Modern British English translation — the editor’s preface condensed to its substance.

The editor’s preface (W. Levison) #

In the time of Lambert abbot of Fontenelle (about 673), the priest Condedus is said to have left his native Britain with a few disciples and sought the monastery of Fontenelle. Nor did he tarry there long: he is said to have received from King Theuderic III the island of Belcinac, ringed by the waves of the Seine and near the royal estate of Arlaune, together with a place on the right bank of the river; and building two churches, he settled on the island. This, with all its possessions, Condedus in 675 conveyed by testament to the monastery of St Wandrille, of which donation he had a second copy drawn up in 679/680. The dead man’s body, buried on the island — which was afterwards worn away by the waves — was translated to Fontenelle; and there, when the coenobium rose again after the Norman storms, Abbot Gerard in 1027 placed in one shrine the relics said to be those of Condedus and Erembert.

The Life of Condedus was composed, undoubtedly by a monk of Fontenelle, not before the ninth century — for he plundered both Paul’s History of the Lombards and Alcuin’s Life of Willibrord. From Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, used in most of the Fontenelle Lives, he drew the ancient name of Britain and a few other words; he further copied out the Lives of Amandus and Ermenland — and it is properly held that the matter stands so, not that the Life of Ermenland was plundered by Condedus’s biographer. To him also the Life of Lambert bishop of Lyons was at hand, which he cited in almost the same words as the author of the Gesta of the Fontenelle abbots; and it seems likely to me that he owes to that now-mutilated Life, together with certain charters and the epitaph, the little he hands down about Condedus. Having searched the coenobium’s archives, after the manner of the Fontenelle monks he inserted into his work little excerpts from those charters — and, adding to the kings’ years which alone he found in them the abbots’ years computed by himself, he profited little. That the narrative of the translation and the epitaph (ch. 12) were added to the Life only later, because a doxology precedes (ch. 11), is by no means certain — since what follows it is not always foreign to the original author, and a doxology is likewise placed mid-Life by Erembert’s biographer, and as in the first chapter so in the last certain words of Bede are found copied out. The Life of Condedus was composed before the second Life of Wandregisel, whose author mentions it, and is therefore to be attributed to the first part of the ninth century.

Manuscripts: 1) Le Havre codex 332 (A 34), 11th century, once the “greater Fontenelle chronicle”, folios 73–75v — collated by Krusch; 1a) a Paris codex of the Chesne collection, 17th century, depending on 1 but much corrupted — it omits not only the epitaph but the greater part of ch. 6 and several clauses of ch. 8; 2) a Brussels codex, 16th century, the fourth volume of books written by Antoine Gentien canon of Rouge-Cloître (d. 1543), folios 94r–95v; on which seems to depend 2a) a 17th-century Brussels codex containing, among Bollandist collectanea, a copy made from the Rouge-Cloître manuscript, with an epitome of the Utrecht codex of St Saviour appended.

After Hugo Ménard (1629) published an epitome from codex 1, André du Chesne (1636) and Charles Le Cointe (1668–70) printed excerpts; Mabillon (1669) gave the first edition of the whole Life; Bouquet (1741) repeated scraps; finally Victor de Buck (AASS Oct. IX, 1858) re-edited the Life, prefixing the Utrecht epitome, which he wished — hesitantly and wrongly — to be held an older text.

The Passing of St Condedus the Confessor, Whose Sacred Bones the Coenobium of Fontenelle Holds Buried in the Earth #

¹ The holy father Wandregisel having been translated to the heavenly kingdoms after his manifold labours in the world, and the venerable abbot Lambert having been set in the place of government of the coenobium of Fontenelle, at the same time the holy priest and anchorite Condedus — by race a Briton, born in the Ocean island of Britain, which was once called Albion — kindled with the ardour of a stricter life, incited by love of pilgrimage and stirred by the conversation of saints, left the aforementioned island, namely his own fatherland, for love of the heavenly fatherland and came into the parts of Gaul. And first, after he was carried over the Ocean’s surface, in the place called the Fountain of Valery for some years — naked of the world and full of God — he daily drank the sweetest fruits of heavenly contemplation in solitary conversation.

² Learning, moreover, by rumour flying abroad of the holy father Lambert, that the congregation of the coenobium of Fontenelle shone no less than others in the comeliness of religion, he purposed in mind to join himself to their fellowship. Leaving that place then and entering the sea — the divine governance accompanying him — borne on a prosperous course he without delay reached the mouth of the river Seine, and sailing up the second water he came to Arlaune, a royal estate; and there, his sails laid down, he sat in the harbour of the same estate. And when he had turned aside to lodge with a certain religious matron — the others on that estate living in beastly fashion and not receiving him — after the body’s necessities had been granted and the divine praises sung, he gave his limbs to rest together with some of his disciples in the little dwelling assigned to him. The foresaid faithful woman, breaking in at dead of night upon the torpor of sleep and opening the window of the bedchamber, suddenly saw above the roof in which the soldier of Christ was resting a fiery beacon of wondrous magnitude rising sublimely to the heights of heaven. For it is plain with whose spirit this man was filled — doubtless His who in the desert place went before the marching people for forty years in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

³ The holy man also came to the monastery of Fontenelle; and after prayers to the Lord and brotherly salutations and spiritual converse, when all humanity — as the monastic rule dictates — had been shown to the same holy man with all his company, whom abbot Lambert had received as angels, and while he tarried some days in the foresaid coenobium and enjoyed the sweet converse of such great fathers, the blessed Condedus at last, opening the vow of his heart, said it seemed not enough to him to sweat in the sanctity of religion only, unless he should also profit others by shining in preaching and the light of example. Then, to consult the foresaid father Lambert, he resolved humbly to seek a place suited to his devotion and religion. Then with the blessing and leave of the foresaid father, returning to the river Seine and boarding a boat, he sailed to the island called Belcinac, near the estate of Arlaune, which was surrounded on every side by the river Seine. Leaving the boat, he went round surveying it, and most attentively admired the pleasantness and secrecy of the place, praying the Almighty Lord to deign graciously to bestow that place on His servant.

⁴ Now the following night Theuderic, the glorious king — son namely of King Chlodovech and Queen Balthild — had been admonished in a vision by divine revelation (he was at that time engaged in the exercise of autumn hunting in the forest of Arlaune) that he should receive with highest honour the servant of the Lord dwelling on the aforementioned island, and that he was to be a teacher of many peoples, and that nothing was to be denied him whatever he should ask of him. The king, made certain by that vision, at once came to the same island and received the same servant of the Lord with joy and highest honour. And as he perceived in him the fervour of faith, the devotion of religion, the fulness of wisdom, according to his holy petition he conveyed to him the aforementioned island of Belcinac by a privilege of his authority to be possessed perpetually under enduring tutelage and defence — that neither he nor his posterity, namely the monks dwelling in that same place, should be troubled by anyone’s molestation or disquiet, in order that, the assault of evils being removed, they might freely implore the Lord’s clemency for himself and for the peace of his whole realm.

⁵ The foresaid king also bestowed in the same privilege upon the same servant of the Lord, on the eastern and northern side, the fields contiguous to the same island and pleasant meadows with a very dense forest, in which herds of boars and stags most abundantly dwell at all seasons — because it stands closely planted with fruit-bearing trees, which provide for animals of this kind fitting and fertile food without fail. For it is a most apt place for nourishing animals of every kind, though it may also be proved most useful in many other respects. This place antiquity decreed should be called “Mud” (Lutum), because in winter or in the rainy season, from the flooding of the river Seine, certain marshy and stagnant places are found in it. For it is three miles long, while in breadth it ends at one thousand five hundred paces.

⁶ The aforementioned island Belcinac, which — as was said above — is surrounded on every side by the river Seine, retains within itself such quiet and silence that every desire of the wilderness seems to be utterly removed for those who desire the anchorite’s life. Moreover it brings forth such a store of fish from the sea and the Seine in abundance at appointed seasons, that to fishermen searching the depths of other rivers it would seem incredible to hear, unless they had learned by sight. The sea-wave, in the time of spring-tide and neap-tide, neglects not thrice in the revolution of day and night to visit it, surrounding it on all sides; which is driven with such impetus of its vigour that, proceeding backwards beyond this island through the water of the Seine for sixty miles, it reaches as far as the place called Pitres — though the watery journey from the sea to this island is reckoned at about thirty miles. And so this tidal current, which goes forth from the navel or Charybdis of the sea, twice in the day swallows the waves and again vomits them out — as is proved to happen with exceeding swiftness along all the shores of the Seine, the waves advancing and receding; which are filled by such sudden inundations that one who should chance to be found a little inward from the shore could scarcely escape. For the wave seems to roll upward with swiftest course and to rear itself in height after the manner of the loftiest trees with the greatest roaring, and to turn the river’s waters to bitterness through the space of many miles. These things have been said of the tide and the place’s situation and the river’s inundation; now let us return, the Lord granting, to the man of God’s works.

⁷ The holy man therefore, entering the aforementioned island with the authority of the royal grant, built on it a basilica in honour of St Mary the perpetual virgin, and another in the name of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, in which he also established a memorial of the holy confessor Valery. O how happy and blessed the island Belcinac — once the nurse of wild beasts, now also the most secret quiet of Christ’s servants! For here the holy man, kindled with the fervour of holy conversation, constrained himself, mortifying himself with stricter intentness of mind, and cherished with sweet discourse the crowds flowing to him, bringing forth out of the treasure of his heart new things and old.

⁸ The aforementioned island, which he had obtained by the king’s bounty — with all things pertaining to it, and also certain small possessions which a very rich and noble man named Schiward had conferred on him in perpetual gift — he conveyed under the third year of the foresaid king, which was the ninth year of abbot Lambert, by the order of a testament to the dominion of the foresaid coenobium of Fontenelle to be possessed by perpetual right. Of these possessions these are the names: Champellos, which the foresaid Schiward and the rest of the wealthy men had conferred on him; likewise another small possession named Geldulfiaca; in like manner also a manse in the place called Adciacus above the river Scie with a mill. This grant had been made on the tenth day of the month of October, that is the sixth day before the Ides of October. Likewise in the seventh year of King Theuderic he gave another authorisation of grant concerning the monastery of the foresaid island and the things there pertaining, which had been celebrated in the coenobium of Fontenelle under the seventh year of King Theuderic, the blessed Ansbert governing the coenobium of Fontenelle in his second year — since the man of the Lord Lambert had already received the pontificate of the church of Lyons, as stands most fully written in his Deeds. There was present also the illustrious Waratto, mayor of the royal palace, in the coenobium of Fontenelle when the grant of these things was made by the foresaid holy man — who both consented and strengthened it with the seals of his hand, and certain other noble men, whose names are contained even now in the foresaid grant. Brandulf the priest had drawn up the authorisation of this testament. There were present moreover Conomail, Zacchaeus and John — disciples of the foresaid holy man Condedus, who also had come with him once from the parts beyond the sea. O happy land, which the presence of Christ’s soldier Condedus illumined! He daily mortified his members, offered himself a living sacrifice to God, fulfilled the divine precepts in every way, and also built temples worthy of God.

⁹ While the holy man tarried in that place, a subtle beast and pursuer of birds — the crooked fox — stealthily snatched the bird of the man of God, namely the herald of the day, which also by the Gauls is called the cock, and hurriedly ran back to its den. While it was striving with every effort to enter, it remained none the less immovable before the mouth of the cavern. And not much after, as though mindful of its crime, it bore the bird unwillingly in its mouth and — many watching — carried it back to the same place from which it had taken it. O the illustrious merits of this priest, which both shine in words and flash in miracles — whom even the dumb beasts obey!

¹⁰ At another time also, while a boat was being built on the same island for the man of God’s needs, it happened that there was lacking a company of men to raise it for the building; which the man of the Lord, propped by divine aid, raised alone as quickly as though he were lifted by the strength of many men’s help. See! He who once made of a shepherd of sheep the psalmist, has rendered Condedus the exile a noble champion; He who chose Amos the herdsman and goatherd plucking sycamore fruit into a prophet, kindled Condedus afterwards into a lamp shining in the catholic church. Daniel once in the lake overcame the lions’ rage by the merit of life; and Condedus, choosing the anchorite’s life, laudably overcomes the ancient enemy’s machines. Elijah is caught up to heaven in a fiery chariot; and Condedus, the combat manfully completed, is placed in heaven upheld by the companies of angels.

¹¹ Living therefore the contemplative life on the same island and persisting in good works without fail, after his stay in the world had been rather long prolonged he migrated to the rest of eternal felicity on the twelfth day before the Kalends of November [21 October], and was venerably buried in the church of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, which he himself had built long before — in which many benefits were wrought by his prayers, and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ was there praised by all, who is with the eternal Father and Holy Spirit virtue and honour, dominion and glory through all ages of ages. Amen.

¹² The courses of many years having run out after the holy man’s death, the same island being worn and collapsed by the sea’s tide, the body of the holy man was translated from there by the brethren of the holy coenobium of Fontenelle and placed in the church of the holy apostle Peter beside the oratory of St Martin on the southern side; and an epitaph of this kind was written above his tomb:

A man most worthy in merits arose once among the Gauls,
Whose sacred limbs lie here entombed —
Condedus by name, flashing with virtues’ flower,
For which he now lives glorious in the heavens.
He, while Theuderic ruled the Franks’ sceptres,
Left the Britons’ lands, borne across the sea,
And sought the Gauls’ parts, a light of Christ’s worshippers.
The Seine’s island called Belcinac
Fed him through many courses, and hence buried him.
Whose consecrated ashes, after long times,
The consecrated throng bore with noble worship,
Entombing them in Fontenelle’s fair turf —
Where now He heaps with gifts those who ask.