Krusch (ed.), MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum IV (1902) — translated into modern British English. Krusch’s critical preface is condensed to its substance; Alcuin’s letter and the vita are translated in full.

Editor’s Preface (condensed) #

The monastery of Centula, ruled in the mid-eighth century by abbot Witmar, lay in the pagus of Ponthieu and coveted the Cell called Forestis (Forêt-Moutiers), ten miles distant, in the royal forest of Crécy. Since that forest belonged to the royal fisc, the Cell could only pass to the monastery by royal gift. The monastery afterwards took its patron’s name — Saint-Riquier — while the Cell kept its forest name. Its fortunes flourished after Charlemagne committed it about 790 to his friend and son-in-law Angilbert, whom the court circle called Homer — though his friends knew how devoted he had been to spectacles and worldly delights. As father of the monks, his first care was to rebuild the old walls from the foundations with the king’s help. Of the three principal churches he built, he dedicated the greatest to the Holy Saviour and St Riquier, the second to St Mary and the holy apostles, the third in the brethren’s cloister to St Benedict and the regular abbots. He gathered relics from Gaul, Germany, Italy, and even the East, above all from the Roman church through the bounty of Popes Hadrian and Leo. He settled 300 monks and 100 schoolboys there, and ordered the canonical hours sung by the whole company in three choirs. He spent his whole fortune on the monastery; the king added immense gifts, and in 797 gave the Cell of Forestis to Centula by charter. Charlemagne visited in 800, keeping Easter there (19 April) after posting coastal defences against the Northmen. Angilbert followed his emperor in 814 and was buried in the church of the Holy Saviour and St Riquier. Louis the Pious confirmed the monks’ provisions in 830 and ordered a survey, which lists estates, ornaments, 256 codices, dependent cells, and vassals. The Cell of Forestis had grown to three churches with thirty canons.

The history of Riquier begins with Charlemagne’s charter of 797, in which the Cell occupies the chief place — not Centula where the saint’s body lay, which the charter describes as “a monastery built in honour of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His holy mother the ever-virgin Mary, St Peter and all the apostles”. Riquier himself had chosen his dwelling in the forest near the cistern by Argoules, held two or three iugera by royal gift, and died there; his body was soon afterwards translated to Centula. So the Riquier whom Centula claims was not the founder of Centula but of the Cell of Forestis — a distinction Angilbert himself drew, since his aim was that the Cell should be given to the monastery. His own epitaph on the patron calls him born at Centula “of illustrious stock” and “pastor of the place”, and names his age (over one hundred and sixty years) and the two Irish priests, Caidoc and Fricor or Hadrian, who converted him.

When the abbot gave Alcuin a little book on Riquier’s life to revise — a modest volume written in simpler style — Alcuin wondered at its brevity; but the monks, he learned, possessed a larger book containing the copious miracles, whose plain unpolished style they thought better for reading to the people. The little Life, containing Riquier’s conversion, character, continence, sanctity, and glorious passing and translation, Alcuin rewrote compendiously; and since it was dedicated to the emperor Charles, it must be dated after Christmas 800 and before Alcuin’s death in 804.

Chronologically the Life cannot begin in Dagobert’s reign (623–639), for a man could not be born, grow up, and reach decrepit age within so short a reign — as Hariulf noted. Alcuin also differs from Angilbert, giving the saint a rustic rather than illustrious origin, naming only Caidoc of the two priests, placing the visit to “the regions of Britain beyond the sea”, and making Dagobert’s visit the occasion of a royal gift that same day. Riquier is said to have founded a church at Centula and committed its rule to a successor when he withdrew to the Crécy forest; but since that spot belonged to the fisc, the new foundation had to await the royal gift of 797. The “house of God” of the older account had already become a monastery under Riquier’s successor — the “pastor of the place” now an abbot. Alcuin wrote his Life for the monks to read before the people “of this present province”, and addresses them in the last chapter. Though professing brevity, he is at his longest in describing pious works and humble austerities and in citing Scripture. Little is left peculiar to Riquier once the commonplaces are set aside, as Alcuin himself confessed; the older Life contained little more than Angilbert’s verses and the royal privilege record.

Hariulf also preserves verses of a hymn by Alcuin on the saint: “you did build a monastery in the place near Argoules and another at Centula, both by everlasting merit.” Riquier’s memory is first kept in the ninth-century martyrologies: his natalis on 26 April and his translation on 9 October appear in Micon, Wandalbert, and Usuard (“in the pagus of Ponthieu, St Riquier, priest and confessor”); he entered the Hieronymian Martyrology in the twelfth century.

Alcuin’s book is careless in style — it opens with an anacoluthon, ignores grammar’s laws, and betrays haste; he himself testifies he used a notary. The Centula monks did not rest content: about 866 their poets urged the abbot and brethren to have the miracles written down, which was soon done. Hence the codices divide into the Life alone and the Life with Miracles. Principal manuscripts: St Gall 563 (ninth–tenth century, alone preserving both distichs), Brussels 207, The Hague X.118, Vatican Reg. Christ. 488, Brussels 7460, the Compiègne codex used by Mabillon, Paris 12606, and others falling into two families. The chief editions are Surius (1571), reprinted by Duchesne in the Alcuin Opera (1617), and Mabillon, Acta Sanctorum OSB II, who used reworked codices.

Later retellings: a Centula clerk, afterwards abbot Ingelram (d. 1045), versified the Life and Miracles in four books dedicated to his teacher Fulbert of Chartres; the monk Hariulf in his Gesta Centulensis (1088) paraphrased Alcuin for clarity, smoothed the chronological difficulties, supplied the monastery’s missing foundation (built by the saint on his paternal allodium), and added virtues from oral report — a diligent chronicler, though not beyond reproach, who preserved much from the since-burned archives. Wolfhard of Haseren’s Martyrology (852–912) incorporated a three-part Life, Translation, and Miracles that passed into the Austrian and Bavarian legendaries. Last comes an anonymous author who impudently claimed to be the saint’s contemporary, known only from an Avranches codex.

Alcuin’s Letter to the Emperor Charles #

To the ever-venerable and ever-desirable lord, the most pious guardian of Holy Church, by God’s grace ever august, Charles — your salvation’s perpetual friend, Albinus.

While your excellency’s piety was delaying in the holy and deservedly venerable place of Centula, and I too — your glory’s servant — was staying there awhile following your footsteps, that great man in Christ, the lord and venerable abbot Angilbert, prayed my littleness to annotate more carefully a little book, composed in simpler style, on the life of the most holy and truly magnificent confessor Riquier, in praise of the Founder who ever appears wonderful in His elect. His prayers — known to be acceptable and dear to the divine majesty — being heard at once, I asked that the little book be shown me, and I wondered not a little that a confessor of so great a name, acknowledged to be a worker of such miracles, whom ancient fame ranked second to none save the apostles in the working of wonders, should possess so small a volume of deeds. As I wondered, the memorable man Angilbert and the spiritual brethren of that holy place informed me that they kept — as do various churches — another book of greater bulk in which those miracles were read with which all Gaul deservedly exalts Christ’s holy confessor; but since its simple and unpolished language seemed to the brethren more suitable for recitation to the people, they agreed that the same account should suffice for them. While I was already applying my mind to marking out what they asked, I was suddenly met by a message from your piety to set down what I was treating, as it was in truth to be presented to the ears of your wisdom. So I, calling a notary and fixing the aforementioned book before my eyes, have fitted to the title “Life of the most blessed father Riquier”, in a compendious dictation, what seemed proper to relate of his conversion, his character, his continence and truly incomparable sanctity, his most glorious passing to Christ, and the bringing back of his precious body to its former place; and unless my own inexperience deceives me, I most devotedly commend it with humble faith to your most prudent wisdom like precious gold for the adornment of the diadem of Christian philosophy. And since we know that Christ’s glory and the honour of His saints reign in your breast’s chamber, we dedicate this preface of our little work on so blessed a man to your blessed honour in the Lord.

This little book holds the deeds of the great priest Riquier, whose body Centula keeps.

The Life of St Riquier #

¹ In the days of the most glorious king of the Franks, Dagobert — illustrious both in worldly power and noble in the Christian religion, who exalted his nobles with dignities and honoured God’s servants; in whose days many monasteries began to be built by holy fathers and many religious men were found among the laity — among them a certain Riquier, born in the village of Centula in the province of Ponthieu, shone out like the morning star rising among shadows: sprung of parents not so much noble by worldly standard as upright in character and most devout in every probity, so that even in his rustic life he bore certain presages of future holiness.

² It happened at that time that two priests flourishing in holiness and shining with the merits of virtues — the first named Caidoc, the other Fricor — came from the parts of Ireland into the regions of Ponthieu; but they were not received by the rustics and people of that place on account of the strangeness of their ways, nor treated with the honour their sanctity deserved — no, the people began to drive them from their borders, afflicted with injuries and chastised with insults. Against their violence and wicked presumption the future servant of God, Riquier, came out to meet them and snatched Christ’s servants from the hands of the impious; and bringing them with all kindness into his own house, God so providing that they should be protected and he saved. Nor could the lamp kindled by God’s grace be hidden any longer: revealed, it spread the light of holiness and preaching far and wide for the salvation of many. He cherished his guests with great honour of charity, and while they preached God’s word to him, he heard them with all care and humble attention. Nor was the seed of God’s word sown in vain in the good ground: what he heard with the ear he kept rooted in his heart, and it bore fruit a hundredfold into Christ’s barns — as afterwards shone clearer than light in his holiness and the working of miracles.

³ Pierced therefore by the preaching of God’s servants and by the inspiration of divine grace, he turned to tears, made confession of his sins, and washed away with tears of pardon before almighty God what he had ignorantly sinned in youth’s allurements; and he who had received the Lord in His servants by the grace of hospitality was himself received by the Lord in mercy’s pity. From that time he took up the beginning of holy religion and strove daily to climb by humility’s steps to the higher summits of piety; forgetting what lay behind, he stretched forward with the apostle to what was before, mindful at each step of the verse: “The saints shall go from strength to strength”, until he should reach what follows — “the God of gods shall be seen in Sion.” From the very beginning of his conversion he bound himself with so hard a chastisement that after long and continual fasts he refreshed his fasting-worn body only with barley bread mixed with ash and water tempered with tears — taking this food but twice a week, on Sunday and Thursday — and with this sustenance the devoted athlete of Christ served the Lord day and night in vigils and prayers: not beating the air but chastising his body, lest the future preacher of Christ be found reprobate in anything.

⁴ By these and such steps of virtue and the worthy progress of a most holy life, acceptable to God, he came to the honour of the priesthood — that to him in whom the devotion of preaching lived, the dignity of honour should not be wanting. That honour the servant of God adorned with great humility, cultivated with true charity, and enlarged with the preaching of God’s word: like a good husbandman he rooted out the thorns of sins from the Lord’s field with the gospel plough and watered the dry hearts with the heavenly dew of eternal salvation; and divine clemency after his watering gave great increase of faith in that people. So the aforementioned man of God became honoured and dear to all, for what he preached with his mouth he showed by example, and the way of life he pointed out to others in speech he himself first ran in deed.

⁵ Whatever the people freely offered him for the support of his preaching, he hastened to distribute to the poor; he thought it unworthy to take thought for the day after this present life who longed to receive the riches of eternal life. So he distributed what men offered that he might receive what God promised — a happy commerce: he who cheerfully distributed small and passing things would happily receive great and eternal ones. He was a most diligent consoler of the poor, a receiver of pilgrims, a defender of widows, a father of wards and orphans, so that the saying of the most holy Job could most truly be said of him: “I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out most diligently.” Therefore the sick flocked to him from every side; receiving them with a glad spirit, he offered them the medicine of consolation through holy prayers. Nor did he shrink from lepers or elephantiasis-sufferers, but embraced them as brothers and bathed their wounded limbs in baths — entering the same baths after them and cleansing them by the same piety rather than defiling himself; nor was he a deaf hearer of the prophetic word: “Bring the needy and the wanderers into your house, and cover the naked with your garments, and despise not your own flesh.”

⁶ Not only did he refresh with bodily food those who came to him; he did not cease to refresh them also with the spiritual food of holy preaching. As he was everywhere a ready consoler of the wretched, so he was not afraid to be a stern chastiser of the proud: the former he raised with pity’s clemency, the latter he cast down with the censure of sharp rebuke. He feared not the anger of earthly power without, whom the fear of divine power wholly strengthened within — counting the threats of the mighty as little, that he might stand as a herald of truth. He was no reed shaken by the wind, moved by any breath of human praise or detraction, but standing on the citadel of solid truth he scorned to be judged by man’s mouth, as the apostle says; walking the king’s highway, turning neither to the right for the terrors of the powerful nor to the left for the flatteries of fawners. Therefore he won a great people for the Lord his God in this present province and earned himself perpetual honour.

⁷ So the people, seeing his religious devotion in Christ, began to honour him more attentively and to bring him much for the largesse of alms — all of which, being full of love for God and neighbour, he lavished on the comfort of the poor and spent above all on the redemption of captives. Some, bound by the devil’s secret deceit in the chains of sin, he loosed by the exhortations of diligent preaching; others, oppressed by worldly captivity, he redeemed by the gift of money — that the former, loosed in spirit, might rejoice in the Lord and the latter, freed from bodily servitude, might turn to God.

⁸ Not only in these regions did the aforementioned man of God shine bright with works of piety and the lights of preaching: as the morning star, leaping the ocean’s level plains, the herald of daylight scatters night’s shadows with its rising, so he spread the light of truth by his coming into the lands of Britain beyond the sea, to drive out the shadows of ignorance — that as in these regions, so in those, he might free some from the devil’s servitude and others from bodily captivity. On the former he poured God’s word; on the latter he spent charity’s price, that for temporal redemption they might receive eternal liberty. So the good trader of the Lord’s money laboured to multiply the two talents of the twofold charity of God and neighbour, that with the manifold fruit of his labour he might meet his Lord and hear that most joyous voice: “Well done, good and faithful servant; because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things; enter you into the joy of your Lord.” It is said that while he tarried in Britain for the preaching’s sake, it suddenly came into his mind that he had left certain of his own people under servitude in Gaul. Struck with grief, he said to his companions: “Alas, we left our own in servitude in our homeland while we came here to free others — and I know they will soon die. Go quickly, take ship, and set them free before they die.” They followed the father’s command without delay, came to the homeland, found the aforementioned servants of the man of God safe and well, and freed them as they were bidden — who not long after died, as the holy man of God had foretold. O how great is Christ God’s clemency, who planted the affection of piety in His servant and showed him beforehand his servants’ death — that the reward of mercy should not be lost to him, and the yoke of bondage should not weigh upon them as they died! He who feared not to undergo the peril of so great a journey to free strangers also willed from that time to keep none of his own under the yoke of servitude, but granted all who belonged to him their own freedom everywhere — lest he seem harsher to his own, who strove to show himself most mild to strangers — and might heap up upon his own the reward he had gathered from others.

⁹ So, his preaching office in Britain accomplished, he returned to his homeland with manifold fruit of God’s word — lest while seeking wages in another’s harvest he should lose his own — and bound himself the more ardently to God’s service the nearer he perceived the day of reward. He wore himself down with daily fasts, bound himself with mortification of the flesh, afflicted himself with vigils, fortified himself with prayers, strengthened himself with charity, established himself with hope, armed himself with faith — rendering evil for evil to none, flattering no one, despising no one, that he might himself first tread the way of truth he pointed out to others in preaching. So the man of God, clad in the helmet of salvation and girt with the sword of God’s word, clad round about in the breastplate of righteousness, armed with the shield of faith, and shod in the preparation of the gospel of peace, went forth to open battle against the ancient enemy; and repelling all his fiery darts with the mighty boss of faith, he bore back into Christ’s church rich spoils from daily triumphs over the conquered foe — as dreadful to mankind’s enemy as needful to mankind, inasmuch as he sought not his own salvation only but that of many. Therefore it is right that the redeemer of many through Christ should be praised by the mouths of many in Christ; and it avails not so much to recount his miracles as to know the power of the miracles by which in his days he won a great people for the heavenly King. For the office of preaching is beyond doubt greater than any working of signs — though the performance of signs was not wanting, as time’s need or the occasion served, which divine clemency wrought through him.

¹⁰ Once, a temptation of the evil spirit befell the man of God to his shame — which God’s mercy granted should turn to his praise. Riding, he visited a certain woman devoted to God named Richtrud; and when after sweet refreshment of life and healthful converse the man of God had mounted his horse to return home, the woman, holding her little son in her arms, followed his footsteps a little way as horsemen are custom — that the little one too, whom he had himself regenerated to God in holy baptism, might be strengthened by the man of God’s blessing. The venerable horseman took the child, whether to bless or to kiss him — but the ancient enemy, hostile to all good, put fierceness into the horse, which began to gnash its teeth this way and that, to kick, to rave with its whole body, and to run about the field with unwonted violence. The mother, seeing it in terror, turned her eyes away lest she see her son die, whom the servant of God held in his hand as the horse raged. The household ceased not to clamour, lament, and bewail the child’s death or the man of God’s fall. But Christ’s right hand, which raised Peter lest he sink in the waves, lifted the falling child lest he be dashed on the earth. At the servant of God’s prayer the child came to the ground unhurt like a little bird, and the horse returned to its gentleness. The mother received her son into her arms safe and laughing on the ground; but the priest of God willed from then on to travel not on horseback but on a most gentle donkey. Thus, by God’s mercy, the evil foe’s temptation turned to honour of praise for him, and the horse’s pride became his teacher of humility. Remembering that the Lord Christ, hastening to redeem mankind, travelled on an donkey, not a horse, so he — as he daily hastened through many places for his saving preaching — judged an donkey sufficient for his carriage. And wherever he journeyed, psalms resounded on his lips or the preaching of salvation was heard from his mouth. No wonder he ever preached Christ with his tongue whom he ever bore in his heart — through whom he was a kindly consoler of the wretched and a stern rebuker of the powerful, relieving the former’s want with merciful compassion, repressing the latter’s pride with severe chastisement.

¹¹ Once the most mighty King Dagobert, at the request of the illustrious man Ghislemar, came into those parts, and visiting the man of God commended himself to his most holy prayers. The servant of God both strengthened him with the blessing of his holiness and chastised him with a priest’s authority in a free voice, warning him not to be proud in worldly power, not to hope in fleeting riches, not to be lifted up by the vain rumours of flatterers, not to rejoice in passing honours — but rather to fear God’s power and praise His boundless glory, and to count human power and glory as nothing, which withdraws suddenly like a flying shadow and vanishes like foam on the water when the wind of temptation blows; and rather to ponder in fear that “the mighty shall be mightily tormented”, and that to whom more is given, more shall be required of him. “And for him who can scarce render account to God for himself alone on the day of judgement, how shall he be able to render account for so many thousands of people committed to him? Therefore everyone may fear to rule rather than to serve; for he who serves shall render account to God for himself alone, but he who rules shall render it for all set under his power.”

The king, wisest of men, received that chastisement kindly; rejoicing in his free boldness of truth, he asked the priest of Christ to come with him to the feast. He, strengthened by Christ’s example, who did not refuse the feasts of worldly men that He might gain occasion to preach, came with the king to his table, and all that day and night amid the feasts of joy ministered the saving dishes of God’s word to his fellow-guests. The king was delighted with the constancy of his character and the persistence of his preaching; he began to love him in spirit and to attend him with honour, so much that on that very day he granted him something of his revenue for the lights of God’s house — judging it fitting that as he had been enlightened by the man’s invisible light of preaching, so God’s house should be lit by a visible light through him; and what shone within him in faith should shine forth in the church — mindful of the Lord’s command: “So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven”; and again in the psalm: “In Your light shall we see light” — that is, in the light of faith which shines in the mind, the light that gleams in works shines forth without.

¹² From then on the servant of God, because he was venerated by men, thought of fleeing men — that by declining temporal honours he might receive perpetual ones. He longed for the wilderness, that he might more freely attend on God alone and reap contemplative fruits — he who had sweated not slothfully in the active life, knowing what the Lord said of Mary sitting at His feet and hearing the word of life more intently: “Mary has chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.” Mindful of this sentence, he sought the monastic life in which he might more secretly ponder heavenly things alone in mind, handing the rule of the church he had founded for Christ in the village of Centula to another. To him the illustrious man Ghislemar, a devoted lover of the Christian religion, and a certain noble named Mauront, keeper of the lands and forests belonging to the king, offered him a place to dwell in the forest of Crécy — Mauront himself afterwards laying aside the secular habit and becoming a monk in the same place. There they prepared a solitary dwelling for the man of God, and he began to build a monastery for Christ.

¹³ Entering that dwelling with a single fellow-soldier, he was content with one small, meanly built hut — judging it superfluous that a despiser of the world should be seen to have any of the world’s delights. There he chastised himself with such mortification of the flesh, wore himself down with such assiduity of fasts and vigils, that his dried bones scarcely clung together, their joints dissolved; he moved his trembling steps with difficulty upon a guiding staff, yet in mind — greater than the world — he thought only of heavenly things; so far as he was estranged from the world, so near he was to God — daily conquering in the wilderness that enemy by whom Adam was once conquered in Paradise, walking upon the asp and the basilisk, daily crushing the ancient serpent’s head, despising things temporal, sighing only for things eternal, hourly ascending the ladder of Jacob’s dream, fortifying his journey along the narrow way that leads to life with ceaseless prayers. Nor could the narrowness of the wilderness’ enclosure hide that column of light; rather, it shone far and wide the more with the rays of its own brightness. Therefore the sick, worn with various infirmities, flocked to the man of God from every side; he healed them with the medicine of holy prayers, and made all who came to him afflicted with any sickness or straitened with any rankling sorrow return home whole and glad — nor could disease long remain in the house of salvation, but the nearer it came the swifter it fled. It is not my purpose to recount each kind of his miracles by name, but to touch upon his life’s holiness in a few words — lest by my ineloquence’s slowness the manifold fame of the signs wrought through him be obscured rather than praised. Leaving those to more learned pens, let it suffice me to learn the manner of that holy soul’s leaving this present world.

¹⁴ For, foreknowing the day of his summons, when he was to receive the long-desired happiness and be joined for ever to the Christ he had ever loved, he called to him his aforementioned fellow-soldier Sigobard, saying: “I know, my son, I know that my end is not far off, and I shall soon see my King whom I have long desired — may He be as gracious to me His servant as He is desirable to His saints! But you, my son, prepare a vessel for my little body wherein it may be laid — not with superfluous care but for necessary use — that it may be kept there until that day when this corruption shall be turned into incorruption and this mortal shall put on immortality. And prepare yourself with all diligence, sweetest son, that when that day which now draws near for me shall come to you, it may find you ready. I go the way of all the world; only let the world’s merciful Saviour defend me now from the enemy, who once redeemed me from the enemy; and may I find Him whom I had as this present life’s consoler the giver of eternal life.” The disciple, hearing this from the father, bathed in tears, followed his commands: finding timber, he split it, hollowed it, fitted it to the father’s body, watered the work he made with his weeping, and nearly filled it first with bitter tears before the father’s limbs; and the sarcophagus, fitted as he could, he set in the place appointed by the father. Meanwhile, while the son prepared the father’s sad obsequies, a stronger sickness burned in the father, and in his cold little body scarce the last breath remained — yet he ceased not from the office of prayer or the service of divine praise. And when he had armed his journey with the saving viaticum of Christ’s body and blood, amid thanksgivings and words of prayer he yielded up his spirit, and was laid in the tomb by the disciple in the place he had appointed. But wondrous to tell — amid the father’s funeral rites the disciple, suddenly overcome with sleep, saw in a vision that he was caught up into a most splendid hall, beautiful in every adornment, no, brighter than the sun’s light, in which he saw the blessed Riquier dwelling with bright and cheerful countenance and saying to him: “See, brother Sigobard, what a dwelling God has prepared for me — for the mean one I had on earth, a most beautiful one in heaven; for the contemptible, a glorious; for the dark, a most shining; and for the smoky, one radiant with all sweetness.” He, waking, finished the funeral work the more gladly — God providing that the son should be consoled and the father’s glory shown forth. The soldier of Christ was laid, as I have said, where he had chiefly served his King; but not long afterwards brethren from the monastery of Centula came with their abbot Ocioald, a religious man and his successor, and bore away St Riquier’s body and placed it where it now rests in great glory of merits. There, by God’s bounty, new miracles are often heard of through His servant’s relics — that the faith of petitioners may be shown, the merits of God’s saint displayed, and Christ’s praise celebrated in His servant, as it is said: “Praise the Lord in His saints.”

¹⁵ A certain man crippled in body but strong in faith used to frequent St Riquier’s tomb in prayer; and suddenly receiving his desired health, gave glory to God — he who had come infirm and departed whole. In memory of that miracle the supports of his infirmity hang to this day in St Riquier’s church. And often demoniacs brought to the holy body’s presence by their attendants’ service were, by divine clemency’s grant, freed from the evil spirit’s vexation. [Some codices add: Another of his powers we learnt, which we wish also to tell in the Lord’s praise. A malignant plague that goes about the earth, killing many and sparing few it touches — called the panucula or venomous lacerta — having emptied cities, harbours, regions, kingdoms, struck one of the brethren at the village of Centula where St Riquier rests. He and many others touched by the same plague sought the holy tomb with the other brethren, and by a decoction made from St Riquier’s nail-clippings, through the Lord’s power and the saint’s merits, all were healed. And when the servant of God had departed this life and lay composed on the bier in that same hut, as the Gospel was being read there, his servant who had stayed behind, overcome with sleep, saw this vision: he saw lord Riquier as it were alive, dwelling in a splendid hall bright as gold and gems, brighter than the sun, who said to him: “Brother Sigobard, we had an ill dwelling of smoke — now the smoke harms me not.” See — he who had obscurity for God’s sake, for him God prepared brightness, and for a smoky dwelling a most clear reward, where the just shall shine as the sun in their Father’s kingdom, whose is the power and glory for ever and ever. Amen.]

¹⁶ Once certain chained and fettered men were being led along the public road that lies near blessed Riquier’s church; and when from far away they saw the man of God’s temple, they began to cry aloud: “St Riquier, loose us!” — and at once their bonds burst and all were set free.

¹⁷ Likewise the great plague called the panucula, or venomous lacerta, slew the land’s dwellers far and wide with bitter death, and scarcely anyone touched by it escaped alive. One of St Riquier’s brethren was struck by that pestilence; fearing death from the plague, he yet did not despair of life on his patron’s account. As though to certain help, he ran with the brethren to the servant of God’s tomb; and there, prayer made in common, he himself was freed from death and all were defended from the plague — nor was any of those brethren struck by that deadly plague’s devastation. Nor were they alone freed: anyone coming from far away touched by the pestilential plague, fleeing with faith to St Riquier’s succour, was even healed by a decoction of his nail-clippings and escaped death’s peril.

¹⁸ Hence it is given to understand how great is his power with God to intercede for our sins, if we cry to him with faith — he who has such power to drive away sickness from those who come to him with faith. For his quality is plain from his miracles, as his merits are plain, and his past life shines in the works that follow; so that we need not doubt his sanctity, so great is he in power. Understand, dearest brethren: he who willed to be poor for Christ — what riches he now has with Christ; he who sought to be despised among men — how gloriously he now reigns among the angels; the honour he fled on earth he now possesses in heaven. Therefore it is right that he be honoured by all, who ever loved the Lord of all — and the more by us, who daily attend his body; so that he may possess as worthy heirs in merits those whom he begot as sons in doctrine.

Nor does our praise profit him as much as our imitation profits us. A devoted imitator pleases him more than an idle praiser. Therefore, dearest brethren and most holy fathers and most delightful sons and all the people of the holy congregation gathered for the feast of so great a patron — make yourselves worthy, that almighty God may hear your prayers through his intercessions. Adorn yourselves with spiritual beauty, with the surpassing glory of charity, with the victorious strength of faith, and with the most sweet goodness of Christ’s hope, ever following the holy fathers’ footsteps and examples, that you may be made worthy of their company; and with the apostle, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, let us live soberly and piously and justly in this world, awaiting the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God and our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for Himself an acceptable people, zealous of good works — whose is the glory and praise, the might and dominion, the power and kingdom with God the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

You who read the glorious patron’s deeds — remember, O Christ, Your poor Alcuin.

Here ends the Life of St Riquier the Confessor.

[The file’s tail contains the opening of the next item in Krusch’s edition — the preface to the Life of St Goar of the Rhine. In substance: among the saints treated so far, nearly all shrank from rich food; St Goar, by contrast, entered God’s kingdom by hospitality and generous feasts. The town of St Goar on the Rhine’s left bank belonged to the pagus Trigorium; its patron, the great practitioner of Rhenish hospitality, was connected with Prüm Abbey, to which the Cell of St Goar was disputed between the archbishop of Trier and the abbot of Prüm — Pippin having rebuilt Prüm c. 752 and in 762 granted it the cells of Altrip, Kasel, and Riveri, but not St Goar’s, which about 765 he committed for life to abbot Asuarius; Wandalbert’s account (839) says the steward Erping had failed in the duty of hospitality “where once under the blessed man that virtue had singularly flourished”. — the remainder was not captured.]