Translated into English from the Latin of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum V, edited by B. Krusch and W. Levison (Hannover, 1910), pp. 729–786. The editorial preface is rendered in full; the letter-by-letter apparatus of manuscript readings, which is untranslatable Latin textual minutiae, is omitted, but all substantive editorial and historical notes are retained and translated.

Critical Preface (W. Levison) #

One. Audomarus and the Church of Thérouanne #

In the course of the seventh century three sees served the peoples whom the Roman empire had once reckoned together in the civitas Morinorum: the bishops of Thérouanne (Tarwanna), the city of the Morini proper, and those of Boulogne (Bononia), the ancient harbour city on the Channel. The Merovingian bishop-lists are fragmentary; for Thérouanne the seventh-century succession runs Athalbertus, Draucius, Audomarus, Ravangerus and Bainus, and for Boulogne the names Adalbertus, Frodobertus and others appear in charters and liturgical books. Audomarus’s episcopate falls between about 664/5 and 670/1. The testimony for his death is the Martyrology of Sithiu, which records his depositio on 1 November; that the feast was afterwards moved is shown by later calendars, because it clashed with All Saints. The year of his consecration and death cannot be fixed exactly; he was bishop by 663, when he granted his privilege to the monastery of Sithiu, and was dead before the end of the seventh century.

The donation of Sithiu by the powerful nobleman Adrowaldus — the charter which the biographer already used — is preserved in a copy of the later ninth century and has often been judged spurious. Yet there are reasons against outright condemnation. The charter bears the subscriptions of three sucebarones together with three further men whose names carry the letters ‘sac.’, which looks like the mark of one who knew the legal rule requiring six or seven witnesses, whether the ternary or the senary number was the author’s own choice. Nor is the date-note free from suspicion, since the charter is dated one day after the day dedicated to Bertinus, whose depositio was kept on the Nones of September. All of this, I grant, amounts only to suspicions; yet they are such that, leaving the charter of Adrowaldus aside, we may turn to witnesses of surer faith.

The Monastery of Sithiu #

The monastery bore the name Sithiu (Sitdiu). Its patrons through the seventh and eighth centuries are named in the charters as the Virgin Mary, the apostles Peter and Paul, and “the other saints”, among whom Martin is repeatedly named. The basilica of St Mary stood on the hill, separated from the lower monastery of St Peter by an interval. That the lower house was the principal seat of the Sithiu community may be inferred from the fact that St Mary is sometimes omitted from the patrons in the charters, whereas St Peter is never omitted in that age; and while Mary appears in the immunity precepts, in the charters concerning the estates Peter is present and holds the first place — so that the lower monastery seems to have been regarded as the head of the congregation and the upper basilica as a kind of appendix. The biographer wished the church of St Mary, in which Audomarus was buried, to have been built by the bishop before the coming of Bertinus and his companions; but Audomarus himself in the year 663 (14 April) granted a privilege to the monastery, testifying that the basilica had been built “by the common work” of himself and the monks, so that the bodies of the brethren and his own should be buried there. Begging the congregation to lay him, when dead, among the monks, he ordained that the basilica should remain “under the protection of the patronage” of Bertinus and his successors, and that no bishop, archdeacon or cleric of Thérouanne should be allowed to claim anything whatever of the monastery’s property or revenues by any title. Audomarus, being then deprived of the light of his eyes, subscribed the privilege by the hand of another; among the consenting subscribers were Mummolinus, bishop of Noyon, and Berthefridus, bishop of Amiens. Among the subscribing bishops are also found Cravangerus and Baginus, doubtless the same as Bainus and Ravangerus who occur as second and third after Audomarus among the bishops of Thérouanne, so that their subscriptions appear to have been added later by way of confirmation — a thing rarely found in the Merovingian age. Perhaps it is proved by this, that among the eleven names which follow Audomarus’s subscription, Cravangerus occupies the fourth place and Baginus the eighth, so that one might conjecture that in the original charter the subscriptions stood three by three on a tripartite page, with these two names set in the margin.

Audomarus had been a disciple of Eustasius, abbot of Luxeuil, and that Columbanian (Scottic) customs were first introduced into the monastery of Sithiu, where the Rule of St Benedict afterwards prevailed, may be learned from traces which, though few and not very early, are intelligible enough. That the illuminated twelfth-century codex of Elnone depicts among others Mummolinus, to whom — as to Aldebertus — the Irish tonsure is assigned, is of little weight, since Krusch has already allowed that the painter had no older exemplar before him to copy.

Far more significant is this: the biographer of Audomarus at the opening of the ninth century copied out a certain creed which came nearer than any other surviving monument of the kind to the creed preserved in the Antiphonary of Bangor — the famous codex once belonging to Bobbio — and it may be learned from Jonas too that the same texts were not lacking to the Gallic half of the Columbanian foundations, since he relates that the nuns of Faremoutiers sang a verse of that Antiphonary.

Bertinus and the Early History of Sithiu #

Now Mummolinus, the first abbot, obtained — as I noted above — an immunity precept from Clovis II (639–657), by which the public officers were kept away from the monastery’s estates. Then, after the death of Eligius the friend of the Luxeuil monks, the abbot in 660 was set over the see of Noyon, and Bertinus undertook the government of the monastery. Nothing, however, is recorded about the manner of electing the abbot, nor is any mention of it made in the royal privileges; if the biographer of Audomarus may be believed, one may conjecture that the authority of the bishop of Thérouanne intervened.

We have a good many particulars of Bertinus’s acts. In 674/5 he subscribed the charter by which bishop Amandus disposed the order of his burial. The possessions in the districts of Noyon, Cambrai, Vermandois and the Cotentin he exchanged with bishop Mummolinus his predecessor, an exchange confirmed by Chlothar III in 663 at the petition of both. When the monastery acquired a property in the district of Attigny “from the royal fisc”, Theuderic III in 682 granted to Bertinus the public tributes and revenues which the fisc had previously received from there, excepting only the farms which performed cartage-service. In 685 the illustrious man Amalfridus gave to the monastery of Sithiu the monastery of Hunulfocurtis which his daughter Auriana governed, reserving to himself and his daughter, during their lives, only the usufruct by way of precarium, on the terms that after Auriana’s death the provost of Sithiu should be appointed — a donation which king Theuderic confirmed in 686/7. The immunity granted to his predecessor Mummolinus by Clovis II, Bertinus took care to have confirmed by the succeeding kings, obtaining such a precept from Clovis III in 691 and about 697 from Childebert III. He died somewhat later, and since in 704 abbot Rigobertus was ruling the monastery, his death is perhaps rightly entered in the annals under 698. Later ages pointed out the abbot’s tomb in the basilica of St Martin. His depositio was celebrated on 5 September, and as the monks ordained in 811, 853 and 867 that the dues should be paid on that day, so on the same day his name was inserted in the calendars by Usuard and others.

Both Audomarus and Bertinus were held for saints after no long time. Audomarus occurs among the patrons of the monastery in 723, when the body of abbot Bertinus also already rested there; Bertinus himself is first called “saint’ in 745. From about 800 the two are found together; but Audomarus, as the monks traced the monastery’s first beginnings to him, is commemorated in the first place, and not only do the domestic charters place Audomarus before Bertinus, but outsiders do so too, so that more than once the monastery is named from Audomarus alone, Bertinus being passed over — the “Annales regni Francorum” under 808 have “Nantharius of St Omer”, the Fontenelle Gesta abbatum speak of “the monastery of St Audomarus which is called Sidiu”, and the Annals of Metz under 830 likewise.

Winnocus #

To the two saints a third also attached himself, Winnocus. The biographer of Audomarus relates that four Britons, Quadanocus, Ingenocus, Madocus and Winnocus, came to abbot Bertinus, and that at his command they built a cell at Wormhout (Worumholt) in the district of Thérouanne, which keeps that name to this day. The estate lies above the little river called the Pene (Peene) on the boundary of the Terwanensian and the Flemish lands, a fairly rich and fruitful soil. This Heremarus confirmed his villa of Wormhout with its appurtenances by the assertion of his privilege, which begins: “To all present and to come who are reckoned in the Christian faith…”, dated at the monastery of Sithiu on the Kalends of November in the first year of king Hildebert (694/5). The place is the modern Wormhout.

The Twin Community and Its Later History #

The Lives of the saints in a manner represent the fortunes of the two communities. The beginnings of the division had not yet emerged, and a single congregation ministered to the upper and the lower church, when the deeds of the patrons were first written down; one and the same author embraced the acts of Audomarus, Bertinus and Winnocus in a single little work. For although the separate parts are read apart in all the codices except book 1, as though they were three Lives, and the lengthy prologue relates only to Audomarus while his miracles end in the doxology (c. 17) with which the lives of saints are accustomed to close, nevertheless there is no doubt that we are dealing with one and the same little book, not three, and that the parts are rightly joined in codex 1. For just as the beginnings of Bertinus are related in the middle of Audomarus’s deeds (cc. 9–12), so the author begins again concerning Bertinus: “The holy aforementioned abbot Bertinus” (c. 18), and even in this Life he refers to the other Life of Audomarus as already written by himself; and that the Winnocus part also is owed to the same author may be understood with certainty from the style.

Certain words recur throughout the little work, employed in the same way:

(h)agius — “the saintly”: cc. 17, 19 (twice), 22, 25 (twice), “agius Christi confessor” (“the saintly confessor of Christ”); cc. 15, 20 “agium suum confessorem”; c. 1 “agius pontifex”; c. 18 “Agius igitur predictus abbas”; c. 23 “agius abbas”; c. 18 “agius custodiebat pastor”; prologue “homines agios”; cc. 3, 22 “inter agium monachorum populum (gregem)”.

pausare — ’to rest’: cc. 8, 17 “parvum pausandi spatium” (“a little space of resting”); c. 17 “Audomaro ibidem paulisper pausante”; c. 10 “loco, in quo suum pausat in pace corpusculum” (“the place where his little body rests in peace”); c. 19 “aeclesiam, in qua beatus Audomarus pausat”; c. 21 “ecclesia, in qua corpus beati pausat Bertini”; c. 26 “aecclesiam, in qua corpus beati pausabat Winnoci”; c. 21 “venerabilia corpora inter homines pausantia”.

tremulus — “trembling”: c. 8 “tremulus — timebat”; c. 14 “tremulisque manibus”; c. 28 “tremulis — manibus”; c. 19 “tremula ad eum ait voce”; c. 28 “tremulo capitis et manuum motu”; c. 25 “corpore tremulus”.

The same phrases: cc. 8, 17 “meridianis diei horis”; c. 26 “meridianam aestivi diei horam” (“at the midday hour of the summer day”).

The miracles are introduced in the same words:

c. 7: “Of which the following discourse, with Christ’s favour, hastens to draw forth a few concerning his beneficent virtues’; c. 15: ‘…wrought virtues, which, with the Lord’s favour, we will relate in the following discourse”; c. 18: ‘…glorified him with wonder-working signs and virtues, of which, with the Lord’s favour, we will tell a few in the following discourse’; c. 20: ‘…the glorious virtue was wrought, which, with Christ’s favour, we will relate in the following discourse’; c. 24: ‘…exalted him with glorious virtues, of which, with the Lord’s favour, we will tell in the following discourse’; c. 25: ‘…wrought glorious miracles through him, of which, with the Lord’s favour, we will relate in the following discourse.’

Holy Scripture is cited in the same way, the word enim being inserted; the intervals of time are indicated with little variation: “After this, many (a few) years intervening” (cc. 4, 13, 14); “after no long interval of time” (cc. 9, 12, 28); “a little interval of time having passed” (cc. 10, 15, 16, 23); “after an interval of time” (c. 21); “a long space of time having passed” (c. 26); “a few days having passed” (c. 16). The ablative of the gerund is used everywhere; and everywhere the same fondness for heaping up words beginning with the same letters can be perceived, e.g. c. 2 “vultu et verbis”; c. 8 “lassus sese locavit ad lectum”, “Tunc somno sopitus, fessus sic siluit senex”, “vis valida venti”, “Tunc subito surgens in ponto seva tempestas”, “sic sobrius senex”; c. 21 “lucere luminaria”; c. 22 “nominibus nuncupati”; c. 23 “sagaces sacrae regulae sectatores”; c. 26 “ignis impetu inlaesa”; c. 28 “ad beati viri Winnoci venerabile venit sepulchrum”. These examples suffice. That the triple little work, such as exists in book 1, is rightly attributed to one author is plain, as Stilting saw. Nor is it strange that Winnocus was joined to the two more famous patrons; before his body was carried off from the cell of Wormhout on account of the attacks of the Northmen, he was honoured with ample cult in the monastery of Sithiu, as may be concluded from the example of the monk Guntbertus, who dedicated antiphonaries written by his own hand to the churches of Audomarus, Bertinus and Winnocus.

At the time when the author wrote, a single congregation ministered to the churches of Audomarus and Bertinus; for celebrating both saints together he addressed the same “dearest brethren” (c. 20). Audomarus is celebrated as the author and helper of the founding of the monks’ monastery (cc. 10, 11); Bertinus is said to have buried Audomarus with his monks — a thing which the bishop while alive had enjoined on him and the brethren “serving the Lord in Sithiu” (c. 14); only monks dwelling there are commemorated. Nor is any rivalry of the churches detected: Audomarus obtains the first place, as in the charters of that age, the prologue looks to him alone, and more of his miracles are related than of the others; yet Bertinus is not extolled with lesser praises, but both are set before the brethren in the same words as examples (c. 20). From where I think the author wrote before abbot Fridugisus (820–834) handed over the basilica of Audomarus to the canons and the congregations began to be treated as those of two monasteries. Nor did he write long before that, since his language is entirely alien to the Merovingian age, and he himself related miracles performed “a long space of time” after Winnocus’s death (c. 26). The author seems therefore to be assigned to the opening of the ninth century; and that his little work already existed in 811 or arose at about that time may perhaps be concluded from the fact that a charter written then is inscribed “to Nantharius the abbot of the monastery of Sithiu, where the two holy ones (hagii), namely Audomarus and blessed Bertinus, rest in the body” — with the very words which, as I noted above, occur repeatedly in our author.

That he belonged to the monastery of Sithiu I would not affirm for certain; for nowhere does he call the saints his own patrons or the monastery his own, and he knew the miracle of Bertinus ‘recently’ performed not by sight but by the report of those “in whose sight this glorious virtue was wrought” (c. 20). And although he set the example of Audomarus and Bertinus before himself also to be proved (“as we can prove concerning these saints, the confessors of Christ Audomarus and Bertinus”), yet it may be doubted whether “the venerable sepulchre of the aforementioned confessor of Christ Bertinus set in the monastery of Sithiu” or “the brethren dwelling in the aforementioned place” (c. 21) belong to a monk of Sithiu. It is however to be lamented, as Stilting observes, that one so many years later reported so very few trustworthy things besides fables and miracles. Whole verses or fragments of verses are inserted here and there into the narrative, which are to be detected especially in chapter 8, such as “de somno surgere cernas”, “Ast illum in pilagus rapuit vis valida venti”, “Tunc subito surgens in ponto seva tempestas”, “Ast miser nec propriam cernens nec alteram terram”, “nec navis nec iuvenis poterat resistere ponto”; c. 17 “tali nunc lumine fulget”; c. 19 “Tunc iuvenis leniter sancto respondit abbati” — although the rules of prosody often agree ill with the rules of the metrical art. The author seems to have known the Passion of Fuscianus and Victoricus (c. 5), and to have read Sulpicius’s Life of Martin and the Life of Fursa, as is learned from certain similar phrases (prologue and cc. 1, 3). In the prologue words of a creed are copied out, almost the same — as I noted above — as the famous Bangor one; in another place (c. 18) he borrowed a sentence from the Rule of Benedict.

The three parts of the little work were used by the author of the Old English Martyrology composed at the end of the ninth century for the days 5 and 8 September and 6 November. Folcvin cited the chapters concerning Audomarus; those concerning Winnocus he both cited and copied; the same were also before Folcard.

The earlier parts, namely the Lives of Audomarus and Bertinus, together with Alcuin’s Life of Richarius, were pillaged by the author of the first Life of Mummolinus, who claimed for his own saint not only what was proper to him (cc. 9–11) but attributed to him also the virtues of Audomarus (cc. 3, 4) and of Bertinus (c. 18), and finally invented other things altogether — as when he related that Mummolinus, Bertinus and Bertramnus (that is, Ebertramnus) conducted preaching through Gaul and long lived in the palace of Chlothar III.

The Manuscripts #

Of the little work we have discussed, one book has preserved the three parts, which moreover is often superior to the rest even in lesser matters, namely:

1) Codex Brussels no. 3202 (formerly no. 8518–20), tenth century, once belonging to the Jesuit college of Molsheim, then to the Bollandist Museum (Ms. 86), fol. 67–83v; through lost leaves it ends mutilated in the words of chapter 26 “ignis impetu”. The Audomarus chapters (prologue and cc. 1–17) are also exhibited by:

2) Codex St Petersburg, F. I. 12, ninth century, once of Corbie, then in 1638 of St-Germain-des-Prés no. 666, afterwards no. 1038, then of the museum of Peter Dubrovsky, fol. 98–106; and

3) Codex Paris no. 11759, fourteenth century, from the gift of the famous Antoine Wion of Hérouval, auditor of public accounts, of St-Germain-des-Prés no. 809, afterwards no. 502, fol. 187v–189v — these two being necessarily connected.

The part dedicated to Bertinus (cc. 18–21) is exhibited by these codices:

4a1) Codex London, British Museum, Cotton Nero E. I, vol. II, eleventh century: fol. 109v–111v Vita I of Bertinus; fol. 118–121v Vita II of Audomarus (B 1b1) — and to each Life, at its close, the Miracles are subjoined which I have edited below.

4a2) Codex Oxford, Bodleian Library, Fell no. 1 (formerly no. 8687 and Fell no. 2), eleventh century, once of Salisbury, then of John Fell, bishop of Oxford (d. 1686), where among the Lives of the saints they are read in the 95th and 97th places: fol. 118–121v Vita I of Bertinus; fol. 130–136v Vita II of Audomarus (B 1b2), together with the Miracles of each.

4b) Codex Cambrai no. 864 (767 n), eleventh century, fol. 238v–241, containing Vita I of Bertinus together with his Miracles of which I have spoken.

4c) Codex Brussels, Bollandist Library no. 5, twelfth century, formerly of Grimberghen, fol. 51–52, containing Vita I of Bertinus in a sufficiently corrupt and interpolated text.

Finally the Winnocus chapters (cc. 22–28) are read separately in these books:

5) Codex St-Omer no. 764, tenth century, formerly of St Bertin, containing fol. 77–77v the prologue of Vita II of Bertinus; fol. 78–88 the Miracula Bertini; fol. 91–96 Vita I of Winnocus.

6) Codex Boulogne of the Morini no. 107 (128), eleventh century, formerly of St Bertin, containing fol. 3v–6 the prologue of Vita II of Bertinus; fol. 7v–28v Vita III of Bertinus (metrical); fol. 28v–30 the hymns and Mass relating to Bertinus; fol. 32v–45 Vita II of Bertinus; fol. 45–69 the Miracula Bertini; fol. 107v–115 Vita I of Winnocus; fol. 115–117 the Miracula Winnoci cc. 1–4 which I have edited below.

7a) Codex Oxford, Bodleian Library, among the Bodleian books no. 354 (formerly no. 2432 and F. 7. 1), twelfth century, fol. 29–31v; and

7b) Codex London, British Museum, Arundel no. 91, twelfth century, fol. 216v–218v — both containing Vita I of Winnocus.

8) Codex St-Omer no. 716, thirteenth century, formerly of St Mary of Clairmarais, vol. VIII, containing fol. 50v–52v Vita I of Winnocus interpolated in many places, though the text here and there approaches 6 more closely; fol. 52v–55 his Miracula; fol. 55–60 his Vita II; fol. 60–66v the Miracula Winnoci written by Drogo.

In the codex of St Martin’s, Dover, no. 146, fol. 3v, there existed in 1389 a narrative concerning the holy abbot Bertinus, beginning “The distinguished confessor of the Lord…” — perhaps the first Life with a changed beginning.

Codex 2 was described for me by W. Arndt; 5 by E. Sackur; 1 and 6 were collated by B. Krusch; 3, 4a/b, 7a/b, 8 and again 1 and 6 I used myself. Finally codex 4c was collated for our use by the most learned Bollandist colleague A. Poncelet with the remarkable courtesy in which he excels; yet I have not noted all but the graver of the quite numerous peculiar readings of that very bad book. In matters of orthography I have used as my foundation first codex 2, the oldest; where it fails I have chiefly employed 1, but also taken account of codices 4a/b, 5, 6, which surpass the rest in age.

Earlier Editions and the Reworked Lives #

The whole little work has not hitherto been edited, but the parts relating to Audomarus, Bertinus and Winnocus have been published separately as though single Lives.

Laurentius Surius, De probatis sanctorum historiis V (Cologne, 1574), pp. 93–94, edited the Vita Bertini (cc. 18–21) from a codex like 4c, but did not preserve the author’s original language, rewriting the chapters in his usual manner “in a somewhat more Latin and pressed style”.

Johannes Mabillon, Acta sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti II (Paris, 1669), pp. 559–565, edited the Vita Audomari (cc. 1–17) “from the Corbie apograph” (our 2), suppressing part of the prologue.

Martin Bouquet, Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France III (Paris, 1741), pp. 518–519, admitted scraps excerpted from Mabillon.

Johannes Stiltingus, Acta sanctorum, September II (Antwerp, 1748), pp. 586–590, edited cc. 9–12, 14, 18–23, 24 as a Vita Bertini, and then in tome III (1750), pp. 396–400, the prologue and cc. 1–17 as a Vita Audomari, from codex 1.

An unknown author — either the canon de Ruder of St Omer or another — in the book entitled La Vérité de l’histoire de l’église de S. Omer, et son anteriorité sur l’abbaye de S. Bertin (Paris, 1754), pp. 393–403, repeated the Mabillon text.

Joseph Ghesquierus, Acta sanctorum Belgii selecta III (Brussels, 1785), pp. 623–632, and V (1789), pp. 626–633, reprinted the Audomarus and Bertinus material from Stilting; and in VI (Tongerlo, 1794), pp. 432–435, edited the Vita Winnoci (cc. 22–26) from the mutilated book 1.

Louis Deschamps, Notice sur un manuscrit de la bibliothèque de Saint-Omer, in the Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de la Morinie V (St Omer and Paris, 1841), pp. 200–207, first brought out the whole Vita Winnoci (cc. 22–28) from codex 5.

Migne, Patrologia Latina CXLVII (Paris, 1853), cols. 1179–1190, reprinted Mabillon’s text.

Alexandre Pruvost, Chronique et cartulaire de l’abbaye de Bergues-Saint-Winoc I (Bruges, 1875), pp. 3–4, 7–8, 11, 12, 14–17, exhibited the Winnocus chapters (cc. 22–28) for the most part, though torn apart, from book 5.

Nor was the little work first dismembered in this manner in more recent times: already in the Carolingian age the Lives of Audomarus (cc. 1–17), Bertinus (cc. 18–21) and Winnocus (cc. 22–26) existed separately, as may be understood from the age of codex 2; and afterwards those who again and again took pains to write the Lives and Miracles of the several saints relied on the separate parts.

1. Audomarus #

B 1) Since chapter 17 concerns a deed done while Audomarus was alive, which precedes the miracles performed after his death, chapter 17 was first placed between cc. 8 and 9, and to chapter 16 three miracles were added, the prologue being omitted. This Vita Audomari (beginning “Hic igitur agius pontifex”) is preserved in its genuine form by codex Cambrai no. 855 (759), thirteenth century, fol. 41–44v (B 1a). On the contrary, codex London, British Museum, Cotton Nero E. I, vol. II, eleventh century, fol. 118–121v (B 1b1), and codex Oxford, Bodleian Fell no. 1, eleventh century, fol. 130–136v (B 1b2), contain the same Life (with the heading “Here begin a few things concerning the life of St Audomarus the bishop, 9 September”), partly adulterated, since the chapters concerning Bertinus (cc. 11, 12) have been so altered that bishop Mummolinus and abbot Ebertramnus are separated from Bertinus before he himself is said to have set out from the Old Monastery, so that the honour of founding the monastery of Sithiu falls to Bertinus alone; and other interpolations are not lacking, depending on the charters of Adrowaldus and Audomarus. These frauds seem to have passed from this text into the Vita Bertini B, and were certainly not present in the genuine Vita Audomari B 1, as may be understood from codex B 1a and from Vita B 2.

The three miracles joined to the earlier text I have edited in Appendix I; B 1b1 was collated for me by J. P. Gilson of London, and B 1a/b2 I collated myself. Certain fragments of the Life drawn from book B 1a Stilting inserted in his notes to tome III; I myself also took account of the falsifiers B 1b1,2.

B 2) The same text was then so revised that the Vita B 1a, so far as it depended on the ancient Life, was left untouched, while the language of the new miracles was polished here and there and a short epilogue added at the end (beginning “Haec de conversatione virtutibusque”).

C) Codex Cambrai no. 816, fifteenth century, contains another revision, in which yet more is changed.

D) A fourth form (the work beginning “Domino omnipotenti bonorum munerum”, the Vita itself “Cum sanctus Audomarus episcopus”) — a revision made not long after the middle of the ninth century by an unknown author, who judged that “a few things were to be set forth individually” concerning the life and virtues of the two saints. To the new little work he prefixed a preface copied almost word for word from the most ancient prologue relating to Audomarus; he used a codex like 4a1,2, generally preserving the language. But as those codices also contain the Vita Audomari B 1b, our anonymous author, following its writer who favoured Bertinus too much, himself contended that the holy man’s companions — both Mummolinus to the see of Noyon and Ebertramnus to the abbacy of St Quentin — had already been advanced from the Old Monastery, so that the Sithiu beginnings might be attributed to Bertinus alone; and, augmenting his fictions, he rashly laid down that Mummolinus succeeded not Eligius but Acharius his predecessor (§ 6), of whom the ancient author made mention in c. 4. Certain things about Adrowaldus’s gift (§ 5), about Rigobertus and Erlefridus, Bertinus’s successors (§ 13), and about the saint’s death (§ 14) he inserted, and he added three miracles (§§ 20–25) to the end of the book. This Life, which Folcvin and Vincent of Beauvais used, preserved in several codices, Stilting edited (II, 590–595), and Ghesquier reprinted part of that edition (V, 633–635).

To this Life about the year 900 the Miracula Bertini were adjoined by another author, relating especially to the attacks of the Northmen made in 860 and 891; these O. Holder-Egger recently edited (MGH SS. XV, 1, pp. 509–516). The author reported not a few trustworthy things which he had either seen himself or learned from others who had seen them; I doubt, however, whether all the miracles were composed at one stretch — I would rather believe that the author received the earlier part (cc. 1–5), written after 860, from another and revised it with later additions. For the irruption made in 879, on which occasion the monastery was burnt, is altogether passed over in silence, and the next biographer of Bertinus, to whom I now turn, related only those earlier miracles.

The third Vita Bertini exists in codex Boulogne no. 107, eleventh century, fol. 7v–28v, edited by François Morand (Mélanges historiques, Choix de documents II, Paris, 1877, pp. 581–607). Two verses are prefixed to the poem: “The birth, life, death and deeds of father Bertinus here begin to the praise of the almighty triad”, and it consists altogether of 803 hexameters, of which the first is “That one God formed heaven and earth”. The author follows Vita Bertini B, with a prologue drawn out to excess, and after finishing the Life relates the Norman attack of 860 and the same miracles which I noted above are comprehended in chapters 1–5 of the book of the Miracula Bertini. He reports nothing of the other incursion, and depicts the monastery as restored after 860 in such varied and vivid colours that Morand seems to me to have rightly judged that he composed the poem in the monastery between 860 and 879. He mentions the leaden roof, the shrines, the relics: “Within, as befits the holy place, you would have seen a beautiful picture of stories in order on the wall, and altars square with ruddy gold and crosses of silver, many gleaming books. Whoever would know the number of those books, let him reckon the drops of the rains, the pebbles of the ocean shore, or the sands on every side.” In those years there was in the monastery the monk Guntbertus, celebrated by the brethren in Folcvin’s time because, ‘being a skilled scribe, he renewed by his own industry the monastery’s library, which had been almost wholly decayed by age’. His name is found in charters of 826–868, from which Morand not rashly conjectured that this book-loving man was the author Guntbertus. I would suppose that the latter part of this metrical Life was also before the author of the Miracula — unless perhaps both authors used the same source.

The fourth Vita Bertini was written by Folcardus, a monk of St Bertin’s, and dedicated to abbot Bovo (1042–65), with a prologue prefixed (beginning “Domino suo Bovoni”), to which he added a second preface (beginning “Deificae trinitatis clementia”). In composing the Life (beginning “Beatus puer Bertinus”) he used chiefly biographer B and carried his narrative, swollen with an ample dye of words, down to Bertinus’s death, “the miracles after his death being set down in titles rather than written out”, but finished “in a summary definition” (§§ 48, 49), meaning afterwards “to elucidate them in a more open series of text” (§ 50) — whether he carried this out is unknown. He wished Bertinus to have professed himself a monk at Luxeuil under father Eustasius (§ 8), moved, unless I mistake, by the example of Audomarus, whose Life he had read; he first handed down on report (“ut fertur”) that Audomarus and Bertinus were kinsmen (§ 9). Certain things (§§ 18, 19) he drew from the ancient Vita Winnoci, some (§ 20) from the Vita Audomari B 1b, others (§§ 20, 37, 46, 47) from Folcvin; the miracle of Bertinus tempted by the devil and rescued by St Martin, which had been described a little before by Eremboldus, he related as though received from his elders (§§ 37–39), adding another miracle performed in his own time (§ 39). Count Waldbertus, Bertinus’s friend, he confused with Waldebertus the abbot of Luxeuil (629–670) (§ 28) — an error which Lambert of Ardres seems to have received from Folcard. He had read the Passion of Fuscianus and Victoricus (§ 31), and for celebrating the virtues of Bertinus (§ 33) used Sulpicius Severus’s writings about Martin (epist. II, 9, 13). He makes no mention of the invention and elevation of Bertinus which abbot Bovo carried out in 1050 and 1052, for which reason the book seems to be placed between 1042 and 1050. Stilting published the whole work (II, 604–613), from which Ghesquier reprinted part (V, 645–651).

A century afterwards the fifth Vita Bertini was composed — a second metrical one — written by Simon I, abbot of St Bertin’s (1131–36, d. 1148), at the time when, having abdicated the abbacy, he was living at Ghent. The work, dedicated to his successor Leo (1137–63), begins: “Your son and brother by desert, O holy mother, most renowned people of Sithiu with boundless praises — since I reckon that one greeting is not enough for you, you may think that I am bringing you a thousand greetings with your father. Therefore, kind father Leo, favour Simon, I beg” — and consists of the verses called Leonine, interspersed also with twelve “catapultini” and other artfully composed verses. Simon had three Lives of Bertinus before him — “written once, repeated twice in writings” — and chiefly followed Folcard’s footsteps, yet also took account of the most ancient biographer, so that he attributed the Sithiu beginnings both to Audomarus as helper and to the three companions, and did not claim the honour for Bertinus alone by the fraud of the earlier authors. Re-working also the miracle put in writing by Eremboldus, he carried the rather long poem down to the saint’s death, extended overmuch by ample moral discourses. The work — which may have been before the painter, whether Simon Marmion or another, who at the bidding of William II Fillastre, abbot of the monastery of St Bertin (1450–73), depicted the saint’s life between 1454 and 1459 in very famous and beautiful paintings — was published by François Morand (Paris, 1873, pp. 9–41), perhaps from the author’s own codex, now Boulogne no. 146a (twelfth century).

The sixth Life (prologue beginning “Domino omnipotenti bonorum”; the Life “Beatus puer Bertinus”) comprehends most of what was written about Bertinus in the thirteenth century; for the compilation is rightly attributed by Mabillon to an author older than Folcard, as Stilting observes. The author set the Lives of both B and Folcard as his foundation, inserted charters and other things drawn from Folcvin, and used also the earlier Vita Mummolini. Then there follow the Miracles, both the ancient ones and others added by several authors, and likewise Bovo’s book on the invention of Bertinus is pillaged, so that the deeds are narrated down to the year 1219, the sources being copied word for word. Mabillon edited the whole compilation (III, 1, pp. 108–152), which edition Migne reprinted (CXLVII, 1089–1138); Bouquet and his continuators admitted excerpted fragments (III, 1741, pp. 581–582; VII, 1749, pp. 380–381; IX, 1757, pp. 118–121). A certain part of the Miracles Stilting reprinted from Mabillon (II, 624–629), a lesser part Ghesquier from Stilting (V, 663–666). Finally O. Holder-Egger (MGH SS. XV, 1, 1887, pp. 516–522), using codex St-Omer no. 738, fourteenth century, re-edited several of the Miracles.

3. Winnocus #

The chapters of the ancient little work relating to Winnocus (cc. 22–28) were copied apart in the same manner as the rest, augmented and re-worked. A certain canon Brimo of the cell or monastery of Wormhout in the ninth century added to the Life a few miracles performed in more recent times (below, cc. 1–4), in which mention is made of the count Gerhardus commemorated elsewhere in 853, who took care that “half of the church” of St Winnoc, laid waste by fire, should be built (c. 1), and built a church in honour of Winnocus in the villa of Spirliacus belonging to his benefice (c. 2).

At that time the cell of Wormhout still existed entire; to it bishop Folcvin of Thérouanne resorted in 843, and to it the book-loving monk Guntbertus gave as a gift an antiphonary written by his own hand. But not long afterwards, when the Norman terror burst in, both the other relics and those of Winnocus were translated into the church of St Audomarus at Sithiu. Then Baldwin II, count of Flanders, when he had fortified the castle of Bergues, built a church there in honour of the saints Martin and Winnocus, in which canons were established; and having obtained in 899 a privilege for the church from king Charles, he brought the body of Winnocus there — from whose name the place was afterwards called (S. Winnoxbergen or Bergues-Saint-Winoc). The canons, who had adopted too lax a way of life, count Baldwin the Bearded ejected in 1022 and, founding a monastery, introduced monks of St Bertin. Meanwhile Winnocus had already found new heralds among the brethren, unless I mistake, of Wormhout, into whose monastery the saint’s body was solemnly carried every year, first on the feast of St John the Baptist, afterwards on the day of Pentecost. There a certain author in the tenth or opening eleventh century added the second part of the Miracles (cc. 5–10), relating the translation to Sithiu made on account of the Danes (c. 5) and the Bergues beginnings together with the translation of 899 (c. 6) and certain miracles (cc. 7–10), of which the last was performed in his own age; and in the opening sentences he pillaged the Miracula Wandregiseli and the Miracula Bertini. Finally a third author came about the middle of the eleventh century, for he related the miracle of the blind girl healed about 1040 (c. 11), who had lived “many years’ afterwards and was already dead in his time. He chose a form of language to be delivered on Winnocus’s feast, and concluded his sentences with consonant syllables in the manner usual at that age.

The first part of the Miracula Winnoci (cc. 1–4) B. Krusch found in codex Boulogne no. 107, eleventh century (our 6), fol. 115–117, and mentioned them, copying the beginning, in the “Neues Archiv” XVIII (1893), pp. 566, 569. To that codex a second, somewhat more recent book is now joined, containing the same Miracles not without interpolation (c. 2) as well as the later ones — codex St-Omer no. 716, vol. VIII (our 8), thirteenth century, fol. 52v–55 — from which I myself transcribed the three parts of the Miracles following the Life and published them in the Appendix, also using codex 6.

Not long after the third part of the Miracles was added, a certain author re-worked both the Life and the Miracles of Winnocus, asked by the brethren of the monastery of Bergues, though not himself a member of the congregation, yet enjoying the monks’ dutiful hospitality. He also, a priest about the middle of the eleventh century or a little after, wrote the book, since it has been rightly concluded that it was known to the priest Drogo when he wrote the Miracula Winnoci shortly after 1070. He narrated the Life (cc. 1–10) and miracles (cc. 11–22) in other words after a codex like 8, interspersing certain verses. Winnocus he described as sprung “from a royal stock” (c. 1), following the interpolated text 8, and he wished him to have lived with his companions in that place, sent by Bertinus, before the monastery of Wormhout was founded (c. 2) — a place which in the author’s age was called Mons S. Winnoci; which fable plainly could not have arisen except after 899. Into the Miracles he inserted certain words about kings Charles the Bald and the Simple and about the Flemish counts Baldwin and Ferreus and Calvus (cc. 15, 16), but added nothing new — as was believed before the first miracles were discovered. Johannes Longus, abbot of Ypres, used his work in composing the Chronica S. Bertini about 1380. The Life (whose prologue begins “Cum titulos olim maiorum”, the Vita “Beatus igitur Winnocus”), whose codices do not surpass the twelfth century, Surius first edited (tome VI, 1575, pp. 121–123), the Miracles being omitted, which were added by Jacobus Mosander (ib. tome VII, 1581, pp. 809–817) and in the same year in Surius’s second edition (tome VI, 127–134). Then Mabillon prepared an edition (III, 1, pp. 303–314), from which Bouquet and his successors excerpted scraps (III, 631–632; VII, 379–380; IX, 134), and Hyacinthe Morice (Mémoires pour servir de preuves à l’histoire de Bretagne I, Paris, 1742, cols. 211–215) reprinted the first seven chapters. Pruvost (I, 4–84) copied portions from codex Bergues no. 19 (twelfth century). Finally O. Holder-Egger (MGH Scriptores XV, 2, 1888, pp. 775–778), omitting the Life (cc. 1–10), re-edited for the most part the subsequent Miracles, which then seemed to be original, from collated codices.

Drogo, priest and monk of Bergues, writing new Miracula Winnoci shortly after 1070, testified that he had learned by hearing and reading that the saint was sprung “of a famous stock of kings” — indeed, that it was common report that Winnocus had been a king’s son. Since this was being said at that time, not long afterwards a fitting pedigree was either put in writing or, if by chance it had already been written down earlier, was brought to the monks of Bergues. This so-called Genealogia Winnoci (beginning “Riwalus Britanniae dux”) begins from Riwalus the leader of the Britons and his ancestors, and the author wishes Winnocus to have been a son of king Juthael and to have had among his brothers both king Judicael, the contemporary of Dagobert I, and St Judoc — whose biographer on the contrary had laid down that Winnocus was Judoc’s nephew. The genealogy seems to have arisen in Brittany (Britannia Minor) and to depend on Breton sources, nor does it look to Winnocus alone but chiefly concerns Judicael. The fictitious pedigree can in no way be reconciled with the times either of Dagobert or of Winnocus. The genealogy, which is read in codices Arras no. 462 (573), thirteenth century, and Bergues no. 19 (twelfth century), was published by Mabillon (p. 302 sq.) and reprinted by Morice (col. 211). I should not be surprised if, this little work having been carelessly read through, the falsifier called Marcellinus took Winnocus for a son of the king of England.

W. Levison.

One. the Life of St Audomarus #

HERE BEGIN, IN THE NAME OF GOD, A FEW THINGS CONCERNING THE HOLY LIFE AND CONVERSATION OF THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST, AUDOMARUS, BERTINUS AND WINNOCUS.

Prologue #

To the almighty Lord, the giver of spiritual gifts and of great virtues, we ought to offer manifold thanks and unceasing praises — He who, being the maker and governor of all creatures visible and invisible, sent His only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, into the lands to teach and redeem the nations of every kind; who, for the sake of man’s salvation taking spotless flesh from the Virgin Mary, deigned to rescue all the human race — sold from the first man, seduced by the devil’s persuasion, and brought under the most bloody yoke of the evil one, condemned to death and to perpetual punishments — from the power of the prince of darkness; and then called to life all men, from Adam even to Christ, bound by demonic deceit in the chains of sins and oppressed by the greatest weights of crimes, now set free by Himself from all the regions of the world, saying thus: Come to me, all, and the rest. Who, when the Twelve apostles had been chosen out of the crowd of the whole human race, appointed also others of another order, seventy-two, the regions having been made white [for harvest], lest many labourers should be wanting to the harvest; and the Almighty bade them to be His disciples, and commanded them, filled in the upper room of Sion with the Holy Spirit and enriched with the wonderful gift of all tongues, to go to teach and baptise the nations of every kind, saying: Go, teach all nations, and the rest. And these disciples of Christ, speaking in all tongues, preaching the word of the Lord in all provinces, working many miracles by God’s grace, enduring various kinds of torments under the savage fury of the pagans, and longing to shed their holy blood for Christ, went through the threefold world.

After these, and after their successors, He granted that other holy men gifted with God’s grace and filled with the same Spirit — for there is no respect of persons with God — fulfilling what He had promised, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, should be the vicars of the apostles in all parts of the world. From where almighty God, who has care of all, who will have all men to be saved, gave to the peoples placed in the western parts of the world — blinded by the foul darkness of errors and subject to the devil, weighed down by the mass of sins and wrapped in the sewer of crimes — Audomarus, adorned with divine gifts, made known by signs and miracles in many parts of the world, as an apostolic teacher. Therefore we pray You, almighty God, through the glorious patronage of that same bishop, that You would grant the streams of Your bountiful wisdom from on high to drop upon our minds, stained though they be, so that we, wishing to know of the merits and miracles of so great a man which Your grace wrought through him, may be able to draw forth but a few things out of many and small things out of great. For who can know and tell his daily manner of life and his constancy in God’s service, and all the labours which he wrought in secret, God only being witness?

Chapter 1 #

This holy bishop Audomarus, then, was born of parents who were noble and renowned according to the dignity of this world and instructed in the catholic faith, in the region of the Cotentin, not far from the city of Coutances (Constantia), and in that particular place which is called Aurea Vallis (“the Golden Valley”). His father, famous among his own people, was called Friulfus, and his mother was named Domitta. These devout parents, with God’s grace assisting, nourished the aforementioned boy in ecclesiastical disciplines according to the rite of the Christian religion from his very cradle; for Audomarus was their only son. And Friulfus, after the death of his aforementioned wife, when the boy was growing in age and in grace, under the sweet and light yoke of Christ, at the prompting of the divine mercy and with his son Audomarus comforting and persuading him, was eager to subject himself to it.

Chapter 2 #

Both therefore — the father Friulfus, that is, with his blessed son Audomarus — fulfilling what is written: Go and sell all that you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me, and you shall have eternal life — dead to the world, living to God, poor in things that perish, rich in things that endure, subject to God, rebels to the devil, like in mind though unequal in age — went together to the community of Christ’s soldiers which is called by the famous name of Luxeuil, founded in God’s name in the region of Burgundy by that man of holy memory, the Irishman (Hibernensis) and blessed abbot Columbanus. To the holy abbot Eustasius, who then presided over the holy and blessed multitude of monks in that monastery, Audomarus with his father declared their devout desires with one accord, following what is written: Ask your father, and he will declare to you; your elders, and they will tell you. And holy Eustasius, seeing that they burned with the love of God and recognising divine grace in Audomarus’s face and words, gave to these servants of God a wholesome and perfect counsel in accordance with the authority of holy Scripture, urging both of them — sometimes together, sometimes separately — that they should persevere with him in God’s service under the discipline of the Rule. Both therefore, burning with divine love and following the counsel of their spiritual father Eustasius, subjected themselves with a devout mind under the yoke of the holy Rule. And blessed Eustasius, filled with immense joy, joined them to the holy fellowship of the monks.

Chapter 3 #

Thereafter St Audomarus, full of spiritual grace, tender in age but robust in faith, subject to the strict rigour of the Rule, was brought up among the holy people of the monks and was beloved by all the soldiers of Christ dwelling in that monastery, by divine grace persuading. For he was chaste in mind and body, filled with obedience and humility, instructed in divine knowledge, full of charity and gentleness, chastened by severe fasts of abstinence, watching through the long night-vigils — knowing what is written: Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when He comes, shall find watching.

Chapter 4 #

Thereafter the fame of blessed Audomarus, spread abroad through many places, reached the notice even of Dagobert, king of the Franks — for a city set on a hill cannot be hid. After this, many years having intervened, called by the most reverend aforementioned prince Dagobert and by all the people of the Franks, with St Acharius, bishop of Noyon, assisting him, he undertook with great humility of mind the episcopal honour of teaching and governing the people of the city of Thérouanne (Terwanensis). In that office, sowing the divine word into the hearts of believers, healing the sicknesses of souls and bodies, redeeming captives and prisoners, caring above all for widows and the needy, he duly governed the people committed to him by the Lord.

Chapter 5 #

Now the aforementioned people of Thérouanne, although before the coming of blessed Audomarus they had heard the divine word from the companions of the martyr Dionysius, namely Fuscianus and Victoricus — at the same time at which St Quentin was preaching in the city of Amiens — nevertheless many of those same people of Thérouanne still adhered to the worship of idols. For after those two blessed men, the aforementioned Fuscianus and Victoricus, departed from that city of the Terwanenses and were crowned with martyrdom in the city of the Ambianenses, then the people of Thérouanne returned again to the worship of idols; for not only those who had refused to receive the name of the Lord before, but also those who had been baptised by the aforementioned fathers, drawn by the same error, worshipped idols.

Chapter 6 #

That most high bishop Audomarus, then, entering the same city, delivered the health-giving precepts of the divine word to the foolish hearts of the pagans, and enlightened their wild minds, blinded by the foul darkness of ignorance, with the ample light of the Gospel; and destroying the vain images he gave them to the fire, and utterly overthrew the sacrilegious worship of idols in that city, and converted all the people dwelling in it to the catholic faith, the divine grace assisting him. For God works together with everyone who works good; since if, as the apostle witnesses, God be for us, who is against us?

Chapter 7 #

After the aforementioned bishop had converted that people to the worship of the true God, preaching the divine word to the crowds flocking to him from every side and freeing many in God’s name from various sicknesses, the divine bounty granted him the signs of great virtues. Concerning these, the following discourse, with Christ’s favour, now hastens to draw forth a few of his beneficent miracles.

Chapter 8 #

On a certain day Audomarus, the distinguished confessor of Christ, was staying in the city of Boulogne; after the night-vigils, rising at daybreak as was his custom, he entered the church to pray, and there through the long space of the summer day preached the word of God to the crowds standing around, sang Mass for the Christian people, laid hands on the sick of various kinds of diseases, and at the midday hours the old man of venerable life, wearied, laid himself down on his bed. Then, wishing to allow a little space of rest to his body, worn out with many labours, one of his attendants standing by — a youth wanton in youthful age — came to him, saying: “Lord, give me now leave to go with me; I wish to go now to the neighbouring places by the sea.” Then the old man said to the youth asking before the crowd: “You do not have leave, my son, to go out just yet; for I think it better for you to wait here a little while, until you see me rise safe from sleep.” For the provident watchman of his flock, full of the prophetic spirit, foresaw that it would be an ill thing for the straying youth to depart. Then the weary old man, sunk in sleep, was silent. But the youth, spurning the commands of the best of masters — as is the way of youths, to despise the bidding of their elders — went off swiftly with rapid steps to the sea. Then, seeing a little boat standing on the shore in which men had been custom to cross the little river which the inhabitants in those parts name the Elna (Liane), the thoughtless youth, blinded by love of play, inconsiderately got into it alone at once, meaning to amuse himself between the banks of that stream. But the strong force of the wind snatched it into the open sea. Then a savage storm suddenly arising on the deep, that little boat — tossed by the swelling waves, having neither rudder nor steersman — drifted here and there on the flood and swam in the sea which with its great gulf separates Britain from the Franks, and which often harms the strongest ships sunk here. And the wretch, seeing neither his own nor the other shore, then repented that he had despised his master’s words; he believed he would die, the winds fighting with the waves, and neither boat nor youth could withstand the deep. Then God, through the merits of Audomarus, at once brought him, trembling and praying, to the Saxon land. Then again, stupefied, beholding unknown fields, he feared, trembling, that robbers would strip him if he tried to wait there alone any longer; therefore confessing the acknowledged fault of his disobedience, with tears poured out copiously, begging for help and crying with trembling voice then upon Audomarus his patron, trusting in the Lord he ran back at once to the boat. The Almighty, granting him a fitting wind and bidding the swelling sea grow calm before him, he swam back again through a tranquil sea in the little boat and returned in safety to the same port from which the strong east wind had snatched him before. Where that little river Elna enters the sea, the sailor rising up at once, recognising the familiar fields and leaving his ship unharmed on the shore, treading the shore-weeds with rapid steps, giving manifold thanks to the Almighty, ran back again penitent to his patron. To the place where he had left him sunk in sleep the bishop had still remained; and by the wondrous mercy of almighty God that swift one returned in the same hours. Then, drawing near the doors of the hall where the old man was praying, the wretch, cast down quickly to the earth many times, confessed his fault with wet cheeks and, sighing with weeping, begged pardon with tears poured forth. Then the old man gently rebuking him, said: “Son, I told you before what would come to pass — that it did not become you to go out today. Why did you afterwards dare to despise our word?” Then the trembling youth answered his patron: “My fault, lord, my fault truly; forgive me, a wretch brought back through you from death.” Then he, as we have said, relating his dangers — how alone among the swelling waves of the ocean and among the devouring tides of the currents running round the rocks he had suffered many things in the little boat on the deep — he did not believe he could escape alive from the sea, unless God had delivered him, a poor wretch despairing of human help, from death through Audomarus’s merits. Then the sober old man bade the youth be silent, repressing the heedless disciple with a humble mind: “Do not bring this word forth again from your mouth abroad, nor ought you to tell these things of me to any man, so long as you see me enjoying this brief life — lest the devil overcome us with the fault of vainglory, and we seek praise from the mouth of men, lest vainglory lift our heart on high.” Hence after his death that disciple, showing all things in order, related what he had suffered in the waves.

Chapter 9 #

After this, at no long interval of time, three men of one mind came together to blessed Audomarus from the aforementioned region of the Cotentin — Mummolinus, Ebertramnus and St Bertinus — leaving likewise, according to the Lord’s precept, parents, country and all their kinsfolk. And St Audomarus received those servants of God with thanksgiving, giving immense thanks to the almighty Lord who had led to him such helpers for preaching the Gospel. For those men were perfect in the catholic faith and instructed in ecclesiastical disciplines and in the divine Scripture.

Chapter 10 #

A little space of time having passed after this, St Audomarus, with the aforementioned blessed men, the divine grace urging him, resolved to found a monastery in God’s name; for, by the divine mercy bestowing on him, he had a fitting place for monks to dwell in. For there was a certain powerful man named Adrowaldus, very rich in the vain riches of this world, whom blessed Audomarus converted from the error of heathendom to the catholic faith and baptised with all his household. And Adrowaldus, by prudent counsel despising the deceitful riches of the present world and having no son, offered to God and to blessed Audomarus a great part of his inheritance with all his manifold substance — namely the villa which is called by the known name of Sithiu. Now blessed Audomarus had already built a church in that villa before the coming of the aforementioned men, in that very place in which his little body rests in peace.

Chapter 11 #

When therefore the aforementioned servants of God had come to him, he granted to them that they should build a dwelling of monks wherever it pleased them in that villa. The holy men Mummolinus and Bertinus, therefore, with the rest of their companions in Christ, began to build a monastery in a certain place which to this day is called the Old Monastery (Vetus Monasterium). But remaining in that place a few years, by divine grace counselling them they wished to choose another place. The blessed men, then, trusting in the Lord’s mercy, found a perfect counsel. At once embarking on a boat, without steersman and oars and without any provision of food and drink, sailing here and there while a spacious marsh adjoined their dwelling, they begged the almighty Lord that He would lead them unharmed into the place which His mercy had prepared for them; saying to one another that they would not disembark from that marsh until, their boat finding a fitting haven, it should befall them to sing the verse of the following psalm: This is my rest for ever and ever; here will I dwell, for I have chosen it. The merciful Lord, therefore, who is present everywhere to His servants — for the Lord is near to all that call upon Him — at once brought the boat in which the blessed men were to land after some space foreseen by Him. Then they also, singing the aforementioned verse, left the boat without delay and joyfully entered the land. And recognising that the place had been given to them by the Lord, they began from there — blessed Audomarus, their kindly father, favouring them — to build in God’s name a monastery named Sithiu, called after the villa aforementioned, above the river Agnio (the Aa); and religious men flocking from every side to the servants of God, blessed Audomarus set Mummolinus over the multitude of the monks.

Chapter 12 #

But not long after this, at a brief interval of time, the aforementioned venerable abbot Mummolinus was advanced, by divine grace bestowing it, to the episcopate of the city of Noyon, and for twenty-six years duly governed the people of that city committed to him by the Lord. The glorious bishop Audomarus, therefore, set blessed Bertinus over the holy choir of monks in that monastery after Mummolinus; for blessed Bertinus was beloved and dear to the holy brethren serving God in that place under the strict rigour of the Rule. For he was a venerable man, prudent and provident in divine things as the shepherd of his flock, but in evils simple and innocent, according to the Lord’s precept: Be you wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

Chapter 13 #

After these things, many years intervening, blessed Audomarus lost his carnal eyes and was deprived of temporal light, so that, illuminated by the perpetual light, he might ever look upon the Lord — as blessed David says: Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord; and the same says: To You have I lifted up mine eyes, O You that dwell in the heavens. And after the loss of his carnal eyes, filled with the spiritual light, he governed the people committed to him by the Lord in the same order.

Chapter 14 #

After these things, a few years intervening, when the aforementioned old man of venerable life, Audomarus, had been worn down by an excessive burning of fever, and knew that the day of his death had come, on that very day he rose from the little bed on which he lay and entered the church; prostrate before the altar with tears he prayed to the Lord for himself and for the people standing around him; and communicating the body and blood of Christ and preaching to the crowds surrounding him, with eyes raised to heaven and trembling hands outstretched — the fever and old age shaking him — he blessed his disciples with a devout mind, saying: “I pray the immense clemency of the almighty Lord that I may deserve to see you, my little sons, happy in the kingdom of God.” And when all these things had been duly performed on the same day, he returned again to his little bed; and lying on it, with his whole body stretched out in the accustomed manner and with a serene countenance, the soul of that holy confessor of His went forth to the almighty Lord, surrounded by companies of angels. And those who were present in that house at the same hour testified that such an odour entered their nostrils and mouths as if that house had been filled with all spices — as has often happened at the passing of other saints. For precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. And the aforementioned venerable abbot Bertinus, the divine grace revealing it to him, at once came to the place where the venerable old man had died, and with his monks brought the sacred body of blessed Audomarus with psalms and hymns and canticles to the place of burial; and they buried him, with the immense mourning of the surrounding people, in the aforementioned church which that blessed bishop built in Sithiu. Now St Audomarus had foretold to blessed Bertinus and to all the brethren then serving the Lord in Sithiu that, when the uncertain lot of his last hour should befall him, they should bury his little body in that place.

Chapter 15 #

A little interval of time having passed after the body of the venerable man was buried in that place, at his tomb a lamp hanging above, filled with divine light, distilled oil in shining drops through long spaces of years. And in this it plainly appears to those who diligently look upon the divine clemency, how great a glory His blessed confessor Audomarus has in the sight of the eternal King, since beside his venerable tomb He often shows glorious signs even to this day. For many, worn out by various sicknesses, when they come to blessed Audomarus’s tomb receive sudden healing by the divine grace bestowing it. For the almighty Lord not only works glorious miracles through His servants while they enjoy this life, but after their blessed death ceases not to glorify them by signs and wonders in various parts of the world — as through His aforementioned holy confessor Audomarus He wrought many miracles after his death, which, with the Lord’s favour, we shall relate in the following discourse.

Chapter 16 #

A little space having passed after blessed Audomarus’s death, a certain man inflamed with the heats of avarice and full, as is said, of evil ways, came to his gossip (compater), begging him to lend him a silver solidus until an appointed time, testifying by his faith — deceitfully too — that he would return it at the appointed time. The other, trusting his gossip with a simple mind, gave the silver to the crafty friend at his prayer. But when a few days had passed, he came to him at the appointed time, saying: “Give me back my silver which I lent you; for the appointed time of your promise has come.” Then the deceitful friend, looking at him with fierce eyes and speaking harsh words with him, with a bold spirit swore, denying that he had ever received any scruple from him. Then he who had lent the solidus answered with right reason, saying: “Let us go together to the venerable tomb of the blessed confessor of Christ Audomarus, that there you may confirm to me by oath, through the glorious merits of that bishop, what here you are trying to deny.” Then that wretch, blinded by the love of mortal gain and comforted also by the devil, the prince of lies who was a liar from the beginning and stood not in the truth, with a mad spirit set out on his way, going to the basilica of blessed Audomarus — prepared even, persevering in his wickedness, to accomplish the perjury. Then both, speaking harsh words between themselves, coming by one road drew near to the venerable basilica of blessed Audomarus as they saw it. Then he who was demanding the solidus said to his gossip: “What need is there for us to approach nearer to blessed Audomarus’s basilica? God is everywhere present; swear to me in this place where we stand, by the merits of blessed Audomarus, that you did not receive the solidus lent by me.” Then that unjust man, stretching out his hands and moving his tongue to utter the perjury and lifting his eyes toward the basilica of blessed Audomarus, was suddenly struck by divine vengeance and fell prone to the earth; and his eyes burst in that same moment — and after this, yet two days of life being granted to him, namely to terrify others who saw him in such anguish, on the third day he died a most wretched death.

Chapter 17 #

There is another miracle which is not doubted to have been wrought through blessed Audomarus’s merits, and which even to the present day is declared by sure signs, the divine power working it. On a certain day it chanced that, as he was going from the city of Thérouanne to the neighbouring places, at the midday hours he wished to allow a little space of rest to his body; he lay down under a certain tree not far from the villa called Eorniacus (Journy). When the venerable man had awakened, he at once hewed a wooden cross and fixed it in that tree under which he had lain. And on the following night an immense light appeared in the same place where the holy confessor of Christ had lain; and all the inhabitants around that place, seeing this miracle, said: “This place also now shines with such light for this reason — that it was consecrated and blessed by blessed Audomarus, who rested there for a little while on the preceding day.” And even to the present day many sick persons receive healing in that place, by the grant of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honour and glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

HERE ENDS THE LIFE OF BLESSED AUDOMARUS, SOLDIER OF CHRIST.

Two. the Life of St Bertinus #

Chapter 18 #

The saintly aforementioned abbot Bertinus, then, had lived many years in the service of God after blessed Audomarus’s death; and as a saintly shepherd with a solicitous mind he guarded the crowd of monks committed to him by the Lord under the strict yoke of the holy Rule, knowing what is written: To whom much is committed, of him much is required. For to the blessed servants of God abiding under his care, preaching the dominical and apostolic precepts, he daily gave a great example of good living by his own strict conversation and religious acts — fulfilling what is written: So let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father; and that, according to the apostolic precept, preaching to others he should not himself be found reprobate. The bountiful rewarder of good works, therefore, beholding the unwearied warfare of His soldier Bertinus against the devil’s persuasions — for the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are to their prayers — and regarding his great care for the sheep committed to him, glorified him with wonder-working signs and virtues; of which, with the Lord’s favour, we will tell a few in the following discourse.

Chapter 19 #

There was a certain nobleman, also an honourable count according to the vain dignity of this world, named Waldbertus; and his wife was named Regendruthis. To this Waldbertus and his wife the blessed Bertinus was father of confessions, and was also their gossip (compater) according to the praiseworthy rite consecrated among Christians for joining the bonds of brotherly charity. Blessed Bertinus, then, often preached the divine word to both of them. For which reason that devout man, the aforementioned Waldbertus, used often to come to Bertinus, that he might hear the divine precepts from the blessed man and be blessed by his sacred mouth in the accustomed manner after receiving the communion of the body and blood of Christ. On a certain day, then, Waldbertus, coming to the church in which blessed Audomarus rests and finishing his prayer there — some necessity suddenly drawing him back — neglected to come to blessed Bertinus, but returned heedlessly to his own house. Then his disciple named Duodo announced to blessed Bertinus, saying: “Greatly do I wonder, venerable father, that your faithful friend in Christ, Waldbertus, finishing his prayer today in blessed Audomarus’s basilica, went suddenly to his home without seeking your blessing.” Then the saintly confessor of Christ, Bertinus, full of the prophetic spirit, said to the aforementioned disciple: “For before, son, Waldbertus reaches his own house — to which he believes he is quickly coming as he hastens now — he shall greatly repent that today he went from this place without the gift of our blessing.” Which thing the outcome of the matter proved, according to the word of the foreknowing blessed man. For on the same day after sunset a messenger came quickly riding from Waldbertus, by his lord’s command, to blessed Bertinus; and at once, after he came into the holy man’s presence, cast down at his feet he said to him with a trembling voice: “Lord, your kindly friend in Christ, Waldbertus, now placed on the border of death and life, asks you in God’s name that you would entreat the merciful Lord for him according to the accustomed devotion of your charity, that through your glorious prayers in the sight of the eternal King he may receive solace from the deadly danger which lately befell him. For after he had today gone from blessed Audomarus’s basilica, wishing to hasten to his own house, suddenly in the middle space of the road he was thrown down from the horse on which he was riding swiftly and fell heedlessly upon stony ground. And with many members of his body broken and his thigh utterly shattered, most blessed father, he thinks sudden death is at hand for him, unless, as he believes, the divine goodness should free him through your holy prayers. For he knows that this danger befell him through his own negligence, because today he went from this place without the safeguard of your blessing, through the cunning enemy’s craft, some necessity drawing him back. Therefore he begs you in God’s name, asking pardon for that negligence, that you would deign to send him, before he dies, a draught blessed from your sacred mouth and signed by your holy hands.” Then the venerable old man, moved by the faithful friend’s misfortune, unhesitatingly commanded his aforementioned disciple to pour out wine from the wine-vessel (oenophorum) which had been placed in the sacristy, that it might be sent most quickly to the sick friend. Then the youth gently answered the holy abbot: “There is, as I think, most blessed father, the space of a whole month or more since there was not one flask (folia) of wine in that vessel of which you speak.” Then the saintly confessor of Christ, full of perfect faith and charity, said to his disciple: “Go, son, in God’s name to that vessel of which you speak; for our Lord, to whom all things are possible, who is a helper in times of need — for the Lord is near to all that call upon Him — will give, I believe, a health-giving draught to our sick friend.” Then the youth, following the holy man’s commands, entering the sacristy, found that vessel of which he had a little before told the holy abbot — that there was not one flask of wine in it — now, by the divine grace bestowing, full this time of the best wine, whose wonderful odour had filled the house. Then the holy confessor of Christ Bertinus, giving immense thanks to the almighty Lord, said to Waldbertus’s disciple: “Carry some of this wine with you and run back quickly to your lord.” Then he, in the same night, filled with immense joy, returned to his master; and relating to him all the miracle that had been wrought, he poured out for him the health-giving draught from that wine. And after he had drunk of that blessed draught, in the same hour, by the divine hand healing him, he was made whole; and rendering immense thanks to almighty God, the author of his health, and filled with compunction of heart, he offered a great part of his inheritance to God and to blessed Bertinus.

Chapter 20 #

In this, dearest brethren, as also in the rest of his glorious acts, the immense mercy of the almighty Lord is to be admired and praised, in that in various parts of the world He unceasingly fulfils through His servants what He promised: He that leaves father or mother and the rest for my sake shall receive a hundredfold in the present world and shall possess eternal life in the world to come — as we can prove concerning these saints, the confessors of Christ Audomarus and Bertinus. For they, as we have said before, leaving parents and country for God’s sake, received a hundredfold in this world by the divine grace bestowing it on them; and moreover He granted them an unfading crown in the life everlasting. And not only did He glorify them with signs and virtues while they were in the presence of the flesh, but even now through their lofty merits in His sight He works glorious virtues — as lately through His holy confessor, the aforementioned Bertinus, He wrought a wondrous miracle; which those in whose sight this glorious virtue was wrought testified to us, and which, with Christ’s favour, we will relate in the following discourse.

Chapter 21 #

Three men skilled in the art of fishing, on a Sunday night embarked on a boat on the river Rhodanus near the monastery of the blessed martyr Mauritius (Acaunus, now Saint-Maurice) — for they were serfs of that place — and stretched out their nets to catch fish. Then an unaccustomed multitude of fish entered their nets that night, so that neither in the long space of years in which they had been custom to stretch nets in that river had such fish appeared in magnitude, nor had they taken such a multitude of fish in one night before. Hence, sailing joyfully toward the harbour in which they had been custom to enter after fishing, they could not move themselves from that boat. For two of them, deprived of the use of feet and hands, were crushed in their whole body; and the third, deprived of the use of his feet, was made deaf — for divine vengeance came upon them for the transgression of the night of the Lord’s resurrection. Hence he who had lost his hearing and the use of walking, striving with two crutches and supported by the aid of his other companions, resolved to go round the holy places for the sake of prayer, that beside the venerable tombs of God’s servants he might implore the divine mercy, that through their glorious merits he might deserve to receive back the health of his body which he had lost through his own negligence. After an interval of time, therefore, when he had traversed many places, he came to the venerable tomb of the aforementioned confessor of Christ, Bertinus, set in the monastery of Sithiu. And when the brethren dwelling in that place were singing the night-vigils in that church in which the body of blessed Bertinus rests, on the night of the Lord’s resurrection, then that aforementioned man, seized with immense sickness, was led by his companions into the church to pray. And when for a long space he had been asking the Lord with tears for his healing through the merits of blessed Bertinus, when the lesson of the Gospel had been read in the accustomed manner, then the sick man saw many lamps shining around him; and the infirmity gradually departing from him, his hearing being restored and the use of his feet recovered, suddenly, by the divine grace bestowing it, he was made whole in the presence of those brethren. And after the synaxis, giving immense thanks to the almighty Lord and to blessed Bertinus, walking on his own feet he returned joyful and whole to his own home. And others in the same church beside the venerable tomb of the blessed man Bertinus were often freed in God’s name from such sickness. For by these signs it is manifest to us how great and inexpressible is the glory of the saints in the sight of the eternal King. For their souls shine among the innumerable companies of the heavenly myriads; their venerable bodies, resting among men, visited by angels, declared to many peoples by signs and virtues through glorious works, are venerated with great honour: for all things pass away, but the glory of the saints remains in Christ for ever.

Three. the Life of St Winnocus #

Chapter 22 #

When the saintly confessor of Christ Bertinus, adorned with signs and virtues, was presiding over the multitude of monks in the monastery of Sithiu, religious men used to come to him from many parts on every side, the divine grace urging them, desiring to persevere with him in God’s service under the yoke of the holy Rule. Among whom four religious men from the far distant land of the Britons, who were named by these names — Quadanocus and Ingenocus, Madocus and St Winnocus — leaving parents and country according to the Lord’s precept, came to him with one accord, asking that he would receive them in God’s name among the holy flock of monks placed under his care. Blessed Bertinus, then, seeing them burn with the love of God and recognising that there was in them a perfect will to live well, kindly receiving them, joined them without delay to the holy multitude of the monks.

Chapter 23 #

After these things, a little space of time having passed, the saintly abbot Bertinus, observing that the aforementioned servants of God were sagacious followers of the holy Rule and filled with perfect charity and true humility, and perceiving that they gave themselves to the labour of their hands with great industry of obedience, bade them build a certain cell in God’s name in the district of Thérouanne. For a certain rich man named Heremarus offered to God and to blessed Bertinus his fruitful inheritance in that district, which is called Wormhout (Worumholt) — and for that reason the aforementioned cell is called by the same name. St Bertinus, then, wishing to multiply dwellings for the servants of God and to prepare guest-houses for Christ’s poor, which at that time were rare in that district, sent those soldiers of Christ, with other brethren obedient to his command, into that district, that they might build in that place a fitting dwelling for God’s servants. The religious men, then, having one heart and one soul after the apostles’ example, following the active life, more solicitous for Christ’s poor and guests than for themselves, built a convenient cell in that place according to the holy abbot Bertinus’s command, with the Lord’s favour; and persevering in it for many spaces of years in God’s service, they obtained their last day.

Chapter 24 #

Now after the death of those three holy men — Quadanocus, namely, and Ingenocus and Madocus — blessed Bertinus granted to St Winnocus that he should preside over the little company of God’s servants dwelling in that cell; Winnocus, who from boyhood had been brought up by blessed Bertinus and by those his holy fellow-countrymen under the yoke of the holy Rule. And although he was unequal to those servants of God in age, yet he was a follower of theirs in perfect charity and obedience, and the Lord bestowed on him a great grace of humility; for he thought himself more vile than all men — fulfilling what is written: Whoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister; and he that exalts himself shall be humbled, and he that humbls himself shall be exalted. The aforementioned servant of God Winnocus, then, keeping this precept of the Saviour, used to minister to the brethren subject to him and to Christ’s guests coming to him; and whatever work seemed hard and heavy to the other brethren dwelling with him, he himself, with the Lord’s favour, accomplished it with a serene mind. The bountiful rewarder of good works, therefore, who is no respecter of persons, who says: Upon whom else shall I rest but upon the humble and quiet man who trembles at my words? — beholding the perfect charity and humility of His servant Winnocus, exalted him with glorious virtues, of which, with the Lord’s favour, we will relate in the following discourse.

Chapter 25 #

When therefore the saintly confessor of Christ Winnocus had been weighed down by venerable old age and forsaken also by his bodily strength, yet strengthened by the unwearied will of obedience with the Lord’s favour, he thought with a solicitous mind how he might serve God and the brethren subject to him by the labour of his hands in his old age — mindful also of the Lord’s word saying: He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved. The venerable man, therefore, full of humility and obedience, the Lord inspiring him, found a wholesome counsel — wishing even to turn a millstone (mola) with his sacred hands, that, grinding the grain into flour, he might serve the brethren dwelling in that place and Christ’s poor, whom he often kindly received, by such daily labour; mindful also of the apostolic precept: Let him not eat who does not labour. The merciful Lord, therefore, to whom all things are possible, pitying His servant, granted that the millstone alone, turned by the divine power without any help of human hand, should grind grain into flour for many days now. And St Winnocus, with hands raised to heaven, the door also being closed according to the Lord’s precept, singing sacred prayers and standing secure beside the millstone, gave immense thanks to the almighty Lord who, pitying his old age, had granted him such solace. All the servants of God dwelling in that cell, greatly marvelling, said to one another how an old man, forsaken by his bodily strength, could labour daily so great a quantity of flour by his millstone with his own hands, unless the divine mercy aided him. Then one of them, wishing to explore this wondrous sign, came with a bold spirit to that house in which St Winnocus, aided by the divine mercy, used to labour. Then the wretch, looking with curious eyes through a little hole, saw St Winnocus intent upon prayer with mind concentrated and hands raised to heaven, and perceived the millstone turned by the divine power and a great quantity of flour scattered round about it. Then the millstone at once, after it had been saw by the foolish man, ceasing from its accustomed course suddenly stood immovable. And that bold man who brought such a stumbling-block upon God’s servant, receiving the deserved vengeance, suddenly fell prone to the earth and lost the light of his eyes; and carried by the hands of others, deprived of his eyes and trembling in his whole body, he was brought back to his own home. And on the next day, trembling, he related to all those dwelling in that cell the aforementioned miracle which he had seen, and confessing with weeping the fault of his rashness, he came to St Winnocus; and cast down at the feet of that confessor of Christ, he begged pardon from him in God’s name. Then the saintly confessor of Christ Winnocus, moved by the misfortune of the unhappy blinded man, and signing his eyes in God’s name, besought the clemency of the almighty Lord — who wills not to render evil for evil — that He would restore to him the former light of his eyes. The bountiful helper of His servants, therefore, who is near to all that call upon Him and does the will of them that fear Him, in that same hour filled with ample light the eyes of that man blinded by the fault of his rashness, through the devout prayers of His confessor Winnocus. Then the wretch, filled with immense joy, and all who saw this miracle, gave due thanks to the almighty Lord and to St Winnocus. The merciful Lord, therefore, not only wrought great miracles through this His confessor while he was in the presence of the flesh, but also after his blessed death wrought glorious miracles through him; of which, with the Lord’s favour, we will relate in the following discourse.

Chapter 26 #

A long space of time having passed after the holy man Winnocus’s departure from this life, on a certain day, while the brethren dwelling in that place were resting in sleep after the midday hour of the summer day, an immense fire arose from a certain little house placed near the church; and suddenly a swift rush of flames, after it had consumed that little house, at once entered with a great crash into the church in which the body of blessed Winnocus rested; and the whole church, the flames running through the dry timbers, was burnt with an immense fury of fire, and the sudden flame consumed all the wooden buildings that were around it. But the tomb of St Winnocus placed in that church, together with the ornaments that clung to it — the divine power protecting it — the fury of the fire did not touch; but the flames, as though driven back by an immense force of wind, receded far from it: for the hand of the Lord was between the flames and the tomb of His confessor. And after the fury of the flames ceased, all those dwelling in that place, terrified by the immense dread of the burning, ran together from every side to blessed Winnocus’s tomb, thinking that it also had been reduced to ashes by the swift rush of the flames. But when they saw that the tomb of the holy confessor of Christ had been untouched by the flames while the roofs placed round about it were reduced to ashes, they rendered immense thanks to the almighty Lord, who not only frees the souls of His servants from the flames of perpetual punishment, but also preserves their bodies unharmed from the assault of the present fire.

Chapter 27 #

After these things, then, lifting the body of the blessed man Winnocus out of its tomb, they at once carried it from the burnt church. And wishing to place it in a place remote from the church until that basilica should be restored in God’s name, a wondrous thing then befell, the divine power working. For after they had carried that blessed man’s body outside the church, they could not move it any farther, the divine hand resisting them. Then they, taking counsel among themselves, said: “Perhaps it has not been granted to us by the Lord that we should carry this blessed man’s body to a place remote from the church; therefore let us beseech the clemency of the almighty Lord that, if it is acceptable to Him that this little body should be placed in this little garden adjoining the church, He would now grant us to move it.” Then without delay, lifting the blessed man’s limbs, they placed them in that little garden; for terrified by that sign they dared not carry it any farther.

Chapter 28 #

Not long after these things, at a brief interval of time, the almighty God wrought a wondrous miracle through this same His holy confessor Winnocus. For a certain lame man — deprived, that is, for a long time of the use of his feet, and so wearied by a trembling of head and hands in unceasing motion that he could scarcely utter a word with a shaken voice or hold anything with his trembling hands — came on a certain day to the venerable tomb of the blessed man Winnocus. When therefore the brethren dwelling in that place were celebrating the night-vigils in the night of the Lord’s resurrection, then that man, led into the church by the hands of others, besought the clemency of the almighty Lord with tears, that through the glorious merits of His confessor Winnocus He would restore his limbs, wearied with intolerable sickness, to their former use. The merciful Lord, then, who does not forget the prayer of the poor, who is a helper in times of need, in tribulation heard the wretch beseeching Him through the merits of blessed Winnocus. For when the lesson of the Gospel had been read in that church that night after the night-vigils in the accustomed manner, then that man, surrounded by an immense light, saw two fiery arrows directed at his ears from either side. And at once one entering through his right ear and the other through his left, an immense abundance of blood suddenly flowed through the openings of his head; and released from the intolerable weariness of that sickness, he received sudden healing by the divine grace bestowing it. Then the wretch, filled with immense joy, walking here and there on his own feet and leaping as he ran through the spacious church, gave due thanks to the almighty Lord and to St Winnocus; and to the brethren standing around he related in order how, after the assault of those arrows at his ears and after the coming of that light to him, the infirmity suddenly departed from him. Then with a crowd of the surrounding people, praising the Lord and marvelling at the glorious merits of the holy confessor of Christ Winnocus in the sight of the Lord, he went whole and joyful from the church — by the grant of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honour and glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

HERE ENDS THE LIFE OF ST WINNOCUS THE CONFESSOR.

Appendix #

One. Miracles of St Audomarus #

1 #

When no long flow of time had passed after the blessed man’s departure, it befell that a certain prisoner, pressed by the wondrous weight of chains, was being dragged by the hands of his enemies to the very entrance of the confessor of the Lord’s church — when see, at once, by the divine pity conceding it, he slipped from the hands of the violent men and made for the more hidden parts of the basilica, and besought the saint of the Lord with tearful sighs to intercede for his deliverance. And while he tarried among such cries, God’s clemency was not wanting; for the chain lay broken beneath the crash into the smallest pieces. And those torturers following the steps of the wretched man, when they saw the wondrous deed, remained in excessive stupor a long while; and all who were present, knowing that he had been delivered through the holy man’s intercessions, with one accord praised the marvels of the Lord for the heaping up of His glory among men — He whose conversation, while he enjoyed earthly things, was in heaven, though no mortal is found to live without what he lacked. For the miracles of the saints are not to be kept silent because we, stained in mind, are not fit to set them forth — they who, with God cooperating, betray themselves willingly to the eyes of men — but are rather to be written down, since they inflame the hearts of present and future generations to profit in the Lord.

2 #

For in most recent times, after his venerable fame had been published through various spaces of the world, the souls of the faithful burning for veneration of that holy man, not only on his own soil but also from far distant regions of the earth they solemnly handed over estates, vineyards and households with the entirety of farms to the place of his tomb at his temple — by the stipulation of fit witnesses and the writing of charters, with the Lord’s favour — that they might deserve to have him as intercessor with the just Judge. Among whom also certain noble Franks, the Ripuarian people by the known name, not far from the river Rhine, fervent with the same vow and desire, assigned also their fields and vineyards with the rest of their substance to the holy man and to his successors and confirmed them. Now on a certain day at the time of the grape-harvest, a shepherd — the little boy of a certain religious man, Eckinus by name — entered a vineyard bestowed upon the glorious man, and stealthily filled his bosom by snatching grapes; and having done this he returned to his fellows with the plunder. And when his companions asked that he should put in his hand so that they might share the plunder he had carried, his right hand, put into his bosom, so stuck immovable that neither could the left hand by which the bosom was held closed, nor the right put into the bosom, be drawn out; with twisted mouth he had lost the use of his tongue. Then, the rest of the companions marvelling, they brought the enfeebled boy to his own lord with no small trembling, relating the cause, when it befell him, that had happened. But the boy’s lord, being a religious and humble man, pitying the ill-conditioned boy, at once sought the divine counsel of mercy. Taking the wretched and negligent shepherd with him, a situla full of wine too acquired by his own labour, and a dish filled with loaves and cheeses, he went to the basilica situated in that villa which in their tongue is called Gebwaldasthorp; and offering what he carried to the altar and prostrate with bowed countenance together with the boy, with wet face for the crime that had been committed — the pious bishop Audomarus interceding — he besought the clemency of the Almighty. And after the tears of humility, the prayer obtained its effect; the boy rose up unharmed, and the frame of his members was recalled to its former use. The boy’s lord moreover added that he would fulfil yearly the offerings he had carried so long as he had life; and when these things were thus performed, giving thanks to God he returned to his own home. And so it happened that from then on the inhabitants of that place neither wished to seize the property of his monastery — vineyards or apple-trees or gardens — by invasion, nor presumed at all to touch the last blade of grass without leave. O wondrous man, who is swift in the vengeance of crimes and merciful to those who humbly entreat him!

3 #

Not only in those foregoing times had the Lord fulfilled a miracle wrought in a more remote province to declare the holy man’s merits, but also in most recent times a stupendous miracle was declared before our eyes, of which almost innumerable witnesses of both sexes, men and women, still remain who stood present at that spectacle. At a certain time when, as is the yearly custom, the Rogations of three days were being solemnly celebrated through all the provinces where the Christian religion holds the strength of firmness, and when the people flocking in troops from every side to that temple — which is venerated with the greatest honour of this province also, where the body of that blessed man is seen to have been committed to the earth — it befell that after the now mid-day hour a Mass had to be celebrated for the wearied people in the procession, now returning to the same church. Among those multitudes a certain woman was present with her two little girl daughters; and when the cantor began the antiphon, the younger girl kept complaining to the elder that she was wearied with the burning of thirst. The elder, moved with pity for her, took the younger’s hand and led her out of the church, that she might in some way temper the little one’s thirst. Coming then together to a well having a depth of no less than sixty feet, since the means of drawing water was lacking on account of the absent rope, the little girl — through thirst looking down heedlessly at the water of so great a depth — fell headlong to the bottom. But the elder, who remained stupefied over the well’s mouth, ignorant of a more useful counsel, yet chattering with wailing, compelled a very great multitude by her voice to come. And when they ran together and looked round on every side, the crying girl with difficulty, for excessive fear, disclosed the cause of her wailing. And since the well-rope was wanting, intolerable anguish was not wanting as to how or by what device even the corpse or dead body should be drawn out of the well’s depth. Then a servant of a certain brother of that monastery, running up when he had learned what had been done, ran across to another well; and taking a rope from there, he went down into the well and found the girl floating upon the water like a goose. Nor indeed were her garments wetted through by the depth of so great a fall; and she was brought up to the top with a dry head. Which the multitude seeing, they glorified God through the merits of the holy bishop, knowing without doubt that by the aid even of his prayers they would be freed from infernal punishments if they should confess their sins from the heart — by the grant of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honour and glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

HERE ENDS THE LIFE OF ST AUDOMARUS.

Two. a Miracle of St Bertinus #

But neither do we believe that this should be passed over in silence which we remember to have been done lately in these our days, who relate these few things with a conclusion of syllables. For although we are of slower wit and less fit to describe the works of the saints, yet lest they should become unknown to any successors, we have preferred to depict in unpolished discourse the things which the Lord wrought through blessed Bertinus’s merits among His servants, rather than to pass them by utterly in silence.

A certain man, unknown to us in part but — as the event afterwards proved — filled with a malign spirit, when he had pretended to be of a certain religious life, entered the church of our aforementioned patron St Bertinus for three continuous days as though for the sake of praying, and cast himself on the ground many times as if he were pouring forth prayers with a contrite heart. But whenever he went out, he carefully examined the bars of the doors, feigning something else in the presence of the custodians. For sometimes he bent himself down as if to tie up his loosened shoe-straps there; and sometimes, feigning the slipping of his sleeves, he gathered them up bent down at the same exit:

Nor is it strange if he went bent, whom the unclean spirit presses on this side with a great weight and drags on that.

Yet having tried out all that he wished, he noted the hour at which the brethren after Sext would go to the refectory to take bread for refreshment. Coming up thus and seizing a knife, he pressed upon the wood across the joint of the doors by which both were bound together transversely — since it had not been secured on the other side with an iron bolt — so that, the head of that bar being lifted upward, it might afford a means of entering. Then that wretch — yet not to be pitied — spread the will of his malice into effect. For entering he stole the silver vessels which hung before and behind the altar under the crowns and lamps. But when he had gone out and began to seek a passage to the gate, he saw in wondrous wise — as he himself afterwards related — very many terrible enemies standing against him. For tempted by the devil he was permitted indeed to snatch the greedy plunder, but was not permitted to carry it off at all. From where it befell that, though the gates stood open, no way back lay open to him; returning through the middle of the monastery he took his way and made for the island which is situated within the marsh of that monastery, that there he might deposit with a certain acquaintance what he had stealthily taken from the holy things. Meanwhile the custodians of the church, leaving the refectory together with the brethren, when they perceived the loss of the sacred vessels, at once a concourse of the monks gathering together was made; and they were so dismayed in mind that they could not find what to say or what to do or where to turn, but all cried out with one accord that this had come to pass through their own sins deserving it. But the merciful Lord, through the merits of St Bertinus His confessor, suffered not long the souls of those serving Him continually to be endangered by sadness. For the unhappy thief already mentioned, when he had seen on this side troops of enemies and on that the ruinous waters and marsh — for that I may speak to those who do not know, the place is such that for a thousand paces and much more it has no entrance except by boat, except one gate on the west through which footmen and horsemen and those leading waggons are accustomed to have free ingress — began to give maddened leaps as though over precipices of walls and roofs. Which when those dwelling there had seen, all hesitation of doubt being utterly removed, they cried out that this man was the guilty one, this the thief of the sacred treasure, and that for that reason he was thus driven by a demon. And when they had shorn him, he was asked by whatever device what had befallen him or why he had gone mad, and at once he set forth the truth of the whole matter. What more? The right of judgement prevailed against him; from which also he was sent into custody — namely into that castle where the Menapian fiscal lands were anciently cultivated, in the famous place, the castle of the Menapii, on account of which the district is also called the Mempiscus, as though the “Menapian fisc” (Cassel). And the whole company of the aforementioned congregation grieved over him with one accord, and sent to the count of that place, and it was granted him to go out free. But because he was held fast in very many other crimes, as we afterwards learned, therefore perhaps he had but a little time for repentance: for he survived only a week. O how brief is the time of the present life in comparison with eternity! We exhort therefore all who shall hear these things to forsake evils and follow after good things.

HERE ENDS THE LIFE OF ST BERTINUS THE ABBOT.

Three. Miracles of St Winnocus #

1 #

There still remain certain things concerning the aforementioned holy man which were done in our times and which we judge must not be passed over in silence, lest we should be proved more sluggish, although we may seem more rustic than the ancient writers. It befell at a certain time, when count Gerhardus had begun to build half of the church of the often-mentioned holy man by his own care, that a certain servant labouring in the same work fell from the top of the wall, so that he seemed levelled with the earth, dead. But after a little moment of an hour — as we believe, by the merits of the holy man whose church’s work he was serving — he rose up so sound and strong that he at once worked as before. Now the man was of such great size and weight that it can be doubtful to none that he kept his life by the merits of St Winnocus.

2 #

After this it pleased the same venerable man, count Gerhardus, that a church should be built as his benefice in the place called Spirliacus (Eperlecques) in honour of St Winnocus. For the directing of that work brethren of good testimony were also invited from the holy man’s monastery, that the work might be completed by the help of the brethren of him for whose love the temple of God was being built. While they were dwelling there, on a certain Sunday, when the chalice was wanting to the aforementioned brethren for consecrating the Lord’s body — which it is a sin to pass over on such a day — a certain glass vessel was found, once prepared for that office. But, as the brethren who were present and assisting at the office of the Mass confessed, it was so shattered that part scarce clung to part. Yet when one of the brethren, taking it gently, was washing it with water, the more he rubbed it the more it was made solid, so that it is held fit for that ministry even now. Which seeing, they gave thanks to God and reckoned it to the merits of St Winnocus.

3 #

Moreover at a certain time of Rogation, when we were making a procession with the people after the accustomed manner, it befell on some occasion that we made for the monastery later than we ought. There also the saintly man’s staff (cambuta) with his relics was being carried among the crosses. But when this was done too carelessly, a particle of gold fell from its front together with those relics; yet that night the loss of so great a treasure was known to none of us at all. In the morning, however, the custodian of the church, standing by and looking and finding nothing of them, was struck with great fear. And so trembling he called the whole congregation, together with him who had carried the aforementioned staff, to see whether by chance it had been in any one’s knowledge — the thing which he feared he had lost. And when none was found conscious of it, men were sent over the whole way by which they had come, and it was not found. Then a wondrous and exceedingly stupendous thing befell. For when that custodian of the church heedlessly put his hand into the cowl-hood of his habit, which we canons also then used, he found the holy man’s relics with the gold which he had already despaired of finding again. And questioned about the matter, he testified under oath that it had never been within his knowledge how that thing had happened — especially since he himself had taken off that same cowl of his that night and put it on in the morning. We also, repenting of our carelessness, gave thanks to God who permitted such things to be done through the merits of St Winnocus.

4 #

It pleases us further to relate what lately befell in these our days among the venerable man’s miracles. At the Lenten season, at the sixth hour, while the brethren performing the office of that hour were intent on prayer, a multitude of the people standing by, a lamp with a basin full of oil, which hung before the sepulchre of the holy man’s body, fell from on high, its rope having broken, and the crash of the fall was so great that all who were present thought that an arch of the wall had fallen. And rising from prayer they came to see what it was. And see! lifting the veil which hung behind the altar, they found that the glass chalice had leapt out of the basin and was standing thus unharmed, so that scarce a drop of oil had been spilled from it. At once, the people going out, the brethren gave themselves to prayer, giving thanks to God who often shines forth in His saints in miracles, and who lives and reigns, the Father with the Son and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.

5 #

Those stupendous miracles which in our times the Maker and Governor of all things deigned to work through the same most holy man Winnocus, with the Lord helping and the merits of that excellent confessor interceding, it has pleased us to hand down in writing with a true and faithful discourse. In the times of king Charles (the Bald), the savage race of the Danes, sailing as pirates over the high seas, bloodthirsty after the manner of wolves, devastated and burnt everything round about near the ocean shore. Which deadly plague, God permitting it and our crimes demanding it, raged especially in the district of Flanders and in the Menapian land. From fear of this danger it happened that St Winnocus was withdrawn from his own place, which is called Wormhout, and carried into the monastery of Sithiu of St Audomarus.

6 #

After the courses of many years, therefore, the aforementioned misery now ceasing, it pleased the prince of that district that a city ought to be built for the fortification and protection of the people in the place which is called Bergues. Which when it had been completed, he built a church in it in honour of the confessors of Christ, St Martin and St Winnocus. For he was thinking with solicitous mind, if God so willed, to place the most blessed man’s body in it — as the event afterwards proved — using a wise counsel, namely that the place and the subject district with the aforementioned people might be protected by the merits of the precious saint beloved by God. But before the relics of the aforementioned saint should be transferred to that place, the same prince, going to the king, ennobled that basilica with royal bounty and confirmed it by a royal privilege. This translation was made in the year of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ the nine-hundredth, in the third indiction, on the thirteenth of the Kalends of January (20 December 899), the Lord cooperating.

7 #

These things being thus duly done, it was ordained by the religious men serving God that in each year on the feast of St John the Baptist the blessed man’s body should be brought back to the place of its own repose where he had committed earthly things to the earth and his spirit mounted to the celestial heights — from which also it had been carried off before. Which being done, the people rejoicing exceedingly, every year with much pomp and immense exultation they did not delay to carry it out. From where among the rest who used to visit that holy place, a certain Adelbertus brought his brother-german named Tancradus, who blind of eyes from his earliest cradle through the orbits of sixteen years had not seen the light of heaven; for he was a necessary guide to him of the right path, since he had lost his own faculty of going about. The time was now at hand when it pleased the almighty Lord to consecrate this most healthful translation not only with ineffable joy but also with the evidence of signs. For in the night-time, when the sacred vigils were being held and they were passing the whole night without sleep, it befell that he lay prostrate before the altar, awaiting God’s help. As the brethren were chanting the night canticles, the wretch, stretched on the ground, suddenly fell asleep. And when they came to the Lord’s Prayer which preceded the accustomed reading of the Gospel, he sees an old man standing by him adorned with comely hoariness and clad in shining clothing, bearing a staff in his hand, who first addresses him thus: “O you sluggard, why are you oppressed with sleep?” And at once, after the manner of those who are indignant, striking the wretch’s eyelids with his little finger, he bids him arise. Waking therefore, he utters an immense groan, proclaiming that he has been struck. The brethren are at hand; they ask what the cause is, and they see the orbs of his eyes clear and running with blood and gore, which a little before they had saw closed. At once there is made one voice of all singing hymns to the Lord and, with the signs of the bells resounding, they raise to the stars an ineffable shout of praise and, lifting up their hands on high, most devoutly praised the Lord of Hosts, wonderful in His saint Winnocus. And on the next day, when the holy relics were returning according to custom, he himself went before the holy bier, bearing the cross in his hand, rejoicing and exulting, rendering thanks to God the Creator and to his intercessor who had given him the light of his eyes so long denied.

8 #

A miracle consequent upon this and not unlike it afterwards became famous, which made manifest will doubtless profit all the faithful. It befell that a certain poor little woman was deprived for the space of three years of the twin sight of her eyes — born in the district of Furnes (Veurne) — whom no physician could help. She, traversing at length very many places of the saints, came to the often-mentioned place where the body of the devout father rested, once translated. From whom a candle of little worth was brought to the altar as a gift by the guidance of another; and scarce was the Lord’s Prayer finished by her prostrate on the ground when at once, raised in body, she is seen by the bystanders performing the evening offices to have received a sudden clearness of her eyelids. Hence returning joyfully, she kept urging them to render magnificent praises to God and to St Winnocus, who deigns more attentively to irradiate the place of his repose with his patronage. And so praising God for her deliverance, she returned unharmed to her own.

9 #

A certain man also of the household of that same pious patron which seems to belong to Wormhout, Harthfridus by name, going to the district for a need, was caught — while he behaved heedlessly — in a certain offence. He, being at once seized and brought before the prince, was delivered into iron chains. And there suffering no small loss, when he kept imploring the succour of the holy protector more and more, at the first darkening of night he saw an old man standing by him radiant with immense light. While the wretch was astounded and the old man remained silent, the light which he saw at once departed. Then the prisoner, drawing his hands now loosed to himself, found the bonds in the middle of his lap, and felt his feet free, the fetters broken. Seeing then that he had been delivered from his bonds, he rose; and finding the doors open, no one opposing, he went out step by step abroad. And entering upon flight after he had escaped, there was for him no delay nor rest until he should come to the often-named monastery of Wormhout, rendering thanks to God and to his holy deliverer, and he made known to all the manner of his deliverance. Now that man kept testifying that after he had begun his flight no man, no beast, no bird, no living animal met him, until he reached the place from which he had come out.

10 #

What befell in modern days also by the merits of this holy man we think worthy to be inserted into this work, since praise recorded for a soldier is ascribed rather to the king’s honour. For a certain one of the household of the aforementioned holy confessor Winnocus named Adalhardus, belonging to the service of a villa called Suuivesele (Sysseele), being himself a servant yet possessing several servants, some of them fled from him by night, making for the parts of Boulogne. There was at that same time a certain powerful man in that district of Boulogne named Mirolfus, dreadful for such cruel deeds as he was far removed from any increase of goods through utter poverty. He, taking those fugitives by chance, kept them to be sold by necessity of want to over-sea merchants. And their lord, following their tracks as far as he could — some of them pointing it out — found them detained by that same unjust powerful man. And when he asked that they should be restored to him according to the right of the laws, the unjust possessor of those same servants — not fearing even the lord of justice — delivered the man himself into custody with bonds and fetters and an iron collar, that they might be sold under one title to the traders. Truly we believe he did this to the heap of his own damnation, that one working it who once so hardened the heart of Pharaoh that, the tribe of Israel being dismissed, he repented, and repenting pursued them so that he himself perished with his army in the middle of the sea. For as Pharaoh was often disobedient to God’s commands, so this robber — not to be named — a stranger to the fear of God and the love of St Winnocus, wished to seek unjust gain through greed of price. But that wretch, his servants now lost, bound in all his members, when he kept imploring the saint’s help again and again, suddenly falling asleep beneath night’s silence, sees a certain elder adorned with beautiful hoariness standing by him bearing a rod in his hand; and at once waking, he found the iron collar with the manacles and fetters lying in his lap. Then taking flight — for he found the sealed prison of his enemies opened at evening — he at once entered upon that spacious marsh which stretches for almost, and as I believe more than, eight miles, in which not even the print of a foot had been dipped in the water — by him, as we believe, working this through His servant, the holy Winnocus, who brought the aforementioned Israelite people over with dry feet through the wilderness ways, the sea being divided, while Pharaoh pursued. At length, delivered from the dread of danger, coming more quickly to the monastery of Christ’s confessor, he paid worthy acts of thanksgiving to him, relating to all the deliverance from his fall, and so returned home rejoicing.

11 #

Since indeed, dearest brethren, we have related to you, to be venerated at the yearly season, the miracles of this most holy confessor Winnocus — a few brought forth out of many after the manner of writers — which the power of almighty God works for his merit while his sacred limbs yet labour in the world (yet in perpetual happiness), we must take most exceeding care and with all diligence of mind that, before the slower hour can prevail to make us depart from this life, thoroughly suffused with the immense grace of spiritual understanding, we may be made fit to set forth the free goods of God’s goodness which God has deigned to work, and what miracles, at his venerable relics. But since sloth occupies us as laggards in all good things, let us be eager to flee to the solaces of almighty God, that He may cause the senses of our hearts, the mass of sins being extinguished, to be spiritually kindled; and that we who cannot run through the whole innumerable multitude of signs of that servant of God, at least by the divine grace dispensing it, may be able truly to run through some of them. Although in revolving many things in the scroll of our heart, it pleases us yet to set before you one out of very many which the Son of the Most High willed to show for His faithful one’s reward.

It came to pass at a certain time — but a modern one — on the holy day of Pentecost, that a multitude of Christians coming from either side assembled at St Winnocus the confessor of Christ, dwelling in his fruitful inheritance of Wormhout: some indeed for the cure of the evils they had, because they knew that he had wrought a multitude of miracles; others for the goods they had brought with them, that he might restore them doubled; and foreign men together with the local people came there from far boundaries with gifts, begging God’s solace, that through His holy confessor Winnocus He would render the remedy of health to the sick who had come to them. Among whom was present a certain little girl named Maluvera, who was born wretched everywhere from her mother’s breasts without the light of eyes, so that the orbs could scarcely be discerned by men looking at her from every side — in which, unless God’s will failed, the sharpness of the eyes’ light ought to have persisted. She therefore kept clinging with her hands to the crowds daily entering the temple, that she who, the light of her eyes taken away, could not enter the temple without fault of her own — the Lord attesting concerning him who had been born blind, who affirmed that neither he nor his parents had sinned — might at least, wretched one, be borne supported by the proper hands of others to where she had heard by the noise of others that the relics of the most blessed confessor were present; and so carried by the arms of those entering, she came to the most blessed confessor’s bier. Then the assembly of the peoples standing by, beholding this sign declared in the maiden — that she had received the use of the lights long denied her from her very infancy’s cradle — lifting the keenness of their eyes to the heavens, pray the Lord with common lamentation that He would wondrously declare the immense miracle of His power in her, and that the clemency of God would show an open sign in the place of the denied lights, and that by the pity of God the Creator of all she would be rendered to the office of seeing strangers — so that the men and women there present in person might truly acknowledge the Son of almighty God, and that the crowd of the faithful might fall [before Him who is] the health and judgement of all. And they vow with whole intent to return yearly to the holy confessor of Christ and to concede more freely of their substance, so much as should suffice with God’s help, if the bounteous right hand of Christ should deign to restore her light to her in their presence. When therefore this voice of the crying people resounded throughout the temple, the church is said to have been filled with such clamour that the voices of those singing psalms in the choir could scarce resound to the hearing of any. Meanwhile the girl, still persisting in the misery of blindness, kept pressing sweetest kisses on the most blessed confessor’s bed and proclaimed herself needy of the earthly vision which she had not, that the holy confessor of Christ would obtain succour for her. Then the bountiful rewarder of gifts — with whom in heaven there is no accepting of persons — that the promise of His goodness might not be deferred to those asking Him in the uprightness of truth, fulfilled that word of truth which He Himself testifies in the Gospel: Ask believing with your whole heart without doubting, and whatever things you need you shall find from the Lord. And see! suddenly a wave of blood was seen to run down to the earth through the openings of her eyes and to fill the whole bosom of the now happy girl utterly, as though the lights of her eyes were opened cut by iron, and no more abundance of blood flowed forth from the multitude of blood. And she, her eyes thus wounded by the hand of the Most High, is cast down hardly to the earth, so that by very many marvelling she was thought to be finishing her last life. But when, the space of about one hour being ended, she was lifted up more easily by the hands of many, eyes of wondrous beauty were seen by all to stand in her head — eyes than which they declare they never saw fairer in old times. And she, rewarded with a double exchange, began to render innumerable thanks to almighty God and to her holy confessor, who deigned not only to bestow the lights of eyes but also eyes themselves, which she had never had, and to declare the power of His majesty in her. And there, stirred from the darkness of her sins, she promised eternal service to God and to St Winnocus in perpetuity, who had conferred upon her the ineffable light of eyes for the blessed confessor’s merits. And so she took care to fulfil her vow by the exhibition of work, living holily — so that after the illumination of her eyes, living for many spaces of years, she devoutly abstained from the foods of the flesh and never again covered the nakedness of her body with garments of soft linen. And thus, the course of temporal life being fulfilled, happily joined to the citizens of the heavens, leaving the vain figments of the world, she joyfully migrated to the stars.

Instructed therefore by these and very many such examples, let us who have strayed through the devious ways of this world’s misery take care to call back God’s clemency by fasts, prayers and alms — that He who filled with clear light the eyes of the young girl that before saw not, appeased continually by the glorious prayers of His most blessed confessor Winnocus, may deign to grant us the rewards of the celestial life that abide without end, and to lead us to the eternal blessedness, even the only-begotten Son of God, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns in the fullness of the Trinity for the everlasting age of ages. Amen.