June VIII

St. Medard, Bishop of Noyon, Confessor

From his life, written by Fortunatus, bishop of Poltiers, one in verse, another in prose, and from St. Gregory of Tours, L. de Glor. Conf., c. 95, and Hist. Franc. See also a life of St. Medard, though of less an thority, compiled by a monk of St. Medard’s, at Soissons, about the year 892, published by D’Achery Splcil., t. 8, and the Bollandists, Henschenius, and Papebroke, t. 2, Junij, p. 78, and another written by Radbod II., bishop of Noyon and Tournay, who died in 1082, ib. p. 87; Cointe, Annal Franc. Gall Christ. Nov. t. 9, p. 979.

sixth age

St. Medard, one of the most illustrious prelates of the church of France in the sixth century, was born at Salency, in Picardy, about the year 457. His father Nectard was a noble Frenchman, who made a figure in the king’s court; and his mother Protogia was descended of an ancient Roman family which was settled in Gaul. She brought to her husband several great estates, and among others that of Salency, situated about a league from Noyon. She was a lady of extraordinary piety, and the saintly education and early virtue of her son were the fruit of her attention and example, which was seconded by the authority and influence of her husband, whom she had gained to Christ from idolatry. She instilled into Medard from his infancy, the most tender compassion for the poor. At Salency he one day gave his coat to a blind beggar that was almost naked, and when he was asked what he had done with it, he answered that the sight of the distress and nakedness of a poor blind man, who was a fellow-member in Christ, had so strongly affected him that it was not in his power not to give him part of his own clothes. When he was employed in looking after the cattle in his father’s grounds, according to the custom of that age in France, even in good families, as among the ancient Hebrews, he often deprived himself of his dinner to divide it among the necessitous. Fasting was his delight in an age in which children seldom know what it is to curb their appetites. These virtues were supported by an uncommon spirit of prayer and retirement, and a great purity and innocence of manners. When he was old enough, he was sent abroad to be initiated in the higher studies: he went first to Augusta Verumanduorum,* the capital of the province, and afterwards to Tournay where king Childeric I. is said to have kept his court. Pomp and splendor which so much dazzle the eyes of worldly men, had no charms for the saint, whose soul loathed every thing in which he did not find his God. His parents, delighted with his happy dispositions for virtue, called him back to the city of Vermand, and entreated the bishop to instruct him in the sacred science of the holy scriptures. The scholar astonished the master both by his rapid progress in learning, and still more by the fervor of his piety, his assiduity in prayer, his tears, with which he continually watered his cheeks at his devotions; the readiness of his obedience; his extraordinary humility, and the austerity of his mortifications: in concealing which he was most ingenious Yet all his exercises appeared to him no better than sloth and imperfection; and it was his constant complaint that he was not allowed to do penance. Being promoted to the priesthood in the thirty-third year of his age, he became a bright ornament of that sacred order. He preached the word of God to the people with an unction which touched the hearts of the most hardened; but the influence of his example, by which he enforced the precepts which he delivered from the pulpit, seemed irresistible. He employed in holy contemplation and prayer all the time which his exterior functions did not claim. His fasts were continual and severe; but the perfect mortification of his will and passions by meekness and humility, seemed that virtue by which he was rendered most admirable. No man seems ever to have been more perfectly master of himself, or to have possessed a more constant evenness of temper. He never appeared elated with joy, or dejected and sunk by sadness upon any vicissitude in human affairs; was always patient and silent in adversity; sweet, courteous, and humble in prosperity, affable and beneficent to all, especially to the poor.

In 530, Alomer the thirteenth bishop of that country dying, St. Medard was unanimously chosen to fill the see, and was consecrated by St. Remigius, who had baptized king Clovis in 496, and was then exceeding old. Our saint’s new dignity did not make him abate any thing of his austerities, but added to them the solicitude of his pastoral charge; and though at that time seventy-two years old, he thought himself obliged to redouble his labors. Though his diocese was very wide, it seemed not to suffice for his zeal, which could not be confined wherever he saw an opportunity of advancing the honor of God, and of abolishing the remains of idolatry. He rejoiced in calumnies and persecutions, and always triumphed over them by silence and patience. He had the affliction to see his diocese cruelly ravaged by the Huns and Vandals, but this calamity was to him a great spiritual harvest, by the opportunities it afforded him of exerting his charity and courage. He was, under that deluge of miseries, the refuge, support, and comfort of all the distressed. The ancient city of Augusta Verumanduorum being by the fury of wars and other misfortunes brought to a ruinous condition, and lying open to the incursions of barbarians, St. Medard transferred his see to Noyon, a strong walled town. From that time the old capital, which had been so flourishing in the times of the Gauls, fell entirely to decay; and at present nothing of it remains except a borough with a Premonstratensian abbey which still retains the name of Vermand. The neighboring town of St. Quintin is now become the capital of that part of Picardy.*

Other provinces envied the happiness of the Vermandois in possessing so great a pastor, and earnestly desired to share in the same. The clergy and people of Tournay, being supported by king Clotaire I., the son of Clovis the Great, after the death of St. Eleutherius in 532, would have no other person for their bishop. In compliance with their desire, St. Remigius, their metropolitan, thinking this necessary for the propagation of the gospel, with the approbation of the pope, commanded St. Medard to govern both those great dioceses, which from that time remained united under the same bishop for the space of five hundred years. Till then, some parts of the diocese of Tournay lay benighted under the shades of idolatry. St. Medard visited them all, and though he was often threatened, and sometimes seized by the Pagans with a view of taking away his life, he overcame all obstacles, and by his zealous labors and miracles, the rays of the gospel dispelled the mists of idolatry throughout the whole extent of his dioceses. What rendered this task more difficult and perilous, was the savage and fierce disposition of the ancient inhabitants of Flanders, who were the most barbarous of all the nations of the Gauls and Franks, as the original historians frequently take notice. The Greeks and Romans civilized the western part of the world, by teaching the barbarous nations to cultivate their minds with the useful and polite arts. But the most elegant ages of those empires themselves may, in many respects, be esteemed barbarous if compared with Christianity. The divine spirit of mildness, patience, humility, and charity which it inspires, and the purity and sanctity of its morals, have refined the minds of men, corrected the ignorance, stupidity, and barbarism of the fiercest nations, and diffused a rational, virtuous, and holy temper throughout the countries where the gospel has been planted. St. Medard, with incredible pains, brought over the most rude and wild people from their barbarous manners, inspired them with the meek spirit of the gospel, and rendered them a civilized and Christian nation, abounding with examples of eminent virtue, as Miræus observes. Our saint having completed this great work in Flanders, returned to Noyon, where Radegondes, queen of France in 544, received the religious veil from his hands, with the consent of her husband Clotaire, and was made a deaconess.* Shortly after, the saint fell sick. Upon the first news of his illness, king Clotaire, who always honored him as a living saint, came to Noyon to pay him a visit, and to receive his blessing. Soon after his departure, the saint rested from his labors in a very advanced age, in the sixth century, according to Le Cointe in 545, according to Pagi in 561. The whole kingdom lamented his death as the loss of their common father and protector. His body was buried in his own cathedral; but king Clotaire was so moved by many miracles wrought at his tomb, that he desired to translate his precious remains to Soissons, where he then chiefly resided.

Clotaire was an able, valiant, and generous prince, but had tarnished his glory by actions of cruelty and ambition in his youth. He reigned first king of Soissons. By the death of his brother Clodomir in 524, he obtained a share in the kingdom of Orleans: by the death of Thierry in 544, he added Austrasia, or Metz, to his dominions; and by that of Childebert, in 558, he became also king of Paris, and of all France. He endeavored to expiate the crimes of his youth by works of penance, and listened to the advice of St. Medard. Having begun to build a stately church and abbey at Soissons, after the death of that holy man, he caused his relics to be translated thither from Noyon in a shrine covered with most precious stuffs, seeded with diamonds, and adorned with plates of gold; the king himself, the princes, his children, and all the chief lords of the court attending the processior: the king thought himself honored by sometimes putting his royal shoulders under the burden. The body was laid at Crouy, or Croiac, a village eastward of Soissons, near the gates, and a small church or oratory of wood was raised over it, till the church in Soissons could be finished. Clotaire dying in 561 at Compiegne, the structure of this abbey was completed by king Sigebert, one of his younger sons. It has been sometimes styled by popes the chief of all the Benedictin abbeys in France. Fortunatus and St. Gregory of Tours, who lived before the close of the same century, testify, that in their time the festival of St. Medard was celebrated in France with great soremnity. A small portion of his relics was procured for the parish church which bears his name in Paris.

All holy pastors were eminently men of prayer. Besides the constant homage of public prayer, they retired frequently into their closets, or into wildernesses, to give themselves up entirely to this heavenly exercise. This Jesus teaches them, by so often withdrawing into deserts and mountains to pray, and to spend whole nights in prayer. The most retired places, and the calmest and most silent seasons ought to be chosen, that our souls may most perfectly soar above all earthly things, and sequestering our minds and hearts from them, converse in heaven, and recommend to God both our own and others’ necessities. The sanctification both of the pastor and his flock requires this. To retire sometimes to speak to God for them, is not to abandon them, but to serve them in the best manner, by endeavoring to draw down the most abundant showers of divine grace upon them; and by purifying his own soul, and replenishing himself with God and his truths, learning the art of imparting them with their interior spirit. Without this, the salvation both of the pastor and his people is equally in danger. The apostles joined prayer with their ministry, as equally dividing their care and their time. Acts 6:4.

Saint Gildard, or Godard,

bishop of rouen, confessor

He is commemorated jointly with St. Medard in the Roman Martyrology and in the new Paris and old Sarum Breviaries. He assisted at the first council of Orleans in 511, and governed the see of Rouen with great zeal during the space of fifteen years. He was buried at St. Mary’s in Rouen, which is since called St. Gildard’s, or in French St. Godard’s. In the Norman incursions his body was translated to St. Medard’s at Soissons, and still remains there. That he was brother of St. Medard is unknown to Fortunatus, Gregory of Tours, &c. See Pommeraye, History of the Archbishops of Rouen, Baillet, &c.

St. Maximinus, C.

first archbishop of aix in provence

He planted the faith in that country, probably before the close of the first century, about the same time it was first preached at Marseilles. He is said by some moderns to have been one of the disciples of our Lord. St. Sedonius was his successor, and second bishop of Aries, supposed by the people of the country to have been the man born blind whom our Redcemer healed Their relics are shown, with those of many other saints, at St. Maximin’s, a town six leagues from Aix, built at the place where this saint was buried. The monastery, which was formerly of the order of St. Bennet, and dependent on St. Victor’s at Marseilles, was given by St. Louis’s brother, Charles count of Provence, to the Dominicans, who enjoy it with extraordinary privileges, and an exemption of the whole town from the spiritual jurisdiction of the archbishop of Aix. On St. Maximinus, see Gallia Christ. Nova., t. 1, p. 299. Maurolycus seems to have been the first who called St. Maxi minus a disciple of our Lord.

St. William, Archbishop of York, C.

He was son of earl Herbert, and Emma, sister to king Stephen. He learned from his infancy that true greatness consists only in humility and virtue; and renounced the world in his youth, employing his riches to purchase unfading treasures in heaven by works of mercy to the poor, and giving himself wholly to the study and practice of religion. Being promoted to holy orders, he was elected treasurer in the metropolitical church of York, under the learned and good archbishop Thurstan. When that prelate, after having held his dignity twenty years, retired among the Cluniac monks at Pontefract to prepare himself for his death, which happened the year following, St. William was chosen archbishop by the majority of the chapter and consecrated at Winchester in September, 1144, according to Le Neve’s Fasti.¹ But Osbert, the archdeacon, a turbulent man, procured Henry Mur dach, a Cistercian monk of the abbey of Fountains, who was also a man of great learning and a zealous preacher, to be preferred at Rome, whither William went to demand his pall, and to plead the cause of his constituents rather than his own. Being deprived by pope Eugenius III., in 1147, he. who had always looked upon this dignity with trembling, appeared much greater in the manner in which he bore this repulse than he could have done in the highest honors. Being returned into England, he went privately to Winchester, to his uncle Henry, bishop of that see, by whom he was honorably entertained. He led at Winchester a penitential life, in silence, solitude, and prayer, in a retired house belonging to the bishop, bewailing the frailties of his past life with many tears, for seven years. The archbishop Henry then dying in 1153, and Anastasius IV. having succeeded Eugenius III, in the see of Rome, St. William, to satisfy the importunity of others, by whom he was again elected, undertook a second journey to Rome, and received the pallium from his holiness.* The saint on his return was met on the road by Robert de Gaunt, dean, and Osbert, archbishop of the church of York, who insolently forbade him to enter that city or diocese. He received the affront with an engaging meekness, but pursued his journey. He was received with incredible joy by his people. The great numbers who assembled on that occasion to see and welcome him, broke down the wooden bridge over the river Ouse, in the middle of the city of York, and a great many persons fell into the river. The saint, seeing this terrible accident, made the sign of the cross over the river, and addressed himself to God with many tears. All the world ascribed to his sanctity and prayers the miraculous preservation of the whole multitude, especially of the children who all escaped out of the waters without hurt.* St. William showed no enmity and sought no revenge against his most inveterate enemies, who had prepossessed Eugenius III. against him by the blackest calumnies, and by every unwarrantable means had obstructed his good designs. He formed many great projects for the good of his diocese, and the salvation of souls, but within a few weeks after his installation was seized with a fever, of which he died on the third day of his sickness, on the 8th of June, 1154.^† He was buried in his cathedral; and canonized by pope Nicholas III. about the year 1280. At the same time his body was taken up by archbishop William Wickwane, and his relics put into a very rich shrine, and deposited in the nave of the same metropolitan church in 1284. The feast of his translation was kept on the 7th of January.² King Edward I and his whole court assisted at this ceremony, during which many miracles are attested to have been wrought. A table containing a list of thirty-six miracles, with a copy of an indulgence of one hundred and forty days to all who should devoutly visit his tomb, is still to be seen in the vestry, but no longer legible, as Mr. Drake mentions.³ The shrine, with its rich plate and jewels, was plundered at the reformation; but the saint’s bones were deposited in a box within a coffin, and buried in the nave, under a large spotted marble stone. Mr. Drake had the curiosity to see the ground opened, and found them with their box and coffin in 1732. He laid them again in the same place with a mark.⁴ See Nicholas Trivet in his Annals of Six Kings of England, ad an 1146. Stubbs, Act. Pontif. Ebor. in S. Willelmo; Capgrave’s Legend; Gulielm. Neubrig; De Rebus Anglicis sui temporis; Brompton, Gervasius Monachus inter 10 scriptor. Angliæ; and Drake, in his curious History and Antiquities of York. Also Papebroke’s remarks, Jun. t. 2, p. 136.

St. Clou, or Clodulphus, Bishop of Metz, C.

He was son of St. Arnold, who having been prime minister to king Clotaire II., surnamed the Great, renounced the world, and was afterwards made bishop of Metz. He had two sons, Clou and Ansegisus, whose inclinations to virtue he cultivated by an excellent education. Clou showed from the cradle that he inherited all his father’s virtues in an eminent degree. Under the best masters he made such a progress in the divine and human sciences, as astonished those who taught him, and excited to emulation all who learned with him. He afterwards lived in the court of the kings of Austrasia, and passed through the greatest employments under Dagobert I. and Sigebert II., always with credit to himself, and to the honor and advantage of the state.* After some time he left his brother Ansegisus to push his fortune in the courts of earthly kings, choosing for himself a state which removes a man further from the flattering objects of the passions, and from that hurry of distractions, under which the most virtuous often find it difficult not to lose sight of God in their actions. His father, St. Arnold, had quitted the bishopric of Metz that he might wear out the remainder of his days in tranquillity, and be ready to meet his heavenly bridegroom. Two other pastors had succeeded him in that, see, and it was become a third time vacant, when the clergy and people of Metz unanimously demanded St. Clou for their bishop. The holy man did all that lay in his power to make the election fall on some other person; but the whole country became the more importunate, and the king obliged him at length to acquiesce in a choice made by heaven itself. Having therefore received the episcopal consecration, he cheerfully set himself to fulfil every duty of that important charge. He began by a visitation of his diocese, everywhere correcting abuses, and establishing regularity. Such was his compassion for the poor, that for their sake he lived himself destitute of the most common conveniences of life. By assiduous meditation at the foot of the cross, he was careful to nourish his own soul with the bread of life; and in the same school he acquired that heavenly eloquence with which he delivered, in the most affecting manner, the sentiments and lights which he received by this channel from the God of all science. Full of zeal for the glory of God, and of love and tenderness for his people, he was attentive to all their wants, and indefatigable in laboring for their sanctification, especially in instructing, comforting, and relieving the poor He governed the church of Metz forty years and fifteen days, and died in 696, being fourscore and ten years old. He is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on this day. His body was translated to the Benedictin priory of Lay, not far from Nancy, in 959, on the 11th of December; but a portion remains in the church which bears his name at Metz. He is named in the Roman and other Martyrologies. See his authentic life, with the notes of Henschenius, Jun. t. 2, p. 126.

St. Syra, V.

She was sister to St. Fiacre, fired by whose example she left all to follow Christ. To make this sacrifice more entire she sailed from Ireland, her native country, and going after her brother into France, addressed herself to his patron and protector, St. Faro, bishop of Meaux. That holy prelate recommended her to his sister Fara, abbess in Brie. Syra, under so eminent a directress, became a perfect pattern of humility, meekness, charity, and devotion. From her cell she was translated into paradise in the seventh century, and is honored at Troyes and in some parts of Ireland on the 8th of June, and at Meaux on the 23d of October. See Saussaye, and Colgan in MSS.

* The Latin of Vermand

* The present Vermand is a small town, or village, with an abbey of the order of Premontré, three leagues from St. Quintin’s, and four from Peronne. Nicholas Sanson has demonsrated this borough to have been built on the spot and from the ruins of the ancient Augusta Verumanduorum. Adrian Valots and the Abbé de Longuerue object, that according to the ancient life of Saint Quintin, that martyr’s body was buried at Augasta Verumanduorum But the author evidently gives that name to the new town of St. Quintin’s. only because the inhabitants of Vermand had removed thither their households and city For the old city having been destroyed by the barbarians about the year 531, St. Medard translated his see to Noyon, Cæsar’s Noviomagus. Part of the inhabitants retired to Noyon; but the greatest part founded the new city of St. Quintin. See Nic. Sanson, In Pharum Galliæ Disqulsitiones Geographicæ; index Alphabeticus, et Exercitationes Geographometicæ ad utrumque Itinerarium Romanum per Gallias. Also Sanadon, Cluvier, &c.

* On the Deaconesses read the learned dissertation of Caper the Bollandist, Augusti, t. 3, p. 51. Bingsam, &c

¹ P. 307.

* The Pallium which the pope sends to archbishops is an ornament worn upon their shoulders, with a label hanging down the breast and back. It is made of white lamb’s wool, and spotted with purple crosses, and is worn as a token of the spiritual jurisdiction of metropolitans over the churches of their whole province. It is regarded as an emblem of humility, charity, and innocence, and serves to put the prelate in mind, that he is bound to seek out and carry home on his shoulders the strayed sheep, in imitation of Christ, the Good Shepherd and the Prince of pastors. Cardinal Bona says the white lambs are blessed on the festival of St. Agnes in her church on the Nomentan road, and from that time kept in some nunnery till they are shorn; and of the wool are the palliums made which are laid over the tomb of St. Peter the whole night of the vigil before the feast of that apostle. The pope sends one to archbishops in the western patriarchate after their election and consecration: but these prelates only wear them in the church during the divine office. Palliums are also granted to apostolic legates, and to certain suffragan bishops of exempt sees, as of Bamberg In Germany, and of Lucca and Pavia In Italy.

The first use of palliums by bishops is mentioned among the Orientals. Saint Isidore of Pelusium explains at large various mystical significations of this ornament. l. 1. ep. 136. In the West, pope Symmachus sent a pallium to Cæsarius, archbishop of Aries, his vicar in Gaul, in the beginning of the sixth century. From that time we find it usually sent to apostolic legates: likewise to several metropolitans, as appears from the letters of St. Gregory the Great. Peter de Marca shows that it was not granted promiscuously to all metropolitans before the decree of pope Zachary, by which it was established a general law.

The pallium was anciently an entire long garment, covering the whole body from the neck, not unlike a priest’s cope, saving that it was shut up before Instead of the pallium, the Greek bishops now all wear the Omophorion or Humerale, which is a broad riband hanging round their neck, across their breast, and reaching below the knees. Spelman, in his Glossary, Thomassin, &c., show that a pallium was a mantle worn by the Roman emperors, and that the first Christian emperors gave this imperial ornament to eminent bishops to wear as an emblem of the royalty of the Christian priesthood. It was afterwards appropriated to archbishops to show their dignity, and to command greater respect, as God prescribed several ornament to be worn by the Jewish high-priest. See Bona de Rebus, Liturg., i. 1, c. 24; Marca de Concordia Sac et Imperii, 1. 6, c. 6 et 7; Spelman, and especially Thomas, in Tr. de la Discipline de l’Eglise, p. 1, 1. 2, c. 53 et 56. p. 829.

* Polydore Virgil, an author of small credit, pretends that this happened on the Are, at Pontefract, near Ferry-Bridge. But Brompton and Stubbs expressly say, that it was in the city of York, on the river Ouse, Where stood a chapel till the reformation, as Mr. Drake testifies. Pontefract could not derive its name from this accident, as Polydore imagined, for we find it so called long before; and the name was originally written Pomfrete or Pontfrete, from a very different Norman etymology.

^† Hoveden advances that poison had been put into the chalice when he said mass. But Gulielinus Neubrigensis, a canon regular, a Yorkshire-man, an elegant and most diligent historian of that very time in his history De Reous Anglicis sui Temporis, confutes that groundless surmise of the vulgar.

² See the York Breviary, printed at Paris in 1526.

³ P. 419.

⁴ Ib.

* Pepin of Landen and St. Arnold had shared together the government under Clotaire II, and Dagober I., with the titles of dukes of Austrasia, and mayors of the palace. Clovis II. succeeded his lather Dago bert at Paris, and Sigebert II, in Austrasia; but Grimoald, the son and successor of Pepio of Landen, upon the death of Sigebert II., about the year 655, shaved his infant son Dagobert, a monk, and banished him into Ireland, with a view to open a way to the throne for his own son. however Clovis II. made himself master of both their persons, and confined them at Paris for the rest of their days or according to others put them to death: which punishment was due to their treason. Ansegisus man ed Begga, the virtuous daughter of Pepin of Landen, by whom he had Pepin of Herstal, or the Fat, the valiant and prosperous mayor of the French palace, and father of Charles Martel

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 2, pp. 524–531). New York: P. J. Kenedy.