Eudaldus
Acta Sanctorum, May 11
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://actasanctorum.org/may/day-11/eudaldus.html
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ON SAINT EUDALDUS
MARTYR IN NOVEMPOPULANIA, AND TRANSLATED INTO CATALONIA.

CENTURY VIII.

[Commentary]

Eudaldus, Martyr in Novempopulania, translated into Catalonia (S.)

BHL Number: 2663

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

The Episcopal city of Aire of Novempopulania
in Vasconia, [The places of the passion] commonly called d'Ax or
d'Acqs, between the dioceses of Bayonne
and Aire on the river Adour, under
the Archbishop of Auch and the Parliament
of Bordeaux, is the head of the whole Prefecture or Seneschalcy
of the Landes, where the tribunal of the presidial Court is also constituted.
To this city Ferrarius attributes a Martyr on this day
in the General Catalogue in these words: At Aire in Aquitaine S.
Eudaldus Martyr. But with more words Saussay celebrates him
in the Supplement of the Gallican Martyrology. At Aire, he says,
in Aquitaine the birthday of S. Eudaldus Martyr, who Italian
by nation, born in Lombardy, when he sought the increases
of the glory of God, transferring himself into the Gauls, by
barbarians rushing in impiously slaughtered, poured out his soul in his
innocence. His body afterward illustrated by divine
signs, [and his cult.] was translated hence to the monastery of Ripoll,
between Gerona and Vich, in the very diocese of Vich,
where it is held in worthy veneration.
Others write the town Rivipollense, on account of the confluence of the rivers
Ther and Breser, called by the inhabitants Ripol, where
that a church peculiarly consecrated to S. Eudaldus exists, writes
Antony Vincent Domeneccus, in the General History of the Saints
of Catalonia; where he published the Life in Spanish, taken
from the ancient Legend of lessons formerly wont to be recited
at Matins, which rendered into Latin at this day
Tamajus-Salazar gave in the Spanish Martyrology. But
because this Life, [The fabulous Acts of the martyrdom,] composed after the body was translated into Catalonia,
from the tradition of the common people little founded, seems written;
we do not wish to insert it in this work, since both in Latin and Spanish
in the said authors it can be read. Of the time of the Martyrdom
this only I would say. If of Lombard parents
born in Italy the Saint passed into Gaul (and a barbarian
origin the barbarous name of Eudaldus sufficiently proves)
it cannot be that before the year DLXX, [more probably accomplished under the Saracens, in the 8th century.] about which the kingdom of the Lombards
began in Italy, he was born: and so
it is impossible that under Walamir the Goth, who together with
Attila broke into Gaul, in the year CCCCLI he was slain for the faith,
having before suffered many torments by Wilhielmus King of the Huns in the city Faste.
Too monstrous are
all these things: no city in Gaul Faste, no
Wilhielmus among the Kings of the Huns does history know. But
if we seek barbarians, by whom after the sixth century rushing
into the Gauls Eudaldus was slain, not easily
would you find others, more opportune for this argument, than the Saracens:
who under Charles Martel King of France in the year DCCXXV
occupied Aquitaine, called by Eudo Duke
of the Franks, and held it for twelve years, often indeed
conquered by the King, never however not troublesome and feared,
until in the year DCCXXXVI they were utterly driven out. And according to
this conjecture the passion of S. Eudaldus would belong to
the VIII century.

[2] Tamajus Salazar at the day XIV of May asserts the feast of the translation
from Aquitaine into Catalonia to be celebrated, [The Translation] and its
Acts from the said ancient Legendary he printed, which are
of this kind. In the year of our Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour
running DCCCCLXXVIII, in the era MVI, the day before the Ides
of May, Borrellus the Count of the Barcelonese reigning at Barcelona,
Idisclus Abbot of Ripoll, under the auspices
of the said Count, brought from the city of Aire
in Gaul the body of S. Eudaldus Martyr to that his
monastery of Ripoll, [done in the year 978 the 14th of May:] where through the merits of that Blessed one
God daily imparts very many helps to the sick.
Which lest they should wholly slip from the memory of men,
briefly, into a compendium, led by the force of obedience,
and drawn by the fervor of devotion,
I have undertaken to set forth. Therefore on the same day XIV of May of the said year,
on which the holy Relics into the church of the monastery
arrived, the most blessed Abbot Idisclus ordered the steward
of the monastery, that he should have made an elegant casket,
in which should be placed the holy Relics, that they might more honorably
be laid up. To whom when the steward replied
inconsiderately, [the detractors punished:] that he could not spend so many coins
without fruit; immediately seized by the Lord, he fell
into a deadly sickness: from which he escaped free, a vow
being made before the Relics, that he would make a more elegant casket,
if from the peril by the intercession of S. Eudaldus he should be freed.
Another servant of the monastery rashly began to say,
that the bones, which on the altar of the blessed Virgin Mary,
under the name of S. Eudaldus, were exposed to the people, were neither
of any Saint nor ought there to be honored,
lest perchance they had been of some evildoer man.
At which saying, at once the demons entered into the body
of the servant, whom they most severely vexed. But truly to the relics
of S. Eudaldus brought, [14 possessed freed:] the same malign spirits confessed
the blessedness of the holy Martyr, and that there truly
his body subsisted. By which and by the prayers
of the Brethren, the servant rose up sound from the trouble of the demons.
Afterward fourteen other possessed S. Eudaldus
freed.

[3] After some courses of times, the fervor of the inhabitants growing cold,
[he checked public plagues] the festival of S. Eudaldus ceased
wholly, so that no memory now seemed to remain,
nay nor was the devotion known. So great
therefore ingratitude of the citizens God resolving to punish,
sent into that region a very great drought, famine
and mortality. Which that from the people
God might deign to avert, the Prior and monks of this
monastery the body of S. Eudaldus, from the place where it was laid up,
into public in procession drawing forth,
showed it to innumerable people present.
Who devoutly from God on account of the merits of His holy Martyr
asking help, vowed, that thenceforth
they would observe his day, would celebrate the feast devoutly, if
rain to the fields, health to the sick, and bread to the famished
He should mercifully grant. The compassion of God assented to the vows:
and at once the cataracts of heaven were opened, and rain
gave a salutary: innumerable blind, lame, and
sick were healed, the mortality ceased, and the famine was satisfied.
When a certain man deprived of light, to
visit the threshold of the Body of S. Eudaldus from a far-off
region had come, [other several miracles.] and at the tomb of the holy Martyr for
obtaining sight had passed the night assiduously, in his own
country without cure passing, even to
the borders of his own people weeping he came: who, hastening to wipe the tears from his eyes,
straightway both received sight,
and to God and the holy Martyr gave thanks with both
knees bent. To the tomb of S. Eudaldus was brought on a certain
day a little boy, laboring with a most grievous disease of palsy:
for his hands clinging to the elbow
bent down, with knees distorted and head greatly dislocated:
for whose health prayers to the Martyr very many
were made, until he received entire health.
A certain man interposed the name of S. Eudaldus by a false
oath: whom thus God unexpectedly punished, that
straightway lifeless he fell collapsed to the earth and died.

[4] Thus far the Acts of the Translation and of the miracles. But
the said monastery of Ripoll or Ripollense
was founded by Wifred surnamed the Hairy, [The monastery of Ripoll founded.] Count of Barcelona,
about the year DCCCLXXXVIII, under the invocation of the God-bearing
Virgin Mary, on account of a sacred image of her found in the depth
of a neighboring cave; as relate Francis Diago,
in book 2 of the History of the Counts of Barcelona chapter 11; and
Antony de Yepes, in volume 4 of the Benedictine Chronicle folio 216:
who at folio 220 recounts the Abbots of the said monastery, of whom the fifth is handed down the above-mentioned Idisclus, in Yepes
Guidisolus, by whom the same says the body of S. Eudaldus was translated
in the year DCCCCLXXXIII, a rich
treasure of the said monastery. But Borellus was Count of the Barcelonese
from the year DCCCCLXIV until the year DCCCCXCIII,
whose virtues and wars with the Saracens Diago describes at large.
There succeeded him his son Raymond Borellus, and he survived
until the year MXVII, in whose time the sacred
Body of S. Eudaldus was translated to a new Church on the IX
of August: at which day the Acts of this Translation also, as
I said, in Tamajus Salazar are read.

[5] [The body brought to the place where a church was to be founded,] After in the year of the Lord DCCCCLXXVIII, Borellus the Count of the Barcelonese reigning
in Catalonia, the venerable
body of B. Eudaldus Martyr was
translated to the Benedictine monastery of the Valley
of Ripoll, where God by the intercession of His holy Martyr
had wrought signal miracles; it came to pass that the holy
Martyr appeared in dreams to the Abbot and other monks
of the aforesaid monastery, exhorting them, that for him
they should erect a peculiar chapel
or basilica, and to it
from that place where his pledges rested should transfer them.
Then, counsel and deliberation being held among the monks
beforehand, it was done and unanimously
decreed, that the Body of the holy Martyr should be led
to the place where the basilica was to be erected, and supposing that
placed there it should work newer miracles,
then they would know and believe his firm will
concerning the new temple to be erected. Therefore the sacred pledges,
brought to the place with a magnificent apparatus of procession, [many miracles again take place:]
scarcely had they touched the site, when, God disposing, a frequent
instance of miracles was seen. For a certain
woman, who scarcely on account of the heaviness
of continual fevers could follow the sacred remains, immediately
on the very journey, by the prayers of the holy Martyr was healed.
With the same sickness two other women laboring, followed the concourse
in the procession devoutly, whose
piety God beholding, by the prayers of the holy Martyr free
they returned home. A certain young man
with feet and shins dead brought to the litter of the Relics,
when he touched it, forthwith sound
walked about and believed. Nay even another paralytic
in the hand, kissing the shrine, in which the holy Martyr's
remains were laid up, straightway received health.
By which miracles beheld with the eye, [and it is translated into it in the year 1004,] all the people
continually began to collect what was necessary for the building:
whose fabric so grew, that on the IX day of August,
in the year of the Lord one thousand four, the Count Raymond
Borellus of the Barcelonese reigning in the principality
of Catalonia, the sacred relics to the new basilica
being translated, there honorably were placed. Which thus
the townsmen venerate, that every year on its anniversary
birthday from everywhere the entire surrounding peoples
flow together to the celebration of a festival of this kind,
for the sake of devotion and vow. But during this
time it came to pass that the inhabitants of the territory of Val-Fogona
suffered an insuperable and inexorable plague:
for in the middle term of the day an Angel in the form of a horseman
with drawn sword appeared, [the inhabitants of the Valley of Fogona freed from a divine plague] with which he cruelly struck the inhabitants
he met, so that none of those slain remained with life.
Which evil that the rest might meet, to the church
of S. Eudaldus continually with humble contrition devout
in procession they came. Then the sacrifice of the Mass
began to be celebrated, in whose beginning one of the inhabitants
of the aforesaid valley wounded fell in the midst of the church: but
the Abbot of the monastery said to the survivors, that in prayer
they should remain, and the holy Martyr for their help
should invoke. So it was done: and the man struck
without injury rising up, giving thanks to God and the Martyr,
commended devotion to his fellow citizens, and
announced that they would be free from the past peril, so
that thenceforth nothing such was seen in the Valley: [they advance the building.] whose
chief men, on account of the favor received, in thanksgiving
offered to the holy Martyr to cut and
draw all the pile of wood, for burning the lime
necessary to the building. Hence that
was splendidly completed.

[6] Thus far those Acts; after which Domeneccus indicates,
that the feast of S. Eudaldus in the monastery of Ripoll, [the special cult of S. Eudaldus.] and in
the proper church dedicated to him, and also in the parish church
of the same town sacred to S. Peter, is celebrated on this
XI of May; and his name in the Prayers both in the sacrifice
of the Mass and in the rest of the Ecclesiastical Office
is named, and that through the whole Octave it is done, and besides
in the month of November the feast of the Translation is performed,
and that equally by the Ecclesiastical Clerics as by the monks.
But when among these monks Commemorations are made
in Vespers and Lauds of the Saints
of their Religion, there is added also the Commemoration of S. Eudaldus:
and the same is done in the parish church, and the other of S.
Eudaldus; and he in the said town and its district
is held as a chief and great Patron.
