Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum V, ed. B. Krusch & W. Levison (Hannover, 1910) — the anonymous Life of St Sadalberga (d. c. 670), first abbess of St John’s, Laon. Translated into modern British English.

The editor’s critical introduction. #

The few trustworthy things handed down to us concerning the virgin Sadalberga we owe to Jonas, the writer of the history of Columbanus, with whose following she was herself associated; the long Life composed much later exhibits richer matter but scarcely truer. Gundoin, doubtless a man illustrious, then dwelling at the villa Mosa, had received under his roof Eustasius, abbot of Luxeuil (615–629), returning home from the Bavarians by some road; and when he had presented to him two children of good promise — Eustasius asking anew whether he had no further offspring — he brought out his daughter Sadalberga, bereft of sight. The girl, questioned, promised herself ready, so far as her tender age availed, “to obey the sacred teachings”; and when she had worn down her body for two days, she is said to have received the light of her eyes through Eustasius, that she might the more give herself to divine things. At that very time she was still living when Jonas devoted his labour to composing the second book of the Life of Columbanus — that is, about the year of Christ 642 — and “devoted to the divine service” she consulted the salvation not only of her own soul but of others’. From these words it may be conjectured that she presided as abbess over some convent of virgins; and Jonas rightly joined her to Burgundofara, the maiden consecrated to God, for whom greater perils were to be surmounted that she might pay her heavenly vows.

Sadalberga — whose name was afterwards written Sallaberga, commonly Salaberga — is venerated on 22 September, the same day as the martyrs of Agaunum; and she is said to have presided as first abbess over the monastery of virgins at Laon, whose origin was ascribed to her. Anstrudis, the second abbess — whose useless Life is to be edited below — had once possessed a certain estate in the Verdun country, given in 709 to the monastery of St Michael, by which time she was no longer living. The monastery I have mentioned was prepared for noblest ladies in the age of the Carolingians and enjoyed singular privileges: to the monastery at Laon Charles relegated in 788 one of Duke Tassilo’s daughters, while the other was driven to Queen Balthild’s most celebrated convent at Chelles; “in the monastery of St Mary” at Laon Louis the Pious in 830 ordered his wife Judith to remain, that she might be guarded from the conspirators. As a royal abbey, pertaining of its own right to the king of the Franks, it was successively granted to Hildegard daughter of Louis the Pious, to Ogive wife of Charles the Simple, and to Gerberga wife of Louis Transmarinus. Since the monastery was set under the emperor’s own protection like Prüm’s, the emperor Charles could in 877 found the royal monastery of St Mary in the palace of Compiègne after the example of both. The monastery of Laon, once called St Mary’s, was named St John’s by Pope Alexander II (1061–1067) when he took in hand the restoration of the expelled abbess, and finally became sacred to both saints. When both the greater church and the episcopal palace were consumed by fire in 1112, the flame also flew across to the monastery of virgins set outside the town walls and burnt three churches — St John’s, St Mary’s called “Profunda,” and St Peter’s. The church of St Mary bore the name “Profunda” to distinguish it from the greater church sacred to the same Mary in which the episcopal see was established. Hermann, the author of the Miracles of Blessed Mary of Laon — whose third book (chapter 22) he wrote in 1149/50 — records that Sadalberga built seven churches in the abbey of St John: besides the three mentioned, those of St Michael and All Angels, Holy Cross, St Aper, and St Mary Magdalene; of which the churches of Holy Cross and St Aper had then perished through excessive age. As examples of the authority the abbey enjoyed: the king of the Franks to be crowned bore his golden crown in it, and neither he nor the bishop nor other princes might enter it on horseback, but dismounting outside the gate they were compelled to proceed to the church on foot. The virgins were expelled in 1128 on account of a depraved and dishonourable life; in their place religious monks succeeded.

The author of the book composed on her life called the holy woman neither Sadlaberga nor Sadalberga; and he addressed it to “Omotarius the pope and also priest, to Anstrudis the abbess, and to a certain other Sadalberga” — using Jonas’s letter prefixed to the Life of Columbanus inaccurately, for what follows almost agrees word for word with the prologue of the Vita Praeiecti. No “Pope Omotarius” has yet been found, nor is anything established concerning the other Sadalberga. But the author wished Anstrudis the abbess to have been the daughter of the earlier Sadalberga, and also contends below (chapter 11) that she held the rule of the monastery while he lived. Still surviving was her gardener — namely the monk Landefrid — who used to relate to him a certain miracle he had witnessed (chapter 22); and the civil war between Theuderic III and Dagobert II, kings of the Franks, had “recently” been waged about the boundaries of the Lingones and Leuci — that is, of Burgundy and Austrasia — and he had himself seen it (chapter 13). Since Dagobert was killed in 679, the author must be reckoned to have composed the Life a little after 680. And Sadalberga must needs have died not long before he composed the Life. For in arduous affairs she was aided by Waldebert, abbot of Luxeuil (629–670), who had often visited her (chapter 20); and after she had enjoyed his familiar friendship, when she was set at the last extremity the same man appeared to her as it were an angel of the Lord, foretelling her coming death and hoping that from her victory he too would receive the prize (chapter 21). From this passage it may be concluded that the friend had then been gathered to the heavenly hosts and that Sadalberga died after him — that is, after 670.

The author therefore proved himself a man serious and entirely contemporary — such as both the other writers on him and M. Büdinger have held. But he preferred his name to lie hid: who the three persons are whom he addresses you would seek in vain. Though he claims to have written the Life ten years after Sadalberga’s death, he had not seen her and related of her only what he professes to have received from others. Indeed he spoke of the age of Abbot Waldebert, who had died a little before, as if it had been long since past: “in his time,” he contends, monasteries both of monks and of virgins began to be founded through the Gallic provinces after the rule of Benedict and Columbanus, whereas before that time they existed in scarcely a few places (chapter 8). That monasteries in Gaul were very rare before their patrons, the authors of the Carolingian age established — namely the biographers of Eligius (I, 21) and of Desiderius (chapter 23).

Narrating the course of Sadalberga’s life (chapters 1–18), the biographer could follow Jonas, the author of the Life of Columbanus; while the second part (chapters 19–30), containing her death with the miracles, lacks such aid. What he narrated at the beginning of her, of Columbanus, Eustasius and Romaric (chapters 1–9) flows from the author he himself cited; and what he had read of the frauds of the schismatic Agrestius (chapter 8) returns to the same source for Eustasius’s deeds (= Life of Columbanus II, 9–10). He had a certain codex of class A3, for he contends that the monastery of Luxeuil was built by the munificence of King Childebert and not of Sigebert — and a text so degenerate I should attribute to the Carolingian rather than the Merovingian age. He narrated Eustasius’s journeys in inverted order, differing from Jonas: the first to the Bavarians (chapter 1), the second years after to the Warasci (chapter 7); and he contends that the Bavarians too were infected with the Bonosiac heresy, like the others. For Sadalberga’s three-day fast he put a two-day one, with which Jonas was content.

The author’s whole fabrication is understood from the duplicated marriage, by which he stained the pious virgin’s sanctity for this sole purpose — to amplify his barren matter in some way. By his own testimony the girl healed by Eustasius, when she had come to years of perfect age, married a certain Richramnus (chapter 6) who died two months after his last day — and “these things being thus accomplished,” Eustasius returned to Luxeuil (chapter 1), as if he had lived in that villa for some years. But after two years of widowhood she was again led into marriage by Blandinus, surnamed Baso (chapter 10), while Waldebert sat as abbot (629–670) and Dagobert I reigned (to 639) — and so before that very year in which Jonas extolled her heavenly manner of life. Though she had yielded unwillingly to her parents’ will or the royal command, she pressed on with such fervour in begetting children after the second marriage that she bore five; and she had betaken herself to Rheims to the basilica of St Remigius lest she be deprived of so many “privileges” — offspring, that is — and there paid a vow to dedicate her future progeny to the Lord. The children are enumerated: Saretrudis — the same name as her mother’s, Gundoin’s wife — Eustasius renewing the memory of the most celebrated abbot, Eba, Anstrudis the second abbess, and Balduinus. So Sadalberga became mother of a whole company of saints and — if we credit the biographer — had combined fertility with the divine service excellently.

Yet on Jonas’s testimony Sadalberga had stood by her promises, and therefore up to the year in which the Life of Columbanus was composed — that is, to 642 — had preserved her virginity; and that his words are so to be taken even the biographer of Agilus confirmed, who, assigning his patron as Eustasius’s companion, could ascribe the virgin’s salvation to him: he mentions neither husbands nor children, but says, “she received the sacred veil most devoutly and preserved the virginity she had vowed inviolably.” The biographer therefore seems himself to have devised the marriages and offspring for the virgin, whose religious life Jonas — an entirely contemporary and serious author — attests.

In the villa Mosa, in the Bassigny country and the diocese of Langres — that is, in the kingdom of Burgundy — Gundoin, Sadalberga’s father, lived at the time Eustasius visited him; from which Mabillon had determined that the virgin was born in that very place. But the biographer set her birth in the neighbouring country — the Uternensis — and in the diocese of the Leuci, and so in the kingdom of Austrasia (chapter 1): for the woman had to be transferred into Austrasia, where he wished the monastery of Laon for maidens to have been founded. First indeed he establishes that Sadalberga’s monastery was set in the Langres territory — in her paternal inheritance (chapter 12) — after she and her whole house had been converted by Abbot Waldebert, who furnished aid and artificers and industrious men for the work; “and the place,” says he, “though it lay near the Austrasian borders, yet was of Burgundy, distant from the monastery of Luxeuil a little less than forty miles.” From the place neighbouring the Austrasian borders it was easy to leap across into Austrasia itself; of which matter the biographer wished this to be the cause: that Sadalberga with prophetic mind saw that Langres region not safe enough — perhaps somewhat later than was fitting, the greatest part of the fabric being already perfected (chapter 13) — and since the place lacked stability and fortification, peril would arise from “the kings’ boundaries mixed on either side,” namely the hazards of the war afterwards waged between Theuderic and Dagobert; which she averted in that, again using Abbot Waldebert as both counsellor and travelling companion, she withdrew with the greatest retinue and all the virgins she had gathered — more than a hundred — to Laon, a city most strongly fortified by the nature of the place. Attilo, bishop of Laon, went out to meet her and joyfully led the holy virgins into the city; as they entered, monsters of beasts of various kinds — buffalo, deer, bears, boars, wolves, foxes, donkeys, lions — went out of it: the devil with his satellites unable to bear so great sanctity (chapter 15). A certain presage, therefore, is said to have been the cause of the monastery’s transfer; and new foundations of churches and houses were already cast on the mount of Laon, and within a small space of time three hundred religious women — both nobly born and of humbler rank — flocked there, as the author would have it. That in ancient time the Vandals, Alans, Huns and the other German and Scythian nations besieged that city in vain, he also wrote (chapter 14) — Jerome had narrated like things of other Gallic cities in his letter to Ageruchia, using which no one will deny that he fraudulently extended the history of Laon. The miracles of the second part also bear the traces of fraud: the gardener’s too-subtle hearing related (chapter 22), the tabernacle descending from heaven (chapter 26). Before the eyes of pious donors of estates who afterwards repented and demanded back their gifts, the last miracle (chapter 29) set a laudable conversion. To Sadalberga’s elder sister belonged two brethren whom Jonas did not name — one Lenduinus, the other Fulculfus — both surnamed Bodo (chapter 4), which cannot be believed. One of them therefore — we know not which, but they believed it was Fulculfus, perhaps because the other brother is said to have become bishop of Toul — retained by unlawful usurpation certain villas which he had given to his sister’s convent by a series of charters; but moved by her sickness and anxious prayers he came to her most speedily, and immediately the sanction of the charters was confirmed on both sides — which the author contends had stood firm even to his time.

That the monastery was double, of both virgins and monks, may be gathered from the Life itself. For not only Odila, the brother’s wife, but the brother himself — namely Leuduinus surnamed Bodo — converted by Waldebert, hastened to Laon; and the brother, his hair being shorn, discharged the monk’s office until he is said to have merited the bishopric of Toul (chapter 18). Another monk named Landefrid discharged the gardener’s office under the saint (chapter 22). Finally Italus was priest and provost of the same convent (chapter 21), whom the dying saint took to her “that he might discharge the office of burial for her, as is the custom” (chapter 29). The author esteemed the priesthood so highly that he exaggeratedly added “and also priest” to “Pope Omotarius” — and perhaps he was himself one of the priests of the monastery of Laon. That monasteries were founded throughout Gaul after the rule of Benedict and Columbanus in Waldebert’s time he was not ignorant (chapter 8). The tenor of the rule he cited (chapter 20) cannot be referred to the Columbanian, in which nothing is laid down about guarding the cellar; on the cellarer’s condition Benedict indeed treated (chapter 31), and after him Donatus (chapter 61) — but neither records that each girl ministered in that office and conventual service for a year. The institution of the perpetual psalmody flourished in the monastery of Laon even to the author’s age (chapter 17): after the example of the monks of Agaunum and the norm of Remiremont, the virgins sounded the canon of psalmody day and night, disposed in troops.

The Life of Sadalberga serves indeed for learning the monastery’s customs which were kept in the author’s age — the Carolingian. As he owed to Jonas all the trustworthy things he recorded, so he had perused his books so studiously that not a few words and many turns of phrase adhered to his style. He joined the parts of speech none too well: by his own testimony he was “scarce imbued with the first letters.” He produced an absolute accusative and himself formed it, and set the participle for the finite verb — as did the biographer of Aridius. He committed errors also in declining names and not rarely wrote the dative of the third declension in -e. Besides Jonas he cited several authors who do not bear on his purpose — Columbanus’s writings to Gregory, “from which he drew what concerns the sleepless care of shepherds” (chapter 2), either lost or less correctly cited; Gregory’s answers, now lost, of which he had also read a certain homily; writings on Hilary (of Arles, if I mistake not); Jerome’s chronicle (year 376) and letter to Eustochium on Melania and Paula; and on Helena, the Ecclesiastical History — Rufinus’s book 10, chapters 7–8, if I mistake not. For he was eager to stray from his purpose that he might somehow extend the narrative and show off his knowledge of letters. Thus he seized the occasion to discourse on the course of the river Mosa (chapter 4), instructed by Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War (IV, 10) — as our colleague W. Levison pointed out; and he repeatedly exhorted himself to return to the point from which he had digressed. His quotations of Holy Scripture he drew not from the Vulgate text but from an older version — one of those comprehended under the name of the Itala; such occur in Bible codices up to the middle of the ninth century, mixed or commingled not rarely with the Hieronymian version.

The Life of Sadalberga, which I should attribute to the early ninth century, was at hand for the first biographer of Anstrudis, who produced part of the same persons and related that the bodies of both abbesses were buried in the basilica of St Mary — that is, Profunda. But the other author who polished Anstrudis’s Life in the twelfth century related that they were translated from there into the upper church of St John the Baptist. The calendar prefixed to the Psalter of Queen Emma (d. c. 988), wife of Lothar king of France — once kept in the Remigian library at Rheims — contained the names of Baso (7 May), the other husband of Sadalberga; of Gunduin the father (1 November); of Bodo the bishop brother (28 June); of all the children — for example Balduinus the illustrious martyr (8 January) and Anstrudis the abbess (16 October); and this whole kindred was commemorated in the litanies inserted in the Psalter. The author of that calendar had drawn the names from the Life of Sadalberga itself. A certain Life of Balduinus depends on the biographer of Anstrudis who treated his martyrdom. Sadalberga occupies the place after the martyrs of Agaunum in the Book of the Order of the Offices of the church of Laon (c. 1200).

Most codices of the Life of Sadalberga were written in a later age, when the copyists took no accurate account of the primitive language; the same manuscripts — those closest to us — go back to the same corrupt exemplar. From a better exemplar depend the much-reworked leaves which contain only the latter part of the Life; and an integral codex of that kind was used by the editor who first made the full text of the Life public.

The manuscripts: A1a) Montpellier H n. 1, early 13th century, formerly of St Mary of Clairvaux, vol. II, fol. 79–83. A1b) Paris n. 16733, 12th century, formerly of St Martin-des-Champs, fol. 44–47. A1c) Paris n. 17006, 12th/13th century, formerly of Fouillens, fol. 65–68. A1d) Paris n. 5353 (Colbert n. 322, Regius 3593), 14th century, part of a legendary containing September and October, fol. 69–73. A2) The codex of the monastery of Acy is now hidden, but an exemplar accurately transcribed by P. Chifflet’s hand and kept in the Bollandists’ museum was shown to me for collation by Albert Poncelet S.J. with the greatest liberality. B) The Laon codex n. 261 (formerly 431), 12th century, written in two columns, formerly of the greater church dedicated to St Mary, fol. 109–112, exhibits the text from chapter 19 onward, with not a few passages omitted.

The codices collated were by myself — except A1a and A1c, of which our colleagues W. Arndt and W. Levison collated the former and latter respectively. L. Bethmann had examined A1b before me but noted only the graver readings. In A1b.d the letter e is always written for ae; in A1a.c q is frequently read for e.

After du Chesne first brought to light fragments of the Life dug out of a codex of class A1 (Historiae Francorum scriptores coaetanei, Paris 1636, vol. I, pp. 647–650), Lucas d’Achery first edited it entire (Guiberti abbatis B. Mariae de Novigento opera omnia, Paris 1651, pp. 679–686), using an excellent codex which I mentioned — the one D. Placidus Bertheau of the Benedictine order, Maurist congregation, had offered him, coming from the library of the monastery of Ourscamp. For at first he had at hand only so faulty an exemplar — a codex of our class A1b.c.d — that he had utterly cast away hope of publishing the Life, had not his colleague succoured him. He made the text public from the Ourscamp manuscript, and noted in the margins the graver readings drawn from a codex similar to A1b.c.d. I have used his edition so as to add the letter X to the readings and to distinguish between text and margins where distinction was needed. The codices of the Ourscamp monastery were by no means transferred to the library of the city of Noyon — which today consists only of later books; nor could our Parisian friend Henri Lebigue discover where that most precious book now lies hid.

Jean Mabillon, Acta sanctorum ord. S. Benedicti, Paris 1669, Saec. II, pp. 422–432, wrote that besides the preceding edition he had used the codices of the Cistercians of Longpont and of St John of Laon — of which the latter was similar to A1a, while the former does not seem to have contained the primitive recension. I distinguished the peculiar readings of this edition by the letter M.

Jean Cleus, Acta sanctorum, Antwerp 1757, September tome VI, pp. 521–529, repeated the Mabillonian text and noted in the margins the graver divergence of variant readings from codex A2 — which he had drawn from P. Chifflet’s papers, which, as I said, were also available to me.

All the codices we have seen of the Life either gape or exhibit corrupted readings; and these faults may be emended from the one Ourscamp codex (X), which alone agrees with the author’s sources, the rest failing. Thus the Prologue in A1a.b.c.d.2 lacks an entire sentence — proved wholly genuine from the Vita Praeiecti — which neither Mabillon nor Cleus supplied or even noticed from d’Achery’s edition. The diversity between the two exemplars X and A1–2, at the Life’s opening, concerns not only the words but the things related: the Uternensis pagus is cited only in X; and since its site is described in the same way in which Jonas described the villa Mosa (V. Columb. II, 8: “on account of the river flowing in that place”) — which words the author himself repeats below at chapter 4, writing “defluentem” for “fluentem” — and since the reading of codex A2 (Lingonicae) still preserves a trace of X’s text, I am persuaded it should again be preferred. The divergent text of A1–2 depends, as Munoz pointed out, on Sulpicius Severus’s Life of Martin. Many of their gaps may also be supplied from X — single words or more, no whole sentences.

The scribe who copied the exemplar on which the imperfect codices A1–2 depend generally failed through negligence and was deluded by homoeoteleuton (chapter 14); but he seems deliberately to have removed the passage of chapter 26 to smooth the descent of the heavenly gift — the tabernacle descending from the sky. I enclosed in brackets X’s additions whose authority could not be established either of itself or by comparison with the sources. Interpolations could also be removed by its aid: thus the reading “Patratum” in chapter 21 (X, agreeing with V. Columb. I, 16, against “que est” added in the rest).

The readings of the most excellent exemplar X are detected in codex B, which contains only the latter part of the Life and not even that entire. The language in that book is indeed not rarely altered, and some passages wholly reworked (e.g. chapter 22); yet that true readings are preserved in it was apparent at first sight — and arranging the apparatus I understood them to be the same as those also confirmed by X.

At the end of chapter 29 the language is wholly altered in A1–2, B and X agreeing; and these alone exhibit the full name-forms Landefridus and Waldebertus, while the others read Lanfredus and Walbertus.

Meanwhile X itself is not without faults, the copyist having not always preserved the language accurately and even omitted some things. No, in the very exemplar on which X and A1–2 depend, the first words of the prologue — Domino eximio — were wanting, to be supplied perhaps in red ink; Mabillon first rightly restored them by conjecture. In the codices I have seen a space still remains — nothing but a painted D in A1b.c, while in A2 “Dum” is read for “D. e.” Other traces of the common and impure source are also detected: e.g. “Philistinorum” in chapter 14, read Palaestinorum; “Gracorum” in chapter 25 for Graecorum (Gracchorum in Jerome).

Of the books A1a.b.c.d, A1a seems often to follow its own nature, and its peculiar readings recur in the Mabillonian edition, as I said. Sometimes A1a and A1b agree against A1c.d. Of A1c.d one is to be preferred, on which the other perhaps depends.

Codex A2, now hidden, contained excellent readings not found in A1, agreeing alone sometimes with X or B.X — it therefore depends on another exemplar than A1, though it sometimes agrees with single books of that class. It also exhibits a trace of interpolation at chapter 25.

The author of recension C altered the language of the vulgate text most of all; beginning without the prologue: “Salaberga in suburbano Leucorum oppido, territorio Lougonico confini.” He generally preserved the primary biographer’s words — e.g. transcribing chapter 23 thus: “Dum in coquinae officio per hebdomadam suam ex more sororibus deserviret et necessaria minime suppeterent.” An exemplar of this recension was given to the Bollandists by Nicolas Belfort, a regular canon, transcribed C1) from the Longpont codex — which Mabillon also seems to have had; and C2) the Amiens codex n. 467, 17th century, fol. 107–115, seems to contain the same.

Vincent of Beauvais exhibited a summary of the holy woman’s deeds, as was his custom, in the Speculum historiale XXIII, 30, “De sancta Salaberga abbatissa” — using a codex of the vulgate class A likewise (for he omitted the passage of chapter 26, and agrees with A1a). On this author seem to depend what is related of the saint in D) the Münster codex n. 218, 15th century, fol. 9–9v (prefixed “Vita sancte Salaberge virginis et abbatisse, que est X Kal. Octobres,” ending “Huius natale celebratur decimo Kal. Octobris”).

Long after the primary author, a monk of Laon (E) undertook to write the virgin’s deeds, prefixing two prologues in which he advanced these reasons for his work. In one he celebrates the fruitfulness of the literary monuments of the earlier age, lamenting the sterility of his own — “when men like brute beasts pass their life in silence”; in the other (“Historiam beatae matris Salabergae posterorum notitiae tradituri”), having touched matter of such antiquity, he declares he was moved by the faulty codices — since the volumes of the holy mother’s virtues perished in the burning of the city of Laon, while those snatched from the flames or rewritten from memory remained corrupt, drawn from corrupt exemplars, down to his own age. The fire he mentions occurred in 1112, as I showed above; and the biographer seems not to have lived long after, since he wrote of the studies of predecessors in repairing the text: “which, each in his own time and after his own sense, they rewrote.” J. Mabillon published the prologues in great part, who also cited several passages in the notes. On his testimony the Life itself began with these words: “Beata et venerabilis mater Salaberga Gundoino patre, matre vero Saretrude in confinio Lingonicae urbis oriunda fuit in terra quam Uternensem nuncupant ob amnem qui ibidem profluit.” From the mention of the Uternensis land it may be gathered that this recension depends on some exemplar X, and X on A. A transcript of it made by the hand of Bellotte, a canon of Laon, the Bollandists had received from Chifflet’s repositories. Variant readings of the other text were appended in the margins, agreeing with the vulgate codices A — for both texts were kept in the monastery of St John at Laon: Bellotte had transcribed one (E) omitting passages of Holy Scripture and others, and had collated the other (A).

B. Krusch.

Here Begins the Prologue to the Life of St Sadlaberga the Abbess. #

TO THE MOST EXCELLENT LORD OMOTARIUS, ADORNED WITH THE HONOUR OF THE PRIESTLY FILLETS, IN WHOM WAS THE ABUNDANCE OF RELIGION — THE POPE AND ALSO PRIEST; TO ANSTRUDIS, MOST CHASTE VIRGIN OF CHRIST AND ABBESS; AND TO SADLABERGA.

Your commands, O venerable glory of our fathers and of nourishing vigour, I have not delayed to obey — that I should be bound to coin with my style the life and series of deeds of the fostering mother Sadalberga and of the woman to be preferred before our times, so far as the matter allowed and divine piety favoured. But in this part I judge myself greatly unequal — being scarce imbued with the first letters and brought up in Christian simplicity. Yet I am mindful of that proclamation of the Lord and Saviour saying, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you,” and that oracle of the psalmist: “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” Therefore I beseech the reader — if anyone, captivated by love of the holy mother, shall deign to read these deeds which I have ventured rashly to weave — that he seek not in them Tullian eloquence, nor the fluency of orators, nor the flowerets of philosophers and the various assertions of the Stoics, but the truth and simplicity of the Church. For neither does the eagle always fly to the ether with wings outspread, but sometimes is accustomed to descend to earth with more relaxed pinions; and among royal banquets even cheap apples and wild lettuces are often esteemed best. God the Father is to be prayed that He unveil the clouds of our most dense breast and obtuse sense. Our Saviour Jesus Christ also is to be prayed that He deign to breathe upon us the breath of the Holy Spirit, that, the darkness of the heart being burned away, He may accommodate the faculty of speaking — that we may be able to discourse the acts of the venerable mother who ever burned with love of monasteries and churches, and publish them to posterity briefly and succinctly. May He grant what I ask by your assisting intercession — He who made the tongues of infants eloquent.

Here Ends the Prologue. Here Begins the Life of St Sadlaberga the Abbess. #

¹ Sadalberga therefore, born of illustrious parentage in the suburbs of the Leuci, on the border of the Langres country — which they call the Uternensis country on account of the river flowing down in those parts — took the beginning of her earthly existence. But the more illustrious or noble in birth, the more careful were her parents in her nurture. For in that time the nation of the Baiuvarii — which Orosius, that most learned man and knower of histories, calls by the ancient name Boii — situated in the furthest part of Germany and infected with the error of Bonosus (which the defenders of holy Church marked as the Bonosiac heresy; which heresy held, by a perverse sense and entangled in the reins of the ancient and cunning enemy, that our Lord Jesus was a mere man without the Father’s divinity): to confute — no, to cut away — that nefarious and mad doctrine, the venerable man Eustasius the abbot, stirred as it were by the divine Spirit, went forth from the monastery of Luxeuil, set in the Vosges forest, which the man Columbanus — of praiseworthy fame and potent in sanctity — coming as a pilgrim from Ireland, had built with utmost zeal and labour by the munificence of King Childebert.

² But since we have made mention of so great a man as Columbanus, it is not necessary for our work to weave his deeds — they having been published, elaborated, by the most eloquent Jonas: what manner of snares of the nefarious enemy he suffered amid the world’s tumults and the principate of King Theuderic, Queen Brunhilde instigating; how also he was cast out by the brethren with tyrannical rashness, and entering the bounds of Italy built the monastery of Bobbio with wondrous labour by the permission and authority of Agilulf king of the Lombards, and composed the monks’ rule — all which the aforementioned Jonas pursues in his own style in the book he published on his life and miracles. There exist the same father Columbanus’s writings to the blessed and most eloquent Gregory, Roman pontiff, from which he drew what concerns the sleepless care of shepherds — who in that time was held so illustrious and endowed with sanctity that even the secrets of heaven lay open to him, the Holy Spirit favouring; who also discoursed wondrously on the nine orders of angels after the apostle Paul, alone or almost alone — by whose doctrine, teaching eloquence’s charm and the comfort of penitence, the whole West is enlightened to this day. And the same venerable man sent back mellifluous writings to the aforementioned father.

³ But to return to our purpose: the man of God Eustasius, approaching the aforementioned nation through the bays of Germany — that the lamp of the Creator might by no means be set under a bushel but on a candlestick to be open to all, and that the talent given from above might not perish buried but lie open to all with doubled usury — by the evangelical path cut away, with the sword of the word, the burnt-off doubt of error spreading itself through that nation, so far as the Lord Jesus Christ granted; preaching our Lord Jesus: that as He had equality with God the Father in divinity, so He took on the humanity of His mother’s body and our nature which He Himself had created, without sin and without any diminishing of the divinity — which indeed was ever with the Father, that it diminished nothing of His dignity; from which He is called Christ, true God and true man.

⁴ At last the eminent man, returning from the Baiuvarii after the laborious path through Belgic Germany, came to a certain most illustrious man — opulent in wealth and riches, renowned in fame for worldly dignity and apt for the affairs of the court — named Gundoin, who at that time was dwelling at a certain villa named Mosa, so called from the river flowing down in that place; which river, taking its source in the Langres borders and receiving into itself after many windings and frequent circuits of land part of the waters of the Rhine, that swiftest of rivers, is poured broadly into the barbarian Ocean. Seeing the venerable man, therefore, Gundoin received him as a most welcome gift. Then, as is custom and as human affairs have it — amid the wholesome words of exhortation in the converse of faithful men, the minds of shepherds favouring — the same man of God began to inquire whether offspring was present to the same illustrious man, sprung of the Franks’ stock. For the man of God perceived, as I suppose, offspring foreknown of God — which the event afterwards proved. Then the industrious man Gundoin, with his wife Saretrudis, presented two youths of good promise and elegant form, born of a noble woman, to receive the grace of blessing: of whom the elder was Leuduinus surnamed Bodo, the younger Fulculfus — who himself also was called by another name, Bodo. The man of God inquired anew whether further offspring remained; to whom they confessed they had a german daughter — elder indeed in age, but long since bereft of sight. To whom the man full of God said: “Let her come, I pray, and be presented to our gaze.” For he had sensed in spirit, as I think, that healing would be conferred on her by the Lord. A three-day fast being therefore exacted by himself, the man of God poured the oil of blessing over the girl’s eyes. Wonder to tell! Immediately the girl obtained her pristine health, Christ’s grace assisting. Nor undeservedly does almighty God so readily answer the prayers of His servants who have crucified their own wills for His sake.

⁵ There follows next another splendid miracle. When the same girl had long suffered a flux of blood and was held bound by a most grave bodily affliction, made weak thereby, the eminent man — learning this clearly — besought the divine and wonted aid with poured prayers. The eternal Sower of all things, who is accustomed to be present for His saints piously obeying His precepts, heard the prayers of His faithful servant. What more? The girl, her health being received, was restored unharmed.

⁶ Meanwhile, when she had come to years of perfect age, her parents — seeing the maiden growing and adorned with manners (for she was beautiful and lovely of countenance) — thinking, as is custom, that after dangers of affairs the minds of many grow lukewarm in prosperous successes, and thinking of the succession of children, gave her in marriage against the girl’s will to a certain man potent in high birth, named Richramnus; who, having her scarce two months in the right of matrimony, was withdrawn from human affairs and deprived of life.

⁷ These things being thus accomplished, Eustasius returned to Luxeuil. Then he went to the Warasci — who inhabit part of the Sequanian province and the waters of the river Dubis on both banks — who themselves also, stained with the same error of Bonosus and Photinus, were languishing, already old in that age. Coming to whom, the man of God, exercising the evangelical ploughshare and the cautery of the sacred scriptures — though not without labour, lest the Lord’s crop, the glebe growing harsh and the tares choking, should grow into oats and darnel — recalled them to the bosom of holy Church; who persevere to this day in the same norm they received from him by the grace of the divine inspiration.

⁸ So blessed Eustasius, after many perils of affairs, after immense labours, after the dire tempests of heretics and the frauds of the schismatic Agrestius — which are more fully contained in his own acts — like a good athlete potent in the highest miracles, having fulfilled a blessed life, migrated to the Lord; when for three lustres, not a little less, he had ruled the care of the brethren after his master’s departure. In whose place, long since suitable, Walbert of blessed memory was raised to the government of the brethren — a man laudable in the fame of all, of eminent sanctity, and not meanly instructed in ecclesiastical disciplines, pre-eminent in goodness and piety and charity, exuberant in doctrine. In his time, through the provinces of the Gauls, companies of monks and swarms of sacred maidens began to pullulate — not only through fields, estates and villages and castles, but even through the wilderness’s vastness — after the rule only of the blessed fathers Benedict and Columbanus; whereas before that time monasteries were found in scarcely a few places.

⁹ But to return to the thread of the history: the most prudent woman Sadalberga, when she had now lived widowed for two years — though living under the lay habit, yet intent on vigils, fasts and almsgiving so far as her strength supplied — eagerly rendered to God the things that are God’s, with what she was endowed; and the doctrine she had received from blessed Eustasius she weighed in her mind like a clean animal, and often ruminated. When things stood so, she resolved in mind to seek the refuge of flight to the convent of sacred virgins which the venerable man Romaric — converted from the palace magnificently through the exhortation and comfort of blessed Eustasius — had built in the Vosges forest; and she would have fulfilled her vows abundantly had not her sex been an impediment and royal obstacles not entangled her.

¹⁰ About the same time Dagobert ruled the sceptres of the Franks and the helm of the kingdom — a man pre-eminently keen in wit and illustrious in principate, and to be feared by the fame of foreign and neighbouring nations, not only by the rights of the faith for his own subjects. And the aforementioned Gundoin, fearing lest on his daughter’s account he should incur the king’s wrath and savagery, drew her back step by step from the path she had resolved to go of her own will — for tidings of her had already come to the royal ears. There lived moreover in those times in the aforementioned prince’s hall a certain strenuous man, pleasing in royal counsels, celebrated in fame among his own, named Blandinus, who had received the surname Baso — who, himself also sprung of the Sicambrian stock, took the aforementioned Sadalberga to wife: not of her will, since she had long before vowed to entangle herself in the divine precepts, yet by royal command and for the cause of begetting children, though her parents were unwilling.

¹¹ Joined therefore to the said man, though under the bond of marriage, both exercised Christian works and kept themselves most devoutly in the whiteness of baptism. For they were hospitable and given to alms — especially, according to the blessed Paul the eminent preacher, to the household of faith and to pilgrims — obeying Christ’s servants with the highest veneration, mindful of that precept of the Saviour: “Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these mine, you have done it to me,” and that of the blessed apostle Peter: “Use hospitality one to another without grudging.” But while by God’s favour they were potent in these good things and passed their life in Christian vigour, and could take no offspring — the most Christian woman, anxious at being deprived of so many privileges, applying to herself the faith of the holy women Anna and Elizabs — who, watching in the Lord’s temple in vigils and prayers, after long sterility merited that holy offspring be begotten — sought the basilica of the blessed pontiff Remigius, who illumined the city of Rheims and the Campanian land with sacred virtues and miracles; and there, keeping vigil and praying, vowed a vow that if offspring were divinely granted her, she would dedicate it to the Lord. And without delay, returning home, this which she had faithfully and anxiously asked of the Lord was granted her: she conceived and bore a daughter, on whom she bestowed the name Saretrudis from her grandmother’s name. Again she brought forth another daughter, whom she named Ebana. Then she begot a third daughter and named her, regenerated by the grace of baptism, Anstrudis — who in process of time succeeded her in the care and government of the sisters, all the company consenting; who still survives to this day, potent in divine privileges under Christ’s auspices. A fourth child she brought forth, a male, on whom also, consecrated by the grace of baptism and by priests, she bestowed the name Eustasius — who also died within boyish years. A fifth of good promise she brought forth, named Balduinus, whom also she consecrated to almighty God like the former. This therefore the handmaid of Christ did, and set herself with all endeavour to make her whole house a church of Christ — not for herself alone but with husband and children together.

¹² Meanwhile, when the report of the eminent sanctity of blessed Waldebert — of whom we made mention above — was flourishing excellently through almost all the Franks’ bounds, and the skill of his preaching glowed abundantly from Christ the Lord (without whom nothing good is done), and he was pleasing to all worshipping God, and monasteries of men and virgins of Christ were being founded abundantly after his norm: blessed Sadalberga, perceiving Christ’s servant and renowned soldier flowering with so many examples and burning with heavenly virtues — the flocks of Christ gathered everywhere as it were snatched from wolves’ jaws — often summoned him to her own house to receive the grace of blessing from him, receiving him joyfully as a divine gift granted her by the Lord; and she longed to drink wholesome words and words fitting for the medicine of souls from his mellifluous mouth. And her mind burned most instantly that, the trappings of the world being despised and worldly pomps set aside, she might ascend to the summit of virtues and apex of sanctity — of which summit the Lord and Saviour also speaks in the Gospel, saying: “Everyone who has left father or mother or houses or lands for my name’s sake shall receive a hundredfold and possess eternal life”; and that: “I came to send fire on the earth; and what will I but that it be kindled?” What more? God being her author, committing all her hope after God to the blessed man — her husband converted and her children consecrated to God — she received the religious habit; and taking counsel with blessed Waldebert, her husband’s connivance being present, she attempted to build a convent for maidens in the suburbs of the Langres city on her paternal inheritance and succession — which she nobly enriched with the proper revenues of her estates from the paternal hereditary succession, making Christ her heir; for the accomplishment of which work the venerable Waldebert furnished and committed aid and artificers and industrious men. Which place, though it lay near the Austrasian borders, yet was of Burgundy, distant from the monastery of Luxeuil a little less than forty miles; and there, a hundred or more maidens being gathered — both of noble birth and of her own household — she dedicated it to Christ the Lord.

¹³ But when already the greatest part of the monastery’s fabric was raised, the handmaid of Christ, prophetic — being filled with God’s Spirit — began to weigh with sagacious mind, together with her husband, that the maidens’ convent was not safe in that place and had nothing of stability or fortification. For though barbarism was far away, yet with the kings’ borders mixed on either side, it was an index of peril for future times — which peril we ourselves afterwards saw. For lately the civil war between Theuderic and Dagobert, kings of the Franks, was waged about those borders; and everything nearby was devastated — fields, estates, houses, and, what is graver, the saints’ own bodies were consumed with fire. From where it is plainly apparent that she was imbued with the divine Spirit, who anticipated the danger long before.

¹⁴ Counsel therefore being taken with the aforementioned Abbot Waldebert — who was endowed with sagacious wit and vigour and a good nature for such affairs, whom she afterwards had as both companion on the journey and partner of the labour — she chose a journey under Christ’s leading after the likeness of the most holy patriarch Abraham, who going out of Mesopotamia of Syria became a settler in the land of the Philistines and, God promising, obtained it by lot for his posterity. Imitating whom, the handmaid of God, leaving her native soil and paternal seats — preferring to be poor with Christ rather than possess the gains of mammon, rather than suffer so many dangers — set out with the stipend of life to the city of Laon with the greatest retinue and with the souls committed to her by God. Which city, though it can be girt with a siege by enemies, yet by the nature of the place — set on a rock’s summit — possesses a robust fortification, so that it cannot be broken by barbarians and is free of peril. For in ancient time also, when the Vandals, Alans, Huns and the other nations of Germany and Scythia had vainly beleaguered it — no craft of mounds threatening, neither with slingers’ shots nor the javelins of arms nor rams’ pushings could they prevail — frustrated of their vain labour they withdrew sluggish. For except the ambit of walls which extends outward to the hill’s height, the very circuit of the inner wall is levelled with the ground — from which it comes that no craft of engines can harass the town. And moreover natural rocks surround it; the city is filled with wells within, and at the very exits of the gates perennial springs flow, which are given for drink to men, flocks and beasts. When therefore the venerable woman with her holy followers drew near to illumine the city like a ray of the sun, Attilo, bishop of that town, went out to meet her with the greatest favour — as if a divine gift and an angelic company had come to him — and, rejoicing, led the holy handmaids of Christ into the city with a choir of psalm-singers, with psalmody and hymns and the highest praises.

¹⁵ But the magnificent miracle of her, to be told, which was wrought on that same night in that city, is not to be passed in silence. The aforementioned pontiff had commanded the boys and household servants entrusted to him to be present to prepare refreshment for Christ’s family the next day. The attendants therefore, astounded, entering the town gate swiftly by night, saw coming to meet them various kinds of wild beasts: one saw a buffalo, another a deer, another a bear, another a boar, some wolves, very many foxes, another meanwhile a wanton donkey and a fierce lion — going out and fleeing together from the city, and other monsters of beasts which it would be prolix to weave into this work lest the reader incur tedium. All the attendants, struck with awe at that miracle, wondered — since such beasts had never before appeared in that place. What else is given to be plainly understood than that the ancient enemy, not bearing the sanctity and vigour of God’s handmaids, fled and departed with his satellites? Nor undeservedly does he deform himself into monstrous shapes of beasts and wild animals and bring forth various phantoms — who, created good by the good Creator as an angel, afterwards swollen with pride had long since said in his heart: “I will ascend above the stars of heaven; I will set my throne in the north, and I will be like the Most High”; now, cast out of the supernal brightness and the paradise of delights with his followers, driven in the form of worms, shrew-mice or whatever deformed shape, works the mystery of iniquity.

¹⁶ For in olden times — which very many still retain in memory, and there are known to be survivors who saw that crime — the consecration and cunning of the ancient serpent flourished cruelly in that same town, it is believed. He deluded the rustic and dull men of the common folk with cunning art — of whom it is written, “a thousand are his arts of harming.” For under the appearance of baptism he vindicated them to himself as his own for idolatry. In a former age they also called him “the idol,” as it were beginning “from sport”; and while the devil raged in their middle, homicides were perpetrated for the most part. That wicked demon had done this with cunning craft: that if anyone there had weakened another’s neighbour in whatever way, he should be guiltless of bloodshed among the kindred and those joined by affinity — namely that in the long run the nefarious custom might increase the increment of malignity, and the unrighteous robber might vindicate the wretched city, entangled in his reins, as his own. But the almighty pitier of all things, the Lord, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth — mercifully regarding the creature of His own right — long ago utterly evacuated that sacrilegious and nefarious crime from that city.

¹⁷ But let us now return again to the narrative begun. At last, contemplating the condition of the place, and seeing it suitable and most pleasing and free from danger of assault, they began to lay the foundations of churches and houses; which being duly accomplished and prosperously done, the offspring of nobles and their servants began to flock to the service of almighty God, our Lord Jesus Christ. For what powerful man or noble woman dwelling in those parts did not love blessed Sadalberga with affection? For she was ever cheerful and of placid countenance, conspicuous in charity and humility, most prompt in almsgiving and very devout about God’s worship. What more? Within a small space of time more than three hundred handmaids of Christ were gathered and united in the same place or monastery; and they being disposed in troops after the likeness of the Agaunum monks and the norm of Remiremont, she bade them sound the canon of psalmody day and night to almighty God and, according to the eminent preacher Paul, pray without ceasing. Which institution is celebrated in that convent to this day under Christ’s auspices — for the love of singing the chant burned intensely in the same desire.

¹⁸ Many indeed, as we said above, thirsting she gathered to Christ’s service. For among other women of the noble Sicambrians, Odila — potent in nobility and a good nature of wit — who herself also had formerly received the mark of Christian vigour and the wholesome antidote from the venerable Waldebert, counsel being taken with her lawful husband the illustrious Bodo (whom we called Leuduinus above), who at that time was industrious, powerful and flourishing in worldly dignity: the world’s trappings being set aside, they were converted to the Lord; and their goods being bestowed on monasteries, treading the same path after blessed Sadalberga, they hastened to Laon. Bodo, his hair being shorn, discharged the monk’s office so far as the matter allowed; and not long after, having obtained the bishopric of the town of Toul, not long after paid nature’s debt. The venerable Odila also, Christ’s mark being received, joining herself to the choir of holy virgins and living a blessed life under the tenor of obedience, rendered her spirit to Him to whom all things are owed.

Here Ends the Life. Here Begins the Death of the Same Sadlaberga the Abbess. #

¹⁹ While therefore blessed Sadalberga was living piously with the sisters in sanctity, of mature age and comely countenance — as is narrated of blessed Hilary — a certain nun in the same convent, seized with the disease of epilepsy, fell to the ground with unbridled mind before all when she had begun to sing the course in the church. Whom the blessed and venerable mother immediately took familiarly to herself and, diligently beseeching the Lord for her with prayer — divine grace assisting — purged of that pest, and bade her depart to Christ’s service free and unharmed.

²⁰ There are moreover very many and most celebrated things inserted with the pen into the praises and memory of the venerable mother, which are afterwards fitted to their places. At a certain time, when she was awaiting the coming of the blessed man Waldebert and the supply of falernian wine was wanting, she bade them make the juice of wheat or barley which they call beer — which very many western nations use, made by human art. When it had been put into the vessel which in the vulgar tongue they call a tun — and the vessel was not filled to the full with the liquor of the drink — the handmaid of Christ to whom by reason of obedience the turn had fallen that year to guard the cellar and minister to the sisters, according to the tenor of the rule, coming to the venerable mother with the deepest humility, said: “Lady mother, what shall we do? For the vessel is not full of the cider and the air is sultry. If the holy abbot delays in coming, I fear lest the drink turn to the bitterness of vinegar.” To whom she said: “Go and pour into the vessel what has been made afterwards of the liquor.” And she, nothing doubting, going with swift course to fulfil the holy mother’s command, found the vessel full which she had left half-empty a little before; and so it was brought about by almighty God’s mercy that while the mother’s faith is armed, the vigour of obedience in the disciple is strengthened, and the divine power is at once revealed — the drink which was small was increased to more. And the handmaid of God, returning, narrated the miracle to the holy mother with alacrity and humility; who rendered thanks to the supreme Creator of all things, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is custom quickly to be present for those who serve Him in truth.

²¹ Another miracle was afterwards wrought. A certain sister, coming to the workshop-cell where the washing of the stains of garments used to be done, as is the custom, took a little vessel which necessity required for such things, bearing also small wood. But because the chain on which the vessel hung was thin and too short, not approaching the fire, the handmaid of God, finding another chain on purpose, knotted it to her own in turn. And see! another companion of hers coming with another little vessel made of bronze metal desired a like work, and humbly beseeching said to her companion: “Lend me one chain, sister, that we may both work more quickly.” Her companion said: “For charity’s sake I will lend it you; but go you and bring a quantity of wood, as much as you can, for the little vessels hang high, that we may be able to accomplish what necessity compels.” And when she had gone she found not at all what was sought. Then both handmaids of Christ began to be anxious — yet knew not what to do. And see! suddenly with a great sound the workshop-cell, as if about to fall, bending itself, was added to the fire. Then with running course the handmaids of Christ and all the sisters came to look upon it, asking what the crash and din might be. But seeing, they were astounded at the miracle that had happened. Then the venerable mother bade that the man of God Italus, the priest and provost of the same convent, should come to see this kind of miracle. And when the man of God was present, seeing the cell not ruined by the crashes but remaining unharmed, he rendered copious thanks to almighty God — weighing the mother’s merit, who had disciples so imbued and devout that even the elements served their fervent charity.

²² On a certain day, when she was walking outside the town wall yet within the convent’s cloisters in summer-time, she saw Landefrid her monk-gardener investigating something in the garden’s ambit for herbs’ sake, cutting the harmless grasses. To whom she said under her breath in a whisper and silence — which none of the sisters could hear: “Bring us some of the lettuces, brother Landefrid.” This she addressed rather by nodding than by speaking. This the aforementioned brother, who still survives, used to relate. Wonder to tell! The voice, which had been uttered with so small a breath and no other hearing, reached the brother’s ears as if it had been spoken in his very presence. And the space between them was as it were four stades or more.

²³ Another kind of miracle also befell. At a certain time when she was serving the sisters in the kitchen-office her week, as was the custom, and little fishes or other things suitable for monastic uses were least of all available, Basinus the archdeacon of the same city was lying at his house; and see! a voice sounded in his ears, saying: “Know you that the abbess is exercising the kitchen-burden for the sisters? It behoves you to hasten quickly to visit her.” But he, retaining it lightly, neglected it. And when he had been admonished up to thrice, it moreover threatened to inflict blows. What he should do — he had nothing at all for such work, to bring the little gift to so great a mother. At last, going out of the house, he found on the threshold of the door a man bearing a fish of wondrous magnitude. Believing it brought by divine nod, he gave but the price and brought the fish to the blessed mother — from which she, ministering food to the sisters, refreshed them all to satiety. Nor is it to be believed that this was done of purpose by anyone, but prepared by divine nod for exacting her refreshment.

²⁴ With what love almighty God loved her in this life — no, purged her like tried gold — is not to be passed over in silence. At a certain time, kindled by the fever’s venom, she bore a grave affliction of body, so that she lost the faculty of speech. But when she had somewhat recovered under Christ the healer, being asked — no, pressed — by the sisters what manner of correction it had been, she answered with fervent spirit: “O sweetest sisters, why would you search out the matter’s cause? I was oppressed by most savage and foul spirits; but when I grew somewhat better, two wings came from behind me and circled — whose vision was fairer than purest gold; for their tips were felt sharper than a two-edged sword. And while I was fenced about by them, the foulest spirits fled.” What else is given to be understood by this than that almighty God purged His creature in this present life only, and, strengthened by the protection of His right hand, gathered her with the saints? For wings are understood in the holy scriptures as the supernal powers. She recovered in body, but stronger in mind, and lived a year and nine months, her temptation being fulfilled.

²⁵ For who could recount her sanctity and the sagacity of her prudence with worthy praises — whose charity and humility, with the affection of wondrous sweetness and goodness, surpassed all those subject to her? For she was cheerful of countenance and lovely of aspect, lively in converse, moderate in speech, prudent in counsel, pre-eminent in ordering the convent’s affairs, sagacious in wit, devoted to the love of almsgiving, not slothful in hospitality, discreet in the regular norm — imitating the life of the holy women, namely Melania and Paula: of whom Melania, as blessed Jerome says, was the noblest of Roman women and daughter of Marcellinus sometime consul; she sailed to Jerusalem, where she was so marked by humility and charity that she received the name Thecla. And Paula, leaving her urban patrimony, sprung of Greek stock, sought the Bethlehem fields and, living with the highest goodness and humility, poured out her sacred spirit to the Lord. And, to ascend higher, blessed Sadalberga imitated the empress Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine — as the Ecclesiastical History narrates — mortifying the members of the flesh and, worldly pomps set aside, serving God with daily devotions. For whatever was of utility in the convent, and whatever cleaning was to be done, she assigned to herself. And the kitchen and the other offices which are accustomed to be performed in monastic affairs she ministered in turn in her own weeks.

²⁶ But while she was potent in these and other like good things under Christ the healer, at a certain time she saw in the dwelling she used to frequent a tabernacle of wondrous brightness and splendour descending from the sky — which seemed spacious below and steep above; in which a bird of wondrous whiteness, received and glittering with excessive splendour, seized her — set in ecstasy, no translated — carried her across a certain great river and set her down in most pleasant meadows, where various flowers and immense kinds of fragrances breathed; and amid gleaming lilies and the flowers of ruddy roses she saw immense companies of infants of both sexes, rejoicing in snowy cicladas and laurelled heads — among whom also the little boy Magobert was present. Seeing whom she said: “do you know me, mother?” She said: “I know not.” The boy answered: “I am Magobert, son of Amiliana, whom you sent before you; and I am now in this brightness which you see.” And without delay she saw the blessed and venerable pontiff Anseric coming to meet her. To whom he said: “Know you me?” And she confessed she knew not. “I am,” said he, “Anseric, bishop of Soissons, whom you have often seen summoned to your house. Come and I will show you the gates of paradise.” And he showed her the city of the Most High God and the twelve seats of the apostles gleaming with gold and gems. To whom he also said: “See, a place is prepared for you. But because blessed Mary’s eyes are bedewed and she cannot bear the sisters’ prayers — since you are still needful to them — she has besought her Son that you return there the more speedily from above, to possess the rewards conferred on you by the Lord.” Meanwhile that bird, seizing her again in its beak — her breath being recovered — sent her back from above.

²⁷ While therefore she rested on a certain night, in the likeness of the venerable man Waldebert an angel of the Lord appeared to her the third time — who also saw her girdle and, drawn from her loins, bore it with him. Which girdle was no more seen: signifying, as I suppose, that in her posterity honour would increase with successions. He, as she used to relate, glittered with excessive whiteness and addressed the woman with this wondrous voice: “O sweetest daughter, prepare yourself to receive the prize and await your going out; for I also desire to receive the prize from your victory — for the hundredth day from this day shall be the day of your calling, that you may store up the fruit of your labour which you have sought with great sweat in the garner of your Lord with multiplied usury.” Hearing these things, she summoned one of the sisters familiar to her and disclosed the dream’s force and the matter’s tenor, but deferred to reveal it to the rest. And the angel of the Lord commanded her to complete the psalter each day and night within that hundredfold number. From that day therefore she began to offer to the Lord in vigils, fasts, psalms and prayers more than was custom — the firmer in the promise, the more eager in the service.

²⁸ But before the twentieth day of her calling she was touched with a pain of the feet and lay down on her bed — as it is said of the perfect man: “The almond tree shall flourish, the locust shall be made fat, the caper-berry shall be scattered, because man gos to the house of his eternity.” At the last, her office being finished, the companies of the sisters being convoked, she addressed them with this voice: “Remain in the service of almighty God, O handmaids of Christ; for not he who has begun, according to the divine oracle, but he who perseveres to the end shall be saved.”

²⁹ Meanwhile — as is accustomed to happen amid the opulence of things, discord is even bred among kinsmen — her brother Bodo retained by unlawful usurpation certain villas which he had bestowed on the convent by a series of charters. But, his sister’s sickness being learned and she anxiously beseeching the Lord for this matter, he came to her with the greatest haste; and immediately, God mediating, the sanction of the charters was mutually confirmed, and stands firm to this day. And when she had sensed she was about to depart from the body, bidding the sisters farewell she demanded the priest Italus to discharge the office of burial for her, as is the custom. And asking this she breathed out her sacred spirit, gathered to the companies of the saints, about to receive double in the eternal glory — Himself furnishing, to whom be honour and glory and power and empire for ever and ever. Amen.

³⁰ The aforementioned handmaid of Christ died on the tenth of the Kalends of October — the day on which the passion of the holy Thebans under Maurice their leader is celebrated at Agaunum. Her relics also are buried in the same place, at whose tomb illustrious miracles have been manifest since her death.

Here Ends the Death of St Sadlaberga the Abbess. #