First bishop of Auxerre and martyr at Bouhy, Saint Pélérin saw his remains dispersed between the Abbey of Saint-Denis, Prague, and Auxerre over the centuries. Despite Calvinist looting and revolutionary desecrations, his relics were preserved and authenticated by several successive bishops. His cult remains alive in the Nivernais and Auxerrois regions.
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RELICS OF SAINT PÉLERIN.
Burial and first translations
After his martyrdom at Bouhy, the body of Saint Pelerin was transferred to the Abbey of Saint-Denis during the reign of Dagobert I, leaving only his head and vertebrae at Bouhy.
After the martyrdom of Saint Pele saint Pélérin First bishop of Auxerre and martyr. rin, some Christians respectfully buried his precious remains at Bo uhy, Bouhy Place of the saint's martyrdom and first burial. the place of his execution. His body still rested there in the time of Saint Germain, and soon a church was erected over his tomb. Later, the body of the holy apostle of the Aux l'Auxerrois City and episcopal see of the saint. errois was transported to Saint-Denis, near Paris, and only his head and vertebrae remained at Bouhy.
It is said that it was King Dagobert I who obtained t he body of the holy bish monastère de Saint-Denis Site housing a relic of an Innocent. op of Auxerre for the monastery of Saint-Denis, and who had it transported there. In 1144, whe l'abbé Suger Abbot of Saint-Denis and royal advisor present at the Lateran. n Abbot Suger had the part of the church of Saint-Denis facing east built, one of the altars was placed under the invocation of Saint Pelerin, and consecrated by Hugues de Montaigu, Bishop of Auxerre.
Dispersion of relics in the Middle Ages
In the 14th and 15th centuries, the saint's bones were distributed to various institutions, notably to the Jacobins of Auxerre, to Prague, and to the Cathedral of Auxerre.
In the following century, several portions of the bones enclosed in the shrine of Saint Pélérin were removed. Jeanne d'Evreux, widow of Charles the Fair, obtained some in 1346 from Guy, Abbot of Saint-Denis, and presented them in 1342 to the Jacobins of Auxerre, after having them enclosed in a silver shrine. Emperor Charles IV had also obtained a portion; this was the one transported to Prague in 1373. The parish of La Roche-en-Bregny, two leagues from Saulieu, also claimed to possess an arm of the Saint. The church of Sens had a reliquary containing a piece of Saint Pélérin's clothing, soaked in his blood; and the Cathedral of Auxerre possessed, in a silver cross, one of the arms of its first bishop, before the loo premier évêque First bishop of Auxerre and martyr. ting of its treasury by the Calvinists.
Protection against desecration
The relics kept at Saint-Denis were taken to safety in Paris during the Wars of Religion, while the treasury of Auxerre suffered the pillaging of the Calvinists.
The rest of the body, deposited at Saint-Denis, escaped a similar desecration through the care taken by the monks at that time to transport all their reliquaries to Paris. It was in 1570 that Charles of Lorraine, Abbot of Saint-Denis, had it brought back to the monastery; he placed the body of Saint Pélérin in a new shrine. Dom Georges Vièle, speaking of the Charterhouse of Basseville, near Clamecy, reports that in his time a piece of Saint Pélérin's stole was kept there. Several churches in the vicinity of Paris obtained from the Abbey of Saint-Denis some portions of the precious relics of the holy Martyr.
Rediscovery and authentication in the 17th and 18th centuries
In 1645, the accidental discovery of remains in Bouhy led to a confrontation with the relics of Saint-Denis, resulting in a solemn authentication by Bishop de Caylus in 1715.
Dominique Séguier, Bishop of Auxerre, wished to repair the loss that his church had suffered during the pillaging by the Calvinists by procuring other relics of the holy apostle of the Auxerrois; he therefore addressed the monastery of Saint-Denis to obtain what he desired, and they consented, in 1634, to give him half of one of the Saint's femurs; he had it encased in a gilded silver reliquary worth 2,000 livres, and donated it to his church in 1636. It was nine years later, in 1645, that the inhabitants of Bouhy, while rebuilding their altar, found, while digging the foundations, a fragment of a sepulcher that contained the head and vertebrae of a large human body and the body of a small child. The cardinal, to ensure that these were the remains of Saint Pélérin, wrote to the monks of Saint-Denis, who opened their shrine and recognized that they possessed the body of the Saint, but without the head and vertebrae.
Pierre de Broc, then Bishop of Auxerre, himself transported these remains to Saint-Denis to compare them with those possessed by that monastery. Pierre de Broc had contented himself with sending the head and vertebrae back to Bouhy, without issuing any ordinance regarding the petition of the inhabitants. Sixty-nine years later, the faithful of the parish of Bouhy made new requests to Bishop de Caylus, and begged him to issue a definitive ordinance after having consulted all the official reports.
Bishop de Caylus agreed to the Mgr de Caylus Bishop of Auxerre who authenticated the relics in 1715. ir just request; he went to Bouhy, examined the relics again in the presence of a considerable crowd that had flocked from neighboring regions, and issued an ordinance by which he declared the relic authentic and worthy of the veneration of the faithful, and immediately he venerated it himself, on May 1, 1715. During this translation, Bishop de Caylus removed a portion of the relic, which he gave to his cathedral church, and another portion to the parish church of Saint-Pélérin in Auxerre.
Rescue during the Revolution and modern verifications
The faithful hid the relics to protect them from the revolutionaries of 1793; they were later gathered and verified by the bishops of Nevers in the 19th century.
The parish priest of Bouhy at that time was a certain Deschez, who later became a canon of the collegiate church of Sainte -Eugé Varzy French town possessing important relics of the saint. nie in Varzy; during the translation ceremony of 1715, he took care to extract for himself a portion of the relics of Saint Pélérin, which he kept with care until 1733. At that time, he donated them to the chapter of Sainte-Eugénie, and Mgr Nicolas Colbert, then visiting the collegiate church, enclosed this relic, along with others, in an ebony reliquary and sealed it with his seal. This reliquary was one of those transported on October 9, 1792, from the collegiate church to the parish church of Saint-Pierre in Varzy, in whose treasury it is still deposited.
On May 4, 1854, Abbé Crounier, Vicar General of Nevers, passing through Varzy, verified the relics of Saint Pélérin, recognized the seal of Mgr de Caylus applied in red wax on the opening of the reliquary; and, as this seal was partially broken, he replaced it with that of Mgr Dufêtre, Bishop of Nevers. As for the part of the head of Saint Pélérin that the church of Bouhy had preserved, J ean-Loup Rimbault, Jean-Loup Rimbault Inhabitant of Bouhy who saved relics from revolutionary desecration. a resident of the village, was fortunate enough to save it from the profanations of the revolutionary agents of 1793; he gave a few pieces to his friends so that, in case of an accident, one would not be exposed to losing everything. In 1817, M. Gandri, parish priest of Bouhy, having learned that several people possessed relics of Saint Pélérin, encouraged them to come and return them to him, and a report, dated May 12 of the same year, notes that the greater part of these relics were deposited in his hands. M. Hurlault, his successor, worked actively to discover the rest of these relics, in concert with M. Vée, parish priest of Dampierre-sous-Bouhy (1828).
Mr. Rimbault having died in Entrains, his widow brought back to M. Vée, parish priest of Entrains, a piece of the left temporal bone that had been kept by the deceased. Besides this piece of the head of Saint Pélérin, the church of Entrains possesses a part of the tibia coming from the cathedral of Auxerre. In the recognition that took place on March 18, 1828, M. Hurlault had kept for himself a fragment of the head of Saint Pélérin; transferred later to Courcelles, he donated it to the church of his new parish.
Source of the hagiography
The text is taken from the work Hagiologie nivernaise written by Mgr Crouvier.
H agiologie nivernaise Hagiologie nivernaise Reference work for this biography. by Mgr Crouvier.
Annexes & related entities
Structured data for exploration: events, miracles, quotes, places, attributes, patronages, and important entities cited in the text.
Key Events
- Martyrdom and burial in Bouhy
- Translation of the relics to Saint-Denis by King Dagobert I
- Consecration of an altar at Saint-Denis in 1144
- Dispersion of relics to Prague, Auxerre, and La Roche-en-Bregny in the 14th century
- Rescue of relics during the Wars of Religion and the Revolution