Gregory of Tours, in his Glory of the Martyrs (62), describes how Eberigisil, bishop of Cologne and a contemporary of Gregory, built a church of *Mallosus (martyr of Xanten, S00340) in Birten, by Xanten (north-east Gaul), to replace an earlier oratory, and how the saint's body was discovered thanks to a vision experienced by a deacon from Metz; in the same church *Victor (martyr of Xanten, S00341) was said to be buried. Written in Latin in Tours (north-west Gaul), 580/594.
E00587
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Literary - Hagiographical - Other saint-related texts
Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs 62
Ab hoc enim sacerdote sancti martyris Mallosi corpus repertum est hoc modo. Cum fama ferret, hunc apud Bertunensim oppidum martyrium consummasse, occultum erat hominibus illis, quo in loco quiesceret; erat tamen oratorium inibi, in quo nomen eius invocabatur. Supradictus vero pontifex in honore eius basilicam aedificavit, ut scilicet, cum aliquid revelationis de martyre acciperet, in ea beatos artus, Domino annuente, transferret. Denique in latere basilicae, id est in pariete, qui a parte erat oratorii, in absida collegit, praestolans Domini misericordiam, quid iuberet de martyre revelari. Post haec diaconus quidam Mettensis per visum ductus, ubi martyr quiesceret, est edoctus. Post paucum autem tempus veniens ad episcopum, et quasi certa signa, quae per visum viderat, relegens, cum prius ibidem non fuisset, ait episcopo: "Hic effode, et invenies corpus sancti", id est in medio absidae. At ille cum fodisset quasi in septem pedes, attigit nares eius odor inmensi aromatis, et ait: "Credo in Christo, quod ostendit mihi martyrem suum, quando haec me suavitas circumdedit"; et fodiens repperit sanctum corpus inlaesum, et emittens voce magna, Gloria in excelsis Deo omnem clerum pariter psallere fecit. Dicto quoque hymno, corpus sanctum in basilica transtulit, cum laude debita sepelivit. Ferunt ibidem et Victorem martyrem esse sepultum, sed non eum adhuc cognovimus revelatum.
'The same bishop [Eberigisil] discovered the body of the martyr St Mallosus in this way. Although it was reported that Mallosus had consummated his martyrdom in the village of Birten (Bertunense oppidum), it was unknown to the inhabitants where he had been buried. There was, however, an oratory there, in which his name was invoked (oratorium inibi, in quo nomen eius invocabatur). The aforementioned bishop built a church in honour of Mallosus so that when he received some revelation about the martyr he might, with the Lord's approval, transfer his holy body to the church. Finally, in the side of the church, that is, in the wall which was next to the oratory, he built an arch and included the oratory in an apse. He beseeched the pity of the Lord that he reveal whatever he might order concerning the martyr. Later a deacon at Metz was guided by a vision and learned where the martyr was buried. A short time later he came to bishop Eberigisilus. Although he had never been there before, it was as if he were reciting familiar landmarks that he had seen in his vision. He said to the bishop: 'Dig here, and you will find the body of the saint,' that is, in the middle of the apse. When the bishop had dug about seven feet down, the scent of an overpowering perfume reached his nose and he said: 'Since this sweet fragrance surrounds me, I believe in Christ, because he has revealed his martyr to me.' Digging further, he found that the holy body was intact (inlaesum). In a loud voice he cried out, 'Glory to God in the highest,' and he had the entire clergy chant psalms with him. After singing a hymn he transferred the holy body to the church, and with the necessary laudations he buried it. They say that the martyr Victor is also buried there, but we still do not know any revelation about his tomb.'
Text: Krusch 1969, 80.
Translation: Van Dam 2004, 60.
Chant and religious singing
Cult PlacesBurial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Cult building - dependent (chapel, baptistery, etc.)
Cult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivityConstruction of cult buildings
Prayer/supplication/invocation
Appropriation of older cult sites
Renovation and embellishment of cult buildings
Oral transmission of saint-related stories
MiraclesMiracle after death
Revelation of hidden knowledge (past, present and future)
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
Miraculous sound, smell, light
Bodily incorruptibility
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Discovering, finding, invention and gathering of relics
Raising of relics
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
Source
Gregory, bishop of Tours from 573 until his death (probably in 594), was the most prolific hagiographer of all Late Antiquity. He wrote four books on the miracles of Martin of Tours, one on those of Julian of Brioude, and two on the miracles of other saints (the Glory of the Martyrs and Glory of the Confessors), as well as a collection of twenty short Lives of sixth-century Gallic saints (the Life of the Fathers). He also included a mass of material on saints in his long and detailed Histories, and produced two independent short works: a Latin version of the Acts of Andrew and a Latin translation of the story of The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.Internal references to datable events and to other work by Gregory, suggest that he wrote the greater part of his Glory of the Martyrs between 585 and 588, though there is one chapter (ch. 82), long before the end of the book, that describes an event that is most readily dated to 590. It is in fact likely that Gregory was collecting and recording these stories throughout his life, and, fortunately for our purposes, precise dating is not of great importance, since his views on the role of saints and the correct ways to venerate them do not seem to have changed during his writing life. The work was probably never fully completed and polished: the version we have closes with four very disparate chapters, including one (105) about the divine punishment of an avaricious woman that bears no obvious connection to the overall theme of the book. (For discussions of the dating, see Van Dam 2004, xi-xii; Shaw 2015, 104-105, 111.)
In his preface, Gregory states that his aim in the work is 'to publicise some of the miracles of the saints that have until now been hidden' (aliqua de sanctorum miraculis, quae actenus latuerunt, pandere), so, as in his Glory of the Confessors, his focus is not on the lives of the saints, nor on the details of their martyrdoms, but on miracles they have effected, particularly through their relics. Miracles are recorded from many places; but unsurprisingly the largest number is from Gaul.
The book opens, rather curiously, with a sizeable number of miracles and relics of Jesus and his mother Mary, neither of them conventional 'martyrs'. The explanation for this must be that Gregory's interest was really much more in relics and miracles in general than in martyrs specifically. Many of the Gallic saints he included are somewhat obscure, but outside Gaul he concentrates for the most part on major saints; towards the end of the book, however, he slips in a couple of lesser Syrian saints, probably because they had interesting specialisms: Phokas and Domitios, with, respectively, particular skills at curing snake bites and sciatica. In the case of the non-Gallic saints, it is not always clear whether they were attracting active cult in Gaul – Phokas and Domitios, for instance, almost certainly didn't. It is only when Gregory tells us of a church dedication or relic that we can be certain that the saint concerned had serious cult in Gaul: in the case of the martyrs of Rome, for instance, this is true of Clement and Laurence, but not of Chrysanthus and Daria, Pancratius, and John I.
Although each section contains extraneous material, the work can be broken down very roughly into the following sections:
*Chapters 1-7: Miracles and relics of Jesus (with some of Mary), including three chapters (5-7) on relics of the Passion. (For the most part, these chapters are not covered in our database.)
*Chapters 8-19: Miracles and relics of Mary and John the Baptist.
*Chapters 20-25: Miraculous images of Jesus, and a spring associated with Easter.
*Chapters 23-34: Miracles and relics of the Apostles and Stephen (i.e. New Testament saints).
*Chapters 35-41: Miracles and relics of the post-apostolic martyrs of Rome.
*Chapters 42-46: And of northern Italy.
*Chapters 47-77: And of Gaul (in no obvious order, except that the first three chapters are occupied by early martyrs). This is the longest section of the book.
*Chapters 78-87: Very miscellaneous, with only marginal references to saints: three anti-Arian stories (79-81); two stories regarding relics of Gregory's (82-83); four stories of the punishment of impure people (84-87).
*Chapters 88-102: Miracles and relics of martyrs of Spain, Africa (just one, Cyprian of Carthage), and the East, in that order.
*Chapters 103-106: Miscellaneous.
But tight structuring was never a great concern of Gregory's, so within this broad framework, he often wanders off his main theme. For instance, a clutch of miracle stories relating to John the Baptist (chs. 11-13) lead Gregory into a general discussion of the River Jordan (ch. 16), which then leads him to discuss some springs near Jericho (ch. 17), linked to the preceding chapter by the common theme of 'miraculous waters in the Holy Land', but with no connection to any martyr. Similarly, a miracle story involving relics of St Andrew and the punishment of an Arian count (ch. 78) leads Gregory into three stories against Arians with no relation to saints. These digressions did not bother Gregory and are part of the charm of his work.
Gregory very seldom tells us about his sources, which for the most part were certainly oral; he had a wide circle of acquaintances within the Gallic church, and also met and collected stories from travellers from abroad, including (if the source is to be believed) a man who had travelled to India (ch. 31). But Gregory also used a range of written texts, including Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History (chs. 20 and 48), the poems of Prudentius, Paulinus of Nola, and Venantius Fortunatus, and a substantial number of Martyrdoms (Van Dam 2004, xiv-xvi).
Because many of his stories are set abroad, Glory of the Martyrs is less informative about cult practices than Glory of the Confessors, with its very local and very Gallic focus, but it is still a gold-mine of information. To take just two examples: the story of Benignus of Dijon is a remarkably rich and detailed account of the discovery and enhancement of a previously unknown martyr (ch. 50), while that of Patroclus of Troyes shows the importance of a written Martyrdom, and the degree of scepticism that might greet a new one (ch. 63).
There is a good general discussion of Glory of the Martyrs in Van Dam 2004, ix-xxiii, and of Gregory's hagiography more widely in Shaw 2015.
(Bryan Ward-Perkins)
Discussion
For the overview of the Glory of the Martyrs see E00367.Birten is just outside the major Roman settlement at Xanten, and Mallosus and Victor are better considered martyrs of Xanten, than of Birten. Mallosus seems to have disappeared from the subsequent historical record, but Victor, if the same saint, was to have a glorious future, becoming the patron of Xanten (whose Gothic cathedral is dedicated to him). In the Middle Ages, Victor was considered to have been a commander of the martyred Theban Legion (S00339), but this is said of neither him nor Mallosus in Gregory's account, even though in the previous chapter of Glory of the Confessors Gregory described a miracle in Cologne attributed to fifty martyred soldiers of the legion (E00586).
Bishop Eberigisil of Cologne was Gregory's contemporary; he is attested in 590 and had certainly died before 614 (see Pietri and Heijmans 2013, 605). He is also the subject of the miracle discussed in the previous chapter of Glory of the Martyrs – see E00586.
For the location of this church, see Vieillard-Troiekouroff, 343-344, no. 348.
The story is a typical one of the enhancement of a local cult, confirmed by the miraculous discovery of the sacred body.
Bibliography
Edition:Krusch, B., Liber in gloria martyrum, in: Gregorii Turonensis Opera. 2: Miracula et opera minora (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 1.2; 2nd ed.; Hannover, 1969).
Translation:
Van Dam, R., Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs (Translated Texts for Historians 4; 2nd ed., Liverpool, 2004).
Further reading:
Shaw, R., "Chronology, Composition, and Authorial Conception in the Miracula", in: A.C. Murray (ed.), A Companion to Gregory of Tours (Leiden-Boston 2015), 102-140.
Pietri, L. and Heijmans, M., Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, 4 Prosopographie de la Gaule chrétienne (314-614), 2 vols. (Paris 2013), vol. 1, 605, 'Eberegiselus'.
Vieillard-Troiekouroff, M., Les monuments religieux de la Gaule d'après les œuvres de Grégoire de Tours (Paris, 1976).
Marta Tycner, Bryan Ward-Perkins
12/03/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00339 | Theban Legion, commanded by Maurice, martyrs of Agaune, Gaul | Uncertain | S00340 | Mallosus, martyr of Birten by Xanten | Mallosus | Certain | S00341 | Victor, martyr of Birten by Xanten | Victor | Certain |
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