Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti, saec. II (Mabillon, 1669) — the anonymous near-contemporary Life of St Agilus (Aile), first abbot of Rebais, with two books of Miracles and the historical elogium of St Donatus of Besançon; translated into modern British English.

By an anonymous near-contemporary author. From the MSS. of the Historia Tornatiensis.

Mabillon’s Preliminary Observations (condensed) #

1. Peter Ernest Chifflet, S.J., a learned man, published the Life of St Agilus some years ago in his Probata ad Historiam Tornatiensem; we here exhibit the same Life, with two books of Miracles, taken from ancient manuscripts — concerning whose author, age, and authority we must inquire.

2. The anonymous writer gives us three characters of his date: two in the preface — Bishop Ragnemund and Abbot Aygloald — and a third from the age of St Donatus, bishop of Besançon, by whose report he testifies he received the miracle related in chapter 7.

3. It is altogether probable that Ragnemund was bishop of the see of Meaux and Aygloald then abbot of the monastery of Rebais. In the fuller Gallia Christiana the catalogue of the abbots of Rebais is wanting, and in the common wish of the bishops of Meaux no place is found for a Ragnemund. Of the prelates of that see after St Faro we must speak briefly. Hildegar, bishop of Meaux, in the Life of St Faro here edited, affirms that he sat sixteenth after Faro (c. 64). Yet in the Gallia Christiana the Sammarthani reckon Hildegar in the seventeenth place; so that either that catalogue is redundant in one, or Hildegar’s reckoning must be diminished. Perhaps our Ragnemund is the same as Raginard or Ragemar, who is reckoned eighth bishop after St Faro.

4. A more certain reckoning of time is drawn from the age of St Donatus, whom the panegyrist of St Agilus produces in c. 7. For St Donatus held the see of Besançon from about A.D. 625, when he subscribed the Council of Rheims held under Sonnatius, to A.D. 652, when he seems to have died. From where a scruple arises: could the panegyrist of St Agilus have seen Donatus, or did he rather receive the narrative of chapter 7 from Donatus’s report, handed down by word or writing?

5. Certainly — to dissemble nothing — certain faults occur in this Life which mark the writer as later than the seventh century. Among these, Sadalberga or Salaberga is falsely said in c. 12 to have preserved her virginity inviolate — whereas it is certain from her own Life that she had several children. The opinion also about the three sons of Autharius in c. 14 could be adduced, sufficiently refuted by the learned Hadrian Valesius in Rerum Francorum lib. 18, and to be discussed by us in its place. Yet we hold the author otherwise faithful — save that the opinion of the hundred-year age of Blessed Agilus cannot be reconciled with the Life of St Filibert. Of the monastery of Rebais a few words must be said.

6. We assign the beginnings of the monastery of Rebais to A.D. 634 — the dedication of the church and the institution of Agilus as abbot to A.D. 636, with Charles Le Cointe. For both befell under King Dagobert, while Audoin and Eligius were still laymen, as appears from the Life itself, cc. 16–17; and so Agilus was instituted abbot by Dagobert at the Synod of Clichy, held A.D. 636. The monastery of Rebais — vulgarly Rebais, once called Jerusalem — is set in the most pleasant plain of the pagus Brie, between two rivers of the same name flowing at little distance: one called Little Morin or Reptiacus, the other simply Morin; situated, I say, with the township of Rebais, upon the brook Resbacus — by Jonas in the Life of St Columbanus and others mistakenly called a river, though it is a rill produced by rain-waters that often dries up. That monastery was once celebrated and famous. From it proceeded St Filibert, abbot of Jumièges, and St Reolus, archbishop of Rheims — who, as Flodoard testifies (Hist. Rem. II.10), built the monastery of Orbais and obtained from the monastery of Rebais six monks to keep the discipline of the holy Rule there and teach others. Among its abbots the most distinguished were Warin, monk of old Corbie and abbot of new Corbie; Natalis, chancellor of King Louis VII of France, afterwards a monk of Cluny under Peter Mauricius; and Peter Palmarius, afterwards archbishop of Vienne, buried in the same monastery in a place unknown, who in 1520 is said to have carried out the translation of St Autharius. Of the other abbots read the two books of Miracles which we have adjoined to this Life with some miracles omitted. The monastery of Rebais was a few years ago attached to our Congregation of St Maur.

The Author’s Prologue to Abbot Aygloald #

Your prelating Charity urges me with many admonitions, venerable Abbot Aygloald — at the instance of the lord bishop Ragnemund — to write the Life of the blessed confessor of Christ Agilus: a work compendious and not difficult, yet useful to the churches and worthy of the praise of celebrity. For although I am insufficient for the performance of this work, I fear more to appear disobedient, lest I wrap in a napkin the talent, however small, entrusted to me, which through it I ought as a faithful servant to have multiplied to the Lord. Moreover, remembering that the combats — no, the triumphs — of the saints ought to be manifested, that the immense majesty of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, worshipped more gloriously by the angels in heaven, may be most powerfully venerated by the faithful on earth; I earnestly pray, venerable Bishop and Abbot, to be aided by the suffrages of your prayers, that I may worthily write of the merits and virtues of the most blessed Agilus, which I have learned as true by common report — who, while this present life animated his limbs, happily merited to obtain eternal glory.

Here Begins the Life #

1. (a. 590) While Childebert son of King Sigebert held the sceptre — he who in the flower of youth and the ornament of wisdom governed Burgundy and Austrasia — there was a certain one of the chief nobles of the palace, sprung from the most noble birth in the territory of Portus, named Agnoald, the same king’s guest and counsellor; whose wife, sprung from the illustrious stock of the Burgundians and most famous for the praise of goodness, was called Deuteria, who from the rudiments of infancy had received the doctrines of the Catholic faith. Both were sublime in nobility of birth, but more sublime in the height of religion. For they were rich in the wealth of the world, but most lavish distributors of alms, followers of hospitality, such solicitous entertainers of the poor and pilgrims that they could truly say with Job: “The stranger did not lodge in the street” [Job 31:32], and “I denied not what the poor desired” [Job 31:16]. They comforted the hearts of mourning widows, so that with the same they could say: “I comforted the heart of the widow.” The bitter sadness of orphans they sweetened with honeyed (so to speak) blandishments. And that evangelical saying they ever spoke of, which the Lord shall say to those set on His right hand in the judgement: “I was sick, and you visited me” [Mt. 25:36]; and they relieved their want with great zeal.

Note a: The author seems to signify the place in c. 3 — that the vicus is midway between Luxeuil and the vicus of St Porcus — where Columbanus is read to have met Agnoald; forti Vitleri, perhaps Pont-sur-Saône in the County of Burgundy, as Francis Chifflet interprets.

At the same time the man of reverend religion, Columbanus by name, had come from Ireland into the Gauls under Christ’s leading, desiring by the divine will to obtain from the aforementioned king’s serenity a place where he might build a monastery of monastic religion. While then he carefully meditated and asked himself which of the palace courtiers he should approach to present him to the present king and unfold his wish to his highness’s clemency (if perhaps he might obtain what he desired in the fervour of faith), he resolved with vehement zeal to approach the aforementioned prince Agnoald, and commended to him himself and his prayer. Who, at once receiving the secret of such a desire as committed to him divinely, speedily intimated it to the king, made Columbanus acceptable to him, and most urgently begged that he would hear his petition. And the king, pleased with the modesty of his magnanimity concerning such a speech, most willingly granted what was asked, and moreover promised magnificently to bestow what was not yet asked. For there was a fortress within the bounds of the vast wilderness called the Vosges, once dedicated to the worship of fanatical rites but then ruined to the ground — which the inhabitants of that forest, though by an unknown presage, named Luxeuil. The most benign Agnoald, considering it could be speedily restored, and seeing the site fit for an army of monks — no, understanding by the prerogative of faith and illuminated with wisdom that the place ought to be consecrated to God, so that where the ancients once worshipped fane by profane rite, there the altars and banners of Christ might be raised and the Mysteries celebrated — obtained by his prayers from the king’s sublimity that the dwelling of God’s soldiers should be perpetually assigned by a written instrument; wherein, under blessed Columbanus’s institution, the recruits of the heavenly King might fight against the airy powers, whom after various exercises of virtues Christ would render as stout warriors and triumphant, conspicuous with the palm of glory in the eternal light of paradise.

2. Meanwhile the most prudent Agnoald, though entangled in the manifold affairs of the king’s court — by whose industry all the offices of the palace were administered and the complaints of the whole kingdom terminated by his most equitable judgement — yet inspired from heaven together with his most devout wife, procured to feed his inner man with the food of the divine word, and frequently discoursed of the doctrine of the Lord’s commandments in assiduous disputations. Therefore, inspired by the holy Spirit, among other colloquies he used to speak that evangelical word: “We must render to God the things that are God’s, and to the king the things that are the king’s.” And if ever they deserved to entertain a disputant of spiritual doctrine, then they congratulated themselves with the greatest exultation that they were happy and visited of God. It came to pass that they caused blessed Columbanus to abide with them some while in the villa called Honorifactus. For besides all other abundance of dignities, they had a dear offspring, a boy of seven years and of good disposition, whom for the swift movements of the infant they named Agilus — over whom, as heir and survivor, they rejoiced happy.

Him therefore, led by the love of piety, they asked to be armed with blessed Columbanus’s blessings and strengthened with the bulwark of his prayers. And he, giving his blessing, foreshowed by the proclamation of truth that the same son would be such a one as should show many the way of salvation and shine glorious in Christ’s militia — as the truth afterwards made evident. For the heavenly majesty granted to blessed Columbanus such grace that whomever he consecrated by his blessing, their last day found them persevering in good worship. Therefore by manifold exhortation he persuaded both parents to vow to God that offspring under the norm of monastic religion. From where it happened that, assenting to his words by divine instinct, he whom they desired to be their survivor deserved to become the heir of God and co-heir of Christ.

Note b: Not Sigebert’s, but rather Guntram’s — as we have proved in the Life of St Columbanus. Hence they are manifestly refuted who compute Agilus’s age from A.D. 580, and who wrongly place Columbanus’s coming into Gaul in A.D. 578 — as we observed in his Life. And even if we granted that, Agilus’s age must still be reckoned later, since he was offered as a boy to B. Columbanus in the monastery of Luxeuil, whose beginnings must be referred to A.D. 590.

3. (a. 590) Then the wished-for day arrived, on which the pious father, fulfilling his vow and accomplishing his desire, offered his dear son to God most devoutly at the sacred altars in the aforementioned monastery [Luxeuil], enriching him with the good of various furnishings, no solemnly bestowing by the decree of a testament from his own dominion a numerous estate of lands and meadows. Thus the laudable Agilus, entering upon the age of boyhood, was committed to Eustasius, a man of approved religion, to be instructed in sacred letters with the other sons of noble men who afterwards became prelates of churches: namely Agnoald and Waldibert, sons of his uncle Hagneric, who were famous as regular masters for building and teaching in the monastery which their sister Fara built on her father’s soil between Alba and Moera in the place called Eboriacus [Faremoutiers] — of whom one was ordained bishop of Lyons, the other of the city of Meaux [i.e., Burgundofaro’s brothers]; also Agarius, who was bishop of the Vermandois and of Noyon and Tournai; and Ragnachar, who shone as an eminent bishop of the church of Autun; and Agilbert, who flourished as the laudable pastor of Boulogne and of the town of Thérouanne. To Eustasius the aforementioned Agilus was committed more dearly than all these; so that in him the acumen of doctrine and religion shone above the rest. For, more thoroughly imbued with the liberal disciplines, he instructed many by his eloquence, illustrated very many with the purity of the Catholic faith, and rendered not a few fit for the profession of sacred religion by the most illustrious examples, the pomp of loftiness set aside.

4. When therefore he reached the years of puberty, he gave himself not as a sluggard but as an exercised soldier to spiritual increase — free for reading, insistent in prayers, macerating his flesh with fastings, afflicting it with vigils, vying to pay obedience to all, showing humility to all. By these and such-like pursuits the lover of chastity, striving, became comely to all — lovely not only to his kindred but especially acceptable to the courtiers of the palace.

5. Meanwhile the magnanimous Agnoald paid the debt of human flesh and rested in peace; and blessed Columbanus, driven by the expulsion of King Theuderic through the guile of the most wicked Brunhild, was in the twentieth year after he began to restore the monastery in the vast wilderness forcibly removed from it and pressed to return to his native soil. And the aforementioned Eustasius, a man proved by the experience of all religion, though he strove with all his might to refuse, was at last unwillingly substituted as his successor. There exists moreover a book of the life and virtues of the aforementioned father Columbanus: to him we refer the reader who wishes to know his merits, pursuing what we have begun.

6. Therefore, as the time demanded and prudent provision suggested, it was decreed by the consent of the brethren that the worthy Agilus should be directed to Queen Brunhild, who was abiding with her grandson Theuderic in the palace called Bruchariacus. For she was especially hostile to the often-named Columbanus on account of this cause — that he repelled the approach of women from the aforementioned monastery — and he who was her king had contradicted her in this. On which account an edict had been issued, fortified with royal indignation, that all dwelling under the institution of the pious father Columbanus should be so confined within the monastery’s bounds that room should be given to none to go abroad. The affable Agilus, then, receiving the command, set out. But when he was not yet far from the monastery and was approaching the village called Justiacus [Jussey], there came upon him with great fury a flagitious youth, nephew of Duke Wandalenus, with his attendants, who under pretence of hunting, on report received, were watching the exits of the monastery like robbers.

7. He, stretching forth his arm, strove to strike the wondrous man with his sword; but Agilus, the terror removed, opposed the banner of the Cross — and at once the nephew’s arm stiffened, and remained as inflexible as it had been stretched, so that no man could draw the sword from his fist, nor could he himself move a foot from the place. All being astounded, the unhappy man — who was deservedly tormented — all trembling, with tearful sobs and prayers, his head cast down, begged that he would at least pity his shame and pain. Wondrous to tell: the holy Agilus, moved by the weeping prayers, took the solace of faith and prayer, and after the space of about three hours, when he touched the dried arm, at once the former vigour returned and all strength came back — but the flesh of the palm followed the sword-hilt as it had clung to it, and blood flowed through the nails. Moreover — as Donatus then a monk, afterwards bishop of the city of Besançon, reported to me, who was present as yet a youth when these things were done — blessed Agilus anointed that palm with saliva, prayer, and the sign of the Cross, and at once the flesh with the skin was restored to health as if it had never been corrupted. And the presumer of this crime, who had seemed bold to himself and to his madness, seized with repentance, leaving the military gown, put on Christ’s garment, warring for God under monastic profession in the aforementioned monastery.

8. Therefore the report of this miracle — than which nothing is swifter, as Maro says — going before, had filled the royal walls, and the most illustrious Agilus presented himself to the sight of both, bringing the brethren’s supplications to their serenity; when suddenly both — the king and queen — the loftiness of the world laid aside, prostrated themselves with contrite spirit on the ground before his feet, asking indulgence for the rashness they had committed against the holy men; and with humble speech professed that they had sinned in this necessity, in that they had impiously afflicted the servants of God — relating also the miracle of the palm wrought the day before through blessed Agilus in the power of Christ, which he himself had vehemently asked to be concealed and thought happily to hide. When this was done, they both most famously enriched that monastery with royal gifts — the king with villas and servants, the queen with ecclesiastical ornaments of wondrous workmanship. They moreover wrote testaments of royal munificence concerning the often-named monastery, whereby the servants of God might from then on remain quietly through passing times in perseverance of the divine worship, the approach of women being removed.

9. In the same time King Chlothar, in the third year after the often-named Columbanus departed from the monastery — as Columbanus himself had said by the prophetic spirit — having vanquished the two kings, alone obtained the monarchy of the three kingdoms [a. 613]. He, being exalted on the throne of the three kingdoms, decreed by the excellence of his highness with synodal authority to send forth the most expert men, strong in the knowledge of strenuousness, who should recall to the bosom of holy mother Church the neighbouring peoples deceived by the doctrine of false error, with the Lord’s help, and evangelise with shining eloquence those to whom Christ had not yet been announced. From the assembly indeed of many bishops and priests the most prudent Agilus was chosen for the aforementioned work together with Abbot Eustasius. Entering upon the road of this journey, Christ helping, they hastened to preach to the Warasci [the Gascons]; who, deceived by the fane of the rustics which the common people call Fauns, and seduced by the error of the Gentiles, had fallen into the perfidy of Photinus or Bonosus, infected by whose virus — these, their error driven away, they made true worshippers of Christ, reconciled to mother Church. From there, their course directed, they came to the Bolae, whom the inhabitants of that land call the Bodotri [? the Bédat/Béarnais], and after much labour, imbuing them with the dogmas of the Catholic faith, converted very many of them to the faith of Christ.

Note: Read Jonas’s Life of St Eustasius, who calls Agilus “Aielus” — “who,” he says, “was afterwards abbot of the monastery of Rebais.” Jonas was writing after A.D. 643.

10. (a. 630) On a certain day while blessed Agilus was on the same journey, the often-named abbot following his footsteps and performing the melody of the psalms as was the custom, there met them at the gate of the city of Metz a man vexed by the perturbation of an unclean spirit. Who, when he drew near from far away, began with deformed countenance and obscene gestures horribly to cry out, saying: “Agilus, bravest soldier of Christ and legate of the heavenly King, why do you forejudge me, or therefore do you increase my immense torments? See, at your coming I have left the peoples whom I possessed for a long time, unable to endure your prayers — and now you do cast me out hence.” To this the holy man and most worthy of veneration said: “I command you, unclean spirit, to depart from this creature of God, and to have no more place in him in whom the King and eternal Saviour Jesus Christ has prepared for Himself a dwelling through the basin of regeneration.” At this word, sending forth a horrible howl, there was seen at once to bubble from his mouth a breath of bloody and pitchy colour with horrible stench. Therefore, rendered lifeless, by the intercession of the most illustrious Agilus, the demon being put to flight, he was soon restored to health.

11. And when, proceeding from there, they returned to the monastery of Luxeuil, they came to a certain most powerful man named Gondoin. He was splendid with the pride of nobility and an enormous wealth of dignity, and a kinsman of the most blessed Agilus by the tie of consanguinity; and was then abiding in the villa which they call Mosam, from the river on which it stands [the Meuse]. For seeing the most holy men and apostles of Christ, he received them most dutifully, accepting as it were the most grateful gift, and kept them with him for some days. When they had entered his house, the blessing being given first, after many discourses of spiritual doctrine, two sons of the same man were offered to them for blessing to the Lord — whom, consecrating with their blessings, they designated by true prophecy both to flourish in worldly dignity and happily to migrate to the future life, as was afterwards most evidently shown.

12. The aforementioned man also had a daughter named Sadalberga, deprived of the light of her eyes. When therefore the father besought with suppliant prayer that the holy men would aid her with the help of prayer — recalling that they were sent for this, that Christ’s power might be more manifested through them and the faith of believers strengthened — they inquired of the girl whether she would dedicate her virginity to God and keep the same vow inviolably, if the divine majesty restored to her the light of her eyes. And she professed both. Then the holy men together with the girl celebrated a fast of three days in sacred prayers. And on the third day after the solemnities of the Mass, the most blessed Agilus anointed her eyes with blessed oil, fortifying them with the sign of the Cross in the power of Christ. A wondrous thing: in that very moment the same virgin, the darkness put to flight, received most clear sight; and receiving the sacred veil most devoutly, preserved inviolably the virginity which she had vowed.

The author errs: for Salaberga, as she is called, was joined in a second marriage and had several children, as is read in her Life below.

13. From there also, as the venerable Agilus was departing, a fiery fever most violently inflamed him, so that none doubted he was breathing his last spirit. Seeing which, the aforementioned Eustasius applied with the utmost zeal his solicitude to his affliction — so that, resuming his former studies, he bore the name of abbot that the office of a bearer might not be blotted out. From where, walled about with double anguish — since he neither saw the fires of the burning brother cooled nor wished to return without him — he addressed him with such speech: “Beloved brother Agilus, whom from a boy, for the love of your noble parents at the request of the pious father Columbanus, I piously educated, chastely nurtured, and modestly taught: now I admonish you, the pursuits of this sorrowful life cast aside, to commit all your hope to God alone, to whom you cleave — no, strive greatly that you may be able to resist the princes of darkness with His help. Nor do I doubt, I believe beyond doubt, that He is able to free you from this sickness who added fifteen years to the life of King Hezekiah.” And as dawn of day was breaking, the matins praises finished as was the custom, the venerable Agilus poured forth this prayer from the recesses of his mind: “Be present to me, O Lord, who brought me into this light and made me to be reborn by Your holy baptism; stretch forth the hand of Your goodness and deliver me from this sickness, my God, for you are He that reigns for ever and save them that hope in You.” His prayer therefore finished, sleep seized his faint and fevered limbs, and half-waking he saw standing by him a youth of excellent form in shining clothing, who laid his right hand upon his breast and said: “Agilus, my dear one, whom from your mother’s womb I have kept incorrupt from every stain of noxious pollution and will keep until in the full age of your years I receive you — I am with you. Do what you do by my gift, and I will be with you; cast off your languor and arise.” With this word all his sickness departed from him, his former health returning by the divine medicine.

14. At that time King Chlothar rested in peace, the goal of human life attained [a. 628], and Dagobert his son took up the kingdom of the Franks to rule as his father had held it. In his reign three brothers, sons of the illustrious man Autharius, of the illustrious Frankish progeny, citizens of Soissons, were held there very dear — whom indeed the often-named Columbanus, when they were still little children, at both parents’ petition, while he dwelling some while with them in the villa called Vuldiacus [Rufus?], had blessed. Of these brothers the elder by birth, named Ado, abdicated himself with his own pleasures and possessions; no, on his own soil within the Jura forest, by the help of his brother the venerable Audoin, built a monastery upon the river Marne, to which he gave the name Jotrum [Jouarre], and endowed most liberally from his own goods — in which he also warred for the heavenly King Christ under the institutes of blessed Columbanus with a company of the greatest illustrious religion. Moreover the second, Rado, having the treasures of the aforementioned king under his care, had committed his soul — redeemed at an inestimable price, a pearl — to the heavenly treasuries; and accordingly built a monastery on the aforementioned river in his own patrimony, which he named Radolium [Reuil] from his own name. The younger also, the venerable Audoin surnamed Dado, was constituted referendary to the aforementioned king, most amiable among the courtiers — bearing his ring with which were sealed the more important public acts and edicts of the whole realm. While therefore he dwelling constantly in the palace, he joined to himself blessed Eligius — who among the rest of the kingdom’s nobles shone in wisdom, work, and virtues — with the bond of unanimous love. Therefore, using his counsel, he laboured by the effort of unalterable zeal to constitute a monastery within the forest of Brie in remote places at his own cost.

Jonas in the Life of St Columbanus mentions only two sons of Autharius, who is venerated in the vicus Vuldiacus, vulgarly Rufy — in the territory over the river Marne near the town of Meaux, on the 7th of the Kalends of April [26 March]. The three monasteries here named still exist: Jotrum, Jouarre, a noble nunnery of Benedictine virgins about four leagues above Meaux, not far from the Marne; adjoining it Radolium, Reuil, now a priory subject to Cluny. From there proceeding between the two rivers both called Morin, one comes to the monastery of Rebais, once called Jerusalem.

15. When therefore he laboured greatly to fulfil this vow with the most ardent desire, and frequently went about the same forest with that devotion of mind, he at last discovered between the two Morins, adjoining one another, certain lands formerly of the fisc of Namtolialinse, but then belonging to the villa called Masitu. Obtaining these by his petitions through the king’s bounty and munificence, he procured without delay to fulfil what he most desired. It came to pass that on a certain day, wandering through the confines of the aforementioned wilderness with that ardour of mind wherewith he sought that the heavenly prerogative of grace would deign to show him a site suitable for building a church, he came upon the torrent which the ancient inhabitants called Resbacus, in the same place which by its old name was called Gemellus Mercasius on account of the twin pools. There, while he stopped a little under a fruit-tree, a shade being quickly made in it, he commanded silence — signifying that he wished to give his weary limbs to rest, that he might more secretly attend to prayer. While he lay prostrate in prayer for a long time, rising from prayer he saw in the air a splendid cloud displaying the figure of a Cross with gleaming rays — from whose brightness so great a light shone for three successive nights that by its splendour one might see all things clearly in the same place as at midday, though on every side was the wonted obscurity of night; for three days also dew was seen there in the manner of a cross from morning to evening, until the three days’ fast being fulfilled he laid the foundations of the church together with blessed Faro the bishop. Thus it happened by divine disposing grace that where he had lain praying under the fruit-tree, there he built a temple to the Lord in the form of a Cross.

16. Meanwhile the venerable Audoin, learning the laudable fame of blessed Agilus which had filled all Gaul, and armed with the counsel of the most prudent bishop Faro, laboured by assiduous preachments — now by speech, now by written entreaty — to join him to himself in the bond of friendship, that he might set him abbot over the aforementioned monastery he was building. This indeed seemed wholly impossible: because the people of Metz rejoiced to be adorned with miracles under his pontificate, and the assembly of the Langrois to be beautified by his virtues, and the people of Besançon to be aided by his blessings — and, what was greater and more just, the whole congregation of Luxeuil unanimously claimed him as their nursling, that he might be pastor where he had shorn his hair and shone with gleaming miracles. Seeing indeed that this contention could be allayed in no other way unless the royal power imposed a measure by its judgement, the venerable Audoin, taking with him Eligius his unanimous friend and Faro the bishop, inserted his petitionary words to the royal serenity, that he might rejoice in the solace of so great a man as he desired. In the middle of this most holy contest of emulation, the king, opposing himself to them in equity, thus addressed their prayers: “Yielding to your prayers, we judge it sufficient for the people of Metz to have the gift of that miracle which the divine mercy wrought through him in the gate of the city, when he freed the man from the demon; and for the people of Langres that in their presence he restored steps to the lame; and for the people of Besançon that among the rest which he wrought before them he restored speech to the mute which nature had denied, and hearing to the deaf — no, also cured paralytics; and for the brethren of Luxeuil that in their presence he raised the dead man who, while being washed in the baths, was drowned and killed by another: let it be lawful for us at least to contemplate his brightness radiant with eminent virtues.”

17. Therefore, going out of Luxeuil by the king’s edict, the most blessed Agilus entered the palace called Compendium [Compiègne], girt with the honour of the bishops Amandus and Faro, and upheld by the splendour of the lofty nobles Audoin and Eligius — who, under the girdle of this world, illustriously showed forth the pontifical doctrine. Beholding then the brightness of the countenance of blessed Agilus, the most tranquil king thus addressed him: “For this cause, reverend father and priest of God, we have summoned you: that by your sweetest address, with the overflowing cup of the divine word, we may fill our thirsty soul, and that the people committed to us may be aided by your magnificent examples. No, commending ourselves to your holy prayers, we decree, ratified by the counsel of the bishops and our nobles, that you shall be the dispenser of the divine word everywhere in our kingdom. Moreover, persuaded by the prayers of our faithful referendary Audoin, we commit to you by our precept the work of the mastership of the structure of the monastery which he desires to build for the love of God and for the gathering there of armies of monks.” With this royal deliberation the venerable Agilus came to the work, joining to himself the number of twelve brethren. Therefore, insistent on the work begun, with assiduous solicitude he brought the buildings of the church to the perfection of the pinnacle.

18. Now the great solemnity of this temple’s dedication was at hand, and the venerable Audoin — because he was building the church first in honour of blessed Peter, prince of the apostles — most earnestly desired to dedicate it on the day on which the blessed apostle first sat in the chair of Antioch, that is, the eighth of the Kalends of March [22 February]. Accordingly the aforementioned bishops being summoned together with Eligius, as the custom of the Gallican church obtains, they entered to dedicate the temple. With them also came the pious Ado and the modest Agilus. And when they saw a stone of Parian marble most decently polished lying unevenly over the altar, and wished to move it — see, the four columns and the true luminaries of the world [bishops Faro and Amandus, with nobles Audoin and Eligius] — it slipped from their hands and fell to the ground, and was at once split through the middle so evenly, as if anyone had cut it with iron. A stupendous and admirable thing: the prelates with the nobles, standing a little while astonished, suddenly prostrated themselves on the ground, attended to prayer, beat their breasts with their fists, watered their faces with tears, so that the pavements were wet. Nevertheless a sudden stupor had invaded those who were present. But while they prayed longer, rising full of sobs and signing the stone with the banner of the Cross, in the power of Christ it was at once so solidly rejoined as if it had never been broken. And that remains admirable to this day — that in the same stone there remained, for a sign, as it is believed for the memory of future generations, through the same place through which it had been broken, the figure as of a slender thread. Moreover, because blessed Amandus solemnly performed the office of the dedication and celebrated Mass upon that altar that day, it pleased the venerable Audoin to carve his name in the same marble with deep letters; and on account of the very many prodigies of visions and miracles, blessed Audoin with the aforementioned bishops named the place Jerusalem — desiring there to be had a college of peace and the contemplation of unanimous fraternity, that the place itself might preach by its name what it contained in its bosom.

On the same day the dedication of the basilica is still celebrated yearly.

19. These things thus accomplished, the venerable Audoin made this monastery most richly peopled, endowing it with choice possessions, books, ecclesiastical ornaments, and villas; no, moreover, the loftiness of the world laid aside, he meditated with assiduous meditations to wage Christ’s warfare in the same monastery under monastic profession. But when the king and the same nobles of the Franks would not assent to him in this deed, he yielded to their will, committing that monastery also to the royal power. Accordingly, in the episcopal synod held that year at Clichy on the Kalends of May [1 May 636], the most excellent king set blessed Agilus as abbot over the aforementioned monastery.

20. Taking up therefore the pastoral charge, the excellent soldier of Christ Agilus ruled the best of flocks, walking among the brethren with most discreet rule. For he was as one of them; and having in his mouth the splendour of the evangelical word, and gleaming with the signs of virtues, he was made a mirror not only to those committed to him but to the world. For he was frequent in fastings, assiduous in prayers, lavish in alms, a most especial lover of hospitality. On which account — when on a certain day at evening, going about the offices of the monastery (for he had hitherto been occupied with the services of noble guests), he was going to the hospice which the venerable Audoin had established there by his ordination and aid, that the needs of the poor might be relieved — attended by the solace of one brother only named Brandolinus, he heard at the monastery’s gate as it were the feeble voice of a man lamenting; and opening the window adjoining the gate, he saw a poor man lying before the doors full of ulcers (for it was still somewhat day), asking to be received into hospitality. Turning to the brother he said: “See how, occupied with other utilities, we have neglected so great a one! Go quickly and prepare him refreshment.” When he had gone, Agilus opened the door adjoining the gate — for he used to keep the keys from there, since the custom was that the porter, when the signal was struck for Compline, at once secured the monastery’s gates and brought him the keys. He said to the poor man: “Come, brother, we will do for you as is fitting.” When he answered that for the pains of his ulcers he could not walk (his limbs indeed appeared livid like a leper’s), Agilus set him on his own shoulders and carried him into the house without any burden, and placed him on a seat beside the hearth (it was winter); and taking a pitcher and linen, when he wished to pour water over his hands, he at once vanished — and an incomparable fragrance of pleasant odour filled that house, as if many storehouses of spices breathed there.

21. That indeed ought not to be covered in silence but inscribed for ever, as in white, among the chief triumphs of the saints: that the persuader of the first-formed, envying so great a hospitality of reception, and feeling his torments increased by the serene manifestation of the stricken, appeared to blessed Agilus in the greater church a little before daybreak, after the accustomed completion of matins, as he prayed — in the form of a most huge dragon, darting poison against him with erect head. But the blessed confessor of the Lord, magnificent in the faith of the apostolic doctrine, when he saw the virulent darts of the ancient serpent, fortifying himself under the protection of the mystery of the Cross, dispersed them all, saying ever: “Blessed be the King and God of Israel.”

22. On a certain day, while the reapers of the monastery’s household were occupied in gathering the harvest, it chanced that blessed Agilus came to them with certain brethren, as was his custom. When he had tarried there some while, suddenly clouds occupied the sky’s serenity, and gleaming thunder terribly thundered with a violent wind, so that the reapers were troubled with excessive fear. Seeing which, the blessed standard-bearer of the Lord bade the reapers persist in their work, prostrating himself in prayer with the brethren. And while he prayed longer, the great priest of the Lord, rising from prayer, made a wondrous sign in the power of Christ — the reapers fearing the commotion of the air, the great rains being divided by his prayers: so that on every side of them the excessive tempest appeared, yet over them not even a drop of rain fell. O most illustrious man, distinguished by divine signs, into the hiding-places of whose heart God poured the extraordinary miracles of virtues!

23. Moreover many of the first of the palace and of the nobles of his fatherland, illumined by his example, holding worldly honour for nothing, most earnestly desired under his rule to lead the monastic life in the often-named monastery — so much that of them the number of eighty was completed. Not a few also, commending themselves to his prayers and enriching that monastery with goods and faculties, made it most wealthy. Among whom blessed Filibert, sprung from the territory of Elisa, having abdicated himself and all his goods, armed with the counsel of the venerable Audoin, subjecting himself to the aforementioned abbot, enriched the often-named monastery with most copious gifts of gold and silver and various furnishing; and at last there laying aside his hair, warred strenuously for the heavenly King Christ under the norm of the aforementioned religion.

For at that time people coming from Ireland, bearing their own vows and their nation’s to the Prince of the Apostles at Rome, for the love of the venerable Audoin — who had most excellently loved St Columbanus — and for the laudable fame of blessed Agilus whom the same Columbanus had early nourished in holy religion, used to turn aside to the often-named monastery for prayer and hospitality, and moreover to honour it with numerous moneys, and there to leave their own whom either the length of the journey had worn or weakness had vexed. On a certain day when they had arrived, the most blessed Agilus, receiving them most dutifully, ordered meals to be prepared. And when the father of the monastery [the cellarer, as St Benedict calls him in the Rule, c. 31], being asked, answered that all things were at hand save wine — of which no more than three modii were kept in the sacred ministry — Agilus commanded it all in the great vessel to be served to the brethren and the people. The ministers answering that scarcely a draught of one cup could be handed to each in so great a multitude, he said: “In God’s name, offer it all to the brethren and the guests until it fail. The holy God is able to increase it by His holy and admirable power, who at the wedding, when it failed, turned water into wine.” And so it was done that, the vessel being opened, the wine so followed that the brethren drank soberly and the people was abundantly gladdened — and that vessel, by the working of divine power, was so filled with wine to the brim that it overflowed. Which when it was announced to the venerable abbot, he commanded the ministers to tell no man of it while he survived in the body.

24. Finally, when he was ninety-eight years old, now worn with long age after the exercise of many virtues, desiring to see in heaven the labours he had laid up there from his early age, he thus addressed the Lord with humble prayer: “Lord, remember me, and have mercy on me now failing with age, and bring me out of the staying of this life; and who have redeemed me with Your precious blood, make me a sharer with Your elect of the heavenly joys. I commend to You this flock, good Shepherd, for whom you did triumph for the unworthy; keep it perpetually and restore it to Your paradise.” When therefore he had completed this prayer, there appeared to him an excellent youth, in aspect clothed in a garment of snowy whiteness, and said: “Agilus, my dear one, I have received your prayers; when two years are fulfilled I will receive you. Do what you do until you fulfil the number of a hundred years, and I will be with you and will not forsake you.” O admirable man and most worthy of all praise, into whose heart Christ, reposing in a secret chamber, showed a great miracle to His noble athlete — to whom He foretold his passing two years before! Worthily is he venerated by all, whom the Lord made distinguished by so great a miracle. For the two years being fulfilled, on the same night at midnight — that is, the third of the Kalends of September [30 August] — blessed Agilus, a centenarian, happily migrated to Christ, and was buried with honour in the church which is in honour of St John the Baptist on the southern side.

Note: If St Agilus attained a hundred years, his death must be placed about A.D. 683, since he was offered as a boy to B. Columbanus not before A.D. 590, entering upon the rudiments of religious life at Luxeuil in that very year. But that we should not so think of Agilus’s longer age, we are forbidden by the Acts of B. Filibert, his disciple, described by a grave and near-contemporary author — Filibert being said to have been substituted as abbot of the monastery of Rebais after his master’s death before he thought of founding Jumièges. Since Filibert undertook that work while King Clovis was still living — by whose favour, Queen Balthild assenting, he is said to have obtained the place — Agilus must be called to have died some years before Clovis, who by the truer reckoning ceased to live in A.D. 654. We therefore concede to Agilus about seventy years, and assign his death to about A.D. 650. Agilus was confirmed by B. Columbanus’s blessing at seven years of age; entering boyhood soon after, he was offered to God at Luxeuil about A.D. 590. Then with Eustasius he preached the faith to the Warasci in A.D. 615. In A.D. 636, with Dagobert’s consent, he was set as abbot over the monastery of Rebais, and finally in the fourteenth year after happily migrated to the world above. His relics are religiously venerated in the church of St Peter in his own monastery; his cenotaph is visited in the parish church of St John the Baptist in which he was buried. He has a double celebration among his Rebais monks — one of his deposition on 30 August, another of his translation on 1 February, which day seems to be that of his elevation.

25. We think it worth while to annex to this page that the venerable Ado, who had come to his burial — spending the whole night in vigil, when he had finished the melody of matins, and lying a little while in prayer before dawn’s twilight in the church of St Peter before the altar which is in honour of Blessed Mary, two brethren awaiting the end of his prayer — rising from prayer heard together with them the choirs of virgins singing on high: “Today St Agilus goes to his reward with highest praises; today the choirs of angels and archangels exult; today crowned with the saints he triumphs in heaven. Most happy, for from infancy he kept chastity, and a virgin centenarian ascends to glory.”

26. When therefore his body was being given to burial, a certain one of the brethren, burning with a most violent fever, came and touched in faith the linen which covered the bier — and at once the fever left him. Another, who was tormented with toothache, applied the cloth to his jaw like a neckerchief, and all the pain was driven away. Many also afflicted with various infirmities deserved to receive health that day, to the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Miracles of St Agilus, written in two books by contemporary authors #

Book One — comprising what was done in the eleventh century #

From the MSS. of the monastery of Rebais and of Vézelay.

The Author’s Prologue #

I have undertaken to write the miracles which the kindness of God has deigned to work in our times to the praise of holy Agilus, the people bearing witness — judging it an excellent deed to hand on so celebrated a matter to posterity. Nor am I to be charged with ignorance in that I attempt things beyond my strength: for the devout precept of the brethren urges me, whose will I think it unlawful to gainsay even in this. But if anyone is moved by the rusticity of the speech and the inelegances of solecisms — which I have least studied to avoid — let him hear that “the kingdom of God is not in word but in power” [1 Cor. 4:20]; and that among good men it matters not whether wine is served in a vessel of gold or of wood. Following out therefore certain of them simply (for it is not in my power to narrate all), hence I take up the beginning of the narration.

1. Our faith the Lord admonishes to transfer us from the volubility of present things to the stability of eternal life, both by the institution of His commandments and by the examples of the saints, that we may deserve to be sharers of their rewards. For we ought not to be entangled in the delights of this fragile and perishable life, which are a thousand, since we are sons of God — but mindful of our race, that our first beginnings are from a Father, God, whose image we are formed to be, let us hasten to be rejoined to Him by the piety of faith. To that Father of mercies we are duly joined if, mortified in worldly works, we are made a living sacrifice to God by the exhibition of good works. But since human nature has fallen into this whirlpool of impiety, so that only vexation gives understanding to the hearing, God — whose mercy is over the earth — consults for His sons even with scourges, since they will not be corrected by benefits. He seems to brandish threats and show wrath, that through the dangers of present fury His clement patience may free from the Stygian flames and restore to life those whom He wills not to perish in death.

2. (a. 1000) We have an example of this inconceivable piety declared almost in our own times. When Robert was holding the royal power among the Merovingians — that is, Francia — after a thousand revolutions of years from the Lord’s Passion, in the very year of the completed millennium, when, the observance of Lent finished, the day of the holy Parasceve — that is, of Christ’s crucifixion — was at hand, there were seen by many in many places in the height of the air fiery ranks, terrifying the hearts of those beholding them with prodigious vision. At once rumour — an evil than which none other is swifter in motion — struck the ears of many: to which as many tongues are said to grow as feathers. Which ill prospect when Ragenard, a most prudent man then abbot of this monastery, learned, calling Ermingard, the abbess presiding over the place of Jouarre, he treats with her of so horrible a vision; and that they might escape the dangers they feared, by common counsel he exhorts them to be humbled under the mighty hand of God, and appoints a day of fasting. On the appointed day, therefore, the processions of the monasteries of Rebais and Jouarre met in the place which from there deserved to be called the Cross of St Agilus on account of the tokens of God’s power — a very great multitude of no mean commonalty flowing together in throngs. They began then to sound the penitential melody of the seven psalms with the names of the saints — when suddenly clouds snatch away the sky and the day, frequent lightnings flash mingled with stony hail, and pale fear reigns under the image of death.

3. And when black night at midday had poured forth everywhere the densest darkness, and all were expecting that sudden death would rush upon them, by the abbot’s command and that of the wise, a word was spoken to the people by a certain man eminently imbued with the skill of liberal letters: that admonished by the terror of the present commotions they should do penance for their misdeeds; and henceforth, avoiding sin, stretching forth alms to the poor with a merciful mind and lavish hand, should redeem the bonds of their debtors.

4. The assembly being dismissed, when each wished to carry back the relics of the saints they had brought, Roger, provost of the place of Jouarre — who was the ravager of holy Agilus’s goods — wished to lift his little coffin and carry on his shoulders the members of him to whom he had done injury. The saint suffers not his enemy to lift him on his neck: like a rock of the sea he resists immovable. His tongue groans for his foot, he is crushed beneath the weight of the mass. do you not atone thus, holy Agilus, offering these favours? He himself, in some wise, holds for us the office of tongue before God, and by his holy intercession washes and blots out the foulness of our earthliness, who are as it were his feet. What to do or where to turn Roger knew not — until the people recalled to his mind the accursed enormity of his avarice: that holding the adjacent mansions for himself he had taken Ventulius from St Agilus. He, as a most moderate man, acknowledged the fault he had perpetrated, restored all to the saint — and then at last lifted the saint’s sod so lightly that he seemed not himself to bear it but to be borne by it.

5. And when all were leaping with jubilant praises — lest anything should be lacking to the saint’s glory, God wrought also healings of the sick by his merit, and chiefly quenched the fires of the burning. Of them, Finoldus, an inhabitant of the villa of Doue, was freed from burning; and a certain Ursinannus of the holy Halda. Whom when his father wished to carry back freed into his own, as he came to the wood he began again to burn. Carried to the basilica of the glorious Agilus he deserved extinction; but trying to return home he incurred the burning again. A third time therefore he was tormented with burning, a third time freed by God’s mercy and St Agilus’s intercession. Seeing this, the father dedicated him to the holy place to serve while he lived — and he, until he closed his last day, paid the promised service devoutly.

6. And since we have once entered upon telling the miracles which the Lord Jesus deigned to work for the praise of His name through the paradoxical confessor Agilus, let us relate (if it is to be taken for a miracle) that a man of flesh heard the harmony of the heavenly spirits — since it is not given to the sensible of his ears to hear anything save through the percussion of air — how Solio, abbot of this place, rapt above himself, deserved to be the hearer of a spiritual voice. He was custom almost every night to anticipate the hour of cockcrow by seeking stealthy prayers, and — that the Lord returning from the wedding might find him watching like a good servant — ever to reconcile His majesty to himself with poured-out tears. He stood according to the prophet perpetually all nights upon the watch-tower of the Lord, praying lest our adversary the devil, “who gos about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour” [1 Pet. 5:8], should tear anyone of the flock committed to him. And while he stood ever vigilant at his watchings — the shepherd of the sheepfold insistent on this laudable and God-pleasing deceit — having transgressed the prison of his flesh by the keenness of his mind, he heard heavenly choirs, songs, praises, the praisings of spirits giving glory to the Lord. They chanted joyfully the hymn of glory to the Father on high with the begotten Word and with the co-equal Holy Spirit. The sound indeed of the voices he heard, and was delighted with the sweetness of the melody; but save the hymn we have named he could understand nothing. That very night the world was darkened with shadows, the blackest pall veiling it; but it shone with the most splendid merits of blessed Amandus irradiating — for that same night was the anniversary of his birthday on which he died to earth and was born to heaven.

In the Rebais necrology, Solio the abbot is said to have died on 10 July. In the same place the Cross of St Agilus is still seen in memory of the deed.

7. When therefore the same most holy prelate of this place, its most divine consecrator, had been glorified — I wonder not sufficiently by what sloth stealing upon them the ancients did not celebrate his birthday with a festal office, but sanctioned only three lessons to be recited for their own pastor, as it were. But the aforementioned abbot, when he had deserved to be the beholder of this vision, disclosed the course of the matter to the assembled congregation, and admonished them from then on to solemnise the birthday of his protector festally. The monastic company applauding such things blessed the Creator governing him with glad mind, and asked that the thing the pastor spoke of should be done. They decreed it to be observed by unalterable custom — as it will be kept in future ages by our successors. This therefore is rightly ascribed to the most holy Agilus, our most beloved nourisher, who deigned by such exhortation to admonish his little servants to pay the due honour ever to the most loving Amandus.

8. Not only does this friend of God deign to free his own countrymen from the maladies that befall them, but men of foreign nations too — that He may confer the help of salvation upon them — seems sometimes to call them to Himself, as we can prove by the example of the present miracle. We have heard of the village of Oxim in the Norman region, in which a certain blind man lived and bore death in his face, having suffered the loss of light: who, while the sun shone on all — but for him the sun was absent — his orbs beset by the darkening mist of night, the wretch could hope for nothing of clear light, but pressed by darkness drew out long sighs, and frequent tears followed his sighs. How should he not weep, when he saw no light? How rejoice, when sad night held him? At last the Lord, pitying his continual complaints of tears and prayers, commanded him sleeping by a revelation to seek the monastery of Rebais without delay and implore the protection of St Agilus, and to ask Landric the monk — who was then by chance the sacristan of the place — that washing the saints’ relics with water he should pour it over his blind orbs, and that he should know that by this deed he would receive the gifts of the most desirable light.

9. The poor man, gladdened by this revelation, arose to his feet, disclosed the dream to his neighbours — dreams which he calls not vain dreams but sure presages of promised salvation. All exhorted him to go quickly to Rebais; nor was there delay, since he sought so great joys. He, giving his hand to a guide of the way, suppliant poured out rivers of tears to the Lord. And although he knew not the walls of the town of Rebais, trusting in the divine hope he began to pluck the path. After the windings of many ways therefore he at last came to the appointed place, and narrated to the aforementioned monk the revelation he had seen. Landric, made glad by such a report, took the relics and poured water over them — while the wretch besought and bedewed the altars with tears that God would deign to be propitious to him. The water therefore wherewith he had washed the saints’ relics, as soon as it touched his eyes, the night being scattered, clearest light was restored; and he who had already unlearned day by night, rejoicing saw all things clearly. And filled with unutterable joy he returned immense thanks to God and St Agilus — and he who had come guided by the leading of steps returned home without a guide.

10. But lest it could be doubted by any unhappy and faithless person concerning the miracles we recount as done by blessed Agilus, we adjoin also the names of the persons and the places from which they sprang. To a certain Waningus of the place called Pinnevindus it befell — whether for some particular offence to be punished with such vengeance, or for the increase of the saint’s glory — that he was given over to be vexed by a most savage demon. His parents, seeing this, first tried with flattering words to soften the furious one, fearing lest for their son’s vexation they should become a tale to the people by so foul a spectacle. But the more the energy of the raging monster increased, the more it threatened, gnashing its teeth, to inflict bites — he who was captive and the very prey of the demon. If to the wretch pleasing foods of bread were given, or if a drink of water were put in his savage mouth, his teeth returned dire wounds for the benefits — increasing the mad laughter by the weeping of others. His most unhappy parents therefore, swallowed up in miserable sadness for the unlooked-for misfortune of their son — since they could find no other counsel of remedy — bound his arms with the hardest thongs.

11. And because he suffered but felt not the torments, that he might be freed from this plague devastating him within, he was brought to the most sacred body of blessed Agilus; where, when he tarried some while, he began little by little to recover sanity of mind — so that he seemed fit even to make a vow to St Agilus. At his friends’ persuasion he vowed that if he deserved to be freed from the bonds of the demoniac plague — the Lord who reigns in the stars contributing this by Agilus’s merits — he would give the saint an ox, not inferior to the neighbouring herd but better than many. As he vowed this vow, health returned whole; and he who had come bound and unwilling to the saint’s tomb returned rejoicing and free from the Stygian foe to his own house. And admonished by the recent and horrible scourge, he delayed not to pay what he had vowed — no, as soon as he reached his own hearth, leading the ox before him with devout mind he brought it to the monastery. And coming prostrate before the altar of the sacred shepherd: “See,” he said, “O saint, with devout heart I bring these my vows to you; which I vowed to your piety, returning thanks as is fitting for so great a gift.” The treasurer therefore receiving the ox with which he had paid his vow sold it, and from its price vaulted the most holy temple.

12. A like miracle this bravest soldier of Christ wrought — the expeller of demons with the sharpest point of his command expelling a demon also from a certain Henry, as the pen shall attempt to write. A most evil demon invading the aforementioned Henry drove him with excessive furies, so that not only others’ but even his own limbs he seemed to tear with his teeth. When his kindred saw him raging excessively and could by no means calm the demoniac violence, taking counsel they thus decreed in speech: “We have all heard of the many virtues wherewith holy Agilus used to cure the raging — he bestows great solaces of salvation on the wretched, making known the merit wherewith he shines in the citadel of heaven. Therefore, prayers poured out to God, let us implore him too — who is clean of heart, who in body an everlasting virgin follows the Lamb wherever the Virgin goes — that the poor man whom the wicked demon vexes so long may deserve to be purged of this filth.” And the more astute of them said they ought to bind the demoniac’s neck with the strap of his own girdle, and so deliver him as a perpetual servant to holy Agilus, giving at present four denarii for his head — the census of which number he would pay yearly while he lived. All approving this, the tormented man was led to the altar of St Peter, and a whip-thong being bound about his neck he was brought as a servant to holy Agilus, and set his four denarii of capitulation upon the sacred altar; and binding himself by vow that if he were cured he would pay so many every year while life accompanied him. There was no delay: medicine followed the word — in the middle of his vows the demon’s wrath fled, and the man stands free whom the saint’s grace cures. Returning therefore home, after praises rendered to God he lived most healthily a long time; and what he had vowed, not unmindful of the benefit, he ever paid with the greatest fidelity.

What follows is taken from the Vézelay codex, wanting in the Rebais transcript.

13. There was a great mortality of men in the pagus Milidunensis [Melun] and in the pagus Provinensis [Provins], violently threatening, no medicine availing. For in men’s ribs pain was felt most obstinately and suddenly, and the next day he who suffered died. On this account all abiding in various places, seeking refuge, fled to this place, made the vigils of the Sabbaths, and sought the suffrage of blessed Agilus in continual prayers. What more? Whoever came and prayed with devotion returned to his country remaining safe. Not long after, by blessed Agilus’s suffrage the commotion of the pestilence was extinguished — when the way was taken, the divine judgement being appeased. That same destruction spread indeed through many places from Easter even to the feast of St John the Baptist.

What follows was written by another writer.

14. In the time of Abbot Robert a certain woman named Emelina, vexed by the perturbation of an unclean spirit — while she was being led by the hands of many — was compelled, though unwilling yet hindered by many bonds, to lie prostrate on the sacred pavement beneath which in the hiding-place of earth the sod of this most holy man is contained, and to sleep — until the space of about two hours having passed, roused from sleep, the demon being driven off by the saint’s power, she seemed to rest from so great a visitation of vexation.

15. Another man, in the time of Abbot Philip, came from the parts of Flanders into this town of Rebais, and under the benefit of a certain monk Ingenulf — who ministered to him the necessaries of life for the love of God — had his dwelling in it for a long time; and since, through the access of time, he saw the flames of the burning fire in no wise cooled, he called on blessed Agilus as his helper in the extinction of so great a burning. At the approach therefore of this saint’s solemn feast, by the aforementioned Ingenulf’s counsel he was brought before the altar of St Peter and admonished to bind himself by his own vow — that if the divine power should deign to confer salvation on him, he would not from then on deny himself a servant of God by the payment of four denarii at each year’s revolution. He who for his salvation’s sake wished to promise greater things than were asked of him promised to observe all things diligently — and so his flesh, burning before, deserved by the saint’s merit to obtain health-giving coolness.

16. It is also honourable to relate concerning Baldwin, count of Flanders — who with military service served Philip king of the Franks as a palatine count — how, to repress the pride of certain men in the parts of Gaul and Burgundy who, wishing to resist the aforementioned king, strove to rebel against him with servile ferocity. To convict their rebellion the aforementioned count, being summoned with a host of the Flemish militia, traversed the best towns and villas of the land and depopulated them; and while with savage face he prowled through all passable places, he plundered the fellow-citizens and fathers like folds of prey. He therefore, going round wasting, came for the sake of plunder to the villa of Rebais; but the divine power, warding off his ferocity, willed to be present as a hindrance to him in such an enterprise by its own virtue. For entering the aforementioned villa — while he stripped it of goods and inhabitants and made it uninhabitable — he ordered the army to pitch camp for rest. But when under the pretext of sought prayer he approached the monastery, he spied from far away the bird commonly called a peacock resting upon the monastery’s tiles, for whose destruction he at once ordered his bow and arrow to be prepared. Which being done, when the aforementioned count shot the arrow from the bow at the peacock’s death, it was twisted back by the blast of the wind and directed to another part, while the bird remained unmoved, shaken by no terror. And the count, smitten by a sudden sickness, was at once prostrated on the ground, and emitting bloody foam from his mouth was held up as a spectacle to the same — how the divine power avenges in him for the peacock. Yet when afterwards he invoked blessed Agilus’s merit and fared better, binding a rope about his own neck with his own hands, humble and dejected he advanced to the altar, professed before God and His saints that he had gravely sinned, promised henceforth strenuously to guard the land of St Peter unharmed and inviolate from the onset of adversaries — and moreover offered a golden paten and ten cheeses and ten cows for the abolition of his crime. And so by the power of blessed Agilus the people of Rebais deserved to be defended utterly from hostile inroad.

Crépy-en-Valois, vulgarly Crépy, a little town having a monastery named for St Arnulf the martyr, subject to Cluny. In the Rebais annals the abbot Hugo whose death is set on 3 September seems to be no other than this man. Adela, countess of Blois — daughter of William the Bad king of England, wife of Stephen surnamed Henry who was killed in 1102 on the crusade to the Holy Land at the city of Ramleh — mother of Theobald IV surnamed the Great.

17. Nor should that be passed over in silence: that a certain Hugo, abbot of the monastery of Crépy but a monk of the monastery of Rebais — when he came to the feast-day of blessed Agilus returning in the year’s circuit — entering the monastery’s doors besought the same father with the inmost speech of his heart that, if it were certain he would depart this life that year, by the saint’s grace he would not let him to return to his own; but under whose leading and protection he had been defended long since in the habit of monastic religion, relying also on his help he might deserve to enjoy the company of the saints in heaven. Which also was done. For on the same day, seized by sickness, he was prostrated on his bed, and on the fourth day after was compelled to pay the debt of death; and, as we believe, the return of his prayer being rendered him by the Lord, he was joined to the Elysian seats. And he, set at the very point of death, began diligently to inquire of those standing by him whether their sight had perceived what at that time — as he said — was easiest for him to see, namely the novelty of a certain illustrious vision. When they answered that they could see nothing new at all, he replied: “I see illustrious youths running here and there, composed in comely form and glowing with snowy faces.” And while he spoke such things, he was seen not long after to breathe forth his spirit happily in the confession of the Lord.

18. Adela, countess of Blois, mother of count Theobald, burned with a violent ardour of fevers. For her cure — as befitted so great a woman — the physicians of the neighbouring provinces of Gaul and Normandy, and also of the transmarine region, assembled. But when she could not be cured by any of their art, and now, death threatening her through excessive affliction, she despaired of her safety, she caused herself to be carried into the oratory of Rebais; where, while she passed the night under the shrine of blessed Agilus for two nights awaiting his patronage without receiving any food or drink, the divine power occurring to her she felt there was coolness of her ardour — and what she could not obtain before through the medicines of many she quickly afterwards obtained through blessed Agilus. And she offered upon the altar in honour of her Creator a pall of fitting price, which remains to this day in the same monastery and is set out on the principal feasts behind the wood of the Lord’s Cross.

Book Two — comprising the miracles wrought through Blessed Agilus in the time of Abbot Briccius, at the beginning of the twelfth century #

From the Rebais MS.

I have undertaken to write the miracles which the kindness of God has deigned to work in our times to the praise of St Agilus, the people bearing witness — judging it an excellent deed to hand on so celebrated a matter to posterity. Nor am I to be charged with ignorance in that I attempt things beyond my strength: for the devout precept of the brethren urges me, whose will I think it unlawful to gainsay even in this. But if anyone is moved by the rusticity of the speech and the inelegances of solecisms which I have least studied to avoid, let him hear that “the kingdom of God is not in word but in power” [1 Cor. 4:20], and that among good men it matters not whether wine is served in a vessel of gold or of wood. Following out therefore certain of them simply (for it is not in my power to narrate all), hence I take up the beginning of the narration.

1. In the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 1145, then — the lord Manasses of holy memory being bishop of the city of Meaux and the lord Briccius abbot of Rebais — the most blessed Agilus began to show renewed proofs of his sanctity at the spring which took its name from him. For that spring — as we have received from our elders — the same father caused to issue from the soil by praying; and the place itself, while he yet lived, he loved, cultivated, and even illustrated with miracles, which I could narrate did not the necessity of the burden undertaken call me away. As opinion has it, this was the first of the miracles newly wrought there.

2. A certain boy sprung from Britain — which the moderns call England — came to Rebais; where, smitten with paralysis, he was likewise deprived of the use of his foot. Nor had the foot alone been rendered useless, but the malady creeping as far as the buttocks had immovably fixed the heel to them. For on the day before the Nones of May [6 May], a Sunday, about the eighth hour, leaning on crutches he came to the aforementioned spring. And when, at the exhortation of the boys who had chanced to assemble, he bathed the diseased part of his body with the water, the nerves began to crack, the foot to be moved from the buttocks, and the knee to be extended — with a great exhalation of vapour. Richard (for that was the boy’s name) fell half-dead; in a brief space he was restored to his senses, and restored also to health. He performed the office of two feet, and casting away the crutches by whose aid he had walked, blessed the Author of his salvation. To this spectacle all Rebais flowed together; and, the mist of all ambiguity wiped away — for the lame man was known to all — they glorified God in him.

3. Moreover the fame of the deed, spread far and wide, caused many labouring under many maladies to come to the spring. Among them was a woman advanced in years, born in the territory of Rebais of no obscure stock. She, having chanced to fall, had injured her hand — and the nerves which join the hand to the arm were miserably dissolved; for five years or more she had endured in that anguish of pain. But when she came to the spring and the malady was dipped in the wave, there followed the expulsion of the pain and the knitting of the nerves with the integrity of former vigour. Besides these, a little boy of four years named Bernard, lame and dumb from the womb, was carried to the spring; where, washed — wondrous to tell — before the eyes of all he began to walk and to speak.

4. A certain woman named Mathildis — in what manner she was taken in mind, and how by the patronage of the man St Agilus she returned to her natural state, I judge it not superfluous to annex here; and that the matter may the more easily come to light, it must be traced from a higher beginning. It chanced that a wolf possessed by a demon troubled the district of Brie with lamentable devastation — not fearing to plunder flocks and herds privately and publicly, nor even to attack men. The force of the instigating demon conferred this boldness upon it. And this is chiefly worthy of wonder: that whomever it touched even lightly with its teeth was irremediably compelled to die. Most of the wounded, moreover, went mad before they died; and — not to prolong the speech — at last attacking the brother of the aforementioned woman it wounded him. Alas! he escaped not the common evil of those who had received wounds from the wolf, but, seized by the sickness, miserably expired. The man’s funeral rites were performed with many groans and tears, as befitted one distinguished both in birth and virtue. Mathildis meanwhile kept her bed; but hearing of her brother’s death her infirmity was doubled. And when slumber had chanced to steal upon her languid limbs, she saw beneath the image of sleep her lately dead brother horrible in the covering of a wolf’s hide. Waking, she went mad — whether from an emptying of the brain (for she was broken both by sickness and by long fasting) or whether the force of that evil proceeded from this vision is doubtful. She was at last led to St Agilus. O what she was like — pallid face, troubled eyes, unkempt hair, horrible gestures of the body; her mouth resounded with laughter and witless words. When a woman of such sort had persisted some days at the suffrages of our saint, she both recovered her senses and narrated the vision we have related above. But these things briefly digested, let us set a limit to another miracle.

5. There is a little neighbouring village named Barbon, Blico [?]. Its inhabitant was a woman called Mabila. She, on the Sabbath day now at evening, was serving in gathering herbs, when suddenly she felt her arm seized. A most bitter pain also occupied her shoulders, which proceeding to her feet threatened the imminence of death. Hearing at last with what miracles the Lord was distinguishing His Agilus, with her arm suspended from her neck she repaired to the spring. She told the brethren who were present both the cause and the manner of her infirmity, and said: “After I began to be held by this affliction, as I chanced to rest, a man of angelic aspect seemed to be present to me; who, gently addressing me, bade me come here for the recovery of health. I therefore, reckoning this dream to have weight, have come. Henceforth may St Agilus deign to apply faith to promises.” While she spoke such things — as is custom in such cases — some charged her with falsehood, others affirmed she spoke truth; nor was there cause why she should wish to lie. But we conjecture her to have been truthful if we weigh the outcome of the matter. For when, prayer made, she wished to transfer the offering she bore in her left hand to her right — which was weak — in that very moment with a great sound her arm is stretched out, the pain is beaten away, and her former vigour is restored. And so she was healed in this manner.

6. But meanwhile it pleases me to meet the madness of certain men who — judging these things to be done by the finger of God, or rather attributing them, shame! to a demoniac power — since they cannot deny the miracles, take up only this ground of calumny: that they are done in a rustic place where there is no worship of God and no memorials of saints. O prudence! Men of sublime genius fear lest such things be transacted by Fauns, Nymphs, Satyrs, or other rural deities — but in vain. For, to be silent of fables (nor is it fitting to bring in falsehoods for the proof of truths) — among which of the ancient or modern historians is it read that demons restored sight to the blind, mind to the mad, hands to the weak, steps to the lame? But a country place seems to me by no means to be accused, since the Lord has often deigned to distinguish solitudes with wondrous things. That mount on which the memory of blessed Michael is celebrated, although uninhabited, was yet acceptable to God. To Moses also in the desert it is divinely said: “The place whereon you stand is holy ground.” And since our detractors calumniate the spring of holy Agilus, let them remember that Naaman washed away the stain of his leprosy in the waters of Jordan; so the blind man at the Lord’s bidding washed his eyes in Siloam and saw.

But why do I linger longer over examples, whose crowd wearies me? From what I have said it can be sufficiently gathered: if in a country place, if at a spring, if where there is no worship of God and no memorials of saints, God works the salvation of His people — it is not to be wondered at. And so much for these things. Now let us turn our pen to what was begun.

7. A woman named Maria, sprung from the kingdom of Lothar [Lorraine], was most bitterly afflicted because a great knot in her throat, obstructing the passages of her voice, had taken away the use of speech. She went to St James [Compostela]. There the woman, experiencing something of the divine goodness, began to speak a little — though scarcely intelligibly. From there she came to Agilus. And when she passed three days there almost dumb, on the third day, while stammering she strove to name Agilus, the knot which threatened her throat receded, and at once the office of her former voice was restored.

8. But now, the texture of the matter demanding it, it pleases to tell the conversion and manner of conversion of two harlots — Aalidis and Emelina — of whom the former was born at Chantemerle, the other at Colomars. When therefore the day approached on which the solemnities of the Mass were first to be performed at the temple being built at blessed Agilus’s spring — that is, the fourth of the Kalends of August [29 July] — as night came on, among the rest of the multitude of the people came Aalidis also, in heart and habit a harlot. For not the devotion of our holiness had drawn her to the holy place, but the impure desire of seeking a paramour — as she herself afterwards declared in preaching. And while here and there with wanton glances she sought a lover, a sudden sickness arose which little by little gained such strength that, mastering her whole body, it almost took away even the power of speech. The brethren who were present persuaded her to confess her guilt, renounce brothels, and amend her ways. The wretch assented to their entreaty with gestures and with such words as she could. Meanwhile the sky turned, and, Lucifer pressing, the bearer of the icy Hyperborean Bear languished. Suddenly the woman’s nostrils, mouth, and ears were flooded with rivers of blood. And so this woman, by the merits of the most blessed Agilus, was restored to health.

9. Then, a moderate space of time having passed, see, a certain youth was carried there by the service of two women, whose lower half of the body paralysis had long condemned — and who was lodging near the bridge of Rebais. He, because born of the household of St Peter, was well enough known to the people of Rebais. His father and mother I myself knew. Then winter so made its little days harsh that the poor man seemed to need care more for cold than for infirmity. At the same time our monk, the lord Johannes, was held to be the custodian of that place — whose faith his pious works render widely commendable. Without delay he took the poor man, stripped of his own rags, in his arms, and carried him with him to be washed at the bath of the spring itself. And when he had plunged him there for the third time, he was addressed by a certain woman thus: “Venerable old man, you labour in vain — for it is impossible that he should be able to go further.” He, reckoning her words for nothing and crying out — if not in voice yet in faith — “all things are possible with God,” at once drew out the man he had plunged, so weak in body, like one dead; and fleeing to his patron Agilus, cast him half-alive before his altar. O miracle of great and admirable virtue, to be compared with the apostolic! After he had stood a little in prayer with the monks and felt the sick man restored to his former warmth, taking his right hand he said: “Arise in the name of the Lord and in honour of blessed Agilus.” Who, rising and his bases consolidated, stood firmly and began to walk firmly through the church. And since the deed done in the sun could not be hid, the flying report called the neighbouring inhabitants. For it was the Lord’s day, and the abbatial bells resounded far and wide. Innumerable therefore of both sexes assembled and, he going before, hastened to the monastery, singing and conferring with one another these and like words: “Agilus, great father, you are our prince and our bishop. For to you the glorious king Dagobert handed over secular power among us, and strengthened it by the empire of royal dignity lest it be broken by any rash man. To you also St Faro, bishop of Meaux, conceded the rule of his dignity in the parishes adjacent to your church; and — what is greater — the most holy Martin, supreme pontiff of the Roman see, confirmed both with adjuration and the binding of anathema in a most liberal privilege. Let us go therefore, let us run, and render devout praises to our Lord for all these things, clergy and people alike. For He is the physician of our souls and bodies; He is made all things to us all.” And when the simple crowd professed this, what were we to do who seemed to stand at the head? We could find nothing more fitting at last than to commend our own and their vows to the blessed Mary of perpetual virginity’s imitator Agilus — that by his intercession they might be made acceptable to the divine majesty.

Fulcoius, subdeacon of Meaux, in the Life of St Faro which he composed in verse at the request of Abbot Geoffrey of the Holy Cross — after writing the miracle of the repaired altar-stone — mentions the immunity of Rebais in these verses: “Faro, confessing that he saw these holy miracles, gifted the place with liberty for ever, cleansed; likewise the king, confirming by the condition of peace.”

The Historical Elogium of St Donatus, Bishop of Besançon #

1. Wandalenus the duke beyond the Jura and Flavia, to whom offspring was wanting, obtained Donatus from God by the merits and prayers of St Columbanus; and the holy man, receiving him in his own hands, consecrated him, and himself took him up washed in the sacred basin, and gave him the name Donatus — as Jonas more fully narrates in the Life of St Columbanus under the year 617. Afterwards, educated in the monastery of Luxeuil where he had been consecrated to God the Giver, and imbued with wisdom under the masters Columbanus and afterwards Eustasius, he was advanced as bishop of Besançon; and — Jonas writing (he was writing in the third year after the death of Bertulf, abbot of Bobbio) — was still ruling the same see. While he was a monk he had gone to Besançon with Agilus the monk, afterwards abbot of Rebais, and saw the miracle of the violator of the aforementioned Agilus punished by divine power and at once healed — which he testifies the writer of the Life of St Agilus received from Donatus.

2. In what year Donatus entered the see of Besançon is uncertain: about A.D. 624 seems right, since in the following year he subscribed the Council of Rheims held under Sonnatius, and about A.D. 646 the third Council of Chalon. Having attained the height of so great dignity (as an old MS. in James Chifflet’s possession at his Besançon attests), he was in no wise altered from his purpose: but remaining the same, desiring to profit all in Christ, he ceased not from the office begun. Dwelling moreover among the canons, clad in the monastic habit, he was among them as one monk — fulfilling the office of a canon, not abandoning the purpose of a monk. Many, drawn by the report of his fame, he drew to see the thresholds of the supreme evangelist John and of the protomartyr Stephen; and all were recreated by his consolation and strengthened by his blessing — and whatever was offered to his feet in the apostolic manner he lavished on the needs of the poor.

3. Moreover he founded a monastery within the city’s walls — called Palatium — and consecrated it in honour of blessed Paul the apostle, endowed it with possessions, fortified it with privilege, and there instituted faithful men to live under the Rule of blessed Benedict and blessed Columbanus of Luxeuil. That monastery of St Paul stands to this day, divided from the city’s walls by the river Doubs. In his own time also, his mother Flavia cooperating, another noble nunnery was built in the same city from her own inheritance in honour of Blessed Mary — called Jussanum, afterwards given to the Cluniacs, finally to the Minims — in which the same Flavia rests in peace, and Sirudis her daughter, a most holy virgin and abbess of that place. Yet in Jonas the construction of that monastery is attributed to Flavia alone — which Donatus himself also proves in the epistle prefixed to his Rule, as we shall immediately see.

4. Entreated by his mother Flavia and the virgins of the monastery of Jussanum, he fitted a Rule for nuns — culled partly from the Rule of St Caesarius, partly from the institutes of SS Benedict and Columbanus — and dedicated it to Abbess Gauthstrud and the other virgins in these and other words: “To the holy virgins of Christ by me most greatly venerated, Gauthstrud and all her congregation in the monastery constituted by God’s handmaid Flavia — Donatus, least of all the little servants of the servants and handmaids of God, greeting. Although I know you to live excellently day by day according to the norm of the Rule, most precious vessels of Christ, yet you ever inquire with eager intent how you ought the more to excel. On which account you often enjoin me that, having explored the Rule of St Caesarius bishop of Arles — which is specially dedicated to virgins of Christ — together with those of the most blessed abbots Benedict and Columbanus, I should excerpt for you the flowerets as it were collected into one handbook, and promulgate what more especially is fitting to be kept by the female sex: saying that the Rules of the aforementioned fathers least suit you, since they issued them for men rather and by no means for women. And although St Caesarius properly dedicated his Rule to virgins of Christ, as you are, yet it least suits you on account of the change of place in certain conditions. To fulfil these things I long and greatly resisted your will — not as obstinately hard, but held back, conscious of my impossibility, while I dread the judgement of many ill-understanding the necessity of the matter and the fitness of the place, lest they rashly blame why I dare to excerpt or alter anything of the institutes of so great fathers. But contrariwise I am compelled by devotion, longing for the salvation of your souls.” And below: “On which account I am compelled to beseech you, holy souls and minds given to God, with spiritual affection before the almighty God, that these things determined for your petition you strive to keep without any contradiction and with unceasing zeal and keen mind in perpetual time; and that you correct the younger or negligent according to the tenor of the same Rule, and read it often before the whole congregation, that none may be able to excuse herself by ignorance.” Then he commends himself to their prayers in these words: “This therefore I, the least of all, ask specially of your holiness with humble and lowly prayer: that for me — who, obeying your petition, have tempered these things by clauses and phrases — you pour forth most frequent prayers both in the daily and nightly offices while I stay in this muddy little body; and after I shall have migrated at the Lord’s bidding, cause sacred offerings to be made to the Lord for me — that when with you in the choir of holy and wise virgins the palm and blessedness of virginity is bestowed, at least pardon of offences may be bestowed on me, laden with sins.”

5. This Rule — which consists of seventy-seven chapters — is for the greater part drawn from the Rule of St Benedict, whose forty-three chapters are adduced entire by Donatus. Moreover, when those nuns wished to imitate the men excellently warring under monastic institutes in those parts, they demanded that their Rules be fitted to them. At that time the Rule of St Benedict was kept with the decrees of St Columbanus in the monasteries raised by Columbanus himself. For the nuns instituted by St Donatus, disciple of blessed Columbanus, ask that the Rule of both fathers be accommodated to them — and Donatus himself names St Benedict’s Rule before St Columbanus’s, for honour’s sake. Read the preface prefixed to this volume.

6. As the beginning of St Donatus’s pontificate, so its end is uncertain — which we place about A.D. 651 on the seventh of the Ides of August [7 August], on which day he is commemorated in the Benedictine and Gallican martyrologies. He was buried not in the chapel distinguished by St Donatus’s name, but in the church of St Paul built by himself, as Chifflet proves — where also his father Wandalenus lies.

[The file ends at the heading of the next treatise:] IN THE HISTORY OF THE TRANSLATION OF THE BODIES OF ST BENEDICT AND ST SCHOLASTICA INTO GAUL — A PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION.