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

The editor’s preface (W. Levison) #

Lambert the monk succeeded Wandregisel, first abbot of the monastery of Fontenelle. While he governed the congregation, Childeric II bestowed on it in 673 the possessions of Ulmir and Warinna from the fisc; he likewise granted part of the forest of Jumièges, about whose boundaries a dispute arose between Abbots Lambert and Filibert, settled by Audoin bishop of Rouen. Theuderic III, restored to the throne after the murder of his brother Childeric in 675, granted Lambert the estate of Dusera on the Rhône in Provence (today Donzère, dep. Drôme), where — monks being sent from Fontenelle — a coenobium was built, subject to the other as to a mother. Nor did the Fontenelle monks advance less into the western parts: at the request of Pascharius bishop of Nantes, Ermenland, sent by Lambert, built the coenobium of Indre on an island of the Loire, whose rectors were ever instituted from the number of the Fontenelle monks. In 675 Condedus granted by testament his monastery on the island of Belcinac together with its possessions to the coenobium of Fontenelle. When Genesius bishop of Lyons died on the Kalends of November in 677 or one of the two following years, Lambert was appointed in his place, therefore he abdicated the government of the monastery — which Ansbert took up; and Ansbert is said to have been consecrated bishop of Rouen by Lambert after Audoin’s death in 684. “Landebertus, by God’s grace bishop” subscribed among the metropolitans the charter which Aiglibert bishop of Le Mans granted to the nuns of St Mary in 683. Not long after, he died — nor was he still among the living when King Theuderic bestowed an estate on Bishop Godinus his successor in 688 (30 October). His death on 14 April is entered in the Fontenelle codices of the Hieronymian Martyrology.

The Life of Lambert was composed by the same monk of St Wandrille who afterwards wrote the Life of Ansbert — as he himself testified, which can hardly be doubted. It arose therefore a little before 811, by which year the Life of Ansbert already existed; and it is no small point that the author used the Fontenelle charters. Moreover the Lives of Lupus of Troyes and of Eligius lay before him, which he used in describing the death of Wandregisel and the manners of Lambert and Audoin. The greater part of the Life is today lost, to our sorrow — particles of it the author repeated in the Life of Ansbert, and it was both used and mostly cited by the authors of the second Life of Audoin, of the Life of Condedus, of the Gesta of the abbots of Fontenelle, and of the second Life of Wandregisel. This last the author — later by no less than a century and a half — falsely asserted to have been dedicated to the pontiff Lambert himself.

One codex, Le Havre 332 (A 34), formerly of Fontenelle — of whose fortunes a librarian of the monastery noted on a prefixed slip: “The greater chronicle of Fontenelle collected in 1639 by D. Augustin de Broise, monk of the Congregation of St Maur, from scattered folios in the archives” — preserves at folios 136r–137r only the earlier part of the Life of Lambert, written at the end of the twelfth century, the remaining folios being lost; collated by the learned B. Krusch. Mabillon first published the Life from the same already mutilated codex in the Acta sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti (saec. III, part 2, Paris 1672, pp. 462–465), an edition repeated by Henschenius (AASS Apr. II, 1675) and Ghesquière (Acta sanctorum Belgii IV, 1787); Bouquet (Recueil III, 1741) excerpted fragments from Mabillon’s text.

The Deeds of Lord Lambert, Abbot of Fontenelle and Archbishop of Lyons #

[A later hand adds: “Here begin the acts of the blessed Lambert, abbot, who after the blessed Genesius became the second prelate of the church of Lyons, and after the bountiful Wandregisel ruled the coenobium of Fontenelle for thirteen years and eight months — who also built the coenobium of Donzère in the region called Provence on the river Rhône, in whose time very many possessions accrued to our church.”]

¹ Lambert, a most illustrious man, sprung from the stock of a most noble family and born to a father named Erlebert in the territory of Thérouanne, was the first to succeed in the government of the coenobium the great priest of the Lord and father admirable in Christ, Wandregisel. He had previously warred in the hall of the boy-king Chlothar, son of Chlodovech, under the secular habit — though his soul panted more for another warfare, as the event showed. At last, in the eighth year of the foresaid boy-king, the corruptible warfare of the king being deserted and the swords formed of iron put off, he flew most devoutly to the shining camp of Christ; and clothed with the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of faith and the sword of the Holy Spirit, he happily fought against the invisible enemy. He took the tonsure of the head in this same coenobium under the foresaid venerable father of holy memory, Wandregisel — namely in the fourth year before that servant of Christ himself entered on the way of the fathers. For his uncles, men most illustrious and noblest in the world, named Hrotbert and Haltbert — of whom the former, Hrotbert, had been chief referendary of the palace at that time; the second, Haltbert, afterwards received the habit of the clerical state from the same holy man Lambert — had brought that most illustrious man honourably to this coenobium of Fontenelle, although they wished to divert him from this purpose so that he should rather remain in the common habit. On the day of the shearing of his hair, among other gifts of various kinds, he bestowed on the foresaid great father seventy gold solidi, which had been set in his ornaments of wrought work — namely in his belt, straps and armlets. For he was of the richest and most honourable parents, and in the king’s house was held not indifferently but shone in the highest honour; and as he showed himself noble in the world’s business, so the innocence of his life made him nobler. The foresaid admirable father of the coenobium loved him for the conspicuous operation of his chaste conversation. In what order he assumed the order of government after him must now be told in the present work.

² When therefore the aforementioned blessed servant of Christ Wando had held this coenobium in government for nineteen years and five months from the first day of its building, and was now set in decrepit and aged years — in the ninetieth year of his life — he was seized a little before the day of his death by a moderate languor. And being now placed in extremity and intent on the agony of his dissolution, the whole company of the brethren asked him whom he would set over them as rector after his decease. To whom he is said to have given this answer: “God, my dearest sons, will provide for you, I believe, the best rector after my death; yet I, His suppliant servant, implore His clemency… But you, dearest, take counsel of His will, and set what is to be done ever in His judgement; and desire not that my course be wearied further — rather protect me with your prayers, and ever remember my admonitions. To Christ, the highest shepherd of all, I commend your care today; may He grant you so to keep my most little admonitions in mind and ever to guard His most sweet precepts, that you may merit happily to come to His eternal brightness. Yet two are present — my most beloved sons — upon whom the place of government shall devolve after my little dissolution.” Now the one of these two was Lambert, and the other the most illustrious Ansbert — both signally marked by the virtues of most excellent religion and fellows in God’s work. When this same servant of God had finished this sacred address, he rendered his soul to heaven, to be joined to the angelic choirs and to possess the felicity of paradise — on the eleventh day before the Kalends [22 July], a Saturday, the seventh indiction. After his most glorious passage, all the company of the monks besought Christ’s clemency and celebrated with all devotion a three days’ fast; which being most devoutly celebrated, they chose the foresaid Lambert to be set in the place of government — in the year of our Lord’s incarnation 663, in the aforementioned indiction, which was the eleventh year of the foresaid boy-king Chlothar; the seventh year of Pope Vitalian had already run its course. And he continued in the same coenobium thirteen years and eight months, under three brother-kings holding the sceptres of the realm of the Franks in turn by order — namely Chlothar, Childeric and Theuderic.

³ Now the same venerable father Lambert was chaste in deed, diffused in charity, most firm in faith, provident in counsels, conspicuous in goodness, affable in converse and prompt in every best thing; tall also in stature and comely in aspect — from the very sole of his foot to the topmost crown of his head he was most elegant. All the aforementioned kings, in fine, would call him in their mutual colloquies — and also in the documents of privileges or letters which they addressed to him — nothing other than “the lord Lambert, our venerable father in Christ, the abbot”. For after the foresaid young king Chlothar had died, leaving his brothers Childeric and Theuderic surviving, and a strong contention for life and the summit of the realm had arisen between them — some favouring Childeric’s party, others inclining to Theuderic — this venerable man so kept himself cautious that he declined to neither party until one part of the people overcame the rival part. Childeric being raised to the seat of the realm, he was held in such honour with him that whatever he asked of him he obtained without any obstacle of difficulty — as is plainly established from the grants of certain possessions which he bestowed on the same venerable father and this coenobium. Finally, at the petition of his queen Bilhild, and of the venerable bishops — namely Leodegar of blessed memory (who afterwards became a most glorious martyr), Nivo also the bishop [of Reims], and Ermeno — and of the illustrious men whose names are these: Fulcoald, Amalric, Vulfoald the mayor of the palace, Bavo, Waning, Adalbert, Garin the brother of the foresaid bishop Leodegar — he bestowed on the foresaid venerable father two fiscal estates named Ulmir and Warinna, situated in the country of Le Talou by the rivers called the Béthune and the Varenne, with all their appurtenances — namely Cressy, Seda, Magnerot and likewise Magnerot, Néon and Toscarias — together with the land on the sea-shore and the plots of the salt-works and fisheries established there; and also the vineyards at Varnes on the river Seine in the Vexin country, in all their integrity. All these things, by his authority making two privileges, he granted to the same venerable father and this coenobium of Fontenelle to be possessed by most firm right for ever. This royal largess was issued at the pleasant palace of Arlaune, in the eleventh year of the foresaid king — which had been his first in Neustria — and in the fifth year of the same most illustrious rector of the coenobium since he obtained the place of government after the most blessed departure of the great father and most illustrious priest of Christ, Wandregisel. For very many grants of various possessions of the same king, issued to that most reverend father, exist even now, which it would be most laborious to enumerate. Among other various gifts he also bestowed on the same venerable father part of the forest of Jumièges — whereof certain privileges remain with us, kept stored in this coenobium as a sacred charge; in which, if anyone should think fit to read them, he will find the places designated by which the boundary of that donation is marked out.

⁴ In that time a not small dispute arose between this same venerable father Lambert and the most reverend Filibert, rector of the coenobium of Jumièges, over the boundary of the same forest; whom the great pontiff of the church of Rouen, Audoin of glorious memory, recalled to the concord of true peace by his authority together with a letter of the foresaid king directed to him on the same matter, and divided the forest between those same bountiful fathers by equal lot. And because father Lambert’s share seemed the greater, the aforementioned bishop — with his consent — bestowed from the same division a certain small portion on the basilica of the illustrious martyr of Christ Dionysius, which is situated on the bank of the Seine’s channel in the place called Duclair, where Lidoald then held the place of government. For he was perspicuous in sanctity — such were ever the marks of his perfection, that he opened the way of salvation to his citizens by sacred preachings and instructed the unlearned and ignorant of the people by shining examples; and the discordant also, inflamed with the vigour of the heavenly Spirit, he recalled with the highest industry to the brightness of concord.

⁵ Now the aforementioned king Childeric — by the snares of his own attendants, namely Amalbert and Ingobert, together with Bodilo and also Lupus and others — was deprived of life and realm, together with his wife named Bilhild and his son named Dagobert; whose bodies the aforenamed great [priest Audoin buried — here the manuscript fails, the remaining folios being lost. The second Life of Audoin preserves the continuation: Audoin had long before buried them in St Peter’s basilica at Rouen. King Childeric’s body and those of his family were discovered in the basilica of St Germain at Paris in 1656].