Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum V, ed. B. Krusch & W. Levison (1910) — translated from the Latin. The file contains Levison’s critical introduction and the primitive seventh-century Life in nineteen chapters.

The editor’s introduction #

At court Dado — for so Audoin was called before his episcopate — was trained like a seed-bed of palatine and public offices, and there he won friends: Sulpicius, who later ruled the church of Bourges; Paul, the future bishop of Verdun; Desiderius, who became bishop of Cahors in 630; and their brothers. But above all he enjoyed the friendship of Eligius, with whom he is said to have lived in the same dwelling. Many years later Desiderius, gratefully remembering the palatine college of friends, asked Dado that their old charity and brotherhood begun in the king’s hall should remain unbroken; and another monument of their friendship is the letter which Eligius addressed to Bishop Desiderius, commending himself to his prayers and adding a greeting in his own name and in Dado’s, the faithful companion of them both. Dado and Rado his brother also subscribed Eligius’s charter granting Solignac in 632.

As Rado was made treasurer, so Dado, on the death of King Chlothar, was appointed referendary by Dagobert I, and presented the royal diplomas to the king to be confirmed by subscription. His name survives on two charters granted to the basilica of St Denis, the one dated at Clichy in 632/3, the other, mutilated, to be placed between 629 and 639. In 636/7, when Judicael king of the Bretons came to Clichy to turn aside the Franks’ attack and, being a religious man greatly fearing God, would not sit at Dagobert’s table, he used the hospitality of Dado the referendary, “whom he knew to follow holy religion” — for Dado, like his friend Eligius, was devoted to the rite of the Scots, the same that the Bretons themselves followed. He discharged the referendary’s office until Dagobert’s death (19 Jan 639), and is said to have presented a charter only a few days before the king’s death, when the dying king granted certain estates to the registered poor of St Denis.

Domestic business also fell to the referendary in the palace. As his elder brother Ado had followed the monastic life and founded the monastery of Jouarre for virgins under Columbanus’s rule, so Dado himself, bent on spreading the Luxeuil observance, built with Ado and Rado, in the Brie forest, a monastery in honour of Saints Peter and Paul and Anthony called Jerusalem; standing on the brook Rebais it took its name from the stream (today Rebais, Seine-et-Marne). King Dagobert had granted the site, belonging to the royal fisc, and partly endowed the monastery, to which the brothers and their father Audecharius added other gifts. The monks afterwards kept the church’s dedication on 22 February. The first abbot appointed was Agilus, a Luxeuil monk who had earlier been Eustasius’s companion on his return from the Bavarians. The house was founded under Columbanus’s rule — with which Benedict’s rule later coalesced — and was to be governed “after the manner of the monastery of Luxeuil,” then ruled by Waldebert. At the petition of Dado and his brothers, Dagobert granted the new monastery on 1 October 635 or 636 a most weighty privilege both of immunity and of freedom to be vindicated against the diocesan bishop — a privilege which Dado the referendary himself presented to the king at Clichy. Since thereby even diocesan jurisdiction was taken away by the king, the founders, lest they should have hostile bishops, approached Burgundofaro bishop of Meaux, to whose diocese the house belonged, that he too should free it by a charter; and their petition was supported by the king and by Canderic bishop of Lyons and other bishops. Burgundofaro accordingly, yielding to “the religious petition of the illustrious referendary Dado,” granted the charter at Clichy on 1 March 637 or 638, confirmed by the subscriptions of the bishops of his province. By that privilege he confirmed to the monks not only all power over their property and the right of electing and instituting their abbot, but also, renouncing the so-called pontifical acts, allowed them to receive blessings, consecrations and ordinations from any bishop whatever, no power being reserved to the diocesan. These privileges — though less ample ones were afterwards granted to other monasteries — served later ages as models, and Rebais is rightly numbered with the most privileged monasteries: Stavelot, Lérins, Luxeuil and St-Marcel at Chalon.

Not long after Dagobert’s death Dado renounced his palatine offices. On the death of Romanus bishop of Rouen, Dado was put in his place by the king’s command — at the same time as his friend Eligius received the church of Noyon. Like several referendaries of the Frankish kings he thus attained episcopal rank; and since the canons ordered that no layman should be ordained bishop “without a year’s prior preparation,” he left his country for the regions beyond the Seine and is said to have travelled even into Spain. On his return he was consecrated priest by Deodatus bishop of Mâcon, and when the canonical year of clerical service was done, Dado and Eligius were ordained bishops at Rouen on 13 May 641.

Nor did he afterwards wholly abstain from secular affairs. When Chlodovech II died in 657 and the widow Balthild governed the realm for her little son Chlothar III, “lord Audoin” is named among the chief princes together with Ebroin the mayor of the palace and Chrodobert bishop of Paris. As affairs grew ever more troubled after Chlothar’s death — the nobles fighting among themselves and the kings given up to the factions’ discretion — Audoin too was drawn into public business. His earliest biographer relates that when “scandals” arose among the palace princes, the bishop toiled with the utmost zeal to restore concord — the occasion is unknown. He is said to have buried King Childeric II and his wife, slain together in 675. With Ebroin — whom his enemies denounced as a most savage tyrant and a bitter foe of bishops — the most religious bishop was on familiar terms; and when Ebroin came out of Luxeuil after Childeric’s murder, Audoin set before him the example of Queen Fredegund (so the author of the Liber Historiae Francorum, who held Audoin in special veneration): whereupon Ebroin, falling on his enemies by night, won the victory and in a short time made himself master of affairs — a tale which, fabulous though it seems, shows at least which party later ages believed Audoin favoured. Filibert abbot of Jumièges, hostile to Ebroin, is said by his biographer to have been deprived of his honour and thrown into prison by Audoin; yet not long after, with Audoin’s indulgence, he came out and went to the diocese of Rouen(?), where he founded the monastery of Herry — only to be recalled by Audoin in the eighth year, long after Ebroin’s death, and restored to his Jumièges monks. When Ebroin himself fell and Ghislemar tried to strip his father Waratto, the successor, of his dignity, the bishop vainly tried to restrain him from wronging his father. Journeying to Cologne he reconciled the broken peace between Neustrians and Austrasians — perhaps after Ghislemar’s death, who had warred with Duke Pippin — and his last journey, on which he died at Clichy in 684, he undertook “for the need of the king and the peoples.”

For his zeal in religion and faith he was called orthodox; about 647 he attended the Council of Chalon and signed its acts third among the metropolitans — the acts by which, among other things, it was decreed after the example of the Scots that penance for sins, the soul’s medicine profitable to all men, should be enjoined by priests on penitents after confession. He subscribed the monastic privileges of bishops too: of Emmo of Sens for St Columba’s monastery (660), of Berthefrid of Amiens for the Corbie monks (664), and of Drauscius of Soissons for St Mary’s monastery (667). Very many churches are said to have been founded by him, and he deserves the highest praise for the monastic life of his own diocese — he who had passed under Columbanus’s blessing and as a layman had founded Rebais. From his times many monasteries traced their origin, so that his biographer, surveying the monasteries founded by him and under him, compared the diocese of Rouen with Egypt, the mother of the monastic life. Most famous is the monastery of Fontenelle, founded by Wandregisel — whom Audoin himself had made subdeacon and deacon, and had caused to be consecrated priest by Bishop Audomar. But to monks of other houses he did not grant the freedoms once conferred on his own Rebais: when Filibert, Ebroin’s enemy, was removed from his abbacy, he is said to have substituted Chrodobert against the monks’ will, and at his death to have set the archdeacon Ragnetramnus over the Jumièges community. The diocese at that time was either divided or the bishop used a helper in governing it: at the Council of Chalon about 647 “Betto, bishop of the church of Juliobona” (today Lillebonne, Seine-Inférieure) was present — a place in the pays de Caux otherwise belonging to the diocese of Rouen. In 673/5 a dispute arose between Lantbert and Filibert, the rulers of Fontenelle and Jumièges, over the boundaries of the Jumièges forest, part of which Childeric II had granted to Lantbert; between them Audoin, armed with the king’s letter, restored concord, dividing the forest into equal parts. Of the same kind was the suit he brought between 658 and 675 for the rights of the church of Rouen against the monks of St Denis over a certain estate in the royal court, where, with Waning the count of the palace among those assisting, it was decreed that the possession should be divided equally.

Worn out with age, Audoin went to Rome to pray, and brought home many relics of the saints. He died “full of days and illustrious in virtues” when he had reached Clichy, a royal villa near Paris; borne from there to Rouen he was buried in the basilica of St Peter, which afterwards was called by his own name. He was entered in the Weissenburg codex of the Hieronymian martyrology and in the Gellone martyrology composed at Rebais on 24 August, the day on which he died in 684.

His writings and his poem #

Audoin, trained from childhood in letters, won a name even among writers. Most famous are the two books of the Life of Eligius which circulated under his friend’s name; and that he did in truth write a life of Eligius is proved by two letters still extant — the author’s own, sending the finished work to Bishop Chrodobert for correction, and Chrodobert’s answer. But the fullest Life that survives was certainly composed long after Audoin’s age and is spurious, though here and there fragments of the genuine work may be divined beneath it.

A second letter survives which the bishops Constantius of Albi and Dado sent to Desiderius of Cahors about one Godenus hostile to them, asking for letters under whose authority they might protect themselves. The matter is obscure, but Vacandard has not without reason denied that it concerns the bishop of Rouen — though no other Bishop Dado of that age is known.

A monk of St Denis who composed the Gesta Dagoberti at the opening of the ninth century tells a story of how the dead king’s soul was carried off by foul spirits to the Vulcanian places but rescued by Saints Dionysius, Maurice and Martin — a tale like Gregory the Great’s of King Theoderic, but with a different ending, which the author seems to have imitated. This monk, among other things, said he found the story in a very ancient charter which, as it was said, the blessed Bishop Audoin had written — so that already then it was uncertain whether Audoin was the author. Certainly the other works attributed to him do not belong to him at all.

Lastly, a poem in honour of Audoin, composed by a certain Ansebert, consists of twenty-three verses whose letters both begin and end with words forming the sentence “Audoinus surnamed Dado — Ansebert the writer composed this,” while letters standing in the middle of the verses, together with the twelfth verse, display the figure of a cross inscribed with the words: “I lift up the cross of Christ in my name; the nations who worship it are saved by this wood.” It is most likely that this is the same Ansebert who is said to have been ordained priest by Audoin before 673 and afterwards became abbot of Fontenelle, destined to succeed the bishop himself in 684. Vacandard conjectured from verse 9 that the poem was composed when Audoin visited the monastery; but as Krusch remarks, “the homeland” rather refers to the whole diocese, so that one might rather think of Audoin’s return from some greater journey such as the Roman or the Cologne one. The praises of Audoin contain little more than commonplaces and show the rude, unpolished art of that age. [The poem, preserved in Karlsruhe MS Augiensis CLXIV (9th c.), is printed in the edition in its cruciform layout:]

Friend of the Bridegroom-Lord, watchful over His own, a teacher excellent, all to life he calls; he feeds the flock; excelling the merits of all, holy by gift, armed with virtue, he is believed the safety of his fatherland. O stigmata of the cross! All believers — the nations worshipping — no dire serpents’ venom harms. Bearing one another’s burdens, living in monastic wise — see whose soldier he arms! I confess, of David the Lord’s boy. Now the joined number of the saints draws near the end of the world, and he ceases not to work good; the day of the Lord’s coming delays not, for it will appear in the last of the age. Sweet now I sing songs to You, O Christ, God of gods then in Sion, and the odour of him restored, lest all should perish.

The cult and the Lives #

The saint’s memory was cherished by the faithful from his death. In 688 his successor Ansbert solemnly translated his body to a higher place on Ascension Day (1 May). Early in the eighth century Herlemund bishop of Le Mans built an oratory in his honour near the city and placed a priest and monks there; and in the same century a church at Rebais was dedicated to its founder. In Alcuin’s age an altar of Remigius and Audoin stood in St Vedast’s church.

Though the material for a Life can hardly have been wanting to his contemporaries, Audoin never found a worthy herald. His earliest Life (A) was composed, it seems, by a Rouen author who, being a Neustrian, called the Neustrians simply “Franks” as against the Austrasians — just like the author of the Liber Historiae Francorum. His style is barbarous, full of grammatical faults — cases and genders confused, actives for deponents, passives for actives, declensions and conjugations wrongly made, participles for finite verbs, absolute accusatives, redundant -que. The little work is too slight, chiefly occupied with virtues and miracles, touching the saint’s deeds rather than narrating them, so that its author seems a stranger to secular affairs. Somewhat more exactly it tells of his death and burial and of the translation of 688, being nearest to its own time. It claims for itself an age removed from the saint’s by about one generation of men, saying that it relates miracles received from Audoin’s disciples — and there is no reason to doubt its good faith. The order of the narrative is not happy: after the virtues (cc. 5–6) it passes to miracles (cc. 7–9), inserts praises again (c. 8), breaks the series of miracles with the Roman journey (cc. 10–11), and when it has touched the labours for peace (c. 12), returns in like words to miracles done on that journey (cc. 13–14).

The Life was known to the biographers of Amandus, Filibertus and Etto, and to the author of the Gesta Dagoberti; the Salzburg anonymous who described the translation of St Hermes (851–855) pillaged its prologue; and the author of the Life of Basolus of Reims copied the prologue almost entire. The manuscripts of the primitive Life are few, since the second Life began to supplant it as early as the ninth century: the Montpellier MS (8th/9th c., mere fragments of the prologue), the Vienna MS 420 (9th c.), two later copies of a common exemplar (Harley 2801 and a 15th-century Weesp codex), a lost Utrecht MS behind Cuper’s edition, the St Gall MS 563, the Paris MS 528, two English manuscripts (Cotton Nero E I and Bodleian Fell 1), a breviary-lectionary extract at Compiègne, a late Paris MS, and an Arundel epitome from Kirkham in Yorkshire.

The relations of the codices can be represented by a stemma [given in the edition]. The chief editions are: Charles Le Cointe in the Annales ecclesiastici Francorum (1666–1670), who first published fragments from codex 6; Guilelmus Cuper in the Acta Sanctorum (August IV, 1739), who printed the whole Life from the lost Utrecht MS; and Bouquet in the Recueil des historiens (1741), who excerpted chapters 1–4 and 11–18 from the same.

The second Life (B) — written, since the primitive Life was too meagre, in the Carolingian age by an author attached to the church of Rouen, as a work to be read on the saint’s feast (“Temporibus Hlotharii gloriosi principis”) — was composed in the earlier part of the ninth century and was already known to the writer of the Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium (834–845). Using the first Life as foundation he enlarged it with ample additions drawn from the Liber Historiae Francorum, the Life of Eligius (from which he took the Monothelite heresy and Pope Martin story, transferring Eligius’s praises almost entire to Audoin), Jonas’s Columbanus, and the Lives of Wandregisel, Lantbert and Ansbert; what he tells of Waning and the beginnings of Fécamp should be believed with caution. Some manuscripts add an appendix on the Norman sack of Rouen on 14 May 841, when the body had rested at the place of translation for, it says, 165 years.

The third Life (C), longer and more prolix (“Regnante Lothario Hilperici regis filio”), was written before the ninth-century Life of Leutfred by an author who was not of Rouen — for he drops the second biographer’s words calling Audoin “our bishop” and had never seen the place of burial. Asked to correct what had been “faultily told” and to expand what was “cramped by excessive brevity,” he decided to rewrite the whole in his own style, professing to leave “the ancient history untouched” while adorning it throughout with reflections for the pious reader. It was pillaged by the biographers of Leutfred and Agilus and in the Fécamp chronicle called the Life of Waning; Cuper judged it unworthy of printing, but Sauvage edited it entire (Analecta Bollandiana V, 1886).

The fourth Life, in Leonine hexameters, was composed in the eleventh century by Theoderic, a monk of St Ouen at Rouen, and dedicated to Abbot Nicholas I (1042–1092), son of Duke Richard III of Normandy — as the prologue’s opening lines show:

To the true father, to the serene of tranquil peace, to the bright father, blest with the flower of virtues, to the holy abbot Nicholas — Theoderic.

Finally may be mentioned two little tales concerning the Roman journeys, which Vacandard published from a Rouen codex. The author of the one pretends that Audoin went twice to Rome, and that since Pope Martin died during his first journey, Audoin ruled the Roman church for some years until, by an angel’s revelation, Eugenius was made pontiff. The second story, of greater weight, has Pope Alexander serving a seven-year penance imposed on him by Audoin — who had convicted him of incontinence with a nun — while Audoin himself discharged his office, the supreme pontificate, “with no one compelling him.” But there was no Pope Alexander in the seventh century.

W. Levison

The Life of the Blessed Audoin, Bishop — in nineteen chapters #

Prologue #

The life of holy men, though glorious in examples, is for the most part hard to tell: since man’s dull mind in no wise shines with oracles, it stands sluggish and unprofitable for the telling, though the pious will exhorts it; devotion draws the mind, but the too slow sense represses the will’s choice. It is needful, then, that we ask help of the Redeemer, who gives wisdom without upbraiding — who ministers abundantly in the tables of the heart, who distinguished the she-ass’s utterance into syllables. May He confirm our effort to tell the life of the venerable Audoin, that Christ may be praised in the nations while the saints are venerated in their excellent virtues. The odour of the field which the Lord blessed smells sweet and shines in many; and therefore Mother Church greatly rejoices, since some gleam in glorious works, some blush as roses among thorns, some whiten as lilies among the twigs, some smell sweet as violets in the groves, enclosing the nectar and balms of spices. And so it comes to pass that almighty God is cheered by the odours of His field, fed by its virtues, glories in its works and is adored as Lord — that He who delights in angelic songs at heaven’s summit, sustaining human poverty, may win heavenly things from earthly; that with Christ its author the Church may follow her Head and reign without end for ever. Therefore, with the Lord’s favour, I will set forth what I purposed to narrate.

1 #

In the days of the glorious prince Chlothar, son likewise of King Chilperic, there were born in the province of the Gauls at the town of Soissons three venerable men, nobly begotten of one seed, illumined from heaven by God’s grace — Ado, Dado and Rado. Their father was Audecharius, their mother named Aiga, both adorned with the Christian crown. From the rudiments of childhood they were trained in the sharpness of letters, beloved of the prince himself, most prudently taught by illustrious men. The firstborn Ado flourished in the monastic order, and seeking the religious life trod underfoot the wickedness of this world. Rado became keeper of the palace treasures and, together with worldly dignity girt with the fear of the Lord, bounteous in alms, kept them faithfully and ministered in the offices of state. The venerable Audoin, then, surnamed Dado, exalted to the bishop’s episcopal chair, received together with royal honour and discharged the office for long years.

2 #

After Chlothar’s death his son Dagobert was set up prince in his father’s place — a man very cunning and subtle of wit and dreadful in the kingdom; who, holding the royal sceptre like a raging lion, bore down the necks of his subjects and triumphed in strength girt with the fierceness of nations. Under his dominion the aforementioned man of the Lord served in his day; endowed with the king’s ring, loved by many, he watched diligently over the honour entrusted to him. What more should I add? Beloved of the prince himself for the love of his service, greatly trusted by the king above the other attendants, he shone forth in his time as an oracle of wisdom.

3 #

From then on Christ’s servant, holding the honour of the world as nothing, sighing most devoutly for the heavenly kingdom, was frequent in fastings, all night in vigils, assiduous in prayers, bounteous in alms, lending cheerfully to the poor for Christ’s name, and most ready in God’s commandments. For very often, beneath a girdle studded with the glitter of gems and beneath purple woven with shining gold, for the ardour of his faith a hard hair-shirt pressed down upon his body’s surface; and he stood fast, that as a proved recruit in the world’s warfare he might prevail and not depart from the divine commandments — fulfilling God’s precept where He says: Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. Thus the Lord informed His soldier to so minister in earthly offices that he should not deny the heavenly. O what love he had toward God’s servants and the religious! And whatever divine grace conferred on others he ascribed to his own gain.

4 #

Then he joined to himself in the charity of faith the blessed Eligius, bishop of Noyon, proved in virtues — and as two fat olive trees or two shining golden candlesticks, illumined by the Sun of righteousness, they both shone together in the palace hall. And when the Lord saw His soldier gracious and solicitous about His precepts, He delivered him from the earthly and shipwrecked world, and setting him in the episcopal chair’s seat in the city of Rouen, he discharged the office of an excellent priest. Therefore the chosen shepherd, made an excellent preacher by the Lord, teaching the Lord’s flock in words and works alike, and so strengthened in the religion of the faith under the Lord’s protection, turned the Franks’ most savage fierceness to gentleness, and tempered it with the sweetness of honey from the sacred fount, and consecrated his parishes to the divine worship — so that, forsaking the heathen rite, they bowed their necks of their own accord to Christ’s yoke and service.

5 #

How many churches and how many monasteries of either sex were founded by him and under him as bishop — if anyone wishes to know clearly, let him look through his parishes, and he will see him gaze as it were upon an Egypt of monkish hosts. So then the man of God kept the Lord’s sheep and the faithful’s folds from the wolves’ bites both by words and by examples. Who could ever imitate his life and the strait and narrow way of the Redeemer by which he went to the heavenly kingdom? Who could say he was ever sated with food or drink? For hunger had so thinned his body that his flesh was worn and overspread with the pallor of emaciation, his cheeks drenched with a rain of tears, his neck bowed beneath the circuit of an iron ring, and his arms together with the rest of his limbs constricted with a band of circlets.

6 #

Christ’s soldier, as it were bound in chains for the Lord’s love, had bound himself to such a guard and condemned the world’s desires and hastened to the fatherland above. And as in time of persecution Christ’s martyrs, at the tyrants’ doing, were condemned to the prison’s workhouse and thrust into the mines and shed their blood for Christ’s precious name, so he in time of peace, persecution ceasing, was his own eager soldier: glorious in confession, he earned by following after the martyr’s palm. What manner of bed he made for himself and what rest he gave his little body, it shames not to tell: his rest was a pallet made not of the softness of feathers but of a heap of logs; and finishing his body as into a workhouse, he spat out the world’s alluring robes, consenting to the apostle’s sentence where he says: The sufferings of this world are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in the saints. O virtue of abstinence and mortification of the flesh, whereby you send Christ’s soldiers to the heavens! O fervour of charity, that so burn in the breast as to pierce heaven’s kingdom with transitory things despised! As the Lord wrought in His servant Audoin, so He exalted him nobly in this life and adorned him with His virtues and gave him rest after so great labour.

7 #

These few things must briefly be concluded — let not the rude speech grow tedious — let our discourse pass to his miracles, or rather a few of many, which I learnt from suitable witnesses, his disciples’ narration. Now when the saint of God had been set by the king’s command from the lay order into the pontifical burden, he feared according to the apostle’s sentence where he forbids that a neophyte should be ordained, lest he fall into the devil’s snare: after receiving the dignity he went into exile from his country while the year ran its course, that he might become by degrees and orders a learned scribe in the Church, as he deserved. Then he went into the parts of Spain, where the Lord wrought a great miracle through him. Nearly seven years had run out in which that region laboured under drought, and the land being turned to barrenness, sterility and famine and the plague’s sickness threatened destruction on every side. At last merciful God, seeing His people’s affliction and pitying human labours, at His servant Audoin’s entrance at once granted rain and tempered the thirsty earth with wondrous showers. From where the happy report of him spread through the lands of the Goths. Not undeservedly is St Audoin compared with Elijah’s virtues: who, for the crime of the Israelite people, shut heaven for three years and six months, and then, at Elijah’s prayer, poured the abundance of rain upon the parched land. In the same way our Lord Jesus Christ through His servant filled Spain with waters by grace renewed.

8 #

And so the man of the Lord, greatly strengthened by this miracle, grew in the fervour of charity; shuddering at the world’s dregs he forsook them, and sought the contemplative life more eagerly. He gave himself wholly and betook himself wholly to the Lord. From then on, fenced with angelic guard, he was endowed with a certain ministry and conversed often with the saints. And it is certain that his disciples, often beholding him visibly, perceived a great light shining round about his bed; and enjoying the fellowship of the saints, the servant of Jesus rejoiced in the Lord. From then on the man of the Lord, forgetting with the apostle the things that are behind and stretching forward to those before, cleansing the sanctuary of his heart and made a temple of the Holy Spirit, deserved to see the Lord — from which it is written: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God. From there he went from virtue to virtue, from a clean heart to purity, from patience to the possession of all things. For the working of virtues the Lord’s servant grew in the lands; deeds accompanying him, he took up the heavenly kingdom. Worthily almighty God, manifesting His servant to many nations, glorified him and adorned him with apostolic signs.

9 #

It happened once that he journeyed through the country of Anjou. While a certain poor man was making flour at a mill on the Lord’s day, his hand was caught fast with the handle by which the mill was turned, so that his thumb, passing through the jointure of nerves and veins, let out the cold blood from its upper part; and paying the penalty of his fault, he could nowhere cast out the handle fastened in his hand. From where terror and great amazement fell upon the people. And when the holy man was passing through those parts, the poor man, casting himself at his footsteps and declaring his guilt, said he had suffered this because he had violated the holy day of the resurrection against the Lord’s command. But when the man of the Lord saw it, moved with pity he impressed the sign of the cross on the dry hand and restored it to its former health; and admonishing him he gave him wholesome counsel, never again to do servile work on the Lord’s day, lest afterwards worse things should befall him for his contempt — saying that if the Jews kept the sabbath for the commandment’s sake at the Lord’s precept, how much more should Christians, who are redeemed by His blood, honour the Lord’s day.

10 #

And so the holy man scattered through various parishes the seeds of virtues and the points of his words. For since his mind ever sighed for the heavenly things out of love for the Holy Trinity, he burned with desire to hasten to Rome to adore the thresholds of the holy apostles — and so he did, though worn out with long age and with his body wasted by the protracted abstinence and all but dissolved in the jointure of his limbs. The eager soldier gave himself for the Lord’s love and His disciples’ sake to the perils of the Alps’ height and the Pyrenees’ ridges, heaped with old snows; fulfilling his vows and satisfying his desires, visiting the saints’ monuments and prostrate in body pressing kisses on their pavements, he devoutly accomplished what he had long desired. And so the man of God, upheld by the saints’ suffrages, surveying the holy places and gaining the profit of prayers, bearing with him many saints’ relics and with the angel of the Lord accompanying him, returned into the parts of Gaul; and by his prayer’s availing he ministered health of souls and bodies.

11 #

And when he had come to the bounds of his diocese, the suburban citizens and the common people, exulting for joy and mourning together, rolled forward in throngs to meet him with crosses and lamps, and went to meet the pious pastor, thanking the Lord who had restored their pastor and bishop to them safe. Then the happy news of his coming was made known in the royal hall; and both king and queen with the palace nobles rejoicing and clapping their hands together blessed Christ who had made such a man and so great a pastor return into their kingdom. What shall I say of the priests and the hosts of monks and nuns? — who lifting their hands to heaven with one voice sang praises to the Lord, saying: “We thank You, Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who have heard the voices of them that cry to You and have restored to us the shepherd of souls and the guardian of bodies.” Meanwhile the poor rejoiced, crying that God had sent them back their benefactor.

12 #

Then blessed Audoin, when he had returned in peace to his own, found — peaceable man that he was — that scandals had arisen in the realm of the Franks among the palace princes, the devil, the sower of discord, stirring them up. Then the man of the Lord, taking the armour of justice, watching with vigils and exceeding fasts and assiduous prayers, laboured mightily for their concord. It is not unknown to many how many, how grievous sighs flowed from his breast, and how many tribulations the blessed old man endured that he might restore to peace those whose souls long hatred had defiled, and that the shedding of human blood and slaughter might not come to pass — toiling piously and faithfully almost to the very term of death: fulfilling the gospel precept and the shepherd’s true word, gladly laying down his life for the sheep. What should I first relate of the miracles which the Lord deigned to work through him in Spain, Italy, or the parishes of Gaul? It is too long to tell; the places where the miracles are are witnesses — but I have been careful to attach a few of very many to this work.

13 #

Now while St Audoin seemed ever to strive for the concord of peace, as time went on discord arose between the nation of the Franks and the Austrasians. So the man of God, going and taking sacred counsels and trusting in God’s help, came as a son of peace to the city of Cologne; entering the city for the sake of visiting, surveying the monuments of the multitude of martyrs, he bore away their relics with him, to lay them up in his own city with the greatest honour. And in that city was a certain man who for eleven years had been unable to speak words, mute all that time — for the Lord had reserved this miracle for the honour of His servant Audoin, that at his coming He should restore speech to the mute, and that his long-squalid tongue should sound forth in praises. Impressing the sign of the cross upon his head, he commanded him with a word to speak — who at once began to speak, rendering praises to the Lord.

14 #

From there returning to Neustria with the covenant of peace confirmed, he came to the city of Verdun. Entering the church, a certain woman having an unclean spirit began to be sorely vexed; she tried with swift course to reach the man of God. And the bishop stretched his hand upon her head and violently cast out the demon, and restored her sound to her parents. From there he came to the palace, declared all the prosperity that he had wrought, and a true priest earned united kingdoms and united peace for the peoples. And so between both parties there was peace united for some time.

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And now, lest the rude speech should breed weariness, let it rest — let our discourse tend to the holy man’s death. When by the Lord’s protection he had come to the villa of Clichy for the need of the king and the peoples — Theuderic reigning and Chrodochildis as queen, and Waratto governing as under-king — the time came by divine appointment for the holy man’s soul to pass from the world. A bodily sickness came upon God’s saint, and he began to burn with fevers. But the holy man kept praying the Lord that He would now free him from the body; and the Lord, graciously hearing His servant’s prayers, suffered the burden of the flesh to be laid down and him to enjoy thereafter the glory of paradise. So the true Israel, returning out of Egypt, with his holy soul carried by angels flew to the Lord. Then was a great lamentation: all the royal dignity is shaken, all height is humbled, all joy is turned to mourning, all laughter is stilled, a great bitterness grows. The royal house bewailed its most prudent counsellor; but plainly the whole people rose up in lamentation, because he ever procured peace for the people and manfully laboured that human blood should not be shed.

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At last all the palace doors were moved. So the king with the queen and the assembly of bishops and the greater ones of the house and the palace elders, all gathered together, bearing the holy man on a bier and celebrating the holy obsequies with grief — and each counted it his greatest gain who was counted worthy to have borne the blessed man’s body on his shoulders. And with the greatest honour they came as far as Pontoise with the due adornment of burial — both king and queen and all the people — keeping vigil, passing the whole night in praises of the Lord. From there the royal dignity returned home with great sadness.

17 #

Now when an assembly had been made of many bishops with their abbots, and a multitude of priests and clergy and illustrious men and a crowd of the people of the Vexin country had entered the town, bearing the blessed body on their shoulders, they came together with praises and hymns singing to God, with great weeping awaiting the pastor’s bier. Through each place, as we have said, they bore the blessed body mingled with sadness, and buried it in his own city of Rouen in the basilica of the blessed apostle Peter with great honour — where the Lord Jesus Christ, his merits interceding, deigned to work many signs of power. And not only in that place, but through many provinces where the holy man had rested in the body, such miracles shine to this day that there the blind are enlightened, lepers cleansed, the lame restored to walking, the possessed cured and various sicknesses healed by his merits. It were long to tell of so many miracles which the Lord deigned to show there through blessed Audoin’s merits. Let a few words of many suffice: let him who would know this clearly scan Gaul and Aquitaine, Spain and Italy, and he will find that we have told true — nowhere will he prove us false.

18 #

Now the blessed body rested in the place which he himself had built for about three years and nine months. Afterwards it seemed good to the bishop his successor to translate the blessed body to a higher step behind the altar of the holy apostle Peter. So the bishop, a company of many monks being called together, and all the clergy of the church and the suburban people and those of that city’s province gathering from all sides for love of him, celebrating the festival of vigil the whole night — when matins’ praises were ended they removed the holy body with great awe from the place where it had been buried, and translated it to the place aforementioned on the day of the Lord’s ascension, the fortieth day after the Lord’s glorious resurrection, holy Easter, which the Christian people venerate with great honour.

19 #

Now of the miracle that was wrought on that very day when they translated the holy body, it shames me not to tell. For the aforementioned bishop had been seized with a strong bodily sickness, which the common people call the tertian type; it shook him violently, and seized with fever death loomed near and more cruel through his heavy gaspings. But while the festival of masses was being celebrated by the priests, the clergy standing by with the people, all his fever was wiped away, and the bishop at once received health and hastened sound and safe to his lodging. And for that reason the same bishop took away with his own hand in faith the sudarium which lay over blessed Audoin’s head as a gift of relics, and by the Lord’s bounty earned health both for himself and for many others from the same sickness. A joyful feast was held: the voices of the poor, gathered on the day of his blessed deposition, praised the Lord together and gave unspeakable thanks for their shepherd the lord Audoin — for he who had fed them abundantly in this present life, after his departure prepared for them so great a banquet.

Here ends the Life of the Blessed Audoin, Bishop.