Saint Gauzlin of Toul

The abbey of Saint-Epvr L'abbaye de Saint-Epvre Famous abbey of Toul and seat of the episcopal schools. e had lost its former splendor, and as a result of the misfortunes with which war had afflicted the country, laxity had crept in. Saint Gauzlin restored to this abbey buildings and revenues sufficient to house and feed forty religious. He placed them under the guidance of Archembaud , who was Archembaud Abbot of Saint-Epvre and collaborator of Gauzlin. very well-versed in monastic discipline and very well-suited for the execution of his design. What he had done for the monastery of Saint-Epvre, he undertook, with equal success, for other establishments of the same kind in his diocese and that of Châlons. He communicated the zeal for a salutary reform to the prelates of his neighborhood. Following his example, Adalberon I, Bishop of Metz, introduced reform into the abbeys of Saint-Arnoult and Gorze; and Berenger, Bishop of Verdun, asked Gauzlin to send him monks from Saint-Epvre with the goal of reforming those of Saint-Vanne.

To maintain and strengthen this happy transformation among the religious, our zealous prelate restored the sciences to honor in his episcopal city. He brought there Adso n, a Adson Religious scholar in charge of the schools of Toul. religious of the abbey of Luxeuil, a native of Franche-Comté, then in the prime of his life and reputed to be one of the most learned and holy figures of his time. He placed him in charge of the schools of the abbey of Saint-Epvre, where the clerics of the bishopric went to study, along with the religious of that monastery and others still who were eagerly sent there.

Saint Gauzlin knew how to obtain, for his church, the abbey of Montierender, as well as those of Moyenmoutier, Offonville, and Poulangy, in the diocese of Langres. Most of these houses had already belonged to him previously; wicked or ambitious lords had taken them from him. He exchanged that of Varennes with the bishop of Langres for the village of Bauzemont. He claimed that of Bonmoutier from the abbess of Andelau (Alsace), who claimed to have ownership of it, but whom Gauzlin proved, before Emperor Otto, to depend on his cathedral. He acquired other considerable assets with which he endowed the capitular mensa. He bought, in part, and in part was given the land of Ambleville, the fief of Boucq, Aingeray, Molésiac, Girauvoisin, the toll of Mont-Saint-Elophe, what King Henry possessed at Gondreville, and several other lands.

Gauzlin undertook to restore the chapel of Saint-Mansuy, which was threatening to fall into ruin, and to establish the monastic order there. He entrusted the care of this enterprise to Archembaud, abbot of Saint-Epvre, who placed some religious in this place under the guidance of a prior, providing them, from the assets of his abbey, with the means to meet their needs. Archembaud began the planned construction, but death, which forestalled him, prevented him from finishing it. This honor was reserved for Saint Gerard, just as he had the honor of founding and endowing the monastery of this suburb of Toul.

The Hungarians, solicited by Conrad, son-in-law of Emperor Otto, having entered Lorraine in the year 954, pillaged and ransacked the entire country, to ok the city o ville de Toul Birthplace of the saint and episcopal see. f Toul, and stripped it in such a way that the inhabitants were forced to go seek their sustenance elsewhere. Scarcely three canons remained to perform the office at the cathedral; and even they had great difficulty finding enough not to die of hunger. The bishop, touched by so many evils, begged the lords of the region and the Emperor himself to give him aid. Otto ordered the restoration of the Church of Toul to its former possessions.

However, the pious bishop, having restored the abbey of Saint-Epvre, resolved to found a new monastery where he would place Christian virgins who, under the Rule of Saint Benedict, would honor the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, with a particular cult. Having learned that, on the mou ntain of Bouxières, i montagne de Bouxières Women's abbey founded by Gauzlin. n his diocese, there existed an ancient temple consecrated to the holy Mother of Jesus Christ, but abandoned and completely neglected, despite the numerous wonders that the Lord had performed there in favor of the infirm of all kinds who had come to pray there, he thought that this sanctuary could be advantageously restored and become the oratory of the monastery he would build next to it. But in order to act with prudence and maturity, he consulted on this design Archembaud, abbot of Saint-Epvre, and other persons of sound judgment and true piety, who all confirmed him in this generous resolution. God favored the holy intentions of his servant; he led him to find pious young women, filled with good will, who, having no retreat, were waiting for Providence to provide them with the means to work out their salvation within the enclosure of a monastery. He gave them as superior Rothilde, formed in monastic virtues by the famous Humbert, a recluse of Metz, who soon made her community a model of regularity for nuns and a subject of edification for the whole country.

In order to ensure a peaceful and honorable existence for this new establishment, the holy prelate made himself poor and gave it several lands from his bishopric. The abbey of Bouxières-a ux-Dames (Buxerie) became what L'abbaye de Bouxières-aux-Dames Women's abbey founded by Gauzlin. the old church on the mountain had been, the goal of a famous pilgrimage where it is claimed that several miracles occurred. One cites, among others, the healing of a mute, in commemoration of which a mute was always maintained in the abbey who, on the day of the feast of Saint Gauzlin, would go to the offering first, even before the abbess. It is also in memory of this wonder attributed to the intercession of Saint Gauzlin that, quite recently, the establishment for the deaf and mute of Nancy was placed, at the request of its skilled director, Mr. Piroux, and by episcopal ordinance, under the patronage of this blessed Pontiff of the Toul region.

Four years before his death, Saint Gauzlin was struck by a violent illness that never left him and which provided him the opportunity to exercise his patience. Finally, after having governed his Church for forty years with indefatigable zeal, he died, filled with merits, on the 7th of the Ides of September (the 7th of that month), in the year 962. He was transported by his clergy and his people to the abbey of Bouxières, which owed its foundation to him.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS.]

The nuns of Bouxières had an underground chapel built over his tomb, and kept his body in a very rich reliquary. The head of the blessed bishop was placed in a silver bust; the jaw was given to the Cathedral of Toul, which kept this relic for a long time in another very precious bust.

In 1635, the nuns of Bouxières, frightened by the ravages caused in the country by the Swedish, Hungarian, and other soldiers, who were plundering churches and bringing desolation everywhere, resolved to save the reliquary containing the relics of Saint Gauzlin, their most precious treasure, from the sacrilegious rapacity of these devastators. Consequently, they had it transported to Nancy, to the nuns of Saint-Francis, commonly called the Grey Sisters, who received it and gave it faithful hospitality. They withdrew it on the eighth day of October 1669, when public tranquility was restored, after their return to the monastery they had been forced to abandon. After being solemnly recognized, these relics were extracted from the reliquary that contained them, to be placed in another much richer reliquary, which had been offered by the Abbess Anne-Catherine de Cicon.

On January 12, 1734, a new translation of the remains of Saint Gauzlin was performed, from this last reliquary into another even richer one, coming as much from the generosity of the chapter of Bouxières as from a considerable gift from the Abbess Anne-Marie d'Eitz-d'Ottange, and finally from the remains of the old one that could be put to use.

At the unfortunate time of the suppression of the convents, Madame de Messey, the last Abbess of Bouxières, had taken with her to Luxembourg, where she retired to escape persecution, the reliquary of Saint Gauzlin and the precious remains it contained. Upon her return to France, Father Raybois, formerly provost of the chapter, and who had accompanied the venerable canoness into exile, brought back the relics of the holy bishop of Toul and placed them in the hands of Mgr Osmond, titular of Nancy. They rest today in the old reliquary of the relics of Saint Sigisbert, at the primatial cathedral, in the collateral chapel dedicated under the name of the blessed one.

The relics of Saint Gauzlin are not limited to his dried bones. Several objects that he used during his mortal life have fortunately escaped the ravages of time and revolutions. These are: a chalice, a paten, a gospel book, and a liturgical comb. A chalice veil had also been kept for a long time; it eventually disappeared without anyone being able to discove r what direction peigne liturgique Liturgical object used for miraculous healings. it had taken.

Formerly, people afflicted with ringworm would go on pilgrimage to Bouxières-aux-Dames and ask that their hair be touched by the comb of Saint Gauzlin, in order to obtain their healing. It is probably to this circumstance that we must attribute the disappearance of the fin est teeth of this small peigne de saint Gauzlin Liturgical object used for miraculous healings. object. As for the others, they necessarily had to triumph over the most unkempt hair. Hence why, in the past, in Lorraine, it was said of an individual whose hair was in disarray that he had combed himself with the comb of Saint Gauzlin.

Excerpt from the History of the Diocese of Toul and that of Nancy, by Father Guillaume, canon of Nancy.