saints – Perennial Pyrenees

Better late than never! This month’s extract from ‘Highly Holy’ continues concludes the extracts from Chapter Four (‘Pyrenean Patrons’) and discusses three saints whose veneration forms are very particular to the Cerdagne and Conflent region: Saint Eugenie, Saint Eloi and Saints Abdon and Sennan.

Extract II from Chapter Four, ‘Pyrenean Patrons’

Completing the circuit of the eastern Pyrenees by way of the coastal city of Perpignan, the French Cerdagne, Conflent, Canigó and the border with Girona (Catalonia), the Pyrénées-Orientales shares many saints with its Catalan neighbour. There are also many chapels and churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary, in which she is attached to a specific location, the object of veneration and a worker of miracles: e.g. Nostra Senyora dels Desemparats (Collioure), Notre-Dame de Domanova (Canigou), Nostra Senyora de la Volta (Prades), Notre-Dame de Font-Romeu (Font-Romeu) etc. The départementfalls within the diocesan purview of Perpignan-Elne and before the Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed it had variously been known as Roussillon and Northern Catalonia, stretching from the mountains down to the sea. Its cultural and religious heritage overlaps greatly with Catalonia and, in consequence, a great many of the locally revered saints across the border (such as Saint Gaudérique) are also found in the Pyrénées-Orientales. Contrary to the Aude, the Pyrénées-Orientales has not elevated its bishops to sainthood; rather there is an amalgamation of more universal saints which have been brought into special prominence at certain locations. Historically the two urban religious centres have consisted of Elne and Perpignan (for which the diocese of Perpignan-Elne is named), with the latter eclipsing the former during the Later Middle Ages, during which the Counts of Roussillon moved their seat from Elne to Perpignan in its growing prosperity. To focus on Elne first, the former capital of Roussillon, its origins as an oppidum have given rise to its inhabitants being known as Illibériens and during its time in Septimania Elne became a bishopric in the late sixth century, with its first recorded bishop, Dominus, mentioned in the chronicle of John of Biclarum in 571.[1] The bishops of Elne are also recorded as participating in the Council of Toledo in 599 and holding various synods up to the late fourteenth century, and whilst Perpignan became designated as the capital of Roussillon after its Counts achieved independence from Carolingian control in the late ninth century, Elne remained the region’s Episcopal city.[2] However, by the beginning of the seventeenth century Perpignan had achieved such local dominance in terms of power and wealth that the Episcopal seat was transferred there by way of a Bull issued by Pope Clement VIII. Therefore, for a substantial part of its history Elne held a position of huge religious importance in Roussillon. Its cathedral, built in through the eleventh and twelfth centuries, is dedicated to Saint Julie and Saint Eulalie of Mérida. Excavations have revealed the possibility of an earlier structure on the same site dating back to the sixth century, contemporary with the creation of the Elne diocese by the Visigoths from the dismembered diocese of Narbonne. Whilst neither Saint Julie nor Saint Eulalie are native to the region, with Saint Julie being born in fifth-century Carthage and Saint Eulalie in third-century Mérida, it is interesting to note that Saint Eulalie seems to enjoy particular attention in the Languedoc and within Occitan culture as a whole, with her name being corrupted in local versions of Occitan when naming villages. For example, one finds Saint-Araille in the Haute-Garonne, Sentaraille in the Ariège and even Xaintrailles in Lot-et-Garonne. This may be due to the actions of sixth-century Frankish king Childebert I, who brought a selection of Saint Eulalie’s relics into France in 571, and it is important to note that the oldest surviving poem in the ‘langue d’oïl’ is one which describes her story.[3] Across the broader region of Catalonia, the Aude and the Pyrénées-Orientales are dedications to Saint Eulalie in Narbonne, Carcassonne, Girona, Barcelona, Vic, Llerida and Urgel. Within the cathedral of Elne the offices of both Vespers and Lauds contain references to Saint Eulalie, whose feast day is celebrated with a Mass and a procession around the cathedral and cloister on the 10^th of December.[4]

On the border between the communes of Elne and Argèles-sur-Mer the remains of a church dedicated to Sainte-Eugénie de Tresmals can be found. Whilst Saint Eugenie (Eugenia) was a third-century Roman martyr, her dedications within Roussillon follow a very particular local custom, in that all her churches and chapels are sited along watercourses. Sainte-Eugénie de Tresmals is located on the Roussillon plain, an alluvial plain whose sediment is brought by three rivers: the Agly, the Têt and the Tech. Their flooding has built up large deposits of silt along the plain, much exploited in local agriculture. The church is located one hundred yards from the left bank of the Tech and the name ‘Tresmals’ derives from the Latin tres, ‘three’, and a pre-Latin root mals, meaning a mountain peak or a pile of stones, suggesting that near the church once lay a boundary marker which signified the limit between Lator-Bas-Elne, Elne and Argèles-sur-Mer. The church is first mentioned in a ninth-century text referencing an estate known as ‘Villa Tresmallos’, which describes a chapel on the site, and in 951 another text refers to the ‘domus sancta Eugenia in villa Tresmallos’.[5] It is also mentioned in 1067 and 1145, and in the case of the latter is described as a parish church, a status which appears to have been lost in another reference from 1347. It remained a place of worship until the French Revolution, when it was deconsecrated and used as a barn, then abandoned. The accumulation of alluvial deposits around it have led to its floor level being nearly two metres below current ground level.[6] Whilst the saint may be universal, other churches in the region dedicated to Saint Eugenie all follow the pattern of being sited near or adjacent to rivers, a custom which seems unique both to this saint and to her churches in Roussillon. For example, in the commune of Le Soler there exists not only the remains of a hamlet called Sainte-Eugénie, which once had a church dedicated to that saint, but also a river known as Sainte-Eugénie. In this area there are five rivers and some have suggested that there is an etymological link between the saint’s name and Eugenia, an ancient form of vine used for making wine during the Roman period, as both Le Soler and Sainte-Eugénie are recorded as wine estates during the fifth century.[7]

Within Perpignan there are over twenty churches and chapels, including the cathedral; while most are dedicated to universal saints there is a church dedicated exclusively to that favourite son of the soil Saint Gaudérique. Given his popularity across the broader regions of Roussillon and Catalonia, this is hardly surprising. What is of more interest with regard to the local use of saints is the annual celebration of Saint Éloi (Eligius), a seventh-century Frankish goldsmith and later Bishop of Noyon-Tournai (Oise). Éloi is the patron saint of horses, metal workers and goldsmiths, and it is in this latter capacity and connection to jewellery that we see his veneration in Perpignan. The Perpignan garnets have been mined in the Pyrenean mountains Roussillon and Catalonia since the seventeenth-century and were considered indicative of high status, as well as being able to cure blood disorders. The jewellers of Perpignan quickly gained a reputation for their skilled setting of the garnets with the ‘Croix Jeanette’ being a particularly popular design. This cross was named after the ‘Fête de la Saint Jean’, the feast of Saint John, a time celebrated throughout the Pyrenees with bonfires (and also the time when workers traditionally received their wages), and the red and gold reflected both these fires and the Catalan flag. Traditionally, on the feast of Saint Éloi (the 1^st of December), the jewellers of Perpignan would hold a parade in their patron’s honour following a solemn Mass in church of Notre-Dame de la Réal. Changes in fashion, wars, the suppression of regional pride and rising prices saw a decline in the market for the Perpignan garnet, but in the 1980s its production was resurrected. During this time, a ‘Confrérie du Grenat’ (Brotherhood of the Garnet) was created and the parade was brought back into public life, generally in historical costume and also acting as a celebration of Roussillon identity through folk dances and performances.[8]

Even if most wonder-working saints venerated in the Pyrénées-Orientales are not native to Roussillon, it is interesting to examine which saints were given preference in dedications of side chapels during the steep rise in church building in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These preferences can also be corroborated by the one hundred and fifty goigs printed in honour of the saints up to the middle of the eighteenth century.[9] Jean-Luc Antoniazzi has made a thorough study of these goigs and side chapel dedications throughout the region, and it is worth summarising his findings here to illustrate the breadth of Roussillon’s desire for saintly intercession. In the church of Prats-de-Mollo, a village famous for its ‘fête de l’ours’, the dedication to Saint Ruffine and Saint Juste is explained in an 1826 notebook found in the parish archives as deriving from a belief that cradle cap, a condition which causes scaly patches on a baby’s scalp and locally as ‘mal de santa Rufina’, could be cured by their intercession. The church in Caldégas (Bourg-Madame) is dedicated to Saint Romain as the patron of the dead and the mute, a condition which may have been unusually prevalent in the area. Two goigsproduced in Perpignan in 1752 are dedicated to Saint Cornelius and Saint Cyprian and describe a method for curing earaches, in which a little lamp oil is put in the ear, the lamp oil being taken from a lamp burning before the relics of either saint.[10] Saint Blaise is the co-patron of several parishes across Roussillon and on the 3^rd of February across the region sweets are blessed in his name, as he is believed to cure sore throats. In Vallespir, Saint Abdon and Saint Sennan are the object of great veneration in Arles-sur-Tech,[11] with many miracles being attributed to them. In the forecourt of the abbey church an early Christian sarcophagus is preserved, which is said to have once served as a shrine for the relics of these saints. Every year, litres of drinking water are miraculously drawn from this closed sarcophagus. Above is a funerary monument on which is carved a relief of the knight Guilem Gaucelm de Taillet, who died in 1210. This knight was suffering from cancer of the nose and he was allegedly cured through drinking the water below. In 1529 French soldiers drew water from the tomb and were ‘freed from various illnesses’, many taking bottles of the water with them when they left. Even in the eighteenth century, Piganiol de la Force records in his ‘Description de la France’ that on the feasts of Saints Abdon and Sennen (30^th of July) pilgrims would take vials of the water home, the water never spoiling and curing them of many different sicknesses. Many miracles have been recorded since the sixteenth century and the sarcophagus remains an object of devotion even today. The epidemics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which inspired the aforementioned church building across Roussillon also gave greater fervour to the devotion to certain saints who held a reputation for healing. Saints Sebastian,[12] Roch,[13] Cosmas, Damian,[14] Gaudérique and Francis of Paola[15] all received an upsurge in church devotions and processions, with their relics paraded around towns and villages to effect a mass cure on the population, and many ex-votos can be seen in their churches depicting miraculous events which drove the plagues away from entire communities; as a consequence, the cults of certain saints became even more embedded in daily life, with art and carvings being created for newly-created side-chapels and churches throughout the Pyrénées-Orientales, as well as the writing and printing of countless goigs.[16]

[1] John of Biclarum (Iohannes Biclarensis, born c. 540, died post-621) was a Visigothic chronicler of Portuguese birth who was also bishop of Girona. He was imprisoned in Barcelona by the Visigoths, allegedly for his refusal to convert to Arianism however it is more likely that he was regarded as a spy for Byzantine governors of southern Hispania due to his lengthy stay in Constantinople, where he was educated for ten years in Latin and Greek. For more information on John of Biclarum, see: Wolf, Kenneth, Conquerors and Chroniclers of early Medieval Spain (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999).

[2] An Episcopal city is the seat of the bishop who oversees a diocese.

[3] The ‘langue d’oïl’ is a general term for the Romance dialects spoken in northern France from the ninth century. They were in stark contrast to the ‘langue d’oc’ dialects spoken in southern France, which formed the linguistic group known loosely as Occitan. Very simply put, the ‘langue d’oïl’ would be the forerunner for the standardised French adopted and enforced by the French Revolution across the country.

[4] Amiet, Robert, ‘Les Livres Liturgiques et le Calendrier du Diocèse d’Elne’, Cahiers de Fanjeaux, Vol. 17, 1982, pp. 139 – 154. Available here: https://www.persee.fr/doc/cafan_0575-061x_1982_act_17_1_1290

[5] Basseda, Lluís, Toponymie Historique de Catalunya Nord, Vol. I (Prades: Revista Terra Nostra, 1990), p. 796.

[6] Passarius, Olivier et al., ‘Église Sainte-Eugénie-de-Tresmals, Diagnostic et Fouille Archéologique’, Bulletin de l’Association Archéologique des Pyrénées-Orientales, No. 20, 2005, pp. 16 – 20.

[7] Matabosch, Raymond, ‘Le Soler, Le Village. Prospections’, Bulletin de l’Association Archéologique des Pyrénées-Orientales, No. 9, 1994, p. 76.

[8] Rouillé, Anne-Marie, Coutumes, Traditions, Légendes d’Occitanie-Pyrénées Méditerranée (Paris: Books On Demand, 2021), p. 249

[9] Goigs are a type of hymn, deriving from the Latin gaudium meaning ‘joy’ and are typical of Catalonia and Catalan-speaking areas; historically, this included the Pyrénées-Orientales. The goigs are designed to sing the praise and allude to the blessings granted either by the Virgin Mary or a specific saint. For example, there are goigs written to Our Lady of Tanya (Laroque des Albères) in reference to childbirth and to Our Lady of Planès in supplication for fevers. For more information on goigs see: Batlle, Joan, Los Goigs a Catalunya: Breus Consideracions Sobre Son Origen y Sa Influència en la Poesía Mística Popular (Barcelona: L’Arxiu, 1924).

[10] This is an example of saint-inspired folk medicine, more of which will be further explored in Chapter Five.

[11] Saints Abdon and Sennen (born in the third century, died c. 250) have no presence in the historical record but are considered by the Roman Martyrology to have been Persian nobles, captured and taken to Rome during the third century, where they became slaves and converted to Christianity, being forced to bury the Christian dead. When they were brought before Emperor Decius for refusing to sacrifice to the Roman gods, they were sentenced to be disembowelled by gladiators in the Colloseum. They are the patron saints of Calasparra (Murcia) however a great many churches in France are also dedicated to them, with their feast day falling on the 30^th of July.

[12] Saint Sebastian (born c. 255, died c. 288) was an early Christian martyr, who was killed during the Diocletian persecution. Born in the Gallo-Roman province of Narbonensis he entered the Roman army to help protect Christian soldiers, becoming one of the captains of the Praetorian guards. When it was discovered that he was a Christian, Diocletian was enraged at this betrayal of trust and had Sebastian tied to a post and shot with arrows. This failed to kill him and Irene of Roma (wife of Saint Castulus) healed him. However, Sebastian went to Diocletian in order to warn him of his sinful life and in return was clubbed to death. He is the patron saint of archery and of plagues, with his feast day falling on the 20^th of January.

[13] Saint Roch (born c. 1348, died c. 1379) is the patron saint of dogs, invalids and those falsely accused. The facts surrounding his life are very confused, with some sources claiming that he was born in Majorca and others in Montpellier. His birth is considered something of a miracle as his mother was barren until she prayed to the Virgin Mary, and he was born with a red birthmark shaped like a cross on his breast. He entered the Franciscan Order on his twentieth birthday and began a pilgrimage to Rome, arriving in Italy during an epidemic. He was said to have affected many cures via prayer, the sign of the cross and the touch of his hand. He lived at Piacenza (Emilia-Romagna) until falling ill with the plague, whereupon he withdrew into the forest, living off of spring water and bread which a noble’s hunting dog would bring him each day. Recovering he started his return to Montpellier but was arrested as a spy in Voghera (Lombardy) and died in prison. His feast day is celebrated on the 16^th of August.

[14] Saints Cosmas and Damian (born in the third century, died c. 287 or c. 303) were early Christian martyrs. According to the Roman Martyrology, these twin brothers were both Arab physicians who converted to Christianity and practiced medicine without a fee in the seaport of Aegeae (Adana province, Turkey), and became locally known as ‘the silverless’, attracting many locals to the Christian faith. The ‘Golden Legend’ states that they cured blindness, fever, paralysis and snake bites. During the Diocletian persecution they were arrested, tortured, hung on a cross, stoned, shot by arrows and beheaded. Their cult quickly spread through Constantinople and by the fourth century there were churches dedicated to the twins in Jerusalem, after which their cult spread through Christendom. Their feast day falls on the 27^th of September.

[15] Saint Francis of Paola (born 1416, died 1507) was a Roman Catholic friar from Paola in Calabria (Naples). Born into a poor family, at thirteen he was placed in the care of a Franciscan Friary where he learned to read and began abstaining from meat. After a pilgrimage to Rome at age fourteen he withdrew to live in solitude, firstly outside of Paola then to a rocky corner of the coast where he became a hermit in a cave. After six years, he was joined by two other people and Francis built three cells and a chapel. This community grew into the order known as ‘The Hermits of Saint Francis of Assisi’ and in 1454 a large monastery and church had been built to accommodate the fraternity. Other monasteries were founded throughout Calabria from 1472 to 1476. When King Louis XI of France requested Francis to visit him on his deathbed, Francis travelled through Provence during a time of plague, curing many, and sat with the king as he died. Francis then counselled and tutored King Charles VIII who grew to hold the monk in high regard, as did his son Louis XII, who kept Francis as a mentor. He died on the 2^nd of April 1507 at Plessis (Paris). Multiple acts of healing, prophecy and intercession are recorded as worked by Francis during his lifetime and posthumously. He is the patron saint of boatmen, mariners and the patron saint of Calabria, with his reputation throughout France being particularly attached to curing people from epidemics.

[16] Antoniazzi, Jean-Luc, ‘Culte des Saints et Guérisons en Roussillon aux XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles’ in Questions de Santé sur les Bords de la Méditerranée, Gilbert Larguier (Ed.) (Perpignan: Presses Universitaires de Perpignan, 2015), pp. 205 – 231. Available here: https://books.openedition.org/pupvd/3146?lang=fr

In Chapter Four, ‘Pyrenean Patrons’, saints local to the Pyrenees and its foothills are explored. Examined are their lives, miracles, associated sites and the traditions of those who came (and come) to seek intercession at their tombs, chapels or churches. In this extract we focus on the Hautes-Pyrénées, whose landscape is honeycombed not only with Marian apparitions (as seen in the previous chapter), but also a plethora of local saints who are intrinsic to the identities of many villages and towns across the region’s valleys.

Extract I from Chapter Four, ‘Pyrenean Patrons’

The Bigorre appears to have been one of the last regions to be the focus of evangelising efforts in Novempopulania, and one of the key figures in this process was Saint Justin of Tarbes. Thought to be a priest of the nascent diocese in the fourth century, Justinius is mentioned by Gregory of Tours in his ‘De Gloria Confessorum’ in connection with his preaching at Sexciacum and when ‘loud raging men’, likely epileptics, came in to contact with Justinius’ tomb they were cured. If the historicity of this timeframe is correct, then it is likely that Saint Justin came into contact with those who preached the Priscillian heresy, a fourth-century dualistic belief derived from the teachings of the wealthy nobleman Priscillian of Hispania,[1] who derived his teachings from the earlier Gnosticism of the Egyptian Marcus. The location of Sexciacum is confusing, as some suggest it to be at Saux, a neighbourhood in the north of Lourdes, however the more popular suggestions is at Sers in the Barèges valley. A priory was founded by the saint on a promontory overlooking the village and Justin is said to have retired to this spot before his death. It fell into ruin in the twelfth century, was rebuilt in the sixteenth century and definitively ruined in the eighteenth century, with the church at Barèges recovering the font. Photographs from the 1920s and 1930s show the ruins of this building with sheep grazing on the nearby pasture and in 1990 a modern oratory and cross was built on this site in honour of the saint. Saint Jerome’s extensive eighth-century ‘Martyrology’ places Saint Justin’s feast day on May 1^st, the day of his body’s reputed deposition in the Bigorre, however the site of his tomb which is said to have attracted pilgrims and epileptics looking for a cure has yet to be found, with no excavations taking place at either the priory site nor in Saux, and the diocese of Tarbes has little information on the saint outside of its martyrology which specifies neither the reason for nor the manner of Saint Justin’s martyrdom.[2]

Associated with Saint Justin is Saint Misselin de Bigorre, the patron saint of the commune of Arcizac-Adour, south of Tarbes, and posited as a successor to Saint Justin’s position as archpriest of Tarbes. However, a number of chronological details from his legend make it difficult to place the saint in an exact historical timeline. According to oral tradition, Misselin was born in Arcizac-Adour and aside from healing the sick is said to have also saved Tarbes from Islamic forces who, whilst retreating from their defeat at Tours, attempted to sack the town. However, Misselin’s prayers allowed the Tarbais to fight off the soldiers at the Battle of Lanne in 733 and his feast day falls on May 24^th, the commemoration of this battle.[3] The sarcophagus which popularly constitutes Saint Misselin’s tomb in Tarbes is kept behind the High Altar of the church of Saint-Jean. Unlike the chapel at San Vincente, the sarcophagus is empty and local tradition states that the relics of this saint are lost, as the tomb was opened in 1697 under the orders of the Bishop of Tarbes and it was found to contain no remains. Nineteenth-century archaeologist Alexandre du Mège asserted that Misselin was descended from a patrician family under Roman rule in Novempopulania and that he and his sister were the last of this noble line, attaching themselves to the work of Charles Martel.[4] This would indeed place the saint’s life within the eighth-century and the retreat from the Battle of Tours and, given that the presence of an Islamic force returning to over the Pyrenees on the way back from a military defeat is a constant in all the legends, this seems the most likely timeframe. A statue of the saint on horseback was displayed in a niche in the church of Arcizac-Adour before being destroyed during the Revolution. This statue was the subject of great veneration by the locals, being decorated with ribbons and flowers on the saint’s feast day, and a report from the nineteenth-century records the memory of this ceremony:

Every year, before the revolution, the young girls of Arcizac, in the department of the Hautes-Pyrénées, went, on May 24^th, to decorate with flowers the equestrian statue of the priest Missolin,[5] who had, at that time, delivered the country from the tyranny of the Saracens. Scattered on the northern side of the mountains, these fierce Conquerors learned that Missolin had gathered the inhabitants, and that he was marching against them: they met at Ossun, Juillan and Louey; but Missolin, triumphant in numbers and experience, cut them to pieces, in this plain which bears the name of Lande-Mourine. Nevertheless, his statue, placed in a niche in the church of Arcizac, was only made of wood at the foot of the marble mountains!!! It was burned in 1793. Let us hope that a lasting monument will be erected in the same place. Who in France could refuse to subscribe to perpetuate the memory of the Liberator of the Pyrenees? [6]

The story of Saint Misselin is not unlike that of Saint Mercurial, whose legend is also attached to violence inflicted by Islamic soldiers and has been adopted by the commune of Vielle-Louron as their patron saint. This commune is adjacent to that of Cazaux-Fréchet, whose patron Saint Calix (Calixtus) was the first cousin of Saint Mercurial and a statue of which also survives in the church of Arcizac-Adour. Like Saint Calix, Saint Mercurial was Aragonese by birth and both men answered the call of the Arois to defend the Aure valley from Islamic forces who, being driven out of Upper Aragon, flowed over into the valley in order to seek refuge. Both Saint Calix and Saint Mercurial were killed in 1010, Saint Mercurial for attempting to convert the Muslim soldiers and Saint Calix as a prisoner of the same soldiers, although apparently not on the same day nor in the same place but in closely linked locations. Saint Mercurial was buried on the site of his martyrdom and a chapel was raised there, before his remains were re-interred in the church of Vielle-Louron, whose Romanesque nave, western wall and northern apse date to the eleventh century and possess sixteenth-century paintings displaying the saint’s martyrdom. His feast day falls on the 26^th August.[7] Saint Calix suffered a similar fate and was also firstly interred where he was killed, above the village of Cazaux-Fréchet, where first a chapel was raised in his honour, followed by a church in the eleventh century. Subsequent repairs and revisions of the building took place in the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries. The relics were kept in the church until at least the eighteenth century, with Bishop Brisay de Denonville of Comminges authenticating them during a pastoral visit between 1693 and 1710. His feast day is the 14^th of October.[8]

Across the Adour river from Tarbes sits the village of Aureilhan, of whom the mysterious Saint Gérin (Girinus) is the patron saint. Little is known about this saint. Two legends surround the saint, one placing him in the third century and the other in the fifth. In the case of the former he was persecuted by the Romans for his evangelism, and in the case of the latter by the Arian, who took against his anti-Arianism and captured him. In both timeframes, Gérin was beheaded on the Adour Bridge between Tarbes and Aureilhan. Both legends state that his head and body were thrown into the river, and the former washed up on the river bank at Aureilhan, where an old blind woman was washing herbs in the water. The head rolled into her hands and she was immediately cured of her blindness. When the inhabitants of the village witnessed this miracle, they located Gérin’s body and built a chapel to house it and the head, these relics becoming a site of local veneration.[9] This sanctuary was mentioned in the edicts drawn up by Bishop Siagrane in 406, where it was designated as a place of pilgrimage and a stopover for those going to or returning from Santiago de Compostela, functioning as the first parish church of Aureilhan.[10] In 1569 it was fired and partially destroyed by the Huguenots during the Wars of Religion, then abandoned and destroyed during the French Revolution, after which the site was sold to make way for a residential building. Its remains now form part of the Route de Bours and is the namesake for the district of Aureilhan which is bordered by Montagna and Fornets. Despite the destruction by the Huguenots, it still functioned as a place of worship up to the French Revolution, with the local priest Abbot Bitaubé writing in 1783 that between fifteen and twenty masses were said per year in the chapel, primarily in order to cure headaches, with some being ‘miraculously’ healed. The current church dedicated to Saint Gérin dates to the nineteenth century, however the baptismal font bears the date 1603, suggesting that it may have been salvaged from the chapel and rehoused in the new church. Saint Gérin’s feast day falls on the 19^th October. [11]

In contrast to Saint Gérin’s obscurity, Saint Bertrand de Comminges is known well beyond the village of which he is patron saint, Saint-Lucy, and his diocese. Despite being covered in the previous chapter, it is worth recapping Saint Bertrand’s essential points in order to demonstrate how his cult began to take shape before his death unlike other saints in this region. Bertrand de Comminges primarily derived his fame not from miracles or martyrdom but rather from his tireless restoration of the episcopal seat known as Lugdunum Convenarum, rebuilding the dilapidated cathedral and promoting the town as an important stopover for pilgrims travelling through the Pyrenees towards Santiago de Compostela. Born Bertrand d’Isle in 1050 at L’Isle Jourdain in Gers with the town nicknamed the ‘Mother of Occitania’ as here the ‘Croix de L’Isle de Jourdain’ has its origin; a hollowed and pommelled cross with twelve points representing the twelve disciples of Jesus. It is said that the cross was adopted by the Count of L’Isle during the Crusades when he fought beside the Count of Toulouse as a vassal, and the symbol later became more universally used across the region, firstly known as the Cross of Languedoc and then the Cross of Occitania. Whilst Bertrand’s father intended for him to become a knight, he became an Augustinian canon in Toulouse and then an archdeacon of that city in 1070, before being appointed the Bishop of Lugdunum Convenarum in 1083, a position which he occupied until his death in 1126. From the fifth century to the arrival of Bertrand, bishops had been appointed periodically but the settlement remained largely in ruins since the destruction wrought by the Vandals in 409. Aside from rebuilding the cathedral and adding a cloister, Bertrand implemented a number of Gregorian reforms across his diocese, removing his clergy from the dominance of local lords and reshaping the local clergy into a moral and religious example for the laity, and being an influential voice in the reform councils of Bordeaux, Clermont and Poitiers from 1093 to 1100. From the moment of his death Bertrand was locally considered to be a saint, the town electing to take his name over Lugdunum Convenarum, and in 1167 the Archbishop of Auch commissioned a cleric known as Vital to write his Vita in order to begin the process of petitioning the Pope for Bertrand’s canonisation. Of the fifteen miracles recorded as worked by Bertrand during his lifetime, only two are related to healing. The others range from blessing hunters’ traps, filling a fisherman’s net and making a sterile walnut tree fertile to weeding a harvest and filling an innkeeper’s barrel with wine; these miracles were used to promote the cult of Saint Bertrand from the moment of his death as a man deeply involved in the daily lives of his flock. His posthumous miracles also display characteristics which stretch beyond the typical category of healing. Whilst nine are indeed curative, seven deal with liberating hostage victims and those wrongfully imprisoned, fates which were not uncommon in the turbulent borderlands of the Pyrenees. In 1218, an investigation into these miracles resulted in Bertrand’s canonisation in 1222, however it would not be until 1309 that Pope Clement V, formerly known as Bertrand de Got, Bishop of Comminges, would elevate his relics, with a tomb being built in the cathedral during the fifteenth century to house them. The stuffed crocodile which hangs within the cathedral is attributed to the saint’s taming of a dragon in the Labat-d’Enbès valley; it is likely a Nile crocodile brought to the cathedral by a returning crusading knight. His feast day falls on the 16^th October, when a Mass is said within the cathedral and his relics are paraded around the town afterwards.[12]

Two valleys west of Saint Bertrand de Comminges, the communes of Rebouc and Sarrancolin share Saint Ébons (or Ebontius) as their patron. The Vita of Saint Ébons states that he was born in Sarrancolin in the eleventh century (date unknown), before becoming a Benedictine monk at the monastery of Sainte-Foi in Tomieres (Hérault) where he quickly gained a reputation for piety and wisdom. He was then appointed as the abbot of San Victorian in Ainsa (Huesca), where he set about making that monastery a model for others in the region. His leadership skills made him the preferred choice for the position of Bishop of Roda de Isábena (Huesca), however with to the persistent threat of Islamic forces this diocese was moved to Babastro (Huesca). Here Saint Ébons set about bolstering the clergy and the faith of the laity through various initiatives, as well as combatting corruption in the former and heresy in the latter. His death is recorded as taking place in 1104, and in the Aure valley, where Sarrancolin and Rebouc lie, there is a local legend that his death took place in Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges during the saint’s return journey from Rome, and as per his wishes Saint Ébons’ remains were buried at the Benedictine priory of Simorre in Sarrancolin. The Romanesque parish church of Saint Ébons was once part of this Benedictine priory, with the priory’s foundations still visible and dating to the eleventh century, prior to the saint’s death. Part of the monastic lodgings are recorded as having burnt down in 1570, possibly in relation to the Wars of Religion, and these were restored, as was the church, and much of the monastery was renovated to include numerous chapels and galleries. During the French Revolution, the priory was sold off and transformed into a coal depot, its remains finally destroyed by fire in 1871. These were then abandoned, cleared and replaced by private homes. However, the church survived and its thirteenth-century shrine of Saint Ébons remained an object of great local veneration, containing the saint’s relics. It would seem that the saint was venerated throughout the Aure valley, with the first recorded celebration of Saint Ébons’ feast day (September 12^th) taking place not in Rebouc or Sarrancolin, but in nearby Ilhet in 1307. The reliquary was made in Limousin in the first quarter of the fourteenth century and during the French Revolution it was forced open by soldiers however the local priest prevented the relics from being looted and resealed the shrine.[13] The saint’s popularity reached its peak in the seventeenth century, however his feast day is still honoured annually in the presbytery gardens in Sarrancolin, where the nineteenth-century banner and processional cross are both used to commemorate his memory. [14]

[1] Priscillian (born c. 340, died c.385) was born into a noble family in northwestern Hispania and advocated for a strict form of Christian asceticism, using both the Bible and apocryphal texts to support his views. Despite his views and those of his followers being denounced at the Council of Zaragoza in 380, he became the Bishop of Ávila that same year. However, in 385 he was charged with sorcery and executed under the authority of Emperor Maximus. After his death, Priscillian’s views continued to find favour in some circles across Hispania and Gaul well into the fifth century. See: Conti, Marco, Priscillian of Avila: Complete Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

[2] Bascle de Lagrèze, 1862, p. 105.

[3] Confusingly, there is also a Saint Misselin d’Aure from the mid-tenth-century. This later Misselin was born in 985 to a local religious family, studying Latin and helping to raise an army against incursions by Islamic forces near Ossun at ‘Lanne-Maurine’, after which he went to Spain in order to dedicate himself to prayer. On the way, he met the hermit Froylán at Sobrarbe on the slopes of the San Vincente mountain. Here he became seduced by the eremitic lifestyle, joining Froylán and his two disciples Firminiano and Clemencio. Misselin and the two younger men were then killed by Islamic archers whilst celebrating Mass and the priest of nearby Banastón saw the cave on fire and retrieved the bodies, which were buried in the church of San Vincente. In 1644, a chapel was raised on the mountain to Saint Misselin, containing some of the saint’s relics and on the mountain a spring is locally known as the ‘Misselin fountain’.

[4] du Mège, Alexandre, Archéologie Pyrénéenne, Vol. II (Toulouse: Delboy, 1860).

[5] This is a spelling variation of ‘Misselin’.

[6] Cénac-Moncaut, Justin, Histoire des Pyrénées, Vol II(Paris: Amyot, 1853), p. 34. Translated by author.

[7] Ministère de la Culture, ‘Église Saint-Mercurial’ in Plateforme Ouvert du Patrimoine. Entry created 30^th August, 1993. Available here: https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/merimee/PA00095444

[8] Ministère de la Culture, ‘Église Paroissiale Saint-Calix’ in Plateforme Ouvert du Patrimoine. Entry created 5^th September, 1996. Available here: https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/merimee/IA65000016

[9] Guérin, Paul, Les Petits Bollandistes Vies des Saints, Vol. XII(Bar-le-Duc: Louis Guérin, 1873), p. 288.

[10] The date quoted here of 406 would be congruent with the existence of the Diocese of Tarbes, however appears rather early to be used in reference to pilgrims travelling to and from Santiago de Compostela, whose fame as a pilgrimage destination did not truly begin to rise until the eighth and ninth centuries. It is possible that a typographical error has occurred, i.e. 1406, however in the absence of confirmation the original date is given as it is presented in the source.

[11] Anon., Aureilhan Quartiers et Lieux-Dits (Aureilhan: Les Amis du Patrimoine d’Aureilhan, 2009), pp. 11 – 12. Published in 2009 using texts by local researcher Lucien Carmouse (born 1907 in Aureilhan, died 2001 in Tarbes). Available here: https://api.neopse.com/rest/site/files/download/327623?projectId=1734

[12] Lawlor, Danys, Pilgrimages in the Pyrenees and Landes (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1870), pp. 507 – 539.

[13] Ministère de la Culture, ‘Prieuré de Bénédictins, Église Paroissiale Saint-Pierre, Saint-Ébones’ in Plateforme Ouvert du Patrimoine. Entry created 7^th June, 2000. Available here: https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/merimee/IA65000350

[14] Garrigue, Gérard, Les Grandes Heures de la Vallée d’Aure: Histoire de Sarrancolin (Pau: Imprimerie Marrimpouey, 1974).

Perennial Pyrenees

Posts tagged with saints

Extract (#2) from Chapter Four of ‘Highly Holy’

Extract (#1) from Chapter Four of ‘Highly Holy’