Saint Chrodegang of Metz

The rule of Saint Chrodegand was so highly esteemed that several churches adopted it, and it subsequently served as a model for the general reformation that councils sought to implement within the clergy. The Council of Aachen, in 816, made some additions to it and recommended its observance to all the canons of the empire of Louis the Pious. Leofric, Bishop of Exeter, who had resided for some time in Austrasia, brought it to England and introduced it into his cathedral.

Saint Chrodegand showed no less zeal for the restoration of religious observance in the monasteries of his vast diocese. Around the year 749, near Metz, in a valley entirely covered by forests, he founded the famous Abbey of Gorz e, which gave t abbaye de Gorze Place of initial formation for Adalberon II. he kingdom of Austrasia so many holy reformers and illustrious prelates, and which was, at its inception, endowed with rich donations from Pepin and Charlemagne. The holy bishop built it in honor of the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and of Saint Stephen, patron of his church, and gave it the Rule of Saint Benedict.

Chrodegand was not only a great Saint, but a wise minister and a skillful negotiator, to whom his knowledge and eloquence gave great authority in the councils of the nation. Pepin liked to employ him in the most delicate affairs. Aistulf, King of the Lombards, having become master of the Exarchate of Ravenna, had summoned Rome to recognize him as sovereign, with threats to bring fire and sword upon its territory. Pope Stephen II did ever ything possible pape Étienne II Brother and predecessor of Paul I. with the King of the Lombards to sway him and engage him to have some regard for the Chair of Saint Peter; but, seeing that prayers, gifts, and even the mediation of the Emperor of the East were useless, he resolved to address the Frankish people. He wrote to Pepin about the deplorable state in which Rome found itself, and begged him to send ambassadors so that he could come to an understanding with them. The Frankish monarch sent him Droctegand, Abbot of Gorze, to assure him of his protection. Stephen, overjoyed, immediately dismissed this ambassador with another letter for Pepin; he secretly begged the King to send new ministers to Rome, whose name and dignity would command respect for his person, so that in their company he could reach the foot of the Alps and travel to France. Two new ambassadors were designated by Pepin and the assembly of Frankish lords to go to the Pontiff: they were Chrodegand and Duke Antchaire. The Bishop of Metz, in particular, showed much prudence and courage in this delicate mission, for to all his episcopal virtues he joined a boundless devotion to the Chair of Saint Peter. When the two envoys arrived in Rome, they found the Lombards already masters of the fortresses near the city; the Romans were in consternation, and the Pope was preparing to leave for Pavia to implore the mercy of the King of the Lombards. Stephen therefore added the two deputies of Pepin to his party and, accompanied by an escort of prelates and clerics of the Roman Church and the principal personages of the city, he left Rome on October 14, 753. Duke Antchaire went ahead and hastened to Pavia to await the Pope and prepare for his arrival. Stephen again conjured Aistulf to restore things to the state they were in before his enterprises; but the King of the Lombards persisted obstinately in keeping his conquests and used every imaginable means to prevent the Pope from leaving Italy. Then the deputies of Pepin asked him, in the name of their King, not to oppose the design the Sovereign Pontiff had to go to France. Aistulf, surprised, put off his answer until the next day. In the interval, he dispatched men to frighten Stephen if he persisted in his project; and when the audience arrived, where the Frankish ambassadors renewed their request, the King, counting on the effect of his secret threats, adjured the Pontiff to say if he really wanted to go to France. The latter, encouraged by the presence of Chrodegand and Antchaire, replied with a respectful air: "Yes, such is my design, if it is the intention of your glory to restore my freedom." Aistulf, seeing that he would fight the Pope's resolution in vain, no longer opposed it and left him free to continue his journey.

Stephen, accompanied by the prelates of his household and the two envoys of the King of France who were directing his march, left Pavia on November 15, and, despite the severity of the season, he arrived safely in France. Pepin was at Thionville, a royal estate on the Moselle, when he learned that the Pope had already crossed the Alps. He immediately sent Charles, his eldest son, who was then in his twelfth year, to accompany the Pontiff to the palace of Ponthion, in Champagne, where h e went in person with Charles, son fils aîné Emperor of the Franks and uncle of Saint Folquin. Queen Bertrada, his other children, and the great men of his court. At the news of the Pope's approach, Pepin went himself a league from the palace to receive him. As soon as he caught sight of him, he dismounted from his horse, prostrated himself before him with his wife and children, and the lords who accompanied him; he walked for some time on foot beside his mount, serving as his squire. Stephen, filled with joy, raised his voice, and, giving thanks to God, he intoned hymns and canticles, which the whole retinue repeated. They thus arrived at the palace of Ponthion on January 6, 754, the day of the Epiphany. From Ponthion, the Pope retired to the monastery of Saint-Denis, where he remained until the end of winter, awaiting the result of the negotiations.

Among the firmest supporters of the Pope was always the Bishop of Metz, who not only used all his influence at court in this affair, but also acted upon the Frankish lords in the assembly of Quierzy-sur-Oise to decide them to undertake the war in Italy and to have the domains that had been unjustly snatched from the Holy See returned to it. But before crossing the Alps, Pepin, at the representation of the Sovereign Pontiff, thought he should make one last attempt on the mind of Aistulf. He again deputed Saint Chrodegand to him to conjure him, in the name of the holy Apostles, to exercise no hostility against Rome, to return to the Holy See the places he had taken from it, and not to subject the Romans to superstitions incompatible with their laws. The Bishop of Metz was, moreover, the bearer of a letter from the Pope to the King of the Lombards, in which he begged him, by the sacred mysteries and by the fearsome judgment of God, to finally listen to the voice of religion and justice. But all the zeal and all the skill of Chrodegand were to fail before a prince of blind and sacrilegious ambition, who did not want to hear of restitution.

Saint Chrodegand did not only deserve the recognition of the Sovereign Pontiffs by contributing, more than any bishop of his time, to the restoration and expansion of the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See, but he also had the glory of cooperating effectively in the fulfillment of a wish that was equally dear to them: the extension of the Roman liturgy. The latitude that each church had at the beginning of Christianity to draft its own liturgy was bound to produce sometimes very great differences between the offices of churches in the same province. The need to establish some unity was felt early on. Provincial synods began to prescribe the unity of psalmody to suffragan churches. Soon, national councils likewise worked to extend this uniformity to all the Churches of the same nation. But this state of affairs could not escape the vigilance of the Roman Pontiffs. From the end of the 4th century, they made the most persistent efforts to bring all the churches of the West to a perfect conformity of rite with the Roman Church, mother and mistress of all the churches of the world, but united, it seems, by closer ties to the churches of the West which had emerged immediately from its bosom, and received from it, along with the faith, the first elements of their liturgy. We possess letters written on this subject by Saint Siricius, towards the end of the 4th century, by Saint Innocent and Saint Celestine in the 5th, by Saint Gregory the Great at the beginning of the 6th, by Saint Gregory II and Saint Zachary in the first half of the 8th. Already, even before the 6th century, Gregorian chant had been introduced into most countrie s of the West. chant grégorien Liturgical tradition carefully maintained by the Pope. When Saint Gregory sent Saint Augustine to Great Britain, he dispersed throughout the West cantors trained in the school of Rome. But, despite all the efforts of this great Pope and his successors to spread Roman chant and preserve it in its purity; despite the frequent sending of skilled cantors, trained at the Lateran school, ecclesiastical chant was far from uniform. It had fallen into great decadence in France, especially under the harsh administration of Charles Martel. Unfortunate alterations had annihilated its charm. When Pope Stephen II came to France, according to Walafrid Strabo, a 9th-century writer, he asked King Pepin, as a sign of the faith that united France to the Holy See, to second his efforts to introduce the offices of the Roman Church into the kingdom. The king, the chronicler continued, welcomed the pious design of the Pontiff, and the clerics in Stephen's retinue gave the Frankish cantors lessons on how to celebrate the offices. It is generally agreed that it was the church of Metz, under Saint Chrodegand, which was the first in Gaul to receive Roman chant and liturgy. In the mission that the holy bishop fulfilled to Stephen II, he was, no doubt, initiated by the Sovereign Pontiff into the project whose execution the Popes had long been pursuing. Moreover, as a witness during his embassy to Rome to the liturgical magnificences of the Roman Church and the majesty of the Apostolic See, he could not fail to be captivated by them. He was also confirmed in the design, which he had perhaps already realized, of establishing regular life among his clergy, after having witnessed the exemplary life of the various apostolic colleges that served the basilicas. To unite the clergy of his Church more closely with the Roman Church, and to give the divine offices a more august form, he hastened, upon his return to France, to introduce the chant and order of the Roman offices into his diocese. The zealous prelate used all his influence with Pepin and the Frankish clergy, of whom he was the light and the glory, as Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans, expresses it, to second the work of unity upon which the Sovereign Pontiffs were working with such perseverance. Among the twelve cantors sent to France by Stephen II, at the king's request, to propagate the holy traditions of Gregorian chant, some undoubtedly came to settle in Metz, whose singing school began early on to enjoy great celebrity.

The merit of Saint Chrodegand was so universally recognized that he took part in almost all the important affairs of his time. He attended the assemblies and councils of Verberie (753), Quierzy-sur-Oise (754), Verneuil (755), Compiègne (757), and Attigny (765), which he presided over, and he himself held several councils in his episcopal city. Aided by the pious liberality of Pepin, he rebuilt or restored the choir and the sanctuary of his cathedral church and surrounded them with side aisles. Paul the Deacon, historian of the bishops of Metz, cites, as remarkable works executed by his orders, the high altar surmounted by a canopy or baldachin, and the balustrades with which he surrounded it. Finally, the holy Pontiff, filled with merits, went to join in heaven the saints to whom he had rendered so many pious honors. He died on March 6, 766, and was buried in the monastery of Gorze, to which he had bequeathed great wealth in his will, which we still possess. Theodulf, Bishop of Orléans, composed his epitaph in verse, in which he offers a magnificent eulogy of his talents and virtues. Subsequently, a portion of the relics of Saint Chrodegand was transferred to Metz, to the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Symphorien. They disappeared amidst the sacrilegious spoliations of the Revolution.

I. Note on the Abbey of Gorze. — Gorze, fifteen kilometers southwest of Metz, was formerly, as our old chronicles say, only a thick forest where the kings of Austrasia often took the pleasure of hunting, a mountainous and stony desert, watered by a multitude of clear streams. The principal one bore the name of Gorzia, Gorgia or Gurges (abyss), apparently because of the depth and abundance of the waters of the spring. It is there that the magnificent Roman aqueduct began, of which some arches still remain in the village of Jouy, and which led the waters of Gorze to Metz. Hence also the name of Gurgitenses, given to the monks, and of Gurgitemum Monasterium, given to the monastery. This famous abbey was founded, around the year 749, by Saint Chrodegand. It is asserted that he built it in the very place where Saint Clement, coming from Rome to Metz to announce the Gospel, had built an oratory in honor of the Prince of the Apostles.

Saint Chrodegand himself built his monastery in honor of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul; he gave it the Rule of Saint Benedict and placed it under the guard and protection of the church of Saint-Étienne of Metz. He dedicated the Church in 753, shortly before his famous journey to Pope Stephen II. From its origin, Gorze drew from its founder a renown attested by the verses of Alcuin.

In 763, Saint Chrodegand led a colony of his religious from Gorze to the monastery of Lauresheim, which his family had just founded in the diocese of Mainz, and which became one of the most illustrious in Germany. But, about two centuries after its foundation, Gorze had fallen into the most deplorable state, following the civil wars and the ravages of the barbarians who devastated the kingdom. In 933, the bishop of Metz, Adalberon I, whom his zeal for the restoration of regular observance nicknamed the Father of the Monks, introduced a famous reform at Gorze, of which Saint John of Vondières was one of the principal instruments. The ancient abbey, thus renewed, soon became a nursery of Saints and Reformers. The chronicle uses the most vivid images to render the charms of this holy dwelling: "Gorze was like a sun that darted from afar the rays of monastic religion," a paradise enameled with the flowers of holiness. The riches of Gorze, rapidly increased by emperors and kings, were immense. Its seigneurial territory, not including several distant domains, contained twenty-eight towns or villages; the abbots enjoyed regalian rights, minted coins, and took part in the election of the master alderman of Metz. Numerous and rich priories depended on the abbatial mass, and the brilliance of all this temporal splendor long saw piety and science flourish in schools from which, in the Middle Ages, several illustrious prelates emerged. This abbey, which resembled a citadel and served as a defense for the city that had formed around its enclosure, suffered much from the wars of religion that devastated France during the 16th century. It was secularized in 1572, at the solicitation of the great Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, who was then its abbot, and who divided the monastery's goods between the primatial church that the dukes of Lorraine planned to erect in Nancy, and the Jesuit college of Pont-à-Mousson. The abbatial title was given to the primatial church, and the abbey converted into a Chapter of canons, which performed the office in the parish church, erected since then into a collegiate church. The abbatial church and all the regular buildings were demolished in 1689. By the year 1717, the vestiges of the ancient abbey were so erased that the two Benedictine travelers Martène and Durand, passing through the town where it existed, were surprised to no longer find Gorze in Gorze. There remains today only a section of wall and a ditch, which the current owner has religiously respected. The collegiate church, a beautiful 13th-century edifice built by the monks of Gorze, still serves as a parish today; but the old abbatial castle has been transformed into a poorhouse.

II. On the Abbey of Lauresheim at Lorsch. — This abbey, very famous in Carolingian history, was situated on the small river Weschmitz, then called Wisgor, between Mainz and Heidelberg. The Church was consecrated in 774, before Charlemagne and Queen Hildegard, by Lull of Mainz, Angelram of Metz, and several other prelates. This abbey became one of the most illustrious in Germany: it was counted among the first four of the empire, and it possessed, as a principality, the country called Berystrass (Strato-Montana), between Heidelberg and the small river Dietbourg. More than four thousand charters were transcribed in its cartulary, which the Palatine Academy had printed because of the precious historical information it provides. Tradition credits the monks of Lauresheim with having formed the first library in Germany; and it was, in fact, among them that, at the Renaissance, the manuscripts of several authors of classical antiquity were found. Tassilo, dethroned by Charlemagne, was relegated to the monastery of Lauresheim, where his tomb was once shown. In the 13th century, the Benedictines were replaced by the Premonstratensians, and the abbatial principality was united to the see of Mainz for two hundred years; then it passed to the counts palatine. As a result, it happened in the 16th century that the electors palatine, having embraced the Reformation, destroyed Lauresheim. The devastation took place in 1558, and a fire, which occurred in 1621, consumed what had escaped the first ruin.

III. On the famous singing school of Metz. — The school of ecclesiastical chant, founded at Metz by Saint Chrodegand, became especially flourishing under the reigns of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, his son, during the episcopate of Angilram and Drogo. In a first journey that Charlemagne made to Rome, in 774, says John the Deacon, historian of Saint Gregory the Great, he left with Pope Adrian two intelligent clerics of his chapel, to perfect themselves in the knowledge of Roman chant. He intended them for the church of Metz, by means of which he proposed to effect the reform of chant throughout his vast empire. In a second journey that Charlemagne made to Rome, in 787, he asked the Pope for instructed cantors who could bring the Franks back into the line of sound traditions; Adrian hastened to accede to the desire of the religious monarch. He gave him two skillful cantors, Theodore and Benedict, who had been raised in the school of Saint Gregory, and joined to a deep knowledge of chant, very extensive learning. Charles, upon returning to France, placed one of these cantors at Metz for Austrasia, the other at Soissons for Neustria, and ordered all the singing masters of the other cities of France to present their antiphonaries to them for correction. The school of Metz, already famous, became the most flourishing in the whole empire. Gregorian chant rose there to the highest point of perfection, so that, says the monk of Angoulême, it surpassed the other schools of France as much as it itself yielded to that of Rome. This is also the praise given to it by the Roman historian of Saint Gregory the Great. The school of Metz extended its influence over the whole empire: its antiphonary was the model on which all others were corrected. In a capitulary of Thionville, of the year 805, Charlemagne ordered that all singing masters be drawn from the school of Metz. Through the channel of this famous school, Roman chant began to spread so much in all the provinces that, according to the testimony of the monk of Saint-Gall, ecclesiastical chant took, even in Germany, the name of Messin chant.

The school of Metz reached its apogee under the skillful direction of Amalarius, archdeacon of the church of Metz, the most skillful liturgist of his time. Amalarius, nicknamed Symphosius because of his taste for music, had studied under Alcuin, whom he even succeeded later in the direction of the palace school. Louis the Pious, who appreciated the merit of the archdeacon of Metz, deputed him to Rome, in 827, with the mission of bringing back a new copy of the antiphonary of Saint Gregory. Amalarius, during his stay in the eternal city, consulted the ministers of the churches of Saint Peter, and profited from their instructions to correct his great work *De Officio Divino*, of which he gave a new edition upon his return. He also took the opportunity to compose his precious book: *De Ordine Antiphonarii*. "This collection," says the author of the *Liturgical Institutions*, "became the regulator of ecclesiastical chant in our Churches. One no longer returned to Rome to seek new antiphonaries, and such was the first origin of the Romano-Frankish liturgy." The reputation of the school of Metz was maintained for several centuries. A letter from Saint Bernard informs us that the first Fathers of Cîteaux, wishing to establish in their congregation the best method of singing the praises of God, had recourse to the church of Metz, and had its antiphonary transcribed. "This superiority which the school of Metz still maintained in the 13th century, over the singing schools of the other cathedrals of France," says the Very Reverend Dom Guéranger, "is due no doubt to the discipline that Saint Chrodegand had established among the canons. The traditions of this kind had to be preserved purer in this church, whose clergy kept with such regularity the observances of the canonical life."

IV. Epitaph of Saint Chrodegand, by Theodulf, Bishop of Orléans:

[Latin text omitted]

"Whoever you may be, whether you come from the West or the East, learn that this urn contains the ashes of a pious and pure man, having joined the brilliance of merit to the uprightness that the exercise of virtues gives. His acts were holy; the law of God was the object of his meditations, and he did not waver in the faith. He brought back from the see of Peter the Insignia of the Pallium, and as a Pastor he exalted the head of the Pastors. He gave his clergy the rule of a holy life. Light and glory of the Church, by his example and his words, he sent his works to heaven, for he possessed to a high degree the science of the direction of souls. Full of love for virtue, and horror for vice, he exercised his office of bishop with vigor. Consoler of widows, benefactor of the unfortunate, he showed himself the father of orphans. Loved by kings, venerated by peoples, his life could serve as a model for all. And when the years had set the limit of his course, he rendered to the earth what was of the earth. His soul flew toward the region of the stars."

Mabill., *Veter. analect.*, p. 377.

Abbé Noël, professor at the Grand Seminary of Metz, currently pastor of Briey (before 1872).