Benedict had granted meat to 
 the weak and ailing and a hemine of wine ; Columbanus 
 allowed only pulse, meal moistened with water, and a small 
 loaf to all alike. 2 They were to eat only in the evening ; 
 fasting was to be a daily exercise, like work, prayer, or read- 
 ing. Except Chapter VII., which establishes a very com- 
 plicated and tediously prolonged order of services for the 
 psalmody of the choir (seventy-five psalms and twenty-five 
 
 1 " Et cum tanta pluralitas eorum sit, ita ut mille abbates sub uno 
 archimandrita esse referantur, nulla ibi a conditione caenobii inter duos 
 monachos rixa fuisse fertur visa." — Regvla S. Columbani, c. 7. The 
 words apud seniores nostros, which are found at the beginning of this 
 chapter, should be interpreted, not as referring to all Ireland, but to the 
 monastery of Bangor, where Columbanus was a monk ; but how is the 
 thousand abbots in a single house to be explained, or how can the term 
 abbates be regarded as synonymous with monks when the word monachi 
 occurs in the same passage ? 
 
 2 " Cibus vilis et vespertinus . . . cum parvo panis paximatio." Fish, 
 however, could not have been prohibited, since St. Gall and his master 
 were perpetually occupied in fishing.
 
 288 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 anthems for the great feasts, thirty-six psalms and twelve 
 anthems for the lesser), the other chapters treat of poverty, 
 humility, chastity, discretion or prudence, and mortification, 
 all virtues essential to the monastic condition, but which the 
 author deals with rather as a preacher than a legislator. The 
 tenth, and last, which is as long as all the others put to- 
 gether, forms, under the title of Penitentiary, a sort of crimi- 
 nal code, in which a new contrast may be remarked with the 
 Benedictine code, in the extreme severity of the penalties 
 prescribed for the least irregularities. The rigid discipline 
 used in the monasteries of Scotland and Ireland is here 
 manifest by the prodigal use of beating, which is reserved 
 in the Benedictine code for incorrigible criminals, and pre- 
 scribed in the Penitentiary for the most insignificant omis- 
 sions. The number of strokes inflicted on delinquents 
 varied from six to two hundred. This penalty, however, 
 must have appeared much less hard and less humiliating at 
 that period, even to the sons of the great, of whom so large 
 a number were reckoned among the disciples of Columbanus, 
 than it would seem to the most obscure Christian of our own 
 time, since the maximum of two hundred blows was regarded 
 as the equivalent of two days' fasting on bread and water, 
 and the choice of these penalties was allotted to the monk 
 who should have spoken, without the presence of a third 
 person, to a woman. He who, on a journey, should have 
 slept under the same roof with a woman, had to fast three 
 days on bread and water. 1 
 
 These excessive severities discouraged no one. Colum- 
 banus saw an army of disciples collect around him, in the 
 sanctuaries which he had founded, up to the last day of his 
 life. They were more numerous and more illustrious than 
 
 1 " Si quis monachus dormierit in una domo cum muliere, tres dies in 
 pane et aqua ; si nescivit quod non debet, uno die." — M. Gorini, op. cit., 
 torn. i. p. 420, and others, have sufficiently exposed the absurd error com- 
 mitted by M. Michelet, in his Histoire de France (torn. i. p. 286), where he 
 translates these words as follows : " For the monk who has transgressed 
 with a woman, two days of bread and water."
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 289 
 
 those of Benedict. Inspired by the spirit of this great saint, 
 pervaded by the vigorous life which flowed from him, like 
 him self-willed, dauntless, and unwearied, they gave to the 
 monastic spirit the most powerful, rapid, and active impulse 
 which it had yet received in the West. They extended it 
 especially over those regions where that Franco-Germanic 
 race, which hid in its skirts the future life of Christian 
 civilisation, was laboriously forming itself. By their means 
 the genius and memory of Columbanus hover over the whole 
 of the seventh century, of all the centuries the most fertile 
 and illustrious in the number and fervour of the monastic 
 establishments which it produced. However, we shall see, 
 before the century was completed, the rule and institution 
 of the great Irishman everywhere replaced by the spirit and 
 laws of his immortal predecessor. Columbanus had more of 
 that fascination which attracts for a day, or for a generation, 
 than of that depth of genius which creates for ages. 
 
 Let us endeavour, then, if we can, to trace a brief picture 
 of this monastic mission of the sons of Columbanus, at once 
 so laborious and so productive, the fruits of which, if they 
 must not be exclusively attributed to the glory or authority 
 of the Celtic missionary, did not the less enrich for a thou- 
 sand years and more the treasures of the Church. 
 
 One word, in the first place, upon the Lombard abbey 
 where Columbanus completed his career. His successor was 
 Attalus, a noble Burgundian. He had first been a monk at 
 Lerins, but, cast back by the decay of that renowned sanc- 
 tuary, had been drawn to Luxeuil by the fame of Colum- 
 banus, and was named by the latter as his successor after 
 his expulsion from Burgundy. 1 But he preferred to join 
 him in exile. After the death of the founder, the new 
 abbot was troubled by an insurrection of the Italian monks, 
 who declared themselves incapable of bearing so many 
 austerities and so hard a discipline. He permitted them to 
 
 1 Epist. ad Fratrcs, ubi supra. 
 VOL. II. T
 
 290 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 go; they went to seek another resting-place, some among 
 the neighbouring mountains, some on the shores of the 
 Mediterranean ; several returned afterwards to the fold 
 where Attalus continued the work of his master, struggling 
 bravely against Arianism, which had found its last citadel 
 among the conquering Lombards of northern Italy. He 
 died at the foot of a crucifix which he had placed at the 
 door of his cell that he might kiss the feet every time he 
 went out or in, and was buried by the side of Columbanus. 
 
 Another stranger governed the monastery after him, Ber- 
 tulph, a noble Austrasian, and near relative of the famous 
 Arnoul, Bishop of Metz, the earliest known ancestor of that 
 Carlovingian race which was soon to unite Gaul and Italy 
 under its laws. Bertulph was born a pagan ; the example 
 of his cousin had converted him and led him to Luxeuil, 
 from whence he followed Attalus to Bobbio. He was 
 scarcely elected when he had to struggle with the Bishop 
 of Tortona, who wished to bring the abbey under his juris- 
 diction, and attempted to arm himself with the authority of 
 Ariowald, king of the Lombards. 
 
 This Ariowald, son-in-law and successor of Agilulf, did 
 not promise to be a very zealous protector of the Irish abbey. 
 Before he became king he had met one day in the streets of 
 Pavia one of the monks of Bobbio, charged by the abbot 
 Attalus with a mission for the capital of the Lombards. 
 Seeing him from a distance, he said, " There is one of 
 Columbanus's monks, who refuse to salute us." After which 
 he himself saluted the monk derisively. The latter, whose 
 name was Blidulf, answered that he would have saluted him 
 willingly had he been irreproachable in matters of faith, and 
 took advantage of the occasion to preach him a sermon upon 
 the equality of the three persons of the Trinity. Ariowald, 
 furious at this, posted two of his satellites to await the monk's 
 return, and beat him to death. Blidulf, who had supped 
 with an orthodox citizen of Pavia, was attacked in a remote 
 place by these assassins, who beat him unmercifully, and
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 29 1 
 
 left him on the ground for dead. At the end of some hours 
 he was found by his host lying in his blood, but he raised 
 himself up, despite his cruel wounds, saying that he had 
 never slept a sweeter sleep. 1 This wonder roused popular 
 opinion in favour of the monks of Bobbio, and their ortho- 
 dox doctrine. Ariowald, confused and penitent, sent to the 
 abbey to ask pardon, and offered gifts, which were refused. 
 But we must believe that this adventure had a salutary im- 
 pression on his soul ; for after his accession to the throne, 
 though still an Arian, he not only abstained from persecuting 
 the orthodox monastery, but even from condemning it in its 
 struggles with the bishop. " It is not my part," he said, 
 " to know these priestly contentions : let them be judged by 
 their synods." 2 
 
 Bertulph, however, went to Rome to appeal to Pope 
 Honorius, made him acquainted with the rule and the 
 customs followed in the new foundation, obtained his sove- 
 reign approbation, and returned furnished with a privilege 
 which exempted from episcopal jurisdiction the monastery in 
 which Columbanus had completed his course. 
 
 Whilst the Franks of Burgundy and Austrasia, called to 
 follow the great Irish monk into Lombardy, formed in a 
 gorge of the Apennines a centre of energetic reaction against 
 Arian heresy, against the effeminacy of the Italian monks, 
 and the efforts of that paganism which still existed among 
 
 1 " Ex Columbani monachis iste est, qui nobis salutantibus denegant 
 apta respondere. Cumque jam haud procul abesset, deridens salutem prae- 
 misit. . . . Percussus cerebro et omni compage corporis collisus, magnis 
 f ustium ictibus ac sudibus pulsatus. . . . Nihil ei respondit unquam suavius 
 accessisse nee somnum dulciorem habuisse testatur." — Jonas, Vita S. 
 Bertulfi, c. 14, ap. Act. SS. O. S. B., t. ii. 
 
 2 " Non meuru est sacerdotum causas discernere quas synodalis exami- 
 natio ad purum decet adducere." — Jonas, Vita S. Bertulfi, c. 5. 
 
 3 Jonas of Susa, a monk at Bobbio, as we have already said, has written 
 besides the biography of St. Columbanus, those of his two successors, and 
 has dedicated them to Bobbolene, fourth abbot of Bobbio, and of Frank- 
 ish origin, like his predecessors. The names of the monks whom Jonas 
 cites in his narrative seem to indicate the same Frankish origin : Merovee, 
 Blidulph, Theodald, Baudachaire.
 
 292 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 the peasants, 1 the Irish monks, who had been expelled from 
 Luxeuil with their illustrious compatriot, but who had fol- 
 lowed him only to the foot of the Alps, sowed the seed amid 
 the semi-pagan populations of Eastern Helvetia and of 
 Rheetia. One of them, Sigisbert, separated from his master at 
 the foot of the hill which has since been called St. Gothard, 
 and crossing the glaciers and peaks of Crispalt, directing 
 his steps to the east, arrived at the source of the Rhine, and 
 from thence descended into a vast solitude, where he built 
 a cell of branches near a fountain. The few inhabitants of 
 these wild regions, who were still idolaters, surrounded him, 
 admired him, and listened to him ; but when he attempted 
 to cut down the sacred oak, the object of their traditional 
 worship, one of the pagans aimed an axe at his head. The 
 sign of the cross disarmed this assailant ; the work of con- 
 version proceeded painfully, but with the support of a 
 neighbouring noble, who became a Christian and then a 
 monk under the teachings of the Irish missionary, and who 
 endowed with all his possessions the new-born monastery, 
 which still exists under the name of Dissentis. 2 Thus was 
 won and sanctified, from its very source, that Rhine whose 
 waters were to bathe so many illustrious monastic sanctuaries. 
 Not far from the spot where the Rhine falls into Lake 
 Constance, and a little to the south of the lake, Gall, cured 
 of his fever, but deeply saddened by the departure of his 
 master, chose a retreat which his name was to make im- 
 mortal. A deacon, much given to hunting and fishing, 
 pointed out to him a wild solitude enclosed within wooded 
 heights, with abundant streams, but inhabited by bears, 
 boars, and wolves. "If the Lord is with us, who can be 
 
 1 See the adventure of Mcrovee the monk, who, going from Bobbio to 
 Tortona, attempted to destroy a rustic temple {fanum quoddam ex arborib-us 
 consltum) which he found on the shores of the Serivia, and was beaten and 
 thrown into the water by the fani cultores. — Jonas, lib. c. 16. 
 
 2 BUCELINUS, Martyrol. Bcned. II. Jul. : MABILLON, Ann. Bencd,, lib. xi. 
 c. 20. The abbey of Dissentis, burned by the French in 1799, has since 
 been rebuilt.
 
 ST. COLTJMBANUS 293 
 
 against us ? " said Gall ; and he set out with some provisions 
 in his wallet, and a small net for fishing. Towards evening 
 they arrived at the spot where the torrent of Steinach hollows 
 a bed for itself in the rocks. As he walked on praying, his 
 foot caught in the brushwood and he fell. The deacon ran 
 to raise him up. " No," said Gall : " here is my chosen 
 habitation ; here is my resting-place for ever." There he 
 arranged two hazel-boughs into the form of a cross, attached 
 to it the relics which he carried round his neck, and passed 
 the night in prayer. Before his devotions were concluded, 
 a bear descended from the mountain to collect the remains 
 of the traveller's meal. Gall threw him a loaf, and said to 
 him, " In the name of Christ, withdraw from this valley ; the 
 neighbouring mountains shall be common to us and thee, 
 but on condition that thou shalt do no more harm either to 
 man or beast." The next day the deacon went to fish in the 
 torrent, and, as he threw his net, two demons appeared to 
 him under the form of two naked women about to bathe, 
 who threw stones at him, and accused him of having led 
 into the desert the cruel man who had always overcome 
 them. Gall, when he came, exorcised these phantoms ; they 
 fled, ascending the course of the torrent, and could be heard 
 on the mountain, weeping and crying as with the voices of 
 women : " Where shall we go ? this stranger hunts us from 
 the midst of men, and even from the depths of the desert ; " 
 while other voices asked, " whether the Christian was still 
 there, and if he would not soon depart." * 
 
 These poetic traditions, transmitted from lip to lip among 
 the first Christians of Helvetia, gave a natural picture of 
 the effect produced upon the souls of the inhabitants by 
 the double struggle of the Irish missionaries against the 
 
 1 OzANAM, Etudes Germaniques, ii. 123 ; Rettberg, KirchengeschicJite, ii. 
 40-43 : Vita S. Galli, ap. Pertz, Monumenta, ii. 5. " Prascipio tibi, bestia, 
 in nomine Domini. Tu induxisti virum istum in hunc eremum, virum ini- 
 quum et invidia plenum. . . . Prsecipio vobis, phantasmata. . . . Heu 1 
 quid faciemus, aut quo pergemus ? " — Walafrid. Strabo, ap. Act. SS. 0. 
 S. B., t. ii. p. 224.
 
 2Q4 . ST - COLUMBANUS 
 
 gods of paganism and the forces of nature. The entire life 
 of the celebrated apostle of German Switzerland is thus 
 taken possession of by legends, which have interwoven with 
 it many tales, the charm of which detains us in spite of 
 ourselves. One of these shows him to us appealed to by 
 the same duke of Alamannia who wished to expel Colum- 
 banus and his companions out of his province, but who now 
 claimed the help of the holy solitary whose fame already 
 extended afar, to heal his daughter, possessed by a devil, 
 who resisted all exorcisms, crying out that he would yield 
 only to Gall, who had already banished him and his fellows 
 from the banks of the Lakes of Zurich and Constance. 
 Gall refused to go, and disappeared into the mountains of 
 Rhaetia; he was found there in a cavern, and led to the 
 ducal castle at Uberlingen. He found the young princess 
 lying, as if dead, upon the knees of her mother, her eyes 
 shut, and her mouth open. He knelt down by her side, 
 and, after a fervent prayer, commanded the demon to come 
 out of her. The young girl opened her eyes, and the demon, 
 speaking by her voice, said, before it obeyed him, " Art thou, 
 then, that Gall who hast already chased me away every- 
 where ? Ingrate ! it is to avenge thee that I have entered 
 into the daughter of thy persecutor, and thou comest now 
 to expel me again ! " When the cure was complete, Gall 
 advised the daughter of the duke to consecrate her virginity 
 to God, who had delivered her. But this princess, whose 
 name was Friedeburga (castle of peace), and who was, like 
 all princesses canonised by legends, of singular beauty, had 
 been affianced to Sigebert, the eldest son of Thierry II., who 
 had just succeeded his father, and was soon to perish under 
 the sword of Clotaire II. She was sent to him at Metz. 
 When he learned how and by whom she had been cured, 
 the young prince made a gift and concession to the Irish 
 saint of all the territory which he should desire in the public 
 or royal possessions between the Rheetian Alps and the 
 Lake of Constance. Then he wished to proceed with his
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 295 
 
 marriage. Friedeburga asked some days' respite to recover 
 her strength ; she took advantage of this to flee to a church 
 dedicated to St. Stephen. There she covered herself with 
 a nun's veil, and, taking hold of the corner of the altar, 
 prayed to the saint who had first shed his blood for Christ 
 to help her. The young king, when he was told of this, 
 came to the church with the nuptial robe and crown which 
 had been intended for his bride. On seeing him, she held 
 closer and closer to the altar. But he reassured her, and 
 said, " I come here only to do thy will." He commanded 
 the priests to bring her from the altar to him ; when she 
 approached, he had her clothed in the nuptial robe, and 
 placed the crown over her veil. Then, after looking at her 
 for some time, he said to her, " Such as thou art there, 
 adorned for my bridal, I yield thee to the bridegroom whom 
 thou preferrest to me — to my Lord Jesus Christ." Then 
 taking her hand, he placed her at the altar, and left the 
 church, to mourn in secret over his lost love. 1 
 
 However, the zealous solitary whose influence inspired 
 from afar these touching and generous sacrifices, refused 
 the bishopric of Constance, which the duke of Alamannia 
 
 1 " Singulari pulchritudine f ulgens. ... In sinu niatris, oculis clausis, 
 ore inhianti. . . . Tu ne Gallus. . . . Ego plane ob ultionem injuria? quani 
 Dux iste tibi et sociis tuis irrogavit filiam ipsius invasi, et sic ejicis me. 
 . . . Sicut mihi fuisti prseparata cum ornamentis, sic te dabo ad sponsam 
 Domino meo J. C. . . . Deinde ecclesias limen excedens lacrymis abscon- 
 ditum patefecit amorem." — Walape. Steabo, c. 15-21. "Ob quod fertur 
 egressus flere." — Anon. VII. Scec. All these facts are also related in the 
 anonymous life published by Pertz in the seventh century, and reproduced 
 by the new Bollandists (t. vii. Octobris, p. 887), who maintain the authen- 
 ticity of the essential part of this narration against the criticisms of most 
 modern historians. Compare Mabillon, Act. SS. O. S. B., t. ii. p. 42, 
 and Rettbeeg, Kirchengesehichte Deutschlands, t. ii. p. 42. The most 
 serious objection arises from the age of Sigebert, the eldest of the children, 
 whom Columbanus had refused to bless, and who could scarcely be more 
 than thirteen years old in 613, the year of the death of his father, Thierry, 
 himself only twenty-six years of age. In an interesting letter, published 
 by M. Dantier, in his Rapport sur la Correspondance Inedite des B6nedictins 
 (1857, p. 198), Mabillon, while admitting the existence and high birth of 
 Sigebert, disputes his being the son of Thierry and king of the Franks.
 
 296 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 would have conferred upon him, alleging as his reason the 
 kind of interdict which his master had pronounced at the 
 moment of separation, and returned into his dear solitude, 
 which ten or twelve native Christians soon shared with 
 him. 1 He selected one of these to send across the Alps 
 to make inquiries concerning the fate of Columbanus, who 
 brought back from Bobbio the news of his death, and the 
 crosier of the illustrious exile, which he had bequeathed to 
 his compatriot and friend as a sign of absolution. Ten 
 years later, Gall received a deputation of six monks, Irish 
 like himself, from Luxeuil, who came in the name of the 
 community to pray his acceptance of the government of the 
 great abbey, vacant by the death of Eustace. But he again 
 refused to leave that asylum which he had formed for 
 himself, and where he continued to preach and edify the 
 surrounding population, receiving disciples and visitors in 
 always increasing numbers, whom he supported by the pro- 
 duce of his fishing. When he died, 2 the entire country of 
 the Alamans had become a Christian province, and around 
 his cell were already collected the rudiments of the great 
 monastery which, under the same name of St. Gall, was to 
 become one of the most celebrated schools of Christendom, 
 and one of the principal centres of intellectual life in the 
 Germanic world. 
 
 Several generations passed before St. Gall could accom- 
 plish its glorious destinies, whilst the principal foundation 
 of Columbanus immediately attained the climax of its great- 
 ness and popularity. No monastery of the West had yet 
 shone with so much lustre, or attracted so many disciples, 
 as Luxeuil, since the exile of its illustrious founder fixed 
 upon it the attention and sympathy of Christian Gaul. It 
 may be remembered that, at the time of Columbanus's exile, 
 
 1 " Reversurus ad dilectas solitudinis aulam." — Wal. Strabo, c. 19. 
 
 2 He died 16th October 646. This is the date given by Mabillon, and 
 confirmed by Rettberg, ii. 46-48. The new Bollandists, p. 881, prefer that 
 of 627.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 297 
 
 none of his monks who were not Irish were allowed to follow 
 him. One of these, named Eustace, born of a noble family 
 in Burgundy, and who had been a soldier before entering 
 Luxeuil, had to be torn from the arms of his spiritual father. 
 After a time, he followed him to Bregentz, from whence he 
 returned to Luxeuil to govern the community deprived of 
 its natural head, and to dispute possession with the secular 
 persons who invaded it on all sides, and who had even 
 established their shepherds in the enclosure inhabited by 
 the monks. Eustace was entrusted by Clotaire II., when 
 he became sole master of the three Frank kingdoms, with 
 the mission of recalling Columbanus, as we have already 
 seen. Upon the refusal of the latter, Eustace remained at 
 the head of the great abbey, which attracted an increasing 
 number of monks, and the veneration of the nations. How- 
 ever, the missionary spirit and desire to preach exercised 
 an overwhelming influence over Eustace, as over all the 
 disciples of the great Irish missionary. The bishops, as- 
 sembled in the Council of Bonneuil-sur-Marne by Clotaire 
 II., nominated him to preach the faith to unconverted 
 nations. He began with the Varasques, who inhabited, 
 not far from Luxeuil, the banks of the Doubs, near Baume, 
 some of whom were still idolaters, and worshipped the genii 
 of the woods, the fauns and dryads of classic antiquity, 
 whilst the others had fallen victims to heresy. He after- 
 wards travelled beyond the countries which Columbanus 
 had visited, to the extremity of northern Gaul, among the 
 Boiens or Bavarians. 1 His mission was not without success ; 
 
 1 "Warascos . . . qui agrestium fanis decepti, quos vulgi Faunos 
 vocant." — Vita S. Agili, c. 9, ap. Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. ii. p. 306. Compare 
 JONAS, Vita S. Eustasii; Vila S. Salabergce ; RETTBERG, t. ii. 188; and 
 NlEDERMAYEE, Das Monctkiim in Bajuwarien, 1859, p. 41. This last 
 author thinks himself entitled to affirm, on the authority of P. Meichel- 
 beck, that St. Eustace adopted from that time the Benedictine rule. But 
 Meichelbeck, in the only part of his works in which he treats this question 
 {Chronic. Benedicto- Buranum , Proleg., p. 75, Monachii, 1751 ), gives no proof, 
 nor any reason but the insufficient arguments of Mabillon. See above, 
 page 286, note 3.
 
 298 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 but Luxeuil, which could not remain thus without a head, 
 soon recalled him. 
 
 During the ten years of his rule, a worthy successor of 
 Columbanus, he succeeded in securing the energetic support 
 of the Frank nobility, as well as the favour of Clotaire II. 
 Under his active and intelligent administration, the abbey 
 founded by St. Columbanus attained its highest point of 
 splendour, and was recognised as the monastic capital of all 
 the countries under Frank government. The other monas- 
 teries, into which laxness and the secular spirit had but too 
 rapidly found their way, yielded one after another to the 
 happy influence of Luxeuil, and gradually renewed them- 
 selves by its example. 1 Abbots animated by sincere zeal 
 did not hesitate to draw from that new fountain the 
 strength and light with which they found themselves un- 
 provided in their ancient sanctuaries. Among them was 
 Conon, the abbot of the famous monastery of Lerins, which 
 had been, two centuries before, the most illustrious com- 
 munity of the West, but which had since come through all 
 the vicissitudes of a slow decay. 
 
 The great abbey of Sequania became thus a nursery of 
 bishops and abbots — preachers and reformers for the whole 
 Church of these vast countries, and principally for the two 
 kingdoms of Austrasia and Burgundy. It owed this pre- 
 ponderating influence not only to the monastic regularity 
 which was severely observed there, but especially to the 
 flourishing school established by Columbanus, which he 
 
 1 " Properabat ad monasteria, maximeque Lussediurn, quod erat eo 
 tempore cunctis eminentius atque districtius. Neque enira tarn crebra 
 adhuc erant in Galliis monasteria : et sicubi essent, non sub regulari 
 quidem disciplina, sed prorsus erant in malitia fermenti veteris ssecularia. 
 Prteter Lussediurn ergo, quod solum, ut dictum est, districtionem regulse 
 solerter tenebat, Solemniacense monasterium in partibus occiduis hujus 
 religionis extitet caput. Ex quo demum multi sumpserunt et initium et 
 exemplum, adeo ut nunc quoque propitia divinitate, innumera per omnem 
 Franciam et Galliam habeantur sub regulari disciplina, alma utriusque 
 sexus ccenobia." — Audoenus, Vita S. EUgii, lib. i. c. 21. (He wrote from 
 660 to 6S0.)
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 299 
 
 had entrusted, while he remained there, to the special 
 charge of Eustace, and whose progress the latter, when 
 he himself became abbot, promoted with unwearied zeal. 
 Luxeuil was the most celebrated school of Christendom 
 during the seventh century, and the most frequented. The 
 monks and clerks of other monasteries, and, more numerous 
 still, the children of the noblest Frank and Burgundian 
 races, crowded to it. Lyons, Autun, Langres, and Stras- 
 bourg, the most famous cities of Gaul, sent their youth 
 thither. The fathers came to study with their children; 
 some aspiring to the honour of counting themselves one 
 day among the sons of St. Columbanus ; others to re-enter 
 into secular life with the credit of having drawn their 
 knowledge of divine and human learning from so famous a 
 seat of learning. As it always happens, when a great centre 
 of Christian virtues is formed in the world, light and life 
 shine forth from it, and brighten all around with irresistible- 
 energy. 1 
 
 From the banks of the Lake of Geneva to the coast of the 
 North Sea, every year saw the rise of some monastery peopled 
 and founded by the children of Luxeuil, whilst the episcopal 
 cities sought as bishops men trained to the government of 
 souls by the regenerating influence of this great monastery. 
 Besancon, Noyon, Laon, Verdun, and the diocesan capitals of 
 the country of the Rauraques and Morins, were so fortunate 
 
 1 "Cum omnium Francorum honore fulciretur." — Vita S. Eustasii, c. 6. 
 "Luxovium omnium caput Burgundias monasteriorum et Francise." — Gallia 
 Christian. Vet, ap. D. PiTEA, 298. " Pene singulare tarn in religionis apice 
 quam in perfectione doctrine."— Vita S. Frodoberti, c. 5, Act. SS. 0. S. B., 
 t. ii. 601. 
 
 "Viri religiosi illuc undecumque confluunt, se suosque liberos plurimi 
 certatim imbuendos offerunt, illud ante omnia ducentes per maximum, 
 si post longEevam probantis injuria; tolerantiam quodammodo admitti 
 mereantur in congregationem. Jam vero quis locus vel civitas non 
 gaudeat ex beati viri Columbani disciplina rectorem habere, pontificem 
 vel abbatem, cum constet ex hujus virtute magisterii pene totum Fran- 
 corum orbem decretis regularibus fuisse primum decenter ornatum ? "— 
 Adson, Vita S. Bereharii, c. 6, ap. Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. ii. p. 800.
 
 300 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 as to obtain such bishops almost at the same time. Their 
 good fortune was envied by all, and all vied in seeking 
 superiors whom they concluded beforehand to be saints. 
 And it was with reason ; for perhaps so great a number of 
 men, honoured by the Church after their death with public 
 worship, has never been collected on one point, or into so 
 short a space as twenty years. 2 
 
 This remarkable prosperity was threatened with a sudden 
 interruption by means of the intrigues of a false brother who 
 had stolen into the monastic family of Columbanus. A man 
 named Agrestin, who had been notary or secretary to King 
 Thierry, the persecutor of Columbanus, came one day to give 
 himself and all his property to Luxeuil. Being admitted 
 among the monks, he soon showed a desire to go, like Eus- 
 tace, to preach the faith to the pagans. In vain the abbot, 
 who could see no evangelical quality in him, attempted to 
 restrain that false zeal. He was obliged to let him go. 
 Agrestin followed the footsteps of Eustace into Bavaria, but 
 made nothing of it, and passed from thence into Istria and 
 Lombardy, where he embraced the schism of the Three 
 
 1 We may mention, among the bishops whose names will not recur again, 
 Hermenfried of Verdun, son of one of the principal lords of Alsatia, at 
 one time a soldier and lieutenant of King Thierry of Burgundy. He was 
 touched by grace in the middle of a battle, and became a monk under 
 Columbanus about 605. He was taken from Luxeuil to be made Bishop of 
 Verdun about 609. Persecuted, like his spiritual master, by Brunehault, 
 and sharing afterwards in all the misfortunes of his diocese, he died of 
 grief, in 621, at sight of the calamities of his people. 
 
 2 Vie des Saints de Franche-ComU, by the professors of the College of St. 
 Frangois Xavier, tome ii. p. 492. The second volume of this excellent col- 
 lection is exclusively devoted to the saints of Luxeuil, and it is the best 
 work that can be read on this subject. We borrow from it the following 
 enumeration of the saints sprung from the abbey of Luxeuil alone : — 
 
 Columbanus. 
 
 Valery. 
 
 Donatus. 
 
 Columbanus the younger. 
 
 Waldolenus. 
 
 Attalus. 
 
 Desle. 
 
 Sigisbert. 
 
 Le"obard. 
 
 Lua. 
 
 Eustace. 
 
 Bobolenus. 
 
 Gall. 
 
 Cagnoald. 
 
 Ursicin. 
 
 Ragnacarius. 
 
 Hermenfried. 
 
 Waldalenus. 
 
 Acharius. 
 
 Agilus. 
 
 Colombin.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 3 GI 
 
 Chapters, which had already put Columbanus in danger of 
 compromising himself with the Holy See. But the autho- 
 rity of the sovereign pontiff had not been slow in exercising 
 its legitimate influence upon the Italian disciples of the great 
 Irish monk : and when Agrestin attempted to involve the 
 second abbot of Bobbio, Attalus, in the schism, he was so 
 badly received that he imagined himself entitled to address 
 the successor of Columbanus in an epistle full of invectives 
 and calumnies. He returned from thence to Luxeuil, where 
 he tried to corrupt his former brethren. Eustace then re- 
 membered what the exiled Columbanus had written to them, 
 in his letter from Nantes, just before his embarkation : " If 
 there is one among you who holds different sentiments from 
 the others, send him away ; " 1 and he commanded Agrestin 
 to leave the community. To avenge himself, the schismatic 
 began to snarl, says the contemporary annalist, hawking here 
 and there injurious imputations against that same rule of St. 
 Columbanus which he himself had professed, and the success 
 of which could not fail to have excited some jealousy and 
 hostility. One of the bishops, Abellinus of Geneva, listened 
 to his denunciations, and exerted himself to make the neigh- 
 bouring prelates share his dislike. King Clotaire, who heard 
 of it, and who was always full of solicitude for Luxeuil, as- 
 sembled most of the bishops of the kingdom of Burgundy in 
 council at Macon. To this council Eustace was called, and 
 the accuser invited to state his complaints against the rule 
 of Luxeuil. He says nothing of the celebration of Easter 
 according to the Irish custom, which proves that Columbanus 
 or his disciples had finally given up that assumption ; nor 
 were the severe penalties of the Penitentiary touched upon. 
 All his complaints were directed against certain insignificant 
 peculiarities, which he called superfluous, contrary to the 
 canons, or showing a personal spirit. " I have discovered," 
 said he, " that Columbanus has established usages which are 
 
 1 "Tantum inter vos non sit qui unum non sit . . . quicumque sint 
 rebelles foras exeant."— Epist. ad Fratres.
 
 302 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 not those of the whole Church." And thereupon he accused 
 his former brethren, as with so many heresies, of making the 
 sign of the cross upon their spoons, when eating ; of asking 
 a blessing in entering or leaving any monastic building ; 
 and of multiplying prayers at mass. He insisted especially 
 against the Irish tonsure, which Columbanus had introduced 
 into France, and which consisted solely in shaving the front 
 of the head from one ear to the other, without touching the 
 hair of the back part, while the Greeks shaved the entire 
 head, and the Eomans only the crown, leaving the hair in 
 the form of a crown round the lower part of the head. This 
 last custom, as is well known, became the prevalent one in 
 all the religious orders of the West. 1 
 
 Eustace had no difficulty in justifying the customs of 
 Luxeuil, and in discomfiting the violence of his accuser. 
 But as Agrestin always returned to the charge, the abbot said 
 to him : " In presence of these bishops, I, the disciple and 
 successor of him whose institute thou condemnest, cite thee 
 to appear with him, within a year, at the tribunal of God, 
 
 1 " Se hue illucque vertit. . . . Canino dente garriens ac veluti ccenosa 
 sus. . . . Ait superflua qusedam et canonical institutioni aliena. . . . Coch- 
 leam quam lamberent crebro crucis signo signari. . . . Prorupit dicens se 
 scire Columbanum a cseterorum more desciscere." — JONAS, Vita S. Eustas., 
 c. 9-10. The tonsure had been recognised, from apostolic times, as sym- 
 bolical of the religious vow, as is proved by the sacred text relative to the 
 Jew Aquila, who was Paul's host at Corinth : " Navigavit in Syriam et cum 
 eo Priscilla et Aquila, qui sibi totonderat in Cenchris caput : habebat enim 
 votum." — Act. xviii. 18. Some years after the Synod of Macon, the Coun- 
 cil of Toledo, in 633, regulated the form of the tonsure, and of that circle 
 of short hair round the head, called corona clericalis. It appears that the 
 nuns were not always constrained to sacrifice their long hair, like the 
 monks. This is shown in the curious anecdote related by Hildegaire, 
 Bishop of Meaux in the ninth century, in the life of his predecessor, St. 
 Faron. The holy bishop, wishing to see his wife again, from whom he had 
 been obliged to separate in order to become a bishop, and who lived as a 
 nun in a villa of his patrimony, she, for fear of exciting a culpable regret 
 in the mind of her husband, " se totondit totam cassariem capitis, in quo 
 consistebat ornamentum pulchrius corporis." The precaution succeeded 
 so well, that Faron, seeing her thus shaven, " amarissimo ta?dio exhorruit." 
 —Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. ii. p. 592.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 303 
 
 to plead thy cause against him, and to learn and know the 
 justice of Him whose servant thou hast attempted to calum- 
 niate." The solemnity of this appeal had an effect even 
 upon the prelates who leant to Agrestin's side : they urged 
 him to be reconciled to his former abbot, and the latter, 
 who was gentleness itself, consented to give him the kiss of 
 peace. But this goodness did not benefit Agrestin. Hope- 
 less of succeeding at Luxeuil itself, he sowed revolt and 
 calumny in the other monasteries which had proceeded, 
 like Luxeuil, from the colonising genius of Columbanus, at 
 Remiremont and Faremoutier. But, before the end of the 
 year, he was slain with a blow of an axe by a slave, whose 
 wife, it is believed, he had intended to dishonour. 1 
 
 The bishops of the Council of Macon, and the Bishop 
 of Geneva above all others, became from that time the 
 champions and protectors of the institute of St. Columbanus. 
 Like them, many other prelates of Gaul distinguished them- 
 selves by their eagerness in founding or protecting new 
 monasteries destined to extend or practise the Irish rule. 
 The glory of Columbanus and Luxeuil came forth uninjured, 
 and indeed increased, from this trial. However, although 
 no contemporary document expressly says as much, it is 
 evident that from that time the heads of the institution 
 perceived the necessity of softening the intense individuality 
 of their founder's spirit. Through the passionate and ex- 
 aggerated accusations of Agrestin, their eyes were opened 
 to the dangers of isolation, even in what were apparently 
 unimportant details of observance and regular discipline. 
 They perceived, with profound Christian sagacity, that they 
 must give up the thought of extending the Rule of their 
 master everywhere, and as the only monastic code. They 
 knew that by their side a Rule more ancient than their own, 
 and fortified by the formal approbation of the Roman pontiff, 
 lived and flourished, without brilliant success it is true, up 
 to that time, but not without fruit or honour. By what 
 
 1 Jonas, c. 12-16.
 
 304 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 means was the abbey of Luxeuil brought into contact with 
 the Rule of St. Benedict ? By what argument did this 
 powerful and celebrated house open her doors to another 
 glory and authority than that of her founder ? There is no 
 answer to this question : x but it is certain that, under the 
 successor of Eustace, who died a year after the Council of 
 Macon, and after that time, in the numerous foundations of 
 which we have still to speak, the two Eules almost always 
 appear together, as the joint bases of communities originated 
 by the disciples of Columbanus. 2 The monastic republic of 
 Gaul, which apparently ought to have recognised only one 
 dictator, henceforth was to have two consuls, like the Roman 
 republic of old. 
 
 The successor of Eustace was Walbert, also a pupil and 
 companion of Columbanus. Born of Sicambrian race, of a 
 noble and wealthy family, he had been remarked for his 
 bravery in war, before he enrolled himself in the army of 
 the Irish missionary. But the attraction of the cloister 
 overcame the warlike inclinations of the Frank. When his 
 mind was made up, he went to Luxeuil, taking with him 
 not only a gift of all his vast domains, but also his military 
 dress, of which he would only divest himself in the monas- 
 tery itself : he offered also the arms with which he had 
 won his fame, which were suspended from the arches of the 
 
 1 There is nothing to authorise the account of Orderic Vital, who, five 
 centuries subsequent to the foundation of Luxeuil, asserts that St. Maur — 
 who died in 584 — was known by the disciples of St. Columbanus, who died 
 in 6 1 5 ; but it will gratify our readers to quote here a passage from that 
 historian, who thus explains the effect produced on monastic posterity by 
 the fusion of the two institutions : — " Ipsi (the disciples of Columbanus) 
 reor, B. Maurum ejusque socios et discipulos noverunt, utpote vicini, et ab 
 ipsis sicut ab aliis scripta doctorum, asdificationis causa, sancti normam 
 suscepere Bcnedicti, ita tamen ut non abhorrcrent sui statuta magistri. almi 
 videlicet Columbani. Ab ipso siquidem modum divinae servitutis et ordinem 
 didicerunt, et formam orationum ; . . . nigredinem vcstium aliasque obser- 
 vations sumpserunt quas pro religione et honestate ipsius tenuerunt, et 
 scquaces eorum usque in hodicrnum reverenter observare appetunt." — 
 Orderic Vital, Hist. Eccles., lib. viii. c. 27. 
 
 2 Mabillon, Prctf. in II. Sac, c. 15 ; Prcef. in IV. Scec, c. 126, 127.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 3° 5 
 
 church, and remained there during the course of ages, as a 
 monument of the noblest victory which a man can achieve 
 here below. 1 He obtained permission from Eustace to live 
 alone in the hollow of a rock, near a fountain in the midst 
 of the wood, three miles from the abbey. It was here that, 
 after the death of Columbanus's first successor Eustace, and 
 the refusal of Gall to accept the office, the monks of Luxeuil 
 sought Walbert to make him their third abbot. He ruled 
 them for forty years with honour and success. We shall see 
 hereafter the sympathy which existed between Walbert and 
 Bathild, the holy regent of the three Frank kingdoms, and 
 the power he was supposed to have over her. His name 
 remains, in the surrounding countries, the most popular of 
 all those who have done honour to the great abbey of 
 Sequania. He maintained discipline and encouraged pro- 
 found study, while he increased the property of the com- 
 munity, by his own donations in the first place, and then 
 by those which the reputation of the monastery attracted 
 from all sides. 
 
 To the temporal independence thus secured, was soon 
 added a sort of spiritual independence eagerly sought by 
 all the great monasteries, and which they spared no pains 
 in soliciting either from the popes or provincial councils. 
 Their object was to protect themselves, by a solemn privi- 
 lege, from the vexatious abuses of authority, which the 
 diocesan bishop, by right of his spiritual authority, could 
 subject them to, by taking up his abode among them against 
 their will, with a numerous retinue, by making them pay a 
 very high price for the holy chrism and the ordination of 
 
 1 " Vir egregius ex genere Sicambrorum." — Vita S. German. Grandiv., ap. 
 Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. ii. p. 491. "Cujus annos adolescentias in armis 
 tradunt excellentissime floruisse . . . inclyta prosapia clarissimus . . . 
 hominibus et rerum dignitate juxta natales suos distissimus . . . miles 
 optimus inter fasces constitutus et arma . . . armisque depositis quas 
 usque he-die (in the time of Adson, about 950) in testimonium sacras 
 militias ejus in eo loco habentur." — Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. iv. p. 411. The 
 hermitage in which St. Walbert passed the first years of his conversion is 
 still to be seen at some distance from Luxeuil. He died in 665. 
 VOL. II. U
 
 306 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 their brethren, or, above all, by obstructing the freedom of 
 their elections. Lerins had obtained this privilege from the 
 Council of Aries in 451, and Agaune from the Council of 
 Chalon in 579. Luxeuil could not fail to feel the import- 
 ance of the same rights and the same necessities. 
 
 Under the abbacy of Walbert, and upon a petition 
 made in the name of King Clovis II., then a minor, Pope 
 John IV. accorded the privilege of exemption from episcopal 
 authority " to the monastery of St. Peter founded," says the 
 pontifical act, " by the venerable Columbanus, a Scot, who 
 came a stranger, but fervent in zeal and sanctity in the 
 kingdom of the Franks. ... If, which God forbid, the 
 monks of the said monastery should become lukewarm in 
 the love of God and observance of the institutes of their 
 father, they shall be punished by the abbot, that is, by the 
 father of the monastery ; and if he himself should fall into 
 indifference, and contempt of the paternal rule, the Holy 
 See shall provide for that." l 
 
 Six hundred monks formed, under the cross of Walbert, 
 the permanent garrison of this monastic citadel, from whence 
 missionaries, solitary or in parties, issued daily to found new 
 
 1 Mabillon found a fragment of the text of this bull in the archives of 
 Montierender : he has completed it from the diplomas of the subsequent 
 popes, and published it in his Annal. Bened., t. xiii. No. 11, and Append., 
 No. 18. The bull of John IV. has been disputed by Brequigny, in his 
 Diplomata Charter, &c, 1791, folio, pp. 186-188. Admitting that it may be 
 interpolated, it is certain that the exemption granted to Luxeuil was, in 
 fact, neither less solemn nor less extensive than those of Lerins and 
 Agaune. It is instanced in the same terms in the Formulas of Marculph 
 relative to exemptions (book 1, tit. 1), and in all the privileges granted in 
 the seventh century, such as those of St. Denys, Corbie, &c. Mabillon 
 himself admits that the bull of Pope John IV. can only be a confirmation 
 of previous exemptions, and this is the most probable supposition, seeing 
 that mention had been already made of the privilege of Luxeuil in the 
 charter granted to Rebais by Dagobert I. in 634. We may be permitted to 
 decline any discussion of the document, entirely foreign to the question, 
 by which a lamented and distinguished, but paradoxical writer, the Count 
 Alexis de Saint- Priest, in his Histoire de la Royauti, t. ii. p. 157, supposed 
 himself able to prove his theory of the imaginary opposition between Rome 
 and Luxeuil.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 3°7 
 
 monastic colonies at a distance. There even came a time 
 when the throng of monks seeking entrance seems to have 
 embarrassed Walbert, and when he sought means of placing 
 them elsewhere and at a distance. For under him, even 
 more than under his predecessors, the productiveness of 
 Luxeuil became prodigious. It was at this period particu- 
 larly, as says a contemporary, that, throughout the whole of 
 Gaul, in the castles and cities, in plains and in deserts, 
 armies of monks and colonies of nuns abounded everywhere, 
 carrying with them the glory and the laws of Benedict and 
 Columbanus. 1 
 
 It would be a hard task to trace the faithful picture of 
 that monastic colonisation of Gaul, which had, during the 
 whole of the seventh century, its centre in Luxeuil. A 
 single glance must suffice here. To find our way through 
 this labyrinth, it is necessary to survey rapidly the principal 
 provinces which received, one after another, the benefits of 
 this pacific conquest. This rapid course will permit us to 
 breathe the perfume of some of those flowers of exquisite 
 charity and sweet humbleness, which blossomed amid the 
 savage violence and brutal cruelty of which Christendom was 
 then the theatre. It will show us also how many obstacles 
 and dangers these men of peace and prayer had to surmount, 
 and how, subdued under the yoke of the monastic rule, in 
 solitude or in the community of the cloister, the Franks who 
 gave themselves to God under the laws of Columbanus or 
 Benedict, allowed neither the generous courage nor the 
 proud independence of their fathers to degenerate in them ; 
 how they displayed, above all, in every encounter, that 
 
 i "Cernens . . . Waldebertus certatim undique catervas monachorum 
 coadunari, coepit de tam plurima multitudine si forte ubi ubi posset, loca 
 uberrima ubi de suis monachis ad babitandum adunare exquirere." — Vita 
 S. Germ. Grandiv., c. 8. " Walberti tempore per Galliarum provincias 
 agmina monachorum et sacrarum virginum examina non solum per agros, 
 villas, vicosque atque castella, verum etiam per eremi vastitatem ex regula 
 duntaxat Benedicti et Columbani pullulare cceperunt, cum ante illud 
 tempus vix pauca illis reperirentur locis." — Vita S. Salabergce, ap. Act. SS. 
 Ord. Bened., ssec. ii. t. ii. p. 407.
 
 308 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 individual energy and initiative force which was character- 
 istic of the Germanic races, and which alone could regenerate 
 the West, so long sunk under the ignoble burden of Eoman 
 decrepitude. 
 
 But before studying the action of Columbanus and his 
 followers upon the Frank and Burgundian nobility at a 
 distance, we find, not far from Luxeuil, a great foundation 
 due to one of those Irish monks who were the faithful com- 
 panions of him who, four centuries after his death, was still 
 called " the king of monks and conductor of the chariot of 
 God." It will be recollected that, at his expulsion from 
 Luxeuil, the Irish monks alone were permitted to follow him. 
 One of them, then advanced in years, and believed to have 
 been a brother of St. Gall, whose Celtic name has dis- 
 appeared under the Latin appellation of Deicolus or Desle 
 (servant of God), when he had reached with Columbanus 
 a place covered with brushwood, some miles distant from 
 Luxeuil, upon the road to Besancon, felt his limbs fail, and 
 perceived that he could go no farther. Throwing himself 
 at the feet of his abbot, he asked and obtained permission, 
 with the blessing of Columbanus, to accomplish his pil- 
 grimage in this desert. After a tearful separation, when 
 he found himself alone, he set out to find a place of rest in 
 the forest. Searching through the thicket, he met a flock 
 of swine, the herdsman of which was thunderstruck at sight 
 of this stranger of great height, and clad in a costume 
 unknown to him. " Who are you ? " asked the swineherd, 
 " whence come you ? what seek you ? what are you doing 
 in this wild country without guide or companion ? " " Be 
 not afraid, my brother," said the old Irishman, "I am a 
 traveller and a monk ; and I beg you for charity to show 
 me hereabouts a place where a man may live." The swine- 
 herd answered him, that in this neighbourhood the only 
 place he knew was marshy, but still habitable, because of 
 the abundance of water, and belonged to a powerful vassal 
 called Werfair. He refused, however, to guide him to it,
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 309 
 
 lest his flock should stray in his absence ; but Desle insisted, 
 and said, with that daring gaiety which we still find among 
 the Irish, " If thou do me this little favour, I answer for it 
 that thou shalt not lose the very least of thy herd ; my staff 
 shall replace thee, and be swineherd in thy absence." And 
 thereupon he stuck his traveller's staff into the ground, 
 round which the swine collected and lay down ; upon which 
 the two set out through the wood, the Irish monk and the 
 Burfmndian swineherd, and thus was discovered and taken 
 possession of the site of the existing town of Lure, and of 
 that great monastery of the same name, the abbot of which, 
 eleven centuries after this adventure, was reckoned among 
 the princes of the holy Koman empire. 1 
 
 But Desle was not at the end of his difficulties. Near 
 his new retreat was a little church, frequented by the shep- 
 herds and peasants of the neighbourhood, and served by a 
 secular priest, who saw the arrival of the disciple of Colum- 
 banus in these regions with an evil eye : " This monk," he 
 said, " will interfere with my living." And he told his 
 hearers that this stranger was a magician, who hid himself 
 in the wood that he might give himself up to his incanta- 
 tions, " and that he had come at midnight, under pretence 
 of praying, to my chapel, the doors of which I had closed in 
 vain : a single word from him sufficed to open them." The 
 priest afterwards denounced him to Werfair, the lord of 
 the place, asking him if he was disposed to allow a certain 
 foreign monk to take possession of his chapel, without any one 
 being able to put him out of it. With that brutal ferocity 
 which constantly reappeared among these baptized Barbarians, 
 Werfair commanded that the stranger should be seized if 
 possible, and that the punishment of castration should be 
 inflicted on him. But before that impious order could be 
 obeyed, he was himself suddenly seized with shameful and 
 mortal sickness. His pious widow, in the hope of softening 
 
 1 See the article " Chapitres Nobles de Lure et de Murbach Reunis," in 
 the France Ecclfsiastique for the year 1788, p. 78.
 
 3IO ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 divine justice towards the soul of her husband, made a gift 
 of all the land which surrounded the site of Lure to the 
 monk who called himself the traveller of Christ, and nume- 
 rous disciples soon came to live by his side a life of peace 
 and prayer. Their pious solitude was one day disturbed, as 
 has already been mentioned, by King Clotaire II., whose 
 name perpetually recurs in the history of Columbanus and 
 his disciples. As the king was one day hunting in a royal 
 domain near Lure, a boar, pursued by the nobles of his train, 
 took refuge in the cell of Desle. The saint laid his hand upon 
 its head, saying, " Since thou comest to ask charity, thy life 
 shall be saved." The king, when told of it by the hunters 
 who had followed the animal, desired to see that wonder for 
 himself. When he knew that the old recluse was a disciple 
 of that Columbanus whom he had always honoured and 
 protected, he inquired affectionately what means of subsist- 
 ence the abbot and his companions could find in that soli- 
 tude. "It is written," said the Irishman, "that nothing 
 shall be wanting to those who fear God ; we lead a poor 
 life, but with the fear of God it suffices for us." Clotaire 
 bestowed upon the new community all the forests, pasturage, 
 and fisheries possessed by the public treasury in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Lure, which became from that time, and always 
 remained, one of the richest monasteries in Christendom. 1 
 
 1 " Cum monarches atque auriga Dei Columbanus. . . . Pedibus vehe- 
 menter debilitari ccepit. . . . Bubulcus videns tarn proceras statural virum 
 et antea invisi habitus veste circumdatum. . . . Ne paveas, frater : pere- 
 grinus ego sum ; monachicum propositum gero. . . . Fustem meum con- 
 stituo custodem vicarium. . . . Heu mihi ! propter unum monachum jam 
 hie vivere non possum. . . . Latitat quidam in hac silvula monachus 
 quidam peregrinus, qui nescio quibus incantationibus utitur. . . . Placet 
 tibi ut monachus quidam capellulam tuam sibi vindicet. . . . Idem 
 membrum quod famulo Dei praacidi jussit mox illi in tumorem versum 
 est. . . . Peregrinus sum pro Christo. . . . Curtem fiscumque regalem. 
 . . . Credi mihi, quia ad charitatem confugisti, hodie vita non priva- 
 beris. . . . Rex subjunxit : Et unde, pater venerande, vivis, vel hi qui 
 tecum sunt ? . . . Pauperem vitam gerimus."— Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. ii. p. 
 95-99. This legend, written in the tenth century, and which contains very
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 3 I I 
 
 Lure and Luxeuil were situated in the north of ancient 
 Sequania, then included in the kingdom of Burgundy, of 
 which, as well as Austrasia, Clotaire II. had become the 
 master. The whole of that wide and beautiful district of 
 Burgundy which retains its name, and which, to the west 
 and east of the river Saone, has since formed the duchy, and 
 particularly the county of Burgundy, was naturally the first 
 to yield to the influence of Luxeuil. This district was, 
 from the time of Columbanus, governed, or rather possessed, 
 by a powerful family of Burgonde origin, whose connection 
 with Columbanus and his disciples demonstrated once more 
 the powerful influence exercised upon the Frank nobility by 
 the great Irish monk. This house was represented by two 
 brothers, who both bore the title of duke : the one, Amalgar, 
 was duke of Burgundy to the west and north of the Doubs ; 
 the other, Waldelen or Wandelin, lived at Besancon, and his 
 duchy extended to the other side of Jura, and as far as the 
 Alps. 1 Waldelen and his wife suffered much from having 
 no children to whom to leave their immense possessions. 
 The renown of the first miracles and great sanctity of the 
 Irish monk, who had established himself not far from Besan- 
 con, drew them to Luxeuil. They went to ask him to pray 
 for them, and to obtain them a son from the Lord. " I will 
 
 curious details of the spoliations to which the abbey was subjected under 
 the last Carlovingians, adds that, before his death, Desle went to Eome to 
 seek a privilege from the Holy See to oppose the rapacity of the Burgun- 
 dians in the neighbourhood of his foundation, whose usurpations he feared, 
 although admitting their liberality. But the mention made of this privi- 
 lege of a Roman emperor in the seventh century sufficiently proves its 
 falsehood. 
 
 1 The following table appears indispensable to explain the narrative : — 
 
 I. N., Burgundiau noble. 
 
 I 
 
 II. Waldelen, duke at Besauqon, II. Amalgaike, duke iu Burgundy, 
 
 married Flavia, married Aquiline, 
 
 from whom — from whom — 
 
 I | I I I 
 
 III. Donatus, bishop III. Ramalen, duke III. Adalric, III. Walda- III. Adal- 
 
 of Besancon, founder after his father, re- duke after his len, first ab- sind, ab- 
 
 of St. Paul and of storer of Komain- father. bot of Beze. bess of 
 
 Jussamoutier. t 660. Moutier. t about 680. Bregille.
 
 312 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 do it willingly," said the saint ; " and I will ask not only one, 
 but several, on condition that you give me the first-born, 
 that I may baptize him with my own hands, and dedicate 
 him to the Lord." The promise was made, and the mercy 
 obtained. The duchess herself carried her first-born to 
 Luxeuil, where Columbanus baptized him, giving him the 
 name of Donat (Donatus) in testimony of the gift which his 
 parents had made of him to God. He was restored to his 
 mother to be nursed, and then brought back to be trained in 
 the monastery, where the child grew up, and remained until, 
 thirty years after, he was taken from it to be made Bishop 
 of Besancon. In that metropolitan city, where the exile of 
 Columbanus had doubtless left popular recollections, Donatus, 
 out of love for his spiritual father, established a monastery 
 of men under the rule of Columbanus, and dedicated to St. 
 Paul, as Luxeuil was to St. Peter. He added, however, to 
 the observance of the rule of the founder of Luxeuil, that 
 of the rule of St. Benedict, which was introduced about the 
 same period at Luxeuil itself. He himself lived there as 
 a monk, always wearing the monastic dress. Afterwards, 
 with the help of his mother, and also in his episcopal city 
 of Besancon, he originated the monastery of Jussamoutier 
 for nuns, giving them a rule in which that of St. Cassarius, 
 which we have already seen adopted by Radigund at Poitiers, 
 was combined with various arrangements borrowed from the 
 rules of Columbanus and Benedict. 1 The Latin of the pre- 
 amble, which was written by Donatus himself, does honour 
 to the school of Luxeuil. The daughters of Jussamoutier 
 
 1 " Utrique erant ex nobili Burgundiorurn prosapia." — Ancient Breviary 
 of Besancon, 'printed in 1489. " Matri ud nutriendum reddit. Qui post alitur 
 in eodem rnonasterio. . . . Nunc usque superest eamdem cathedram regens. 
 . . . Pro amore B. Columbani ex ipsius Regula monasterium viroruru 
 construxit." — JONAS, Vita S. Colomb., c. 22. Holstein, Codex Regularum. 
 Compare Mabillon, Prcef. in IV. Scec, § 125, and the Vies des Saints de 
 Franche-Comte, vol. i. p. 186, and Appendix, n. 6, 7, and 8. Of the ancient 
 abbey of St. Paul, at Besancon, there remain only some fragments of the 
 church, which have been transferred to the court of the library. The abbey 
 of Jussamoutier is now a barrack for gens-d'armes.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 31 3 
 
 rivalled the monks of Luxeuil in zeal and fervour, but they 
 asked expressly that the laws of the two patriarchs should 
 be modified so as to suit the difference of sex. They do not 
 seem, however, to have objected to any of the severities of 
 Irish tradition, for we see with surprise, in that version of 
 the three rules adapted to their use, the penalty of fifty or 
 even a hundred lashes inflicted upon these virgins for cer- 
 tain faults against discipline. The wiser and gentler rule 
 of Benedict gained ground, notwithstanding, at each new 
 manifestation of religious life. 
 
 The younger brother of Donatus, Ramelen, who succeeded 
 his father as duke of Transjuran Burgundy, signalised his 
 reverence for the memory of Columbanus by the foundation 
 or reconstruction of the abbey of Romain-Moutier, in a pass 
 on the southern side of Jura, consecrated to prayer, two cen- 
 turies before, by the founder of Condat. 1 He introduced a 
 colony from Luxeuil there : the ancient church, often rebuilt, 
 exists still : it has served as a model to an entire order of 
 primitive churches, and the basis of an ingenious and new 
 system, which characterises the date and style of the prin- 
 cipal Christian monuments between Jura and the Alps. 2 
 
 We have said that the father of St. Donatus had a brother, 
 another lord, Amalgaire, whose duchy extended to the gates 
 of Besancon. This last had two children, who, like their 
 cousins, are connected with Luxeuil. The son, named Wal- 
 delen, like his uncle, was also entrusted to the care of 
 
 1 See before, vol. i. p. 364. "Pro amore beati viri Columbani." — Jonas, 
 c. 22. 
 
 2 Histoire de l' Architecture Sacree du IV e au X e Siecle dans les Anciens 
 Evcches de Geneve, Lausanne et Sion, by J.-D. BLAVIGNAC, 1853. This church 
 was certainly built in the eighth century, when Pope Stephen II. consecrated 
 it in 753, and commanded the abbey, where he had lived for some time, to 
 be called the Roman Monastery, playing upon the name which it already bore 
 in honour of its first founder, St. Romain of Condat. It became in the tenth 
 century a priory of Cluny. Compare the Vies des Saints de Franche-Comte, 
 vol. i. p. 598, vol. iii. p. 27, and the cartulary of Romain-Moutier, published 
 by the learned Baron de Gingins, in vol. xiv. of the Mimoires de la Societe 
 d' Histoire de la Suisse Romande.
 
 3 H ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 Columbanus, and became a monk at Luxeuil, from whence 
 his father took him to put him at the head of the abbey of 
 Beze, which he had founded in honour of God, St. Peter, and 
 St. Paul, between the Saone and the Tille, near a fountain 
 still known and admired for the immense sheet of water 
 which gushes from it, and to the east of a forest called the 
 Velvet Forest, a name which preserves to our own days a trace 
 of the impression produced by its thick verdure upon the 
 admiring popular mind, at a time when a common mind 
 seems to have been more observant than now of certain 
 beauties. The new abbot carried the rule of Columbanus 
 to Beze, and maintained it for fifty years in that sanctuary, 
 which was long to hold its place in the first rank of French 
 monasteries. When his eldest brother, who had succeeded 
 to the duchy of his father, compromised in the civil wars of 
 the time of Ebro'in, had to flee into Austrasia, Waldelen col- 
 lected his property and joined it to that of the monastery. 
 He offered an asylum there to his sister, Adalsind, for whom 
 their father, Duke Amalgar, had also founded an abbey at 
 Bregille, opposite Besancon on the right bank of the Doubs. 
 But she could not long remain there ; the annoyances she 
 met with from the inhabitants of the surrounding country 
 obliged her to leave a place in which neither the ancient 
 authority of her father, nor her character of abbess, nor the 
 proximity of an important city governed by her family, could 
 protect her. This forced exile is a proof, among many others, 
 of the obstacles and hostilities too often encountered by the 
 Religious of both sexes, despite the protection of kings and 
 nobles, amid the unsubdued races who had invaded the 
 West. 1 
 
 While the various members of the most powerful family 
 of the two Burgundies testified thus their devotion to the 
 memory and institute of Columbanus, the young and noble 
 Ermenfried obeyed the same impulse upon a more modest 
 scale, amid the half-pagan tribe of the Varasques, who, fol- 
 
 1 Chronicon Beseunse, ap. D'Acheey, Spicilegium, vol. ii. p. 402.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 315 
 
 lowing the Burgonde invasion from the banks of the Rhine, 
 occupied, a little above Besancon, a district watered by the 
 Doubs, where the second abbot of Luxeuil, Eustace, had 
 already attempted their conversion. Ermenfried, according 
 to the custom of the Germanic races, had been recommended 
 in his youth, along with his brother, to King Clotaire II., 
 the friend and protector of Columbanus, who had received 
 him into his house. His noble bearing, his varied know- 
 ledge, and modest piety gained him the favour of this prince. 
 Clotaire had, besides, entrusted his brother with the care of 
 the ring which was his seal-royal, and had thus constituted 
 him chancellor of his court. Ermenfried, recalled into his own 
 country to receive the inheritance of a wealthy noble of his 
 family, had found, in surveying his new possessions, a narrow 
 little valley where two clear streams, uniting at the foot of 
 a little hill, formed into a tributary of the Doubs, called the 
 Cusancin, and where there had formerly existed, under the 
 name of Cusance, a monastery of women. Contemplating 
 this site, he was filled with a desire to raise the ruins of the 
 abandoned sanctuary, and to consecrate himself there to the 
 Lord. When he returned to the court of Clotaire, the new 
 spirit which animated him soon became apparent. One 
 day, when he appeared before the king with his silken tunic 
 in disorder and falling to his feet, Clotaire said to him, 
 " What is the matter, Ermenfried ? What is this fashion of 
 wearing thy tunic ? Wouldst thou really become a clerk ? " 
 " Yes," answered the Varasque, " a clerk, and even a monk ; 
 and I entreat you to grant me your permission." The king 
 consented, and the two brothers immediately set out for 
 their solitude. In vain their mother urged them to marry 
 and perpetuate their race. Ermenfried went to Luxeuil to 
 be trained for monastic life under Walbert, received there 
 the monastic frock and the priesthood, and returned to 
 Cusance, where he soon became the head of a community of 
 thirty monks, which he subordinated completely to Luxeuil, 
 and directed with gentle and active authority, while his
 
 3l6 ST. COLUMBANTTS 
 
 brother, with whom he always lived in the closest union, 
 provided for their temporal necessities. Ermenfried reserved 
 the humbler labours for himself ; he spent whole days in 
 sifting the grain which the others thrashed in the barn. 
 For he loved work and workers. On Sundays, in celebrat- 
 ing mass, he distributed to the people the eulogies or uncon- 
 secrated wafers, which then served for consecrated bread. 
 When he perceived the hard hands of the ploughmen, he 
 bent down to kiss with tender respect these noble marks of 
 the week's labour. I have surveyed the annals of all nations, 
 ancient and modern, but I have found nothing which has 
 moved me more, or better explained the true causes of the 
 victory of Christianity over the ancient world, than the 
 image of this German, this son of the victors of Rome and 
 conquerors of Gaul, become a monk, and kissing, before the 
 altar of Christ, the hard hands of the Gaulish husbandmen, 
 in that forgotten corner of Jura, without even suspecting 
 that an obscure witness took note of it for forgetful pos- 
 terity. 1 
 
 Before we leave Sequania, let us ascend into the country 
 of the Rauraques (the ancient bishopric of Bale). There, 
 on the banks of that deep and narrow gorge, hollowed by 
 the Doubs in the very heart of the Jura, upon the existing 
 boundary of Switzerland and Franche-Comte, at the spot 
 where that river, having run since its source from south to 
 north, makes a sudden turn towards the west, before doub- 
 ling back to the south, and forms thus a sort of peninsula 
 still called the close of the Doubs, we shall find the little town 
 
 1 " Dives valde ac potentior caeteris. . . . Adulti traduntur ad palatium 
 Clotario regi servituri. . . . Qui tradidit ei annulum suum, factusque est 
 cancellarius in toto palatio. . . . Sinebat tunicam, quod Sericam vocabant, 
 usque ad medias dependere tibias. . . . Quid est hoc, Ermenfrede ? cur 
 tunicam tuam fers taliter ? Numquid clericus esse vis ? . . . Et clericum 
 me monachumque fieri opto. ... Si vidisset aliquem operatorem aut 
 pauperrimum crepatis manibus, non ante eulogias dabat quam . . . manus 
 ipsas oscularetur." — Egilbeetus, Vita S. Ermenf., ap. Bolland., t. vii. 
 Septemb., p. 120.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 317 
 
 of St. Ursanne. It originated in the choice which another 
 disciple of Columbanus made of that wild country in order 
 to live there in solitude. Ursicinus, which has been trans- 
 formed into Ursanne, was probably Irish, since he left 
 Luxeuil with Columbanus ; but, like Gall and Sigisbert, he 
 did not follow him into Italy ; and, after having founded 
 a little Christendom upon the fertile shores of the Lake of 
 Bienne, he preferred to establish himself among the scarped 
 rocks covered with firs which overlook the upper course of 
 the Doubs. Climbing into the most inaccessible corners 
 of these wild gorges, in search of their strayed cattle, the 
 herdsmen one day discovered him, and told, on descending, 
 that they had found at the top of the mountain a wan and 
 emaciated man, like another St. John Baptist, who most 
 surely lived in community with the bears, and was supported 
 by them. Thence, doubtless, arose the name of Ursicinus 
 or Urson, which has replaced this monk's Celtic name. In 
 this instance, as invariably through the annals of monastic 
 extension, the great examples of mortification and spiritual 
 courage, which excited the admiration and sympathy of 
 some, raised the derision and hostility of others. A rich 
 inhabitant of the neighbourhood drew the solitary to his 
 house on pretence of hearing him preach ; and having made 
 him drink wine, to which he was not accustomed, the poor 
 saint soon became uncomfortable and asked leave to with- 
 draw. Then the perfidious host, with all his family, began 
 to mock the monk with bursts of laughter, calling him 
 glutton, drunkard, and hypocrite, and accusing him as such 
 to the surrounding population. Urson cursed the house of 
 the traitor, and returned to his solitude. This adventure 
 brought no discredit upon him : far from that, he had many 
 disciples, and the increasing number of those who would live 
 like him, and with him, obliged him to leave the huts which 
 he had raised upon the heights, and to build his convent at 
 the bottom of the pass and on the bank of the river. It is 
 to be remarked that he had here an hospital for the sick
 
 3 l8 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 poor, and kept baggage-cattle to bring them from a distance 
 and through the steep paths of these mountains. 1 
 
 The little monastery which our Irishman had founded was 
 taken up and occupied after his death by another colony 
 from Luxeuil, led by Germain, a young noble of Treves, 
 who, at seventeen, in spite of king and bishop, had left all 
 to flee into solitude. He was of the number of those recruits 
 whose coming to enrol themselves at Luxeuil alarmed abbot 
 Walbert by their multitude. The latter, recognising the 
 piety and ability of the young neophyte, entrusted to him 
 the direction of the monks whom he sent into a valley of 
 Raurasia, of which Gondoin, the first known duke of Alsatia, 
 had just made him a gift. This valley, though fertile and 
 well watered, was almost unapproachable : Germain, either 
 by a miracle, or by labours in which he himself took the 
 principal share, had to open a passage through the rocks 
 which formed the approach of the defile. The valley took 
 the name of Moustier-Grandval, after the monastery, which 
 he long ruled, in conjunction with that of St. Ursanne. The 
 abbot of Luxeuil, with the consent of his brethren, had ex- 
 pressly freed the monks whom he intended, under the 
 authority of Germain, to people the new sanctuary, from all 
 obedience to himself. In the surrounding country, the bene- 
 volent stranger, who died a victim to his zeal for his neigh- 
 bour, was everywhere beloved. A new duke of Alsatia, 
 Adalric, set himself to oppress the population, and to trouble 
 the monks of Grandval in every possible way, treating them 
 as rebels to the authority of his predecessor and to his own. 
 He approached the monastery at the head of a band of Ala- 
 mans, who were as much robbers as soldiers. Germain, 
 accompanied by the librarian of the community, went to 
 
 1 "Velut alteram in deserto Joannern. . . . Traditio est ursura super 
 divi speluDcam radices et herbas attulisse. . . . Ut vino, cui minime 
 assueverat, victus ludibrio exponatur. . . . Crebro repetitis poculis urget. 
 . . . Guise et Bacchi voraginem . . . exsibilandum propinare." — Compen- 
 dium Vitce S. Ursicini, ap. TROUILLAT, Monuments dc VAncien Evech6 dc 
 Bale, Porentruy, 1852, t. i. p. 42.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 319 
 
 meet the enemy. At the sight of the burning houses, and 
 his poor neighbours pursued and slaughtered by the soldiers, 
 he burst forth into tears and reproaches. " Enemy of God 
 and truth," he said to the duke, " is it thus that you treat 
 a Christian country ? and do you not fear to ruin this 
 monastery which I have myself built ? " The duke listened 
 without anger, and promised him peace. But as the abbot 
 returned to Grandval, he met some soldiers upon his way, to 
 whom he addressed similar remonstrances : " Dear sons, do 
 not commit so many crimes against the people of God ! " 
 Instead of appeasing, his words exasperated them ; they 
 divested him of his robes, and slew him as well as his com- 
 panion. 1 
 
 The body of this martyr of justice and charity was carried 
 to the church which he had built at St. Ursanne. In the 
 interval between the death of the founder of the abbey, and 
 that of the first martyr of the illustrious line of Colum- 
 banus, this remote monastery had already felt the influence 
 of a third saint, who, without passing through Luxeuil, had 
 nevertheless yielded to the power of Columbanus's genius 
 and rule. 
 
 Vandregisil was born near Verdun, of noble and rich 
 parents, allied to the two mayors of the palace, Erchinoald 
 and Pepin of Landen, who governed Neustria and Austrasia 
 under the authority of King Dagobert I., son and successor 
 of that Clotaire II. who had been always so favourable to 
 Columbanus and his disciples. This relationship had pro- 
 cured the young noble a favourable position in the court of 
 
 1 "Ex genere senatorum natus. . . . Locum uberrimura, infra saxorum 
 concava. . . . Cernens abbas quod difficilis esset introitus eorum, coepit 
 saxorum dura manibus quatere, et valvse utraque parte vallis patuerunt et 
 sunt intrantibus patefactae usque in hodiernum diem. . . . Inimice Dei et 
 veritatis, ingressus es super homines Christianos ! . . . Per totam vallem 
 cernens tanquam a luporum morsibus vicinos laniari et domus eorum in- 
 cendio concremari, fievit diutissime. . . . Nolite, filii mei, tantum nefas 
 perpetrare in populo Dei." — Boboleni, Vita S. Germani, ap. Trouillat, 
 Monuments de VEvech6 de Bale, t. i. p. 49-53, who has given a much more 
 complete version of it than that of the A eta of Mabillon.
 
 320 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 the king, to whom he had been recommended in his youth. 
 He became count of the palace, that is to say, judge of the 
 causes referred to the king, and collector of the returns of 
 the royal revenue. But power and ambition held no place 
 in a heart which had already felt the contagion of the many 
 great examples furnished by the Frank nobility. Refusing 
 a marriage which his parents had arranged, he went to take 
 refuge with a solitary upon the banks of the Meuse. Now 
 the Merovingian kings had then interdicted the Frank nobles 
 from taking the clerical or monastic habit without their per- 
 mission, an interdict founded upon the military service due 
 to the prince, which was the soul of the social organisation 
 of the Germanic races. Dagobert therefore saw with great 
 displeasure that a Frank, brought up in the royal court, and 
 invested with a public charge, had thus fled, without the 
 consent of his sovereign, from the duties of his rank. He 
 ordered him to return. As Vandregisil very reluctantly 
 approached the palace, he saw a poor man who had been 
 thrown from his cart into the mud before the king's gates. 
 The passers-by took no notice of him, and several even 
 trampled on his body. The count of the palace immediately 
 alighted from his horse, extended his hand to the poor driver, 
 and the two together raised up the cart. Afterwards he 
 went to Dagobert, amid the derisive shouts of the spectators, 
 with his dress stained with mud ; but it appeared resplen- 
 dent with the light of charity in the eyes of the king, who, 
 touched by his humble self-devotion, permitted him to follow 
 his vocation, and forbade any one to interfere with him. 1 
 
 1 " Comes constituitur palatii. . . . Ardore parentum honoribus plurimis 
 valde sublimatus. . . . Rex . . . pro eo quod ipsum hominem Dei in juven- 
 tute in suo ministerio habuisset, volebat eum inquietare pro eo quod sine 
 sua jussione se tonsorasset. . . . Quidam pauperculus qui vehiculum ante 
 portam ipsius regis demerserat. . . . De equo quern sedebat cum velocitate 
 descendens, et pauperi manum porrexit, et ipsum plaustrum simul de loco 
 levaverunt. Prospicientes vero multi qualiter se inquinaverat de luto de- 
 ridebant. . . . Factus plus candens quam antea f uerat ; pervenit in palatium 
 regis et stabat ante eum et satellites ejus quasi agnus in medio luporum." 
 — Acta SS. 0. S. B., torn. ii. pp. 502-514.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 3 21 
 
 When he was freed from this anxiety, Vandregisil went 
 to the tomb of St. Ursanne, which was situated on an estate 
 belonging to his house, with which he enriched the monas- 
 tery. He applied himself there by excessive austerities to 
 the subdual of his flesh ; struggling, for example, against 
 the temptations of his youth, by plunging during the winter 
 into the snow, or the frozen waters of the Doubs, and re- 
 maining there whilst he sang the psalms. 1 Here also he 
 found the trace of Columbanus's example and instructions, 
 which led him from the side of Jura across the Alps to 
 Bobbio, where he admired the fervour of the disciples whom 
 the great Irish missionary had left there. It was there, 
 doubtless, that he conceived so great an admiration for the 
 memory and observances of Columbanus, that he determined 
 on going to Ireland to seek in the country of the founder 
 of Luxeuil and Bobbio, the secrets of penitential life and 
 the narrow way. But God, says one of his biographers, 
 reserved him for the Gauls. After another long sojourn in 
 Eomain-Moutier, which had just been restored under the 
 influence of the spirit of Columbanus, he went to Rouen, 
 where Ouen, a holy and celebrated bishop, who had known 
 him at the court of Dagobert, and whose youth had also 
 felt the influence, so fertile even after his death, of Colum- 
 banus, then presided. The metropolitan of Rouen would 
 not permit a man distinguished at once by his tried virtue 
 and illustrious birth, to steal out of sight. It is thus that 
 the biographer of St. Germain describes to us how the abbot 
 of Luxeuil had long sought a monk who was at once learned, 
 holy, and of noble extraction, to preside over the colony of 
 Grandval. 2 For it is evident that birth was a quality in- 
 finitely valuable to the founders of monastic institutions 
 
 1 " Si quando in ipsa visione nocturna per titillationem carnis illusionem 
 habuisset . . . mergebat se in fluvium, et cum esset hyemis tempus in 
 medio glacierum psalmodiam decantabat." — ActaSS. O.S.B.,tom. ii.p. 506. 
 
 2 " CcepitWaldebertus intra semetipsum tacitus cogitare si possit reperire 
 de suis f ratribus, ex genere nobili ... qui ipsos monachos secundum teno- 
 rem regulse gubernare et regere deberet."— Teouillat, op. cit., p. 52. 
 
 VOL. II. x
 
 322 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 in these days, doubtless because it gave the heads of the 
 community the prestige necessary to hold out, even in 
 material matters, against the usurpation and violence of 
 the nobles and great men whose possessions surrounded 
 the new monasteries. Bishop Ouen, therefore, bestowed 
 holy orders upon his old friend and companion, but without 
 being able to prevent him from again seeking monastic life. 
 He succeeded only in establishing Vandregisil in his own 
 diocese, thanks to the munificence of the minister Erchi- 
 noald, who gave up a great uncultivated estate not far 
 from the Seine to his kinsman, where the remains of an 
 ancient city, destroyed in the Frank invasion, were still to 
 be seen under the briars and thorns. 
 
 But the time of ruins was past : the hour of revival and 
 reconstruction had come. In that desert place, Vandregisil 
 built the abbey of Fontenelle, which was destined to occupy, 
 under its proper name of St. Vandrille, so important a place 
 in the ecclesiastical history of France and Normandy. The 
 holy queen Bathilde, her son King Clovis II., and many 
 noble Neustrians, added rich donations to that of Erchinoald, 
 whilst a great number of others came to share cenobitical 
 life under the authority of Vandregisil. He had to build 
 four churches, amid their cells, to make room for their 
 devotions. He was particularly zealous in imposing upon 
 them, along with the exercise of manual labour, the absolute 
 renunciation of all individual property, which was the thing 
 of all others most likely to clash with the inclinations of 
 the sons of soldiers and rich men. And, says the hagio- 
 grapher, it was admirable to see him instruct those who 
 heretofore had taken away the possessions of others, in the 
 art of sacrificing their own. Aided by their labours, he 
 planted on a neighbouring slope of good exposure the first 
 vineyard which Normandy had known. 1 
 
 1 " Ansbertus . . . hortatu viri Dei B. Wandregisili vineam plan tare et 
 excolere ccepit." — Vita S. Ansberti, c. i. We shall afterwards speak of this 
 Ansbert, also a monk at Fontenelle, after having been one of the principal
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 323 
 
 His task was not always without danger ; one day when 
 he was labouring with his pious legion, the keeper of the 
 royal forest, a portion of which had been given to Vandre- 
 gisil, furious to see his charge thus lessened, approached the 
 abbot to strike him with his lance ; but, as happened so 
 often, just as he was about to strike, his arm became para- 
 lysed, the weapon fell from his hands, and he remained as 
 if possessed, till the prayer of the saint whom he would 
 have slain restored his faculties. 1 The royal foresters were 
 naturally disposed to appropriate into personal estates the 
 forests committed to their care, and which the kings only 
 used occasionally for hunting. This was the cause of their 
 animosity, which we shall often have to refer to, against the 
 strangers endowed with such gifts who came to establish 
 themselves there. 
 
 Vandregisil, however, did not confine his activity to the 
 foundation and government of his abbey. Fontenelle was 
 situated in the country of Caux, that is, the land of the 
 Caletes, who had been distinguished by the energy of their re- 
 sistance to Csesar, and who had figured among the other tribes 
 of Belgian Gaul in the last struggle against the proconsul, 
 even after the fall of Alise and the heroic Vercingetorix. 2 
 The land of Caux was then Christian ouly in name ; the 
 inhabitants had fallen back into complete and brutal bar- 
 barism. The abbot of Fontenelle went throughout the 
 whole country, preached the Gospel everywhere, procured 
 the destruction of the idols whom the peasants persisted in 
 
 officials at the court of Dagobert. Wandregisil built a fifth church at the 
 top of this vineyard, dedicated to St. Saturnin, which was rebuilt about 
 1030, and is considered the most ancient edifice in the diocese of Rouen, 
 and one of the most curious in Normandy. 
 
 1 The chapel of Notre Dame de Caillouville, built upon the spot where 
 this incident happened, was still existing in the time of Mabillon. It was 
 demolished after the Revolution by a man named Lherondel. A fountain, 
 visited every year by many pilgrims, is still to be seen there. At the 
 bottom of the basin, cut in the stone, is a rude representation of St 
 Radegund. 
 
 2 Be Bello Galileo, book viii. c. 7. OROSIUS, lib. vi. c. 7 and 11.
 
 324 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 worshipping, and transformed the land to such an extent 
 that the country people never met a priest or monk without 
 throwing themselves at his feet as before an image of Christ. 1 
 Vandregisil, when he died, left three hundred monks in 
 his monastery, and a memory so popular that, four centuries 
 after his death, his name was still celebrated by a grateful 
 posterity in rhymes translated from the Latin into the 
 vulgar tongue. 2 In one of the chapels of that abbey which 
 attracted and charmed all travellers on the Seine from Eouen 
 to the sea, rude seats were shown which had been used by 
 the founder and his two most intimate friends, the Arch- 
 bishop Ouen, and Philibert, the founder of Jumieges, when 
 
 i " Illuc nobilium liberi undique concurrere . . . ita ut nobilium multi- 
 tudo virorum communia cum omnibus possideret omnia. ... Si quispiam 
 proprium aliquid usurpare tentaret ... a caeterorum remotus concilio . . . 
 plectebatur. . . . Sed et omnes Caletorum populi ita brutis ac belluis 
 similes ante adventum illius in hac regione fuerant, ut prater Christiana; 
 fidei nomen virtus religionis pene abolita in illis locis fuerat. . . . Ut qui 
 antea arripiebant aliena postea largirentur propria." — Vita Secunda, c. 
 15-22. 
 
 2 " Hie ille est Tetbaldus Vernonensis, qui multorum gesta sanctorum, 
 sed et S. Wandregisili a sua latinitate transtulit atque in communem 
 lingua* usum satis facunde retulit, ac sic ad quamdam tinnuli rhythmi 
 similitudinem urbanas ex illis ,cantilenas edidit." — Act. SS. O. S. B., saec. 
 iii. p. 1, p. 361. In Vita S. Yulfram. The abbey of Fontenelle, near Caude- 
 bec, took, like many others, the name of its founder, and was distin- 
 guished, during the eighth century, by a long line of saints. Up to 1790 
 it formed, with Jurnieges, one of the finest ornaments of the banks of the 
 Seine. Now nothing remains of the four churches built by Vandregisil, 
 the principal of which, the abbey church, was magnificently rebuilt in the 
 thirteenth century. In 1828 their ruins were still beautiful and admired : 
 since then the owner, M. Cyprien Lenoir, has destroyed them by sapping ; the 
 stones of the mullions and pillars have been used to pave the neighbouring 
 roads. An Englishman, more intelligent than the barbarous successors of 
 the contemporaries of Dagobert, bought considerable fragments of these 
 precious ruins, and conveyed them across the Channel to set them up in 
 his park. The monastery, rebuilt and reformed under Louis XIV. by the 
 Congregation of St. Maur, is still in existence, transformed into a spinning- 
 mill. The cloister, a monument of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, 
 is admired. See the Essai sur St. Vandrille, by M. Langlois, and the learned 
 and useful work, entitled Les Eglises dc V Arrondissement d'Yvctot, by M. 
 l'Abbe Cochet, 1854, t. i. pp. 49-73-
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 3 2 5 
 
 they came to Fontenelle, where these three converted nobles 
 met in long and pleasant conferences, in which their expec- 
 tations of heavenly joy, and terrors of divine judgment, were 
 mingled with a noble solicitude for the triumph of justice 
 and peace in the country of the Franks. 
 
 Nothing, or almost nothing, remains of the architectural 
 splendours of St. Vandrille ; but the ruined towers of Ju- 
 mieges still testify to the few travellers upon the Seine the 
 magnificence of another abbey, still more celebrated, which 
 was long the noblest ornament of that portion of Neu stria 
 to which the Normans have given their name, and which, 
 like Fontenelle, is connected by means of its founder, St. 
 Philibert, with the work and lineage of Columbanus. The 
 lives of these two founders show many analogies. Like 
 Wandregisil, the young Philibert was recommended by his 
 father to King Dagobert, and at twenty left the court and 
 military life for the cloister. Like him, and still more 
 directly than he, he was imbued with the spirit of Colum- 
 banus, having been a monk and abbot in the monastery of 
 Kebais, which had its immediate origin from Luxeuil, before 
 he went on pilgrimage to Luxeuil itself, to Bobbio, and the 
 other communities which followed the Irish rule. He also 
 had ties of friendship from his youth with St. Ouen, the 
 powerful Archbishop of Kouen, and it was in the same 
 diocese that he finally established himself, to build the great 
 abbey which, like Fontenelle, was endowed by the gifts of 
 Clovis II. and the holy queen Bathilde. 
 
 Philibert often visited his neighbour Wandregisil ; he 
 imitated him in working with his monks at the clearing of 
 the conceded lands, which became fields and meadows of 
 wonderful fertility, and like him he had to brave the ani- 
 
 1 " Monstrabantur . . . grabata et sedes ubi . . . considere soliti essent 
 . . . quorum oratio non alia erat quam . . . de paradisi deliciis et gehennaa 
 suppliciis . . . de justitia quoque . . . ac patrice salute . . . et pace omni- 
 bus prEedicanda."— Vita, c. 17. Another proof of the ignorance of those 
 modern authors who have assumed the word and idea of country to be 
 unknown in the middle ages.
 
 326 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 mosity of the royal foresters, who stole his work-horses. Like 
 Fontenelle, Jumieges was built upon the site of an ancient 
 Gallo-Eoraan castle, which was thus replaced by what con- 
 temporaries called " the noble castle of God." But situated 
 upon the same banks of the Seine, and on a peninsula 
 formed by the winding of the river, the abbey of Philibert 
 was more accessible by water, and soon became a great 
 centre of commerce. British and Irish sailors brought 
 materials for clothing and shoes to the Religious there in 
 exchange for their corn and cattle. Philibert required that, 
 in all these barters with neighbours or strangers, the bargain 
 should be more profitable to the purchasers than if they 
 were dealing with laymen. The monks had great success 
 in the fishing of some species of porpoise (cetacea) which 
 ascended the Seine, and which produced oil to lighten their 
 vigils. They also fitted out vessels in which they sailed to 
 great distances to redeem slaves and captives. 
 
 Doubtless a portion of these captives contributed to 
 increase the number of the monks of Jumieges, which rose 
 to nine hundred, without reckoning the fifteen hundred 
 servants who filled the office of lay-brothers. They were 
 under a rule composed by Philibert after attentive observa- 
 tion of numerous monasteries of France, Italy, and Burgundy, 
 which he had visited for that end. This was adopted by 
 most of the communities which were then formed in Neustria 
 in imitation of his, and of which Jumieges became the centre 
 where abbots and monks vied in seeking education or re- 
 vival. It combined the instructions of the fathers of the 
 desert, such as St. Basil and St. Macarius, with the precepts 
 of the two great monastic patriarchs of the West, Benedict 
 and Columbanus. But the influence of Columbanus natu- 
 rally predominated, in consequence of the early monastic 
 education of Philibert and his long residence at Luxeuil 
 and Bobbio. In the great church which he built for his 
 abbey, the magnificence of which, attested by a contem- 
 porary narrative, amazes us, he raised an altar in honour of
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 3 2 7 
 
 Columbanus, and of him alone among all the saints whose 
 rules he had studied and practised. 1 
 
 Philibert survived his friend, neighbour, and emulator, 
 Wandregisil, nearly twenty years. He was succeeded by 
 A'ichadre, a noble of Poitou, to whom belongs a legend 
 written two centuries later, but which must be repeated 
 here as a proof of the great numbers and angelical piety of 
 the monks of the great Neustrian abbey. According to 
 this tale, A'ichadre, who governed the nine hundred monks 
 of whom we have before spoken, feeling himself on the eve 
 of death, and fearing that after his death his monks might 
 fall into the snares of sin, prayed the Lord to provide against 
 it. The following night he saw an angel going round the 
 dormitory of the Keligious : this angel touched four hundred 
 and fifty of them with the rod he held, and promised the 
 abbot that in four days they should leave this life, and that 
 when his turn was come, they should all come to meet him 
 in heaven. The abbot, having acquainted his brethren, 
 prepared them for this happy journey. They took the 
 viaticum together, and afterwards held a chapter with those 
 of the community whom the angel had not marked. Each 
 of the elect placed himself between two of these last, and 
 all together chanted songs of triumph. The faces of those 
 who were to die soon began to shine, and, without giving 
 the least sign of pain, the four hundred and fifty passed 
 
 1 Vita S. Wandregisili, c. 17 ; Vita S. Philiberti, c. I, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 15. 
 20, 32. "Cum pro fratrum compendiis mandaret exerceri negotia, am- 
 plius dare jubebat quam dari a saecularibus consuetudo poscebat. Et 
 propter hoc gaudente vicino populo de labore justo sanctum exuberabat 
 commercium." — C. 21. "Intrans . . . reliqua coenobia sub norma S. 
 Columbani degentia, atque omnia monasteria . . . ut prudentissima apis 
 quidquid melioribus florere vidit studiis, hoc suis traxit exemplis. Basilii 
 sancta charismata, Macarii regulam, Benedicti decreta, Columbani insti- 
 tuta sanctissima lectione frequentabat assidua. . . . Multa monasteria 
 per ejus exemplum sunt constituta in Neustria. Confluebant ad eum 
 sacerdotes Dei . . . et de ejus Regula sua ornabant coenobia." — C. 5, 20. 
 Compare Vit. S. Aichadri, c. 21. Philibert founded, besides Jumieges, the 
 abbey of Noirmoutier, in an island on the coast of Poitou, and that of 
 Monti villers, for women, in the county of Caux.
 
 328 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 from this life to the other : the first hundred at the hour of 
 tierce, the second at sexte, the third at none, the fourth at 
 vespers, and the last at compline. Their obsequies were 
 celebrated for eight days ; and those who survived them 
 wept that they were not judged worthy to follow. 1 The 
 mind of the ages of faith was so formed that such narratives 
 increased the number of religious vocations, and contributed 
 to root the great monastic foundations deeply in the heart 
 of the nations. 
 
 Bishop Ouen, whose influence and help had endowed the 
 diocese of Rouen with the two powerful abbeys of Fonte- 
 nelle and Jumieges, was connected with Columbanus by a 
 recollection of his earliest years. The great Irish monk 
 was everywhere remarked by his love for children, and the 
 paternal kindness he showed them. During his exile and 
 journey from the court of the king of Neustria to that of 
 Austrasia, he paused in a chateau situated upon the Marne, 
 which belonged to a Frank noble, 2 the father of three sons 
 named Adon, Radon, and Dadon, two of whom were still 
 under age. Their mother led them to the holy exile that 
 he might bless them ; this benediction brought them happi- 
 ness and governed their life. The whole three were, in 
 
 1 " Occurrent tibi qui praecesserunt f ratres, cum psalmis suscipientes 
 te. . . . Quarto igitur die, post missam, absoluti omnes communicabant, 
 et osculantes se in pace, ibant cum patre ad domum capituli : et pras- 
 posuit singulis custodes psallentes. Et resplendebant facies morientium, 
 quasi resurgentium. Quidam moriebantur ad tertiam . . . et reliqui 
 circa completorium, qui omnes erant Christo incorporate . . . Eema- 
 nentes etiam flebant quia relinquebantur : f uit tamen luctus laetificans 
 propter spem gloriae." — Act. SS. Bolland., t. v. Septembr., p. 101. 
 " Ccepit jam beata plebs tanquam in hora diei tertia ad finem properare 
 dispositum, nullus parcens alteri, sed sicut senex ita et mediocris, et ut 
 juvenis ita et puerulus. . . . Occubuit autem medietas hujus sanctao 
 familias." — Mabillon, Acta SS. 0. B., saac. ii. t. ii. p. 930. According 
 to anotber version, the 445 monks designated died in three days. This 
 legend recalls that of St. Gwennole, founder of the abbey of Landevenec, 
 in Brittany, which has been versified by a Breton poet of our days, M. 
 Briseux, Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 Octobre 1857, p. 886. 
 
 2 He was named Autharis, and his castle Eussy.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 3 2 9 
 
 the first place, like all the young Frank nobility, sent to 
 the court of the king Clotaire II., and to that of his son 
 Dagobert, who for some time reigned alone over the three 
 Frank kingdoms. The eldest of the three brothers, Adon, 
 was the first to break with the grandeurs and pleasures of 
 secular life ; he founded upon the soil of his own patrimony, 
 and upon a height which overlooked the Marne, the monas- 
 tery of Jouarre, which he put under the rule of Columbanus, 
 and where he himself became a monk. Almost immediately 
 after there was formed by the side of this first foundation 
 another community of virgins, destined to become much 
 more illustrious, and associated, a thousand years later, with 
 the immortal memory of Bossuet. 
 
 Radon, the second of the brothers, who had become the 
 treasurer of Dagobert, imitated the elder, and consecrated 
 his portion of the paternal inheritance to the foundation of 
 another monastery, also upon the Marne, and which was 
 called after himself Reuil (Badolium). There now remained 
 only the third, Dadon, who afterwards took the name of 
 Ouen (Audoenus), and who, having become the dearest 
 among all the leudes of Dagobert and his principal con- 
 fidant, received from him the office of referendary, or keeper 
 of the seal by which, according to the custom of the Frank 
 kings, all the edicts and acts of public authority were sealed. 
 He, notwithstanding, followed the example of his brothers, 
 and the inspiration which the blessing of Columbanus had 
 left in their young hearts. 1 He sought among the forests 
 which then covered La Brie a suitable site for the founda- 
 tion which he desired to form and endow. He found it at 
 last near a torrent called Rebais, a little to the south of the 
 positions chosen by his brothers ; it was a glade which was 
 
 1 Jonas, Vita S. Columbani, c. 50. " Viri inclyti, optiniates aula?." — S. 
 Audoen, Vita S. Elirjii, i. c. 8. " Filii Mustris viri Autharii, ex pneclara 
 Francorum progenie. ... In proprio solo. ... In patrimonio proprio. 
 ... In quo etiam monastica secundum B. Columbani Instituta una cum 
 caterva . . . militavit. Vestans ejus annulum quo signabantur publice 
 totius regni potiora signa vel edicta." — Vita S. Agili, c. 14.
 
 330 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 revealed to him for three successive nights by a resplendent 
 cloud in the form of a cross. He built a monastery there 
 which has retained the name of the torrent, although Ouen 
 had at first given it that of Jerusalem, as a symbol of the 
 fraternal peace and contemplative life which he had intended 
 should reign there. 1 He also desired, like his brothers, to 
 end his life in that retreat ; but neither the king nor the 
 other leudes would consent to it, and he had to remain for 
 some time longer at the Merovingian court, until he was 
 elected bishop (at the same time as his friend Eloysius) by 
 the unanimous consent of the clergy and people. 
 
 He exercised a sort of sovereignty at once spiritual and 
 temporal throughout the whole province of Rouen ; for he 
 had obtained from the king of Neustria a privilege by the 
 terms of which neither bishop, abbot, count, nor any other 
 judge could be established there without his consent. 2 
 During the forty-three years of his rule, he changed the 
 whole aspect of his diocese, covering it with monastic 
 foundations, one of which, situated at Rouen itself, has 
 retained his name, consecrated to art and history by that 
 wonderful basilica which is still the most popular monu- 
 ment of Normandy. 
 
 But Ouen had not left his beloved foundation of Rebais 
 without a head worthy of presiding over its future progress. 
 
 1 " Desiderans illic haberi collegium pacis et unanimse fraternitatis con- 
 templationem. . . . Cum Rex et cuncti proceres Francorum illi nollent 
 adquiescere." — Vita S. Agili, c. 18, 19. Any ancient map of Champagne 
 will show that the three monasteries of Jouarre, Reuil (reduced to the 
 rank of a priory under Cluny), and Rebais formed a sort of triangle be- 
 tween the Marne and the Morin. M. de Chaumont has recently found in 
 the subterranean church of Jouarre, which still exists, the inscription 
 already published by Mabillon in honour of the first abbess of that cele- 
 brated community : " Hie membra post ultima teguntur | fata sepulcro 
 beatse | Theodiecheldis intemerata? virginis genere nobilis meritis fulgens 
 I strenua moribus flagrans in dogmate almo | Cenobii hujus mater sacratas 
 Deo virgines | sumentes oleum cum lampadibus prudentes invitat | sponso 
 filias occurrere X°. Exultat Paradisi in gloria." — Bulletin Monumental, t. 
 ix. p. 186. 
 
 2 Lecointe, Ann. Eccles. ad ann. 681 ; H. Martin, ii. 163.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 33 1 
 
 He desired to choose a ruler imbued with the spirit of that 
 great saint whose memory remained always so dear to him. 1 
 He brought from Luxeuil the monk who seemed to him the 
 best personification of the institute of Columbanus. It was 
 Agilus, the son of that noble who had obtained the gift of 
 Luxeuil for the Irish missionary from the Burgundian king. 
 Like Ouen and his brothers, Agilus had been brought as a 
 child to receive the blessing of Columbanus in his father's 
 house, and was afterwards entrusted to the saint to be 
 educated in the monastery, where he had adopted monastic 
 life, and gained the affection and confidence of the whole 
 community. 2 Associated with the mission of the successor 
 of Columbanus among the pagan Warasques and Bava- 
 rians, his fame was great in all the countries under Frank 
 dominion, and wherever he had been, at Metz, at Langres, 
 and Besanpon, he had excited universal admiration by his 
 eloquence and the miraculous cures which were owing to 
 his prayers. All these cities desired him for their bishop ; 
 but the monks of Luxeuil, above all, saw in him their future 
 abbot. To bring him forth from that cloister which was 
 his true mother-country, a written order of Dagobert was 
 necessary, who made him first go to Compiegne, where he 
 received him pompously in the midst of his court, and be- 
 stowed on him, with the consent of the bishops and leudes 
 assembled at the palace, the government of the new abbey. 
 Twelve monks from Luxeuil entered with him, and were 
 soon joined by a great number of nobles, from the royal 
 retinue and the surrounding country, to such an extent that 
 Agilus had as many as eighty disciples, among whom was 
 the young Philibert, who was to bear the traditions of 
 Columbanus from Eebais to Jumieges. All devoted them- 
 selves to the labours of cultivation and the duties of 
 
 1 "Qui S. Columbarium prsestantissime dilexerat." — Vita S. Agili, c. 24. 
 
 2 See page 263 for an account of the father of Agilus, and the mission 
 with which he was charged to King Thierry, after the first expulsion of 
 Columbanus.
 
 332 ST. COLDMBANUS 
 
 hospitality with that zeal which made the new monasteries so 
 many agricultural colonies and assured shelters for travellers 
 in these vast provinces of Gaul, which were thus finally 
 raised from the double ruin into which Roman oppression 
 and Barbarian invasion had thrown them. 
 
 The Irish who then flocked into Gaul on the steps of 
 Columbanus, and who traversed it to carry the tribute of 
 their ardent devotion to Rome, willingly halted at the door 
 of the monastery where they were sure of meeting a pupil 
 or admirer of their great countryman ; and Agilus refreshed 
 them plentifully with the good wine of the banks of Marne, 
 till he sometimes almost exhausted the provisions of the 
 monastery. But a pleasant narrative shows us his watchful 
 charity in a still more attractive light. It was evening, a 
 winter evening ; the abbot, after having passed the day in 
 receiving guests of an elevated rank, was going over the 
 various offices of the monastery ; when he reached the xcnoclo- 
 chium, that is, the almonry or hospice, specially destined for 
 the reception of the poor, he heard outside a feeble and 
 plaintive voice, as of a man who wept. Through the wicket 
 of the door, and by the half light, he saw a poor man, 
 covered with sores, lying upon the ground and asking 
 admittance. Turning immediately to the monk who ac- 
 companied him, he cried, " See how we have neglected our 
 first duty for these other cares. Make haste and have some- 
 thing prepared for him to eat." Then, as he had with him all 
 the keys of the house, which the porter took to him every 
 evening after the stroke of compline, he opened the postern 
 of the great door. " Come, my brother," he said, " we will 
 do all for thee that thou needest." The sufferings of the leper 
 prevented him from walking, and the abbot himself carried 
 him in upon his shoulders and placed him upon a seat by the 
 side of the fire. Then he hastened to seek water and linen 
 to wash his hands ; but when he returned the poor man had 
 disappeared, leaving behind him a delicious perfume which 
 filled the whole house, as if all the spices of the East
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 333 
 
 or all the flowers of spring had distilled their odours 
 there. 1 
 
 These sweet expansions of charity were allied, under the 
 influence of the Rule of Columbanus, to the most mascu- 
 line virtues, among the women as well as among the men. 
 During that same journey from Neustria to Austrasia, the 
 illustrious exile, before he reached the house of the father of 
 St. Ouen, had visited another family connected with theirs, 
 which dwelt near Meaux, and the head of which was a 
 powerful noble called Agneric, whose son Cagnoald had been 
 a monk at Luxeuil from his childhood, and had accompanied 
 the holy abbot in his exile. Agneric was invested with that 
 dignity which has been translated by the title of companion 
 of the Icing ; and this king was Theodebert, to whose court 
 Columbanus was bound. He received the glorious outlaw 
 with transports of joy, and desired to be his guide for the 
 rest of the journey. But, before leaving, he begged Colum- 
 banus to bless all his house, and presented to him on that 
 occasion his little daughter, who is known to us only under 
 the name of Burgundofara, which indicates at once the 
 exalted birth and Burgundian origin of her family, 2 as it 
 
 1 " Per edictum Regis. . . . Fultus nitore proceruin. . . . Per consultum 
 Episcoporum et nostroruni optimatum. . . . Multi ex primoribus palatii 
 atque proceribus patriae . . . peroptabant sub illius regimine monaehicam 
 ducere vitam. . . . Veniens plebs ex Hibernia . . . ob B. Agili famam 
 laudabilem quern isdem Columbanus . . . nutriverat. . . . Vini copiam 
 ... in magno vase imperat abbas totum fratribus ac plebi propinari. . . . 
 Audivit . . . velut plangentis hominis exilem vocem. . . . Erat enim adhuc 
 quiddam diei. . . . Aperta fenestra quae portae inhaerebat. . . . Ecce quo- 
 modo . . . tanta negleximus : perge velocius et para ei refectionem. . . . 
 Veni, f rater. . . . Hiems quippe erat. . . . Tanta fragrantia j ocundi odoris 
 domum replevit, velut si. . . ."—Vita S. Agili auctore subcequali, c. 17, 20, 
 23, 24, ap. Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. ii. p. 308. 
 
 2 " Burgundiae Farones vero, tarn episcopi quam casteri leudes." — Fre- 
 degaire, c. 41, ap. D. Bouquet, ii. 429. In chapter 44 he makes it a 
 single word, Burgundcefarones, speaking of the Burgundian nobles met 
 at the Council of Bonneuil. Faron comes, according to Dom Bouquet, 
 from the word fara, which means generation or line, in La Loi tics Lombards, 
 v. iii. tit. xiv. Compare Paul the Deacon, lib. ii. c. 9. From this evidently
 
 334 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 were, the noble baroness of Burgundy. The saint gave her 
 his blessing, but at the same time dedicated her to the 
 Lord. History says nothing about the consent of her 
 parents, but the noble young girl herself, when she had 
 reached a marriageable age, considered herself bound by that 
 engagement, and resolutely opposed the marriage which her 
 brother wished her to contract. She became ill, and was at 
 the point of death. In the meantime the abbot Eustace, 
 the successor of Columbanus at Luxeuil, returning from 
 Italy to give an account to Clotaire II. of the mission to 
 his spiritual father with which the king had charged him, 
 passed by the villa of Agneric. At sight of the dying girl, 
 he reproached her father with having violated the engage- 
 ment taken towards God by the saint whose blessing he 
 had asked. Agneric promised to leave his daughter to God 
 if she recovered. Eustace procured that recovery. But 
 scarcely had he departed for Soissons, when the father, un- 
 faithful to his promise, attempted again to constrain his 
 daughter to a marriage which she resisted. She then 
 escaped and took refuge in the Cathedral of St. Peter. Her 
 father's retainers followed her there, with orders to bring 
 her away from the sanctuary, and threaten her with death. 
 " Do you believe, then," she said to them, " that I fear 
 death ? make the trial upon the pavement of this church. 
 Ah ! how happy should I be to give my life in so just a 
 cause to Him who has given His life for me ! " 1 She held 
 
 proceeds the word baron, so long used to designate the leaders of the aris- 
 tocracy in all the countries occupied by the Germanic tribes. 
 
 1 " Vir nobilis Hagnericus, Theodeberti conviva . . . et consiliis ejus 
 grata. . . . Qua? infra infantiles annos benedicens earn Domino vovit." — 
 Jonas, Vita S. Columbani, c. 50. " Accedens ad stratum puellse, sciscitatur 
 si sua? f uerit adsentationis quod contra B. Columbarji interdictum post vota 
 ccelestia rursus iteravit terrena. . . . Mortem me formidare putatis ? In 
 hoc ecclesise pavimento probate. . . . Quem (Agrestinum) Christi virgo 
 non femineo more, sed virili confodit responsione." — Ibid., Vita S. Eustasii, 
 c. 1, 2, 14. The same Jonas wrote, during the lifetime of the abbess Bur- 
 gundofara, a series of anecdotes regarding the various nuns of the monastery, 
 which throws great light upon the internal government of a great abbey of
 
 ST. COLTJMBANUS 335 
 
 out until the return of abbot Eustace, who finally delivered 
 her from her father, and obtained from him a grant of land 
 on which Burgundofara might found the monastery of Fare- 
 moutier, which was called by her name. Her example 
 drew as many followers, among the wives and daughters of 
 the Frank nobility, as her cousins had gained of their own 
 sex, for their monasteries of Kebais and Jouarre. This 
 corner of La Brie became thus a sort of monastic province 
 dependent upon Luxeuil. Burgundofara lived there forty 
 years, faithfully observing the Eule of St. Columbanus, and 
 maintaining it manfully against the perfidious suggestions 
 of the false brother Agrestin, who attempted to engage 
 her in his revolt against Eustace and the traditions of their 
 common master. " I will have none of thy novelties," she 
 said to him ; " and as for those whose detractor thou art, I 
 know them, I know their virtues, I have received the 
 doctrine of salvation from them, and I know that their in- 
 structions have opened the gates of heaven to many. Leave 
 me quickly, and give up thy foolish thoughts." 
 
 The eldest brother of Burgundofara, Cagnoald, was, as has 
 been said, a monk at Luxeuil, and the faithful companion 
 of Columbanus during his mission among the Alamans : 
 he afterwards became Bishop of Laon. His other brother, 
 who, like his sister, has only retained for posterity the name 
 of his rank — that of Faron, or Baron — was also a bishop at 
 Meaux, the centre of the family domains. But before he 
 adopted the ecclesiastical condition, he had distinguished 
 himself in war, and taken a notable part in the victorious 
 campaign of Clotaire II. against the Saxons. It is known 
 how, according to the ordinarily received tradition, Clotaire 
 disgraced his victory by massacring all his Saxon prisoners 
 who were higher in stature than his sword. All that Faron 
 
 women in the seventh century. (ACT. SS. O. S. B., v. ii. p. 420.) He care- 
 fully records the origin of all these nuns ; among them we find one Saxon, 
 probably come from England, which had then become Christian, or perhaps 
 one of the prisoners of Clotaire.
 
 33<5 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 could do was to save from the cruelty of his king the Saxon 
 envoys, charged with an insolent mission to the king of the 
 Franks, whom Clotaire had ordered to be put to death. 
 Faron had them baptized, and said to the king, "These 
 are no longer Saxons ; they are Christians ; " upon which 
 Clotaire spared them. If one of his successors upon the see 
 of Meaux, who two centuries later wrote his biography, may 
 be believed, the glory of Faron eclipsed that of Clotaire him- 
 self in the popular songs which peasants and women vied 
 in repeating, as happened to David in the time of Saul. 1 
 The generous Faron had again, according to the same author, 
 to struggle with Clotaire on an occasion which should have 
 left a lasting recollection in the grateful hearts of the poor. 
 One day, when the " knight of God " accompanied the king 
 to the chase, a poor woman came out of the wood, and pur- 
 sued the king with her complaints, explaining her great 
 distress to him. Clotaire, annoyed, went off at a gallop. 
 Faron, while escorting him, held a language in which we 
 shall see the noble freedom of German manners employed 
 in the service of charity and truth. " It is not for herself 
 that this poor woman entreats you, but for you. Her 
 wretchedness weighs heavily on her ; but the responsibility 
 of the royalty, which is entrusted to you, weighs still more 
 
 1 "Ex qua victoria carmen publicum juxta rusticitatem per omnium 
 pene volitabat ora ita canentium, feminrcque choros inde plaudendo com- 
 ponebant : 
 
 ' De Clotbario est canere Rege Francorum, 
 Qui ivit pugnare in gentem Saxonum, 
 Quam graviter provenisset missis Saxonum, 
 Si non fuisset inclytus Faro de gente Burgundionum.' 
 
 " Et in fine hujus carminis : 
 
 ' Quando veniunt Missi Saxonum in terram Francorum, 
 Faro ubi erat princeps, 
 
 Instinctu Dei transeunt per urbem Meldorum, 
 Ne interficiantur a Rege Francorum.' " 
 
 — Hildegaeii Meld. EPISCOP., Vita S. Faronis, c. 72-78. Compare 
 Rettberg, t. ii. p. 394.
 
 ST. COLUMBANTJS 337 
 
 heavily on you. She trusts her concerns to you, as you 
 trust yours to God. She asks little of you compared to what 
 you ask every day of God. How can you expect that He 
 will listen to you, when you turn away your ear from this poor 
 creature whom He has committed to your keeping ? " The 
 king answered : " I am pursued by such cries every day, 
 and in all quarters ; my ears are deafened by them ; I am 
 disgusted and worn out." Upon which he plunged into the 
 wood and sounded his horn with all his might, to encourage 
 the dosrs. But some minutes after his horse stumbled, and 
 the king hurt his foot seriously. Then he perceived that he 
 had been wrong. The leude who spoke to him with so much 
 Christian boldness was well qualified to be a bishop. He 
 shortly after gave up his wife l and the world, and becoming 
 Bishop of Meaux, devoted his patrimony to found monas- 
 teries for the reception of those Anglo-Saxons who, recently 
 converted, began to appear among the Franks, and whose 
 daughters came in great numbers to take the veil at Fare- 
 moutier. He did the same for the Scots and Irish, for 
 whom he had a particular regard, and in whom he doubt- 
 less honoured, by a domestic tradition, the memory of their 
 compatriot Columbanus. 
 
 To any who desire to study more closely the double action 
 of the Irish emigrants and the colonies of Luxeuil in that 
 portion of Frankish Gaul which has since been called l'He 
 de France and Champagne, St. Fiacre, whom we have already 
 
 1 See above, page 302, in the note upon the tonsure, the curious anecdote 
 of this woman and her hair. 
 
 2 " Miles Christi cum eo equitans. . . . Non haec paupercula tristi 
 dolore clamat pro se, sed pro te. Quamvis ilia angustetur lacrymabili 
 corde, tibi angustandum est potius pro commisso regimine. Ilia in te 
 spem ponit humili prece pro se, et tu de propriis in Deo pro te. . . . 
 Quomodo enim Maximus . . . quando sua? tibi commissi paupercula? nee 
 etiam curas attendre. ... Ad hajc rex : Omnium dierum accessus et sub- 
 recessus tali meas sollicitant aures nausea frequenter diverberatas, et ad 
 hsec curandum continue animus sopitur lassatus. Tunc cornu curvo plenis 
 buccis anheliter latratus canum acuit."— HILDEGAEIUS, c. 81, 82, ap. ACT 
 SS. 0. S. B., t. ii. p. 591. 
 
 VOL. II. Y
 
 338 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 seen occupied in transforming the wooded glades given him 
 by the Bishop of Meaux into gardens, and cultivating there 
 for the poor those vegetables which have procured for him, 
 down to our own day, the title of patron of the gardeners, 1 
 should be pointed out as one of the Hibernians received 
 by St. Faron. Not far from him would be found another 
 Irishman, St. Fursy, who came to seek repose, as first abbot 
 of Lagny-sur-Marne, from the fatigues of a life worn out by 
 preaching, as well as troubled by that famous vision of 
 heaven and hell, which appears with justice among the 
 numerous legends of the middle ages which were forerunners 
 of the Divina Commedia, 2 and from which he emerged with 
 the special mission of denouncing, as the principal causes of 
 the loss of souls, the negligence of pastors, and the bad ex- 
 ample of princes. 3 Moutier-la-Celle, at the gates of Troyes, 
 built upon a marshy island, more suitable for reptiles than 
 men, by the abbot Frobert, who was so simple and childish as 
 to rouse the derision of his brethren at Luxeuil, but who was 
 intelligent and generous enough to consecrate all his rich 
 patrimony to found the sanctuary built near his native town, 
 should also be visited. 4 Farther off, to the east, we should 
 see Hautvilliers 5 and Montier-en-Der, both sprung from the 
 unwearied activity and fervent charity of Berchaire, an Aqui- 
 tain noble, trained to monastic life under Walbert at Luxeuil, 
 from whence he issued to become the fellow-labourer of the 
 metropolitan of Rheims, and to gain for his works the 
 generous and permanent assistance of the kings and all the 
 high nobility of Austrasia. He died, assassinated by a monk 
 
 1 See page 231. 
 
 2 OzANAM, Des Sources P06tiqv.es de la Divine Come'dic, 1845, p. 46. 
 
 3 " Per negligentiam Doctorum, per mala exempla pravorum principum." 
 —Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. ii. p. 291. 
 
 4 One of the brethren having sent him for compasses, which were re- 
 quired for writing, he was sent back with a millstone on his shoulders, 
 taking advantage of the double meaning of the word, circinus, which, in 
 monk Latin, meant at once compass and millstone. — Vita S. Frodob., c. 7. 
 
 5 See p. 221, the legend of the foundation of Hautvilliers.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 339 
 
 who was his godson, and whose insubordination he had 
 repressed. 1 
 
 Finally, upon the mountain which overlooks the episcopal 
 city of Laon, celebrated for having up to that time resisted 
 all the Barbarians who had successively besieged it, we should 
 see the vast monastery erected by an illustrious widow, St. 
 Salaberga, whose father was lord of the villa of Meuse, situ- 
 ated near the source of the river which bears that name, and 
 very near Luxeuil. While still young, but blind, she had 
 owed the recovery of her sight to Eustace, the first suc- 
 cessor of Columbanus at Luxeuil. She was married the first 
 time because of her extreme beauty, but, becoming a widow 
 almost immediately, and desirous of becoming a nun, was 
 obliged to marry again to escape the jealous intervention of 
 Dagobert, who, like all the Merovingian kings, was as slow 
 to consent to the monastic vocation of the daughters and 
 heiresses of his leudes as to that of their sons, and who in- 
 sisted upon their speedy marriage to nobles of the same rank. 
 But, at a later period, owing to the influence of Walbert, the 
 successor of Eustace, she was enabled, at the same time as 
 her husband, to embrace monastic life, and for ten years 
 ruled the three hundred handmaids of Christ who collected 
 under her wing, most of whom came like herself from the 
 noble race of the Sicambrians, as the hagiographers of the 
 seventh century delight to prove, in speaking of the male 
 and female saints whose lives they relate. 2 
 
 1 " Tanquam athleta recentissimus militise gymnasium ccelestis. . . . 
 Corporis quietis impatiens. . . . Regibus . . . ac regies dignitatis proceri- 
 bus tam gratum acceptabilemque. . . . Palatii optimatis ita in cunctis 
 affabilis. . . . Tam ea quae sui juris . . . quam qua? ab ipsis Francorum 
 primoribus obtineri poterant." — AdSON, Vita S. Bercharii, c. 7, II, 12, 13. 
 This life, written by one of St. Berchaire's successors at Montier-en-Der, 
 is one of the most interesting works in the great collection of Acta brought 
 together by D'Achery and Mabillon, although it has not the weight of a 
 contemporary production. An excellent work, entitled Lcs Moines du Der, 
 by M. l'Abbe" Bouillevaux, has been written upon this abbey. The abbatial 
 church, which is still existing, is one of the finest monastic churches in 
 France. 
 
 i "Erat enim decora venustaque vultu. . . . Metuens ne ob filiam iram
 
 340 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 It would, however, be a grave error to believe that the 
 nobility alone were called, among the Franks and Gallo- 
 Komans, to fill up the monastic ranks, and preside over the 
 new foundations which distinguished every year of the Mero- 
 vingian period. Luxeuil and its colonies furnished more than 
 one proof to the contrary. A little shepherd of Auvergne, 
 named Walaric, which has been softened into Valery, roused 
 by the example of the noble children of the neighbourhood 
 who went to schools, asked one of their teachers to make him 
 out an alphabet, and found means, as he kept his father's 
 sheep, to learn not only his letters, but the entire Psalter. 
 From thence to the cloister the transition was easy. But 
 after having lived in two different monasteries, he felt him- 
 self drawn towards the great abbey from which the fame of 
 Columbanus shone over all Gaul. He was received there, 
 and entrusted with the care of the novices' garden. He suc- 
 ceeded so well in driving away the insects and worms, his 
 vegetables were so wholesome and well-flavoured, his flowers 
 so fresh and sweet, that Columbanus saw in this a mark of 
 divine favour ; and as the fervent gardener carried every- 
 where with him the perfume of these flowers, which followed 
 him even into the hall where the abbot explained the Scrip- 
 tures, Columbanus, delighted, said to him one day, " It is 
 thou, my well-beloved, who art the true abbot and lord of 
 this monastery." After the exile of the great Celt, Valery 
 aided the new abbot Eustace to defend, by means of persua- 
 sion, the patrimony and buildings of the monastery against 
 the invasions of the neighbouring population. But soon the 
 missionary fever seized him. He obtained permission from 
 Eustace to go and preach, following the example of their spiri- 
 tual master, among the nations where idolatry still struggled 
 with Christianity. He directed his steps to the environs of 
 
 regis sajvitiamque incurreret. . . . Jam enim opinio ejus ad aures regias 
 pervenerat. . . . Ipse ex Sicambrorum prosapia spectabili ortus. . . . Inter 
 cseteras nobilium Sicambrorum feminas."— VitaS. Salaberyce, auctore cocevo, 
 c. 6, 9, 17-
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 341 
 
 Amiens, upon the shores of the Britannic sea, in that portion 
 of Neustria where the Salian Franks had chiefly established 
 themselves. Guided by zeal and charity, he penetrated every- 
 where, even to the mdls, or judicial assizes, held, according 
 to the custom of the Germans, by the count of the district. 
 According to the unfailing habit of the monks and abbots 
 of that time, he appeared there to endeavour to save the 
 unfortunate, who were condemned, from execution. The 
 king of Neustria, Clotaire II., always favourable to those 
 who came from Luxeuil, permitted him to establish himself 
 at Leuconaiis, a place situated at the mouth of the Somme, 
 where the high cliffs, bathed by the sea, seemed to the monks 
 collected around him to be immense edifices, whose summits 
 reached the sky. He made it a sort of maritime Luxeuil. 
 He went out unceasingly to sow his missionary discourses, 
 which exposed him to a thousand insults and dangers. Some- 
 times the idolaters, seeing the fall of their sacred oaks, threw 
 themselves upon him with their axes and sticks, then stopped, 
 disarmed by his calm intrepidity ! Sometimes even the 
 judges and priests of the country made him pay for their 
 hospitality by rude and obscene jokes. To escape from their 
 impure talk, he had to leave their roof and fireside. " I 
 wished to warm my frame a little by your fire, because of 
 the great cold," he said ; " but your odious conversation forces 
 me, still frozen, out of your house." He was, however, of 
 extreme gentleness, and softened the observance of the rule, 
 so far as concerned penances, with an indulgence which 
 scarcely consisted with Celtic tradition. But his unpopu- 
 larity lasted even after his death among a portion of the 
 people whom he had undertaken to convert, as is proved 
 by a little dialogue recorded by his historian. On the spot 
 where he had cut down a tree venerated by the idolaters, at 
 Aoust or Ault, upon the road to Eu, the Christian peasants 
 raised an oratory consecrated to his memory ; but the women 
 of the old Frank races, passing before that modest sanctuary, 
 still testified their repugnance and scorn for the monastic
 
 34 2 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 apostle. " Dear mother," said a daughter to her mother, 
 " would these people have us to venerate the man whom we 
 used to see going about the country mounted on an ass, and 
 miserably clad ? " " Yes," answered the mother ; " it is so ; 
 these peasants erect a temple in honour of him who did 
 among us only vile and contemptible things." 
 
 The memory of Valery, thus scorned by his contempo- 
 raries, was nevertheless to grow more and more brilliant 
 during the course of ages ; and we shall see him on two 
 solemn occasions receive the homage of the great princes 
 who have founded the two greatest monarchies of Christen- 
 dom, Hugh Capet and William the Conqueror. 1 
 
 The inhabitants of Ponthieu (a name which from that 
 period was borne by the country bordering the Somme, where 
 Valery had established himself) seem to have had a decided 
 
 1 " Oviculas patris sui per pascua circumagens. . . . Depoposcit ut sibi 
 alphabetum scriberet. . . . Cuncta virentia, jocunda, amoena atque intacta 
 conspiciens. . . . Odorem magnas fragrantia? et mirandae suavitatis. . . . 
 Ta es merito abbas monasterii et senior, mihi, diligende. . . . Ubi quidam 
 comes . . . juxta morem saeculi concioni prasidebat, quod rustici mallum 
 vocant. . . . Volui propter rigorem frigoris . . . immo nunc exire non cale- 
 factus a vobis compellor. . . . Pars quae super scopulos et ingentia saxa ab 
 imis ad summa erigitur, aularum vel asdium fabricam in excelsa aeris fas- 
 tigia . . . mundo vel vicinas regioni praebet spectaculum. . . . Ilia qua? 
 ex his prior esse videbatur contemnens. . . . Filia cum indignatione. . . . 
 Dulcissima genitrix, numquid illo in loco habitatores venerari conantur 
 ilium quern ante hos annos asello insidentem despicabili habitu cerne- 
 bamus ? Huic vero, ut ais, filia, rustici volunt fieri memoriam cujus opera 
 apud nos vilia et contemptu digna videbantur." — Vita S. Walarici, c. i, 7, 
 8, 11, 13, 28. The abbey of Leuconaiis became the town of St. Valery-sur- 
 Somme, one of the most prosperous ports of the Channel during the middle 
 ages. This town is situated upon a height, forming a sort of island or 
 promontory between the Somme and the sea. Defended on all sides by 
 abrupt rocks, this isle had to be fortified to the south by an intrenchment, 
 the remains of which are still visible, and which form a boulevard covered 
 with grass, called the Chemin Vert. Tradition asserts this to have been 
 the habitual walk of the abbot Valery, and that it was his footsteps which 
 formed the path. — LEFILS, Histoire de St. Valery et du Compte de Vimeu, 
 Abbeville, 1858, p. 6. St. Valery- en -Caux, now the chief town of the dis- 
 trict of Seine Inferieure, owes its origin to the removal, by Richard Cceur- 
 de-Lion, in 1197, of the relics of the holy founder of Leuconaiis.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 343 
 
 objection to monks of the Irish school. Two of the first 
 companions of Columbanus, arriving from Ireland along 
 with him, and coming to preach in these regions, were 
 overwhelmed with insults and ill usage. At the moment 
 when they were about to be violently expelled from the 
 place, a noble named Riquier came to their assistance, and 
 received them into his house. In return for his hospitality 
 they inspired him with love for all the Christian virtues, 
 and even for monastic life ; and that conquest indemnified 
 them for their rebuff. Eiquier became a priest and a monk, 
 and himself began to preach to the populations who had 
 given so bad a reception to his Irish guests. He succeeded 
 beyond all his expectations, and made himself heard not 
 only by the poor, whose miseries he consoled, but also by 
 the rich and powerful, whose excesses he censured severely. 
 The greatest nobles of the country were favourable to him, 
 including even the keepers of the royal forests, whose col- 
 leagues showed so much hostility to the monastic apostles 
 on the banks of the Seine. 1 The success of his eloquence 
 was also a triumph for charity ; he devoted the numerous 
 alms which were brought him to redeem captives, to re- 
 lieve the lepers and other unfortunates who were attacked 
 by contagious and disgusting diseases. After having ex- 
 tended his apostolic labours as far as the Britannic Isles, he 
 returned to found in his own domains at Centule, north of 
 the Somme, a monastery which was afterwards to take his 
 own name, and become one of the most considerable monas- 
 teries of the Carlovingian period. In the meantime Dago- 
 bert, who had succeeded his father Clotaire II. in Neustria, 
 went to visit him in his retreat, and invited him to come 
 and take a place at his own table, among those companions 
 of the king who formed, as is well known, the highest 
 aristocracy among the Franks. Riquier accepted without 
 hesitation ; he took advantage of these occasions to tell the 
 king the same truth which the other Franks had received so 
 
 1 See page 327.
 
 344 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 well at bis hands. He reproved him with priestly freedom 
 and authority, exhorted him not to pride himself on his 
 honour or wealth, and to discourage the adulation of his cour- 
 tiers ; and asked him how he expected to stand at the day 
 of judgment to answer for the many thousands of men who 
 were entrusted to him, he who would have difficulty enough 
 in rendering an account for his own soul ? The young 
 Dagobert received his instructions so well that he made the 
 abbot Riquier a special donation for the purpose of keeping 
 up the lights of his church, in memory of that invisible 
 light of Christian truth with which the voice of the monk 
 had enlightened his soul. 1 Despite their incessantly re- 
 newed cruelties and unchristian manners, all the Merovin- 
 gian kings at least listened to the truth, and even honoured 
 those who did them the honour of speaking it to them 
 boldly. 
 
 At no great distance from Ponthieu, and still in the 
 
 i " A rusticis et popularibus illius loci . . . injuriis afflict os et opprobriis 
 castigatos. . . . Durus in vector potent ibus . . . istorum superbiam severa 
 castigatione reprimens. . . . Gislemarus, vir illustris. . . . Maurontus, 
 habilis vir, et terrarum vel silvarum ad regem pertinentium servator. . . . 
 Nee leprosos vel elephantiacos exhorruit. . . . Sacerdotali auctoritate 
 libera voce castigavit ; denuntians ei ne in sseculari superbiret potentia 
 . . . ne vanis adulantium extolleretur rumoribus . . . et hoc magis 
 timendo cogitaret, quia potentes potenter tormenta patiuntur . . . et qui 
 vix sufficit pro se solo rationem reddere pro tantis millibus populi sibi 
 commissi . . . qua castigatione rex ut fuit sapiens benigne suscepta, con- 
 gaudensque ejus libera veritatis fiducia." — Alcuin., Vita S. Richwrii, c. 2, 
 5, io, II, 12. Compare Chronie^Centulense in Spicilegio, vol. ii. p. 295, and 
 Mabillon, Ann. Benedict., book ii. c. 60. A passage of Alcuin seems little 
 in harmony with what is said in the Chronicle of Centule and by the abbot 
 Ingelram, in his Vie Metrique, in the eleventh century, concerning the 
 illustrious birth of Riquier, but indicates, on the contrary, that he was, 
 like Valery, of rustic origin : " Non tarn nobilibus juxta saeculi parentibus 
 ortus quam moribus honestus . . . ita ut in rustica vita quredarn pnesaga 
 futura sanctitatis gereret," c. 1. But this statement is contradicted by 
 other details, reported by Alcuin himself. Centule, under the name of St. 
 Riquier, now a little town of the Somme, has preserved its magnificent 
 abbey church. Abbeville, the ancient capital of Ponthieu (Abbatis-viila), 
 was a small holding of the abbey of Centule.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 345 
 
 country occupied by the Salian Franks, but higher up to- 
 wards the north, upon the confines of the two Gaulish tribes 
 of the Atrebates and Morins, we find another Luxeuil colony, 
 reserved for a more brilliant destiny than any of those we 
 have yet mentioned. Audomar, since called Omer, was the 
 son of a noble from the neighbourhood of Constance, a city 
 of Alamannia, which was subject, as has been already said, 
 to the Austrasian royalty. Perhaps, in passing through this 
 country, Columbanus had already instructed and won him : 
 history gives us no information on this point, but proves 
 that a little after the sojourn of the Irish apostle upon the 
 banks of the Lake of Constance, the young Omer presented 
 himself at Luxeuil, bringing his father with him, a very rare 
 junction in monastic annals. Abbot Eustace admitted both 
 among the number of his monks. The father remained 
 there until the end of his life ; the son left Luxeuil twenty 
 years after to become Bishop of Therouanne ; he had been 
 suggested to the choice of Dagobert and the Frank nobles 
 by the Bishop of Laon, himself formerly a monk of Luxeuil. 
 The country of the Morins, of which Therouanne was the 
 capital, had been in vain evangelised by martyrs, from the 
 first introduction of the faith into Gaul : it had fallen back 
 into idolatry ; the few Christians who had been trained there, 
 since the conquest and conversion of Clovis, were bowed 
 down with coarse superstitions. The new bishop perceived 
 that he needed assistance to accomplish such a task. Some 
 years after his consecration, he begged abbot Walbert of Lux- 
 euil to send him three of his former brethren, who had, like 
 himself, come to Luxeuil from the banks of Lake Constance. 
 He installed them in an estate situated on the banks of the 
 Aa, and called Sithiu, which he had just received as a gift 
 from a rich and powerful pagan noble whom he had baptized 
 with all his family. This estate was a sort of island amid 
 a vast marsh, which could scarcely be approached, save in a 
 boat. There rose, at the same time, the celebrated abbey 
 which at a later period took the name of St. Bertin, after
 
 34 6 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 the youngest of the three monks sent from Luxeuil, 1 and 
 upon a neighbouring height a little church, which has be- 
 come the cathedral of the episcopal town, and is still known 
 by the name of the apostle of Morinia. His body was 
 deposited there after thirty years of apostolical labours and 
 heroic charity, which changed the aspect of the entire pro- 
 vince. It is round the cemetery intended for the reception 
 of the monks of St. Bertin that the existing town of St. 
 Omer has been formed. 
 
 Bertin, the countryman and relation of Omer, vied with 
 him in his zeal for preaching and the conversion of the dio- 
 cese which had adopted him. The rule of St. Columbanus 
 and the customs of Luxeuil were observed in his monastery, 
 where there were now two hundred monks, in all their 
 severity ; he exercised, like Columbanus himself, an irre- 
 sistible influence over the nobles who surrounded him. 
 Aided by their gifts, and the unwearied diligence of his 
 monks, he at last succeeded, by successive elevations of the 
 soil, in transforming the vast marsh in which he had estab- 
 lished himself into a fertile plain. When he gave up the 
 dignity of abbot, which he had held for fifty years, in order, 
 according to the custom of most of the holy founders of those 
 days, to prepare himself better for death, the great monastery 
 which has immortalised his name, and produced twenty-two 
 saints venerated by the Church, 2 had attained the height of 
 its moral and material prosperity. 3 Of all the swarms from 
 
 i Of the two others, Mommolin was the first abbot of Sithiu, and after- 
 wards succeeded St. Eloysius in the see of Noyon. Ebertramnus was abbot 
 of the monastery of St. Quentin. The Annates Benedict., lib. xvi. c. 56, 
 contains a very curious miniature of the seventh century, in which St. 
 Mommolin is represented with the Scotch or Irish tonsure, which had 
 been the object of so many disputes, and St. Bertin with the Roman 
 tonsure or crown, and holding the curved cross, which was then common 
 to abbots and bishops. 
 
 2 Among these should be named the Armorican Winnoc, of royal race, a 
 disciple of St. Bertin, and founder of the monastery and town which bear 
 his name — Berghes-Saint-Winnoc or Vinox. He died in 696. 
 
 3 The Bollandists (vol. ii. Sept. , p. 549-630) have clearly elucidated all that
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 347 
 
 the inexhaustible hive of Luxeuil, none were more productive 
 or brilliant than that with which these four Alamans, brought 
 from the frontiers of Helvetia to the shores of the North Sea, 
 enriched the wild Morinian country. The heirs of Colum- 
 banus found themselves thus established upon the soil of 
 Belgium, the Christian conquest of which was half to do over 
 again, and half to begin. A noble part was reserved to them 
 in this work, which they were careful not to fall short of. 
 
 The necessities of our narrative have led us far from 
 Luxeuil to seek her distant colonies or scions : we must 
 now return to her neighbourhood to point out the house 
 which was perhaps the most illustrious of her daughters. 
 Let us then re-enter that southern cluster of the Vosges 
 which marks the boundaries of Austrasia and Burgundy, 
 and where rise, not far from each other, the Moselle and the 
 Meurthe, the Meuse and the Saone. Upon a mountain whose 
 base is bathed by the clear and limpid waters of the Moselle, 
 very near its source, amid forests which, a century ago, were 
 still inhabited by bears, 1 and at a distance of some leagues 
 north from Luxeuil, rose a castle belonging to the noble 
 Romaric. This wealthy leude had seen his property confis- 
 cated and his father slain during the fratricidal struggle 
 between the two grandsons of Brunehault, Theodebert and 
 Thierry ; but after the death of the latter, he had recovered 
 
 belongs to the life of St. Bertin and his various biographies. It may be ob- 
 served that the abbey of Sithiu afterwards took the name of St. Bertin, as 
 happened to a number of important monasteries which were named from 
 their founder, or from the saint whose relics were venerated there. Thus 
 the name of Agaune was replaced by that of St. Maurice, Condat by St. 
 Eugende (afterwards St. Claude), Fontenelle by St. Vandrille, Glanfeuil by 
 St. Maur, Leuconaiis by St. Valery, Centule by St. Riquier, Fleury by St. 
 Benoit-sur-Loire, Habend by Remiremont, &c. This abbey of St. Bertin, at 
 first called Sithiu, was the principal abbey of Artois, and the noblest orna- 
 ment of the city of St. Omer, the municipality of which destroyed it a few 
 years ago, under pretence of giving work to the labourers. — Victor Hugo, 
 Guerre aux Dimolisseurs, 1852. Enough remains of this immense church to 
 show the pious grandeur of past generations, and the stupid Vandalism of 
 their descendants. 
 
 1 The last bear killed at Remiremont was in 1709.
 
 348 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 his vast patrimony, and occupied a high position at the 
 court of Clotaire II., then sole master of the three Frank 
 kingdoms. 1 
 
 While living as a layman, this nobleman already practised 
 all the virtues, when God willed, as the contemporary nar- 
 rator tells, to recompense His knight for the valour which 
 he had displayed in the struggles of the world, and to con- 
 duct him to the fields of celestial light. 2 Amatus, a monk 
 of Luxeuil, noble like himself, but of Roman race, 3 came to 
 preach in Austrasia. This Amatus, or Ame, had been almost 
 from his cradle offered by his father to the monastery of 
 Asraune, which, situated near the source of the Rhine, at- 
 tracted the veneration and confidence of all the faithful of 
 the provinces bordering that river. He had lived thirty 
 years either at Agaune itself or in an isolated cell upon the 
 top of a rock, which still overhangs the celebrated monas- 
 tery, as if about to crush it. There this noble Gallo-Roman, 
 always barefooted and clad in a sheep's skin, lived upon water 
 and barley-bread alone ; the water gushing from a limpid 
 fountain, which he had obtained by his prayers, was received 
 in a little basin which he had hollowed and covered with lead ; 
 the barley was the produce of a little field which he cultivated 
 with his own hands, and ground by turning a millstone with 
 his arms, like the slaves of antiquity. This fatiguing labour 
 was to him a preservative against sleep and the temptations 
 of the flesh. Abbot Eustace of Luxeuil, returning from 
 Lombardy after his fruitless mission to Columbanus, stopped 
 at Agaune, and decided Amatus upon following him to 
 Luxeuil. The gentleness of the anchorite, his eloquence, 
 
 1 "Nobilis in palatio . . . clarissimus parentibus procreatus ... in 
 Lotharii regis palatio cum cseteris electus." — Vita S. Romarici, auct. monacho 
 subpari, in Act. SS. O. S. B., vol. ii. p. 399. " Qui primus inter nobiles fuerat 
 apud Theodebertum habitus." — Vita S. Eustasii, auct. cocevo ; ibid., p. 112. 
 
 2 "Ineffabilis Deus, videns militem suum sub tenebrosis hujus sseculi 
 bellis fortiter belligerantem, voluit ilium ad lucidos producere campos." 
 — Ibid., p. 399. 
 
 3 "Nobilibus natus parentibus, ex Romana oriundus stirpe, in suburbio 
 Gratianopolitanse civitatis." — Vita S. Amati, t. ii. ; ibid., p. 121.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 349 
 
 and even the noble and serene beauty of his features, won 
 all hearts. 1 
 
 Amatus was nominated by the monks of Luxeuil, on 
 account of his eloquence, to bear the word of God into the 
 Austrasian cities. Romaric received him at his table, and, 
 during the repast, inquired of him the best way of working 
 out his salvation. " Thou seest this silver dish," said the 
 monk ; " how many masters, or rather slaves, has it already 
 had, and how many more shall it have still ? And thou, 
 whether thou wilt or not, thou art its serf; for thou possessest 
 it only to preserve it. But an account will be demanded of 
 thee ; for it is written, ' Your silver and gold shall rust, and 
 that rust shall bear witness against you.' I am astonished 
 that a man of great birth, very rich, and intelligent like 
 thyself, should not remember the answer of the Saviour to 
 him who asked Him how he should attain eternal life : ' If 
 thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all thou hast and give to the 
 poor, and follow Me ; and thou shalt have treasure in 
 heaven.'" 2 From that moment Romaric was vanquished 
 by the love of God and the desire of heaven. He distri- 
 buted all his lands to the poor, with the exception of his 
 castle of Habend, freed a multitude of serfs of both sexes, 
 and went to Luxeuil, taking with him all that remained of 
 his wealth, to become a monk. When he presented himself 
 to the abbot to have his hair cut, according to the rite of 
 admission into the order, several of the serfs whom he had 
 
 1 " In devexo celsissimi ruontis rupe . . . per obli qua montis saxosi inter 
 periculosos scopulos . . . latitabat. Cisternum plumbeam. . . . Molam, 
 quam tunc manu agebat, cum canenti ei fessis membris somnus obreperet 
 . . . ut tentationem carnis vel somnum corporis per laborem molas abigeret. 
 . . . Serenus vultu, hilaris adspectu, praeclarus et celer eloquio." — Vita S. 
 Amati, p. 121. 
 
 2 " Cumque jam mensa posita esset, coepit inter epulas flagitare. . . . 
 Cernis bunc discum argenteum ; quantos iste dudum servos habuit, 
 quantosque deinceps bibiturus est. Et tu, velis, nolis, nunc servus suus 
 es. . . . Ausculta paululum, vir bone : cum sis nobilitate parentum ex- 
 celsus, divitiis inclytus, ingenioque sagax, miror, si non nosti," &c. — Vita 
 S. Amati, p. 123.
 
 3 50 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 liberated appeared at the monastery for the same purpose. 
 He gladly recognised his old servants, not only as brethren, 
 but as superiors ; for he sought the lowest occupations in 
 the monastery, aud surpassed all the brethren in his care 
 for the cultivation of the gardens, where he learned the 
 Psalter by heart as he laboured. 1 
 
 After some years' residence there, during which time his 
 friendship with Amatus became intimate and affectionate, 
 the two friends left Luxeuil, where, for some unknown 
 reason, they had incurred the animadversion of abbot 
 Eustace. With his consent, however, they went together 
 to the estate which Romaric had reserved to himself. The 
 Castrum Hahendi, as it was called, had been once a Roman 
 fortress ; the remains of a temple, statues, and some tombs, 
 were still visible, as at Luxeuil, upon the height of a steep 
 hill, situated between two valleys, the base of which was 
 watered by two tributaries of the Moselle. They built a 
 church there, placed as many as seven chapels upon the sides 
 of the hill, 2 and afterwards founded there the greatest female 
 monastery which had been seen in Gaul. Amatus took the 
 government of it, but soon devolved it upon Romaric, and 
 the house was called, after the latter, Remiremont. 
 
 1 " Illos denique servulos quos dudum ministros habuerat, socios sibi 
 detondens plerosque adjunxit ; et effectus est illorum subditus, quorum 
 prius dominus prsepotens fuerat. . . . Ut quidquid despicabile in monas- 
 terio agendum esset, ipse adsumeret. Hortorum tamen frequentius prse 
 ceteris fratribus operator exsistens, psalmos jugiter tradebat memoriae." — 
 Vita S. Romarici, p. 400. 
 
 2 See for these details the excellent Etude Historiquc sur VAbbaye de 
 Remiremont, by M. A. Guinot, cure of Contrexeville (Paris, 1859), one of 
 the best monographs which have been published on a monastic subject. 
 
 3 Romarici Mons. But the abbey of Remiremont bears, in early docu- 
 ments, the name of Monastcrium Habendense. This first monastery, built 
 by Amatus upon the Holy Mount, was destroyed by the Huns. Re- 
 established by the emperor Louis III. beyond the Moselle and at the 
 foot of the mountain, it became the nucleus of the existing town of 
 Remiremont. The nuns were afterwards changed into noble canonesses, 
 but always under the rule of St. Benedict. The abbess alone took the 
 perpetual vows. The others could marry and return to the world. The
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 35 I 
 
 In this celebrated abbey, which was immediately put 
 under the rule of St. Oolumbanus by its two founders, 
 everything was established on a magnificent scale, owing 
 to the influx of the nuns and the liberality of the Aus- 
 trasian kings and nobles. Clotaire II. gave, at one time, 
 the enormous sum of two hundred pieces of gold to the 
 foundation of his ancient leude. Remiremont soon became 
 for women what Luxeuil already was for men. The number 
 of nuns permitted the Zaus perennis to be organised by 
 means of seven choirs, who alternately sang the praises of 
 God in seven different churches or chapels. The fervour 
 and regularity of all these virgins procured to the site 
 occupied by their community the name of the Holy Mount, 
 which it retained for some centuries. 
 
 Romaric directed it for thirty years. Before entering 
 Luxeuil he had been married, and had three daughters ; 
 the two younger took the veil in the monastery of their 
 father. The eldest, who had married without the consent 
 of Romaric, and without a fortune, attempted to reclaim a 
 portion of her paternal inheritance. She sent to her father 
 her first child, a girl, hoping that the heart of Romaric 
 would soften, and that he would bestow on his grandchild 
 what he had refused to his daughter. The grandfather 
 received her with joy, but did not send her back, and had 
 her trained by the nuns, whose abbess she afterwards 
 became. Then the mother, having had a son, sent him, 
 before he was even baptized, to his grandfather, still in the 
 hope that he would make him his heir. But Romaric 
 
 proofs of nobility required before a candidate was admitted were so diffi- 
 cult that Remiremont was reckoned among the most illustrious chapters 
 in Europe. To mark the difference between the different chapters of 
 women in that age of decay, when the most venerable institutions of 
 Catholic antiquity had lost the true meaning of their existence, they 
 were named thus : the ladies of Remiremont, the chambermaids of Epinal, 
 and the laundresses of Poussey : and that, notwithstanding that eight 
 paternal and eight maternal quarterings were necessary for admission to 
 Poussey. The abbess of Remiremont ranked as a princess of the Holy 
 Empire from the time of Rudolph of Hapsburg.
 
 352 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 acted with him as with his sister ; he kept the child, and 
 left him no other inheritance than that of the abbatial 
 dignity with which it was invested. 1 
 
 For there were two monasteries at Remiremont, one for 
 monks and the other for nuns, connected with each other, 
 but with a special superior for each of the communities. 
 This was also the case at Jouarre, at Faremoutier, and 
 wherever there were great foundations for women Some- 
 times, as at Remiremont, the abbot had the supreme govern- 
 ment ; sometimes, as we shall see in Belgium, it was the 
 abbess. The prohibition of the Council of Agde, in 506, 2 
 had, by necessity of things, fallen into disuse. The ranks 
 of that feminine clergy, whose sacrifice the Church praises 
 in the liturgy, increased every day. 3 It was necessary at 
 once to protect and guide the weakness of these spouses of 
 Christ who had taken refuge in forests and deserts, sur- 
 rounded by wild beasts or barbarous and semi-pagan tribes. 
 In the seventh century, and still later, the Church did 
 nothing but encourage that custom which disappeared in 
 due time, and even before any scandal had pointed out the 
 unsuitable nature of the arrangement, in those monastic 
 annals where everything is spoken out with bold and minute 
 frankness. To systematic enemies of Catholic discipline, 
 and to sceptics who may be tempted to smile, let us recall 
 the touching and noble spectacle, so much admired and 
 praised a thousand years after the foundation of Remire- 
 mont, given by the solitaries of Port-Royal during their 
 
 1 "Expers haereditariae sortis absque patris consilio nupsit. . . . Spe- 
 rans hoc modo elicere, quatenus haereditatis pignus, quod sibi jure com- 
 petebat haereditario, restitueret puellse. . . . Puerulum, quern post paulo 
 pepererat, transmisit avo baptisandum, atque ad relictse possessionis 
 haeredem constituendum." — Vita S. Adelphii, ap. Bolland., t. iii. Sept., 
 p. 818. "Nupsit nobilissimo splendidissimoque cuidam e Sicambrorum 
 gente, cui Bithylinus nomen." — Ibid., p. 811. 
 
 2 " Monasteria puellarum longius a monasteriis monachorum, aut propter 
 insidias diaboli, aut propter oblocutiones hominum, collocentur." — Can. 28. 
 
 3 " Ora pro populo, interveni pro clero, intercede pro devoto femineo 
 sexu."
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 353 
 
 sojourn near the nuns of that celebrated valley. And a 
 voice, which cannot be suspected, elsewhere bears witness 
 thus : " The vicinity of the monasteries," says M. Michelet, 
 "the abuses of which have certainly been exaggerated, 
 created between the brethren and sisters a happy emula- 
 tion of study as well as of piety. The men tempered their 
 seriousness by sharing in the moral graces of the women. 
 They, on their side, took from the austere asceticism of the 
 men a noble flight towards divine things. Both, according 
 to the noble expression of Bossuet, helped each other to 
 climb the rugged path." 1 
 
 This monastery of men, also placed under the rule of 
 Columbanus by its two founders, was not the less on that 
 account unfavourable to the spirit of the Irish rule. When 
 Agrestinus attempted to organise among the numerous dis- 
 ciples of Columbanus an insurrection against the traditions 
 of their master and the discipline of Luxeuil, he fell back 
 upon Remiremont after he had been overcome by Eustace 
 at the Council of Macon and repulsed by Burgundofara at 
 Faremoutier. He was well received by Amatus and Romaric, 
 who were already biassed against the abbot of Luxeuil, and 
 still better by their monks, who showed themselves unani- 
 mous in their repugnance to the institutions of Columbanus. 2 
 Fatal and numerous accidents, of which more than fifty of 
 the religious were victims, some torn by mad wolves or 
 struck by lightning, others urged to suicide or violent 
 deaths, were necessary to lead them back. All these mis- 
 fortunes, happening in such rapid succession, appeared 
 warnings from on high, and the disgraceful death of 
 Agrestinus himself opened their eyes completely. Amatus 
 and Romaric returned into communion with Eustace. The 
 former continued to watch over the administration of the 
 
 1 MlCHELET, Mdmoire sur V Education des Femmes au Moyen Age. Head 
 at the meeting of the Five Academies, May 2, 1838. 
 
 2 " In contemptum regular B. Columbani. . . . Cum ad hoc jam omnes 
 adspirarent ut contemptus pristinarum assentatores forent institutionum." 
 — JONAS, Vita S. Eustacii, c. 13-15. 
 
 VOL. II. Z
 
 354 ST - COLUMBANUS 
 
 two houses, though he had given up their immediate direc- 
 tion. He was especially solicitous to root out from among 
 these spiritual children the sin of individual property. " My 
 dear and gentle brother," he said one day to a monk who 
 passed near him, " I much fear that the cunning of the 
 enemy has persuaded thee to something against the rule." 
 And as the monk protested against this, Amatus took be- 
 tween his fingers the edge of the delinquent's cowl precisely 
 at the spot where he had sewn in a piece of money with the 
 intention of reserving it for his personal use. " What have 
 you here, dear brother ? " The monk, falling on his knees, 
 cried, " Woe is me ! I confess that I have stolen the third 
 part of a denier of gold." According to the monastic spirit, 
 it was a theft made from the community; but Amatus 
 pardoned the culprit, saying to him, "Let him that stole 
 steal no more." He condemned himself to make a public 
 confession before his death, no doubt in recollection of 
 his weakness towards the schismatic Agrestinus, and his 
 struggles against his abbot at Luxeuil. 1 However, Amatus 
 himself had retired into a grotto, closed up by a projecting 
 rock, so low and so narrow that it could scarcely contain 
 him. As in the case of 'St. Benedict at Subiaco, a monk 
 lowered down to him, by a cord from the top of the rock, 
 the morsel of bread and glass of water on which he lived. 
 This severe penance was not enough for him. When he 
 was dying upon a bed of ashes, he had the letter of the 
 Pope St. Leo to St. Flavian, which contains a clear and 
 complete exposition of Catholic doctrine upon the Trinity 
 and Incarnation, read to him, as a last and solemn protest 
 against every germ of schism. 
 
 As for Romaric, who long survived both him and the 
 pious Mactefleda, the first ruler of the sisters, he took all 
 
 1 " Frater mi . . . vereor, dulcissime meus. . . . Oram cuculla? tenens, 
 utroque digito hinc inde complexus consutum infra trientem reperit. . . . 
 Hoc ergo quod habes, frater mi ? . . . Heu mini ! tremissem furatus sum. 
 
 . . Quoniam de quisbusdam factis meis me oportet poenitere et libet." — 
 Vita S. Amati, c. 21-23.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 355 
 
 necessary precautions to ensure the election of the abbess of 
 his beloved monastery exclusively by her own community, 
 and that this entire foundation should rely in temporal 
 matters only on the king, and in spiritual affairs only on 
 the pope. At the end of his life the old warrior regained 
 his courage and the political part he had played of old. He 
 had known, in the palace of the kings of Austrasia, the 
 great and pious Pepin de Landen, whose son, Grimoald, had 
 become all-powerful, as minister under King Sigisbert, and 
 threatened beforehand the rights and even the life of the 
 young heir of this prince. Prophetically warned of the 
 projects entertained by the son of his old friend, Eomaric, 
 despite his age and presentiment of approaching death, de- 
 scended from his mountain and took his way to the palace, 
 which he had not seen for thirty years, to intimate the perils 
 of the country to the king and nobles. He arrived in the 
 middle of the night : Grimoald, on being informed of his 
 approach, went to meet him with lighted torches. At sight 
 of his father's friend, of this old man of God, with his ele- 
 vated and imposing height and solemn aspect, he thought 
 he saw, says the historian, a supernatural apparition, and 
 trembled. However, he embraced him with great respect. 
 What passed between them has not been recorded. It is 
 only known that Grimoald overwhelmed the old abbot with 
 presents, and promised to do all that he wished. Three 
 days after, Eomaric, who had returned to the monastery, 
 visiting for the last time, on his way, the cultivated lands 
 which belonged to it, was dead, and buried beside Amatus, 
 the master and friend who had led him to God by the 
 rugged path} 
 
 To complete this rapid glance over the extension of the 
 
 1 "Ad principis palatium . . . ut regi seu proceribus suis de periculo 
 eorum vel casu venturo cavenda nuntiaret. . . . Vir magnificus Grimoaldus 
 subregulus. . . . Surgens cum facibus accensis . . . adspiciensque hominem 
 Dei miras magnitudinis, nescio quid tanquam angelicum seu cceleste signum 
 se super eum vidisse contreruuit. . . . Indeque remeans rura monasterii 
 circuivit." — Vita S. Romarici, c. II.
 
 356 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 great institute of Columbanus in Frankish Gaul in the 
 seventh century, it has yet to be shown how, after having 
 spread through both the Burgundies and Austrasia, and 
 gaining Armorica, where the British Celts naturally adopted 
 with cordiality the work of the Irish Celt, 1 it extended over 
 Neustria, beyond the Loire, and as far as Aquitaine ; 2 and 
 for that purpose the foundation of Solignac, in Limousin, by 
 St. Bligius, must be specially told. It took place soon after 
 the Council of Macon. Its illustrious founder, who had 
 visited the principal monasteries in Gaul and had perceived 
 that monastic order was nowhere else observed as it was in 
 Luxeuil, 3 declared his desire to conform it absolutely to the 
 plan and rule of the model abbey which he had found in the 
 Vosges, and to which he placed it in direct subordination. 
 But this great man belongs still more to the history of 
 France than to that of the rule of Luxeuil. With him we 
 touch upon a new phase of the Merovingian royalty, as with 
 the apostles of Morinia we are brought in contact with the 
 conversion of Belgium, and with the founder of Remiremont 
 approach the accession and preponderance of the Pepins. 
 New scenes open before us. To enter them, we must leave 
 Luxeuil and Columbanus, of whom, however, we shall find 
 elsewhere many a luminous and important trace. 
 
 But before closing this chapter of our narrative, it is 
 necessary to establish a result as unforeseen as undeniable. 
 It seems that everything in the history we have just related 
 ought to have secured the lasting preponderance of the 
 rule and institute of Columbanus in the countries governed 
 by the Franks. A popularity so great and legitimate, the 
 
 1 LA BOKDEKIE, Discours sur les Saints de Bretagnc, p. 23. However, 
 few direct references to this adoption of the Columbanic rule by Armorican 
 monasteries are to be found. 
 
 2 See the Vita S. Eustasii, by Jonas, for the five monasteries built in 
 Berry and Nivernais, immediately after the Council of Macon, ex regula B. 
 Columbani. 
 
 3 See the passage quoted, p. 297. S. Audoeni, Vita S. Eligii, book i. 
 c. 21.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 3 57 
 
 constant favour of the Merovingian kings, the generous 
 sympathy of the Burgundian and Austrasian nobility, the 
 virtues and miracles of so many saints, the immense and 
 perpetually renewed ramifications of Luxeuil and its off- 
 spring, all should have contributed to establish the ascend- 
 ancy of a monastic law originated upon the soil of Gaul, 
 and extended by representatives so illustrious ; — all ought 
 to have procured it a preference over that Italian rule, 
 which was older, it is true, but the modest beginnings and 
 obscure progress of which in Gaul have escaped the notice 
 of history. This, however, was not the case. On the con- 
 trary, the rule of Columbanus was gradually eclipsed, and 
 the rule of Benedict was introduced and triumphed every- 
 where, while still we cannot instance a single man above 
 the ordinary mark, a single celebrated saint, who could have 
 contributed to that surprising victory, by his personal influ- 
 ence, throughout the whole period which we have surveyed. 
 This victory was complete half a century after the death of 
 the founder of Luxeuil, and amid the daily successes and 
 increasing popularity of his disciples. Among those dis- 
 ciples themselves, some of the first and nearest to his heart, 
 such as his godson Donatus, had begun to combine the 
 Benedictine precepts with his. The two monasteries which 
 he had himself originated and dwelt in, Luxeuil and Bobbio, 1 
 under his own immediate successors, suffered or accepted its 
 sway, and extended it through their colonies. The illus- 
 trious Eligius, while he formed his Limousin foundation in 
 exact imitation of Luxeuil, took care to specify in its charter 
 that the monks were to follow at the same time the rules of 
 both the blessed fathers Benedict and Columbanus. 2 The 
 
 i Mabillon, Prcefat. in IV. Sccc. We have already said that Mabillon 
 goes so far as to assert that Columbanus himself introduced the Bene- 
 dictine rule at Bobbio, but without furnishing the least proof of his 
 assertion. 
 
 2 " Ea tamen conditione ut vos vel successores vestri tramitem religionis 
 sanctissimorum virorum Luxoviensis monasterii consequamini, et regulam 
 beatissimorum Patrum Benedicti et Columbani firmiter teneatis."
 
 3 5 8 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 same stipulation is found of more and more frequent re- 
 currence in deciding what order was to be adopted in the 
 colonies of Luxeuil. 1 In this great monastic enlistment, 
 which was carried on among the flower of the Gallo-Frank 
 population during the whole of the seventh century, it was 
 Columbanus who raised the recruits and set them out on 
 the march ; but it was Benedict who disciplined them, and 
 gave them the flag and the watchword. Where Columbanus 
 sowed, it was Benedict who reaped. The Benedictine rule 
 was gradually and everywhere placed side by side with that 
 of Columbanus, then substituted for his, until at length 
 the latter dwindled further and further into distance, like 
 an antique and respectable memory, from which life had 
 ebbed away. 
 
 At Autun, in 670, in the heart of that Burgundy of which 
 Columbanus seemed destined to be the monastic legislator, 
 in a council of fifty-four bishops, held by St. Leger, who had 
 himself lived at Luxeuil, six canons were given forth exclu- 
 sively relative to monastic discipline ; in which the observa- 
 tion and fulfilment, in all their fulness, of the precepts of 
 the canons of the Church and the rule of St. Benedict are 
 enjoined upon all the Religious ; and the Council adds : " If 
 these are legitimately and fully observed by the abbots and 
 monasteries, the number of the monks will always increase 
 by the grace of God, and the whole world will be saved from 
 the contagion of sin by their incessant prayers." 2 The Gallo- 
 
 1 Particularly at Hautvilliers, Beze, Maurmunster, Corbie, and at the 
 Monasterium Fossatense, near Paris, since so celebrated as St. Maur-les- 
 Fosses. In a charter of 641, the nuns of the latter house are described as 
 living "sub regula S. Benedicti ad rnodurn et similitudinem monasterii 
 Luxoviensis." — Annal. Benedict., lib. xii. c. 58. See also the charter of St. 
 Amand for the monastery of Barisy, near Laon : " Ubi ccenobium sub 
 regula Domni Benedicti seu Domni Columbani constituere inchoavimus." — 
 Ap. Act. SS. 0. S. B., t. ii. p. 1044 ; and that of the Bishop of Chalons for 
 Montier-en-Der : " Side tepide egerunt . . . secundum regulam sancti Bene- 
 dicti vel Domni Columbani corrigantur." — Ibid., t. iii. p. 570. 
 
 2 " De abbatibus vero vel monachis ita observare convenit, ut quidquid 
 canonicus ordo vel regula S. Benedicti edocet et implere, et custodire in
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 359 
 
 Frank Church thus proclaimed its unqualified adhesion to the 
 rule which St. Maur had brought from Latium a hundred and 
 twenty years before : the great Irish monk had scarcely been 
 fifty years dead, and already no mention is made either of 
 his rule or his person. 
 
 How can we explain this complete and universal substi- 
 tution of Benedictine influence for that of the Hibernian 
 legislator, even in his own foundations ; and that, we repeat, 
 without the appearance of any mind of the highest stamp 
 exclusively devoted to the traditions of Monte Cassino ? 
 Must it be attributed to the individual and national spirit, 
 from which Columbanus either could not or would not com- 
 pletely separate himself? Was this the hidden vice which 
 consumed the vitality of his work ? No, certainly ; for if 
 this powerful individuality had inspired the least dislike, he 
 could not have attracted, during his life, nor after his death, 
 that myriad of disciples, more numerous, and especially more 
 illustrious, than all those of Benedict. 
 
 We must then seek the reason of his failure elsewhere, 
 and it is to be found, in our opinion, in the much closer and 
 more intimate union of the Benedictine Rule with the autho- 
 rity of the Roman See. We have proved that neither in 
 Columbanus nor among his disciples and offspring, was there 
 any hostility to the Holy See, and we have quoted proofs of 
 the respect of the popes for his memory. Nor had Benedict, 
 any more than Columbanus, either sought or obtained during 
 his lifetime the sovereign sanction of the papacy for his 
 institution. But long after his death, and at the very time 
 when Columbanus was busied in planting his work in Gaul, 
 the saint and the man of genius who occupied the chair of 
 St. Peter, Gregory the Great, had spontaneously impressed 
 
 omnibus debeant : si enim hasc omnia fuerint legitime apud abbates et 
 monasteria, et numerus monachorum Deo propitio augebitur, et mundus 
 omnis, per eorum orationes assiduas, malis carebit contagiis." The date 
 of this Council is not certain ; some place it in 665, others in 670 or 674. 
 Mabillon inclines towards this latter date.
 
 360 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 the seal of supreme approbation upon the Benedictine Eule. 
 This adoption of the work Gregory had preluded by the 
 celebration of its author in those famous Dialogues, the popu- 
 larity of which was to be so great in all Catholic commu- 
 nities. The third successor of Gregory, Boniface IV., in a 
 council held at Eome in 6 1 0, and by a famous decree which 
 we reproach ourselves for not having mentioned before, had 
 condemned those who, moved more by jealousy than charity, 
 held that the monks, being dead to the world and living only 
 for God, were by that reason rendered unworthy and incap- 
 able of exercising the priesthood and administering the sacra- 
 ments. The decree of this Council recognises the power of 
 binding and loosing in monks lawfully ordained, and to 
 confound the foolish assumptions of their adversaries, quotes 
 the example of St. Gregory the Great, who had not been kept 
 back from the Supreme See by his monastic profession, and 
 of many others who under the monastic frock had already 
 worn the pontifical ring. But it especially appeals to the 
 authority of Benedict, whom it describes as " the venerable 
 legislator of the monks," and who had interdicted them only 
 from interference in secular affairs. 1 It proclaims anew, and 
 on the most solemn occasion, that the Rule of Benedict was 
 the supreme monastic law. It impresses a new sanction upon 
 all the prescriptions of him whom another pope, John IV., 
 the same who exempted Luxeuil from episcopal authority, 
 called, thirty years later, the abbot of the city of Rome. 2 
 
 Thus adopted and honoured by the papacy, and identified 
 in some sort with the authority of Rome itself, the influence 
 of the Rule of St. Benedict progressed with the progress 
 
 1 " Sunt nonnulli stulti dogmatis. . . . Apostolici compar sedes B. Grego- 
 rius nionachico cultu pollens ad summum nullatenus apicem conscenderet. 
 Alii quoque sanctissimi pretiosissimo monachorum habitu fulgentes nequa- 
 quam annulo pontificali suborbarentur. — Neque Benedictus monachorum 
 pneceptor alraificus." — Coletti, Concil., t. iv. p. 1355. 
 
 - " Et haud procul a nostris temporibus Benedicti abbatis istius Romas 
 hujus urbis." — Charter of exemption given to a female monastery at the 
 request of King Clovis II. Annal. Benedict., t. ii. Append., p. 688.
 
 ST. COLUMBANUS 36 1 
 
 of the Roman Church. I am aware that up to the seventh 
 century, the intervention of the popes in the affairs of the 
 Church in France was much less sought and less efficacious 
 than in after ages ; but it was already undoubtedly sove- 
 reign, and more than sufficient to win the assent of all to 
 a specially Roman institution. 
 
 Without weakening the foregoing argument, another ex- 
 planation might be admitted for the strange course of things 
 which, in the space of a single century, eclipsed the Rule and 
 name of Columbanus, and changed into Benedictine monas- 
 teries all the foundations due to the powerful missionary 
 impulse of the Irish Apostle. The cause which produced 
 in Western Christendom the supremacy of St. Benedict's 
 institute over that of his illustrious rival, was most likely the 
 same which made the Rule of St. Basil to prevail over all 
 the other monastic Rules of the East— namely, its modera- 
 tion, its prudence, and the more liberal spirit of its govern- 
 ment. When the two legislatures of Monte Cassino and of 
 Luxeuil met together, it must have been manifest that the 
 latter exceeded the natural strength of man, in its regula- 
 tions relating to prayer, to food, and to penal discipline, 
 and above all, in its mode of government. St. Benedict had 
 conquered by the strength of practical sense, which in the 
 end always wins the day. 
 
 One of those great rivers, which, like the Moselle or the 
 Saone, have their source near Luxeuil itself, offers a meet 
 symbol of the fate which awaited the work of St. Colum- 
 banus. We see it first spring up, obscure and unknown, 
 from the foot of the hills ; we see it then increase, extend, 
 grow into a broad and fertilising current, watering and flowing 
 through vast and numerous provinces. We expect it to con- 
 tinue indefinitely its independent and beneficent course. But, 
 vain delusion ! Lo, another stream comes pouring onward 
 from the other extremity of the horizon, to attract and to 
 absorb its rival, to draw it along, to swallow up even its 
 name, and, replenishing its own strength and life by these
 
 3^2 ST. COLUMBANUS 
 
 captive waters, to pursue alone and victorious its majestic 
 course towards the ocean. Thus did the current of Colum- 
 banus's triumphant institution sink into the forgotten tribu- 
 tary of that great Benedictine stream, which henceforward 
 flowed forth alone to cover Gaul and all the West with its 
 regenerating tide.
 
 BOOK VIII 
 
 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF THE BRITISH ISLES 
 
 Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains 
 of thine habitations : spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen 
 thy stakes : for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the 
 left ; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate 
 cities to be inhabited. — Isaiah liv. 2, 3. 
 
 363

 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN BEFORE THE CONVERSION OF 
 THE SAXONS 
 
 Character of the English nation. — Heir of the Romans, it borrows from 
 them only their grandeur and their pride. — From whence comes its 
 religion ? From popes and monks.— England has been made by 
 monks, as France by bishops. — The heroes who resisted the Empire : 
 Caractacus, Boadicea, Galgacus. — No trace of Roman law exists in 
 Britain ; all is Celtic or Teutonic. — Britain the first of the Western 
 nations which could live without Rome, and the first which could 
 resist the Barbarians. — Ravages of the Picts. — Gildas. — Arrival of 
 the Anglo-Saxons in Britain. — Their destruction of primitive Chris- 
 tianity. — Origin of British Christianity. — The proto-martyr St. Alban. 
 — Ravages of the Saxons. — Liberal aid given by the Papacy. — Mission 
 of Palladius, and afterwards of St. Germain of Auxerre. — Battle of 
 the Hallelujah.— The Briton Ninian becomes the apostle of the 
 Southern Picts. — His establishment at Whitehorn. — Ferocity of the 
 Caledonians. — His death. — Glastonbury : legend of Joseph of Arima- 
 thea : tomb of King Arthur. — Position of Britain between the years 
 450 and 550. — The four different races : the Picts, the Scots, the 
 Britons, and the Saxons. — From whence did the light of the Gospel 
 come to the Saxons ? 
 
 In modern Europe, at a distance of seven leagues from 
 France, within sight of our northern shores, there exists a 
 nation whose empire is more vast than that of Alexander 
 or the Caesars, and which is at once the freest and most 
 powerful, the richest and most manful, the boldest and best 
 regulated in the world. No other nation offers so instructive 
 a study, so original an aspect, or contrasts so remarkable. 
 At once liberal and intolerant, pious and inhuman, loving 
 order and serenity as much as noise and commotion, it 
 unites a superstitious respect for the letter of the law with 
 
 36s
 
 366 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 the most unlimited practice of individual freedom. Busied 
 more than any other in all the arts of peace, yet nevertheless 
 invincible in war, and sometimes rushing into it with frantic 
 passion — too often destitute of enthusiasm, but incapable 
 of failure — it ignores the very idea of discouragement or 
 effeminacy. Sometimes it measures its profits and caprices 
 as by the yard, sometimes it takes fire for a disinterested idea 
 or passion. More changeable than any in its affections and 
 judgments, but almost always capable of restraining and 
 stopping itself in time, it is endowed at once with an origi- 
 nating power which falters at nothing, and with a perse- 
 verance which nothing can overthrow. Greedy of conquests 
 and discoveries, it rushes to the extremities of the earth, yet 
 returns more enamoured than ever of the domestic hearth, 
 more jealous of securing its dignity and everlasting duration. 
 The implacable enemy of bondage, it is the voluntary slave 
 of tradition, of discipline freely accepted, or of a prejudice 
 transmitted from its fathers. No nation has been more fre- 
 quently conquered ; none has succeeded better in absorbing 
 and transforming its conquerors. In no other country has 
 Catholicism been persecuted with more sanguinary zeal ; at 
 the present moment none seems more hostile to the Church, 
 and at the same time none has greater need of her care ; no 
 other influence has been so greatly wanting to its progress ; 
 nothing has left within its breast a void so irreparable ; and 
 nowhere has a more generous hospitality been lavished upon 
 our bishops and priests and religious exiles. Inaccessible to 
 modern storms, this island has been an inviolable asylum for 
 our exiled fathers and princes, not less than for our most 
 violent enemies. 
 
 The sometimes savage egotism of these islanders, and 
 their too often cynical indifference to the sufferings and 
 bondage of others, ought not to make us forget that there, 
 more than anywhere else, man belongs to himself and 
 governs himself. It is there that the nobility of our nature 
 has developed all its splendour and attained its highest level.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 367 
 
 It is there that the generous passion of independence, united 
 to the genius of association and the constant practice of self- 
 government, have produced those miracles of fierce energy, 
 of dauntless vigour, and obstinate heroism, which have 
 triumphed over seas and climates, time and distance, nature 
 and tyranny, exciting the perpetual envy of all nations, and 
 among the English themselves a proud enthusiasm. 1 
 
 Loving freedom for itself, and loving nothing without 
 freedom, this nation owes nothing to her kings, who have 
 been of importance only by her and for her. Upon herself 
 alone weighs the formidable responsibility of her history. 
 After enduring, as much or more than any European nation, 
 the horrors of political and religious despotism in the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries, she has been the first and 
 the only one among them to free herself from oppression for 
 ever. Re-established in her ancient rights, her proud and 
 steadfast nature has forbidden her since then to give up into 
 any hands whatsoever, her rights and destinies, her interests 
 and free will. She is able to decide and act for herself, 
 governing, elevating, and inspiring her great men, instead 
 of being seduced or led astray by them, or worked upon for 
 their advantage. This English race has inherited the pride 
 as well as the grandeur of that Roman people of which it 
 
 1 This enthusiasm has never been better expressed than in those lines 
 which Johnson, the great English moralist of last century, repeated with 
 animation on his return from his visit to the monastic island of Iona, the 
 cradle of British Christianity, whither we are shortly to conduct our 
 readers : 
 
 " Stern o'er each bosom Reason holds her state, 
 
 With daring aims irregularly great ; 
 
 Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, 
 
 I see the lords of human kind pass by ; 
 
 Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band, 
 
 By forms unfashioned, fresh from nature's hand, 
 
 Fierce in their native hardiness of soul, 
 
 True to imagined right, above control ; 
 
 While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan, 
 
 And learns to venerate himself as man." 
 
 —Goldsmith, The Traveller.
 
 368 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 is the rival and the heir ; I mean the true Romans of the 
 Republic, not the base Romans subjugated by Augustus. 
 Like the Romans towards their tributaries, it has shown 
 itself ferocious and rapacious to Ireland, inflicting upon its 
 victim, even up to recent times, that bondage and degrada- 
 tion which it repudiates with horror for itself. Like ancient 
 Rome, often hated, and too often worthy of hate, it inspires 
 its most favourable judges rather with admiration than with 
 love. But, happier than Rome, after a thousand years and 
 more, it is still young and fruitful. A slow, obscure, but 
 uninterrupted progress has created for England an inex- 
 haustible reservoir of strength and life. In her veins the 
 sap swells high to-day, and will swell to-morrow. Happier 
 than Rome, in spite of a thousand false conclusions, a 
 thousand excesses, a thousand stains, she is of all the 
 modern races, and of all Christian nations, the one which 
 has best preserved the three fundamental bases of every 
 society which is worthy of man — the spirit of freedom, the 
 domestic character, and the religious mind. 
 
 How, then, has this nation, in which a perfectly pagan 
 pride survives and triumphs, and which has nevertheless 
 remained, even in the bosom of error, the most religious x of 
 all European nations, become Christian ? How and by 
 what means has Christianity struck root so indestructibly 
 in her soil ? This is surely a question of radical interest 
 among all the great questions of history, and one which 
 takes new importance and interest when it is considered 
 that upon the conversion of England there has depended, 
 and still depends, the conversion of so many millions of 
 souls. English Christianity has been the cradle of Chris- 
 tianity in Germany ; from the depths of Germany, mission- 
 aries formed by the Anglo-Saxons have carried the faith into 
 
 1 This may be considered a surprising statement. It expresses how- 
 ever, a conviction founded upon personal comparisons and studies made 
 during nearly forty years in all the countries of Europe except Russia. 
 It agrees, besides, with the results ascertained by one of the most con- 
 scientious and clear-sighted observers of our time, M. Le Play.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 369 
 
 Scandinavia and among the Slaves ; and even at the present 
 time, either by the fruitful expansion of Irish orthodoxy, or 
 by the obstinate zeal of the Protestant propaganda, Chris- 
 tian societies, which speak English and live like English- 
 men, come into being every day throughout North America, 
 in the two Indies, in immense Australia, and in the Isles of 
 the Pacific. The Christianity of nearly half of the world 
 flows, or will flow, from the fountain which first burst forth 
 upon British soil. 
 
 It is possible to answer this fundamental question with 
 the closest precision. No country in the world has received 
 the Christian faith more directly from the Church of Rome, 
 or more exclusively by the ministration of monks. 
 
 If France has been made by bishops, as has been said by 
 a great enemy of Jesus Christ, it is still more true that 
 Christian England has been made by monks. Of all the 
 countries of Europe it is this that has been the most deeply 
 furrowed by the monastic plough. The monks, and the 
 monks alone, have introduced, sowed, and cultivated Chris- 
 tian civilisation in this famous island. 
 
 From whence came these monks ? From two very dis- 
 tinct sources — from Rome and Ireland. British Christianity 
 was produced by the rivalry, and sometimes by the conflict, 
 of the monastic missionaries of the Roman and of the Celtic 
 Church. 
 
 But before its final conversion, which was due, above all, 
 to a pope and to monks produced by the Benedictine order, 
 Great Britain possessed a primitive Christianity, obscure yet 
 incontestable, the career and downfall of which are worthy 
 of a rapid survey. 
 
 Of all the nations conquered by Rome, the Britons were 
 those who resisted her arms the longest, and borrowed the 
 least from her laws and manners. Vanquished for a moment, 
 but not subdued, by the invincible Caesar, they forced the 
 executioner of the Gauls, and the destroyer of Roman free- 
 dom, to leave their shores, without having established slavery 
 
 VOL. II. 2 A
 
 370 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 there. Less happy under his unworthy successors, reduced 
 to a province, and given up as a prey to avarice and luxury, 
 to the ferocity of usurers, 1 of procurators, and of imperial 
 lieutenants, they long maintained a proud and noble attitude, 
 which contrasted with the universal bondage. Jam domiti 
 ut pareant, nondum ut scrviant. 2 To be subjects and not to 
 be slaves — it is the first and the last word of British history. 
 Even under Nero, the Britons laughed at the vile freedmen 
 whom the Caesars imposed upon the dishonoured universe as 
 administrators and magistrates. 3 Long before it was beaten 
 down and revivified by the successive invasions of three Teu- 
 tonic races — the Saxons, Danes, and Normans — the noble 
 Celtic race had produced a succession of remarkable person- 
 ages who, thanks to Tacitus, shine with an imperishable 
 light amidst the degradation of the world : the glorious 
 prisoner Caractacus, the British Vercingetorix, who spoke 
 to the emperor in language worthy of the finest days of the 
 Republic — " Because it is your will to enslave us, does it 
 follow that all the world desires your yoke ?" 4 and Boadicea, 
 the heroic queen, exhibiting her scourged body and her out- 
 raged daughters to excite the indignant patriotism of the 
 Britons, betrayed by fortune but saved by history ; and, last 
 of all, Galgacus, whose name Tacitus has made immortal, by 
 investing him with all the eloquence which conscience and 
 justice could bestow upon an honest and indignant man, in 
 that speech which we all know by heart, and which sounded 
 the onset for that fight in which the most distant descen- 
 dants of Celtic liberty were to cement with their blood the 
 insurmountable rampart of their mountain independence. 5 
 
 i Such as Seneca himself, according to Dion Cassius. 
 
 2 Tacitus, Agricola, c. 13. 
 
 3 " Hostibus irrisui fuit, apud quos flagrante etiam turn libertate, non- 
 dum cognita libertorum potentia erat : mirabanturque, quod dux, et exer- 
 citus tanti belli confector, servitiis obedirent." — Annal., xiv. 39. 
 
 4 " Num, si vos omnibus imperitare vultis, sequitur ut omnes servitutem 
 accipiant ? " — Ibid., xii. 37. 
 
 5 " Initium libertatis totius Britanniae. . . . Nos terrarum ac libertatis 
 extremos."
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 371 
 
 It was thus that Britain gave a prelude to the glorious 
 future which freedom has created for herself, through so 
 many tempests and eclipses, in the island which has finally 
 become her sanctuary and indestructible shelter. 
 
 The civil code of Rome, which weighs heavily still, after 
 the lapse of eighteen centuries, upon France, Spain, Italy, 
 and Germany, reigned without doubt in Britain during the 
 period of Roman occupation ; but it disappeared with the 
 reign of the Cassars. Its unwholesome roots never wound 
 around, stifled, or poisoned the vigorous shoots of civil, 
 political, and domestic freedom. The same thing may be 
 said of all other similar influences. Neither in the institu- 
 tions nor in the monuments of Britain has imperial Rome 
 left any trace of her hideous domination. Its language and 
 its habits have escaped her influence as well as its laws. 
 There, all that is not Celtic is Teutonic. It was reserved 
 for Catholic Rome, the Rome of the popes, to leave an 
 ineffaceable impression upon this famous island, and there 
 to reclaim, for the immortal majesty of the Gospel, that 
 social influence which everywhere else has been disputed or 
 diverted from it by the fatal inheritance which the Rome of 
 the Csesars left to the world. 
 
 At the same time, after having been the last of the 
 Western nations to yield to the Roman yoke, Britain was 
 the first to free herself from it ; she was the first capable of 
 throwing off the imperial authority, and showing the world 
 that it was possible to do without an emperor. When the 
 powerlessness of the empire against barbaric incursions had 
 been demonstrated in Britain as elsewhere, the Britons were 
 not false to themselves. The little national monarchies, the 
 clans aristocratically organised, whose divisions had occa- 
 sioned the triumph of the Roman invasion, reappeared 
 under native chiefs. A kind of federation was constituted, 
 and its leaders signified to the Emperor Honorius, in 
 410, by an embassy received at Ravenna, that hence- 
 forward Britain reckoned upon defending and governing
 
 372 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 herself. 1 A great writer has already remarked, that of 
 all the nations subdued by the Boman Empire it is the 
 Britons alone whose struggle with the barbarians had a 
 history — and the history of that resistance lasted two cen- 
 turies. Nothing similar occurred at the same period, under 
 the same circumstances, among the Italians, the Gauls, or 
 the Spaniards, who all allowed themselves to be crushed 
 and overthrown without resistance. 2 
 
 At the same time, Britain herself had not passed with 
 impunity through three centuries and a half of imperial 
 bondage. As in Gaul, as in all the countries subjugated by 
 the Eoman Empire, dependence and corruption had ended 
 by enervating, softening, and ruining the vigorous popula- 
 tion. The sons of those whom Caesar could not conquer, 
 and who had struggled heroically under Claudius and Nero, 
 soon began to think themselves incapable of making head 
 against the barbarians, amissa virtutc paritcr ac libertate. 
 They sought in vain the intervention of the Roman legions, 
 which returned to the island on two different occasions, 
 without succeeding in delivering or protecting it. At the 
 same time, the barbarians who came to shake and overthrow 
 the sway of the Caasars in Britain were not foreigners, as 
 were the Goths in Italy and the Franks in Gaul. Those 
 Caledonians who, under Galgacus, victoriously resisted Agri- 
 cola, and who, under the new names of Scots and Picts, 
 breached the famous ramparts erected against them by 
 Antoninus and Severus, and resumed year after year their 
 sanguinary devastations, wringing from Britain, overwhelmed 
 and desolated by half a century of ravage, that cry of dis- 
 
 1 " Romanum nomen tenens, legem abjiciens." — GlLDAS, Dc Excidio 
 Britannia:. ZOSIME, Hist. Nova, book vi. pp. 376, 381. Compare LlNGARD, 
 Hidory of England, c. I. AMEDEE Thierry, Aries ct le Tyran Constantin, 
 
 P- 3°9- 
 
 2 Guizot, Essai sur V Histoire dc France, p. 2. In Gaul only the Ar- 
 vernes, the compatriots of Vercingetorix, had one noble inspiration, when 
 Ecdicius compelled the Goths to raise the siege of Clermont in 471, but it 
 was but a passing gleam in the night.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 373 
 
 tress which is known to all — " The barbarians have driven 
 us to the sea, the sea drives us back upon the barbarians. 
 We have only the choice of being murdered or drowned ; " J 
 were nothing more than unsubdued tribes belonging to 
 Britain herself. 
 
 Everybody knows also how imprudently the Britons 
 accepted the assistance against the Picts, of the warlike and 
 maritime race of Anglo-Saxons, and how, themselves not 
 less cruel nor less formidable than the Picts, those allies, 
 becoming the conquerors of the country, founded there a 
 new power, or, to speak more justly, a new nationality, 
 which has victoriously maintained its existence through all 
 subsequent conquests and revolutions. These warriors were 
 an offshoot from the great Germanic family — as were also, 
 according to general opinion, the Britons themselves — and 
 resembled the latter closely in their institutions and habits ; 
 which did not, however, prevent the native population from 
 maintaining against them, during nearly two centuries, a 
 heroic, although in the end useless resistance. 2 The Anglo- 
 Saxons, who were entirely strangers to Roman civilisation, 
 took no pains to preserve or re-establish the remains of the 
 imperial rule. But in destroying the dawning independence 
 of the Britons, in driving back into the hilly regions of the 
 west that part of the population which was beyond the 
 reach of the long knives from which they derived their 
 name, 3 the pagan invaders overthrew, and for a time an- 
 nihilated, upon the blood-stained soil of Great Britain an 
 edifice of a majesty very different from that of the Roman 
 Empire, and of endurance more steadfast than that of Celtic 
 nationality — the edifice of the Christian religion. 
 
 It is known with certainty that Christianity existed in 
 
 1 " Aetio ter consuli gemitus Britannorum. Repellunt nos barbari ad mare, 
 repellit mare ad barbaros. Inter hsec oriuntur duo genera funerum : aut 
 jugulamur aut mergimur." 
 
 2 This resistance has been nowhere so well described as by M. Arthur de 
 la Borderie in the Revue Bretonne of 1864. 
 
 3 Sax, knife, sword, in old German.
 
 374 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 Britain from the second century of the Christian era, but 
 nothing is positively known as to the origin or organisation 
 of the primitive Church ; according to Tertullian, however, 
 she had penetrated into Caledonia beyond the limits of the 
 Roman province. 1 She furnished her contingent of martyrs 
 to the persecution of Diocletian, in the foremost rank among 
 whom stood Alban, a young deacon, whose tomb, at a later 
 date, was consecrated by one of the principal Anglo-Saxon 
 monasteries. She appeared, immediately after the peace of 
 the Church, in the persons of her bishops, at the first Western 
 councils. And she survived the Roman domination, but only 
 to fight for her footing inch by inch, and finally to fall back, 
 with the last tribes of the Britons, before the Saxon invaders, 
 after an entire century of efforts and sufferings, of massacres 
 and profanations. During all this period, from one end of 
 the isle to the other, the Saxons carried fire and sword and 
 sacrilege, pulling down public buildings and private dwell- 
 ings, devastating the churches, breaking the sacred stones of 
 the altars, and murdering the pastors along with their flocks. 2 
 Trials so cruel and prolonged necessarily disturbed the 
 habitual communication between the Christians of Britain 
 
 1 "Britannorum inaccessa Roruanis loca, Christo vero subdita." — Ter- 
 TUL., Adv. Judccos, c. 7. 
 
 2 " Accensus manibus paganorum ignis . . . ab orientali mare usqne ad 
 occidentale . . . totam prope insuke perenntis superficiem obtexit. Ruebant 
 aidificia publica, simul et privata ; passim sacerdotes inter altaria trucida- 
 bantur, praesules cum populis, sine ullo respectu honoris, fcrro pariter et 
 fiammis absumebantur." — Beda, Hist. Ecclesiastica Gentis Anrjlorum, book i. 
 c. 15. Compare Gildas, De Excidio Britannia. Opinions are divided as to 
 tbe complete or partial destruction of the Britons in the districts conquered 
 by the Saxons. Palgrave especially has questioned ordinary tradition upon 
 this fact. However, the Saxon historians themselves have proved more than 
 one case of complete extermination. The first Saxons established by Cerdic, 
 founder of the kingdom of Wessex, in the Isle of Wight, destroyed the 
 entire native population there. " Paucos Britones, ejusdem insulas accolas, 
 quos in ea invenire potuerunt . . . occiderunt : caeteri enim accolae ejusdem 
 insula? ante aut occisi erant, aut exules aufugerant." — AsSER, p. 5, ap. 
 Lingard, i. 19. "Hoc anno (490) iElla et Cissa obsederunt Andredesces- 
 ter (in Sussex) et interfecerunt omnes qui id incolerent, adeo ut ne unus 
 Brito ibi superstes fuerit." — Chron. Anglo-Sax., ad ann. 490, ed. Gibson.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 37 5 
 
 and the Roman Church ; and this absence of intercourse 
 occasioned in its turn the diversities of rites and usages, 
 especially in respect to the celebration of Easter, which will 
 be discussed further on. At present it is enough to state 
 that the most attentive study of authentic documents reveals 
 no doctrinal strife, no diversity of belief, between the British 
 bishops and the Bishop of bishops at Home. Besides, the 
 Rome of the popes was lavishing its lights and consolations 
 upon its daughter beyond sea, at the very moment when the 
 Rome of the Caesars abandoned her to disasters which could 
 never be repaired. 
 
 The British Church had become acquainted with the 
 dangerous agitations of heresy even before she was con- 
 demned to her mortal struggle against Germanic paganism. 
 Pelagius, the great heresiarch of the fifth century, the great 
 enemy of grace, was born in her bosom. To defend herself 
 from the contagion of his doctrines, she called to her aid the 
 orthodox bishops of Gaul. Pope Celestine, who, about the 
 same period, had sent the Roman deacon Palladius to be the 
 first bishop of the Scots of Ireland, or of the Hebrides, 1 
 warned by the same Palladius of the great dangers which 
 
 1 " Palladius ad Scotos in Christum credentes ordinatus a papa Celestino 
 primus episcopus mittitur." — Prosper, Chron. Consulare, ad arm. 429. In 
 another work this contemporary adds : " Et ordinato Scotis episcopo, dum 
 Romanam insulam studet servare catholicam, fecit etiam barbaram Chris- 
 tianam." — Lib. contra Collat., c. 14. But the small success of that mission, 
 of which there is no mention even in the historic documents of Ireland, 
 gives probability to the conjecture of M. Varin, who concludes that Pal- 
 ladius was charged solely with the care of the Scots already established in 
 the Hebrides, and upon the western shores of Caledonia. This is the best 
 place to mention a saint, venerated in the Church of Scotland as the disciple 
 of Palladius, St. Ternan, described as archbishop of the Picts in the litur- 
 gical books of Aberdeen, which have made of St. Palladius (t towards 450) 
 a contemporary of St. Gregory the Great (t 604). The memory of this saint 
 has been brought again to light by the recent publication of a very curious 
 liturgical relic, Liber Ecclesie Beati Terrenani de Arbuthnott, scu Missale secun- 
 dum usum Ecclesice Sancti Andrea in Scotia, which we owe to Dr. Forbes> 
 Anglican Bishop of Brechin. But the article devoted to him by the Bol- 
 landists (Act. SS., Junii, vol. ii. pp. 533-35) does not put an end to the 
 uncertainty which prevails as to his existence.
 
 3 7 & CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 threatened the faith in Britain, charged our great Bishop of 
 
 Auxerre, St. Germain, to go and combat there the Pelagian 
 
 heresy. This prelate paid two visits to Britain, fortifying 
 
 her in the orthodox faith and the love of celestial grace. 
 
 Germain, who was accompanied the first time by the Bishop 
 
 of Troyes. 1 and the second by the Bishop of Treves, employed 
 
 at first against the heretics only the arms of persuasion. He 
 
 preached to the faithful not only in the churches, but at 
 
 cross-roads and in the fields. He argued publicly against 
 
 the Pelagian doctors in presence of the entire population, 
 
 assembled with their wives and children, who gave him the 
 
 most absorbed attention. 2 The illustrious bishop, who had 
 
 been a soldier in his youth, showed once more the bold ardour 
 
 of his early profession in defence of the people whom he 
 
 came to evangelise. At the head of his disarmed converts 
 
 he marched against a horde of Saxons and Picts, who were 
 
 leagued together against the Britons, and put them to flight 
 
 by making his band repeat three times the cry Hallelujah, 
 
 which the neighbouring mountains threw back in echoes. 
 
 This is the day known as the Victory of the Hallelujah? 
 
 It would have been well could he have preserved the victors 
 
 from the steel of the barbarians as he succeeded in curing 
 
 them of the poison of heresy ; for after his visit Pelagianism 
 
 appeared in Britain only to receive its deathblow at the 
 
 synod of 519. By means of the disciples whom he trained, 
 
 and who became the founders of the principal monasteries of 
 
 Wales, it is to our great Gallican saint that Britain owes her 
 
 first splendours of cenobitical life. 
 
 The celebrated Bishop of Auxerre and his brethren were 
 not the only dignified ecclesiastics to whom the Roman 
 
 1 St. Lupus, educated at the monastic school of Lerins, and so well 
 known for his moral victory over Attila. — See ante, vol. i. p. 352. 
 
 2 " Divinus per eos sermo ferme quotidie, non solum in ecclesiis, verum 
 etiam per trivia, per rura praidicabatur. . . . Immensa multitudo etiam cum 
 conjugibus et liberis excita convenerat, ct erat populus expectator et f uturus 
 judex . . . vix manus continet, judicium tamen clamore testatur." — Bede, 
 i. 18. :i " Pugna alleluiatica."
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 377 
 
 Church committed the care of preserving and propagating 
 the faith in Britain. Towards the end of the fourth century, 
 at the height of the Caledonian invasions, the son of a Breton 
 chief, Ninias or Ninian, went to Rome to refresh his spirit 
 in the fountains of orthodoxy and discipline, and, after having 
 lived, prayed, and studied there in the school of Jerome and 
 Damasus, 1 he received from Pope Siricius episcopal ordina- 
 tion. He conceived the bold thought, in returning to Britain, 
 of meeting the waves of northern barbarians, who continued 
 to approach ever nearer and more terrible, by the only bul- 
 wark which could subdue, by transforming them. He under- 
 took to convert them to the Christian faith. The first thing 
 he did was to establish the seat of his diocese in a distant 
 corner of that midland district which lies between the two 
 isthmuses that divide Great Britain into three unequal parts. 
 This region, the possession of which had been incessantly 
 disputed by the Picts, the Britons, and the Romans, had 
 been reduced into a province, under the name of Valentia, 
 only in the time of the Emperor Valentinianus, and com- 
 prehended all the land between the wall of Antoninus on 
 the north, and the wall of Severus to the south. Its western 
 extremity, the part of the British coast which lay nearest to 
 Ireland, bore at that time the name of Galwidia or Gallo- 
 way. 2 It forms a sort of peninsula, cut by the sea into 
 several vast and broad promontories. It was on the banks 
 of one of the bays thus formed, upon a headland from which 
 the distantgheights of Cumberland and the Isle of Man may 
 be distinguished, that Ninian established his ecclesiastical 
 headquarters by building a stone church. This kind of 
 edifice, till then unknown in Britain, gained for the new 
 cathedral and its adjoining monastery the name of Candida 
 
 1 " Nynia episcopo reverentissimo et sanctissimo viro, de natione 
 Britonum, qui erat Roma? regulariter fidem et mysteria veritatis edoc- 
 tus." — Bede, iii. 4. 
 
 2 This province, so called during all the middle ages, is represented in 
 modern maps by the counties of Wigtown and Kirkcudbright.
 
 378 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 Casa, or Whitehom, 1 which is still its title. He consecrated 
 the church to St. Martin, the illustrious apostle of the Gauls, 
 to visit whom he had stopped at Tours, on his way back from 
 Rome, and who, according to tradition, gave him masons 
 capable of building a church in the Roman manner. The 
 image of this holy man, who died at about the same time 
 as Ninian established himself in his White House, the recol- 
 lection of his courage, his laborious efforts against idolatry 
 and heresy, his charity, full of generous indignation against 
 all persecutors, 2 were well worthy to preside over the apostolic 
 career of the new British bishop, and to inspire him with 
 the self-devotion necessary for beginning the conversion of 
 the Picts. 
 
 What traveller ever dreams in our days, while surveying 
 western Scotland from the banks of the Solway to those of 
 the Forth and Tay, passing from the gigantic capitals of 
 industry to the fields fertilised by all the modern improve- 
 ments of agriculture, meeting everywhere the proofs and 
 productions of the most elaborate civilisation, — who dreams 
 nowadays of the obstacles which had to be surmounted 
 before this very country could be snatched from barbarism ? 
 It is but too easy to forget what its state must have been 
 when Ninian became its first missionary and bishop. Not- 
 withstanding many authors, both sacred and profane — Dion 
 and Strabonius, St. John Chrysostom and St. Jerome — have 
 
 1 Horn, hern, Saxon cern, house. On an island near the shore there is 
 still shown a little ruined church which is said to have been built by St. 
 Ninian. The diocese which he founded disappeared after his death ; but 
 it was re-established by the Anglo-Saxons, as was also the community, to 
 whom the famous Alcuin addressed a letter entitled Ad fratrcs S. Ninian 
 in Candida Casa. A new invasion of the Picts, this time from Ireland, 
 destroyed for the second time the diocese of Galloway, which was re- 
 established only in the twelfth century, under King David I. The 
 beautiful ruins of this cathedral, which is comparatively modern, and 
 was destroyed by the Presbyterians, are seen in the town of Whitehom. 
 The tomb of St. Ninian was always much frequented as a place of 
 pilgrimage before the Reformation. 
 
 2 See ante, vol. i. p. 388.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 379 
 
 emulated each other in painting the horrible cruelty, the 
 savage and brutal habits, of those inhabitants of North 
 Britain, who, successively known under the name of Cale- 
 donians, Meatce, Attacoti} Scots, or Picts, were most probably 
 nothing more than the descendants of the British tribes 
 whom Rome had not been able to subdue. 2 All agree in 
 denouncing the incestuous intercourse of their domestic 
 existence, and they have even been accused of cannibalism. 3 
 All express the horror with which the subjects of the Empire 
 regarded those monsters in human form, who owed their 
 final name of Picts to their habit of marching to battle 
 naked, disclosing bodies tattooed, like those of the savage 
 islanders of the Pacific, with strange devices and many 
 colours. Notwithstanding, Ninian did not hesitate to trust 
 himself in the midst of those enemies of faith and civilisa- 
 tion. He, the son and representative of that British race 
 which they had been accustomed for more than a century 
 to massacre, spoil, and scorn, spent the twenty years that 
 remained of his life in unwearied efforts to bring them into 
 the light from on high, to lead them back from cannibalism 
 to Christianity, and that at the very moment when the 
 Roman Empire, as represented by Honorius, had abandoned 
 Britain to its implacable destroyers. 
 
 Unfortunately there remain no authentic details of his 
 mission, 4 no incident which recalls even distantly the clearly 
 characterised mission of his successor, St. Columba, who 
 
 1 These Attacoti, to whom St. Jerome attributes morals and cruelties 
 which will not bear description, inhabited, according to the general 
 opinion, the picturesque district north of the Clyde, at present traversed 
 by so many travellers, between Loch Lomond and Loch Fyne. 
 
 2 PALGRAVE, Rise and Progress of the English Commomuealth, vol. i. 
 p. 419. This is true, however, only of the Picts, for the Scots unques- 
 tionably came from Ireland, the Scotia of the middle ages. 
 
 3 See specially St. Jerome, in Jovinianum, book ii. 
 
 4 The Bollandists (die 16th September) do not admit the authenticity 
 of the life of St. Ninian, written in the twelfth century by the holy abbot 
 iElred, which contains only such miracles as are to be found everywhere, 
 without any specially characteristic feature.
 
 380 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 became, a century and a half later, the apostle of the Northern 
 Picts. We only know that he succeeded in founding, in 
 the midst of the Pictish race, a nucleus of Christianity which 
 was never altogether destroyed ; after which, crossing the 
 limits which Agricola and Antoninus had set to the Roman 
 sway at the time of its greatest splendour, he went, preach- 
 ing the faith, to the foot of those Grampians where the 
 father-in-law of Tacitus gained his last unfruitful victory. 1 
 We know that his memory remains as a blessing among 
 the descendants of the Picts and Scots, and that many 
 churches consecrated under his invocation still preserve the 
 recollection of that worship which was vowed to him by a 
 grateful posterity ; 2 and, finally, we know that, when above 
 seventy, he returned to die in his monastery of the White 
 House, after having passed the latter portion of his life, 
 preparing himself for the judgment of God, in a cave still 
 pointed out half-way up a white and lofty cliff on the 
 Galloway shore, upon which beat, without cease, the im- 
 petuous waves of the Irish Sea. 3 
 
 But in the primitive British Church, which was so cruelly 
 afflicted by the heathens of the north and of the east, by the 
 Picts and the Saxons, there were many other monasteries 
 than that of Ninian at Whitehorn. All the Christian 
 churches of the period were accompanied by cenobitical 
 institutions, and Gildas, the most trustworthy of British 
 annalists, leaves no doubt as to their existence in Britain. 4 
 But history has retained no detailed recollection of them. 
 Out of Cambria, which will be spoken of hereafter, the only 
 
 1 "Ipsi australes Picti qui infra cosdem montes habent sedes . . . re- 
 licto errore idololatriaj fidem veritatis acceperant prajdicanti eis verbum 
 Ninia episcopo." — Bede, iii. 4. 
 
 2 Even beyond tbe Grampians, as far as tbe point where Glen Urquhart 
 opens upon Loch Ness, and where St. Columba (see further on, Book IX. 
 chap, iii.) went to visit an old Pict when dying, a ruined chapel is still to 
 be seen bearing the name of St. Ninian, from which it has been supposed 
 that his mission passed the limit which has been ordinarily assigned to it. 
 
 3 Lives of the English Saints, 1845, No. xiii., p. 131. 
 
 4 De Excidio Britannia, pp. 43-45.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 3^1 
 
 great monastic institution whose name has triumphed over 
 oblivion belongs to legend rather than to history ; but it has 
 held too important a place in the religious traditions of the 
 English people to be altogether omitted here. It was an 
 age in which Catholic nations loved to dispute among them- 
 selves their priority and antiquity in the profession of the 
 Christian faith, and to seek their direct ancestors among the 
 privileged beings who had known, cherished, and served 
 the Son of God during His passage through this life. They 
 aspired by these legendary genealogies to draw themselves 
 somehow closer to Calvary, and to be represented at the 
 mysteries of the Passion. For this reason Spain has vic- 
 toriously claimed as her apostle the son of Zebedee, the 
 brother of St. John — that James whom Jesus led with Him 
 to the splendours of Tabor and to the anguish of the Garden 
 of Olives. For this reason the south of France glories in 
 tracing back its Christian origin to that family whose sorrows 
 and love are inscribed in the Gospel — to Martha, who was 
 the hostess of Jesus ; to Lazarus, whom He raised up ; to 
 Mary Magdalene, who was the first witness of His own 
 resurrection ; to their miraculous journey from Judea to 
 Provence ; to the martyrdom of one, to the retreat of an- 
 other in the Grotto of St. Baume ; — admirable traditions, 
 which the most solid learning of our own day has justified 
 and consecrated. 1 England in other days, with much less 
 foundation, loved to persuade herself that she owed the first 
 seed of faith to Joseph of Arimathea, the noble and rich 
 disciple 2 who laid the body of the Lord in the sepulchre 
 where the Magdalene came to embalm it. The Britons, and 
 after them the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Normans, handed 
 down from father to son the tradition that Joseph, flying the 
 persecutions of the Jews, and carrying with him for all his 
 
 1 See the great and learned work published by M. Faillon, Director of 
 Saint-Sulpice, under the title of Monuments inidits sur VApostolat de Sainte 
 Marie Madeleine en Provence. Paris, 1848. Compare Bouche, Defense de 
 la Foi de Provence pour ses Saints Lazare, Maximin, Marthe, et Madeleine. 
 
 - "Nobilis decurio." — S. MARC.
 
 382 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 treasure some drops of the blood of Jesus Christ, landed on 
 the western coast of England with twelve companions ; that 
 he there found an asylum in a desert place surrounded by 
 water, 1 and that he built and consecrated to the blessed 
 Virgin a chapel, the walls of which were formed by entwined 
 branches of willow, and the dedication of which Jesus Christ 
 Himself did not disdain to celebrate. The same legend has 
 been told since then of two great and famous monastic 
 churches — that of St. Denis in France, and of Notre Dame 
 des Ermites in Switzerland. 2 This spot, destined to become 
 the first Christian sauctuary of the British Isles, was situated 
 upon a tributary of the gulf into which the Severn falls. It 
 afterwards received the name of Glastonbury ; and such was, 
 according to the unchangeable popular conviction, the origin 
 
 1 GUILLELMUS MALME8BUBIENSIS, Antiq. Olattonb., ap. GALE, Script. 
 Rer. Britarm., vol. iii. p. 293. Compare BARONIUS, Ann., ad arm. 48. 
 Dugdm.i:, M< nattieon, vol. i. p. 2. The Bollandists and various other 
 modern historians have taken much pains to refute this tradition. It is, 
 however, repeated in the letter which some monks addressed to Queen 
 Mary in 1553, to ask the re-establishment of their abbey (ap. Dugdale, 
 vol. i. p. 9 of the new edition). In consequence of this t radition of Joseph 
 of Arimathea, the ambassadors of England claimed precedence of those of 
 France, Spain, and Scotland at the Councils of Pisa in 1409, of Constance 
 in 1414, and, above all, of Bale in 1434, because, according to them, the 
 faith had been preached in France only by St. Denis, and later than the 
 mission of Joseph of Arimathea. — Ussher, De Prim. Keel. BriL, p. 22. 
 
 2 The following narrative, told by William of Malmesbury, shows to 
 what extent this legend was accepted in France up to the twelfth century : 
 "Monachus quidam Glastoniae, Godefridus nomine (de cujus epistola 
 hoc capitulum assumpsimus), tempore Henrice Blesensis abbatis Glas- 
 toniensis, cum in pago Parisiacensi apud Sanctum Dionysium moraretur ; 
 senior quidam ex inonachis interrogavit eum : ' Quo genus ? Unde domo ? ' 
 Respondit : ' Normannum e Britannia? monasterio, quod Glastingeia dice- 
 tur, monachum. — Papse ! inquit, an adhuc stat ilia perpetual Virginis et 
 misericordia: Matria vetusta ecclesia ? — Stat,' inquit. Turn ille lepido 
 attactu caput G. Glastoniensis demulcens, diu silentio suspensum tenuit, 
 ac sic demum ora resolvit : ' Haec gloriosissimi martyris Dionysii ecclesia 
 et ilia, de qua te asseris, eamdem privilegii dignitatem habent ; ista in 
 Gallia, ilia in Britannia, uno eodem tempore exortaa, a summo et magno 
 pontifice consecrates. Uno tamen gradu ilia supereminet : Koma etenim 
 secunda vocatur.' "
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 383 
 
 of the great abbey of that name, which was afterwards 
 occupied by monks of Irish origin. 1 This sanctuary of the 
 primitive legends and national traditions of the Celtic race 
 was besides supposed to enclose the tomb of King Arthur, 
 who was, as is well known, the personification of the long 
 and bloody resistance of the Britons to the Saxon invasion, 
 the heroic champion of their liberty, of their language, and 
 of their faith, and the first type of that chivalrous ideal of 
 the middle ages in which warlike virtues were identified 
 with the service of God and of our Lady. 2 Mortally wounded 
 in one of these combats against the Saxons, which lasted 
 three successive days and nights, he was carried to Glaston- 
 bury, died there, and was buried in secret, leaving to his 
 nation the vain hope of seeing him one day reappear, 3 and 
 to the whole of Christian Europe a legendary glory, a memory 
 destined to emulate that of Charlemagne. 
 
 Thus poetry, history, and faith found a common home in 
 the old monastery, which was for more than a thousand 
 years one of the wonders of England, and which still re- 
 mained erect, flourishing, and extensive as an entire town, 
 up to the day when Henry VIII. hung and quartered the 
 
 1 The curious collection entitled Monasticon Anglicanum, with the ad- 
 mirable plates of W. Hollar, which are to be found in the editions of the 
 seventeenth century, should be consulted upon this famous abbey, as also 
 upon all the others we may name. The bones of King Arthur were sup- 
 posed to have been found at Glastonbury in the reign of Henry II., at the 
 end of the twelfth century. 
 
 2 See all the many poems on the Round Table in England, France, and 
 Germany, and especially the three great poems entitled Parceval, Titurel, 
 and Lohengrin, which turn upon the worship of the Saint Graal or Sang 
 Rial, that is to say, the blood of our Lord, collected by Joseph of Arima- 
 thea, and preserved in the vase which Jesus Christ had used in the 
 institution of the Eucharist. 
 
 3 Compare Thieery, Hist, de la Conquete d'Angleterre, book i. p. 39. 
 Lappenberg, vol. i. pp. 104-107. M. de la Borderie, in his fine narrative 
 of the struggle of the insular Britons with the Anglo-Saxons, has well 
 distinguished the hyperbolical personage of legendary tradition from the 
 real Arthur, chief of the league of Britons of the south and west, and 
 conqueror of the Saxons, or rather of the Angles, in twelve battles.
 
 3 §4 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 last abbot before the great portal of the confiscated and pro- 
 faned sanctuary. 1 
 
 But we return to the reality of history, and to the period 
 which must now occupy our attention, that which extends 
 from the middle of the fifth to that of the sixth century, 
 the same age in which the Merovingians founded in Gaul 
 the Frankish kingdom, so beloved by the monks ; and St. 
 Benedict planted upon Monte Cassino the cradle of the 
 greatest of monastic orders. Great Britain, destined to be- 
 come the most precious conquest of the Benedictines, offered 
 at that moment the spectacle of four different races des- 
 perately struggling against each other for the mastery. 
 
 In the north were the Picts and Scots, still strangers and 
 enemies to the faith of Christ, intrenched behind those 
 mountains and gulfs, which gained for them the character 
 of transmarine foreigners, people from beyond seas ; 2 con- 
 tinually threatening the southern districts, which they had 
 crushed or stupefied for a century by the intermitting re- 
 currence of their infestations ; and from which they were 
 driven only by other barbarians as heathen and as savage 
 as themselves. 
 
 Further down, in that region which the gulfs of Clyde, 
 Forth, and Solway constitute the central peninsula of the 
 three which compose Great Britain, were other Picts per- 
 manently established, since 448, in the land which they 
 had torn from the Britons, and among whom the apostle 
 Ninian had sown the seeds of Christianity. 3 
 
 To the south-west, and upon all the coast which faces 
 
 1 14th May 1539. — This martyr was accused of having withdrawn from 
 the hand of the spoiler some part of the treasure of the abbey. He was 
 pursued and put to death by the zeal of John Russell, founder of the 
 house of Bedford, and one of the principal instruments of the tyranny of 
 Henry VIII. 
 
 2 Gildas and Bede call them "gentes transmarinas : non quod extra 
 Britanniam essent positae, sed quia a parte Brittonum erant remotae." 
 
 3 " Picti in extrema parte insvlce " (that is to say, of the Roman isle, in 
 Valentia), "tunc primum et deinceps requieverunt, prsedas et contritiones 
 nonnunquam facientes," &c. — Gildas, apud Gale, p. 13.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 385 
 
 Ireland, remained a native and still independent population. 
 It was here that the unhappy Britons — abandoned by the 
 Romans, decimated, ravaged, and trodden down for a century 
 by the Picts ; then for another century spoiled, enslaved, 
 driven from their towns and fields by the Saxons ; then 
 driven back again, some to the mountains of Wales, others 
 to that tongue or horn of land which is called Cornwall, 
 Cornu wallice, others to the maritime district which extends 
 from the banks of the Clyde to those of the Mersey * — still 
 found an asylum. 
 
 Finally, in the south-east, all the country which is now 
 England had fallen a prey to the Anglo-Saxons, who were 
 occupied in laying, under the federative form of the seven 
 or eight kingdoms of the Heptarchy, the immovable founda- 
 tions of the most powerful nation of the modern world. 
 
 But, like the Picts of the north, the Anglo-Saxons were 
 still heathens. From whence shall come to them the light 
 
 1 This was the kingdom of Strath-Clyde, which later took the name of 
 Cambria, and of which a vestige remains, and, at the same time, a popu- 
 lation more British than Saxon, in the existing county of Cumberland. 
 The boundaries of this kingdom, however, are much disputed. To find a 
 way through the confusion of texts and traditions relative to the religious 
 and chronological origin of Great Britain, recourse should be had to two 
 admirable papers, by a modern writer, too soon withdrawn from the ranks 
 of French erudition, M. Varin, Dean of the Faculty of Sciences at Rennes, 
 which are to be found in the Recueil des Memoires prisentis par divers 
 savants a VAcademie des Inscriptions et Belles- Lettres (tome v., first and 
 second part, 1857, 1858). The first is entitled Etudes relatives a I'dtat 
 politique et religieux des Tics Britanniques au moment de V Invasion Saxonne ; 
 the second, Mimoire sur les Causes de la Dissidence entre V Eglise Bretonne et 
 VEglisc Romaine relativtment a la Celebration de la Fete de Pdques. Before 
 resolving this last question, with a precision and a perspicuity which permit 
 us to follow him without hesitation, M. Varin guides us across all the 
 meanderings of the three principal schools, Irish, English, and Scotch, 
 which dispute the origin of the Caledonians ; and which, as personified in 
 Usher, Camden, and Innes, have remained almost unknown to Continental 
 learning. 
 
 He regards as proved — 1st, The identity of the Picts with the ancient 
 Caledonians. 2nd, The Irish theory, which makes out the Scots to be a 
 colony of Hibernians, of Irish origin (probably towards 258), and estab- 
 lished in Caledonia before the period of the infestations. 
 
 VOL. II. 2 B
 
 386 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF THE BRITISH ISLES 
 
 of the Gospel and the bond of Christian civilisation, which 
 are indispensable to their future grandeur and virtue ? 
 Shall it be from those mountains of Cambria, from Wales, 
 where the vanquished race maintains the sacred fire of faith 
 and the traditions of the British Church, with its native 
 clergy and monastic institutions ? It is a question impos- 
 sible to solve, without having thrown a rapid glance over 
 the religious condition of that picturesque and attractive 
 country during the sixth century.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE SAINTS AND MONKS OF WALES 
 
 The British refugees in Cambria maintain there the genius of the Celtic 
 race. — Testimony rendered to the virtues of the Welsh by their 
 enemy Giraldus. — Music and poetry : the bards and their triads. — 
 Devotion to the Christian faith. — King Arthur crowned by the 
 Bishop Dubricius. — Alliance between the bards and the monks : the 
 bard surprised by the flood. — A few names which float in the ocean 
 of legends. — Mutual influence of Cambria, Armorica, and Ireland upon 
 each other : their legends identical. — The love of the Celtic monks 
 for travel. — Foundation of the episcopal monasteries of St. Asaph by 
 Kentigern, of Llandaff by Dubricius, of Bangor by Iltud, a converted 
 bandit. — St. David, monk and bishop, the Benedict of Wales. — His 
 pilgrimage to Jerusalem, from which he returns archbishop. — The 
 right of asylum recognised. — He restores Glastonbury. — His tomb 
 becomes the national sanctuary of Cambria. — Legend of St. Cadoc 
 and his father and mother.— He founds Llancarvan, the school and 
 burying-place of the Cambrian race.— His poetical aphorisms, his 
 vast domains. — He protects the peasants. — A young girl carried off 
 and restored.— Right of asylum as for St. David. — The Hate of Cadoc. 
 — He takes refuge in Armorica, prays for Virgil, returns to Britain, 
 and there perishes by the sword of the Saxons.— His name invoked at 
 the battle of the Thirty. — St. Winifred and her fountain. — St. Beino, 
 the enemy of the Saxons. — The hatred of the Cambrians to the Saxons 
 an obstacle to the conversion of the conquerors. 
 
 During the long struggle maintained by the Britons in 
 defence of their lands and their independence with the 
 Saxons, whom a succession of invading expeditions brought 
 like waves of the sea upon the eastern and southern shores 
 of the island, a certain number of those who repudiated the 
 foreign rule had sought an asylum in the western peninsulas 
 of their native land, and especially in that great peninsular 
 
 basin which the Latins called Cambria, and which is now 
 
 387
 
 388 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 called Wales, the land of the Gael. This district seems 
 intended by nature to be the citadel of England. Bathed 
 on three sides by the sea, defended on the fourth by the 
 Severn and other rivers, this quadrilateral, moreover, con- 
 tains the highest mountains in the southern part of the 
 island, and a crowd of gorges and defiles inaccessible to the 
 military operations of old. After having served as a refuge 
 to the Britons oppressed by the Roman conquest, Cambria 
 resisted the efforts of the Anglo-Saxons for five centuries, 
 and even remained long inaccessible to the Anglo-Normans, 
 whom it took more than two hundred years to complete in 
 this region the work of William the Conqueror. 
 
 Like Ireland and Scotland, and our own Armorica, this 
 fine country has at all times been the object of lively sym- 
 pathy, not only among learned Celtomaniacs, but among all 
 men whose hearts are moved by the sight of B race which 
 makes defeat honourable by the tenacity of its resistance to 
 the victor — and still more among all lovers of that inimit- 
 able poetry which springs spontaneously from the traditions 
 and instincts of a generous and unfortunate people. 
 
 The unquestionable signs of a race entirely distinct from 
 that which inhabits the other parts of England may still 
 be distinguished there ; — and there, too, may be found a 
 language evidently the sister language of the three other 
 Celtic dialects which are still in existence — the Breton Ar- 
 morican, the Irish, and the Gaelic of the Scottish Highlands. 
 
 But it is, above all, in the sudden vicissitudes of the 
 history of Wales, from King Arthur to Llewellyn, and in 
 the institutions which enabled it to resist the foreign in- 
 vasion for seven centuries, that we recognise the true 
 characteristics and rich nature of the ancient British race. 
 Everywhere else the native population had either been 
 killed, enslaved, or absorbed. But in this spot, where it 
 had sufficient strength to survive and flourish along with 
 the other nationalities of the West, it has displayed all its 
 native worth, bequeathing to us historical, juridical, and
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 389 
 
 poetical remains, which prove the powerful and original 
 vitality with which it was endowed. 1 By its soul, by its 
 tongue, and by its blood, the race has thus protested against 
 the exaggerated statements made by the Briton Gildas, and 
 the Saxon Bede, of the corruption of the victims of the 
 Saxon invasion. In all times there have been found men, 
 and even the best of men, who thus wrong the vanquished, 
 and make history conspire with fortune to absolve and 
 crown the victors. The turn of the Anglo-Saxons was to 
 come ; they also, when the Norman invasion had crushed 
 them, found a crowd of pious detractors to prove that they 
 had merited their fate, and to absolve and mitigate the 
 crimes of the Conquest. 
 
 The most striking, and, at the same time, the most 
 attractive feature in the characteristic history of the Welsh 
 is, without doubt, the ardour of patriotism, the invincible 
 love of liberty and national independence, which they 
 evidenced throughout seven centuries, and which no other 
 race has surpassed. We are specially informed of these 
 qualities, even by the servile chroniclers of their conquerors, 
 by the Anglo-Norman writers of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries, from whom truth extorts the most unequivocal 
 eulogiums. These writers certainly point out certain vices, 
 and especially certain customs, which are in opposition to 
 the rules of civilised nations, such as that of fighting naked, 
 like the Britons of Csesar's day or the Picts of a later date, 
 against adversaries armed from head to foot. But they 
 rival each other in celebrating the heroic and unwearied 
 devotion of the Gael to their country, and to general and 
 individual freedom ; their reverence for the achievements 
 and memory of their ancestors ; their love of war ; their 
 contempt of life ; their charity to the poor ; their exemplary 
 temperance, which was combined with inexhaustible hos- 
 pitality ; and, above all, their extraordinary valour in fight, 
 
 1 See the excellent work entitled Das Alte Wales, by Ferdinand Walter, 
 Professor at the University of Bonn. 1859.
 
 390 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 and their obstinate constancy through all their reverses 
 and disasters. 1 
 
 Nothing can give a better picture of this people than 
 that decree of their ancient laws which interdicted the 
 seizure by justice, in the house of any Gael whatsoever, of 
 three specified things — his sword, his harp, and one of his 
 books ; 2 the harp and the book, because in time of peace 
 they regarded music and poetry as the best occupation of 
 an honest and free man. Thus from infancy every Gael 
 cultivated these two arts, and especially music, with pas- 
 sionate and unanimous eagerness. It was the favourite 
 form, the gracious accompaniment of hospitality. The 
 traveller was everywhere received by choirs of singers. 
 From morning to evening every housf ith the sound 
 
 of the harp and other instruments, played with a perfection 
 which delighted tin- foreign hearers, who were at the same 
 time always struck, amid all the skilful turns of musical 
 art, by the constant repetition of sweet and melancholy 
 chords, which seemed to reflect, as in the music of Ireland, 
 the candid genius and cruel destiny of the Celtic race. 8 
 
 1 Let as quote tin- very words of the enemies of Welsh independence ; 
 ! ■ too seldom gives as bo opportunity oi bearing and repeating de- 
 tails so noble : — 
 
 "Patriae tutelse student et libertatis; pro patria pugnant, pro lihertatc 
 laborant. . . . Continua prist ina? nobilitatis memoria. . . . TantSB auda- 
 I ferocitatis, at audi cum armatis congredi non venantur, adeo ut 
 Bangtdnem pro patria fundere proinptissime, vitamque vdint pro laudc 
 L" — (in: \i.nt s, Cambria Ducript., c. 8, io. "In bellico oonflictu 
 primo impetu, acrimonia, voce, vultu terribiles tain . . . tubarum prae- 
 Longarum clangore altisono quam cursu pernici. . . . Gens asperrima 
 . . . hodie conf ecta et oruentam in fugam turpiter conversa, eras nihilo- 
 minus ex]n ditionem parat.nec damno net- i etardata." <iii:\i.n., 
 
 ]>< Wanda'., WaUics, c. 3. "Nee crapula; dediti nee temolentisa 
 
 . . . in cquis sola et armis tota versatur Lutentio. . . . Vespere coana 
 Bobria : et si forte nulla vel minima pars, resperani alteram patienter ex- 
 pectant. Nemo in hac gente mendicus, omnium bospitia omnibus com- 
 munia." — Doer. Cambria, 0. 9. "Omnium rcrum Largiasimi, oiborom sibi 
 qnisque paroissimus." — Gualt. Mapes, Dr Nugit Cur,, ilium, ii. 20. 
 
 2 Triades of Dymvall Ifoelmud, 54, ap Waltkb, p. 315. 
 
 3 "Qui matntinis horis adveniunt, puellarum affatibus et cytherarum
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 39 1 
 
 The bards themselves, singers and poets, sometimes even 
 princes and warriors, presided over the musical education of 
 the country as well as over its intellectual development. 
 But they did not confine themselves to song ; they also 
 fought and died for national independence ; the harp in 
 their hands was often only the auxiliary of the sword, and 
 one weapon the more against the Saxon. 1 
 
 This powerful corporation, which was constituted in a 
 hierarchical form, had survived the ruin of the Druids, and 
 appeared in the sixth century in its fullest splendour in the 
 centre of those poetic assemblies, 2 presided over by the kings 
 and chiefs of the country, which were a truly national in- 
 stitution, and continued to exist until the latest days of 
 Welsh independence. In the numerous relics of their fertile 
 activity recently brought to light by efforts which are as 
 patriotic as intelligent, 3 but still insufficiently elucidated — 
 in those triads which, under the comparatively recent form 
 known to us, disguise but faintly the highest antiquity — 
 are to be found treasures of true poetry, in which the savage 
 grandeur of a primitive race, tempered and purified by the 
 teachings and mysteries of the Gospel, seems to play in a 
 
 modulis usque ad vesperam delectantur : domus enim hie quselibet puellas 
 habet ad cytharas ad hoc deputatas. ... In musico modulamine non 
 uniformiter, ut alibi ; sed multipliciter ruultisque modis et modulis 
 cantilenas emittunt, adeo ut in turba canentium, sicut huic genti mos 
 est, quot videae capita, tot audias carruina discriminaque vocum, varia in 
 unam denique sub B mollis dulcedine blanda consonantiam et organicuni 
 convenientia melodiam. ... In musicis instrumentis dulcedine aures 
 deliniunt et demulcent, tanta modulorum celeritate, pariter et subtilitate 
 feruntur, tantamque discrepantium sub tarn praecipiti digitorum rapiditate 
 consonantiam praistant. . . . Semper autem ab molli incipiunt et in 
 idem redeunt, ut cuncta sub jucundae sonoritatis dulcedine compleantur." 
 — GlRALDUS CAMBRENSIS, C. IO, 12, 13. 
 
 1 A. DE LA BORDERIE, p. 179. La VlLLEMARQUE, Les Bardcs Bretons. 
 
 • The Eisteddvods. An attempt has been made to revive them. 
 
 3 Those of Williams ab Jolo, of Williams ab Ithel, of the two Owens, of 
 Stephens, of Walter, and, above all, of M. de la Villemarque", who has been 
 the first to open up to literary France the history of a race naturally so 
 dear to the Bretons of Armorica.
 
 392 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 thousand limpid currents which sparkle in the morning sun- 
 light of history, before running into and identifying them- 
 selves with the great river of Christian tradition in the West. 
 
 For the Christian religion was adopted, cherished, and 
 defended amidst the mountains of Cambria with not less 
 fervour and passion than national independence. Kings 
 and chiefs there were not more blameless than elsewhere. 
 There, too, as everywhere else, the abuse of strength and the 
 exercise of power engendered every kind of crime : too often 
 perjury, adultery, and murder appear in their annals. 1 But 
 at the same time faith and repentance often reclaimed tlwir 
 rights over souls not so much corrupt as gone astray. In 
 imitation of the great Arthur, who was crowned, according 
 to Celtic tradition, in 516, by a holy archbishop called 
 Dubricius, they almost all Bhowed themselves zealous for the 
 service of God and generous to the Church ; and the people, 
 separated from Home by the waves of blood in which the 
 Saxon invasion had drowned British Christianity, soon dis- 
 played again that natural tendency which marked them out to 
 the Norman conquerors as the most zealous of all the pilgrims 
 wlio made their eager way to the tombs of the apostles. 2 
 
 The bards, though they had existed before Christianity, 
 far from being hostile to it, lived in an intimate and cordial 
 alliance with the clergy, and especially with the monks. 
 Each monastery had its bard — at once poet and historian — 
 who chronicled the wars, alliances, and other events of the 
 age. Every three years these national annalists, like the 
 pontiffs of ancient Rome, assembled to compare their narra- 
 tives, and to register them at the foot of the code of Good 
 
 1 See the numerous examples collected by Lingard [Anglo-Saxon Church, 
 vol. ii. p. 362), in the Book of Llandaff, and other Welsh documents. 
 
 2 " Prse onini peregrino labore Romam peregre libentius eundo, devotis 
 mentibus apostolorum limina propensius adorant." — Cambria- Detcrtptio, 
 p. 891, ed. 1602. Let us repeat once more, that in none of the numerous 
 relics of Welsh archaeology and geography recently published can there 
 be found the slightest trace of hostility, either systematic or temporary, 
 against the Holy See.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 393 
 
 customs and ancient liberties of the country, of which they 
 were the guardians. 1 It was in these monastic schools also 
 that the bards were trained to poetry and to music. The 
 best known among them, Taliesin, was educated, like the 
 historian Gildas, in the monastery of Llancarvan. 
 
 Let us here quote one incident out of a hundred which 
 throws light upon the singularly intimate connection exist- 
 ing between the poetry of the Welsh bards and the legends 
 of the monastic orders, while it shows at the same time the 
 proud intrepidity of the Celtic character. The father of the 
 founder of the monastery of Llancarvan having become a 
 hermit, as will be narrated further on, died in the odour of 
 sanctity, and was buried in a church, to which crowds were 
 soon attracted by the miraculous cures accomplished. Among 
 those crowds came a bard with the intention of making a 
 poem in honour of the new saint. While he composed his 
 lines a sudden flood ravaged the surrounding country, and 
 penetrated even to the church itself. All the neighbouring 
 population and their cattle had already perished, and the 
 waters continued to rise. The bard, while composing his 
 poem, took refuge in the higher story of the church, and 
 then upon the roof; he mounted from rafter to rafter pur- 
 sued by the flood, but still continuing to improvise his lines, 
 and drawing from danger the inspiration which had been 
 previously wanting. When the water subsided, from the 
 tomb of the hermit to the Severn, there remained no living 
 creature except the bard, and no other edifice standing except 
 the church upon which he had put together his heroic strains. 3 
 
 1 WALTER, op. cit., p. 33. LLOYD, History of Cambria, ed. Powell, praef., 
 p. 9. 
 
 2 LA VlLLEMARQUE, Poem.es des Bardcs Bretons, 1850, p. 44. 
 
 3 " Britannus quidam versificator Britannice versificans, composuit car- 
 mina a gente sua. . . . Nondum eadem finita erant a compositore. . . . 
 Marina undositas contexit campestria, submergit habitatores et aedificia : 
 equi cum bobus natant in aqua : matres tenebant filios prse manibus . . . 
 fiunt cadavera. Cum viderit undositatem altissimam imminere, suscepit 
 componere quartam partem carminum. Dum incepisset, impleta est 
 fluctibus : post haec ascendit trabes superius, et secutus est iterum tumens
 
 394 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 In this sea of Celtic legend, where neither fables nor 
 anachronisms are sufficient to obscure the vigorous and con- 
 stant affirmation of Catholic faith and British patriotism, 
 a few names of monastic founders and missionaries still 
 survive. They have been rescued from forgetfulness not 
 only by the revived learning of Cambrian archaeologists, but 
 also by faithful popular tradition, even after the complete 
 and lamentable extinction of Catholicism in Wales. 1 While 
 surveying their lives, and examining the general scope of 
 the monastic legends and institutions connected with them, 
 the existence of a double influence which attracts the looks 
 and steps of the Gael from their native mountains to Ar- 
 morica in the south, and t'> Ireland in the west, becomes 
 immediately appa: is also tl bant reflux of these 
 
 two countries back npon Great Britain, from whence had come 
 their first missionaries, and the religions and national life 
 of which had concentrated itself more and more in Cambria. 
 
 The Saxon invasion, as has been already seen, had 
 thrown upon the shores of Gaul a crowd of fugitives, who, 
 transformed into missionaries, had created a new Britain, 
 invincibly Christian and Catholic, at the gates of Merovin- 
 gian France. The most celebrated among these missionaries, 
 
 ductus tcrtio super tectum, nee cessat illc fongj laudibus. Illis finitis 
 Britannus poeta evasit, domus fulciens stabilivit." — Vita 8. OundUU, 0, i i, 
 ap. Kki.s, p. 15. 
 1 See the important publication entitli / Britiak 
 
 Saints of thr Fifth and ' rie$, from anrirjit WeLtk and 
 
 Latin MSS., by the Rev. W. Rees, Llandovery, 1853; B work to which 
 nothing is wanting except a historical and geographical commentary, 
 i For foreign readers, it is entirely distinct from the Euay onthe 
 Welsh Saints, by the Rev. E l so much prata d by Walter, bnt which 
 
 I have not been able to meel with. The biographies published by Rees, 
 from the MS. in the Cottonian Library, are partly in Welsh and partly 
 in Latin ; they mnst have been, not written, but certainly retouched at a 
 later period than that to which in the first place one is tempted to attri- 
 bute them. By the side of details evidently contemporary and local arc 
 to be found traces of declamatory interpolations, which must havi 
 the work of a posterity much less devoted than we arc to local colour and 
 historical authenticity.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 395 
 
 Tugdual, Samson, Malo, and Paul Aurelian, had been edu- 
 cated in the Cambrian monasteries, from whence also the 
 historian Gildas and the bard Taliesin accompanied them 
 beyond the seas. From the earliest days of her conversion 
 Ireland had received a similar emigration. The greater 
 part of these pious and brave missionaries came back once 
 at least in their lives to visit the country which they had 
 left, leading with them disciples, born in other Celtic lands, 
 but eager to carry back to the dear and much-threatened 
 homes of insular Britain the light and fervour which had 
 first been received from them. 1 Thence arises the singular 
 uniformity of proper names, traditions, miracles, and anec- 
 dotes, among the legends of the three countries, a uniformity 
 which has often degenerated into inextricable confusion. 
 
 One particular, however, which imprints a uniform and 
 very distinct character upon all the holy monks of Celtic 
 origin, is their extraordinary love for distant and frequent 
 journeys — and it is one of the points in which the modern 
 English resemble them most. At that distant age, in the 
 midst of barbarian invasions, and of the local disorganisa- 
 tion of the Roman world, and consequently in the face of 
 obstacles which nothing in Europe as it now exists can give 
 the slightest idea of, they are visible, traversing immense 
 distances, and scarcely done with one laborious pilgrimage 
 before they begin again or undertake another. The journey 
 to Rome, or even to Jerusalem, which finds a place in the 
 legend of almost every Cambrian or Irish saint, seems to 
 have been sport to them. St. Kentigern, for example, went 
 seven times in succession to Rome. 2 
 
 This same Kentigern, whom we shall meet again hereafter 
 as the missionary bishop of the southern Scots and Picts, is 
 said to have been born of one of those irregular unions 
 
 i "Sicut hiemale alvearium, arridente vere, animos extollens . . . aliud 
 foras emittit examen, ut alibi mellificet, ita Lctavia (the ancient name of 
 Armorica), accrescente serenitate religionis, catervam sanctorum ad origi- 
 nem unde exierunt, transmittit." — Vit. S. Paterni,ap. Rees, Cambro- British 
 Saints. 2 Act. SS. Bolland., t. i. January, p. 819.
 
 39 6 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 which evidence either domestic derangement or the abuse 
 of power among the chiefs and great men of the country, 
 and which are so often referred to in the annals of Celtic 
 hagiography. 1 He was none the less one of the principal 
 monastic personages in Cambria, where he founded, at the 
 junction of the Clwyd 2 and Elwy, an immense monastery, 
 inhabited by nine hundred and sixty- five monks, three 
 hundred of whom, being illiterate, cultivated the fields ; 
 three hundred worked in the interior of the monastery ; and 
 the three hundred and sixty-five others celebrated divine 
 worship without interruption. 3 This monastery became at 
 the same time an episcopal Bee, which still exists under the 
 name of St. Asaph, the successor of Kentigern. 4 
 
 This was not, however, either the oldest or most important 
 monastic colony of Cambria, where, a- in Saxon England, 
 every bishopric was cradled in a monastery. More than 
 a century before KentiLfern, Dubricius. whose long life, if 
 tradition is to be believed, made him the contemporary of 
 Patrick ami Palladinfi as well as of King Arthur, is instanced 
 as the first founder of a great monastic centre in Cambria, 
 from which religious colonies swarmed off continually to 
 Armorica and to Ireland. Dubricius was ordained bishop at 
 Llandaff in the smith <>f Wales by St. Germain of Auxerre, 
 
 1 " Matrern habuit Pictorum regis filiara. . . . Ea seu vi compressa, seu 
 dolo, a nobili adolescente cum uterurn gereret, auctorem prodere . . . 
 pertinentcr fertur recusasse. . . . Plurium ex eadem Scottoruni ac P.ritan- 
 norum gente sanctorum par ortns narrator, Fnrsei, Davidis," &c. — Bol- 
 land., p. 815. 
 
 2 This is the Clwyd of Wales and not the Clyde at Glasgow where St. 
 Kentigern was bishop. There are also two rivers Dee — one in Wales and 
 one in Scotland — which occasions a confusion of which it is well to be 
 warned. 
 
 3 Bolland., p. 819. This monastery was at first called Llan-Elwy. 
 
 4 Each tribe, every little princedom of Wales, had its bishopric. Llan- 
 daff for the Silurians, Menevia (afterwards St. David's) for the Demetes, 
 &c. There was one also at Margam, which afterwards became a celebrated 
 Cistercian abbey. The ruins, enclosed and preserved with care in the 
 splendid residence of a branch of the house of Talbot, are well worthy of 
 being visited and admired.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 397 
 
 and ended his career in the north as a hermit, after having 
 assembled at one period more than a thousand auditors 
 round his pulpit. Among these the most illustrious were 
 Iltud and David. 
 
 Iltud, or Eltut, who was also a disciple of St. Germain, 
 founded the great monastery of Bangor upon the banks of 
 the Dee, which became a centre of missionary enterprise, as 
 well as of political resistance to the foreign conquerors ; it 
 was reckoned to consist of seven divisions, each of three 
 hundred monks, who all lived by the labour of their hands. 
 It was a veritable army, yet still a half less than that of the 
 four thousand monks of the other Bangor, 1 on the other side 
 of the Channel, in Ireland, which was destined to be the 
 cradle of St. Columbanus and St. Gall, the monastic apostles 
 of eastern France and of Switzerland. 2 Iltud was born in 
 Armorica, but his curious legend, some touching details of 
 which our readers will thank us for quoting, records that he 
 was attracted to Wales by the fame of his cousin, King 
 Arthur. He began his life there as a man of war and of 
 rapine ; but he was converted while hawking by the sight 
 of a catastrophe which befell his companions, who, at the 
 moment when they had extorted from the holy abbot Cadoc, 
 the founder of Llancarvan, fifty loaves, a measure of beer, 
 and a fat pig, to satisfy their hunger, were swallowed up by 
 the earth, which opened under their feet. Iltud, terrified by 
 this lesson, and counselled by the abbot Cadoc, consecrated 
 himself to the service of God in solitude, even although he 
 was married and dearly loved his young and beautiful wife. 
 At first, she desired to accompany him and share with him 
 
 1 There was, besides, a third Bangor or Banchor, which is the existing 
 bishopric of that title, and was also founded by a disciple of Dubricius, 
 the holy abbot Daniel, who died about 548. This little episcopal see, 
 situated on the sea-coast, in the county of Caernarvon, has often been 
 confounded with the great monastery of the same name which was in 
 Flintshire, on the banks of the Dee. Ban-gor, which is interpreted to 
 mean magnus circulus, seems, besides, to have been a sort of generic name 
 for monastic congregations or enclosures. 
 
 2 See ante, p. 250.
 
 398 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 the hut of branches which he had built on the banks of the 
 Tave, in Gloucestershire. " What ! " said an angel who 
 appeared to him in a dream ; " thou also art enthralled by 
 the love of a woman ? Certainly thy wife is beautiful, but 
 chastity is more beautiful still." Obedient to that voice, he 
 abandoned his wife, and at the same time his horses and 
 followers, buried himself in a deep wood, and there built an 
 oratory which the number of his disciples soon changed into 
 a convent. He divided his life between great agricultural 
 labours and frequent straggles with the robber-kings and 
 chiefs of the neighbourhood. He distinguished himself 
 specially by constructing immense dykes against the floods 
 from which Wales seems to have suffered so much. His 
 wife pursued him even into this new solitude; but when she 
 discovered him at the bottom of a ditch which he was him- 
 self digging, with his body and fare covered with mud, she 
 saw that it was no longer her fair knighl of other days, and 
 thenceforward gave up visiting him, Lesl she should disp 
 God and the friend of God. Later in his life he shut him- 
 self up in a cave where he had only the cold stones for his 
 bed. He took delight in this solitary lair for four long J 
 and left it only twice, to protect his monastery against vio- 
 lence and robbery. He died at Dol, in that Armorica which 
 he had always loved, and where he took pleasure in sending 
 in times of famine, to help his Breton countrymen beyond 
 seas, shiploads of grain which were provided by the labours 
 of his Welsh community. 1 
 
 1 " Princeps militia; et tribunus . . . miles olim celeberrimus. . . . Acci- 
 pitrem per volatile* inst igabat. . . . Astabat angelus ammonens : Tc quoque 
 muliebris amor occupat . . . uxor est decora sed castimonia est inelior. . . . 
 Uxore consociante et armigeris . . . composuit tegmen ex arundineto ut 
 non plueret super lectum. . . . Mulier licet induta linxit sc frigesccre cum 
 tretnulo pectore, quatenus posset in lecto denuo collateralis jacere. . . . 
 Operatusest immensam Coflflam limo et lapidibus mixtam.quam retrudoret 
 irruentem undam. . . . Ubi operosum vidit fosson pex assidna i i 
 
 lutulentum perfaciens . . . inquisivit ab eo suave colloquium. . . . Con- 
 spexit ilia vilem habitum . . . non sicut antea viderat militem speciosum. 
 . . . Remansit itaque . . . nunquam amplius visitans eum, qua; nolebat
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 399 
 
 David is much more generally known than his co-disciple, 
 Iltut. He has always continued popular among the inhabi- 
 tants of Wales ; and Shakespeare informs us that, even since 
 the Reformation, the Welsh have retained the custom of wear- 
 ing a leek in their hats upon his feast-day. 1 His history 
 has been often written, 2 and through the transformation of 
 the legend it is still easy to recognise in it the salutary sway 
 of a great monk and bishop over souls which were faithful 
 to religion, but yet in full conflict with those savage and 
 sensual impulses which are to be found only too universally 
 among all men and all nations, in the centre of civilisation 
 as on the verge of barbarism. The origin, indeed, of the 
 
 displicere Deo et Dei dilectissimo. . . . Tota nocte jacebat super frigidam 
 petram . . . quasi diceret : 
 
 " Hoc lapis in lecto positus sub pectore nostro, 
 Hec mea dulcedo : jaceam pro Numine summo. 
 Mollis erit merces ventura beata beato, 
 Que manet in ccelo micbi debita, quando redibo." 
 
 — Vita S. Iltuti, Rees, pp. 45, 161-182. 
 1 " Pistol. Art thou of Cornish crew ? 
 King Henry. No, I'm a Welshman. 
 Pistol. Knowest thou Fluellen ? 
 King. Yes. 
 
 Pistol. Tell him I'll knock his leek about his pate 
 Upon St. Davy's day." 
 
 And afterwards : — 
 
 " Flueli.kx. I do believe your majesty takes no scorn 
 To wear the leek upon St. Davy's day. 
 
 King. I wear it for a memorable honour : 
 For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman." 
 
 — King Henry V. 
 
 - Notably by an anonymous writer, of whose work the Franciscan 
 Colgan has published a first version in his Acta Sanctorum Hibernice, vol. i. 
 Ricemarch, the successor of David as Bishop of Menevia towards 1085, 
 gave a much more complete version of this first biography, which has been 
 published by Rees in his Lives of Cambro- British Saints. Another of his 
 successors, the famous Giraldus Cambrensis, has also written a life of St. 
 David, which may be found in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, vol. ii. The date 
 and duration of his life is, however, very uncertain : according to Usserius 
 he lived between 472 and 554 ; according to the Bollandists, between 447 
 and 544 ; according to other authorities, between 484 and 566.
 
 400 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 holy patron of Cambria himself, like that of St. Bridget, 
 the patroness of Ireland, affords a startling proof of a state 
 of affairs both corrupt and violent. He was the son of a 
 nun whom the king of the country — a nephew of the great 
 Arthur — met upon the public road, and whom, struck by 
 her beauty, he instantly made the victim of his passion. 1 
 This crime is told by all the biographers of David, generally 
 so lavish of praise and blame, without the least expression 
 of surprise or indignation. The scribe Paulinas, whose 
 name indicates a Roman origin, and who is known to have 
 been a disciple of St. Germain of Auxerre, was charged with 
 the education of the young David, which was as long and 
 complete as possible. 2 He issued from his tutor's hands 
 clothed with the priesthood, and devoted to a kind of 
 monastic existence which did not exclude him either from 
 Continental travel, nor from exercising a great influence 
 over men and external affairs. He exercised a double 
 power over his countrymen, by directing one part to ceno- 
 bitical life, and arming the other with the knowledge and 
 virtue which enabled them to triumph over the dangers of 
 a secular career. It is on this latter point that he differs 
 from his illustrious contemporary, St. Benedict, whom he 
 resembles in so many other features. Like Benedict, he 
 founded, almost at one time, twelve monasteries ; like Bene- 
 dict, he saw his young disciples tempted to their fall by 
 the voluptuous wiles of shameless women ; like Benedict^ 
 he was exposed to the danger of being poisoned by traitors 
 in the very bosom of his own community ; 3 and, finally, like 
 
 1 " Invcnit rex obviam sibi sanctam monialem, Nonnitam virginem, 
 puellam pnlchiam niinis ct decoram, quam, concupiscens tetigtl vi op- 
 pressam." — Ricemarch, ed. Rees, p. 119. "In quam ut oculos injecit, 
 in cupidinem ejus medullitus exardons, statim equo dilapsus, virgineis 
 amplexibus est delectatus." — Giraldus, p. 629. 
 
 - "Quique eum docuit in tribns partibus lectionis, donee fuit scriba ; 
 mansit ibi multis annis legendo, implendoque quod legebat." — RlCE- 
 MARCII, p. 122. 
 
 3 "Convocatis ancillis : Ite, inquit uxor satrapa;, ad flumen Alum, 
 et, nudatis corporibus, in conspectu sanctorum ludite. . . . Ancillae
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 40 1 
 
 Benedict, he imposed upon his monks a rule which severely 
 prohibited all individual property, and made manual and in- 
 tellectual labour obligatory. The agricultural labour thus 
 prescribed was so severe, that the Welsh monks had not 
 only to saw the wood and delve the soil, but even to yoke 
 themselves to the plough, and work without the aid of oxen. 
 As soon as this toil came to an end they returned to their 
 cells to pass the rest of the day in reading and writing ; and 
 when thus engaged it was sometimes necessary to stop in 
 the midst of a letter or paragraph, to answer to the first 
 sound of the bell, by which divine service was announced. 1 
 
 In the midst of these severe labours the abbot David had 
 continual struggles with the satraps and magicians, which, 
 no doubt, means the chiefs of the clan and the Druids, who 
 had not been destroyed in Britain, as in Gaul, by the Roman 
 conquest, 2 and whose last surviving representatives could 
 not see, without violent dislike, the progress of monastic 
 institutions. But the sphere of David's influence and 
 activity was to extend far beyond that of his early work. 
 Having made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he returned 
 thence invested with the office of archbishop, which had 
 
 obediunt . . . impudicos exercent ludos . . . concubitus simulant blandos 
 . . . monachoram mentes quorumdarn ad libidines protrahunt, quorum- 
 dam molestant. Cuncti vero discipuli ejus dixerunt David : Fugiamus 
 ex hoc loco, quia non possumus hie habit are propter molestiain niulier- 
 cularum malignantium. Diaconus qui pani ministrare consuluerat, panem 
 veneno confectum mensa imponit, cui coquus et ceconomus consenserant." 
 
 — RlCEMARCH, pp. I25-3I. 
 
 1 "Pede manuque laborant, jugum ponunt in humero, suffossarias 
 verangasque invicto brachio terre defigunt, sarculos serrasque ad suc- 
 cidendum Sanctis ferunt manibus. . . . Boum nulla ad arandum cura 
 introducitur. Quisque sibi et fratribus divitiae, quisque et bos. . . . 
 Peracto rurali opere, totam ad vesperam pervagabant diem aut legendo 
 aut scribendo aut orando . . . vespere cum nole pulsus audiebatur, 
 quisquis studium detexebat, si enim auribus cujuscumque pulsus reson- 
 aret, scripto tunc litere apicc vel etiam dimidia ejusdem litere, figura 
 citius assurgentes . . . ecclesiam petunt, earn incompletam dimitte- 
 bant. — Ricemarch, p. 127. I quote literally the Latin of Ricemarch, 
 which is often very singular. Further on he adds Greek after his fashion. 
 
 2 DCELLIN'GER, Heidenthum und Judenthum, p. 61 1. 
 
 VOL. II. 2 C
 
 402 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 been conferred upon him by the patriarch of Jerusalem. 1 
 On his return he was acknowledged metropolitan of all that 
 part of the island not yet invaded by the Saxons, by two 
 very numerously attended councils, 2 in which he had the 
 honour of striking a deathblow at the Pelagian heresy, which 
 had come to life again since the mission of St. Germain. 
 
 One of these councils recognised in his honour a right 
 of asylum, pointed out by ancient authors as the most re- 
 spected and the most complete which existed in Britain, and 
 which created for all pursued culprits an inviolable refuge 
 wherever there was a field which had been given to David. 3 
 This is one of the first examples, as conferred upon a 
 monastic establishment, of that right of asylum, afterwards 
 too much extended, and • (fully abused towards the 
 
 end of the middle ages, but which, at that far-distant 
 period, was a most important protection to the weak. 
 Who does not understand how irregular and brutal was 
 at that time the pursuit of a criminal ; how many vile 
 
 1 Compare Bollaxd., Act. 5S, Martii, t. i. p. 40. 
 
 - At Jr..'- in 519, and at Victoria in 526. The expr I Rice- 
 
 march upon this last synod are worthy of remark, since they prove the 
 presence of abbots beside the bishops of the council, and the undisputed 
 recognition of Roman authority. It remains to be ascertained, however, 
 whether this writer of the eleventh century did not attribute the oustami 
 of his own time to a previous age, "Alia synodus ... in qua collecta 
 episcoporum, sacerdotum, abatum turba . . . cunctorum consensu . . . 
 omnium ordinum totius Britannia: gentis archiepiscopus constitute. . . . 
 Ex his duabus synodis omnes nostra; patriae ecclesiaa modum et regulam 
 Romana auctoritate receperunt. " 
 
 3 " Dederuntque universi episcopi manus et monarchiam, et braymi- 
 nationcm David agio, et consenserunt omnes licitum esse refugium ejus 
 ut daret illud omni stupro et homicide et peccatori, omnique malipno 
 fugienti de loco ad locum pro omni sancto ac regibus et hominibus totius 
 Britannia; insula; in omni regno, et in unaquaque regione in qua sit ager 
 consecratus David agio. Et nulli reges neque seniores, neque satrapae, 
 sed neque episcopi principesve ac sancti audeant pra; David agio refugium 
 dare ; ipse vero refugium ducit ante unumquemque hominem, et nemo 
 ante ipsum, quia ipse est caput et previus ac brajmaticus omnibus Brit- 
 tonibus. Et statuerunt omnes sancti anathema esset et maledictum, 
 quisquis non servaverit illud decretum scilicet refugium sancti David." — 
 RlCKMABCH, p. 140.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 4° 3 
 
 and violent passions usurped the office of the law ; and 
 how justice herself and humanity had reason to rejoice 
 when religion stretched her maternal hands over a fugi- 
 tive unjustly accused, or even over a culprit who might be 
 worthy of excuse or indulgence ! 
 
 David immediately resumed his monastic and ecclesiastical 
 foundations, 1 and restored for the first time from its ruins 
 the Church of Glastonbury, so that it might consecrate the 
 tomb of his cousin King Arthur. 2 He himself died more 
 than a hundred years old, surrounded by the reverence of 
 all, and in reality the chief of the British nation. 3 He was 
 buried in the monastery of Menevia, which he had built at 
 the southern extremity of Wales, facing Ireland, on a site 
 which had been indicated thirty years before by St. Patrick, 
 the apostle of that island. It was of all his foundations the 
 one most dear to him, and he had made it the seat of a 
 diocese which has retained his name. 
 
 After his death the monastic tomb of the great bishop 
 and British chief became a much-frequented place of pil- 
 grimage. Not only the Welsh, Bretons, and Irish came to 
 it in crowds, but three Anglo-Norman kings — William the 
 Conqueror, Henry II., and Edward I. — appeared there in 
 their turn. David was canonised by Pope Calistus II. in 
 1 1 20, at a period when Wales still retained its independence. 
 He became from that moment, and has remained until the 
 present time, the patron of Cambria. A group of half-ruined 
 religious buildings, forming altogether one of the most 
 solemn and least visited relics of Europe, still surrounds the 
 ancient cathedral which bears his name, and crowns the 
 imposing promontory, thrust out into the sea like an eagle's 
 beak, from the south-eastern corner of the principality of 
 Wales, which is still more deserving than the two analogous 
 
 1 "Per cuncta totius patriae loca monasteria construxere fratres . . . 
 quanta monachorum examina seminavit." 
 
 2 RlCEMARCH, p. 125 ; DUGDALE, t. i. pp. 1-7 ; BOLLAND., loc. cit. 
 
 3 " Omnis Britannia? gentis caput et patriae honor."— Rees, p. 140.
 
 404 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 headlands of Cornwall and Armorica, of the name of 
 Finisterre. 1 
 
 Immediately after the period occupied in the annals of 
 Cambria by King Arthur and the monk-bishop David, 
 another monastic and patriotic saint becomes visible, who, 
 like his predecessor, remained long popular among the 
 Britons of Wales, and is so still among the Bretons of 
 Armorica. This was St. Cadoc or Kadok, a personage re- 
 garding whom it will be very difficult to make an exact 
 distinction between history and legend, but whose life has 
 left so profound an impression upon the Celtic races, that 
 we may be permitted to borrow from it certain details, 
 which will set in a clear light the faith and manners of 
 these races and of that age. Hia father, Gundliew or Guen- 
 Liou, surnamed the Warrior, mir of the petty kings of 
 southern Cambria, having heard much of the beauty of the 
 daughter of a neighbouring chief, bad her carried off, by a 
 band of three hundred vassals, from the midst of her sisters, 
 and from the door of her own chamber, in her father's 
 castle. 3 The father hastened to the rescue of his daughter 
 with all his vassals and allies, and soon overtook Guen-Liou, 
 who rode with the young princess at the croup, going softly 
 not to fatigue her. It was not an encounter favourable for 
 the lover : two hundred of his followers perished, but he 
 himself succeeded in escaping safely with the lady, whose 
 attractions he had afterwards to conceal from the passion of 
 King Arthur ; 4 for that great king is far from playing in all 
 
 1 A group of rocks near this promontory is still called The Biihop and his 
 ( 'Icrks. It lies a little way to the north of the celebrated Roads of Milford 
 Haven and the great dockyard of the English navy at Pembroke. 
 
 - Vita S. Cadcci, ap. Ki:ks, <-/). cit., pp. 22-96 ; II 1:1:.- \ 1. r i>r. 1. \ Yiu.r.- 
 marqvk, La Ltgende Cdtiqve, pp. 127-227. 
 
 Talgarth, nine miles from the town of Brecknock. The name of the 
 beautiful princess was Gwladys, in Latin Gladusa, and that of her father 
 Brychan or Brachan. 
 
 1 " Puellam eleganti quidem specie, sed et forma valde decoram. . . . 
 Virginem ante conclavis sua; januam cum ipsius sororibus sedentem pudi- 
 cisque sermonibus vacantem . . . statim vi capientes obstinato cursu
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 4° 5 
 
 the monastic legends the chivalric and disinterested part 
 afterwards attributed to him by the host of national and 
 European traditions of which he is the hero. Of this rude 
 warrior and his beautiful princess was to be born the saint 
 who has been called the Doctor of the Cambrian race, and 
 who founded the great monastic establishment which has 
 been already mentioned here. The very night of his birth 
 the soldiers, or, to speak more justly, the robber- followers 
 (latrones), of the king his father, who had been sent to pil- 
 lage the neighbours right and left, stole the milch cow of a 
 holy Irish monk, who had no sustenance, he nor his twelve 
 disciples, except the abundant milk of this cow. When 
 informed of this nocturnal theft, the monk got up, put on 
 his shoes in all haste, and hurried to reclaim his cow from 
 the king, who was still asleep. The latter took advantage 
 of the occasion to have his new-born son baptized by the 
 pious solitary, and made him promise to undertake the 
 education and future vocation of the infant. The Irish- 
 man gave him the name of Cadoc, which in Celtic means 
 warlike ; and then, having recovered his cow, went back 
 to his cell to await the king's son, who was sent to him 
 at the age of seven, having already learned to hunt and to 
 fight. 1 
 
 The young prince passed twelve years with the Irish 
 monk, whom he served, lighting his fire and cooking his 
 food, and who taught him grammar according to Priscian and 
 
 regrediuntur . . . Gundlaus . . . jussit puellam afferri . . . hand fugiendo, 
 sed pedetentira secura gestans adolescentulam in equo. . . . Ubi corpore 
 incolumis cum praenotata virgine . . . terminos suae terrse attigisset . . . 
 ecce Arthurus : . . . Scitote me vehementer in concupiscentiam puellam 
 hujus quam ille miles equitando devehit accendi." — Vita S. Cadoci, ap. 
 Rees, p. 23. 
 
 1 " Satellites suos saepius ad rapinam et latrocinia instigabat. . . . Qui- 
 dam ex Gundleii latronibus ad quoddam oppidum . . . f urandi causa per- 
 venerunt, quos prenotatus Gundleius rex fures diligebat, eosque saspius 
 ad latrocinia instigabat. . . . Surge velociter . . . et calcia caligas tuas, 
 nam bos tua a furibus exstat ablata ... ad triclinium in quo dormierat 
 rex . . . adepta praedicta bove."— Rees, pp. 85, 25, 27.
 
 406 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 Donatus. 1 Preferring the life of a recluse to the throne of 
 his father, he went to Ireland for three years, to carry on his 
 education at Lismore, a celebrated monastic school, after 
 which he returned to Cambria, and continued his studies 
 under a famous British rhetorician, newly arrived from Italy, 
 who taught Latin and the liberal arts after the best Roman 
 system. 2 This doctor had more pupils than money : famine 
 reigned in his school. One day poor Cadoc, who fasted 
 continually, was learning his lesson in his cell, seated before 
 a little table, and leaning his head on his hands, when 
 suddenly a white mouse, coming out of a hole in the wall, 
 jumped on the table, and put down a grain of corn; but 
 being unable to attract the attention of the student, she 
 returned with a second and third grain, and continued until 
 srvi'ii grains lay before his eyes. Then Cadoc rising, followed 
 the mouse into a cellar, where be found deposited an enor- 
 mous heap of corn. 3 This wheat, a gift of Providence, gave 
 sustenance to the master and his pupils ; and, according to 
 the wish of Cadoc, was shared with all who were in want 
 like themselves. 
 
 Having early decided to embrace monastic life, he hid 
 himself in a wood, where, after making a narrow escape 
 from assassination by the armed -wine-herd of a neighbour- 
 ing chief, he saw, near a forgotten fountain, an enormous 
 wild boar, white with age, come out of his den, and make 
 three bounds, one after the other, stopping each time, and 
 turning round to stare furiously at the stranger who had 
 disturbed him in his resting-place. Cadoc marked with 
 three branches the three bounds of the wild boar, which 
 
 i "Tibi filium meum commendo . . . ut ilium liberalibus artibus divi- 
 ni.sque dogmatibus erudias. . . . Ilium Donato, Priscianoque, necnon aliis 
 artibus, per annos duodecim diligentius instruxit." — P. 28. 
 
 Ab illo Romano more latinitate doceri non minimum optavit." — 
 Vita, c. 8. 
 
 3 "Mus septies eundo et redeundo totidem triticea in suo volumine 
 abdidit, animadvert ens indicio divinam sibi adesse miserationem." — 
 Ibid.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 407 
 
 afterwards became the site of the church, dormitories, and 
 refectory of the great abbey of Llancarvan, of which he was 
 the founder. The abbey took its name {Ecclesia Cervorum) 
 from the celebrated legend, according to which, two deer from 
 the neighbouring wood came one day to replace two idle and 
 disobedient monks who had refused to perform the necessary 
 labour for the construction of the monastery, saying, " Are 
 we oxen, that we should be yoked to carts, and compelled to 
 drag timber ? " 1 
 
 Llancarvan, however, was not only a great workshop, 
 where numerous monks, subject to a very severe rule, bowed 
 their bodies under a yoke of continual fatigue, clearing the 
 forests, and cultivating the fields when cleared ; it was, 
 besides, a great religious and literary school, in which the 
 study and transcription of the Holy Scriptures held the van, 
 and was followed by that of the ancient authors and their 
 more recent commentators. 
 
 Among the numerous pupils whom it received — some to 
 follow the monastic life for the rest of their days, some only 
 to carry on their ordinary education — were many chiefs' and 
 kings' sons like Cadoc himself. To these he addressed special 
 instructions, which may be summed up in the two sentences 
 which a prince of North Wales remembered long after to 
 have heard from his own lips — " llemember that thou art a 
 man ; " " There is no king like him who is king of him- 
 self." 2 
 
 Cadoc loved to sum up, chiefly under the form of sentences 
 in verse and poetical aphorisms, the instructions given to the 
 pupils of the Llancarvan cloister. A great number of such 
 poetical utterances, which have been preserved in the memory 
 of the Gael and brought to light by modern erudition, are* 
 attributed to him. We instance some, which are not the 
 least interesting and touching, for having been produced in 
 a British cloister in the sixth century, under the disturbing 
 
 1 " Numquid more bourn plaustra gestare valernus ? " 
 
 2 La Villemabque, p. 184.
 
 w 
 w 
 w 
 w 
 
 408 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 influences of Saxon invasion, and far from all the fountains 
 of classic wisdom and beauty : — 
 
 Truth is the elder daughter of God. 
 Without light nothing is good. 
 "Without light there is no piety. 
 Without light there is no religion. 
 "Without light there is no faith. 
 
 There is no light without the sight of God. 
 
 f 
 
 The same thought is afterwards reproduced under another 
 form : — 
 
 "Without knowledge, no power, 
 .thout knowledge, no wisdom, 
 thout knowledge, no freedom. 
 thout knowledge, no beauty. 
 
 thout knowledge, no nobleness. 
 Without knowledge, no victory. 
 "Without knowledge, no honour. 
 Without knowledge, no God. 
 The best of attitudes is humility. 
 The best of occupations, work. 
 The best of sentiments, pity. 
 The best of cares, justice. 
 The best of pains, that which a man takes to make peace 
 
 between two enemies. 
 The best of sorrows, sorrow for sin. 
 The best of characters, generosity. 
 
 The poet then makes his appearance by the side of the 
 theologian and moralist : — 
 
 No man is the son of knowledge if he is not the son of poetry. 
 
 No man loves poetry without loving the light ; 
 
 Nor the light without loving the truth ; 
 
 Nor the truth without loving justice ; 
 
 Nor justice without loving God. 
 
 And he who loves God cannot fail to be happy. 
 
 The love of God was, then, the supreme aim of his teach-
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 409 
 
 ing, as of his life. When one of his disciples asked him to 
 define it, he answered : — 
 
 " Love, it is Heaven." 
 
 " And hate ? " asked the disciple. 
 
 " m,te is Hell." 
 
 " And conscience ? " 
 
 " It is the eye of God in the soul of man." ' 
 
 Cadoc asked nothing f wm the postulants who came to take 
 the cowl in his monastery. On the contrary, in order to gain 
 admission it was necessary to lay aside everything, even to 
 the last article of dress, and to be received naked as a ship- 
 wrecked man, according to the expression of the rule. 2 This 
 was the easier to him that he was himself rich by means of 
 the gifts of land given him by his father and maternal 
 grandfather. 3 
 
 Cadoc had the happiness of assisting in the conversion 
 of his father before he became his heir. In the depths of 
 his cloister he groaned over the rapines and sins of the old 
 robber from whom he derived his life and his monastic 
 possessions. Accordingly he sent to his father's house 
 three of his monks, who, after having consulted with the 
 elders and lords of the country, undertook to preach re- 
 pentance to the father of their abbot. His mother, the 
 beautiful Gladusa, carried off of old by King Guen-Liou, 
 was the first to be touched. " Let us believe," she said, 
 " in our son, and let him be our father for heaven." And 
 it was not long before she persuaded her husband to agree 
 with her. They called their son to make to him public 
 confession of their sins, after which the king said, " Let all 
 my race obey Cadoc with true piety, and after death let all 
 
 1 I borrow these quotations from those drawn by M. Walter and M. de la 
 Villemarque from the collection entitled Nyvyrian Archccology of Wales, 
 London, 180 1-7. 
 
 2 La Villemarque, p. 160. 
 
 3 The boundaries of his lands are very exactly noted by his biographer, 
 Rees, pp. 38, 45, and 336.
 
 4-IO CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 the kings, earls, and chiefs, and all the servants of the kings, 
 be buried in his cemetery." ! Then the father and son 
 chanted together the psalm, " Exaudiat te Dominus in die 
 tribulationis." When this was ended the king and queen 
 retired into solitude, establishing themselves in the first place 
 at a short distance from each other, in two cabins on the 
 bank of a river. They lived there by the work of their 
 hands, without other food than barley bread, in which there 
 was a mingling of ashes, and cresses, the bitterness of which 
 was sweet to them as a foretaste of heaven. One of their 
 principal austerities, which is also to be found in the history 
 of various other Celtic and Anglo-Saxon saints, was to bathe, 
 in winter as in summer, in cold water in the middle of the 
 night, and to pass its remaining hours in prayer. Cadoc 
 visited them often and exhorted them to perseverance ; he 
 ended even by persuading them to give up the comparative 
 sweetness of their life together. His mother was still the 
 first to obey him. She* Bought out a more profound solitude, 
 and disappeared there. Guen-Liou followed her example. He 
 died soon after in his son's arms, leaving him all his la 
 One would fain hope that the same consolation was accorded to 
 a mother so generous, but the legend is silent as to her death. 
 These patrimonial gifts conferred upon Cadoc great 
 territorial wealth, and an external power which he used to 
 secure around his monastery the safety and wellbeing which 
 were nowhere else to be found. " To know the country of 
 
 1 Llancarvan actually became the burying-place of the Welsh kings and 
 nobility as long as the independence of the country lasted ; but, strangely 
 enough, King Guen-Liou was not himself buried there. 
 
 - " Vir Dei pravos proprii genitoris actus congemisrens, sibi condolens 
 . . . Gladusa : . . . Credamur filio nostro, eritque nobis pater in coelo. 
 . . . Carices fontanae erant illis in pulmentaria dulces herbe, sed dul- 
 cissime que trahebant ad premia. . . . Noluit ut tanta vicinia esset inter 
 illos, ne carnalis concupiscentia a castitate inviolanda perverteret animos. 
 . . . Nunc totam regionem meam, pro quo plures injurias nonnullaque 
 dampna sustinuisti, tibi modo veluti prius coram astantibus cunctis, et 
 meum testamentum hie audientibus commendo." — Vita 8. Cadoci, c. 24 
 and 50. Vita S. Gundlcii, c. 6, 7, 8, ap. B
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 4 1 I 
 
 Cadoc," it was said, " it is only necessary to discover where 
 the cattle feed in freedom, where the men fear nothing, and 
 where everything breathes peace." x His wealth permitted 
 him to accomplish with success and energy the noble mission 
 which is the most interesting part of his life, in which he 
 appeared as the protector of his dependants and neighbours, 
 the guardian of the goods of the poor, of the honour of 
 women, of the weakness of the humble, and of all the lower 
 classes of the Cambrian people, against the oppression, pil- 
 lage, violence, and extortions of the princes and the power- 
 ful. His personal character, courageous and compassionate, 
 is better evidenced thus than in the position, half of austere 
 solitary, half of feudal chief, which was held by so great a 
 number of monastic superiors in mediteval times. 
 
 We are expressly told that he was at once abbot and 
 prince. " Are you fools," said the steward of one of his 
 domains to the squires of a Cambrian prince who would 
 have taken from him by force the milk of his cows — " are 
 you unaware that our master is a man of great honour and 
 dignity — that he has a family of three hundred men, main- 
 tained at his cost, a hundred priests, a hundred knights, 
 and a hundred workmen, without counting women and 
 children ? " It is not, however, apparent that he ever 
 fought for his rights by force of arms, as did more than 
 one abbot of later times. But at the head of fifty monks 
 chanting psalms, and with a harp in his hand, he went out 
 to meet the exactors, the robbers, the tyrants, and their 
 followers ; and if he did not succeed in arresting their steps 
 and turning them from their evil intentions, he called down 
 
 1 " Hoc erit vobis in signum : cum ad illius patriam solum veneritis, 
 animalia liberius in pascuis pascentia, hominesque fretos ac imperterritos 
 invenietis . . . ab omni belli precinctu indempnes." — Vita, c. 20. 
 
 2 " Abbas enim erat et princeps. . . . Numquid excordes estis, estiman- 
 tes quod dominus noster honoris sit vir magni et dignitatis cum utique 
 magnam familiam trecentorum virorum, scilicet clericos, totidemque 
 milites atque ejusdem numeri operarios, exceptis parvulis et mulieribus, 
 possideatur." — Vita, c. 15, 20.
 
 412 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 upon their heads a supernatural and exemplary chastisement. 
 Sometimes the aggressors were swallowed up in a quagmire, 
 which opened all at once under their feet — and the abyss 
 remained open and gaping, as a warning to future tyrants. 1 
 Sometimes they were struck with blindness, aud wandered 
 groping through the district which they had come to ravage. 
 Such was the fate of the prince whose messengers had 
 carried oft 1 the daughter of one of Cadoc's stewards, whose 
 fresh beauty had gained for her the name of Aval-Kain, or 
 Fresh as an apple. Her relations mounted their horses, 
 and, giving the alarm everywhere by sound of trumpet, 
 pursued the ravishers and killed them all except one, who 
 escaped to tell the tale to his master. The latter returned 
 with a more numerous following to put the neighbourhood 
 to fire and sword ; but Cadoc reassured the people, who sur- 
 rounded him with groans and cries. " Be at rest," he said ; 
 " courage and confidence ; the Lord will bring our enemies 
 to nothing." Ami, in fact, the invader and his follow its 
 were soon seen groping their way like tho blind. "Why 
 comest thou here in arms to pillage and ravage the country ? " 
 Cadoc asked of their leader; and he restored him his sight 
 and the means of returning to his country only after having 
 made him swear to maintain perpetual peace. " It is thou 
 whom I will take for my confessor before all other," 2 said 
 the contrite and comforted prince. On another occasion 
 
 1 " Pradones infausti . . . sccuti sunt eum fere L. clerici obviantes 
 funesto tyranno cum canticis et hymnis et psalmis. . . . Terra aperuit os 
 suum . . . et absorbuit tyrannum vivum cum suis. . . . Fossaque tuque 
 in bodiernum diem cnnctis transeuntibus liquet . . . qua? patula semper 
 in hujus rei testimonium permanens a nullo oppilari permittitur." — 
 Vita, c. 15. 
 
 "Ad B. Cadoci pretoris domum venientes ejusdem formosissimam 
 filiam rapuerunt Abalcem nomine, puellam speciosi.ssimam. . . . Consan- 
 guinei puelhe caballos suos ascenderunt, cornibusque insonuerunt. . . . 
 Occurrerunt indigenae hostili timore perterriti, cum nimio planctu. . . . 
 Respondit eis: Estote robusti nee formidetis. . . . Utquid ad meam 
 patriam armata manu pradandi vastandique causa advenisti ? Cui rex: 
 . . . Te hodie confessorem mihi, si tibi beneplacitum fuerit, inter dextrales 
 prae omnibus eligo."— Vita, c. 19 and 65.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 413 
 
 the smoking of a burning barn blinded the leader whose 
 men had set it on fire. He too was healed by the holy 
 abbot, and presented to Cadoc his sword, his lance, his 
 buckler, and war-horse completely equipped for battle. 1 
 
 By such services, constantly and everywhere renewed, the 
 power of the monastic order was founded, in Britain as else- 
 where, in the souls of the Christian people. Such recollec- 
 tions, transmitted from father to son at the domestic hearth, 
 explain the long existence of a fame so nobly acquired. 
 And it is the desire not only to reward, but, above all, to 
 guarantee and perpetuate an intervention at once so power- 
 ful and so blessed, which justifies the vast donations lavished, 
 not less by wise foresight than by the gratitude of nations, 
 upon the men who alone showed themselves always ready to 
 combat the greedy and sensual instincts of the kings and the 
 great, and to punish the odious abuses of wealth and force. 
 
 The petty robber princes of North Wales were all con- 
 strained to recognise the right of asylum and immunity 
 which had been granted to the noble abbot and his monas- 
 tery by King Arthur, whose states extended to the west 
 and south of Cadoc's domain. For, without any fear of 
 anachronism, the legend takes pains to connect the popular 
 saint with the great Briton king who was once enamoured 
 of his mother ; and in connection with this, gives one more 
 instance of the brave and liberal charity of Cadoc, who, not 
 content with protecting his own oppressed countrymen, 
 opened the gates of Llancarvan to exiles and outlaws, and 
 even received there a prince pursued by the hate of Arthur. 
 A long contest followed between the king and the abbot, 
 which was ended by the solemn recognition of a right of 
 asylum similar to that which had been granted to St. David. 
 By the side of this protection guaranteed to fugitives, the 
 
 1 " Dum prelocutus Rein in tabernaculo ludens in aleacum suis eunuchis 
 consedisset, fumus ad instar lignei postis, de horreo procedens, recto 
 tramite se ad ipsius papilionem tetendit lumenque oculorum omnium 
 ibidem commanentium obcecavit." — Vita, c. 20.
 
 414 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 principle of composition — that is to say, of a ransom for 
 murder, payable in money or in cattle to the relations of the 
 victim — makes its appearance in the abbot's agreements 
 with his rapacious and violent neighbours. 1 
 
 It was thus that the glorious abbot acquired the surname 
 of Cadoc the Wise — a name which still appears at the head 
 of the many poems attributed to him. For, like all the 
 Gaels, he continued faithful to poetry, and often, among his 
 disciples, sang, to the accompaniment of his harp, verses in 
 which he gave full utterance to the religious and patriotic 
 emotions of his heart, as in the poem which has been pre- 
 served under the name of the Hal loe. 
 
 "I hate the judge who loves money, and the bard who 
 loves war, and the chiefs who do not guard their subjects, 
 ami the nations without vigour ; I hate houses without 
 dwellers, lands unfilled, fields that bear no harvest, landless 
 clans, the agents of error, the oppressors of truth; 1 hate 
 him who respects not father and mother, those who make 
 Strife among friends, a country in anarchy, lost learning, 
 and uncertain boundaries ; I hate journey- without safety, 
 families without virtue, lawsoitfi without reason, ambu.-hes 
 and treasons, falsehood in c uncil, justice unhonoured ; I 
 hate a man without a trade, a labourer without freedom, a 
 house without a teacher, a false witness before a judge, the 
 miserable exalted, fables in place of teaching, knowledge 
 without inspiration, sermons without eloquence, and a man 
 without conscience." 
 
 The invasion of the Saxon idolater-, however, with all its 
 accompanying horrors and profanations, reached in succession 
 the banks of the Severn and the Usk, which bounded the 
 monastic domains of Cadoc. lie found himself compelled 
 to leave Wales and make sail for Armorica, where so many 
 illustrious exiles, who have since become the apostles and 
 
 1 Vita 8. Cadoei, <•. 18, 25, 65. La Villemarquk, pp. 172-77. 
 - Translated by II. de la Villemarque, who publishes the original text, 
 p. 309 of his L&jcnde Critique.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 415 
 
 legendary patrons of that glorious province, had preceded 
 him. He founded there a new monastery on a little desert 
 island of the archipelago of Morbihan, which is still shown 
 from the peninsula of Khuys ; and to make his school 
 accessible to the children of the district, who had to cross 
 to the isle and back again in a boat, he threw a stone 
 bridge four hundred and fifty feet long across this arm of 
 the sea. In this modest retreat the Cambrian prince re- 
 sumed his monastic life, adapting it especially to his ancient 
 scholarly habits. He made his scholars learn Virgil by 
 heart ; and one day, while walking with his friend and 
 companion, the famous historian Gildas, 1 with his Virgil 
 under his arm, the abbot began to weep at the thought that 
 the poet whom he loved so much might be even then per- 
 haps in hell. At the moment when Gildas reprimanded 
 him severely for that perhaps, protesting that without any 
 doubt Virgil must be damned, a sudden gust of wind tossed 
 Cadoc's book into the sea. He was much moved by this 
 accident, and returning to his cell, said to himself, " I will 
 not eat a mouthful of bread nor drink a drop of water before 
 I know truly what fate God has allotted to those who sang 
 upon earth as the angels sing in heaven." After this he 
 fell asleep, and soon after, dreaming, heard a soft voice 
 addressing him. " Pray for me, pray for me," said the 
 voice — " never be weary of praying ; I shall yet sing eter- 
 nally the mercy of the Lord." 
 
 The next morning a fisherman of Belz brought him a 
 salmon, and the saint found in the fish the book which the 
 wind had snatched out of his hands." 
 
 1 " Britannus egregius scholasticus et scriptor optimus." — Vita S. Cadoci, 
 
 P- 59- 
 
 2 La Villemarqud, p. 203. The same sentiment is to be found here 
 which dictated that sequence, pointed out by Ozanam and sung at Mantua, 
 upon St. Paul's visit to the tomb of Virgil : — 
 
 " Ad Maronis mausoleum " Quern te, inquit, reddidissem, 
 
 Ductus, fudit super eum Si te vivum invenissem, 
 
 Piae rorem lacrymas, Poetarum maxime ! "
 
 41 6 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 After a sojourn of several years in Armorica, Cadoc left 
 his new community flourishing under the government of 
 another pastor, and to put in practice that maxim which he 
 loved to repeat to his followers — "Wouldst thou find glory ? 
 — march to the grave ! " — he returned to Britain, not to 
 find again the ancient peace and prosperity of his beloved 
 retreat of Llancarvan, 1 but to establish himself in the very 
 centre of the Saxon settlements, and console the numerous 
 Christians who had survived the massacres of the conquest, 
 and lived under the yoke of a foreign and heathen race. 
 He settled at Weedon, in the county of Northampton ; 2 and 
 it was there that he awaited his martyrdom. 
 
 One morning when, vested with the ornaments of his 
 ecclesiastical rank, he was celebrating the divine sacrifice, a 
 furious band of Saxon cavalry, chasing the Christians before 
 them, entered pell-mell into the church, and crowded towards 
 the altar. Tiie saint continued the sacrifice as calmly as he 
 had begun it. A Saxon chief, urging on his horse, and 
 brandishing his lance, went up to him and struck him to 
 the heart. Cadoc fell on his knees; and his last desire, bis 
 last thought, were still for hi- dear countrymen: "Lord," he 
 said, while dying, "invisible King, Saviour Jesus, grant me 
 one grace — protect the Christians of my country ; 3 let their 
 trees still bear fruit, their fields give corn ; fill them with 
 goods and blessings : and, above all, be merciful to them, 
 that, after having honoured Thee on earth, they may glorify 
 Thee in heaven ! " 
 
 The Britons of Cambria and of Armorica long disputed 
 
 1 " Ad proprias sui cari ruris sedes Llancarvan." — Vita, c. Q. 
 
 2 All historians seem to agree in translating thus the Beneventum, in 
 the Latin text, which has given occasion to strange speculations upon the 
 episcopate of Cadoc at Benevento, in Italy. It is not positively stated in 
 the Latin thai Cadoc's murderers were Saxons, but such is t he unvarying 
 tradition, which is also affirmed by M. de la Villemarquo, on the authority 
 of the Chronicle of Quirnperl«5, in the possession of Lord Beaumont, at 
 Castleton (Yorkshire), and according to the inscription of a tablet in the 
 Chapel of St. Cadoc, near Entel, in Brittany. 
 
 3 La Villemarque, p. 2K.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 417 
 
 the glory and privilege of paying to Cadoc those honours 
 which were due to him at once in a religious and national 
 point of view. But the latter have remained the most 
 faithful ; and eight centuries after his death the great Celtic 
 monk and patriot was still invoked as their special patron 
 by the Breton knights in the famous battle of the Thirty, 
 where Beaumanoir drank his own blood. On their way to 
 the field they went into a chapel dedicated to St. Cadoc, 
 and appealed to him for aid, and returned victorious, singing 
 a Breton ballad, which ends thus — 
 
 " He is not the friend of the Bretons who does not cry 
 for joy to see our warriors return with the yellow broom in 
 their casques ; 
 
 " He is no friend of the Bretons, nor of the Breton saints, 
 who does not bless St. Cadoc, the patron of our warriors ; 
 
 " He who does not shout, and bless, and worship, and 
 sing, ' In heaven, as on earth, Cadoc has no peer.' " 1 
 
 The long popularity of this Cambrian Briton upon the 
 two shores of that sea which separates the Celtic countries 
 is, however, eclipsed by that of a young girl, whose history 
 is unknown, and her faith unpractised, by the Welsh popu- 
 lation of the present day, but whose memory has neverthe- 
 less been preserved among them with superstitious fidelity. 
 This is Winifred, the young and beautiful daughter of one 
 of the lords of Wales. Flying from the brutality of a certain 
 King Caradoc, 2 who had found her alone in her father's 
 house, she fled to the church where her parents were pray- 
 ing, but was pursued by the king, who struck off her head 
 on the very threshold of the church. At the spot where 
 the head of this martyr of modesty struck the soil, there 
 sprang up an abundant fountain, which is still frequented, 
 
 1 The Breton text of this ballad has been published by M. de la Ville- 
 marqud. The touching narrative of his visit to the ruins of Llancarvan 
 and of the devotion which still draws a crowd of pilgrims into the isle of 
 Morbihan, which was inhabited by the saint, will be found in his Legcnde 
 Ccltique. 
 
 " Evidently the same name as that of the Caractacus of Tacitus. 
 VOL. II. 2 D
 
 418 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 and even venerated, by a population divided into twenty 
 different sects, but animated by one common hatred for 
 Catholic truth. This fountain has given its name to the 
 town of Holywell. Its source is covered by a fine Gothic 
 porch of three arches, under which it forms a vast basin, 
 where, from morning to evening, the sick and infirm of a 
 region ravaged by heresy come to bathe, with a strange 
 confidence in the miraculous virtue of those icy waters. 
 
 According to the legend, this virgin martyr was restored 
 to life by a holy monk called Beino, who, like all the monks 
 of the time, had founded many convents, and received from 
 the princes many contributions for his foundations. Not- 
 withstanding, he exercised a conscientious reserve as to 
 accepting anything which the donor had not a full title to 
 bestow. One day he superintended, in his own person, the 
 building of a church upon an estate which had just been 
 granted to him by King Cadwallon, the conqueror of the 
 Northumbrian ! Saxons, or rather, had beeu given in ex- 
 change for a golden sceptre, of the value of sixty cows. 
 While there, a woman came to him, bringing a new-born 
 child to be baptized. The cries of the child were deafening. 
 " What ails the child, that he cries so much ? " Beino at 
 length asked. 
 
 " He has a very good reason," said the woman. 
 
 " What is the reason ? " asked the monk. 
 
 " This land which you have in your possession, and on 
 which you are building a church, belonged to his father." 
 
 At that moment Beino called out to his workmen, " Stop ; 
 let nothing more be done till I have baptized the child, and 
 spoken to the king." Then he hastened to Caernarvon to 
 the monarch : " Why," cried the monk, " hast thou given me 
 these lands which belong justly to another? The child in 
 this woman's arms is the heir : let them be restored to him." 
 
 Nothing can be more noble and touching than this evidence 
 of the respect of the cenobites for that sacred right of pro- 
 1 Bede, book ii. c. 20; book iii. c. 1.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 419 
 
 perty which has been so constantly and vilely, and with such 
 impunity, violated to their hurt ! 
 
 The life of this monk, which was originally written only 
 in the Welsh language, 1 contains other details not less curious. 
 It was he who planted beside his father's grave an acorn, 
 which grew into a great oak, and which, according to the 
 legend, no Englishman could approach without instant death, 
 though the Welsh took no harm. He, too, it was who was 
 driven to abandon a favourite spot on the banks of the Severn, 
 by the sound of an English voice which he heard with horror, 
 from the other side of the river, cheering on the hounds with 
 Saxon cries. " Take up your frocks and your shoes," he said 
 to his companions, " and quick, let us depart ; this man's 
 nation speaks a language abominable to me : they come to 
 invade us, and take away our goods for ever." 
 
 These familiar anecdotes of the monk Beino, as well as the 
 martyrdom of Cadoc, the patriot monk and sage, by the hand 
 of the Anglo-Saxons, prove the insurmountable dislike which 
 rose like a wall between the souls of the Britons and those 
 of the Saxons, more than a century and a half after the 
 arrival of the heathen invaders in Britain. The fertile and 
 generous genius of the Celtic race, overmastered by this 
 patriotic hatred, and by a too just resentment of the violence 
 and sacrilege of the conquest, was thus made powerless to aid 
 in the great work of converting the Anglo-Saxons to Chris- 
 tianity. Not only is it impossible to record a single effort, 
 made by any British monk or prelate, to preach the faith to 
 the conquerors ; but even the great historian of the Anglo- 
 Saxons expressly states, that the British inhabitants of the 
 great island had come under a mutual engagement never to 
 reveal the truths of religion to those whose power and neigh- 
 bourhood they were obliged to endure — and, at the same time, 
 had taken a vindictive resolution, even when they became 
 Christians, to treat them as incurable heathens. 2 St. Gregory 
 
 1 Published and translated by Rees. 
 
 2 "Ut nunquam genti Saxonum sive Anglorum secum Britanniam
 
 420 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF THE BRITISH ISLES 
 
 the Great makes the same accusation against them in still 
 more severe terms. " The priests," he said, " who dwell on 
 the borders of the English neglect them, and, putting aside 
 all pastoral solicitude, refuse to answer to any desire which 
 that people might have to be converted to the faith of 
 Christ," 1 
 
 The idea of seeking among the Britons the instruments 
 of that conversion which was 1o give another great nation to 
 the Church, must then be relinquished. But in a neighbour- 
 ing island, in Hibernia. there existed, in the midst of a popu- 
 lation of Celts, like the Britons, a nourishing and fertile 
 Church, the spectator, ami not the victim, of the Saxon 
 invasion. Let us see if, from that Island <>/ Saints, and 
 from its brave and adventnrou there may not issue a 
 
 more generoi; . pansive impulse than could be hoped 
 
 for amid the bleeding remnants of British Christianity. 
 
 incolenti, Terbium fide) >mmitterent. . . . Cum usque hodie 
 
 Brittonum, fidem religionemqn no pro oihilo habere, 
 
 Deque in aliquo eis magis comn am P HgMllB , BBDB, i. 22 ; 
 
 ii. 20. 
 
 1 B] .59.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MONASTIC IRELAND AFTER ST. PATRICK 
 
 Ireland escapes the Rome of the Caesars to be invaded by the Rome of 
 the Popes. — The British assistants of St. Patrick carry there certain 
 usages different from those of Rome. — Division between Patrick and 
 his fellow-labourers. — He would preach the faith to all. — St. Carantoc. 
 — Emigrations of the Welsh to Ireland, and of the Irish to Wales. — 
 Disciples of St. David in Ireland. — Modonnoc and his bees. — Immense 
 monastic development of Ireland under the influence of the Welsh 
 monks. — The peculiar British usages have nothing to do with doc- 
 trine. — Families or clans transformed into monasteries, with their 
 chiefs for abbots. — The three orders of saints. — Irish missionaries on 
 the Continent ; their journeys and visions. — St. Brendan the sailor. — 
 Dega, monk-bishop and sculptor. i the shepherd converted 
 
 by means of music. — Continual preponderance of the monastic ele- 
 ment. — Celebrated foundations. — Monasterboyce, Glendalough and 
 its nine churches. — Bangor, from which came Columbanus, the 
 reformer of the Gauls, and Clonard, from which issued Columba, 
 the apostle of Caledonia. 
 
 Ireland, happier of old than Great Britain, escaped the 
 Roman conquest. Agricola had dreamt of invading it, and 
 even of holding it with a single legion ; by such a means 
 he would, according to the words of his son-in-law, have 
 riveted the irons of Britain by depriving her of the dan- 
 gerous sight and contagious neighbourhood of freedom. 1 
 But this intention proved happily abortive. Saved from 
 imperial proconsuls and praetors, the genius of the Celtic 
 race found there a full development : it created for itself a 
 
 i " Saepe ex eo audivi, legione una et modicis auxiliis debellari obti- 
 
 nerique Hiberniam posse : idque etiam adversus Britanniam profuturum, 
 
 si Romana ubique arma, et velut e conspectu libertas tolleretur. — Tacit., 
 
 Agricola, c. 24. 
 
 421
 
 42 2 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 language, a distinctive poetry, worship, and cultivation, and 
 a social hierarchy ; in one word, a system of civilisation 
 equal and even superior to that of most other heathen 
 nations. In the middle of the fifth century, Rome, Chris- 
 tian and Apostolic, extended its sceptre over the land which 
 the Csesars had not been able to reach, and St. Patrick 
 carried to it the laws of Christianity. 1 Of British origin, 
 but imbued, like his contemporaries Ninian and Palladius, 
 the apostles of the southern Picts and Scuts, with the doc- 
 trines and usages of Rome, 2 the great apostle of the Celts 
 of Ireland left the shores of Cambria to convert the neigh- 
 bouring island. Be was accompanied and followed by a 
 crowd of Welsh or British monks, who hurried after him, 
 driven to Ireland, as their brothers had been to Armorica, 
 either by terror of the Saxon invasion or by the thirst o! 
 conquering souls fo> the truth. 3 
 
 These Britisli missionaries furnished Patrick with the 
 thirty first bishope of the Church of [reland, 4 who, in the 
 
 1 Bee v. .1. ii. book vii. pp. 24;. 244. the narr.-ii i\ <• «.f t lie conversion of 
 Ireland by Bt Patrick 
 
 •• Romania erudil u disciplinis." ViL 8. D 
 
 1 ' ■ • ■ British ai 91 M hta, whoso 
 
 legend has been published by the BoUandists, in their vol. Hi. August, 
 In this legend the mother of Ifochta ia represented ai the 
 Bervanl of .1 British Druid. Tin' foundation of many monasteriM is 
 attributed to him, and the evidently fabulous number of a hundred 
 bishope and three hundred prl 
 specially ourioua as Bhowinga kind of testamentary brotherhood !■• 
 
 Patrick and Mo, -hta. "Tunc .Morten-, ait : Bi ante te .le hac luce emi- 
 
 gravero, famlllam meam t i l >l committo. At Patriciua ait : Bt e?o tibi 
 meani 1 mini prsBoessero; et • ita." 
 
 ; " Viros multo- litteratOfl et religiosos . . . e quibu- triginta in • 
 patue officiis principum sublimavit."— Joe t.i.in, ap. Holland., vol. ii. MdHii, 
 p. 559. It is not necessary to suppose that these bishops had 1 
 dioceses, and a jurisdiction perfectly established, as at a later period, 
 all have occasion often to repeat that the bishops of the Celtic 
 churches had scarcely any other functions than those of ordination and 
 transmission of the priestly character. The power of the chiefs of great 
 monastic establishments, who besides often became bishops, was of 
 different description. The constitution of dioceses and parishes, in Ireland 
 as in Scotland, does not go further back than to the twelfth century.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 423 
 
 exercise of their office, substituted or added certain rites 
 and usages, purely British, to those which Patrick had 
 brought from Rome. Ireland was converted, but she was 
 converted according to the model of Britain 1 — profoundly 
 and unchangeably Catholic in doctrine, but separated from 
 Rome by various points of discipline and liturgy, without 
 any real importance, which, from the narratives that remain 
 to us of the life of St. Patrick, it would be impossible to 
 define. Even in the lifetime of Patrick, might there not 
 have been differences between him and his British fellow- 
 labourers on these points ? This seems probable, from 
 certain particulars in his history and writings, — as, for 
 example, that passage in his Confession where he says that 
 he had brought the Gospel to Ireland in spite of his seniors 
 — that is to say, according to Tillemont, in spite of the 
 British priests. In the obscure and perhaps altered texts 
 of the two Canons of Council which are attributed to him, 
 certain acts which show a violent hostility to the British 
 clergy and monks will be remarked with surprise. 2 The 
 Cambrian legend, on the other hand, expressly points out, 
 among the companions of Patrick, a Welsh monk, Carantoc 
 or Carranog, whom it describes as " a strong knight under 
 the sun," and a " herald of the celestial kingdom ; " but 
 takes care to add that, in consequence of the multitude of 
 clerks who accompanied them, the two agreed to separate, 
 and turned one to the right and the other to the left. 3 A 
 still more curious passage of the Amhra, or panegyric in 
 Irish verse, addressed to St. Patrick by a monastic bard, 
 
 1 This has been learnedly proved and put beyond doubt by M. Varin, in 
 the papers already quoted. 
 
 2 "Clericus qui de Britannia ad nos venit sine epistola (episcopi?) et 
 si habitet in plebe, non licitum ministrare." — Can. 33 du i cr synode. 
 " Cum monachis non est docendum, quorum malum est inauditum qui 
 unitatem vero plebis non incongrue suscepimus." — Can. 20 du 2 e synode 
 Concilia, ed. Coletti, vol. iv. pp. 756, 760. 
 
 3 " Sub praesentia solis, fortis miles, mirabilis, spiritalis, summus abbas, 
 longanimus, praeceptor fidelitatis . . . prasco regni ccelestis." — Vita S. 
 Carant., ap. Rees, p. 98. Compare the legend cited by M. Varin, op. cit.
 
 424 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 may throw a ray of light upon the sentiments which sepa- 
 rated that truly apostolic leader from the Welsh monks, 
 who were too often distinguished by their exclusive and 
 jealous spirit. Always faithful to the prevailing sentiment 
 of the Roman Church, which regarded the conversion of a 
 sinner as a greater miracle than resurrection from the dead) 1 
 the saint is applauded by his panegyrist for having taught 
 the Gospel always without distinction, without difference of 
 caste, even to Strang. ts. barbarians, and Picl 
 
 Whatever these discussions were, however, they did no 
 hurt either to the Catholic faith — for Pelagianism, the 
 y in Britain, never had any ground to stand 
 on in [reland — nor to the influence of the I iman 
 
 missionary, who has continual the first and most popular 
 sainl in Catholic Ireland, The gratitude of the kings and 
 people whom he had converted showed Itself in such lavish 
 generosity, that, according to the Irish saying, had he ac- 
 cepted all that wbb offered him, he would aot have left for 
 lints that came after a< much a> would have fed two 
 horses. 4 Nothing is more certainly proved than the sub- 
 ordination of th>* new-born [rish Church to the Roman See 
 — a subordination which was decided and regulated by 
 Patrick. But it is not less certain that Welsh and Breton 
 
 1 " M mor- 
 
 tumn n-iiscit.-ii. mi.-./'. Vita i'ltmm, lib. It. C. 36. 
 
 1 LA Viu.KMAK'.a B, Pi 
 : ' This \b clearly shown by Lanioav, toL li pp. 410 15 / 
 
 of Ireland), Dotwitl Drmation t<> the contrary of the 
 
 . L li <■■ ro. 
 * Lynch, Oambi 1 , ?oL ii. p. m. i L Kelly. 
 
 •■ [tern qnsecnmqne causae valde difficilis exorta turrit atqae I 
 canol IsSootoram gentium jadidbas, ad oathedram archiepiscopi Hibernian- 
 sium, id eel Patrioii atqae hnjaa ezaminationem rccte referenda. 
 
 "Si vcm in ilia cum stria sapientibas facile >at::iri non poterM talis 
 prsedicta negotiationia, ad sedens am decrevimni 
 
 mittendam, id eel ad Petri apostoli cathedram, anotoritatem Kom.-e urhis 
 habentem. 
 
 '• Hi sunt qui de hoc decreverunt, id est Auxilius, Patricias, Socuii' 
 Benignus. Post vero exitum Patricii sancti, alumpni soi valde ejuedem
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 425 
 
 monks were the fellow- workers, and, above all, the successors 
 of Patrick in Ireland ; that they completed his work, and 
 that the Church of the island was organised and developed 
 under their influence, thanks to the continual emigration 
 which took place from Wales to Ireland and from Ireland 
 to Wales, proofs of which are to be found on every page of 
 the annals of those times. 
 
 It is to the influence of St. David, the great monk- 
 bishop of Wales, tbat the history of the two Churches 
 attributes the principal share in the close union of Irish 
 and Welsh monasticism. We have already said that the 
 episcopal monastery which has retained his name is situated 
 on a promontory which projects from the coast of Great 
 Britain as if to throw itself towards Ireland. The legend 
 narrates that Patrick, while standing on this promontory at 
 a despondent moment, overwhelmed by vexation and dis- 
 couragement, was consoled by a vision in which there was 
 revealed to him, at one glance, the whole extent of the 
 great island which God had reserved for him to convert 
 and save. 1 David, born of an Irish mother, 2 died in the 
 arms of one of his Irish disciples. Another of his disciples 
 was long celebrated for the service he rendered to Ireland 
 by introducing there the culture of bees. For there, as 
 everywhere, the monastic missionaries brought with them 
 not only faith, truth, and virtue, but, at the same time, the 
 inferior but essential benefits of cultivation, labour, and 
 the arts. 
 
 ^lodonnoc, the monk in question, was a rough labourer, 
 so rugged and intent upon keeping all at work, that he 
 
 libros conscripserunt." — Canon drawn from MS. in Armagh, which is 
 believed to be written by Patrick's own hand, and is published by O'Curry 
 (Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Irish History, p. 611). All the dis- 
 coveries of contemporary archaeology and theology confirmed the union of 
 the primitive Church of Ireland with the Church of Rome. 
 
 1 "Ex loco in quo stabat, qui modo sedes Patricii dicitur, totam pro- 
 spexit insulam." — Vita S. David, p. 119. 
 
 2 Bolland., vol. i. Martii, p. 39.
 
 426 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 escaped narrowly on one occasion from having his head 
 broken by the axe of a comrade whom he had reproached 
 for his idleness when the two were working together to 
 soften the slope of a road excavated near St. David's monas- 
 tery. 1 Towards the end of his days, after a long life of 
 obedience and humilitv, he embarked for Ireland. All the 
 bees of St D \ id's followed him. It was vain that he 
 turned back his boat, on the prow of which they had settled, 
 to the shore, and denounced the fugitives to his superior. 
 Three times in succession he attempted to free himself from 
 his strange companions, and had at lasl to resign himself to 
 the necessity of carrying them with him int<> Ireland, where 
 up to this time they were unknown. By this graceful little 
 story the legend enshrines in < Ihristaan gratitude tie 
 ti.'ii of the Laborious disciple who was the first t i introduce 
 the culture of bees into Ireland, where it spread rapidly, and 
 Bource of wealth t<> the country. It is pleasant 
 to find, in the same legend, that the emigrant took 
 
 Bpecia] pains, in L r atherin<_ r his honey, to procure a more 
 delicate food than their ordinary coar.-e fare, for the poor. 
 
 Thanks to this inc — ant emigration, Ireland, from the 
 fifth to the eighth century, became one <>f the principal 
 
 centres of Christianity in the world : and not only of Chris- 
 tian holiness and virtue, but also of knowledge, literature, 
 
 1 "(.'urn fratrihus \i:mi prope <i\. nia in proclivio ca\ 
 
 quo ad deferend tatom onera viantibos Eacilior 
 
 Quid ■ At Die . . . ferrum quod 
 
 manu • bipennem in altnm elevans, in oexvice eon fVrirc 
 
 A;.. 1,'r.i s, p. i ; ;. In this legend the monastery i> always 
 
 cnt it lcl ririt. i.i, which thoroughly answers t<> the idea cif the social and 
 
 industrial community of which, at thai period, a cen. hment 
 
 was forn • 
 
 in mnltitndo cum secnta mqoe in navi ubi in- 
 
 navis. . . . Alvcariis ad nntrii I inum 
 
 tm dciit quo indipentihus aliqua soavioril <ii>i oblcctamenta 
 
 procuraret. . . . Hibcrnia autem in qua nunquam usque ad illud tempus 
 
 :vere poterant, nirnia mellis fertilitate dotatnr." — Ap. BBSS, p. 134. 
 
 Colgai . 13th Februar that they 
 
 already existed in Ireland.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 4 2 7 
 
 and that intellectual civilisation with which the new faith 
 was about to endow Europe, then delivered from heathenism 
 and from the Roman empire. This golden age presented 
 two remarkable phenomena : the temporary predominance 
 for one or two centuries of certain rites and customs proper 
 to the British Church, and the extraordinary development 
 of monastic institutions. As to the British peculiarities in 
 proportion as they become apparent under Patrick's suc- 
 cessors, it becomes clear that they differ from Roman usages 
 only upon a few points of no real importance, although at 
 that moment they seemed weighty enough. They vary 
 from Catholic rule only in respect to the right day for the 
 feast of Easter, the form and size of the monastic tonsure, 
 and the ceremonies of baptism ^questions which in no way 
 involve any point of doctrine. Nor do they impugn the 
 authority of the Holy See in respect to matters of faith ; 
 and it is impossible to support, by facts of authentic docu- 
 ments, those doubts as to the orthodoxy of the Irish, which 
 have been borrowed from the unsatisfactory and partial 
 learning of English writers of the past century by various 
 authors of our own day— such as Rettberg and Augustm 
 Thierry: that orthodoxy was then, what it has always 
 continued, irreproachable. 
 
 The Catholic— the Roman— faith reigned thus without 
 limitation in the great and numberless communities which 
 constituted the chief strength of the Church founded by 
 Patrick and his British fellow-labourers. This Church had 
 been at its very origin clothed with an almost exclusively 
 monastic character. Episcopal succession remained long 
 unknown or confused ; the authority of bishops, deprived of 
 all local jurisdiction, was subordinated to that of the abbots, 
 i A learned Englishman of our own day. Dr. Todd, in his Monograph 
 on St. Patrick, published in 1863, acknowledges that the Irish Church of 
 the sixth century differed in nothing as to doctrine from the rest of the 
 Catholic Church ; but at the same time he maintains her independence ot 
 the Holy See. See upon this question an excellent article in the Home 
 and Foreign Review, for January 1864.
 
 4^3 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 even when the latter did not share the episcopal rank. 
 Patrick had converted a crowd of petty princes, chiefs of 
 tribes or clans ; indeed, all the primitive saints of Ireland 
 were connected with reigning families, and almost all the 
 converted chiefs embraced monastic life. Their families, 
 their clansmen, their dependants, followed their example. 
 A prince, in becoming a monk, naturally became also an 
 abbot, and in his monastic life continued, as he had been in 
 his worldly existence, the chit and of his clan. 
 
 The first great mom then nothing 
 
 else, to Bpeak simply, th . I under a re- 
 
 Ligi .us form. From this aordinary 
 
 number of their inhabitants, who were counted by hundreds 
 and thousands; from thi . ■• their influence and 
 
 productiveness, which were still more wonderful. In these 
 
 monastic cities, that fidelity to the Church which [re- 
 land has maintained with heroic constancy fox fourteen 
 centuries, in fare of all the ill there 
 
 ments, of : permanent root. There also were 
 
 trained an entire population of philosophers! of writers, of 
 architects, ofc if painters, ofcaligraphers, of musicians, 
 
 ts, and historians; but, above all, of mission:: 
 preachers, destined to spread the light of the Gospel and of 
 Christian education, not only in all t't I • • oountrii 
 which Ireland was always the nursing mother, but through- 
 out Europe, among all the Teutonic races — among the 
 Franks and Burgundians, who wire already masters of Gaul, 
 
 •11 as amid the dwellers by the Rhine and Danube, and 
 up to the frontiers of Italy. Thus sprang up also those 
 armies of saints, who were more numerous, more national, 
 more popular, and, it must be added, more extraordinary, in 
 Ireland, than in any other Christian land. 
 
 It is well known that the unanimous testimony of Chris- 
 tendom conferred upon Ireland at this period the name of 
 
 1 The number of three thousand monks is constantly met with in the 
 records of the great monasteries.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 429 
 
 Isle of Saints ; x but it is much less known that these saints 
 were all, or almost all, attached to monastic institutions, 
 which retained a discipline and regularity, steady but 
 strangely allied to the violence and eccentricity of the 
 national character. The ancient relics of Irish tradition 
 show them to us classified, and as if ranged in line of battle, 
 in three orders or battalions, by the poetic and warlike 
 imagination of the Celt : the first, commanded by St. Patrick, 
 was composed exclusively of bishops — Roman, Briton, Frank- 
 ish, or Scotic 2 — and shone like the sun ; the second, com- 
 manded by St. Columba, and composed of priests, shone 
 like the moon ; and the third, under the orders of Colman 
 and Aidan, was composed at once of bishops, priests, and 
 hermits, and shone like the stars. 3 Let us point out, in 
 passing, in this beatific crowd the famous travellers and the 
 sailor-monks. Such was Brendan, whose fantastic pilgrim- 
 ages into the great ocean, in search of the earthly Paradise, 
 and of souls to convert, and unknown lands to discover, have 
 been preserved under the form of visions, which are always 
 wonderfully penetrated by the Spirit of God and of theo- 
 logical truth. 4 In thus putting imagination, as well as the 
 spirit of adventure, at the service of the faith and ideal 
 Christian virtue, these visions are worthy of being reckoned 
 among the poetic sources of the Divina Commedia. 5 They 
 exercised a lively influence upon the Christian imagination 
 during all the middle ages, and even up to the time of 
 
 1 " Hibernia, insula sanctorum, Sanctis et mirabilibus perplurimis sub- 
 limiter plena habetur." — Marianus Scotus, Chron. ad ann. 696 (A.D. 
 589), ap. Pertz, Monuvwnta, vol. vii. p. 544. 
 
 - The word Scotic, though an awkward one, is made use of here and 
 elsewhere to distinguish the Scots of Ireland from the more modern 
 Scottish race which has since identified the name with Scotland alone. 
 — Translator's note. 
 
 3 Ussher, Antiquities, pp. 473, 490, 913. The very learned Anglican 
 primate was aided in his researches into the history and archaeology of 
 Ireland by David Rooth, the Catholic Bishop of Ossory, to whom he 
 publicly avows his gratitude in various parts of his works. — See also 
 Lanioan, vol. i. p. 5 ; vol. ii. p. 13. 
 
 1 La ViLLEMARQUE, op. cit. B Ozanam, CEuvres, vol. v. p. 373.
 
 43° CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 Christopher Columbus himself, to whom the salt-water epic of 
 St. Brendan seems to have pointed out the way to America 1 
 By the side of this monkish traveller, let us instance as a 
 type of the religious who remained in Ireland to fertilise it 
 by their labours, a monk-bishop called Dega or Dagan, who 
 passed his nights in transcribing manuscripts, and his days 
 in reading, and carving in iron and copper. He was so 
 laborious that the construction of three hundred bella and 
 three hundred crosiers of bishops or abbots, is attributed to 
 him, and the transcription of three hundred copies of the 
 Gospels. " I thank my ( I iid, while preaching to the 
 
 monks of Bangor, "that Ho has made me recognise among 
 you the three orders of monks which I have already 
 elsewhere — those who are angels for pur! • who are 
 
 apOStlee for activity, and those who WOnld 1"' martyrs, were it 
 
 d, by their readiness to shed their blood for Chris! 
 At that period, as ever sin I love and practice of 
 music was a national passion with the [rish. Th-- mission- 
 aries and the monks, their snc . were also inspired by 
 this passion, and knew how to use it for the government 
 and consolation of souls. Another pleasant Legend depicts 
 ■. in the form of ecclesiastical chants, apon 
 an [rish youth* bfochnda, the bod of a great lord of Kerry, 
 : . David 1 Father's flocks in the gro at forests which 
 then covered s district now almost altogether without wood. 
 II attracted, by his piety and grace, the regard of the duke 
 or prince of the province, who called him often in the even- 
 
 1 "I am • .." be said, "thai the terrestrial paradise i- in the 
 
 island of St. Brendan, whicb Qobodj can reach except by the will of God." 
 
 —Quoted by M. }■ i.uihn ami Dknib, /• '•' . p. 13a There 
 
 two saints of the name of Brendan: the best known, founder of the 
 
 •'•ry of Clonfert, and celebrated for lii^ royages, died in 577. 
 
 a "H: Dagaeue fuit fabertam in ferro qnam in awe, el scriba insignis. 
 . . . Gratias ago Deo mco quod B. U remo aimllea oonTenl 
 
 video, tri;i (roippe monachorom genera sibi succedentia habuit : prinunn 
 pnritate angelicum, aeonndnm actibna apostolicum, tertium, ol sancti 
 martyi nem pro Christo effundcre promptum." — r.oi.i. \nd., VOL 
 
 iii. Angnati, pp. (157. 658.
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 431 
 
 ing to his presence, to converse with him, while his wife, 
 who was the daughter of the King of Munster, showed the 
 same affection for the young shepherd. In the wood where 
 his swine fed, there passed one day a bishop with his suite, 
 chanting psalms in alternate strophes as they continued their 
 course. The young Mochuda was so rapt by this psalmody 
 that he abandoned his flock, and followed the choir of singers 
 to the gates of the monastery where they were to pass the 
 night. He did not venture to enter with them, but re- 
 mained outside, close to the place where they lay, and where 
 he could hear them continue their song till the hour of 
 repose, the bishop chanting longest of all after the others 
 were asleep. The shepherd thus passed the entire night. 
 The chief who loved him sought him everywhere, and when 
 at last the young man was brought to him, asked why he 
 had not come, as usual, on the previous evening. " My 
 lord," said the shepherd, " I did not come because I was 
 ravished by the divine song which I have heard sung by the 
 holy clergy ; please Heaven, lord duke, that I was but with 
 them, that I might learn to sing as they do." The chief in 
 vain admitted him to his table, offered him his sword, his 
 buckler, his lance, all the tokens of a stirring and prosperous 
 life. " I want none of your gifts," the shepherd always re- 
 plied ; " I want but one thing — to learn the chant which I 
 have heard sung by the saints of God." In the end he 
 prevailed, and was sent to the bishop to be made a monk. 
 The legend adds that thirty beautiful young girls loved him 
 openly ; for he was handsome and agreeable : but the servant 
 of God having prayed that their love should become spiritual 
 love, they were all, like himself, converted, and consecrated 
 themselves to God in isolated cells, which remained under 
 his authority, when he had in his turn become a bishop, and 
 founder of the great monastic city of Lismore. 1 
 
 1 " Ait dux : Veni hue quotidie cum aliis subulcis. . . . Aliquando sues 
 pascebat in silvis, aliquando manebat in castellis cum duce. . . . Canebat 
 episcopus cum comitibus suis psalmos invicem per viam. . . . Ideo ad te
 
 432 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN OF 
 
 This preponderance of the monastic element in the Irish 
 Church — which was due to the fact that the first apostles of 
 the isle were monks, and was at the same time thoroughly 
 justified by the adventurous zeal of their successors — main- 
 tained itself not only during all the flourishing period of the 
 Church's history, but even as long as the nation continued 
 independent. Even the A -Norman conquerors of the 
 twelfth century, though they too came from a country where 
 most of the bishops had been monks, and where almost all 
 the sees had began by being monasteries, were struck by this 
 distingnishing oh tic of [rish Christianity. 1 
 
 Of all these celebrated c mmnnities of the sixth century, 
 which were the most numerous ev«-r Been in ( 'hristendom, 
 there remain only rag 1 with certain 
 
 rites, whose Dames betray t li.ir moi i origin — or a few 
 ruins visited by onfrequent travellers, Let as instance 
 example, ftfonasterevan, founded in 504i U P" U <n,> l ,an ks of 
 the Barrow; bionasterboyce, a great lay and ecclesiastical 
 
 i.i, domine mi, quia delectavita me divinum carmen, quod audivi a 
 cunct:- jii.im audivi simile buic carmini. . . . Nolo aliquid 
 
 ■ quod a - . .mdivi 
 
 . . . . s. Moohnda ite Boa triginta 
 
 :u magno anion- <arriali, ; 
 Famulus antem Dei roga> Jem amorem mntarenl in 
 
 spiritualem ; qnod it a eel factum ; QIbd enim - .- rum suis 
 
 ccilis lii'ii rt s. If ochudas ubtulernnt. M .1 la S& Bolland., toL i; 
 p. 379. Mochnda i> battel known under thei . wbicfa was 
 
 I the bishop wl 
 out of affection for his spiritual fattier. He died in 637. 
 
 1 " Nam monaohi eranl maximequ] ad pnedicando ' •.'" — Bkde, 
 1. iii. r. ;. " I 'urn fere omncs II iti de monasteriis in clemm 
 eleoti sunt, qnaa monachi sunt, sollicite complenl omnia, qnss *ero clerioi 
 rel praslati, fere prsetermittnnt nniversa." Qeraldi < lmbbi 
 
 graphia 1H< ' • rv ice, di.-t. iii. 
 
 2 Fonnded by Bt. Boilhe, who died in 6ai. M. Henri Martin, in big 
 interesting pamphlet entitled Antiqwtit Trtandaim 1863, has given an 
 animated picture of Konasterboyoe and of that " bm I in which 
 there rises a ronnd tower a hundred and ten feel high, of the mosi gi 
 poise, and the boldest and finest f'>rm. Around it arc the ruins of two 
 churches and two magnificenl stone oroasi of these a 
 
 ven feet in height, covered with Qaelio ornaments and b
 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 43 3 
 
 school in the valley of the Boyne ; Innisfallen, in the pic- 
 turesque Lake of Killarney ; and, above all, Glendalough, in 
 the valley of the two lakes, with its nine ruined churches, 
 its round tower, and its vast cemetery, a sort of pontifical 
 and monastic necropolis, founded in the midst of a wild and 
 desolate landscape, by St. Kevin, one of the first successors 
 of Patrick, and one of those who, to quote the Irish hagio- 
 graphers, counted by millions the souls whom they led to 
 heaven. 1 Among these sanctuaries there are two which 
 must be pointed out to the attention of the reader, less 
 because of their population and celebrity, than because they 
 have produced the two most remarkable Celtic monks of 
 whom we have to speak. 
 
 These are Clonard and Bangor, both of which reckoned 
 three thousand monks. The one was founded by St. Finnian, 
 who was also venerated as the celestial guide of innumerable 
 souls.' He was born in Ireland, but educated by David and 
 other monks in Britain, where he spent thirty years. He 
 then returned to his native country to create the great 
 monastic school of Clonard, from which, says the historian," 
 saints came out in as great number as Greeks of old from 
 the sides of the horse of Troy. 
 
 The other, the third Bangor — glorious rival of the two 
 
 monasteries of the same name in Cambria — was founded 
 
 upon the shores of the Irish Sea facing Britain, 4 by Comgall, 
 
 tions. These latter alone repay the journey, for there exists nothing like 
 them on the Continent. As a specimen of Gaelic Christian art, there is 
 nothing comparable to Monasterboyce." M. Martin also remarks, at a 
 distance of three miles, the graceful ruins of Mellifont : "In the depths 
 of a valley, by the banks of a brook, with a church of the ogival period, 
 and, at some steps from the church, a rotonda (or chapter-house), 
 with Roman arcades of the purest style." Mellifont was a Cistercian 
 abbey, founded by acommunity from Clairvaux, whom St. Bernard sent to 
 his friend St. Malachi in 1135. 
 
 1 " Multarum millium animarum duces." 
 
 - " Innumeras ad patriam animas ccelestem ducens." 
 
 3 USSHER, Antiquities, p. 622. 
 
 4 It is now only a village on the shore of the Bay of Belfast, without the 
 slightest vestige of the famous monastery. 
 
 VOL. II. 2 E
 
 434 CHRISTIAN ORIGIN <»F THE BRITISH ISLES 
 
 who was descended from a reigning family of Irish Picts, 
 but who had, like Patrick, Finnian, and so many others, 
 lived in Britain, lie gave a rule, written in Irish verse, to 
 this community, the fame of which was to eclipse that of all 
 other Irish monasteries in the estimation of Europe, and 
 whose three thousand friars, divided into seven alternate 
 choirs, each composed of three hundred singers, chanted the 
 praises of God day and night, to call down His grace upon 
 their Church and their country. 
 
 It was Bangor that produced, as we have already seen, 
 the great St. Columbanus, whose glorious life was passed 
 far from Ireland, who sowed the Bi i many great and 
 
 holy deeds between the Vosges and the Alps, between the 
 banks of the Loire and those of the Danube, and whose bold 
 genius having by turns startled the Franks, the Burguudians, 
 and the Lombards, disputed the future supremacy over the 
 monastic world for half a century with the rule of St. Bene- 
 dict. And it is from Clonard that we now await another 
 great saint of the same nam.-, who, restoring and extending 
 the work of Ndnian and Palladius, was to conquer Caledonia 
 to the Christian faith, and whose sons at the destined moment 
 if not to begin, at least to accomplish and complete 
 the difficult conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. 
 
 END OF VOL. II. 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. 
 Edinburgh and London

 
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