Saint Laumer

The results responded to the intentions of the benefactors. The monks of Saint Laumer received, it is true, vast stretches of land; but it was to clear them and put them under cultivation. The fertile plains and the advantageous vineyards that we see today around Blois are in part the fruit of their tireless labors; in this, they followed the example of their industrious patriarch, whom his legend shows us personally pulling up the heather and brambles of Corbion to transform soil that had until then been unproductive.

Sciences and letters owe no less to our studious Benedictines; they found a renowned asylum in their cloisters; their school, in the 13th century, had the glory of counting among its students our learned doctor Peter of Blois, one of the lights o f Catholic theo Pierre de Blois Catholic theologian and former student of the abbey school. logy. The arts were also cultivated there; if one were to doubt it, it would suffice to consider the structure of the temple erected by the children of Saint Laumer and which has come down to us.

It would require long details to enumerate here the benefits, even temporal ones, of the Benedictine monastery whose heritage our generation has gathered. Let us recall only one little-known particularity. In the 13th century, the inhabitants of the Faubourg du Foix were still serfs, subject to tallage and forced labor at will: well! it was the good monks of Saint Laumer, their feudal lords, who spontaneously emancipated them; this generous measure significantly improved their previously sad and precarious condition. They were therefore not strangers to the ideas of social emancipation (as unjust detractors delight in repeating), these pious cenobites, whom one has so often accused of resisting progress!

Devotion to the distinguished relics of Saint Laumer was constantly the principal motive for the good works and great things accomplished in the shadow of an august sanctuary. It seemed that the possession of such a precious deposit perpetuated in this house the very spirit of the blessed abbot of Corbion, and that the violation of this sacred palladium would entail incalculable misfortunes; thus, the mourning was profound when, in the 16t h century Huguenots Event during which the Cathedral of Meaux was devastated. , the Huguenots removed from public veneration this body that had until then remained intact. Pious hands gathered a few bones miraculously saved from the disaster of 1568; but these last remains disappeared in 1793.

The ancient and beautiful abbey of the Order of Saint Benedict dedicated to Saint Laumer still exists in Blois. The current buildings do not date back more than two hundred and fifty years; they are of a beautiful and simple architecture, and have become the Hôtel-Dieu, a civil and military hospital. The old abbey church is adjacent to it; it is today a parish church, and, at the time of the Concordat, its primitive ded ication was r saint Nicolas Former abbey church that became a parish church after the Concordat. eplaced by that of Saint Nicholas, the name of a parish whose church was destroyed during the Revolution, and which encompassed the abbey church within its territory. This monument is of remarkable architecture; it dates from the 11th and 12th centuries; archaeologists, and I will cite among others Father Arthur Martin, of regrettable and pious memory, admire above all the harmony that reigns in all its parts, a circumstance that is encountered quite rarely, due to the different styles that were often adopted in these gigantic structures, left and resumed at different times. The dominant style is the transition from the round arch to the pointed arch; there are, however, some points, among others a chapel behind the apse, which is pure Romanesque.

In our day, the important restoration of this long-neglected edifice has begun. The original patron was naturally to receive the first fruits of a considerable work: Saint Laumer has found, in his favorite sanctuary, a chapel worthy of him: the altar, the paintings, and the stained glass windows do honor to the taste of the artists, who knew how to reproduce in summary the legend of the Saint and the history of his pious house.

The feast of Saint Laumer is celebrated on January 19, the presumed day of his death (around the year 594). In addition to this anniversary, the Benedictines had instituted a special solemnity in memory of the translation of his relics to Blois (on October 23).

The cult of Saint Laumer, somewhat neglected in the Blésois region since the Revolution, seems to have been better preserved in the localities inhabited by this first abbot of Corbion. Thus, several parishes in the Chartres and Perche regions bear his name and honor him especially: furthermore, respectable traditions attest to the vibrant devotion of the people of these regions for their venerated patron. We read, on this subject, in a recent publication, the following information: "A curious monument, very close to our Chartres terr itory, is that o Madeleine-Bouvet Site of a miraculous fountain associated with the saint. f La Madeleine-Bouvet, known by the name of the Fontaine de saint Laumer Miraculous spring healing fever. Fountain of Saint Laumer; this pious apostle left on a large stone more than six meters long and four meters wide, set in the middle of a field, the trace of a blow from his staff, and on a beautiful site, now embedded in the sacristy of the church of Le Pas-Saint-Laumer, the well-defined imprint of his foot. The hole in the large stone holds rainwater and forms the fountain that cures fever; the footprint preserved in the church is venerated by pilgrims and celebrated for many miraculous healings.

These memories, full of the marvelous, announce at least a great confidence in the merits of the blessed anchorite.

Surina reports the life of Saint Laumer at length; the Martyrologies, and especially the Martyrology of the Saints of France, the Legends of the Church of Chartres, and those of Blois, make mention of him.