Krusch (ed.), MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum IV (1902) — modern British English translation.

The editor’s preface (B. Krusch, rendered in substance) #

Leucona(us), today Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, is said to have borne its patron’s name in antiquity — variously written Lego(na)us or Lagauus. The earliest witness to the saint’s cult is an entry for 1 April in the martyrology of Usuard (9th century): “deposition of the blessed confessor Walaric”. The monastic congregation which occupied the site lapsed; the monastery fell under the abbots of St Bertin’s at Sithiu, and the attempt to restore it to monks — made by Count Arnulf II through Hugh, duke of the Franks, about 981–988 — was resisted until the count forced it by giving the monks of St Bertin other possessions in exchange. At the same time he obtained for Walaric’s reliquary church exemption from episcopal jurisdiction. The narratives of the translation then made still survive. The reform’s first abbot was Theodinus — formerly abbot of St-Denis-en-Broqueroie — who calls himself “your own friend”; a pilgrim by origin, he undertook the work not only willingly at the brethren’s request but in obedience to Hugh, archbishop of Besançon (1031–1066). The Life’s dedicatory letter to this Theodinus fixes the biography to c. 1050–1070; Mabillon sagaciously conjectured the author was a monk of the neighbouring monastery of Leuconay itself.

On its trustworthiness this must be said beforehand. The biographer has Walaric enrolled under Columbanus in the monastery of Luxeuil, then — Columbanus expelled — attached to Abbot Eustasius; then migrating to Neustria to preach to the nations, receiving a royal precept from Clothar, with the Amiens bishop’s consent, by which the place Leuconaus was granted him for building cells; and finally dying on the Lord’s day, as befitted his sanctity. If this were true the place would be counted among the royal monasteries; and Blidmund, second abbot after Athala of Bobbio (†627), is said to have obtained from the same king and diocesan bishop precept and licence for restoring the monastery after the monks had departed and the site relapsed into solitude. Thus the biographer of the 11th century describes deeds wrought four centuries before him — and of times so remote he could know nothing of himself. When Gregory of Tours, writing the life of Bishop Nicetius who was hardly more than thirty years his elder, put his authority on record lest he incur the reproach he himself so simply states — “You, being younger, how can you know the deeds of your elders? Are these things not adjudged fictions of yours?” — still more should an older authority have been produced for so great an interval of time. The writer therefore contends that an Abbot Raginbert had, some years before, dictated Walaric’s life with great zeal but in an over-long and simple style, and that he himself had issued it in a shorter and comelier diction, that the simpler brethren might understand it better and the learned not be wearied by too rude a manner. Yet though he everywhere plays the most zealous devotee of brevity, the surviving Life suffers from excessive prolixity and digressions. Suppose Raginbert to have been a third abbot and very near Walaric’s own age, as is commonly held — still, the later biographer, though furnished with an older author, conducted himself as the saint’s contemporary throughout. The virtues which he again and again testifies he described in a most brief, summary and plain style, he wishes to have received from the saint’s own disciples: “which we heard from truthful and well-attested men whom he himself taught and nurtured, and some of whom he restored to health from various ailments, of whom let us now bring one forward” — and the one whom he cited, Blidmund the second abbot, he expressly names among his authorities: “as he himself afterwards related, who had been the feeble one” (ch. 15). Then Bishop Berachund of Amiens (c. 614) is cited as a witness, as though he had related something about a certain tree (ch. 30). From these passages it is clear how greatly it concerned the biographer that nothing should be thought related save what was confirmed by eyewitnesses — for he himself was not unaware that fabulous tales are commonly scattered by the many; from which he narrated the miracles wrought after the saint’s death “not those fabulously told by the many, but those which we have learned to have been confirmed by truthful witnesses, and especially those which we found written by the venerable and learned Abbot Raginbert — with pious zeal indeed and religious labour, in a prolix diction but simple and unadorned edition.”

Meanwhile, the opening of Walaric’s Life was taken not from Raginbert or another but partly in Jonas’s own words from the Life of Fursey; and he himself cites the deeds of Columbanus and Athala — though Jonas wrongly believed Columbanus to have been a disciple, and most impudently transferred to his Blidmund what Jonas had himself experienced before Athala’s death (ch. 35), which likewise came to him from the same source. When he wished Walaric to have been named by Columbanus “a great servant of God”, he — extolling his patron — was wholly ignorant of the customs of the ancient Irish, and narrated a plainly novel history of Luxeuil: that certain shepherds had settled there after Columbanus’s expulsion, that the place began to be restored by Walaric driving out the laymen, and that Eustasius then arrived and with the saint removed the rest of the laymen from the monastery’s bounds. That contest between laymen and monks is refuted by Jonas and repugnant to Columbanus’s age — it is to be referred to the rivalry between secular canons and regular monks of the biographer’s own eleventh century. Finally, Jonas never so much as mentions Walaric. The biographer followed Jonas’s footsteps so closely that he transferred to his own saint what Jonas said of Columbanus; subtract those borrowings and what remains is either false or doubtful — nothing that could not have been invented by an eleventh-century author. And so his appeal to contemporary witnesses seems vain, and I judge Raginbert’s testimony was put forward only to veil his fictions under a show of antiquity. Inveighing against those who dared drink before the mass, he seems rather to have castigated the manners of his own age.

The biographer, abhorring rustic diction — though he displays a Horatian tag lest his liberal studies be doubted — labours under a harsh and crabbed style, so that later copyists found much to add and alter.

[Manuscripts and earlier editions enumerated: Boulogne 106 (11th c., formerly St Bertin’s), Brussels 7461, Turin F III 16 (Bobbio), St-Omer 311, Rouen O 55 (with the body-relation and miracles), Paris 13092, etc.; the Life was edited by Surius (1571), Mabillon (1669), and Henschenius in the Acta Sanctorum (April I, 1675). The text is reviewed from the two best codices.]

Here Begins the Prologue to the Life of St Walaric the Abbot #

TO MY LORD EVER MY OWN AND TO BE HELD IN THE IND ISSOLUBLE BOND OF CHARITY, THE LORD AND FATHER THEODINUS THE ABBOT, AND TO ALL YOUR HOLY CONGREGATION WHICH SERVES THE LORD WITH YOU AND REJOICES TO LIVE UNDER REGULAR DISCIPLINE — YOUR OWN FRIEND AND THE SERVANT OF ALL CHRISTIANS WISHES YOU ETERNAL GREETING IN CHRIST.

First of all, as though prostrate at your feet, I ask with humble prayer that you, standing by the holy altars and daily offering sedulous and worthy prayers to God, would deign always to hold me, although your unworthy servant, in the deep memory of your heart. Moreover — as you know — when, being some days ago in your monastery, I wished to speak with you as had been agreed, your fraternity then asked my littleness with the greatest humility that I should publish the life of your patron the blessed Walaric in a short and comely diction, which the venerable Abbot Raginbert had some years since dictated with great zeal indeed but in an over-long and simple style. And you added this also, that our archbishop Hugh had himself enjoined that my mediocrity should describe the aforementioned life for you somewhat more openly and lucidly — in a fashion at once plain and easy for the simpler brethren to understand. To the commands of which men we ought not, so far as we are able, to object. And a double cause urges us on: since both your charity delights me and obedience to the archbishop compels me.

Here Begins the Life of Saint Walaric the Abbot #

¹ There was a man of venerable life named Walaric — mediocre in birth but most noble in faith. This blessed man’s infancy, breathed upon by divine inspiration as the fame of his deeds and virtues afterwards taught, was trained by the Lord in sacred and monastic disciplines. For when he was born in the Auvergne and still a little boy — yet old in mind — as he drove his father’s sheep about the rich pastures there and kept them through the pleasant green places, he heard in the neighbouring places how the custom is for the little ones of nobles to be instructed by masters in schools. Moved then by such a desire, making himself a little tablet, he asked the children’s teacher with the greatest reverence and humble prayer to write him the alphabet and impart the knowledge of letters. Which being done as quickly as he had asked, he returned very glad to the work enjoined on him from which he had departed. But while these things were being done, a thing wonderful and worthy of memory came to pass. For while he kept his aforementioned father’s flock in the fields, by assiduous meditation supported by divine aid — without his father’s knowledge — he had not only, as we said, learned the knowledge of letters but within a short space had made the whole Psalter his own. From there he began to frequent the church; and while there with keenness of mind he attended on the choirs of the psalm-singers, he was more and more kindled with the fire of the fear of God and strengthened by compunction of heart — of which fire the Lord says: “I am come to send fire on the earth, and I will that it burn”; and that which a certain one says: “And the lightnings blaze upon the tops of the mountains.”

² Then, the heat of faith blazing up greater in his soul, he heard that a certain monastery named Autumo was not far away, where indeed his uncles lived; there he went and followed in their footsteps. But when his aforementioned father bade him come out of the monastery, the blessed boy is said to have answered that he would never again see his father’s house. Then the father, turned to stupefaction and grief of mind, began to seek many arguments and to ponder with effort of mind — taking counsel with him of the father of the monastery, no of all the brethren — how they might bring his mind back to them, or make him willing to return to his own. And then the brethren, with the abbot’s consent, assenting to the father’s prayers, began to press the blessed boy to return to his parents and — whenever he wished — to come back again to the monastery’s precincts, adding blandishments to threats, offering kisses and threatening blows and enjoining on him a fast of two or three days. But he, having taken the better counsel — as a foundation upon the rock — remained immovable and unterrified in the resolve his mind had taken, not unmindful of that precept: “He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me”; and that saying of the apostle: “Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or nakedness, or famine?”

³ Then the aforementioned abbot, being now conquered by the insistence of the youth’s mind — perceiving his good and immovable desire, moved by pity and constrained by the fear of God — pondering these things with himself, said to the brethren: “Let us not cast away this which we see has been given us by God.” Then all unanimously with good will and spiritual joy called him within the monastery’s walls to the office of a cleric; and within a few days, his aforementioned father arriving, they established him under the regular order. And as his age and the grace of providence grew, the affection of all toward him grew daily. For he was chaste in body, devout in mind, affable in speech, loveable in aspect, endowed with prudence, distinguished for temperance, firm in inner fortitude, stable in the censure of justice, liberal in long-suffering, robust in patience, gentle in humility, solicitous in charity. Full therefore of good works and grace, he was stable in conduct, so that to his fellow-brethren he was a rule and norm of virtues.

⁴ But amid these things his mind, ever ascending to loftier heights and better capacities, began to seek a pilgrimage for the love of God and to forsake his country and his parents. Then he went to the monastery of the blessed former bishop Unacharius of Auxerre — built in a certain green plot in the suburbs of that city — and there was kindly received by the aforementioned pontiff. For a very long time there, in strictest fasts and prayers and vigils, he led the heavenly life on earth.

⁵ And when the fame of his virtue spread far and wide through various places, a certain noble man, full of riches, named Bobo, came to him devotedly for the sake of visiting him and for his own instruction — and was yet more devotedly received by the servant of God himself. For he so instructed him in divine discourses and fortified him with his prayer that, despising even all care of the world, loving voluntary poverty for God, and neither returning again to his own house nor looking back — but putting his hand to the plough-staff — he came with his master the holy Walaric, in equal fervour of religion, as far as Luxeuil. There the venerable and most holy cultivator of sacred religion, the blessed Columbanus — born in the island of Ireland — was father over nearly 220 monasteries of monks, as is said; in which none called anything his own save daily labours and nightly vigils; to all all things were common — one will and one unwillingness — who had one heart and one soul in God. And having indeed nothing worldly with them save most sparing and mean food and a most humble and simple garment, they possessed Christ. And content with these delights and these cares, they then led an angelic life on earth.

⁶ But of what quality and how great were those who were then governed under one shepherd, it is not for my littleness, I think, now to declare — lest a prolix discourse or rustic diction bring weariness to readers. Yet lest we seem to have passed over everything, let us briefly bring forward his first virtue as we find it in his deeds. For before his mother brought him forth into the airs of light, she saw in her bosom a sun pouring forth light — which the issue of things so proved afterwards, because, like a sun rising from the west returning backwards, he illuminated the regions of Europe scattered about with his splendid and clear teaching. But if anyone wishes to know more curiously and fully what manner and how great a man this blessed one was in the virtues of miracles, or in the knowledge and teaching of the divine and human scriptures, or in presage of things to come, or what and what kind of nations he acquired for the faith of Christ, what monasteries of both sexes he built, and of what quality he was in the skill of dictating and expounding — he will most easily find it if he seeks out those little works which his learned disciple, the abbot Jonas — a great man, full of eloquence and skilled in composition — composed concerning his life in a polished and sufficiently refined style. But while we have briefly and succinctly touched upon what and what manner of man the master and fellow-brother of the blessed Walaric was, we have digressed a little too far from our purpose. But let us now return to expound the life of the man himself, the Lord aiding and he himself interceding.

⁷ When this servant of God lived in the aforementioned monastery of Luxeuil, for humility’s sake first of all — and after the custom of the postulants [novices] — he began to cultivate a garden, in which wonderful and beyond-measure vegetables grew, enough to make one believe. But when it happened, as usually befalls, that the vegetables were everywhere devoured by worms, the blessed Columbanus, entering the venerable man’s garden, not only found no injury there from worms but saw all green, pleasant and lovely and untouched. The man full of God understood that this was no chance event but belonged to the humility and obedience and merit of the blessed Walaric’s faith. But he on the contrary ascribed it not to his own doing, saying that all things were defended by the merits of the brethren. When the blessed father thereafter saw so great grace in him, he bade him be placed among the approved and worthy monks — whom the brethren had hitherto judged should still be reckoned among the postulants as a novice.

⁸ Meanwhile, as the aforementioned father was insisting according to his custom on the divine reading for instructing the brethren, and was sowing among them the seeds of the sacred word with spiritual discourses, and the brethren were running together from every side to hear the word of God, each striving to precede the other — while the blessed Walaric suddenly entered the vestibule of that same house, at his entrance the blessed Columbanus wondrously perceived that an odour of great fragrance and wondrous sweetness had come to him. And when he learned who it was that had then come in, he is said, being full of the divine spirit, to have added these words: “you are deservedly an abbot of a monastery, and an elder to be loved by me.”

⁹ After the aforementioned Columbanus was expelled with his brethren from the foresaid monastery — Theuderic pursuing him, and the enemy and his grandmother Brunhild instigating, who at that time held the kingdom of the Burgundians (the Austrasians’ brother Theudebert reigning; while over the throne of the Neustrians alone as yet a man very fit and well-pleasing to God in manners, King Clothar, was asserting his claim) — the often-mentioned blessed Columbanus had admonished him with his sacred teaching, and had often foretold by prophecy both the enlarging of his kingdom and that the aforementioned kings, rebellious against each other, together with their stock, by God’s just judgement should utterly perish within three years from the realm they had ill usurped, and that their monarchy should be united under this same glorious Clothar.

¹⁰ In the aforementioned Luxeuil, after the blessed man’s departure, certain shepherds had gathered to dwell there; and the blessed Walaric, returning from a certain cell — by the Lord’s power, the laymen being driven out — began to rebuild that holy place. Meanwhile the blessed Eustasius had been sent by the blessed Columbanus to govern that same monastery, when certain laymen still in part occupied the bounds of that monastery. And when a quarrel and strife arose concerning the expulsion of those laymen, then the blessed Eustasius — being himself also adorned with nobility of birth and manners — together with the servant of God Walaric so moved them with his persuasions and mellifluous discourses, the Lord aiding, out of the aforementioned bounds of the monastery, that no scandal arose among them from the contention of those laymen. But when one of the brethren, moved with light mind, wished impatiently to pursue them, the man of the Lord — being of gentle words — restrained him from going. But when he more and more despised the commands given him, then the servant of God said to him: “Son, do not follow them, lest you return to us even with a mark to be noted on you.” And when the aforementioned brother followed them with other companions, a contention arose between them and he was struck on the hand by a stone’s blow — from which he was afflicted with great pain so long that, according to the servant of God’s sentence, his fault appeared in the mark as long as he lived. For that joint which physicians call the auricular and the vulgar the little finger, from the vehemence of the excessive pain had so contracted that it was even dried up to the root.

¹¹ Now a certain one of the brethren named Waldolenus, kindled with a desire, asked the blessed Columbanus to grant him licence to preach among the nations, and to permit the venerable man Walaric to go with him for the solace of fostering religion. To whom the blessed father is said to have answered: “Although you are preparing to hasten for a good thing, son, yet know this: that servant of God whom you seek to go with you is a great man. But beware of this — that you inflict no vexation on him, lest for this you incur the devices of scandal.” And when the blessed Columbanus had granted him this as he had asked, the thing came to pass afterwards as it had been foretold by the saint of God. And when they had come with equal company into Neustria, they approached a certain most noble king, Clothar, and asked him for a remote place to dwell in.

¹² Coming to a certain place of the Amienois, they arrived at Waliniacus [Wailly], where a certain count named Sigobard presided over the assembly — after the manner of the world — which the rustics call a mallus. And when there, as usually happens, a just or unjust sentence was being pronounced upon each man for his evil deeds, it happened that a certain criminal — deservedly condemned to death for his guilt — was already hanging dead on the gallows. And when the blessed Walaric saw him from far away, moved in his bowels as one full of pity, he came with swift course to the stake; and though the executioners forbade him to touch the corpse of the dead man in any way, he — fearless, as a certain one says: “Perfect charity casts out fear” — cut the rope and laid the dead man’s body on the earth with his own hands; and over his upturned limbs he prostrated himself in prayer with tears poured forth abundantly in the utmost zeal of charity, so that he pressed his own face upon the other’s face — and the readier he was in prayer, the sooner he obtained from the Lord what he asked. For while all stood by, no were stupefied, the man who had been dead at once revived unharmed, his limbs gradually warming as from a deep sleep. And when so great a miracle had been presented in the assembly of the people in the president’s presence, then the man of the Lord began to supplicate that him whom God’s pity had raised up, the judge’s goodness might permit to go free wherever he would; but Sigobard, kindled with savage fury, bade him be hanged on the gibbet again. But the servant of God said to him: “Man of God, it is certain that you have already slain him whom the Lord’s power raised up; and unless you hang me myself with him, you shall not otherwise prevail to take him from me. And if perchance you despis to hear me, Christ’s little servant, yet there is the Creator of the world, who spurns none that invokes Him, and will now deign with His wonted pity to hear us striving for His laws.” And when the tyrant had been overcome by these words and prayers, he bade the criminal be released — who lived for many years.

¹³ Nor do we think it worthy of memory to be passed over that the illustrious and God-devoted matron Bertila — who bestowed many good things on them — being of sagacious wit and foreseeing the future, and perceiving the man to be exceeding holy, asked him with suppliant prayer, saying: “This I ask and with most humble prayer earnestly beseech: that if ever, God willing, I — most wretched — shall survive you, I may merit to bury your body as a holy pledge.” And he is said to have answered: “This is done in God’s arbitrament; and let it be done where and as it shall please Him.”

¹⁴ Then the aforementioned king, with the consent of the pontiff of Amiens, granted them by royal precept, according to their petition, a retired place fit for a more remote life and for the habit of monks — which was called by the ancient name Leuconaus. In that same place the aforementioned bishop of Amiens, the blessed Berchund, used to resort during the days of Lent, remote in divine contemplation. There the blessed Walaric shut himself up apart from the brethren in a certain cell, that — all care of the world laid aside — he might after his wonted manner attend only to divine meditation; while the rest of the brethren, building themselves a cell, were seen to have their substance from the king’s alms. The site of the place itself was very suitable. For on one side it is pleasant enough in the neighbourhood of the sea; on the other side runs the fish-bearing river of the Somme; and the part itself is raised upon rocks and huge stones from the depths to the heights — a fabric of halls or dwellings to the lofty summits of the air, offering a great and wonderful spectacle to the world and the neighbouring region; and no less is that region, a third part excelling the rest in the best and fruit-bearing soil, encompassed all round in a great circuit with woods both apple-bearing and most beautiful.

In that same place, therefore, the blessed Walaric wished to hide himself from the tumult of the surrounding people — but the happy fame of his virtues and the examples of good works everywhere made him very clear and renowned, according to that sentence of the Lord: “A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works.” This priest then, according to the prophet, is called in God’s temple a “living stone in the building of God” — who is rightly, as I hear, compared to the adamant, a precious stone whose nature is such that whatever it looks upon, even iron itself it draws to itself. No, the grace which shone in this servant of God’s countenance and words associated very many to him in the work. But his life or the virtues which the Lord wrought through him and daily works can hardly now be numbered by us; only those have we described in this little page in a most brief and summary plain style which we heard from truthful and well-attested men whom he himself taught and nurtured — and some of them he restored to health from various ailments, of whom let us now bring forward one.

¹⁵ A certain one of them, sprung from the region of the river Isère, named Blidmund or Gogus, had been smitten by the ancient enemy and was so loosened in the joints of all his limbs that he could not rise up at all. And when he had been brought and presented to the servant of God, looking on him he said: “This work, O enemy, is your” — and led him apart into his oratory. And when he had laid his hand on him and lifted his eyes to heaven — as the feeble man himself afterwards related — at once an immense pain began to spread itself wherever the servant of God had laid his hand, and as though through certain channels the sickness itself, cast down from his body on every side, at once so departed, the Lord aiding, that in that very hour — the sinews which had dried up being loosed, his hand stretched out to him — He raised him to his own state and, the Lord helping, restored him to whole health. Then those who stood without, smitten with exceeding stupefaction and terror, began together to venerate the priest of God with the highest honour and to bring worthy praises and thanks to God; and the same Blidmund of whom we spoke he afterwards so fully taught and nurtured with his sacred doctrine that he merited to succeed as second and worthy abbot to govern and build that holy place.

¹⁶ Waldolenus, moreover, of whom we made mention above, having received grain and a supply of food which had been granted them by royal gift, it happened — some necessity intervening — that Waldolenus’s brethren asked of the blessed Walaric a part of the meal. But he, as one accustomed to whom nothing was wanting, with a kind mind bade the request be given to them speedily, according to that gospel saying: “Give to every man that asks of you; and to him that has shall be given, and he shall abound”; and that of the psalmist: “They that hope in the Lord shall not lack any good.” But to those carrying it he added this answer: “What you have asked you shall indeed carry away from us; but believe me: by lying ambush of the goad, they shall assuredly not be received back by you.” And when the bearers had presented the obtained meal to their own elder, they found it even as the man of God had foretold it must be returned: for they were very sharply bidden to carry it back from which it had come with all speed.

¹⁷ From bodies possessed he cast out many demons — among whom was one raving, sewn up in a hide. And when they had cast him at his feet, after fasting and prayer he restored him to his former health. To him such men were daily brought; he would shut them up separately in a cell and, worn with fasting and prayer, so restored them, the Lord favouring, to whole health. But there were many to whom he sent blessed bread; and those who were presented before him cried out with great terror of voice and said: “Alas, alas! now that adversary of ours torments us; now Walaric burns us!”

¹⁸ Nor must it be passed over that among his other virtues he is known to have been no less illustrious in the spirit of prophecy. For he frequently checked in public the deeds and secret faults of the absent — so that he made them only the more cautious and blushing for their remaining faults, inasmuch as nothing had remained hidden from him of what they had done contrary to God’s will in his absence. And by this miracle being discovered by many, the disciples and hearers of the word were compelled that, being asked by him, they should hide none of their faults from him — but those to whom they could not at once hide it, themselves reported all to him in public.

¹⁹ Meanwhile there were two brothers who had come to him at the holy feast of St Martin, to whom he said in rebuke: “I wonder why you presumed to drink before the solemnities of the mass.” They, confessing their fault, asked pardon and promised to amend for the rest. Another man coming to him on the Lord’s day he admonished, saying: “Son, you ought not to have done this which you have done today. did you not, when you were putting on your garments in your own house according to custom, look upon your wife — and she reached you a measure full, and you, at once and incautious, presumed to drink before the mass?” But he also, asking pardon, repented before him of what he had unlawfully done.

²⁰ Nor less wonderful is this deed. When a certain illustrious matron had sent him blessed bread by a certain boy at the hour of dinner — that is, bread and flagons — the aforementioned boy, circumvented by greed for food and drink, kept back a part for himself and presented the other part to the servant of God. Who, when he had learned this deed by the divine power, said: “For that which has now been brought us we render thanks to God; but you, son, beware of this — that you take nothing incautiously of that bread or that flask which you have hidden in a certain place, for a serpent is now in that little vessel, and in that bread deadly poison is contained.” Then the boy, stupefied, was at once stiff with terror; and soon returning, he found it even as the servant of God had foretold. For when he had opened the little vessel and seen a snake come out of it, he dared by no means touch that bread; but trembling and confounded at what he had done, returning to the servant of God, he did penance for the deed.

²¹ But this miracle also is to be added. A certain man came to him having that poisonous and deadly ailment near the eye which they call a pustule. And when he had laid the sign of God upon him, he bade him depart and go about his own work; but to one still doubting in faith he said: “Truly, as I see, I perceive you do too little trust yourself concerning your health.” And he added this to him, foretelling the future: “But when you come home, your wife will reach you broth to be taken; but you shall by no means take it — and see you seek no other remedies for this ailment save this sign. For if you shall have done so, you shall indeed escape this now, but while you live you shall bear a certain mark of it.” Which the issue of things proved as he had said. For when his wife offered him the little broth, he took it, and sought besides the horn or some kind of extraction of the poison, whatever he could find. And although, according to the man of God’s sentence, he then escaped death, yet he lost an eye and lived for a time one-eyed. But of the aforementioned ailment what manner and how many the Lord has cured through him — since it is too prolix to run through each, nor, as I think, is it ours to tell you all — yet this we have taken care to note: that whoever came to the servant of God with it, he would at once render them unharmed merely by impressing the sign of the cross and anointing them with the saliva of his mouth, and in that very hour would bid them do the work they wished to do.

²² But let us disclose another miracle to you. When he was returning from a certain place of a prince which is called Augustum — and had been sitting on an donkey in the journey for humility’s sake, often going on foot as the labour required — there was there a great stock, figured with various images and cast into the ground with great force, which was worshipped by the rustics after the manner of the gentiles with excessive cult. And when the confessor of the Lord saw this, at once kindled with zeal for God he said to the boy: “My son, push this, that it may fall to ruin.” The boy, hesitating nothing nor delaying to fulfil the commands, touched it only with his hand — and the immense weight, which a multitude of men could hardly have wrenched out with great force or cut with axes, at the touch of one obedient monk — as though sodden and rotten — fell suddenly to the earth with a huge crash and great impetus and appeared all broken in itself. And this brought to the rustics dwelling in the place no small grief as well as stupefaction in all. But when they ran together from every side in rivalry with arms and cudgels, bearing it indignantly in turn as though to avenge the injury of their god — when they had rushed upon him unanimously in great fury and with extended arms had suspended their blows and strokes in the air — he, ever intrepid and robust in mind, is said to have said to them: “If the Lord permits this, none shall be able to withstand them.” But they on the contrary, terrified, at once repressed by divine will from their intent, departed from him. And when they had been thus dismissed, the priest, inspired with the divine spirit, began to instruct them that, leaving their idols, they should serve the almighty Lord; and in that same place they afterwards built a basilica in honour of the blessed Walaric beside a certain spring in which he is said to have bathed — where very many benefits are conferred by the Lord on those who ask with right faith.

²³ Nor must that be passed over by us which he did for a certain boy, Ursinus, who was of a sufficiently high lineage — a kinsman of a certain most noble Maurontius, who himself also excelled all the highest nobles of the palace and the dignity of the royal hall at that time by his wit; but he obtained yet greater things, since he had left a very beautiful bride for Christ’s sake and, all dignity of the world laid aside, followed the footsteps of the heavenly Lord. But let us pursue what Walaric did for the aforementioned Ursinus. When a great wound had grown upon him near the haunch, the peril of death was already hanging over him. His father indeed bore a mind hard enough and incredible to believe; but his kinsfolk took care — whose mind was then sounder and faith more robust — that the boy should be presented before the presence of the often-mentioned blessed man. And when he had touched that wound with his own hands, at once that sickness departed from him.

²⁴ A certain noble man came to him, beseeching him to heal his son named Audobert — who, afflicted with the ailment of dysentery by now long weariness, was held more by unhappy pain than by life, expecting only his last and desired hour: that even if perchance he wished not this, he might at least merit to be delivered by him to burial. But the blessed man said to him: “He who raised that four-days-dead man already stinking from the tomb can assuredly restore health to this one also, still breathing with the vital spirit in the top of his little breast.” And when he had touched him with his sacred hands, then the man himself who stood there half-alive — and had taken no food of the flesh for many days before — is said to have cried out and asked of his father that he might take food as quickly as possible. And no long delay intervening, he who had been brought to the servant of God by his parents’ hange was carried back home rejoicing together with his father on a horse — the divine remedy intervening; who afterwards is said to have led a long and religious life.

²⁵ Nor must this be passed over by us: what the heavenly and divine vengeance did for him while he was yet dwelling in this mortal life. And by this it is plainly given us to understand that he who provokes Christ’s servants provokes not only them but the Lord Himself who dwells in them — who says: “He that hears you hears Me, and he that despises you despises Me”; and again says: “He that remains in Me, and I in him.” And therefore the wrath of the just is so much the more to be feared, inasmuch as we know the almighty Judge and Lord to be present in them. For when the aforementioned friend of God was returning from a certain place called Caldi to the monastery’s precincts in winter-time, it happened that for the exceeding austerity of the cold he turned aside with his companions into the dwelling of a certain priest to warm himself. But they, who ought to have venerated so great and excellent a guest with choice cult — that they might merit to be instructed by his sacred discourse, as was his custom — began instead to speak filthy and dishonest, no luxurious and womanish words, together with the judge of that place, to the servant of God boldly and stubbornly. But he on the contrary, as he was custom, laid the salutary remedies of the divine word on men’s putrid and corrupt scars. For he said to them: “Sons, have you not heard that in the gospel: of every idle word we shall render account in the day of judgement?” But they, despising his precept, boiled over more and more in unsuitable and most shameless speeches — as it is said: “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” But he added: “I wished indeed, on account of the rigour of the cold, to refresh my little body a while by the fire; but I am hindered by your most wicked words — no, I am now compelled to go out from you even unwarmed.” And as he went out of that house, he forgot not that precept: he shook the dust there from his feet and directed his journey to the appointed place. But the divine vengeance soon followed those unhappy and wanton speakers of whom we have often spoken. For that priest, who had neglected to foresee rightly for himself or others, suddenly lost the light of his eyes; and to the foresaid judge of the place his manly parts at once withered. And when they perceived that they had been smitten by God’s judgement — though led by late repentance — they besought with the greatest humility and with beseeching words that the servant of God would deign to enter that house again. But he assented nothing to their prayers. For the one remained in his blindness, and the other — his body contracted and his genitals putrefying — departed from this fleeting world.

²⁶ And deservedly did he shine in such great and such virtues, whose life we have learned to have been full also of divine grace — as we have touched in briefest relation with compunction on the little page of this book. For from his mother’s womb he remained a virgin in body; but his humility and benignity exceeded beyond human measure. For he was so full of divine grace and compunction that as many times as he had paid out the talent of divine understanding entrusted to him to the ears of disciples, or as often as he saw heaven singing psalms in spirit and mind or poured forth prayer prostrate on the ground — so many times also he wept. Who could recount the nightly vigils, the poured-out and furtive prayers which he greatly loved among the thickets of briars and through the hollows of valleys? Or what shall I say of those peculiar and copious prayers which, shut in his chamber, he often exercised, meditating on God alone? His little bed, woven of twigs, was covered with a mean enough small covering — using only a tunic with a short cloak, and requiring no linen garments. The course of psalmody, both monastic and Gallican, he celebrated with great zeal unceasingly; and when he had performed it thus twofold, then indeed he relaxed his feeble limbs to a little sleep. But the intent of his mind was such that no time was vacant to idleness in which he did not insist either on reading or prayer or the works of his own hands. And though he was liberal and kind to all altogether, yet he exercised this more toward the poor and needy and the household of faith — even so far as to give them the garment from his own shoulders. But food also and the rest of the brethren’s substance — thinking nothing of the next day — he gave to everyone that asked; and lest the brethren should be grieved thereby, he refreshed them with bland and consolatory words, saying: “Sons, follow this and know for certain and hold it proved: that whoever gives with a cheerful mind necessaries to those who ask — whatever he also shall ask as necessary, he shall sooner obtain from the Lord.” But this same thing he confirmed not only in words but also in deeds: to his aforementioned brethren, the Lord administering and he praying, all things were brought them abundantly from every side.

²⁷ So great was the gentleness of the divine mercy in him that little birds often took food in his hand without fear; and with his fingers, whenever he would, he stroked them forgetful of their wildness and as though they were domestic. And when the brethren coming to him were affrighted and the birds were present flying about on every side, he would say to them: “Sons, let us do them no injury, but let them be sated a little with the crumbs.” And when the brethren drew back at the father’s command, the birds came flying on swift wing from every side in rivalry, that after their wonted manner they might take again and again the food brought them from the servant of God’s hand.

²⁸ Toward the brethren themselves also so great a benign pity was in him that if he had bidden any of the juniors to be scourged for any faults whatever, he frequently bade that even this should not be done — but calling him to him he would admonish him blandly and gently, saying: “Son, beware of this and now take heed to yourself — what and how great an injury you could now suffer; but for your amendment let this shame alone suffice you, that you admit this vice no further.” And very many he restrained from crime by his mellifluous teaching in this way more than the dire scourges of angry others restrained them.

²⁹ And he was cheerful of countenance, composed in speech, of stature excellent, tall and slender, palms thin and extended, with most slender and lengthy fingers, eyes most beautiful and aspect delightful — his face very pale and wasted with leanness; for frequently in the whole week he took no food save on the Lord’s day, using neither wine nor strong drink nor anything that can intoxicate, though on the arrival of guests he would taste of all these cups in the love of charity. And so he fed his soul on the wasting of the body, yet omitted nothing ever of the office committed to him. But when the Lord through him gave the grace of healings to various ailments or he pronounced future and hidden things, then the cheeks of his countenance shone with a roseate colour in a wondrous splendour of light — so that by this it was plainly given all to understand that what we say was done or spoken through him was done by the Lord aiding and the Holy Spirit co-working. And these things being so wrought, he was now prosperously hastening to a blessed and happy end.

Here Begins the Passing of Saint Walaric the Abbot, on the Kalends of April #

³⁰ On a certain day by chance, when coming from a certain cell he had entered the cloister of his monastery on the Lord’s day, going up to the top of the mount to a certain tree which was everywhere hedged about with briars — where the man full of God used to exercise apart the furtive prayers worthy of God which we have often mentioned — and when certain brethren stood before him there, fixing two little stakes before them he marked out the measure of one space of stature and said to them: “When I shall have departed from this present light, bury me in this place.” And as had been foretold, so it quickly came to pass. For on another Lord’s day next following, the burden of the flesh laid aside, he migrated to Christ. And beneath that same tree of which we spoke — in which the blessed Berchund, as he himself used to relate, used to hang the relics of saints — he was buried in the same place, as he himself had foretold. Nor would this have remained unknown to us had it not been revealed by the divine power before certain days to one already consecrated with apostolic relics. From this it is plainly given us to understand that both his death and the place were foreshown him by God.

³¹ But these things being thus performed — what and what kind of signs of miracles the divine power wrought through him after his departure from this life — lest we seem to have passed over all, let us relate a few out of many in briefest narration, as we purposed, for those wishing to know: not those fabulously told by many, but those which we have learned to have been confirmed by truthful witnesses — and those especially which we found written by the venerable and learned Abbot Raginbert, with pious zeal and religious labour, in a prolix diction indeed but a simple and unadorned edition.

³² A certain girl for nearly the course of three years had been bereft of the light of her eyes, whom her parents took care to bring to the aforementioned place of the servant of God. And when she had drawn near to its bounds, she said to them: “What is this that I see shining so far off, brighter than light?” And they answered: “It is the oratory of the lord Walaric.” And so she rendered praises to God and — rejoicing — received her clear sight.

³³ But let us bring also this miracle to those still thirsting. In a certain place named Augusta — where the stock of that idol had, as we said above, been broken at the command of the man of God — the inhabitants of that place had already built a basilica there in God’s name for the aforementioned servant of God. Beside which, when by chance on a certain day certain women were journeying, one of them went before the others and, having gained for herself a prayer, said in exhortation to the companions following: “Descend from your vehicles in this holy place and ask with prayer for our misdeeds; and having recovered your strength a little, drink now of your cups, and so at last with joy, the Lord aiding, let us go on to the appointed places.” But she who seemed to be first among them, despising to attend to prayer there — sitting upon the vehicles — hastened without delay with her daughter to the place where they had purposed. And when they were conversing with one another, then the daughter with indignation began to speak thus to her mother: “O sweet mother, O ever my only hope — is it he whom the inhabitants of that place essay to venerate, whom before these years we saw sitting on an donkey in a despicable habit?” To whom she answering said: “To this man indeed, as you say, daughter, do the rustics wish to make a memorial — whose works seemed to us vile and worthy of contempt.” Then amid their foolish and vain colloquies, the legs of the daughter began to be bound as with the rigour of paralysis by excessive pain. And when she had made this known to her mother grieving, the mother stood stiff with stupefaction, asking what this was or what it might mean. Then together they pondered and revolved in mind what they had done or said that same day concerning the aforementioned prayer of the holy man. Then at last — although constrained, yet with great humility, no smitten with exceeding terror — they returned with utmost haste to the foresaid oratory of the man of God; and there, the elation and pride of mind laid aside, they lay prostrate so long in weeping and lamentation, asking pardon for what had been done — until, the Lord favouring, who is near to all that call upon Him, her aforementioned daughter received whole health.

³⁴ But after his blessed departure from this light, as we have said, the human condition so submerged itself in the holy monastery that the necessity urged those monks to go from there — which is accustomed to profit pious souls, as it is said: “They that will live godly in Christ must suffer tribulations.” Leaving the place for a time, following also that gospel word: “If they persecute you in one city, flee into another” — and when that place had been reduced to solitude, the blessed pontiff Berchund, moved by divine love, essayed to bring that holy deposit to his own city with great triumph; but when, prayer being made, he had bidden the holy body be dug up, they could prevail nothing. Then the aforementioned pontiff: “Let us pray,” said he, “to the Lord; for I fear lest the impossibility of the work should come upon us in some way.” And when he had attended more intently to prayer and they had twice and thrice essayed the effort of lifting — prevailing nothing — then, raised up by divine inspiration, the successor Blidmund was brought forward, whom the servant… [some MSS.: “…whom the servant of God had healed of his sickness, as we said above. As, living in body, he ever loved the desert and that same place, so also dead he had disposed it — there his disciple Blidmund laid him.”]

³⁵ Blidmund, then, being at that time in Bobbio under the obedience of the blessed abbot Athala — whose deeds are written — often humbly asked of him that he would grant him leave to dwell at that place in France where the blessed Walaric was buried in the desert, for the sake of devotion and visiting; which he by no means obtained from him at that time. But as he persevered in prayers, the blessed Athala — after a certain course of years, being afflicted with a sickness — lay infirm. Then on a certain day, as the blessed Athala was going to church, that aforementioned monk supported his feeble limbs — the same who had often asked him to visit the cell of St Walaric. And he himself related that, as they walked together, it seemed to him that not only Athala’s mind but his very limbs, sustained by him, were suspended with him in the air a little space of about three feet from the ground. Then Athala said to him: “My son, what you did formerly ask of us — now have licence to walk and visit.” And when he, not at once understanding, said: “My lord, where or where do you bid me go?” the holy Athala added: “You — to the place of St Walaric, for which you have often asked — take now from us, God willing, licence to go. For I see him to be in exceeding brightness, and this has befallen me to ask — that I also may merit to enter into so great glory.” And by this it is plainly given to understand that while the one still lived in the body, the other was seen set in eternal glory. And the colloquy of words being ended, after a little interval he departed to the Lord.

³⁶ Then the often-mentioned monk, whom the blessed Walaric had taught, came to the aforementioned place Leuconaus as he had been admonished by the holy man — in which he led for nearly the space of a year a hermit’s and barren life. Then the aforementioned man Blidmund asked both of the glorious king Clothar and of the pontiff who then was of the Amienois, that he would give such precept and licence that he might build a monastery there. Then, the idols and gentile rites being destroyed there, the man of the Lord Blidmund — who was also the second abbot in that same place — took care, the almighty Lord aiding and with the help of the neighbouring Christians, to build there both a monastery and a church of wondrous size adorned with exceeding splendour. The peoples therefore running together from every side asking with right faith — his merits there grow bright with great virtues, by the grant of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the eternal God the Father and with the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God for ever and ever. Amen.

Here ends the Life of St Walaric.