Krusch (ed.), MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum IV (1902) — translated into modern British English. Krusch’s extensive critical preface is condensed to its substance; the three vitae are translated in full.

Editor’s Preface (condensed) #

Romaricus built a monastery on the summit of the Vosges, where the castle of Habendum stood; hence the place was at first called simply “the Castle”, until it took from its founder the name Mount Romaricus (French Remiremont). Travellers from Luxeuil once had to cross the Moselle to reach it, but the monastery was afterwards moved to the other bank and the plain, where the town beneath its walls still stands.

Romaricus, a leading noble at King Theudebert’s court (d. 612), was converted by Columbanus’s example and Eustasius’s preaching, took the monastic habit at Luxeuil, and after living the regular life there for a long time, with Eustasius’s consent built the women’s monastery on his own estate. Since a daughter-house was subject to the abbot of Luxeuil by the Irish custom, Eustasius set Amatus over it to teach and guard Columbanus’s rule. When both Amatus and Romaricus behaved negligently, they incurred the abbot’s rebuke. At that time Agrestius — who had persisted in his design after the synod of Mâcon (626/7) and was already visiting the Castle to dissolve the Columban discipline — finding both men wounded, easily inflamed them and stirred them to contempt for the rule. So Amatus and Romaricus cast off the Irish usages and instructed their flock in the opponents’ teachings; and when Agrestius, having failed to make Burgundofara defect, returned to the Vosges to finish his work, Romaricus’s monastery was grievously afflicted: two of the innovation’s patrons were killed by rabid wolves breaking into the enclosure at night, a third named Platireius went mad and hanged himself, and when lightning struck the church and roofs, twenty nuns died outright and more than fifty perished in the calamity altogether. (From this it appears that the monastery was double, of virgins and of men.) The year after the author of the discord died (627/8), Amatus and Romaricus were reconciled with Eustasius and laboured zealously in keeping Columbanus’s rule.

Romaricus was bound in friendship with Arnulf; both had served in Theudebert’s administration and had resolved to retire together to Lérins before Arnulf was made bishop of Metz. When Arnulf renounced that dignity, Romaricus left the Vosges in 629/30 and agreed to prepare him a place in the wilderness. During a fire at Metz Romaricus ran with his companions to the bishop’s endangered house. Arnulf settled at Horemberg near the Castle; Germanus of Grandval came to him there to be tonsured, afterwards joining Romaricus’s monastery and carrying firewood for the sisters. At Arnulf’s death Romaricus stood by his friend and gave him honourable burial at the Castle, from which Bishop Goericus later translated him to Metz.

Of the monastery’s later history little is certain until Louis the Pious, when the abbess Theuthildis ruled the house dedicated to St Peter; her letter-book survives. The emperor having endowed the community, the sisters in 823 sang a thousand psalters and eight hundred Masses with litanies for his safety and that of the queen and her newborn child. In 820 the nuns decreed a daily Mass for benefactors, whose names entered the memorial. The catalogue of deceased abbots — Romaricus, “the bountiful father Amatus”, and their successors — was to be recited on Sundays and feasts; the wish of abbesses shows Columbanus’s rule can hardly have been abolished before the mid-eighth century. The register of “handmaids of God living at the Castle” suggests 85–90 nuns under Theuthildis.

The earliest lives of the three first abbots were said to be written at the command of three persons — Pope Didus, the abbess Caecilia (Romaricus), and the abbess Tetta or Cebedrudis (Adelphius) — and that a single author wrote all three was not hidden from the older critics; J. Friedrich attributed the Life of Arnulf to the same hand, an opinion with advocates to this day, though Krusch finds it does the Arnulf biographer little service: that author excels in rich narrative and could produce genuine documents, while the other is notable for thinness. The miracles of the three-abbots author are mostly unmemorable and largely omitted here. Of his naïve simplicity: Amatus was said to use baths only twice a year; of a nun who ate an apple without leave; two words of conjecture (“ut conicior”) betray his weakness. Of Romaricus after the foundation he could relate almost nothing but empty miracles until his death; and for Adelphius, of whom Jonas says nothing, he was so destitute that he began the life from the death itself, setting it “some three years” earlier. From the visions after the burial: the dead Adelphius was heard singing the hymn of St Amatus “from the first verse to the end”, and the author, lest the miracle be doubted, adds that a religious man keeping watch by the body alone heard him, testifying by God and lord Peter. He also cites Augustine, Gregory the Great, and Leo’s letter to Flavian to prove the dead can sing psalms.

That the author lived at Remiremont itself is certain — he calls Romaricus and Adelphius “our father” — and the Arnulf biographer was probably of the same house, since he was among Romaricus’s companions on the night of the Metz fire (629/30). The interval the three-abbots author sets between himself and his subjects (a nun healed by Romaricus’s bath-water “still living today among the sisters”; Adelphius’s death “some three years ago”, while Ingofred only became abbot of Luxeuil in 670) means the Life of Adelphius cannot have been composed before 673. If the same man wrote Arnulf’s Life, his eyewitness testimony of c. 630 would have been retailed some fifty years later — improbable. The similar phrasing once adduced for unity of authorship is answered by the marked difference of style: the Arnulf Life is difficult and involved, the three abbots’ lives flow easily. The phrase “temporibus Dagoberti regis” in the Amatus Life must be a borrowing from the Arnulf Life, for Amatus had spent nearly thirty years at Agaunum before Dagobert’s reign and died before Arnulf’s retirement (629/30), whereas the phrase fits Arnulf exactly. The three-abbots author also had peculiar expressions (“in processu temporis”) absent from the Arnulf Life, and each life claims a named patron’s command, while the Arnulf Life is dedicated to none.

The biographer’s account differs almost wholly from Jonas’s. He transfers to Amatus all credit for Romaricus’s conversion and the monastery’s foundation — Amatus sent to tour the Austrasian cities, converting the fugitive Romaricus at Metz — whereas Jonas has Romaricus converted by Columbanus’s example and Eustasius’s preaching, founding the monastery with Eustasius’s leave and receiving Amatus from him as instructor in the rule. The flight of Brunhild with Bishop Aridius (613) is unknown to any other authority and plainly invented. The story of Amatus’s and Romaricus’s negligence, Eustasius’s rebuke, their defection and reconciliation is this author’s alone, and the faults were plainly omitted out of patrons’ zeal rather than invented.

As for the nuns’ customs: the “seven choirs of twelve” singing day and night reflects the Agaunum usage; the apostolic visitors of 1613 describe two monks’ houses and seven nuns’ houses of twelve persons each on the holy mount. When the Benedictine rule was introduced — perhaps at the translation under Louis the Pious — the memorial was reworked.

Five principal manuscripts survive (Metz, Trier, Paris 5308, Châlons 68, Paris 5353) forming two families. The biographer’s thinness dissatisfied even the Remiremont community: in the mid-eleventh century the abbess Oda commissioned a reweaving, whose author — fearing the same reproach — lied boldly enough, giving Adelphius a life from his cradle, deriving his descent from Romaricus through a daughter Aselberga (making Romaricus grandfather of both Tetta and Adelphius) and plundering the earlier life wholesale. A longer second Life of Romaricus of the same period likewise combines the older life with material from the Columbanus, Arnulf, and Amatus lives and the Liber Historiae Francorum; it cites the privilege of John IV, perhaps first granted by Leo IX. Its earliest manuscript is Paris 215 of the twelfth century; it was printed from various sources by Canisius, Surius, Mabillon, the Bollandists, and Labbe.

The Life of St Amatus the Confessor #

(Addressed to Pope Didus.)

¹ The blessed Amatus was in the days of King Dagobert a man distinguished in character and in holiness alike, in name and in deed. Born of noble parents of Roman stock in the suburb of the city of Grenoble, a boy of rare promise, his father — named Heliodorus, devoted to the Christian religion — being a most devout man, dedicated his son Amatus to the monastic service; and the boy was offered at the threshold of St Maurice’s monastery at Agaunum as an acceptable gift to God. In no long time, instructed from his earliest years among the first disciples, he was held first in goodness.

³ [2.] For nearly thirty years he gave himself wholly to the monastic discipline; then, seeking the solitude of a greater wilderness, he slipped secretly out of the monastery and gave himself, an athlete of Christ, to do battle with the devil on a peak of the highest mountain. The abbot and brethren sought him anxiously and diligently; after three days’ fasting, following the saint’s footprints with difficulty among the perilous crags, they reached the place where the saint was hidden from men but present to God. They begged him to return to the monastery, for the abbot and brethren grieved for him, and asked what this withdrawal meant. He said: “Suffer me, brothers, I beseech you, to bewail my sins in this narrow little place and to serve my Redeemer in diligent devotion.” When they could not tear him away, they asked: “What food do you wish for your sustenance? At least tell us.” He said: “Bread and water, after a three days’ fast, so long as the Lord wills — barley bread. I ask for nothing better.” They reported this to the abbot; and one of the brethren named Berinus was chosen to minister to him continually. Taking bread and a pitcher of water, Berinus went to the man of God and, leaving them, withdrew. As the saint bent to prayer, the tempter appeared in the form of a raven, stole the bread, and spilled the water. But Amatus arose and said: “I give You thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, that You bid my fast increase; and by Your aid it shall be so, for nothing in this world is done without Your will.”

⁴ After a little while a cell was built for him. The workman, finding the timber for the little room short, came to the man of God and said: “Suffer me to go to where the wood is cut, for our beam seems shorter by two hand-lengths.” He answered: “Do not go, my son; go back and measure — have faith.” The man returned and found the wood as much longer as it had been short, and told the man of Christ what had happened. He said: “Be silent, and do not cut it, for it is God’s gift for this work — for I myself saw the aforementioned measure extending beyond the covering.”

⁵ In those days there lived in the Vosges that excellent man, the renowned abbot Eustasius. It chanced that, travelling into Italy to recall Columbanus, he entered the monastery of Agaunum and asked who was held first in holiness among the first there. They said: “Do you not know the holy man Amatus, who has lived a hard life on this highest rock for nearly three years?” At once he climbed the mountain by a narrow, almost impassable path and, finding the man, embraced him with such charity that he would not let him to leave him. In short: returning from Italy, he took the holy man with him all the way to Luxeuil, declaring that a lamp is not to be hidden under a bushel but to give light to those in the house, and that he can hold a more perfect way who has left his own dwelling.

⁶ St Amatus lived in that monastery for some time, and was loved by all. He was serene of countenance, cheerful of aspect, noble and ready of speech, cautious and steadfast in counsel, given to compunction, lavish in tears, temperate in prosperity, mild and glad in adversity, excellent in character, most resplendent in holiness, endowed with charity towards all, relying on the discernment of abstinence. Enriched with every good, he shone in the world like a great light. In those days he was sent by the brethren to visit certain cities of the Austrasians, for a great grace of preaching flourished in him.

⁷ There was a noble in the palace, honoured among the people, named Romaricus — in lay garb indeed, but already religious in mind. By divine direction, as I believe, the holy Amatus came to his house for hospitality. Romaricus saw the man of God and received him with reverence and honour; and when the table was set, he begged him amid the feast to speak the word of salvation to him in his desire… Hearing this, the man of God… and Romaricus, filled with desire for the Lord and with love, not many days after despised riches and worldly things, had his head tonsured for the Lord’s service, and gave himself to be taught the monastic discipline. When he had been perfectly instructed, in the same days — the counsel of almighty God surely working — the holy master Amatus and his disciple Romaricus, with great holiness and most religious intent of the highest perfection, founded the monastery for maidens.

⁸ At the beginning of his community he chose one woman to preside over the sisters — full of the desire of God and eminent in religion — named Mactefledis. Her he set before the rest as a pattern of the highest holiness to be imitated. But almighty God, ever the helper of His faithful, wishing to reward her labours and holy desire the sooner with eternal prizes, brought her to the end of this life before she had passed, as I conjecture, two years in that charge.

⁹ One of the sisters on the preceding night saw in a vision a star of wondrous size leave the monastery and enter the heavens. When Mactefledis was at the very point of departing, her soul going out, a sister said: “Sing psalms, for our mother is leaving us.” She said: “Be silent a little, for St Paul is not yet come.” And after a little she signed that they should sing. So that holy soul went gladly from this light to the Lord.

¹⁰ St Amatus, ever loving the solitude of the wilderness, found a castle deep in the vast Vosges and moved the monastery there — as is seen today — and by the Lord’s help established many virgins singing psalms day and night without ceasing in seven choirs of twelve each.

¹¹ But he himself prepared a solitary dwelling on the mountain’s slope… a cave hanging from the face of the cliff, to which Berinus yearly brought a little bread and water. On Sundays he came out… and read the Scriptures to them, exhorting them to labour for the eternal homeland. He was wholly sweet in counsel, wholly filled with the Holy Spirit, ever meditating heavenly things; he used to keep a cheerful countenance whenever he came forth. The thoughts of certain men were revealed to him… To certain brethren he foretold in familiar affection the day of his death. Calling him, he said: “…with what zeal and charity I have nourished you — I wish you to carry out what I now tell you, for the day of my death draws near. Take therefore Castorius as your companion in this work: go… and make a hair-shirt, and with ashes raised up place upon my bed the penance I must pay, for I must repent of my deeds.” The brother said: “It cannot be that you should endure these things — you are worn out in your limbs by much abstinence and tribulation.” He answered: “I have long used these things; but the Lord giving me strength — publish my confession before all: I ask to do what I have preached, and receiving lawful penance, so I wish to leave this light.” It was done as he asked: calling the brethren, whatever he remembered having done amiss, he confessed aloud in their presence in the hair-shirt and ashes. He bore the body’s affliction with continual weeping… but the saint, knowing the purification of his sins through many infirmities, rejoiced with manifold joy. From the neighbouring monasteries, too, the abbots came to him in companies and took from him the fullest teaching of the life to come. When nearly a year had passed in this hair-shirt and ashes, his limbs full of weakness, bent day and night in prayer, skin and flesh consumed so that his bare bones showed — yet his voice persevered with weeping ever toward Christ.

¹² The last day came, glad for his soul but bitter for the brethren and sisters. Weeping and mourning reigned through all the cells. They grieved to be deserted by so great a man, yet congratulated him on attaining the company of the angels. When the end came, he charged a brother: “Bring the letter of Pope Leo written to St Flavian, for in it is contained the fullest account of the Catholic faith.” The letter was read before him; and as it was recited, the holy man said: “Thus I believe, ineffable Trinity; so I confess, almighty God; so I hold of You, Son of God, Jesus Christ, who for our salvation did deign to come into this world; so I understand of You, eternal God, Holy Spirit: one God in Trinity and threefold in unity I confess; so, taught by You, I hold of Your incarnation, most merciful Christ.” Through every sentence he fitted his confession, so that the holy man approved himself orthodox in all things.

¹³ Being pre-eminent in holy humility and judging himself unworthy of burial within the basilica’s doors, he ordered his grave to be prepared in the entrance of the basilica of St Mary, writing above it the epitaph he himself composed: “Every man of God who shall enter this holy place to pray: if you are worthy to obtain what you ask, deign to beseech the Lord’s mercy for the soul of the penitent Amatus buried here — that whatever my littleness could not obtain for my many sins by lukewarm penance, your great charity may obtain by diligently beseeching the Lord’s mercy.”

¹⁴ The brethren and sisters gathered, and all the people of both sexes, mourning, awaited the holy man’s departure, reading the Gospels and singing psalms and hymns by his bed. Amid these voices, asking pardon of all and bidding them farewell, he yielded up his spirit. There one longed rather to rejoice, but was compelled to weep: the monks wept, the devoted maidens mourned, all the people of both sexes, youths and infants, lamented that the holy man was dead and they left orphaned and straitened.

¹⁵ He was buried in the place he had appointed; but on the third day he appeared in a vision to a brother after matins, saying: “What are you doing, brothers?” He answered: “We are mourning and sad at your absence, most loving father, for you have left us orphans.” He said: “Do not grieve: know that I am absolved of my sins and well received in my Lord’s presence. As for you, the furnace of poverty now refines you in this place, but after no long time the Lord God almighty will make you abound in every good here. Meanwhile tell brother Romaricus to be of good courage, to take great care of the monastery — and remember me always.” With these words he departed. The brother arose at once and told all this with tears to the man of God Romaricus.

¹⁶ Afterwards the king’s munificence sent some two hundred gold pieces to the place; and thereafter, the Lord bestowing, many endowments were made over to the use of the monastery of Habendum, as is seen today. Without doubt the prayer of St Amatus obtained this.

¹⁷ When a year had run its course, the blessed man’s limbs resting beneath the mound we have described, and vigils having been kept in the night for his feast, it was again revealed to a brother after matins that those blessed limbs should be placed within the basilica of St Mary as soon as possible. This was done at once with great reverence by the Lord’s help; and there, as the years revolve, crowds of people hastening to his feast doubt not that through his intercession they shall be saved — by the gift of Him who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God in perfect Trinity, for ever and ever. Amen.

Here ends the Life of St Amatus the Confessor of Christ.

The Life of St Romaricus #

(Addressed to the abbess Caecilia.)

¹ You ask, noble mother of holy virgins, lady Caecilia, that the deeds of our holy father Romaricus — how he was converted to the monastic life — should be set down in writing in a little book. To your entreaties I shall respond with obedience rather than eloquence.

² The blessed Romaricus was noble in the palace, sprung of illustrious parents, and shone beloved everywhere. Living a religious life in lay garb, he rendered to the king what was the king’s and to God what was God’s; he attended monasteries and churches of the saints and Christ’s poor with such assiduous vigilance that he counted that day lost on which he had exercised no work of piety or almsgiving.

³ Once, when King Theuderic had pursued his brother Theudebert and the father of Romaricus had been killed, their estates were confiscated to the fisc; and Romaricus, because he had kept faith, was driven by the malice of the persecutors and fled to Metz. In the palace at that time was a bishop named Aridius who diligently served Queen Brunhild’s discourse. Romaricus prostrated himself at his feet, begging that by his intercession he might recover his property from the queen; the bishop, wounded with anger, impiously struck the man’s face with his foot. At once the man of God Romaricus rose and went to the basilica of St Martin; prostrate on the pavement, he cried: “O blessed Martin, I have commended myself to you. Where are you? What do you? Bring help to the wretched, lest anyone henceforth be made over to your patronage.” With these words he returned to the city, as though he had received an answer, awaiting the outcome. At daybreak it was reported that King Theuderic had been struck down by death’s sentence; and Romaricus was summoned by the queen and Bishop Aridius, his patrimony restored, and entreated to grant them leave to flee from the city of Metz. He, loving his enemies, did not deny them help as far as time allowed.

⁴ Later it happened that he was held among the chosen in King Chlothar’s palace. But the ineffable God, seeing His soldier fighting bravely amid the dark affairs of this world, willed to bring him out into the bright fields; and it happened that the blessed Amatus was brought out of the wilderness’ secret places. He found the man and exhorted him: having his head tonsured and his goods scattered among the poor as a treasure laid up for himself in heaven, to press on to more perfect things. Romaricus, hearing this — being wholly filled with holy desire — went to the monastery of Luxeuil with a great substance of many things, having first freed many of his servants; and there he received the holy humility and obedience to be followed for Christ’s sake. The little servants who had once been his ministers he made his companions, tonsured, and joined to himself; and he became the subject of those whose mighty lord he had been. He submitted to such a yoke of humility and penance that whatever menial task was to be done in the monastery, he took it on himself. Working in the gardens more often than the other brethren, he committed the psalms continually to memory.

⁵ For when he had kept back only one estate for the good work to come, taking counsel together the blessed Amatus went with him to build the monastery for maidens. Gathering many maidens, they hastened into the wilderness and established the holy work — poor in worldly substance but rich in faith in Christ, believing what He said: “Every one that has forsaken house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess everlasting life.” These things are shown fulfilled in their works, as is seen today. [The second Life adds: hastening together to the place hitherto called the Castle of Habendum, trusting in divine help, they founded the venerable monastery; and that the mount might not be deprived of the blessed man’s memory, it took its name from its dweller and chief possessor — Mount Romaricus, famed far and wide.]

⁶ After the death of his blessed companion Amatus, he himself took charge of the holy congregation; and as before, so henceforth he fed and nourished it, filled with such charity and piety that he gave his own body to every laborious trouble for the sisters’ rest and needs. Whenever anything was lacking in provisions or necessaries, this was his holy custom: turning at once to Christ he would say with tears: “you have enough, O Lord God, and art overflowing — help Your servant, as you know how.” Without delay the result followed the asking…

⁷ A certain consecrated virgin in the monastery, seized by a demon, was healed at once by his interceding prayer in the sight of many. When certain leprous maidens were gathered in the monastery, he had a separate cell made for them solely to care for their infirmity — for he did not forbid them to frequent or dwell amid the congregation. One of them, following a holy counsel, secretly took water from the bath in which the man of God had washed, bathed her limbs, and little by little the leprosy left her body — she who is still seen today, safe, a handmaid of Christ among the sisters…

THE PASSING OF ST ROMARICUS

⁸ Before the blessed Romaricus reached his last day, he had hastened, as though foreknowing, to the prince’s palace to warn the king and his nobles of the peril and mishap to come that they should avoid. When he arrived, the great man Grimoald the under-king, hearing by messengers that Romaricus wished to approach him by night, arose with kindled torches in the dead of night and met him midway; and beholding the man of God of wondrous stature, he trembled at some angelic or heavenly sign he seemed to see above him. Embracing him with much reverence and bringing gifts, he promised to do what was said. From there returning, Romaricus went round the monastery’s farms as best he could, exhorting all to keep inviolate the teaching they had long and continually heard from him, and to be ever solicitous for their souls’ salvation.

⁹ When he reached the monastery, after no long interval he took to his bed touched by a slight fever; but his holy tongue, ever ready for God’s praise and for preaching, was bound by no chains. For the Lord granted him this special gift: that on the very day on which He Himself returned triumphant from the depths, victor, to the heights — that is, the Lord’s day — the holy man, his limbs loosed, should depart to receive his rewards. When matins were finished and it was almost daybreak, certain brethren stood by his bed and asked him to turn on his other side; at once his soul began to depart. When he was nearly stripped of the body, a priest cried: “Wait, lord, wait — receive the viaticum of communion’s grace!” As though returning, he raised his right hand to heaven and kept tracing the sign of the cross over himself and those standing by. After a long delay, the bearer at last arrived; receiving the gift, his lips well composed by his own hand, that holy soul — as we believe — went out of the body with the great joy and exultation of angels. And when they debated through tears and sobs who should close his eyes and mouth, he closed them himself most beautifully, as was asked of others — so that he seemed rather to have fallen asleep than to have died. [The second Life adds: the father died full of days in a good old age on the sixth of the Ides of December, Sigibert holding the sceptre of Austrasia and Chlodovech of the Franks, while our Lord Jesus Christ, King of kings, reigns — Amen.]

¹⁰ His obsequies were then celebrated with great pomp and zeal. He was buried beside his companion the blessed Amatus — that he who was bound to him by unbroken charity in life might seem joined to his side in burial.

¹¹ Nor will I pass over what I learnt from certain witnesses. A certain honoured deacon on that same Sunday night, at the moment of Romaricus’s passing, testified that he was led in a vision through pleasant places, where he saw most beautiful houses glittering with gems and gold, among them one higher than the rest. Led to its open doors, he looked in, though leave to enter was not granted him; and he saw the souls of the righteous clothed in whitest robes running to and fro within with inestimable joy. At once his guide said: “Do you see all this?” He answered: “I see, lord.” Again: “Whom do you recognise among them?” “I see,” he said, “the blessed Arnulf the bishop, and I recognise his holy successor Abbo, also a bishop. But I would know what this solemnity of joy is, and this boundless array of splendour, and what these shining tables I see mean.” Then, as he listened, one of the white-robed within, turning as it were to St Abbo the bishop, said: “Why do you delay, lord Abbo? Why do you not set the guests at these tables you have prepared?” — for this great array was said to be his doing. He answered: “Bear with me a little, my lords, until our brother lord Romaricus comes — I am waiting for him, for today he shall be with us.” This, and some other things, that deacon testified he had seen; his name we withhold because he is still alive in this slippery and perilous journey. And we confess the truth of that solemn joy of which it is said: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him” — whose is the glory and honour and power and kingdom without end, for ever and ever. Amen.

Here ends the Life of St Romaricus the Confessor.

The Life of St Adelphius the Abbot #

¹ When the ineffable and most merciful God, Jesus Christ, was giving His faithful the rule of life, He said in one place: “So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” For this reason He is to be glorified who grants the power to do good. Therefore we have judged that the good and praiseworthy works should not be kept silent which our pious and most sweet father, lord Adelphius the abbot, performed in these recent days about the last day of his death — Christ helping, who said: “No man comes to Me, except the Father which is in heaven draw him”; and blessed Paul says: “Lest perhaps God give them repentance…” — words by which it is plainly clear that the good of repentance is mercifully granted by God to those who ask. So now I shall undertake to recount the deeds of that same abbot Adelphius.

² He was gentle in speech, cheerful in aspect, most sweet to men, mild and affable to all good people, most promptly intent on the offices of God in all things, not covetous of others’ goods, earnestly and sweetly subject to God’s servants, a follower of patience and modesty, fittingly apt for all men. Now some three years ago, unless I err — He knowing who alone knows men’s hearts — wandering through the vast wilderness from place to place, he strove secretly to quench the avenging balls of flame with an abundance of tears. And since God’s ineffable pity often permits that an oncoming bodily weakness should mercifully wipe clean the soul’s stains, while he was shaken by a grave and hostile pain he begged with many groans and tears for his soul’s healing. Calling a priest, he made his confession prostrate on the ground for whatever he remembered having done amiss, asking that penance be granted for his soul’s healing; and said humbly: “My dearest, having taken leave of all the brethren and sisters, I wish and desire to hasten to Luxeuil to the holy brethren, for I am resolved to make my confession to them likewise — at whose prayers I doubt not to obtain pardon and remission of my sins.” Without delay his purpose was fulfilled.

³ When he had entered the monastery, the holy abbot Ingofred, a worshipper of God, received him with his brethren as though embracing a gift sent from above for the gaining of eternal rewards. There he was commended to the holy brother Emmo, a chosen monk of God, and loved with great and deep zeal — for the care of guests then fell to Emmo. That holy man was gracious in deed and act, and served St Adelphius with the utmost zeal. While for some space of time they enjoyed mutual brotherly love, the last day came for them to bury their beloved, the shining abbot Adelphius.

⁴ The hour of rising was at hand, and he said: “At what hour do you wish us to rise and go to prayer, lord Emmo?” He answered: “Rest a little, lord, until the bell is rung and we go to prayer.” Emmo went out, and the serving boy stayed with him — and see, a great pain suddenly struck his arm; and at once he said quickly: “Rise, come here, brother, for a most cruel pain has struck my arm.” And he tried to make the sign of the cross over his forehead and body, saying: “Christ, help me; Christ, help me.” With that cry and the making of the cross’s sign, his holy soul went forth. Then beyond doubt, I think, was fulfilled the prophet’s saying: “Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”; and that word: “The wisdom of a man is sung in his end.”

⁵ A swift messenger came at once to the monastery of Habendum; and the illustrious lord abbot Garichramnus, rising by night, went with a great mixed throng of people and monks to Luxeuil, and taking the holy man’s body with the relics of the saints, with tapers and crosses in mighty triumph, wondrously conveyed it to his shrine in the castle of Habendum.

⁶ When the bearers had crossed the Moselle’s channel, see — the holy Tetta, also called Cebedrudis, the abbess, came to meet them with the holy sisters bearing relics of the saints with tapers and crosses; and the people were divided into three companies. The monks’ choirs went ahead, carrying the holy man’s little body, leading all; behind at a distance followed the bountiful abbess Tetta, leading the choir of holy virgins; and the crowd of people took the road last. The voices of the psalm-singers rang out on high everywhere in God’s praise; all that land was filled with the voices and songs of antiphons and psalmody. And so it happened, by God’s disposing, that on the very day on which St Amatus’s feast was kept, his spiritual son St Adelphius was buried in the same basilica with great honour.

⁷ After he was buried, the visions which appeared to certain faithful concerning him must not all be passed over. Before burial he was carried into the basilica of St Peter, and there vigils were kept by the… And what a great miracle and power was heard there must not be kept silent. Since the double feast of St Amatus, as we have said, and of Adelphius was at hand, when matins were done they began to sing the hymn of St Amatus — which Adelphius sang with them from the first verse to the end, continually, in a loud voice, raising his right hand and trying to make the sign of the cross. There was a religious man keeping watch leaning on his body: he alone heard him singing, and with tears, calling God and lord Peter to witness, told us this miracle.

⁸ After the man of God Adelphius was laid in the tomb, a certain deacon, the monastery’s steward, came to St Peter’s square to transact some business — and see, in the oratory he heard psalm-singers as though keeping a feast; they were singing this verse: “My soul shall live and praise You, O God.” He supposed Christ’s handmaids were singing there; but asking a little later, he found no one present.

⁹ On another day, when a certain handmaid of God lay intent in prayer in the basilica of St Peter, she heard in the same oratory singing as though Mass were being celebrated; they were chanting: “The just shall rejoice in the Lord.” Calling other handmaids of Christ, they both heard a loud voice singing — supposing the brethren were there celebrating the solemnities of the Mass.

¹⁰ Now I shall undertake to recount those visions seen concerning him, supported by the authority of the blessed Augustine’s writings on such things and of the bountiful Pope Gregory — who relates that certain monks had met the enemy’s phalanxes and were slain by the sword, and that the enemy themselves, others reporting it, heard their souls all that night singing psalms at the bodies. Blessed Augustine also relates that when the souls of the just are joined in pleasant places with the just, having obtained leave, they return to visit those they loved in this life through revelations in dreams and encouragements of comfort — as we often learn from the books of the saints.

¹¹ Nor must this be kept silent that we learnt of St Adelphius. A certain consecrated handmaid of Christ, full of holy devotion, as she sang psalms intently at his tomb, declared that a soft murmur arose within his shrine, as of one turning to the other side. And at once that place shone filled with an ineffable sweetness and a savour of delight; and those present were rejoicing and as it were exulting with unspeakable joy.

¹² These few things of many have been told, which the holy and bountiful abbess Tetta commanded to be furrowed by the pen in a little book, in memory of the blessed man Adelphius and for the example of the faithful, to be recollected in after time — almighty God helping, whose is the praise and glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

Here ends the Life of the blessed Adelphius the Abbot.