Saint Walbert

To the temporal independence thus secured was added a kind of spiritual independence, keenly sought from then on by all the great monasteries, and which they hastened to solicit either from the Popes or from provincial councils. It was a matter of shielding them, by a solemn privilege, from the abuses of authority and the vexations that the diocesan bishop, by virtue of his spiritual jurisdiction, could inflict upon them, whether by coming to lodge with them against their will, with a numerous retinue, or by making them pay dearly for the holy Chrism and the ordination of their brothers, or above all by hindering the freedom of their internal elections. Lérins had obtained this privilege from the Council of Arles in 451, and Agaune from the Council of Chalon in 579. Luxeuil could not fail to assert the same rights and the same needs.

Under the abbacy of Walbert, and upon the request made in the name of the minor King Clovis II, Pope John IV granted the privilege of exemption from episcopal au thority "to the monastery monastère de Saint-Pierre Monastery where Acharius was trained. of Saint Peter, founded," says the papal diploma, "by the venerable Columbanus, a Scot, who came as a stranger, but full of zeal and holiness, into the kingdom of the Franks... If, which God forbid, the monks of the said monastery should grow lukewarm in the love of God and the observance of the institutes of their Fathers, let them be corrected by the abbot, that is to say, by the Father of the monastery; and if it is he himself who falls into torpor and contempt of the paternal rule, the Holy See shall provide for it."

Six hundred monks formed, under the crosier of Walbert, the permanent garrison of this monastic citadel, from which missionaries went out daily, alone or in groups, to found new religious colonies far away. There came a moment when the multitude of religious who crowded to enter seemed to embarrass Abbot Walbert, and he sought ways to place them elsewhere and far away. For under him, even more than under his predecessors, the fecundity of Luxeuil became prodigious. "It is especially in his time that we saw," a contemporary tells us, "swarm throughout the Gauls, in castles and in cities, in the heart of the countryside as in the deserts, armies of monks and swarms of nuns who carried everywhere the glory and the laws of Benedict and Columbanus."

It would be a difficult task to attempt to trace a faithful picture of this monastic colonization of Frankish Gaul, of which Luxeuil was the center throughout the 7th century.

Walbert's administration was no less wise within than it was fruitful without. He advised his monks to study as the most powerful means of forgetting the world. Thus, at Luxeuil, intellectual work went hand in hand with manual labor: the monks read the Greek and Latin Fathers there. Care had been taken to provide them with a vast library, and, in order to increase it, these good brothers, encouraged by Saint Walbert, copied assiduously. "The function of a copyist," says Cassiodorus, "gives the secret of preaching with the hand, of speaking with the fingers, of announcing salvation to men while keeping silence; and it is very true that Satan is pierced with as many blows as a copyist transcribes words of the Lord." We shall not speak here of the school for laypeople, which was held outside the monastery without causing the slightest disturbance; if Saint Walbert was not its founder, it is certain at least that he contributed to its development, either by attracting a greater number of students through his merit and reputation, or by multiplying the subjects of instruction: one learned there the different meanings of the Bible, along with other branches of ecclesiastical science, chant, music, and everything that is understood under the name of liberal arts and humanities.

It is not possible to consider the work of Saint Walbert without recognizing in him the man of God, the arm of Providence, the prodigy of his century. Thus, during the forty years that he governed the monastery of Luxeuil, we see this house surrounded by universal consideration.

Amidst all the cares from within and without, Walbert still knew how to find time for his friends.

The bonds of a pious friendship united him in particular to Saint Miget, Bis hop of Besa saint Miget Bishop of Besançon and close friend of Walbert. nçon, and th is union Besançon Episcopal see restored by Saint Nicet. was so sweet to them both that they wished to prolong it beyond the tomb. To this end, they agreed between themselves that the one who survived would render the final duties to his friend, and it is permissible to think that these terms indicated not only the laying of the deceased in his place of burial, but also that mourning which the Holy Spirit recommends to perform in the bitterness of one's soul, and principally the prayers and sacrifices, which console the deceased on the day of his departure.

It was Saint Miget who remained charged with this care, at once so sweet and so full of bitterness. Walbert was reaching the fortieth year of his government: this year was his last; sustained by the presence of the bishop, and even more by the memory of his own works, he gently breathed his last on the sixth day of May 665. At the news of his death, the surrounding populations flocked from all sides. They came to mingle their tears with those of all the religious of the monastery, and to breathe once more, at the tomb of the Saint, the sweet odor of the virtues of which he had been the model. This tomb, magnificently crafted at the expense of Saint Miget, was placed in the church of Saint-Martin. It was a pledge of love and protection. Indeed, several authors have remarked that, during the many years that his body rested in this place, the enemies of the faith were powerless to penetrate the city, and that after the transport of this precious deposit, one witnessed the scene of desolation caused by the Saracens, under the government of Abbot Mellin.

Whatever may be the case with this conjecture, it is certain that many miracles were performed subsequently through the virtue of the relics of Saint W alber Adson 10th-century monk of Luxeuil and hagiographer. t. Adson, who recounts them, tells us in general that sight was restored to the blind, feet to the lame, health to the sick, vigor to the infirm, and consolation to afflicted hearts. He then signals several particular wonders. Thus, during the Nor man invasion in 888, invasion des Normands Military threat in 887 that prompted the transfer of relics to Dijon. the reliquary of the holy Abbot, which was no longer at the church of Luxeuil, was transported to the village of Herly, which the Barbarians had seized: immediately these same Barbarians, drawn as if by a secret force, abandoned the country, and a young libertine who took it upon himself to insult the monks was suddenly struck with idiocy. In another village, which could well be the town of Provins, there was a rather considerable personage who claimed possession of it to the detriment of the monastery: the holy relics were also transferred there, and a few days later, this reckless man expiated his fault with a fatal fall. In Alsace, where the religious passed carrying their treasure, the healing of two blind men and two men paralyzed in all their limbs brought an innumerable crowd of curious people, if not devout ones, to the borders of the county of Montbéliard with regard to our Saint. Among the Varasques, two new, even more striking healings finished attaching these populations, newly converted by Saint Eustase, to the yoke of the faith. There was not even an object that Saint Walbert had used to which God did not wish to attach a supernatural virtue: and we have acquired certain proof of this in times closer to our own. A vessel that belonged to him, and which has been transmitted to us by constant tradition, has been, in several circumstances, the means by which God has rewarded the piety of the faithful: "This vessel, of simple root," says a historian of the last century, "has been the instrument of an infinity of healings: those suffering from fever still hasten to drink from it, and to imitate in this regard pious antiquity, and, like it, they experience there the power of the holy abbot of Luxeuil: I have seen effects of it that border on the miraculous; I must render a solemn testimony of it here." It is thus that the friends of God are honored and glorified. While the bones of the impious, filled with the vices of their youth, sleep in the tomb, the remains of those who have lived holily tremble, and their inanimate body still prophesies.

The name of Saint Walbert has always been held in veneration in Burgundy, in Switzerland, and especially in the diocese of Besançon. None of the saints who honored the monastery of Luxeuil have obtained such a popular cult in Franche-Comté. A large number of parishes still invoke him today as their patron, and for a long time, the populations flocked to the abbey church to prostrate themselves before his reliquary and invoke, at his tomb, the one who had been admired during his lifetime. In the tenth century, a learned monk of Luxeuil, Adson, wrote the account of the numerous miracles that were performed through the intercession of the holy abbot.

In the twelfth century, we see a monastery placed under the patronage of our Saint. It is the priory of Saint-Walbert-lez-Héricourt, which depended on the abbey of Luxeuil. But a place even more filled with his memory is the hermitage of Saint Walbert, located a league from Luxeuil, in a valley surrounded by a belt of woods and rocks. It is there that one can still see the cave, set into the ground, where the illustrious hermit lived for a long time alone with God, after having renounced the world and its illusions. There, everything speaks of him: his name inscribed on the walls, the statue where he is represented in the attitude of prayer, and this solitude where, delivered from the tumult of the world, he walked in thought amidst the splendors of paradise, thus enjoying in the desert the company of the angels.

In 1570, a chapel in honor of Saint Walbert was erected and consecrated in these places through the care of Guillaume, sacristan of the abbey. This oratory, which today belongs to the seminary of Luxeuil, was restored in 1846. A few years ago, a popular festival, which was celebrated on the day after Easter, still attracted the neighboring populations to the hermitage of Saint Walbert. The relics of our Saint were often transported to Alsace, to Champagne, and even to Picardy, in the lands he had given to his monastery. But they were always brought back to Luxeuil, where they were kept in a vermeil reliquary, with the exception of his head, enclosed in a silver bust. One of his bones is still deposited today in a suitable reliquary and exposed to the veneration of the faithful in the chapel of the seminary of Luxeuil. His Eminence Cardinal Matthieu, Archbishop of Besançon, confirmed its authenticity on February 17, 1852. The seminary of Luxeuil also possesses the bowl that this Sai nt used écuelle Object that belonged to the saint, used for miraculous healings. at the monastery. It is from this vessel that the sick drank, hoping to obtain their healing through the intercession of the holy abbot.

The name of Saint Walbert is inscribed on May 2 in several martyrologies, and in some calendars drawn up from the end of the 8th century, in the time of Charlemagne. Trithemius, Bucelin, H. Menard, du Saussay, Wion, Molanus, and Chatelain also make mention of him. — Cf. Bailliot, May 2; Moines d'Occident, vol. II; Saints de Franche-Comté, vol. II.