Saint Arnulf of Soissons

However, this great man felt deep within himself that he was not yet in the state for which God destined him. Therefore, having taken leave of his mother, under the pretext of going to the court of France with an entourage worthy of his rank, he went to Sa int-Médard of Soissons, Saint-Médard de Soissons Benedictine abbey that housed relics. where he asked for the habit of Saint B habit de Saint-Benoît Religious order occupying the monastery of Honnecourt. enedict. His vocation was too evident not to be recognized by the abbot and the religious of this monastery. They received him with joy, gave him the monastic tonsure and the habit, and after a year of probation which he spent in a fervor that surprised the elders, they admitted him to profession: this ceremony, in making him a religious,

detached him from all the grandeurs and vanities of the world, so as to have no other treasure than Jesus Christ.

The first office he was given was the chaplaincy or the duty of distributing the common alms of the monastery to the poor: he discharged it with marvelous diligence and charity. But, while he did his best to relieve the miseries of others, he undertook an implacable war against himself, and made himself his own executioner. The abstinences and vigils of the Rule not being sufficient to satisfy his spirit of penance, he undertook more rigorous ones. He ate and slept almost not at all: and, having by this means much time for prayer, he spent several hours of the day and night in this exercise. He applied to his body a most extraordinary belt: it was a large branch of brambles, loaded with knots and sharp thorns that continually tore his flesh and covered it in blood; yet his face remained always serene, and an honest cheerfulness shone in his eyes and on his forehead. All other virtues were admired in him; he was very obedient: one day he was giving a spiritual talk to the Brothers in our language; his abbot commanded him to cease, because he spoke French only with difficulty; he took this command in the same spirit that Saint Paul the Hermit had once taken that of Saint Anthony, and was thus several months without opening his mouth; finally the abbot learned of this long silence, and, knowing that his command had been the cause, he ordered him on the contrary to confer freely with the community, to edify it with his spiritual discourses.

There was then in the monastery of Saint-Médard a religious of eminent holiness named Erembold: now, following the permission of his Rule and the usage quite frequent in the first centuries of the Order of Saint Benedict, this religious had enclosed himself in a cell apart, where he lived in a very austere manner and applied himself continually to the contemplation of eternal truths. Saint Arnoul went to see him as often as he could, and rendered him all the services that his solitude could require, in order to learn in his conversation the true paths of religious perfection, and to animate himself by his example to the rudest practices of the solitary and penitent life. This holy man having fallen ill, he assisted him until his last breath, and, after his death, he had the consolation of seeing him all radiant with glory and in a charming beauty, which sufficiently marked the greatness of the reward with which Our Lord had crowned his labors. He learned nevertheless from him that he had been a little delayed in purgatory for a very slight fault, which even the most spiritual would have barely noticed: so true it is that nothing but what is very pure can enter the kingdom of heaven. After this vision, our Saint wished to be the heir of Erembold's cell, and he finally obtained it by dint of prayers and tears. It was in this place that, freed from all kinds of external employments, he applied himself with such zeal to the victory over his passions, to the exercise of virtues, to the knowledge of God and to union with him, that he became in a short time a completely new man, or, to put it better, entirely celestial. This grotto of the deceased did not yet seem austere enough to him; he dug himself a pit under the gutter of one of the churches, where he made his most ordinary dwelling. It is unbelievable how much he suffered from inconveniences there, whether in winter, by the rigor of the snow and icicles that the roof of this church caused to fall there in abundance; or in summer, by the ardor of the sun's rays that burned his whole body. His food consisted only of a little barley bread and a sip of water; he spent three and a half years there, in perpetual silence; having had the Holy Bible and other books of piety brought to him, he thus became very learned in the law of God and in the knowledge of the mysteries of our holy religion.

However, Abbot Renault, who had received him, having died, a false monk named Po ns t Pons Intrusive and simoniacal abbot of Saint-Médard. ook possession of this abbey upon a royal nomination he had obtained through simony. Such a criminal entry was followed by a thoroughly scandalous life. He used the monastery's goods, not for the repair of buildings, the ornamentation of altars, the relief of the poor, or the maintenance of his religious, but for games, feasts, and the pay of a troop of very nimble and well-mounted horsemen, by whom he was always accompanied. He was not content to consume the annual revenues of his benefice, which were immense; he even alienated the capital and did not hesitate to misappropriate and sell the most precious church furnishings to satisfy the foolish expenses of his vanity and ambition. Moreover, he did not even provide the religious with the necessities: divine worship was abandoned, regular observance neglected, and the entire monastic Order overturned. The elders of this house, who were almost all noble persons, deeply touched by these disorders, complained to the Bishop of Soissons, who was Thibaud de Pierrefonds; the latter decided with them that there was no other way to remedy the situation than to drive out this false abbot and put Saint Arnoul in his place. They obtained for this the consent of the king, who felt great sorrow for having given Saint-Médard a tyrant instead of an abbot; but the difficulty was to get our Saint to accept this charge, which he judged too heavy for his shoulders. He excused himself as much as he could. He joined tears and groans to his prayers so that he might be left to do penance in his retreat; he even fled secretly during the little time he had been given to make up his mind; but all his efforts were useless. A wolf, which he followed at night by moonlight, thinking it would lead him into the depths of a forest, brought him back to the gates of Soissons; he was discovered there and carried, against his will, to the abbatial chair.

As his life was entirely opposite to that of his predecessor, he soon restored all things to their former state. He gently brought the religious back to observance, provided the church with new ornaments in place of those that had been sold, and recovered the alienated property of the monastery; in a word, he restored to Saint-Médard the splendor and glory that the libertinage of Pons had taken from it. The entire city of Soissons and all the surrounding nobility felt extraordinary joy at such a happy change; under Pons, no one wanted to take the habit in this abbey, which was supposed to be composed of five hundred choir religious: as soon as Arnoul took over its government, young lords arrived from all sides, asking insistently to be received there to have the happiness of serving God under such wise direction.

The great miracles he performed wonderfully authorized his zeal. Godefroy de Fleury, a violent and cruel lord, had usurped the monastery's property; Arnoul, yielding to the prayers of his religious, set out to go to this lord and bring him, through his wise and pressing remonstrances, to restitution. He did not imitate certain abbots who were always well-mounted and never walked without a great retinue, while also living well and dressing in rich fabrics; but, on the contrary, he went only on foot or on a donkey, took only a few religious with him, ate only herbs or vegetables, and wore only a poor habit. The Brothers, unable to suffer their abbot in such great abjection, which they believed turned to their dishonor, wounded the donkey he was riding on purpose to force him to take a horse. Arnoul, however, did nothing of the sort: for he had resolved, from the time he had left the secular militia, never to ride a horse again; but, having entered the stable, he made the sign of the cross over the wounded animal and immediately restored it to a state to carry him. The Brothers imagined that Godefroy, seeing him in such poor attire, would have nothing but contempt for him and would even treat him indignantly, as he was accustomed to treat ecclesiastical persons; but it turned out quite otherwise: for this proud man, conquered by Arnoul's humility, gave him the best welcome and restored him to possession of the inheritance he had usurped from his abbey, and became as zealous for the protection of the Church's goods as he had previously been ardent in plundering them and making himself their unjust master.

The bread and wine that the Saint had blessed, and the apples from a tree that was in front of his cell, often performed truly miraculous cures. The water with which he had washed his hands restored sight to a woman who had been blind for ten years. Ermegarde, wife of Guy, a lord of high quality, being in labor, sent to commend herself to the Saint's prayers, as well as Guy, her husband, who was sick unto death. The blessed abbot sent word to her that she would give birth to a son the following night and that her husband would soon recover; but that the next day André, her brother, would be betrayed by his wife and delivered, with his castle, into the hands of his enemies, if he did not take care to surround himself with a good garrison. All these things happened punctually according to his prediction: and this child having been born blind, he also gave him sight at the end of six days, at the prayer of the midwives, who did not dare to reveal this accident to the mother. He also predicted several other things; the event showed that he possessed the gift of prophecy in an eminent degree.

However, Odon, a religious of his monastery, who considered himself more worthy than him of the rank and quality of abbot, secretly sought every opportunity to harm him and to dispossess him of his office. To achieve this, he wrote to King Ph ilip I that, Philippe Ier King of France whose funeral was attended by Humbaud. being about to go to war, he should oblige, according to custom, the abbot of Saint-Médard to accompany him with a regiment of his vassals, well-mounted and maintained at his own expense. This proposal was to the king's liking: he ordered our Saint to come and meet him at his camp, at the head of a sufficient number of good soldiers, to reinforce his army. Arnoul replied that he had not embraced the religious life to take up the secular militia again, and that, if it were a necessity for abbots to follow the king to war, he would rather renounce his abbey than submit to a law so contrary to the liberties of the Church. The king, ill-advised, had it conveyed to him that other abbots of Saint-Médard, his predecessors, had rendered this service to their king, in return for the privileges granted to the abbey of Saint-Médard by royal munificence. He therefore ordered him, if he did not wish to obey, to cede his place as abbot to another. Arnoul did not refuse to provide soldiers to the king, although the abbey of Saint-Médard had great privileges that exempted it from this servitude; but he did not believe at all that he was obliged to be their leader himself: as, indeed, this function was completely opposed to the duties of the religious life, if some of his predecessors had submitted to it, it was an abuse that should not serve as an example. Being therefore firm in his sentiment, he joyfully took this opportunity to strip himself of his dignity, whose honor and the burden were unbearable to him; and, after having had Saint Gérard or Gérauld elected in his place, a religious of Corbie, then abbot of Saint-Vincent of Laon, and who was later the founder of the famous monastery of Grand-Selve, in Aquitaine, he retired to his former cell, to resume there, with new fervor, his former exercises of penance, contemplation, and tears.

The rigor he exercised against himself was greater than ever; but it is not comparable to the pain he felt when Queen Bertha, having come to Soissons, had Saint Gérard driven from that abbey, and had the wretched Pons reinstated, who had formerly been deposed for his dissipations and his libertinism. One can also judge what Saint Arnoul suffered under this false abbot, full of indignation and fury that our Saint had been put in his place at the time of his deposition. However, as divine Providence has admirable secrets for raising up those who humble themselves for its love, never was Saint Arnoul more esteemed or more honored than in this state of humiliation and silence. The reputation of his virtue spread throughout France, and one saw great prelates and lords of the highest quality continually arriving at Saint-Médard, to have the happiness of seeing him, conversing with him, and taking counsel from him. The grace of miracles and the gift of prophecy shone forth in his actions and in his words. He learned, by revelation, of the tragic death of a lord named Israel, a great plunderer of widows and orphans, who died miserably at night in the midst of his guilty pleasures. He also knew that a roasted fish, which was brought to him one feast day for his dinner, was poisoned, and he commanded, like Saint Benedict, a raven to carry it to a desert place, where it could never harm anyone. On a Saint Lawrence's day, he gave speech to a thirteen-year-old child who had come into the world mute. Another day, he delivered a possessed man whose demon had made itself master as punishment for having lent a hand to one of his relatives for the attack on a village that he wanted to sack and put to fire and blood.

The bishopric of Soissons having become vacant by the death of Thibauld of Pierrefonds and by the deposition of Ursion, who had been intruded there against the rules of ecclesiastical discipline, the clergy and the people urgent ly prayed to Hugh, Bi Hugues, évêque de Die Legate of the Holy See who appointed Arnulf as Bishop of Soissons. shop of Die and legate of the Holy See, to give them Saint Arnoul as their pastor. This legate, who was at Meaux, where he had assembled a council, immediately summoned the Saint; and, despite all his resistance, he confirmed him as Bishop of Soissons. He then ordered him to come and meet him, some time later, in the Dauphiné, to receive episcopal consecration there, which he did; and, on the way, he sent one of his monks to Queen Bertha to announce to her that she was carrying in her womb a son who would be named Louis, and who would reign after his father. The inhabitants of Vienne, in the Dauphiné, also asked for him as archbishop; but he promptly withdrew from that province so as not to be forced to ascend such an eminent see. Saint Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, paid him great honors when he passed through his monastery, and, recognizing in him a great depth of knowledge and piety, he respected him as the true sanctuary of the Holy Spirit.

When he arrived in Soissons to make his entry, Gervais, seneschal to King Philip I and brother of the deposed bishop, refused him the gates; but Arnoul, without being troubled, established his seat at Oulchy-le-Château, a small town in his diocese; as the people flocked there from all sides, he conferred the sacrament of Confirmation, reconciled penitents, distributed the bread of the word of God to the faithful, and even healed, by the sign of the cross and the laying on of his hands, many cripples and sick people. Afterwards, he undertook the visitation of his parishes to consecrate new churches, correct the disorders of the ecclesiastics, reform the abuses that had crept in among the people, exterminate superstitions, and re-establish everywhere the beautiful order of Christian discipline. His spirit of prophecy appeared everywhere in an admirable way: for he saw absent things as present, and those that were not yet, as if they were happening before his eyes. He healed, by the laying on of his hands, a holy priest and religious named Everolfe, who, being dangerously ill, asked him for Extreme Unction, and promised him that he himself would confer this Sacrament upon him and lay him in the earth: which happened later, as we shall soon say. He restored sight, at Chaumont in Champagne, to a woman from Chauny, who came there expressly to pray him to place his fingers on her eyes. He also gave health to five brothers who, being all sick together, were causing their mother great expenses and reducing her to extreme necessity.

At that time, the provinces of Flanders were full of hatred, vengeance, and murder, with everyone taking justice into their own hands and taking the liberty of attacking their neighbor in his house or castle to seek redress for the insults they believed they had received. The Count of Flanders had stripped of their property and banished from his states a portion of the lords and wealthy ecclesiastics of the country for an alleged conspiracy against him, which forced them to wander here and there in great misery. Pope Saint Gregory VII ordered Saint Arnoul to go there to remedy such great evils. He was everywhere an angel of peace. He ended disputes whose settlement seemed impossible; he reconciled enemies who had sworn never to forgive one another; he compelled the Count to receive into his grace those by whom he believed he had been outraged, and to restore them to their property, honors, and dignities. Those who dared to resist his exhortations were visibly punished by God: for they were either seized by the devil, or they died a sudden death, or they were punished in some other public and exemplary manner that filled the whole country with fear. This is what led the inhabitants of Oudenburg to give him the church of Saint Peter with its Aldembourg Site of a monastery founded by Arnulf and the place of his death. dependencies to build a monastery there. He gathered religious men there and established monastic discipline, not according to the laxity of many communities of that time, but according to the spirit of Saint Benedict, with which he himself was filled.

It is not known when the doors of his metropolis were opened to him; but his Acts attest that it was in Soissons that he converted one of his former companions-in-arms, named Géric, who had abandoned himself to all sorts of exto Géric Former comrade-in-arms of Arnoul, converted by him. rtion, pillage, and violence, without sparing widows or orphans. Arnoul prayed for a long time to God for his salvation; his prayers were answered. This hot-headed man, who enjoyed all the advantages that fortune can give to its favorites, first lost all his children; then he fell into a terrible illness, from which there was no appearance that he could recover. Moreover, his relatives, seeing him without children and as if half-dead, began to lay their hands on his property with the intention of becoming its sole masters, without Judith, his wife, being able to retain any of it. These misfortunes opened his eyes; he had himself placed on a stretcher, by the advice of the same Judith, and brought to Soissons, where he received, through the intercession of the Saint, a perfect healing of body and soul. He therefore repaired all the damages he had caused, restored ill-gotten goods, gave great alms to the poor, whom he had previously tormented with such inhumanity, and at the end of the year, he had, according to the prediction of the servant of God, a son named Lambert, who was the heir to all his property, and did not imitate the actions of his former life, but the good examples he gave since his conversion.

After so many great deeds, Saint Arnoul was struck with sorrow for the disorders he saw in France, without the prelates having the boldness to provide an effective remedy, because many, being courtiers, did not dare to oppose the criminal relations of King Philip I with Bertrade de Montfort, wife of th e Count of Anjou, no Bertrade de Montfort A woman whose scandalous relationship with Philip I caused the resignation of Arnulf. r to remonstrate with him about the evils that his idleness and dissolute life were causing in the kingdom; he resigned his bishopric, and retired, for the third time, to his dear hermitage, in order to weep there for the evils to which he could provide no other remedy; but, some time later, the quarrels between the towns, villages, castles, and families having awakened again in Flanders, the inhabitants of Aldembourg came to beg him, with great insistence, to return to them to appease these divisions. He knew that he was to die there, and that it was in this place that God had fixed his burial; thus, he went there joyfully; and, after having worked for seven days with success on the reconciliation of the warring parties, he fell gravely ill. His room trembled three times, to the great astonishment of all those who were present. At the first, Saint Peter showed himself to him accompanied by a great troop of other Saints, and assured him that all his sins were forgiven. At the second, Saint Michael appeared to him with a troop of blessed spirits, and promised him to carry his soul into heaven. At the third, Our Lady, surrounded by a holy company of virgins, honored him with her visit, and told him that on the day of her Assumption he would assist at this great feast, in the very abode of glory. After having confessed again, having received Extreme Unction and the sacrament of the Eucharist, and having also predicted many things that were to happen in the government, and which have since effectively come to pass, he rendered his precious soul to God, laden with merits and good works, to go and enjoy the happiness of eternity. It was on a Sunday, August 15, in the year 1087. The neighboring bishops and abbots were invited to his burial, but none could attend, despite the desire they all had to pay him this duty. Thus the blessed Everolfe, who had administered the Sacraments to him, also laid him in the earth, so that all his words might be punctually fulfilled. His body was deposited in the church of Saint-Pierre of Aldembourg, and his tomb was at the same time honored with several great miracles; which made the pilgrimage to this place very famous; and the people even carried away dust from his sepulcher which served for the healing of the sick. The remains of this great servant of God have, since then, been raised from the earth and placed more honorably, by Lambert, bishop of Noyon and Tournai, who was consecrated in the year 1115, when these two bishoprics were still united.

This Saint is represented, like Saint Arnoul of Metz, with a cloak covering a coat of mail, because he had been a warrior before becoming a monk at the abbey of Saint-Médard. The brewers having also chosen him as their patron, a mash rake ha s since b brasseurs Professional group that chose Arnulf as its patron saint. een placed in his hand.

Taken from the Life of the Saint, by the monk Harinif, and by Lysiard, bishop of Soissons. — Cf. Annales du diocèse de Soissons, by the Abbé Focheur.