MGH, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum V (1910), ed. B. Krusch & W. Levison — translated from the Latin. The file contains Krusch’s critical preface, the 131-chapter wish of the Life, the excerpts Krusch printed from recension A (chapters 1–2, 62–64, 70–79, 97–100, 102–103, 106, 108–112, 118–119, 122–131), both versions of the Conversion of Otgar, and the heading of the next item.

The editor’s preface #

Burgundofaro discharged the office of referendary under King Dagobert I, witnessing the charter by which the possession of estates acquired by title both of inheritance and of purchase was confirmed to the illustrious Ursinus, referendary of Chlothar II — which cannot have happened before the end of 629, since the king had not received the Rouergue district, in which those villas lay, until after his father’s death; nor indeed much later, for Dagobert seems soon to have yielded the same part of the realm to his brother Charibert, although the same Dagobert in the following year, in April, granted the bishopric of Cahors to Desiderius — a charter presented by the referendary Chrodobert. Leaving the palace, Burgundofaro obtained the bishopric of Meaux as successor to Gundoald, who had taken part in the council of Clichy in 626/7. In that diocese the monasteries of Faremoutiers and Rebais, together with Jouarre, had been founded after the rule of Columbanus, and the bishops must have been well disposed toward the Scottish rite. Gundoald had clothed Burgundofara in the religious habit as the first abbess of the monastery of Faremoutiers, and there bishop Burgundofaro himself, with Waldebert abbot of Luxeuil, afterwards believed he had seen a miracle; he granted a privilege to the monastery of Rebais in 638 (or 637?). To other monasteries likewise, with his consent, the diocesan bishops — namely Emmon of Sens, Berthefrid of Amiens, Drauscius of Soissons — granted those liberties between 660 and 667 which the Columban rite required.

It is less certain that Burgundofaro was the brother of Burgundofara and therefore the son of Chagneric, the table-companion of King Theudebert and of his wife Leudegund — at whose house near Pépin’s estate by Meaux both Columbanus and Eustasius once turned in for hospitality. Jonas, recounting that journey (I, 26), named only the daughter of Chagneric and attributed no son to this Chagneric save at the latest point (II, 7), and passed over Authar’s third son Rado altogether in silence. Although, then, with genuine sources lacking, that kinship cannot be affirmed, yet the vulgar names seem almost to look to the same family; nor is it easily to be believed that those names, drawn from the Burgundofaros among the Burgundian nobles, were repeatedly given to children. The curtailed name Faro occurs in trustworthy charters, and among the older authors Bede alone so calls Burgundofaro, relating that abbot Hadrian, sent by the pope into Britain in 668, stayed for some time with him and with Emmon bishop of Sens. Faro occupies the day of Simon and Jude, that is 28 October, in the martyrology of Wandalbert: “Here also is worshipped Faro by the Marne’s shores”; and he was brought into Usuard’s calendar in these words: “In the city of Meaux, St Faro, bishop and confessor.”

That Faro was buried in the basilica of Holy Cross of the monastery in the suburb of Meaux, situated on the northern side — which afterwards took its name from him — was believed; but the first traces of it emerge in the mid-eighth century and not before Romanus bishop of Meaux, who in 748 was among the bishops of the Gallican church to whom pope Zacharias gave letters commending Boniface. Lull wished the memory of Romanus to be celebrated; but it is scarcely clear whether he is the same as the bishop of Meaux to whom, when he died, Vulframnus succeeded. Pippin transferred to the monastery of Prüm monks “of the congregation of the lords Romanus and Vulframnus, bishops,” to whom he granted the faculty of freely electing an abbot in 762; and brothers “of the monastery called Holy Cross” were entered in the old confraternity book of Reichenau, among whom bishop Vulframnus occupies the first place. The bishops of Meaux, therefore, seem to have been at the same time abbots of the monastery of Holy Cross, and it is plausible that it once flourished with the same liberty as did the daughter house. But the relation with the bishops could easily bring it into danger, and in the fourteenth century the abbot of St Faro was reckoned among the non-exempt religious of the city of Meaux. As one of the Franconian monks of the monastery of Prüm in the mid-eighth century seems to have fabricated the Life of Goar, so in the monastery of Holy Cross at Meaux, a century later, the deeds of Faro were devised — the patron whom the monks worshipped. At that time Hildegarius presided over the see of Meaux, elected in 854 from the college of monks of the monastery of St Denis at Paris and appointed by King Charles — to whom Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, wrote a little book on the ordeal of cold water.

The author of Life A stated for certain that Faro’s sister was Fara — he who employed fuller names only very rarely — and therefore could transcribe verbatim those parts in which Jonas had discoursed of the virgin’s family in each book of the Life of Columbanus, and even narrated certain deeds of the Franks from the same source; he himself cited the “Life” or “deeds of Columbanus” and the “Life of Eustasius” — namely Vita Columbani II, 7 — and seems to have had a codex resembling A 2a. To what he had read in Jonas (I, 29) concerning Brunhild’s death and Chlothar’s monarchy he joined his own Faro in these words: “and,” he says, “the excellent Faro was nobly raised among the nobles of the realms.” Wholly misunderstanding his author’s words, he contends that Sigibert’s sons were slain and not those of Theuderic II his father; and using an unlucky interpretation he fabricated that not only Faro but also Waldebert, abbot of Luxeuil, was Fara’s brother and bishop of Meaux. Faro, therefore, “by this kinship as by right of inheritance,” being elected bishop of Meaux, could succeed Waldebert — who himself had succeeded Gundoald. Of the deeds of the Franks the author found very much in the Liber historiae Francorum, and compared the Gesta Francorum with the Gesta beati Columbani (ch. 29) in recounting the death of Theuderic II. To the same source he narrated the most famous war (ch. 71 ff.) which Chlothar II is said to have waged with the Saxons, but prefaced it with a lengthy history of their embassy, by which he wished to show that the first fruits of Christianity were brought to the Germans by Faro. A codex of the Liber hist. Francorum like B 1a lay before him, for he wrote that Bertoald was king of the Saxons, not duke — a reading which that codex alone exhibits. Certainly it was lamentable that in all the books he turned over the name of his Faro scarcely occurred. He did affirm (ch. 66) that “the deeds of the virgin Fara and of bishop Faro” were inserted “among the annals, records and series of earthly kings”; but those annals, which Mabillon supposed lost, were never written — as others have rightly suspected. What he wrote (ch. 8) concerning the name and coming of the Burgundians depends on Isidore; and the celebrated fame of Fara’s monastery he had gathered from Bede’s Gesta Anglorum, which he himself cites.

Amid this dearth of sources he could produce a new book which nobody had yet seen — namely a Life of Chillenus, a man of the Scottish race, whom he contends was sent by Faro into the province of Artois (ch. 100) to convert the inhabitants to the Christian religion. But what he wished to have drawn from those papers in ch. 70 — that Faro the prince had astutely foreseen by the craft of his counsel lest the “commonwealth of the realm” suffer detriment by any violation of law — belongs to a commonplace, and for that very reason seems doubtful to me, because res publica in the Merovingian age refers to the Roman empire. The fables and miracles he further attributes to those sheets pertain rather to Faro than to that Chillenus whose life he cited. A Life of Kilian, confessor of Aubigny, was indeed lately brought out of darkness by Fr Poncelet; but the author assigned the holy man to the age of Vedast, that is, to an earlier century, and scattered such manifest falsehoods about him — as that elected pope by the Romans he had spurned the dignity — and other things, so as to be celebrated with meagre praise. That book surely was not at the disposal of Faro’s biographer, being fabricated much later; but if learned men still think its own source is to be sought, I fear they lose their oil and labour. For we are dealing with an author who cited sources for the sake of empty ostentation, and the things he cited are rightly reckoned phantoms of the Old Ones. By his own testimony (ch. 22) Faro, a soldier of King Theudebert (595–612), received Chlothar II from baptism — a thing which Gregory, Hist. Franc. X, 28, records Guntramn as having done in 591; no, he cited privileges granted to Faro for the monastery of Holy Cross, in which the king called the bishop father and he him his “adopted son.” Yet such privileges ill befit the reign of Chlothar II — from which Mabillon preferred to refer them to Chlothar III. Moreover the author, committing Faro’s deeds to writing two centuries later, proceeded to such insanity as to claim he had learnt “by the public relation of the most ancient men, who were composed in milky whiteness” (ch. 106), that Blidechildis his wife cunningly restrained the desire of her husband already made bishop. Lastly, he himself devised pious prayers (ch. 83) which Faro, having left the palace, was to have held with his sister Fara, and asserted their beauty is admired “even today in the minds of the hearers who follow him.”

The author of so many frauds is sufficiently and more than suspect, who affirmed so many incredible things and interpreted the sure sources we have with the utmost negligence, twisting them to his own pleasure. Yet he had a certain faculty of inventing fables and setting them clearly before the eyes. Among the Gallican provinces he exalted the Senonese to the stars, holding of its six cities Meaux the most famous (ch. 9, 10), and “in this city” (ch. 82) he lived. Attributing to it as first bishop Dionysius, elected by the Parisians — the nineteenth Waldebert, that abbot of Luxeuil whom he feigned succeeded Gundoald — the twentieth Faro, and as “the present one” Hildegarius “the humble” bishop, whom “the wheel of years then kept turning in the sixteenth round” (ch. 64): the Life of Faro was therefore composed in 869, and doubtless by that humble bishop Hildegarius himself, who, as he had been a monk of St Denis, venerated this patron with singular piety and esteemed this church above the rest (ch. 124). He seems in a manner to have arranged for himself the series of the bishops of Meaux, which is of no authority; and it is asked whether he reduced it into such a catalogue as Louis Duchesne lamented had perished. Although Hildegarius wrote that both the bishop’s church and the monastery were adorned with new buildings by Faro (ch. 94), yet he seems rather to have celebrated that the holy man’s sepulchre ennobled it (ch. 10), and of this “most beautiful basilica of Holy Cross” he narrated very many miracles (ch. 109). If he allowed evils to be perpetrated against it, he wished to depict the atrocity of vengeance. Datlevertus, Faro’s successor, building a church in honour of “holy Christ” with a mind not well, was deprived of his see by a synod; but the church which he had built more beautiful beside it was overthrown by the gaping earth (ch. 110 ff.). His name, as it is alien to the Merovingian age, answers to the custom of the ninth century; and later authors too seem to have shrunk from it, calling Hildevertus rather Faro’s successor — whom they wished to have repented of that deed — and they laboured with such success that men of no mean genius approved the name recently invented. Certainly Hildegarius seems to have borne himself more a monk than a bishop — a monk who frequently conversed among monks, as Mabillon already conjectured — and we have noted that the bishops of the city of Meaux anciently presided over the congregation of Holy Cross. From ch. 117 he passed to “our time,” and most of the miracles that follow are of greater moment as bearing on the history of that age. One he had received from the mouth of Lupus, abbot of Ferrières (ch. 118), which befell him when journeying to the palace of Frankfurt, perhaps in January 839 — and the man was still alive in 869 when these things were written; nor do they rightly believe that no traces of him survive after 862; for Hildegarius lived in the same Senonese province, so that he could not fail to be made certain of his death. Another a certain monk of the monastery of Holy Cross named Rotgarius had frequently told him (ch. 119), which that man experienced as a count stationed in Italy on the expedition against the Bulgars, namely between 827 and 829. These two, perpetrated in “unknown” regions, are followed by others bearing upon Jouarre(?) and the monastery of Holy Cross, of which one befell “a monk known from the flock of this place” (ch. 121). Lastly, to the glad miracles Hildegarius joined mournful ones — namely the incursions of the Northmen, the sloth of Charles the Bald, the captivity of Louis abbot of St Denis in 858, the siege of the Seine island Oscellus, no the storming and burning of the city of Meaux itself in 862. These Hildegarius described as an eyewitness, but distinguished the intervals of years with too little accuracy, his memory doubtless slipping. Now he composed the Life of Faro with the intent that it should be read on his feast-day (ch. 1), though it is hardly credible that the general discourse on the cult of the saints which he prefixed, and the prolix speeches he attributed to Fara, Faro and others, served to gladden the hearers’ minds. That Fara was so learned in letters, the example teaches of “the lying Simon’s” (!) walls of ancient Troy being destroyed by the horse’s form (ch. 18) — which doubtless he knew from Vergil, if not she, at least Hildegarius.

In proportion as the Life of Faro has been little esteemed by historians ever since Valois’s time — since it is of any moment only for knowing the age of Charles the Bald — so it is extolled with the greater praises by the learned who give their labour and study to the newer languages sprung from the Roman, for they believed they had detected in it a fragment of a French song rendered into Latin, than which none more ancient had come down to us. In a few words I will set out how this opinion was founded and built up. After Hildegarius had related that Faro by cunning rescued the envoys of Bertoald king of the Saxons from peril of death, and that that nation was cut down by Chlothar II, “from which victory,” he says (ch. 78), “a public song after the rustic manner flew through the mouths of nearly all so singing, and women fashioned choruses from it with clapping.” By the rustic song he wished to show “how celebrated by all” Faro was held; and from the imperfect tenses it is understood that all these things belonged to the very age of Chlothar II, and that the verses were in every mouth in the same seventh century. Since Valois, however, it is agreed among all that Chlothar II’s Saxon expedition was invented by the author of the Liber hist. Franc. (ch. 41), whom Hildegarius followed; and since that victory was devised by an eighth-century writer, it must be left to the reader’s judgement what may be thought of the things the ninth-century fabulist annexed as if then done. But scholars drew the superior antiquity of the famous verses in this way: they contended that the Saxon expedition together with the verses was drawn by Hildegarius from the Life of Chillenus, which they assigned to the late seventh or early eighth century; and they even held that the author of the Liber hist. Franc. used an epic song; and since they supposed two Faros — both the bishop of Meaux and a more ancient prince — and conjectured that Chlothar not the second but the first was author of that war, they arrived at an epic song composed in the sixth century, with which triumph the ambition of those scholars could be content. Meanwhile Hildegarius himself carefully circumscribed in chs. 70 and 79 what he wished referred to the Life of Chillenus, and no intermediate chapters may be referred to the same source which he himself had not referred. That prop removed, the verses remain affixed to Hildegarius’s own age, the ninth century. Hermann Suchier’s argument is altogether to be approved; and the same, following the tracks of Ferdinand Lot, rightly observed that what the author of the Liber hist. Franc. related of Chlothar II’s Saxon war coheres with what, as Fredegarius testifies (IV, 25 ff.), was done by Bertoald, Theuderic’s mayor of the palace, and by Chlothar II’s army. A Frankish song was employed in the Liber hist. Franc., and Hildegarius’s verses belong to a larger French song embracing Chlothar’s whole Saxon expedition, to which that Frankish song underlay — and that they are the first and last verses of the first strophe, that most learned man seems to me not fully to have proved. The rustic poet, on Hildegarius’s testimony, wished to treat of Chlothar marching out against the Saxons; of the envoys he first sang their coming into the land of the Franks, “where Faro was prince”; then their passage through the city of Meaux, that they might escape that danger. Thus this whole song ended — not the first strophe; nor do I see what could have fallen out between beginning and end, since it begins from the very embassy in which it ends. But the poet began to sing backward from Chlothar’s very victory, which Hildegarius had just described; and since in the end he proceeded no further than the embassy, I know not what the song contained besides this, which is not confirmed by the Liber hist. Franc. Therefore they rightly concluded of the great song that an epic cannot be thought of — a lyric lay alone being established. Yet for a lyric song of that age, which “from that victory” was sung, a foundation is lacking, since the victory itself is to be reckoned among fables. Lastly others have revived all the things you would think happily overcome — that there were two Faros, a prince and a bishop of Meaux, and that the Life of Chillenus is to be held as the song’s source, going back to the sixth and seventh century.

Meanwhile the scholars of the newer literature seem to me to err in that they conjecture Hildegarius’s verses were translated from the French tongue into Latin — since even the Latin tongue could be handled in a rustic manner in Gaul; and Hildegarius, though he walks on the buskin of the Frankish courtly style, could hardly conceal his rusticity even scarcely. He interpreted the origin of the names Faro and Meldis in his own manner, and using an affected and contorted style — not easy to understand — formed new words or employed usual ones in an alien sense, added a subject to the ablative absolute, used the nominative absolute, no did not even avoid vulgar grammatical faults. In that style also the deeds of that embassy were written (chs. 71–78), which Hildegarius had devised for himself. Moreover, that even those rustic verses were fabricated by Hildegarius himself, wherewith to confirm what he had added to the Liber hist. Franc. concerning Faro, I conjectured a decade ago; examining Suchier’s dissertation, my opinion was assented to by H. Bresslau. Nor do I see that any account has been taken of the other side, although arguments were easily collected from the rest of the life. Those verses seem bound by no metre or rhythm, save that they end assonating in -orum or -onum. But Hildegarius everywhere used the same rhythmic style, and in ch. 97 even ended clauses with the same syllables: “Similiter quoque ex gente Scottorum quam plurimi — accelerabant et sic — religio monachorum — novit habere initium — in gente Francorum.” The construction est canere for canendum est was thoroughly familiar to Hildegarius, and from ch. 50 alone I have collected these instances: est accelerare, est sanare, ire est (= it is to be gone) lacrimis; in the same also I found the verb provenire. One of those verses which the author asserted was at the end of the song, lacking the assonant part, seems imperfect; and learned men have held it a gloss and struck it out or at least transposed it. Yet the arrangement of words, little common — Faro ubi erat princeps — as it abhors the ancient speech of the Franks, answers to Hildegarius’s studied habit. What the learned found offensive in princeps — Hildegarius attributed the converting of the Saxons to Faro among “the magnates,” not the bishops, as they rashly supposed; and the author himself afterwards states that the delights of the “principate” were utterly despised by him (ch. 91). These things being set forth, I incline to approve that Hildegarius himself is the poet, and that the rustic verses together with the Life of Faro were composed in 869 and are not old in the centuries to which they are rashly attributed.

We lament that the most ancient codex of the book Hildegarius composed (A) is lost; nor have we copies of the full text save more recent ones, while we have several of the imperfect text, the same being older — and so the apparatus is heaped up so full that the earlier edition could be emended and supplemented in many places. From the life itself I have selected chiefly those particles which bear upon the most famous Saxon war or upon the author and his doubtful sources; but the wonders of his own age I have admitted nearly whole. The prolix speeches attributed to Fara, Faro and others Mabillon had already suppressed.

A 1a) The codex once of the monastery of St Faro at Meaux, used by Mabillon, contained both recensions of the Life of Faro, A and B, written in the late tenth century, together with the Conversion of Otgar; to these Fulcoius’s poem on the life of Faro had been added in a more recent hand, and likewise in a second hand at the end there was appended: “A summary of the books which abbot Galfridus found in the monastery of Holy Cross and St Faro.” Life A was followed by a miracle added from recension B, which Faro is said to have performed approaching the basilica of St Remigius; and in the same codex stood the very translation of Faro accomplished in 1140 — which was indeed added in a later hand.

A 1a¹) The Paris codex, “Collection Duchesne” no. 84, seventeenth century, contains: fol. 235–238 a table of chapters of Life A transcribed “from the ms. codex of St Pharon,” i.e. A 1a; fol. 239–261v the text of A transcribed from a certain codex A 2b and therefore useless; fol. 261r–262 the miracle added from recension B, as above; fol. 262–265 the Translation of 1140 (AA.SS. Oct. XII, p. 618, §9); fol. 265–267 the remaining miracles (§10 ff.), prefaced by these words: “At the end of the life these miracles have been added,” &c.; fol. 268–269v the Conversion of Otgar transcribed from a codex like A 2a in a somewhat older hand, to which are prefixed the same words as to that; fol. 277–284 Life of Faro B divided into 11 lessons with the two verses which I detected only in codex A 1b — but gaping after the words in naufragantium, the codex’s leaf being lost; fol. 285–295v Fulcoius’s poem transcribed from A 1a, and the prefixed words “Concerning the overthrown monastery” — the Appendix concerning Hildevertus; fol. 296–296v a poem on Faro beginning “Posteaquam mundo decessit Faro beatus / Pluribus a Domino signis est glorificatus”; fol. 297 Sapphic verses on the same, beginning “Concrepant omnes iubilantque Christo / Atque plus laudant solito Faronem / Qui iubar mundi nituit triumphis / Clarus et actis.”

A 1b) The Paris codex no. 13763, formerly St-Germain-des-Prés no. 1607, once 770 — of which the earlier part (fol. 1–102), written in the tenth century, once belonged to the library of St Rémi; the later part (fol. 103–168) took its origin “from the monastery of Crespy” (today Crépy-en-Valois, dept. Oise) — contains in this latter part: fol. 147v–162v and 103–116v, Life of Faro B written in an eleventh-century hand; fol. 117–124v, likewise eleventh century, the Conversion of the soldier Otgar; fol. 125–146 and 163–168v, Life of Faro A written in the twelfth century, ending at the words of ch. 44 deponeret, the later quaternions being lost. It therefore exhibits none of the things I have admitted. The leaves are transposed in the manner I have said.

A 2a) The Carpentras codex C.G. 1819 (P. n. L. t. II) contains sheets collected by Peiresc (†1637), among others: fol. 169–170v the same Conversion of Otgar which stands in A 1b; fol. 173 the series of bishops of Meaux: 1. St Dionysius … 19. Gundcaldus or Walbertus … 20. St Faro. 21. St Hildevertus … 91. Iohannes de Viels, pontiff (i.e. John XIV de Buz, 1535–1552); fol. 173v a table of the abbots of St Faro: “St Faro bishop of Meaux, first founder, 642 — Helyas, first after St Faro — Fredegisillus … 1599. Charles, provost, present commendatory”; fol. 176–201 Life of Faro A interpolated from B (cf. ch. 107 sq.). This part of the book the monk Galfrid Cloche, copying it in 1605, sent to a certain noble youth with this distich adjoined:

Noble and prudent youth, and studious much — see! The Life of Faro is here for you to read.

A 2b) The Amiens codex no. 467, seventeenth century, fol. 31–54, exhibits a text of Life of Faro A very similar, but void of the interpolation.

In the codices of class A 3, chapters 17–70, 83–101, 105, 115–116 are wanting — namely those which seem to bear rather upon Fara and other persons than upon Faro; and the same, very many miracles being omitted, end in ch. 118, since in A 3a, a¹, b the shorter Conversion of Otgar follows, which I have edited below.

A 3a) The Brussels codex no. 3176, vol. I, formerly no. 7460, early thirteenth century, once of the Cistercian monastery of Vaucelles, acquired in 1637 by exchange made by D. Balthasar Moretus and transferred to the Bollandists’ museum, where it was marked P. 159 — fol. 119–123v.

A 3a¹) The Douai codex no. 838, thirteenth century, once of the monastery of Marchiennes — fol. 4v–7.

A 3b) The St-Omer codex no. 716, thirteenth century, once of St Mary of Clairmarais — volume VIII of a great legendary comprising the saints from 28 October to 29 November — fol. 7v–12.

A 3c) The Paris codex no. 11759, fourteenth century, formerly St-Germain-des-Prés no. 502, once no. 809, given by Antoine Wyon Herovallius, auditor of public accounts — as a seventeenth-century hand noted in the upper margin of fol. 1 — fol. 184v–187v.

The codex A 1a, which we now lack and which Mabillon — a man most skilled in these matters — had judged the most ancient of all, by no means exhibited a text complete in all its numbers; for several words are omitted in his edition: ch. 79 et liberator causa caritatis pro Deo (A 2, 3; omitted by Mabillon); ch. 125 subdita potestate alienorum, privata suorum (A 2; omitted by Mabillon); and certain graver faults are detected in the same: ch. 118 forma (A 2, 3; famosa Mab.); inusitatius (A 2; usitatius Mab.); ch. 119 pompas (A 2; pondus Mab.). Therefore for revising those parts which besides did not stand save in A 1a, we obtained a most precious help from class A 2, which together with A 1a the third class sometimes preserved more accurately Hildegarius’s own arrangement of words: ch. 71 regem ad Francorum (A 2 with Mab.; ad r. Fr. A 3); tractandum est, bella cum quibus agenda erunt (A 2 with Mab.; tractanda sunt bella, cum q. a. e. A 3) — and in this class the text is more gravely interpolated, so that the ablative absolute was freed by a subject: ch. 112 His dictis custodi beatus Faro (A 2 with Mab.; H. dictis deputatis c., omitting b. F., A 3). Yet the codices of A 3 also sometimes left the barbarous style untouched, whether all or severally — chiefly false cases or genders, absolute nominatives, relative pronouns for demonstratives, and the like: ch. 72 tulit — in eis (A 3 with B; eos A 2 with Mab.) capitalem sententiam; hunc edictum (A 3a; hoc e. the rest); ch. 118 Haec dicens (A 3a, c; dixit A 3b with the rest) b. Faro — evigilans iuvenis; ch. 75 inter quos (A 3; inter eos A 2 with Mab.); ch. 103 cuiusque (A 3; eius A 2 with Mab.); ch. 78 quam grave provenisset (A 3). Of these, A 3a and b are joined more closely to each other — as in ch. 106 they exhibit Perinevindo for Pinnevindo (so A 3c with the rest) — and A 3a¹ depends from A 3a: ch. 71 in tuis imbellibus non experiemur — A 3a reads in tuis :::: bus (corrected to bellatoribus) non (corrected to nos) experiemur; A 3a¹ reads in tuis bellatoribus nos e.

I have revised Life A to Mabillon’s edition and the book A 1a¹ and to the codices A 2a, b, 3a, b, c; and A 2a, 3a, b our colleague W. Levison collated; A 1a¹, 2b, 3c I collated myself — save that from certain chapters which I afterwards admitted, the variance of variant readings of book A 3c the reverend H. Lebègue transcribed at my request.

The table of chapters which Mabillon had published from codex A 1a we have freed from many faults by the help of the apograph A 1a¹. In our books we have not found it, nor does it comprehend the text in these chapters; but it is otherwise or not at all distinct, comprehending e.g. twelve lessons in class A 2. Moreover, the words in the said table are not rarely arranged in Hildegarius’s manner, and the style in which it is written seems to me not to differ from his: spata, found in tit. 77, agrees with Hildegarius’s own source, namely Liber hist. Fr. ch. 41, while ensis is read in the text. Nor do I find anything seeming to stand against this opinion, save that in the table ch. 118 treats “of the monk of Ferrières whose name was Lupus,” who is gathered from the text to have been “pastor,” i.e. abbot, “now” over those monks and therefore not yet dead. But the miracle Hildegarius narrated the monk Lupus had experienced in youth, and the imperfect seems to look to past time — when it befell that same monk. The single chapters into which the text is divided by the table generally comprise only a few verses. Now the table sets out the sum of the whole life rather fully — of which certain parts nobody has yet dared to make public; and since it serves not only for perusal but for interpretation, I was unwilling to pass it over.

Life B — of which a copy written in the eleventh century survives — leaving aside digressions begins from Faro’s very origin and proceeds no further than his death and burial, so that the miracles of book A from ch. 110 onward are wanting there. The author of B rendered Jonas’s words less accurately — no, at I, 27 after reservet he omitted the whole sentence Abiit — reservet by homoeoteleuton, which is read both in recension A (ch. 38) and in Jonas I, 27. Of the verses he preserved only two (II, 10); and since he exhibited the reading graviter for grave, he had a codex of class either A 1 or A 2. He rather often retained the words of recension A. To the last miracle he had transcribed from A he added two more (III, 18, 19), with which codex A 2a also was afterwards interpolated — namely how Faro, coming out of the oratory of St Rémi, succoured a ship in peril; and how the Parian marble which, at the dedication of the monastery of Rebais, slipped from the hands of Faro, Amand, Ouen and Eligius and was broken, was, by their marking it, made whole again. The second wonder the author seems to have drawn from the Life of Agilus abbot of Rebais ch. 18 so insipidly that, writing Parium marmor decentissime politum for the words petram ex Pario marmore d. politam, he neglected thereafter to change the very feminine gender — which I have restored to the Paris codex no. 13763, eleventh century:

The passage of Jonas I, 7 bearing upon Waldebert the biographer of Agilus interpreted in the same way as that of Faro — as if he were both Fara’s brother and bishop of Meaux; nor shall I conclude from the common error that one hangs upon the other — namely the biographer of Agilus upon Faro A — so that its origin would have to be placed between the two recensions; for that error could easily be repeated, which seems to have arisen from the author’s own insufficiently lucid style. As for the miracles, the simple author B conceded in the epilogue that “by no means so great a frequency” of them occurs at Faro’s tomb in this time as are said to have been wrought in ancient time; yet he wished not thereby to derogate from his merits — who is just — but referred the defect to the enormity of the crimes of his age, an excuse Hincmar had used before him.

The best text of recension B, and a full one, the Paris codex no. 13763 of the eleventh century contains (see above, A 1b); and in this very book I detected two of the rustic verses which before were not believed present save in recension A. With the vulgate text agrees the Paris codex no. 17006, early thirteenth century, fol. 154v–157v, which our colleague W. Levison collated. Besides, the same life is exhibited by the Paris codices no. 5353, fourteenth century, fol. 159v–162; no. 5337, thirteenth century, fol. 91v–92v, ending mutilated at the words florem iuventutis perdere; Montpellier H no. 1, early thirteenth century, vol. II, fol. 155–158, once of St Mary of Clairvaux; others give only the beginning down to the words annotare congruum — Paris no. 7502, fourteenth century, fol. 221v–222v, and the London British Museum among the Additional MSS. no. 15725, twelfth century, once of St Vincent of Laon, then of John baron de Béthune, then of the college of the Preacher friars of the city of Grenoble, fol. 128–129. What follows in this book after the Life of Faro (fol. 129, 129v) — at Levison’s suggestion — is an unedited “Life of St Chagnoaldus the bishop” (beginning Qui sanctorum gloria delectantur etc.), mutilated by lost leaves, ending at the words quatenus eandem bene(dictionem) — nor will he want more who, perusing these sheets, shall have read that Agnericus, Autherius and Cagnoaldus were not only princes of King Theudebert’s hall but three brothers in Gaul; and some of the very words of Faro’s biographer A are detected in that fragment — unworthy to be rescued from oblivion.

Vincent of Beauvais admitted the same recension B compressed into the Speculum historiale XXIV, 17–19, under the title De sancto Pharaone.

Lastly, the monks of St Faro, usurping the fable of Otgar for their city, added greater splendour and scattered the seeds of new error. At Hildegarius’s mention, Rotgarius — one of the Italian counts — had been saved by Faro’s help in a savage combat under King Lothar (827–9), and strenuously undertook the monk’s office in his monastery (ch. 119). By the likeness of the same name the monks seem to have stumbled upon Otgarius, the most noble man of Charlemagne’s time and “second from the king,” who after many battles, together with Benedict, enrolled in the congregation, not only handed over to the monastery all his household substance but also, journeying to Charles, obtained that a certain abbey in Italy, namely Vercelli, should be given to it. This Conversion of Otgar, both the shorter and the more ancient, I have been able to bring out from codices A 3a, b. Not content with the abbey of Vercelli, the author of the more prolix Conversion — which besides A 1a the codices A 1b, 2a exhibit — added a second named Reda, dedicated to St Mary and St Peter, which Charlemagne had granted to the monastery of St Faro; and he asserted that another was restored by the same king to the brethren, which he himself had once occupied. Other ornaments of fable also accrued — namely that to the staff which Otgar cast upon the pavement to test the monks’ discipline little spheres of iron were affixed, and that one boy of the whole congregation, stirred by the sound, looked back. What the earlier author set forth in participles concerning Otgar’s return to Charles is narrated in the later recension in a more polished style, and that the text was recast herein is understood by comparing the words of each. The tomb of Otgar and Benedict once stood in the basilica of St Faro, a most splendid monument whose image Mabillon had had drawn: a great arch set beneath, with columns girding its sides — or statues both of others and of Otgar himself, or rather of Oliver — betrothing his sister Aude to Roland, with this distich added:

Aude, I give you marriage with my sister, Roland, and the perpetual pact of my companion-love —

no, of Aude and Roland, if Mabillon rightly distinguished the persons. Many-branched arms of fable had meanwhile grown, and that monument seems much more rightly to be attributed to the eleventh or twelfth century than to the ninth or tenth. The question is the more complicated in that another Otger, a lord of Charmentray, lived in the mid-eleventh century and, made a monk, was believed by the monks to have handed over to the monastery all he possessed at the urging of his sister Gibelina — who certainly afterwards coalesced among them with Charlemagne’s satellite into one person. But the charter bearing upon this donation of abbot Voulcoudus seems to me of doubtful faith.

The primitive fable, then, the Conversion of Otgar exhibits — and no sepulchral monument. Autcharius or Otgarius the Frank with his wife and sons had fled from Carloman king of the Franks to Desiderius king of the Lombards in 772, with whom he was captured and sent into exile. Charlemagne’s adversary was made his satellite in the fables; and that the men of Meaux might claim him for themselves, they were moved, I have said, by Rotgarius’s name. Otgar, whom later writers supposed a Dane, has been celebrated by poets everywhere; and even the men of Tegernsee abused his name.

André du Chesne, Historiae Francorum scriptores coaetanei (Paris 1636, vol. I, pp. 567–571), made public certain chapters of Life of Faro A and drew the table of chapters from A 1a, but the text from A 2b — as the apograph A 1a¹ exhibits both parts joined. The editor sometimes altered the text by words omitted or added to succour the little-coherent excerpts. The miracles bearing on the Northmen’s incursions — namely chs. 122–131 (there 123–132), save only the epilogue’s words — follow in vol. III (1641), pp. 420–421; and pp. 421 sq. close the march with ch. 119, which the editor professed to have drawn “from another manuscript book of the Miracles of St Faro.”

J. Mabillon, Acta sanctorum ord. S. Benedicti (Paris 1669), Saeculum II, pp. 607–625, first revised almost the whole of recension A of the Life of Faro to the codex A 1a, passing over only certain moral matters and pious admonitions; and in 1677, Saec. IV, 1, pp. 662–664 (2nd ed. pp. 622–624), made public also the more prolix Conversion of Otgar, one half of the prologue being cut off — using three codices, namely besides A 1a the Crépy (our A 1b) and the Gembloux one, which, “written about five hundred years ago if he well remembers,” i.e. twelfth century, both omitted the prologue and the double abbey-donation.

From him depends Dom Bouquet, Recueil des historiens des Gaules (Paris 1741–1749), editing certain chapters in tom. III pp. 501–506, VI p. 293 (ch. 119), VII pp. 356–358 (chs. 122–130).

I. van Hecke, Acta sanctorum (Brussels 1867), October tom. XII, pp. 609–616, caused recension B of the Life of Faro to be edited — since it seemed to him to have fewer defects than the other — and strove with all his might to demonstrate its superiority. He dared not indeed define which was the more ancient, but he did not neglect to affirm that nothing occurs in it indicating a later hand. Using the sheets of his predecessors which are today preserved in the Brussels library no. 3488 (formerly 8924, fol. 132–148), he employed an apograph of a codex of inferior note of the monastery of Affligem, which Chifflet had once sent them; while the other apograph it contains, of the Utrecht codex of St Salvator, contains almost the text of Vincent of Beauvais — which Surius (1574, V, p. 972 ff.) published with changed style. By the help of the sheets he seems to me to have depraved rather than emended the Mabillonian text of the Conversion of Otgar, l.c. pp. 620–622.

Lastly G. Gröber, in the opusculum cited above (p. 176, n. 5), pp. 589–594, caused both texts of Life of Faro chs. 71–79 to be transcribed — the one comparing with A 3a, a¹, the other with no codex; and in transcribing it he not only omitted single words (e.g. ch. 75 gratia) but even a whole verse (ch. 74 erroris conversa est illis in diem fidei et claritatis et de numero servientium ydolorum); no, attributing a false reading, soon changed, to Mabillon, he concluded the codices A 3a, a¹ to be joined by a certain kinship with recension B (l.c. p. 594), because they do not omit the same things which he himself had negligently omitted. He boasted to have found three codices of recension A — namely besides the two imperfect books I mentioned, the book A 1b; but that very one, ending at ch. 44, he could not soon deny lacked that song, which alone interested his colleagues. He was ignorant moreover both of the codices of the second class now standing entire, and did not even produce the one I had noted eight years before him in our Annals (A 2b). He was also ignorant that codex A 1b is the Crépy codex — which likewise could be learnt from our Annals; no, he rashly conjectured it to be the same as the codex of St Faro of Meaux, namely A 1a, though Mabillon himself testified that both books were known to him, both that one and this. The great words, therefore, which that most excellent man employed do not seem equal to his part.

The whole matter — namely what was current concerning Faro and the two heroes — seemed in a manner prepared for the Muses, and therefore we must return to poetic art at the end, since place could not be given at the beginning. Fulcoius, a Beauvais man by birth, made subdeacon at Meaux — as he composed other songs heroically, chiefly under archbishop Manasses I of Reims before 1080 — so he pursued the deeds of Faro in Leonine verses at the exhortation of abbot Galfridus and the monks of the monastery of St Faro. That the poet used Life of Faro B may be understood from the closing verses which I transcribed from A 1a¹:

In which both the rude things of the old law and its miracles / He will find, whoever watches more studiously. / Elijah corrects, Job exists, Jeremiah gives himself, / Remigius to the blind, and Elisha creating harvests, / Paul in shipwreck, Donatus to the stone: in all these / Deeds he alone can be made equal. / Now let the sails fall, now let the oars graze the blue sea, / The harbour is near — but we have said what the beginning was; / What the end was, the reader seeks to know. / He remained until the time of King Lothar — / Until the time of Childeric, living while they reigned. / Sixty-six years indeed he ruled / The fold of Meaux, when he visited the hall of heaven.

The poem is still unedited, save that the beginning Mabillon published from codex A 1a (Acta sanctorum, Saec. II, p. 607), and the passage bearing on Chlothar’s Saxon war H. Suchier brought out l.c. p. 193 from the Beauvais codex no. 11 (3015), twelfth century. Now this book in its very title differs not slightly from the codex of St Faro (A 1a): “The life of Faustus Faro, most noble prince of the land, most pious pastor of the church of Meaux, demanded by abbot Galfridus and the dearest brethren, composed ’eronically’ (heroically, rightly in A 1a¹) by Fulcoius of Beauvais, archdeacon (subdeacon in A 1a¹; but Mabillon adds ‘of Meaux’), to the praise of the Lord.” Fulcoius then, in the last years of his life, seems to have been made archdeacon of Beauvais — as that scribe testifies, himself of Beauvais, who once filled the whole book pertaining to the Chapter with his songs. The epitaph of Walter bishop of Meaux, who died in 1082, was composed by the same poet; the same also sang in elegiac verses the praises of Otgar and Benedict — a poem which in the Beauvais codex is falsely entitled “On Roger and Benedict,” and in the Gembloux codex was wrongly attributed to “Fulcuin,” being subjoined to the Conversion.

— B. Krusch.

One. From the Life of Faro, recension A — the table of chapters #

1. Concerning that the praise of the saints is God’s, from whom and through whom it proceeds. — 2. Concerning the true Being, that is God, and that nothing can truly be without the true Being, that is God. — 3. That the holy and the good, that they may be able to be holy and good, receive it from the truly holy and truly good, that is God. — 4. How the saints shine in the world with so many miracles. — 5. That the things seen by writers and faithfully related by good men concerning the virtues of the saints ought faithfully to be believed, since they are wrought from God and through God. — 6. When the saints are honoured, God who works in them and through them is honoured. — 7. Concerning the argument from the mark, that is the name and the composition of that name, namely of St Faro. — 8. Why Burgundy is so called, and why separated from Gaul. — 9. By what bounds Gaul is determined. — 10. Concerning the name of Meaux and its composition. — 11. How St Faro was nurtured in the hall of King Theudebert, and of what parents begotten. — 12. That the praise of Agneric — namely St Faro’s father — is contained in the life of St Columbanus, whom he received in his house as a heavenly gift. — 13. How he offered his daughter Fara to God by the sanctifying hand of St Columbanus. — 14. That for love of St Authar he conducted the aforementioned man of God to his house. — 15. Concerning St Columbanus’s blessing upon the sons of St Authar. — 16. Concerning the building of the monastery of Jouarre by St Ato under the institution of St Columbanus’s rule. — 17. Concerning that St Dado dedicated a monastery to God upon the little river Rebais in the forest of Brie under the same rule of holy men. — 18. Concerning the praises of St Fara aptly joined in turn with fraternal ones. — 19. Concerning St Columbanus’s coming to the king, yet under the guidance and help of the blessed Agneric. — 20. Concerning the discord and battle of the kings, namely the brothers Theudebert and Theuderic. — 21. That the blessed Faro, even yet a recruit, was held famous in King Theudebert’s hall. — 22. Concerning his reception from the sacred font’s basin of the king’s son, namely Chilperic. — 23. That by St Faro’s merit King Chlothar, his son from the font, obtained the monarchy of three realms. — 24. That King Chlothar honourably sent St Columbanus back as far as Agneric’s. — 25. Concerning Chlodovech, the first strenuous king of the Franks, converted at his wife’s persuasion and St Remigius’s preaching. — 26. Concerning the slaying of King Chilperic by the snares of queen Fredegund. — 27. Concerning St Columbanus’s entrance into Italy and his most honourable reception. — 28. Concerning the pen’s return to the narration of the most holy Fara’s life. — 29. Concerning the divinely-wrought striking down of King Theuderic — according to the writings indeed in the Life of St Columbanus; yet according to the Gesta of the Franks he perished by poison through his queen’s hatred of Brunhild. — 30. Concerning the recovery of what was owed to Chlothar’s empire, yet by the presumption of the blessed Columbanus’s promised prophecy. — 31. Concerning the flight, capture and most bitter slaying of King Sigebert together with his sons. — 32. Concerning the deserving and most base death of queen Brunhild, and the utter abolishing of King Theuderic’s stock. — 33. Concerning the king’s embassy — I mean Chlothar’s — to the man of God Columbanus through the blessed Eustasius. — 34. That St Columbanus perceived the king’s mandates in mind before the envoys finished them in voice, and most devoutly sent back answers to the same king. — 35. Concerning St Eustasius’s turning aside to the blessed Agneric, bearing St Columbanus’s answers to the king. — 36. That the man of God Columbanus had as minister St Chagnoald, St Faro’s brother, once assigned by his father in boyhood. — 37. Concerning St Columbanus’s command to the wild beast. — 38. That the bear dared not touch more of the wild apples than as much as the blessed Chagnoald had assigned from St Columbanus’s portion. — 39. Concerning St Fara’s loss of the light of her eyes for grief over marriage. — 40. Concerning St Eustasius’s rebuke of St Fara’s father. — 41. Concerning the strengthening of virginity by the invincible St Fara. — 42. Concerning her invective rebuke of her father — yet most humble and authorised by the gospel’s authority. — 43. Concerning the excuse of the invective rebuke of her father before St Eustasius — not uttered with an envious heart. — 44. Concerning the vision, colloquy and angelic consolation to St Fara. — 45. That the good are ever potent in God for the good, whereas the bad are ever impotent — since even what they can do is nothing. — 46. Since God is almighty, evil is nothing that He cannot do. — 47. That those who are evil have not pure and simple being. — 48. That the disgrace of malice rests on no beginning, but is only the devising of the prince of evils. — 49. That the power of the wicked descends not from virtue but rather from weakness. — 50. Concerning the blessed Fara’s address to St Eustasius. — 51. Concerning the putting to flight of fevers and the restoration of the light of the eyes to the blessed Fara through St Eustasius. — 52. That the father confirmed the rights of wedlock, the pact’s promise being made void to St Eustasius. — 53. Concerning the girl’s flight to the protection of St Peter’s basilica. — 54. Concerning her prayer offered to God through St Peter most humbly. — 55. That the sent ones attempted to bring her back by death-threats. — 56. That the girl chose death rather than break the troth of virginity pledged to Christ. — 57. The blessed Columbanus’s answers to the king being related, the blessed Eustasius returns through Agneric. — 58. That he clothed the girl, freed from custody, with the garments of a nun through the bishop. — 59. That a monastery was procured for her by her father in hereditary right. — 60. That the same virgin’s brothers — namely St Chagnoald and the blessed Waldebert — were ordained stewards of the fabric of the place. — 61. That the structure and wealth of that place grew most of all by St Faro’s munificence. — 62. That St Waldebert, St Faro’s brother, was bishop in this city of the men of Meaux, in which the first bishop, the great Dionysius, was famous, by signs and preachings most invincible in virtue. — 63. That St Chagnoald, their brother, was bishop of Laon on Mount Clavatus. — 64. Concerning Hildegarius, bishop of this city of Meaux, from the college of St Dionysius’s monks. — 65. That the place of St Fara is truly to be venerated for the gathering of so many holy virgins there. — 66. Concerning the venerable Bede’s praises of the same place of St Fara in the Gesta Anglorum, and that not only there but also the flowers of the blessed Faro’s and his sister’s works are held among the annals and records of kings. — 67. That the praises of both are held mingled, because like two lilies their works sprouted from one root of charity. — 68. Henceforth the singular works of St Faro are set in order. — 69. That St Faro, even a recruit, ennobled by counsel the magnificence of King Chlothar’s realm. — 70. Of what kind and how great a man St Faro showed himself by God’s help in goodness and the art of counsels. — 71. Concerning the most haughty mandate of Bertoald king of the Saxons to Chlothar king of the Franks. — 72. That the king ordered the Saxon envoys to be punished with capital sentence against right and the Franks’ laws. — 73. That by the plea of St Faro’s industry a truce of one night is granted them. — 74. How St Faro freed the Saxon envoys by the counsels of his preachings. — 75. That St Faro announced them to be Christians, whom the king was minded to hand over to death. — 76. That so the blessed Faro sent the firstfruits of Christianity to Germany. — 77. That the king shortened the height of the pride of enduring Germany to the measure which his sword bore. — 78. That St Faro was of so great favour with the king that he was joined to him in a public song. — 79. Concerning that he paid the price for a guilty and already condemned man out of his own. — 80. Concerning the postponement of hunting by the king, at the clamours of a poor woman. — 81. Concerning St Faro’s most vigorous rebuke of the king for the hardness of heart toward the poor woman. — 82. That divine vengeance pursued the king who would not obey St Faro in doing the poor woman justice. — 83. Concerning St Faro’s coming to his sister. — 84. Concerning the admonition to her for the keeping of virginity — not by loftiness of mind but by the gift of the Holy Spirit. — 85. Concerning virgins puffed up with pride, that they avoid not pride the devourer of virtues. — 86. An example for exhorting virginity from the prophet Elijah. — 87. An example of the same cause from Elisha. — 88. An example of the same virtue’s strengthening from Daniel. — 89. An example of holding chastity from the three children delivered from the fire. — 90. That St Faro’s mind was softened by his admonitions to his sister. — 91. Concerning his contempt of the principate of the world and its delights, and his wedlock spurned, and his taking of clerical orders. — 92. Concerning the churches of Christ most decently enriched by him with estates and substance. — 93. Concerning the dedication of the church of St Stephen at Meaux and the gift of villas to it by him. — 94. That by his zeal and the enrichment of possessions the whole place of St Fara was exalted. — 95. That he profited not only the churches of his own land and neighbouring men, but all whom the good fame of holy works drew to him from anywhere among the nations. — 96. Concerning the nation of the English, freely offering their noble virgins to God through him. — 97. That many of the Scottish nation, flocking into Gaul for love of St Faro, first taught there the monastic norm of religion. — 98. That he made heirs of many Scots living angelically in Gaul of his own inheritances. — 99. Concerning the monastery of Breuil, which St Fefrus received in possession, St Faro bestowing it upon him. — 100. Concerning the province of Artois gained for God, St Chillenus being sent there by the blessed Faro’s industry. — 101. Concerning the glass vessel heedlessly broken by the cup-bearer and secretly restored whole at the blessed Faro’s banquet by St Chillenus through prayer. — 102. That after the falling asleep of St Waldebert his own brother, the pontificate of Meaux, as by hereditary right, obtained St Faro as bishop. — 103. That, at St Faro’s confirming, on one of the days of the paschal solemnity light arose for one blind from birth at the anointing of the chrism. — 104. That he loosed bound penitents from the bond of fetters by a word alone. — 105. Concerning the sterility of the crops turned, even at harvest time, into abundance by St Faro’s blessing. — 106. Concerning the blessed Blidechildis, who shore off her hair because of the love her husband, now made bishop, bore toward her. — 107. That his own wife’s manly deed cut off all carnal concupiscence of love from St Faro. — 108. Concerning the recapitulation of the man of God’s praises by way of epilogue. — 109. That this holy man lived long for the profit of this world; and concerning his death. — 110. Concerning the church built by bishop Datlevertus, not sufficiently skilled, invidiously against the church of St Faro. — 111. Concerning St Faro’s address to the keeper of the unjustly-built church. — 112. Concerning the overthrow, by God’s just judgement, of the basilica erected against right and laws. — 113. Concerning the man blind from birth, divinely admonished in sleep in the territory of Rouen, that in St Faro’s church at Meaux he should receive his sight. — 114. Concerning the unhoped-for health suddenly arising when he entered this temple. — 115. That the arms of a certain man striking his mother recoiled upon himself in striking, but at the blessed Faro’s plea were restored to their former office in this place. — 116. Concerning the demoniac purged by way of foul traces in the outer portico. — 117. That very many miracles concerning demoniacs were neglected through the writers’ negligence. — 118. Concerning the monk of Ferrières named Lupus wonderfully healed by St Faro in a dream. — 119. Concerning the soldier Rotgarius invoking the saint’s name in battle, already cast from his horse, but most mercifully succoured by the blessed Faro. — 120. Concerning the bent woman wholly deprived of the use of her limbs, yet healed merely by eulogiae sent from St Faro’s monastery. — 121. Concerning Hispanel fallen from a ship into the Marne, whom a divine voice, snatched from the waves, bade complete the nightly course of psalmody with the other monks. — 122. That before the times of Charles, son of the emperor Louis, the rivers of Gaul were unknown to the Northmen; and concerning their first entrance into France and the tribute ignominiously given them by the Franks. — 123. Concerning their second entrance into France after the tenth year, and the siege of Paris and the capture of very many cities with their bishops. — 124. Concerning the captivity of Louis, abbot of the monastery of St Denis, and the inestimable treasure given for him. — 125. That the Northmen, hemmed in for ten weeks by Charles with a wondrous fleet, even so did not fail of their own strength. — 126. Concerning the third coming of the Northmen with an inestimable multitude, who drove off the former — a most grievous weight of gold and silver nevertheless being received. — 127. Concerning the Northmen’s faithlessness and their fourth return journey. — 128. Concerning the occupation and capture of the city of Meaux. — 129. That the monks having escaped, the Northmen could not by divine nod enter the monastery of St Faro, though they strove. — 130. That the Northmen, provoked by the Christians, gave the outer offices of the monastery to fire — which yet was quiet before the door of the church’s vestibule. — 131. Concerning the honour wonderfully shown to St Faro’s church by the fire, which it did not so much as stain with soot.

Here begins the Life #

62. … From Waldebert indeed, of whom we have already related — who after Gundoald shone as the nineteenth in order from St Dionysius, the first of bishops in this city — after whom the twentieth order adorned the most magnificent Faro, who, not unequal to those before or after him in every praise of holiness, shone forth.

63. For indeed a third, their uterine brother named Chanoaldus — whom our foregoing speech noted — shone with the like office of pontiff on Mount Clavatus. As eternal wisdom foresaw them brothers of one womb for birth, so from eternity it preordained them equal in the most sacred apostolic office under the sacred threefold number.

64. Now from the twentieth order of the blessed Faro down to the present humble bishop Hildegarius — taken up by election from the college of monks dwelling in the monastery of the most illustrious martyr Dionysius, and raised by divine grace together with the most excellent liberality of the glorious King Charles to the summit of so great a governance — the order of the former pontiffs is multiplied down to him, whom the wheel of years keeps turning in the sixteenth round…

70. …and how amid the toys of the world and the trappings of the age’s ornaments he could seek for himself wholesome things, and could trample with the flight of his mind upon heavenly desires the vain rumours and petty glories of this delightful life; and how in common with all who happily and amiably stood fast he shone bright in the palace by happy merits; how also in all acts and manners he went composed, and excelled the most famous in praises and the apex of dignity, and most prudently ordered the royal counsels publicly and privately by the munificence of God’s love — so far that in the descriptions of the life of the blessed Chillenus, a man of the Scottish race, he is seen to have written that, lest the commonwealth of the realm should be shaken from its state of magnificence and power by any violation of law, he took care astutely to foresee it by such art of counsel.

71. For the nation of the Saxons at that time, unstable in faith, grown rebellious and savage with hard minds at discerning — since it had decreed to be under no one’s dominion — sends envoys together with its king’s counsel, named Bertoald, to the king of the Franks in these words: “I know,” said he, “that you do not gather, Chlothar, forces of fighting in your spirit against the potency of my virtue, nor conceive such hope in the strength of your breast. Therefore I shall act the more gently: lest the land — now not your but mine, where I dispose to reside gloriously in faithful disposition — be depopulated, come to meet me; and I forewarn you to be the leader of my men through the unknown land. For there by my counsellors it must be treated with whom wars shall be waged, since in you and your unwarlike men we shall not prove them.”

72. But when the envoys’ words had come through the ears to the knowledge of King Chlothar’s mind, at once his gall — which is the seat of wrath — boiled up immoderately, and immediately in furious voice and with eyes suffused with blood he pronounced against them, unretractably, the capital sentence. For the attendants and elder counsellors of the princes, redoubling this edict of wrath as they caught it from the king’s mouth with hollow ears, tried by gainsaying to break it with the beat of their voices. “For it is not lawful,” they say, “that the rite and law of the realm of the Franks should be violated by the slaying of these and of all, if they remembered the origin of nations.”

73. But while his wrath — the reins of right counsel burst — raged freely and impatiently through his spirit, the blessed Faro, who was present among the magnates there as no mean one, astutely advised the king to comply with his words for the present — yet to defer the matter to the next day, that so the cause, being drawn out, might become a cause of their liberation.

74. Now when this had settled in the minds of all, and that day was now departing — evening already shutting in the sky, the moist night rushing on and friendly to the shining stars — the Saxon envoys were committed to the guard of soldiers with trembling hearts. Whose hearts, wavering trembling between death and life, the soldier of Christ Faro secretly approached with divine addresses, pitying them — persuading them that relief should come to them through the font of Christianity, and that they should save themselves from a double death, that of the present life and the eternal. At this they, inclined in spirit — the merits of the most merciful Faro prevailing — were washed in the font of holy baptism; and the night of error was turned for them into the day of faith and brightness, and out of the number of idol-servers they were changed into the fellowship of Christians.

75. While night thus passed occupied in these things, and day was restored to the lands with the sun’s new light, the council was drawing the band of nobles to the king’s house to deliberate upon the words of the envoys sent from the Saxon nation — or what profit or what harm their destruction would bring. But while they debated these matters alternately to choose the more useful counsel, the soldier of Christ Faro, unravelling the long complaints of doubtfulness, said among them: “It is certain that these envoys are not of the Saxon nation, but have now been made fellows of Christians. For as the author of the world and only hope of the universe, God, ever works wondrously, so in these also his wondrous works were not lacking this night — since they, converted to the soldiery of Christianity, by the grace of some preaching of God’s faithful working, were washed from their filth in the wave of sacred baptism; whom also I saw, as I came here just now, white in the new garments of the baptized.” At this the king and all were turned to amazement — they who were treating of their peril of death — and resolved at once to confirm them in the faith of Christ with precious gifts, as men changed into others.

76. From there they return to their mother country, sent back. For this new plantation the excellent Faro of Christ first tilled for Christ out of the Saxon nation almost the seed of the word — already showing forth the office of the shepherd to come, whose crop multiplied by preaching answered to his own happy prayers in heaven.

77. Afterwards, moreover, that nation was depopulated by King Chlothar from human seed in all that land; and he left none taller than the measure to which the king’s sword reached.

78. From which victory a public song after the rustic manner flew through nearly all mouths so singing, and women fashioned dances from it with clapping:

Of Chlothar it is to be sung, the king of the Franks, / Who went to fight against the Saxon nation, / How heavily it had gone with the Saxon envoys / Had there not been the glorious Faro of the Burgundian nation.

And at the end of this song:

When the Saxon envoys come into the land of the Franks, / Faro was prince there for you; / By God’s prompting they pass through the city of Meaux, / Lest they be slain by the king of the Franks.

For by this rustic song it pleased to show how most celebrated he was held by all.

79. There is another thing not to be covered in silence concerning him, as we have found in the life of the blessed Chillenus aforementioned. While the public laws — which were daily debated in the palace — bound many to secular judgements, a certain man was present whom the force of the law had so obliged to make amends that all his substance of goods sufficed not for satisfaction. For this reason his estates and all the stock of his household goods were taken from him and subjected to the king’s power. At which the most elect Faro of God, touched with the spirit of mercy, wished to appear innocent as guilty in paying the debt for him; and, a liberator for charity’s sake before God, he drew near as accused for the accused, and as debtor stood for the neighbour, near as a stranger — being accused in the judgement — lest the law should rage without mercy upon the neighbour; heeding the example of Christ, who condemned not the woman taken in adultery with another’s mouth but rather dismissed her, pitying her…

97. Likewise also of the Scottish nation very many hastened to this region for love of that religion; and so for his hospitality and largess the religion of monks knew its beginning and pattern from the font of their doctrine and holiness in the nation of the Franks.

98. So much, moreover, did he most dutifully cultivate those Scots for zeal of the angelic life that he even made them heirs of his own goods; and of the relics of their bodies — since the ages glide on fleeting — this brighter province shall shine by their merits for our protection, as this our Meaux region is famous by the blessed Fefrus’s gift of miracles.

99. Now in a certain territory of his there is retained a monastery called Broilum, situated three miles from the city of Meaux, which that holy man Fefrus received in most copious possession from Christ’s bishop Faro.

100. For that same excellent Faro sent a man full of God’s grace named Chillenus, sprung of the Scottish nation, with holy exhortations into the province of Artois, which he gained for Christ by sound doctrine and drew to Christ not only by the divine word but also by miracles of holiness. This same province also, now famous for his body’s falling asleep, is held splendid by his merits and most noted among realms.

102. Meanwhile it happened, after the falling asleep of Waldebert bishop of this city — of whom we have already premised, who stood nineteenth from St Dionysius — that Faro, elect of God, by the law of his consanguinity as by right of inheritance, deserved the fraternal succession of the pontificate in this city of Meaux, as our relation found in the descriptions of the life of the most illustrious Eustasius. For by the most religious men of this province a representation was sent concerning him to King Chlothar, his godson from the sacred font of baptism, that by his assent he should grant that most worthy man to be appointed pontiff over the people. Who, well pleased in worthy gratulation at this, not only inclined his mind in consent but also adjudged it to be done without any scruple. After which most illustrious deed, with what wondrous works of holiness he was adorned in all things, Christ’s magnificent virtues bear witness worthy of admiration — which for his merit willed to render him more famous to the world.

103. For this miracle, which we shall bring before calm hearers, we have taken into our knowledge from the notations of the life of the blessed Chillenus. When at a certain time the paschal feasts had sped through the eight-day number, Faro, God’s elect bishop, in the ministry of confirmation — in which the souls of baptized bodies receive the gift of the Holy Spirit — bound himself most devoutly through the liniment of the chrism of sanctification. And when an innumerable crowd mixed of reasonable sex had covered the church’s pavement, hiding it from the eyes, and the order of those following had drawn near to his presence for confirming, light arose for a certain boy who had been bereft of the light of his eyes. While he receives from the blessed Faro the gift of the Holy Spirit through the chrism of unction, at his touch he sees all things clearly. Then indeed for the first time a new world was born to him, and all the fabric of the universe arose to him with the light. After himself he wondered in a manner at the nature of the world, since in seeing he wondered at it known — he to whose beauty the world had long denied itself through blindness, the grace of Christ had disposed him suddenly to enjoy through the merits of bishop Faro…

106. Nor is it to be passed over in silence how great in virtue his worthy wife named Blidechildis — given over to the sacred veil — was famous, according to what we have learnt by the public relation of the most ancient men, who were composed in milky whiteness. She, while she served God with most studious cares, residing in the villa commonly called Pinnevindo in right of her own property, the bishop of God Faro by mandate desired her to be present to him… [ch. 107]

A note here, written by another hand in the margin of A 2a: “At this place it has seemed good to us to insert the present miracle, although the author relegated it to the last place, lost by mischance — as is plain from the text.” — The miracle appended to the life as it ends stood in A 1a (see above).

*) It has come to our mind that we once read the same little book, wherein among other things contained many miracles of the saints, there was no lack also of the precious mention of the most holy Faro. Which — for it was sweeter to hear than to tell — we read, and more than enough re-read, showed, narrated; but since we lost it unhoped-for, if it should lie hid both from the present and the future, we judge it of no concern to us. From where we feel that it is very much worth the doing if, in discourse again — though jejune — we put off moving the hand to what we have read, though not in the same words yet in the same sense. Therefore that two-coloured page thus addressed itself: “And Faro, saw bishop of Meaux in all virtue…”

108. Meanwhile if the discourse should run flowing through single works from a rivulet of sense — how he strove to cultivate the soul in the mandates and justifications of the Lord — prolixity will seem to breed impatience in the hearers’ minds, especially since this narrative hitherto run through has studied to exalt and magnify him with wondrous praises by notable deeds and sayings and devout works. Now it is time to wipe the foaming lips by closing them, and to raise the crooked fingers by laying down the pen. Let the narrator’s will be present to set an end — and the hearers’ minds shall be at rest from attention.

109. The blessed Faro remained, then, until the times of King Childeric, the grandson of King Chlothar his godson; and happily consummating the contest of this life, he gloriously entered upon the way of all flesh. His blessed soul mounted to the heights of heaven, the supernal choirs rejoicing and the number of the elect increased from him — the city of Meaux weeping, the soldiery of heaven exulting. His holy members are preserved — which the Holy Spirit used as an instrument for every good work — in this most beautiful basilica, made a habitation of angels, which he himself founded with wondrous work in the ground of his own property in honour of the saving and life-giving Cross and of the blessed John the Baptist and of all the apostles. For there angelic watches equal the days with nights, guarding it unharmed from all perils. For through long ages they dispose to keep watch over it, preserving it by the nod of the Almighty’s will to the worthy praise of that most illustrious confessor — as the following showing will make clear by manifest tokens thus:

110. For there was a bishop of this city and pastor of this place, notable by the name of Datlevertus, but mediocre in intellect in the divine doctrines — so far that once it even seemed good to him to build a church in honour of holy Christ against sound faith; therefore the holy synod willed him, cast out of the episcopal office, reasonably to come to his senses. For that bishop beside this basilica — the preserver of the relics of bishop Faro’s sacred body — built another of pompous magnitude and of wondrous apparatus of decoration; which, prevailing in beauty, would surpass the former of bishop Faro by annulling it, in unconquered intent he would have completed until the building should set its end — if an adverse chance had not stood in the way.

111. And when night had grown pale — which falsely said it would restore the following day of that church’s building — the elect of God Faro willed to come in a vision of the night, not imaginary but true by visible signs to posterity, to the keeper of that basilica in these words: “What day,” said he, “awaits the people’s assembly with the bishop, that this house be dedicated to the ruin of my house?” “The morning,” said that keeper, “promises us that it will come to this, taking all our cares upon itself — provided only this mischief be run through.” At this the blessed Faro: “Now receive my words believing, that you may quickly remove yourself outside this temple contrary to mine, lest it repent you too late to take what I warn.”

112. These words spoken by the blessed Faro to the keeper, at once the whole heaven and all the elements were stirred in wrath against that house, and the four quarters of its world thundered to its overthrow with collisions of winds and with thunders of lightnings, and all the sky bellowed back, and the shaken earth gaped. And that structure, razed to the ground, fell in overthrow; and the air with swift flight caught up the timbers by the force of the winds. So also it was shaken by divine vengeance, and to the magnifying of that house of the most holy Faro it was utterly uprooted in perpetual ruin. And what is wondrous to tell, so was this most savage ruin accomplished by God’s just governance that, while this basilica and that had looked upon each other in alternate conjunction hard by, the one was grievously stricken down and prostrated by the raging elements of heaven, while the other — which now shines as the most seemly ornament of the blessed Faro’s sepulchre — was mercifully kept unharmed…

118. We have noted a matter published indeed from a certain person, wondrous enough, in this insertion, that it may be a monument also to posterity. For this saying emanates not from the uncertain rumour of anyone’s faithless mind, but we received it from the mouth of him to whom it was wondrously shown — who is called by the name Lupus, adorned with the light of wisdom, now pastor for the holiness of religion in the most famous monastery of Ferrières, where the company of monks is venerable in Christ with the whole world. Now when he was in green age — namely youth — flourishing in the study of wisdom and most sweetly treated for this by his abbot named Odo, whose spiritual love showed him most reverent to all — since another hope of that place was already contemplated from his pleasing beginnings — it befell once that the aforementioned abbot joined him to himself on a journey whereby he should reach the palace commonly called Frankfurt. When he had already in part surmounted the length of the appointed way and the remaining part solicited him to surmount it, by chance that journey, now half-sped, gave to the aforementioned youth Lupus a sharpest pain of body in the groin — so far that it laid him in failure with grave weakness in one sacred place called by the name of St Trudo, and there deposed him, keenly inflicting upon him the torment of affliction through all his members. Now the most potent languor again so harassed him from its utmost — and lo! the health-bringing visitant, the most merciful Faro, is present at the chamber where vain sleep pressed his limbs and wearied them. From which place, the shades of night put to flight, the friend of Christ Faro appeared in a snowy form of body and milky whiteness of countenance; and with him a boy of excellent form, bearer of a phial of oil, guiding his steps as it were with a lighted taper; and so intent upon that youth with gentle lights he stood at the middle part of the bed with these words: “do you know me?” said he; “if you know not, the city of Meaux has me for bishop and patron, and my name, which is Burgundofaro — the dwellers of it shall make it run down through the successions of their generations while fleeting ages run. For the author of medicine sent me to you; be you confident that health shall come by this my anointing of oil.” At this, when the aforementioned youth had turned his eyes upon him and fixed his gaze, the bishop of God gently brought his hand, wet with the liquid of oil, near the wound, and ran over all the aching members with softest touch — until the boy’s hand-phial failed of the ministry of oil. “Run,” said the illustrious Faro to the boy, “to my monastery of Meaux; it flows abundantly with this liquor — and refill this little vessel from it.” The blessed Faro saying this, the youth — awakening from the vain sleep to know the healer’s face and the truth of the matter — drank in the sky, the troubles of sadness being dissolved; and what is wondrous to tell, calling together those present he found these things true and not vain dreams, while they handle with their eyes in clear light his limbs sweating with the wet of oil. What is clearer among the miracles of the saints and more unaccustomed than to work bodily among the race of men by manifest signs? For it is plain how much he avails through divine grace in things invisible and more excellent, who thus shines potent to the world in lesser visible things…

119. Let another miracle approach, no less delightful to hearers. The region of Italy, indeed, when it once possessed very many counts from the first of the magnates under the royal power of King Lothar, son of the emperor Louis — we know specially one of these, who sought in all things the inheritance of God’s love, the delight and fear of justice, and holiness. For this man was everywhere divulged and famous for good works, by the name of Rotgarius. For that divine grace might not render him hidden to the world, it magnified him in a certain war which the aforementioned Lothar sharpened against the nation of the Bulgars. For by the frequent relation of the same Rotgarius, and proof of the work, we hold it certain in mind, as we shall set forth in this order. For the clash of battle being provoked on both sides of Franks and Bulgars, an unlooked-for chance brought the aforementioned Rotgarius among the mingled wedges of the adversaries, and compelled him to fall from his horse by the confident encircling of those resisting. And when they tried with pointed weapons to penetrate his resisting mail for his death, there came to his memory in that strait of invocation only the name of the most illustrious Faro out of the innumerable names of saints. But in that momentary hour, binding himself to God with a most firm vow — that if so great a liberator, the most excellent confessor, would be present, he would come to this place as a most devoted debtor to serve him, the maleficent world being spurned — at once at this vow the divine help was present; and invoking so great a confessor he escaped wondrously delivered unhurt from those very jaws of cruel death. Who afterwards most willingly performed this devotion of obligation: how laudably he renounced the pomp of this world by cleaving to the monastic religion in this place; how assiduous in prayers public and secret, sparing in food, continual in vigils, daily also intent in renewing the penances of confessions — our times admire none like him, nor for an example do they grant one scarcely like or most rare. Such and so great a man did the admirable bishop of God Faro will to procure for himself in far regions, who should take care at the watches of this his place to lead the angelic life for the enlightening of many…

122. Thus far glad miracles have run from the breathing heart; but this last shall give with its end the greatest sighs with grief. For I shall unfold in sum how much our times are now saddened and made mournful by the desolation of pagans — the sweet earth saddened for its cultivators, the realms once glorious now inglorious, and the virtue and potency of princes how infirm. The rivers bear witness to what we say, still warm with recent slaughter — the seas swelling which the putrid corpses of innumerable Christians inundate; and above all that river whose name sounds Seine — for its many isles are white with the bones of innumerable captives. Now after the passing of the emperor Louis of good memory brought the tenth year, the share of realm of Charles his son changed the traces of the former glory and peace into discord. And for this the rivers of that realm entering the seas began to groan beneath the Northmen’s great keel — they that had been ignorant of the nation of the Franks from its first founding. Then first furrowing the Seine they wrought a horrid slaughter on the dwellers on this side and that around it, and at last, none resisting, brought the multitude of ships to the very city of Paris. How much people that realm drew there with its king Charles in vain — the earth scarce bearing him, heaven darkening under its canopy — we wonder, uncertain to know the number. And since the Franks had not conceived such boldness in their breast as to besiege both parts of the river in war, they took counsel to their ruin and destruction for all slipping ages — a most copious tribute being given to the land. With great glory they rendered them most opulent in all abundance of gold and silver to the sea, to the confusion and ignominy of their own.

123. After this ingloriousness of the realm and the reproach of other realms came the tenth year, which again gave to the Seine a crueler and greater multitude of fleets — the Northmen’s helm ruling them, the sea sending them forth. These, like insatiable Parcae and Furies and with cruel greed ungentle, from their issuing from the sea devoured with impatient sword all the beauty of those regions which the river Seine watered on this side and that like a paradise of God, and delivered all to devouring flame — until they should close the city of Paris in savagery. But certain cities firm with towers could not save the lives of their bishops.

124. Now a more illustrious and more potent prince, notable by the name of Louis, pastor of the church of St Denis — which lifts its head above the other churches of the lands by power of dignity and the princedom of all honour of wisdom and religion — was powerless to keep himself from their captivity. For whose redemption with inestimable weights of gold and silver was taken away all the glory and ornament and beauty from all the churches of the realm; and golden Rome herself feels in a manner spoiled of her ornament.

125. For the wrath of God was so stirred and kindled against the people that by no reckoning could the five years of times know them able to be overcome. For they were hemmed in by Charles with a wondrous fleet — never the like seen in our realms — for the revolution of twelve weeks with the whole people of the realm on a certain island of the Seine; Charles joining to himself also another realm, namely that of his nephew Lothar. Nor did they even so fail of the potency of their strength as they had begun; but released the feeble people of two realms with its kings from the island by dire wearying — all the ships being captured wherewith they were besieged — with most shameful mockery of the realm of the Frankish nation; and the island holds them victors, the power of aliens made subject, their own deprived.

126. After these things then, to this most wicked ill of the realm, the sea again vomited forth a more ample multitude of Northmen — whom the former multitude of Northmen greatly feared. The former, however, beset by the following Northmen in King Charles’s name, were defeated — yet with gifts fixed, most grievous, of gold and silver out of the realm, and an immense abundance of provisions applied for this, for besieging the former multitude. So at last, by a most lasting siege, the wicked seemed overcome by the more wicked with sharpest cunning. Thus it was done by them, and their promise was accepted in their vain faith, that departing both parties should from then on not know the entrance of our bounds.

127. Whom when the sea hoped to receive back, they — the journey of faithlessness bent — passed by the bounds of the former devastation, increased in number. For they seized the forest of Brie unaccustomed, and spoiled it of its possessors with bloody sword and hot fire; and at last sped to this city of Meaux with unlooked-for fleet.

128. Now in the first part of the night they occupy it, and by lot destine it to be kindled with desolating fire; and its flames, uncomfortably gleaming, turn the night as it were into day and penetrate the unknown ways round about. They stain most wretchedly with human blood the houses of the groaning and the various paths of the city, and defile with every filth the churches once venerable. At this a confused clamour beats the sky; earth and air are shaken with the groans of the pregnant and the suckling; and the golden stars are withdrawn from its devouring flames.

129. Now this monastery — near to that city — hearing these things unhoped-for, scarce dismissed its own elders from it, all shaken with new dread. Yet retaining with itself its most potent guardian and its lord — namely the blessed Faro — at last it received the most ferocious devastators as they came. Who, when they had tried to assault this holy house proudly, flying on horses — the riders, fixed, clung in one place by divine nod, obeying not to move their sitters by any sharp blows. But they, beholding the mausoleum of so great a confessor, kept this uncontaminated holy temple and its inner habitation for fear of his magnificence.

130. Then on a certain day, stirred by unordinate wrath at the Christians, they gave the habitations set around this place — which lay open to outer uses — to the fodder of fire; which with its devouring flame unretractably scattered all the outer beauty of this place with light ashes into the air, bridled by no reins. At last it raged on the very thresholds of the door which was before the portico of this holy church’s atrium — the portico, I say, of all wayfarers — and there the fire began wondrously to lay aside the vigour of its strength.

131. And it filled the whole portico with the force of its heat; and the flame ran innocently through all the timbers, licking them with friendly sweetness; and striking the highest roofs of the church and its four parts with fiery blows, not only kept it unharmed but did not even stain it — or those contained in its circuit — with any trace of soot. For he who had come thus far victoriously resolving all things into ashes felt himself vanquished — by the merits of so great a confessor — by those very timbers which a little before he had conquered. The fire also gave honour to the place assigned to so great a patron, and distinguished it from other places by his merit. For it acknowledged itself to avail no further than by the permission of the divine governance, and learnt so to venerate the saints of God; and understood that it could not in all things according to itself, but from Him who is simple of Himself and all things from Him and not from Himself — whose very being is to be. O how glorious are you, Lord, in Your saints — who by the merits of Your confessor Faro have kept this place for Yourself from the fire! Therefore we give You praises on high, praying with our most magnificent patron Faro that You keep us and that temple for ever — You who dispose and rule all things from eternity, whose rule is eternal, power and majesty eternal, abiding through the infinite ages of ages. Amen.

Here ends the Life of St Faro, bishop and confessor.

Two. The Conversion of Otgar — in two versions #

The shorter version — the last chapter of codices A 3a, b #

“First then,” said he, “it may be allowed you to recognise that power is ever present to the good, while the bad are forsaken of all strength. The one is demonstrated from the other. For since good and evil are contraries, if good be established potent, the weakness of evil is plain; but if the frailty of evil grow clear, the firmness of good is known. But that the faith of our sentence may be the more abundant, I shall proceed by the one path. Now I will speak of Otgar, a most noble man, who was illustrious in the time of the most glorious emperor Charlemagne, and was second after the king. After many battles which he waged, returning into himself he left all that was his, and resolved to follow Christ — as he himself said: Who will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me (Matt. 16:24). Going through the monasteries of monks, into whatever place he entered to adore he cast upon the pavement the staff he held in his hand; and if any of the monks looked back, at once returning from there he went to another monastery. But coming to St Faro’s place, he cast upon the pavement the staff he held in his hand, and none of those monks looked back. For this he loved that place. From there returning to Charles, asking him leave to take the monks’ habit, urging Benedict to return with him to St Faro’s monastery to take the monks’ garment along with him — persisting in this resolve, as athletes of Christ they laid aside their arms and delivered all things to the place of the kindly confessor St Faro. The aforementioned men remained then in this religiousness as long as they lived. At the same time the blessed Otgar, journeying to Charles, asked him to give to St Faro’s place in Italy one abbey, which is in Italy in the place called Vercelli.

Afterwards God wrought many miracles through the blessed Otgar — to whom is honour and power, praise and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

The Conversion of Otgar the Soldier — the fuller version — how renouncing the world he served God in the monastic habit #

(1). It is fitting to subscribe to the venerable life of the most holy confessor Faro and most glorious pontiff of the men of Meaux, how Otgerius — a man illustrious in generosity and so strenuous in battles that for his frequent and victorious vanquishing of adversaries he alone among fighters, and even by the fighters themselves, was then called by special surname “the strong fighter and pugnator” — came to the monastery which the same pontiff founded near the city in zeal of pious devotion, dedicated with vows in honour of the Holy Cross and the blessed John the Baptist and St Peter and all the apostles, and nobly honoured with most ample possessions — that he might promise there the perseverance of monastic life. To no one rightly wise or having knowledge of just discretion is it doubtful that, as misery is adverse to glory and sadness to joy, so good things to evils and vices to virtues are naturally contrary. Since then the many worst men — who rejoice when they have done ill and are exalted in the worst deeds — abound richly in temporal goods, while the just, ever bestowing their labour on virtues, awaiting the joy that shall remain by happy hope, are seen to be afflicted with many miseries and many straits, men wonder with erring re-consideration — ignorant of God’s hidden judgements and the providence of His dispensation — how it can be that prosperities to the evil, adversities to the good, since they are contraries, agree with each other so as to be able to consort. But since there is great distance between time and eternity, the goods or ills of time befall indifferently the just and the unjust; whereas the goods of eternity are owed to none but the good, and the perpetual ills to none but the evil. In these things then, which are temporal, the just ought neither vainly to glory in prosperities nor foolishly to be troubled at adversities — for they are transitory — but rather to rejoice in tribulation, that they may possess their souls in patience; for the straitness of tribulation is a fire of purgation and probation to those who bear it patiently, since the Lord proved the elect as gold in the furnace and received them as the holocaust of a sacrifice into the odour of sweetness.

(2). The aforementioned Otgerius then, a man most illustrious in generous nobility and — God permitting — most victorious in the frequent exercise of battles, and therefore in the time of the most glorious emperor, namely Charles the Great, so exalted among the princes of the Franks in glory and honour that after him he stood second in the realm’s empire and dominion — while he prevailed the more gloriously in the world — began with the industry of a sound mind to consider that the glory and secular elevation, wherewith his heart was pompously borne up among men, and the riches which he possessed in the present world in common with certain unjust and ill-doing men, since they were transitory and fleeting — these, divinely inspired, he determined to relinquish, that in eternal beatitude he might merit to possess the perpetual riches with the saints. For he had been moved and refreshed by this sentence which he had heard from the mouth of Truth: that everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted (Luke 14:11). From that throne of the realm then, in which he gloried as second from the king, he disposed to humble himself that he might merit to be exalted, and to strip off the riches of false beatitude, that after this wretched life he might be enriched with the glory of true beatitude — to live perennially before God with the angels. Knowing therefore that it behoves us to enter God’s kingdom through many tribulations, and that the sufferings of the present life are not condign to the future glory which shall be revealed in the saints — after the example of the Lord who, being God, emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, made obedient even to death — after many battles which he manfully waged, after the glory of famous praise which he propagated for himself by strenuous works, he left all that was his, to follow Jesus Christ, and with the apostle Paul shuddered not to crucify himself to this world and the world itself to himself. And so he humbly obeyed the Lord’s words which he had more attentively heard in the gospel: Who will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me (Matt. 16:24).

(3). Taking then the tokens of pilgrimage, he went abroad to explore the monks’ coenobia — that in whichsoever he should discern the custody of regular discipline to be more strictly observed, in it he might promise the conversion of his manners and confirm the perseverance of his life after the rule of St Benedict, under an abbot’s command, his own wills abdicated, to serve the Lord as long as he lived. Upon the staff which he had taken to carry as a pilgrim’s sign he hung several little straps of thongs, and on the tips of those straps he fixed little spheres of iron; which staff he cast into the pavement of each monastery into which he entered to pray, with violent impulsion — shrewdly and diligently attending whether perchance the monks out of vanity of mind would lightly turn themselves at the staff’s noise. He then, having surveyed many monasteries and, as was said, explored them, found in none of them such continence from vanity as in St Faro’s most religious congregation. For there, while he violently drove the aforementioned staff with its appendages into the pavement, and the staff in its collision gave back the noise of a confused sound, none of the monks standing by was moved to look back or remove his spirit from the intent of his devotion — except one boy of those kept under guard. Whom at once one of the keepers struck with the rod of discipline, and so compelled him to turn his eyes back from vanity to what was to be attended. From where he manifestly understood that there was most devoutly kept both the rule of monastic religion and the discipline of regular institution. From which thing he immediately purposed to take the monks’ habit there, the world’s pomp being spurned. Using prudent counsel then, he went back from there to King Charles, to beg of him that it might be allowed him to take the habit of holy religion by his permission. At which Charles was pricked — for his bowels were moved over him — and poured himself into tearful weeping, and permitted him with good grace to have the license which he devoutly sought. At which the elders of the palace, the middling and the lowly were turned to amazement, blessing the Lord who in so great a man had so wonderfully magnified the change of His right hand.

(4). Then with devout exhortations he admonished Benedict, whom he had had for companion in many battles, to come with him — a monk-to-be — to St Faro’s monastery: that they who had together committed many flagitious deeds in slaughter might together bewail their sins in the monastery as penitents. Benedict assenting to his admonitions and prayers — for he was mindful of their former fellowship — joined himself to him again; and both together, as athletes of Christ manfully armed in faith, returned to St Faro’s monastery. Where leaving with votive heart their warlike arms and all they had had in the world, for the name of Jesus Christ, they remained in holy religion as long as they lived.

(5). Now in the same year in which they were made monks, Otgerius — already knowing the monastic customs — returned to Charles, admonishing him and humbly entreating that, as he had been custom to benefit other monasteries, he should not except St Faro’s monastery from his benefactions, but enlarging his alms should mercifully relieve the stipends of the brethren serving God there with certain increments. Charles, mindful of his soldiership and strenuousness — as is the custom of nobles — and piously rejoicing at his conversion and devotion, lest God’s servant should return frustrated, gave for his love a certain abbey out of his domain to St Faro, dedicated in honour of St Mary and the apostle St Peter, in the place called Reda — which place stands eighty stadia from the city of Meaux and the monastery. But the other, which he himself had once held in the suburb of Vercelli, he restored to him of spontaneous benignity for the use of the same brethren; which abbey remained so long afterwards under the dominion of the abbot and brethren of St Faro as the king of the Franks held Italy under his rule — that of Reda remaining to the present day in the aforementioned monastery’s enjoyment.

(6). Afterwards the aforementioned Otgerius, living many years in the monastery under the abbot’s command, chastised his body with the parching of dire thirst and cruelly macerated it with the horror of dire hunger — mindful of his sins in vigils and prayers with tearful groans. Whose true conversion and holiness of life the Lord Jesus Christ afterwards declared by many miracles — that He might manifestly show that there is joy before God’s angels over one sinner doing penance more than over ninety-nine just who need not penance. To Him alone — who mercifully awaits sinners to penance and clemently justifies the penitent from sins — be glory and dominion with the Father and the Holy Spirit through the infinite ages of ages. Amen.

Here it ends.

The next item in the edition — “The Passion of Ragnebert” — begins on the following page; its text was not captured in this file.