Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian

But the moment arrived when our two apostles were to attest, by suffering a thousand tortures and shedding their blood, the truth of their teachings. In 284, Diocletian had been proclaimed emperor; and in 285 or towards the end of the previous yea r, Maximian Herc Maximien Hercule Roman co-emperor, instigator of the persecution. ulius had received from him the title of Caesar. Sent against the Bagaudae who had revolted, Maximian soon had them subdued; it was at this time that he began to show all his hatred against Christianity and the ferocity of his character through the massacre of Saint Maurice and the Theban Legion. During the twenty years that he would hold sovereign power, he would pursue Christians wherever he could encounter them, and he would know how to enlist worthy executors of his vengeance. After the victory of which we have just spoken, Maximian entered the Gauls around the month of October. He was seen in Paris, in Meaux, and in the neighboring cities. Having come to Soissons, he learned with rage the rapid progress that Christianity had made there, and he had no difficulty in discovering that this success had to be attributed to Crispin and Crispinian. Immediately he sent his satellites to seize their persons, and when they were before his tribunal: "Is it Jupiter or Diana, or Apollo, or Mercury, or Saturn that you worship?" he said to them. "We worship only one God," the two brothers replied; "it is He who created heaven and earth. You, by worshipping Jupiter, Apollo, etc., are in a deplorable error." — "What is your origin? and what have you come to do in the Gauls?" — "We are Romans and of a noble family. We have come to the Gauls in the name and for the love of Jesus Christ, true God, and making but one single God with the Father and the Holy Spirit."

Maximian, transported with anger, threatened to have them put to death in the midst of the cruelest torments if they persisted in their foolish belief. Then, softening, he promised them riches and honors if they would consent to sacrifice to the gods. The holy confessors replied with great calm: "Your threats do not intimidate us; Christ is our life, and death is for us a gain. Your money and your honors, give them to those who serve you; it is with joy that we have renounced all that for the love of Jesus Christ. If you knew our God, and if you renounced your idols, an eternal reward would be assured to you; but if you continue to worship the demon, you will be tormented with him in hell." Maximian, seeing that he could gain nothing from them, sent them to his minister Rictiovarus, who was prefect of the praetorium of the Gauls, and enjoined him to spare no kind of Rictiovare Roman prefect and persecutor of Christians in Gaul. torture against them.

Rictiovarus, a faithful executor of the orders of Maximian-Herculius, took it upon himself to make Crispin and Crispinian cruelly atone for their constancy in believing in Jesus Christ and professing his doctrine. He had them suspended by pulleys and commanded that, in this state, they be broken with blows from sticks. In the midst of these torments, our holy confessors lifted their eyes toward heaven where the reward awaited them and said: "Cast a look upon your servants, O Lord God, and help us, so that no stain, no weakness may dishonor the work undertaken in your name." Rictiovarus expected that the violence of the pain would wring terrible cries from them; seeing on the contrary that they were praying, he became only more furious, and ordered that spikes be driven between the nails and the flesh of their fingers, and that long strips or thongs of skin be cut and torn from their backs, which the executioners carried out immediately. Crispin and Crispinian, during this atrocious torture, the mere account of which makes one shudder, did not cease to pray and to ask for justice from the Lord: Judica, Domine, judicium nostrum, et libera nos ab homine impio et doloso. And scarcely had they pronounced this word when the spikes came out of their fingers and struck the executioners; some died from them, the others were gravely wounded. Then Rictiovarus, transported with fury, commanded that a millstone be tied to their necks and that they be thrown into the Aisne river to be submerged there. But the power of God made the holy martyrs float, the millstones detached from their necks, and they were able to swim to the opposite bank.

Rictiovarus immediately sent satellites to seize Crispin and Crispinian and bring them back to the place of torture. There, he had a brazier of pitch, grease, and boiling oil prepared, and the holy confessors were thrown into it, who, by the power of God, suffered no harm from it. In imitation of the three children of the furnace, they sang hymns to the Lord: "Help us, be propitious to us, for fear that the infidels might ask: Where then is their God? Ne forte dicant gentes : Ubi est Deus eorum?" Suddenly, a drop of this mixture of molten lead and other materials jumped into the eye of Rictiovarus and caused him inexpressible pain. As for Crispin and Crispinian, angels, sent from heaven, brought them out safe and sound from this brazier where hell wanted to make them perish. But, as miracles often harden sinners instead of converting them, Rictiovarus did not let himself be touched by the wonders performed before his eyes. His rage increased to such a point that, out of spite and despair at seeing himself defeated, he threw himself into the fire, where he found death, a just punishment for all the cruelties he had exercised against the elect of God. Crispin and Crispinian, seeing themselves delivered from this cruel enemy of the Christian name, beseeched Our Lord Jesus Christ to withdraw them as soon as possible from the miseries of this mortal life to put them in possession of heavenly glory. Their prayer was answered; on the order of Maximian-Herculius, they had their heads severed on October 25; and while their souls were led to heaven by angels, their bodies were thrown into the dump to be the prey of animals and carnivorous birds. But Christ, for whose name they had suffered torments and death, preserved them from any bite.

## CULT AND RELICS. The night following their martyrdom, an angel appeared to a pious old man named Roger, who lived with his sister Pavie in a small house located in Soissons on a street called today Rue de la Congrégation. The angel indicated to them the place where the bodies of the holy Martyrs lay stretched out, and ordered them to go and remove them. The brother and sister hastened to head toward the indicated place, while thinking, however, of the difficulty of transporting two corpses alone. When they were near the bank of the Aisne river, they loaded the bodies onto their shoulders without difficulty; and, having spotted an empty boat, they placed them inside. Immediately, the small boat, setting itself in motion without oars or boatman, went against the current of the water until it found itself opposite the poor dwelling of the two old people. They then took the bodies of the holy Martyrs and buried them with honor in their own house. These precious relics remained there until the end of the 19th century, visited often, at first in secret, by the pious faithful whom the conversations of Crispin and Crispinian had converted, and who went to implore before their tomb the grace to persevere in the faith. But, when the persecution had slowed down, the Christians took advantage of the kind of tolerance of the Roman governors to flock more freely to the poor hut of Roger, which was then considered by the Christian population as a true church. After the conversion of the great Constantine, the house of Roger was canonically erected as a public oratory under the name of Saint-Crépin le Petit. On its site, the blessed Fourier, parish priest of Mattaincourt, established in 1622 daughters of his Congregation for the instruction of youth. The Revolution destroyed the convent and its church, of which only a semicircular arch remains. With the intention of perpetuating the memory of the oratory of Saint-Crépin le Petit, the custom was established that during the Rogations, when the procession passes on the Rue de la Congrégation, in front of the house at number 14, which is built on the land of this former oratory, the chanting of the litany of the Saints is still interrupted today and the antiphon and prayer of Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian are sung.

The first translation of the relics of these holy Martyrs took place about thirty years after their death. From the house of Roger, they were transported by water, going up the course of the Aisne, and stopped before the castle of Crise, built near the small river of the same name. A crypt had been prepared to receive the bodies of these generous Confessors of the faith, where they were enclosed. Later, the castle having been destroyed, a church was built over their tomb. It is this church that took the name of Saint-Crépin le Grand, to distinguish it from the one that had been raised on the site of the house of Roger.

The second translation of the relics of Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian took place from 647 to 649, with very great solemnity, by Saint Anseric, twentieth bishop of Soisson s, accompanied by S saint Éloi de Noyon Founder of the monastery and spiritual advisor to Saint Aurea. aint Eligius of Noyon, Saint Ouen of Rouen, Saint Faron of Meaux, and several other bishops. After a three-day fast, the clergy and the people gathered in the new church raised over the tomb of the holy Martyrs. Anseric and the prelates descended into the crypt that had just been opened; the lid of the two coffins was removed; immediately a sweet odor spread throughout the basilica, the prelates bowed with respect and, shedding tears, kissed the sacred bones and placed them in the reliquary laden with gold and precious stones that Saint Eligius himself had prepared, or at least had executed under his direction. The bishops took honor in carrying the reliquary on their own shoulders and deposited it above the altar. The head of Saint Crispin had been set aside to be kept in the archives and given to the people to kiss; it was enclosed in a silver vase. As for that of Saint Crispinian, it is conjectured that Saint Anseric, out of gratitude, presented it to Saint Eligius, and that the latter offered it to the abbey of Sologne, two leagues from Limoges, a monastery he had founded before his promotion to the episcopate.

A notable portion of their relics was transported to Osnabrück, in the basilica dedicated to them. Osnabruck German city possessing a notable portion of relics. Towards the end of the 8th century, Charlemagne obtained from the abbey of Saint-Crépin le Grand a share of the relics of the glorious Soissons Martyrs. The church of Osnabrück, even today, very solemnly celebrates the feast of Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian on October 25, and that of their translation on June 20, with a proper office that has been approved in Rome. A new recognition of the relics was made in Osnabrück in 1721 by notarial act. The bones, enclosed in two reliquaries, are named one after the other in the authentic report (1721). Each year, and on the principal feasts, these reliquaries are exposed above the high altar.

In Rome, in the church built on the very spot where Saint Lawrence received the palm of martyrdom, and which today forms part of the convent of the Poor Clare nuns, relics of Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian have been kept since the 9th century. They are enclosed in the tomb of the altar of the second chapel on the right. The reliquary that contains them is small and can hold only a few bones. Perhaps these relics were given, around 826, in exchange for those of Saint Sebastian and Saint Gregory the Great, brought from Rome by Bildiou to the abbey of Saint-Médard de Soissons. At various times, a certain number of bones from their remains had been given to enrich other churches. The abbey of Fulda had also obtained some; and a tooth ceded to a count named Henry was, on the part of this lord, the occasion for several donations made by him to the monastery of Saint-Crépin le Grand.

On May 29, 1141, on Whit Monday, Ernaildas, abbot of Saint-Crépin, transferred the relics of the holy martyrs into a reliquary that surpassed in its richness and the beauty of its workmanship the one given by Saint Eligius. It was two feet long and was surmounted by statues of the twelve apostles. This monument to the piety of the people of Soissons was preserved until the Revolution. This third translation was carried out very solemnly, in the presence of Samson, Archbishop of Reims. Every year, to celebrate its memory, the monks of Saint-Crépin le Grand, on the Monday in the octave of the Ascension, would bring down the reliquary of their patron saint and carry it to the cathedral, followed by the constituted bodies and all the people; and after having exposed it for public veneration, they would carry their precious treasure back to their abbey.

But the moment was approaching when these monks would be forced to part with this precious deposit for fear of seeing it profaned by the Huguenots, who were invading the provinces and marking their passage everywhere by pillaging churches and throwing the relics of the Saints into the fire. The pious Bishop of Soissons, Charles de Roucy, known as the father of the poor, believed that it would ensure the safety of the reliquary of Saint Crépin to remove it from the suburb and transport it intra muros to the Abbey of Notre-Dame, which then had as its abbess Catherine de Bourbon, sister of the Prince of Condé, leader of the Huguenots. On June 29, 1562, all the clergy of the city gathered at the cathedral and went in procession to the Abbey of Saint-Crépin, where, after having celebrated Mass and heard the panegyric of the holy Martyrs, their reliquary was transported to the royal Abbey of Notre-Dame. The piety of the people of Soissons had only to congratulate itself on this translation; for in 1567, the Huguenots having seized Soissons, pillaged the churches of the city and the suburbs; they respected only the Abbey of Notre-Dame, according to the promise that the Prince of Condé had made to the abbess, his sister. The Abbey of Saint-Crépin le Grand was reduced to ruins, everything having been put to fire and sword. Charles de Roucy had not intended to deprive the abbey of its precious relics forever; he had even formally committed to returning them to the monks at their first request; the people of Soissons had made the same promises; but the memory of the recent ravages of the Huguenots, the fear of seeing them renewed and thereby being exposed to losing the bones of their glorious Martyrs without hope of return, made the Abbess of Notre-Dame inflexible, to such an extent that, during public supplications, when the monks were permitted to carry the venerated reliquary on their shoulders along the streets of the city, the abbess expressly required that the city magistrates commit themselves in writing and before a notary to return said reliquary to the monastery of Notre-Dame immediately after the ceremony. It was in vain that the monks renewed their requests after the peace in 1568; then, in 1578, when they had restored the choir of the Abbey of Saint-Crépin le Grand, the abbess persisted in her refusal. Louise de Lorraine, who had succeeded Catherine de Bourbon, showed herself to be more accommodating, and the surrender of the deposit was on the point of being carried out, when a general uprising of the population obstructed her good will. The people of Soissons blocked the Saint-Martin gate to prevent the reliquary from passing. There was, in 1614, a new attempt in which the canons of Saint-Gervais took part; but it was still without effect. From that moment on, it was decided that henceforth the relics would no longer leave the enclosure of the monastery of Notre-Dame and that they would be content to expose them before the nuns' grille. However, at the imperiously expressed desire of the inhabitants, the relics appeared in the streets in 1617; but the abbess demanded that one of the aldermen remain as a hostage at the monastery for the entire duration of the procession, until the reliquary had returned to the abbey. In the following years until the Revolution, they were content with the simple promise of the municipality.

The church of Soissons once possessed an ancient and magnificent office proper for the feast of its two most famous Martyrs. It bore much resemblance to the office still in use today in Osnabrück. Bishop Charles de Bourbon had preserved it in its entirety in the edition of the breviary he issued in 1675, ad normam breviarii romani. The antiphons of the entire office inspired him with the design of working for their conversion. He engaged several of them to profit from public instructions, to flee dangerous company, to pray with fervor, to frequent the Sacraments, to make acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition every day; in a word, to take all means proper to advance in the practice of virtue.

His apprenticeship finished, he continued to practice the same trade as a journeyman. His holiness gave his words much weight and authority. He was truly the father of his family. He listened to the complaints of divided persons and reconciled them. He consoled the afflicted and found in his poverty the secret of assisting the indigent. It often happened that he shared his clothes with those who were naked. He lived only on bread and water, in order to have the means to give alms. Several years passed in this manner in Luxembourg and Meuse. Finally, Providence led the servant of God to Paris. He changed nothing in his former way of life.

He was forty-five years old when he became known to the Baron de Renty, whom his piety has made famous. The latter wished to see Good Henry. He was as surprised as he was edified to find, in a man of the people, so many virtues and such kno le bon Henri Founder of the community of the Shoemaker Brothers in the 17th century. wledge of the ways of God. He admired above all his courage in undertaking and executing great projects for the glory of religion. He learned that he had the talent of converting young men of his station, and of bringing them back into the good graces of their parents and masters; that, after having thus won them over, he prescribed rules of conduct for them, and that he went every day to the Saint-Gervais hospital to instruct the poor who retired there. But nothing seemed greater to him than this spirit of prayer and humility, and all these two additions that he noticed in him. Thinking therefore that he was more fit than anyone to do the work of God, he proposed that he establish a pious association, the goal of which was to facilitate the practice of all virtues among workers of the same profession. He began by procuring for him the right of citizenship. Then he had him received as a master so that he could take into his home, as apprentices or workers, those who desired to follow the regulations that the parish priest of Saint-Paul was asked to draft. These regulations recommended to the persons who associated themselves with it, frequent prayer, participation in the Sacraments, the practice of the presence of God, mutual assistance in illness, and the care to relieve and console the unfortunate.

Good Henry soon had a certain number of apprentices or workers. It was with them that he founded, in 1648, the establishment known as the community of the Shoemaker Brothers. He was made its first superior. The innocence and holiness of these pious artis ans showed visibly that God had c communauté des Frères cordonniers Pious association of workers founded in 1648. hosen them to glorify his name. They revived in themselves the spirit of the first Christians. This community gave birth to that of the Linen-worker Brothers two years later. Certain artisans of this latter profession, edified by the holy life led by the Shoemaker Brothers, and by the way they employed a time that many others spent in disorder or idleness, begged Good Henry to give them a copy of his liturgy. They then addressed themselves to the parish priest of Saint-Paul, and also formed an association. These two communities in associations are spread throughout France and Italy; they are even established in Rome. The members of which they are composed rise at five o'clock in the morning, pray in common, recite other private prayers at marked times, hear Mass every day, keep silence which they only interrupt by the singing of canticles, meditate before dinner, attend the entire office on feast days and Sundays, visit the poor in prisons, in hospitals, and in their homes, make a retreat of a few days each year, etc.

Good Henry died in Paris on June 9, 1666, from an ulcer of the lung, and was buried in the cemetery of Saint-Gervais. He had been the model of the most heroic virtues. The Shoemaker Brothers had establishments in Paris, Soissons, Grenoble, Toulouse, Lyon, etc. The lay master shoemakers often caused them trouble and harassment of every kind. In 1686, in Soissons, the mayor and aldermen summoned Brother Rodier and, after a meticulous interrogation from which nothing resulted against the community, the brothers were enjoined to separate immediately, "to which they will be compelled by all means and justice of their furniture, and expulsion of their persons from the house in which they have established their community, with a prohibition to them to assemble thus again on pain of five hundred livres fine and prison." Despite this decree, a transaction before a notary was made the same year between the brothers and the master shoemakers in title of Soissons, on the condition that one of the brothers would always be required to be received as a master shoemaker, that the community would restrict the number of external workers, and would take charge of as many at the hospital for three years.

The antiphons of the entire office had been taken generally, except for slight modifications, from the Acts of the holy Martyrs, and they breathed a perfume of piety, a heroic language, and a holy enthusiasm that one does not find in more recent offices.

Notice by M. Henri Congnet, of the chapter of Soissons. — Cf. Acta Sanctorum; Baillet; Tillemont; M. Pêcheur, Annales, vol. 1; Lépaulart, Manuscript collection; Acts of the martyrdom of Saint Crispin.