Saint Fursey

The time of the innocent princess having arrived, she gave birth to our Saint, who was regenerated in the holy waters of baptism by the same Saint Brendan, and named Fursy. This child soon gave signs of his future holiness, by the gentleness of his nature and a very strong inclination that he showed for the exercises of piety, which obliged Saint Brendan to take particular care of his education. He placed him, according to the custom of that time, in the monastery of Cluain Ferta, under the guidance of the monks, where he made, in a few years, very great progress in the practice of virtue and in the knowledge of divine and human letters. Having made profession of the monastic life, he applied himself, with much fruit, to the preaching of the Gospel; and the fervor of his zeal compensating for the weakness of his age, he immediately won a great number of infidels and sinners to the service of Our Lord; for the pagans were still very numerous despite the missions that had succeeded one another in Ireland since the 4th century.

"Now, it happened that King Brendin, who governed southern Ultonia, had two twin children, a son and a daughter who died at the same time; at which all those of the country were saddened; they could not be buried; the Irish pagans would have wanted to dismember the corpses to eat them. King Aelfind, by the counsel of the wise, entrusted them to sea-rovers to take them away by night and have them buried in secret. But they did not reach the place where they had proposed to go: it pleased God that they should land before the hermitage that Saint Fursy had built for himself near the monastery.

"In the morning, when the day had come, behold the holy young man Fursy who goes to the church as he was accustomed: when he opened the door, he saw the bodies of his cousin and his cousin all naked, at which he was very surprised and began to weep with pity and prayed to Our Lord, saying: Fair Lord God, grant that the souls may return into these bodies. Scarcely had he finished his prayer when the children rose up all joyful; then they were amazed and felt great shame. The holy young man Fursy had pity on them. After having found them suitable clothing, he took a staff, threw it into the sea, commanded it to go straight to the port from which the children had come, and signaled to the children to follow it without fear. Now, listen to a thing that must amaze and that must be told for the glory of Our Lord: the staff went on ahead as if it had understanding; the children walked boldly in its wake in the path it traced, until they arrived in their country and recognized their people."

Upon learning of this double miracle of Saint Fursy, the parents of the two twins resolved to go and show him their gratitude.

Our Saint would sometimes tear himself away from solitude to go and evangelize the neighboring regions. One day, as he was setting out to preach in his father's kingdom, he suddenly fell ill and was brought back to his monastery. It was then that he had a series of ecstasies and raptures, of which the Vene vénérable Bède Anglo-Saxon monk and historian, primary source for the narrative. rable Bede, in his *Ecclesiastical History of the English People*, has left us an account that Ribadeneira reproduced: we shall provide only an abridgment. In these suspensions of his senses, he saw marvelous things for his own instruction and for that of his religious and those to whom he was to preach the Gospel. Angels appeared to him and defended him against various accusations from demons who sought his condemnation. They made known to him that there were mainly four fires that inflamed the world and ruined Christians, namely: infidelity to the promises of their baptism, the covetousness of earthly riches, the spirit of dissension, and hardness of heart toward one's neighbor. He heard them singing alternately these first two verses of Psalm 84: "The saints shall go from virtue to virtue; the God of gods shall be seen in Sion"; and the Trisagion: "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts." He also perceived in three of these angels an admirable figure of the most Holy Trinity; because, although they were three, there was no dissimilarity in them, neither in face, nor in voice, nor in the brightness that surrounded them. Two holy bishops, namely: Saint Beoan and Saint Meldan, instructed him in turn, in this vision, on various calamities that were to befall the world and the means to avoid them; and exhorted him to preach penance, not only to the people, but also to prelates and princes. The soul of a damned usurer also appeared to him, and God permitted that this image, having thrown itself upon him, left him, on his shoulder and jaw, marks of the fire that burned it, in punishment for having accepted a garment that this usurer had bequeathed to him.

Saint Fursy prayed to God never to remove his scars so that he might remember, for the rest of his life, how fearful it is to fall into the hands of divine justice. From that time on, when the holy abbot spoke in conference with his monks of what he had seen and heard of the torments of hell, he would tremble and sweat with apprehension.

Saint Fursy, having entirely returned to himself, applied himself to the preaching of the Gospel, following the order he had received from heaven, and preached for another twelve years in the kingdoms of Ireland, Scotland, and England. He converted a great number of idolaters and sinners there by the power of his words and by the admirable example of his life, and w on over e Sigisbert King of East Anglia converted by Fursa. ntirely to God Sigisbert, King of East Anglia, one of the seven kingdoms founded successively from the 5th to the 6th century by the Angles and the Saxons in Great Britain.

Thanks to the liberality of this monarch, the Ir ish missiona Cnobbersburg Monastery founded by Fursa in England. ry was able to build at Cnobbersburg, today Burghcastle, in the current county of Suffolk, a great monastery where numerous disciples soon flocked; he lived there for some time with them to better train them in the practice of regular observances.

Whatever the generosity of King Anna, successor to Sigisbert, he could not provide a bell for the church of the new abbey: "Then the angel of Our Lord brought one through the air, which still existed in 1468." There is another miracle of a bell in the life of Saint Fursy: the monks of Lismore, in Ireland, one day perceived one that was fluttering in space. Having questioned Saint Cuanne, their abbot, about this prodigy, the latter replied that it was the bell of Saint Fursy which, not being able to come and tighten the bonds of monastic fraternity with them, had sent the bell of his monastery to represent him. For lack of anything else, these anecdotes have their importance from the point of view of the history of bells.

One of the main points of his piety was the sanctification of feast days. He began the celebration of Sunday at Vespers on Saturday, and spent the rest of the day and the following one in prayer or in practices of virtue, in order to fill the Sabbath with works worthy of God. He had an extraordinary charity for the poor, and made no difficulty in distributing to them, in times of scarcity, all the provisions of his monastery. A murmur having arisen on this subject among the brothers, who feared falling into need, he taught them to put their trust in God through a miraculous harvest that he caused to grow in one of their lands, a few days after having sown grain there.

After having governed this monastery for some time, Saint Fursy, desiring to live in greater retirement, resigned his office of abbot into the hands of his brother, Saint Foillan, gave him two priests of eminent virtue as associates, and withdrew into solitude with Saint Ultan, his second brother, who was already leading an eremitic life. They spent a year together with incomparable sweetness, often communing with God through prayer, and sometimes working with their hands to refresh their spirits. But at the end of this time, he was forced to leave the contemplative life by the incursion of the King of Mercia (one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms), the violent and turbulent Penda, who was making war on the King of East Anglia. He even left Great Britain and came to France around 646, where he performed notable miracles on all sides. In Ponthieu, he resurrected the son of Duke Haymon: the latter, admiring such a great wonder, spared nothing to keep him by his side; but he could not succeed, because Fursy's intention was to go to Rome; he promised the duke that if God preserved his life, he would come to see him again; and that, if that could not be done, he would give him notice. At the village of Antiolum, today Authuille, on the small river Ancre, he cast the demon out of the body of a wretch who had robbed him on the road, and who, in punishment for this crime, was being cruelly tormented with his whole family by this evil spirit. He converted him, along with all his kin, to our holy religion, and through that charity which has no gall, he made his persecutor his brother in Jesus Christ. At Grandcourt, near Arras, he delivered a lady of quality named Ermanfède from a similar possession, who had fallen into this misfortune for having turned him away without wishing to offer him hospitality. He did not, however, return to her; but, touched by the tears of the servants who ran after him and represented the deplorable state of their mistress, he sent one of his disciples to her with his staff, which was sufficient to heal her. She later came herself to thank him, and was thereafter very pious and very hospitable. Our Saint, thus continuing his journey through France and Italy, finally arrived in Rome, where Saint Martin held the a postolic see saint Martin Martyr pope sent into exile by Constans II. . From the moment he caught sight of this city, consecrated by the blood of the two greatest Apostles and an infinity of other Martyrs, and adorned with the merits of so many illustrious Confessors and holy Virgins, he knelt down and greeted it with great respect and devotion. Having entered, he visited all the places of piety with extraordinary fervor, and shed many tears to appease the anger of God, irritated against sinners, and to draw His blessing upon the whole Church. As he was thinking of his departure, God commanded him to speak to the Pope and to receive a mission from him for the exercise of preaching and apostolic functions among the peoples. The Pope would have been delighted to keep him by his side; he offered him ecclesiastical dignities for that purpose; but seeing that he was called elsewhere, he very willingly granted him the mission he requested. It is even said that he consecrated him a regionary bishop for all of France, in order to assist the prelates of this kingdom in the great mission they had to accomplish, and that he gave him as a pastoral staff a wooden crozier that several holy Popes, his predecessors, had used. According to Abbé Corblet, the journey to Rome and the episcopate of Saint Fursy are not supported by irrefutable documents. The current proper of the diocese of Amiens not only passes over the episcopate of Saint Fursy in silence, but formally denies the journey to Rome which would have been the occasion for it, while the office celebrated today in Péronne affirms this ancient tradition.

Finally, after several journeys, this fervent preacher came to Paris, where King Clovis II, brother of Sigebert, and Saint Bathilde, his wife, showed him great honors. They recommended him particularly to Erchinoald or Archambaud, their mayor of the palace.

This personage listened with deference to the apostolic advice that our Saint lavished upon the monks, the bishops, the courtiers, and the king himself. Full of veneration for the holy missionary, he begged him to go and baptize his son at the castle of Péronne. After the baptism of the child, who is believed to be Leudèse, mayor of the palace under Theuderic I, Fursy miraculously caused six criminals to be released from prison whose deliverance this lord had refused him; this earned him so much esteem from him that he absolutely wanted to keep him on his lands. For this purpose, he had an oratory built for him near the palace he had in this city, on the mount that was called Cynophis, otherwise the Mount of the Swans; Fursy often went there to pray. He presented to this sanctuary the bodies of Saint Bédon, Saint Meldan, and Saint Patrick, which he had brought back from Ireland.

Erchinoald, knowing that Saint Fursy wished to found a monastery in Neustria, charged three of his officers to travel with him through the lands that belonged to his domain, so that the Celtic monk could make his choice. The Saint's Lagny-en-Brie Principal monastery where Momble was a monk and later abbot. preference fell on Lagny-en-Brie, in the vicinity of Chelles, a fertile land bathed by the Marne and then belonging to the diocese of Paris.

Thanks to the combined liberality of Erchinoald, Clovis II, and his wife Saint Bathilde, Saint Fursy was able to build, around 648, a monastery and three chapels, one of which was later to take his name. In a short time, he assembled there, under the rule of Saint Benedict, a large number of religious who edified all of France by the purity of their lives. It was there that the Saint obtained a miraculous fountain which he brought forth by sticking his staff into the ground. Its waters have since been used for the healing of the sick.

This fountain still exists and is more than sufficient to supply the whole city. But people no longer come to seek water for the healing of diseases. In very distant times, it seems that this took place. Here is all that remains of the ancient pilgrimage: on Ascension Day, every year, after the Magnificat, at Vespers, the relics of Saint Fursy are carried in procession before the spring; a station of a few minutes is made there, and one returns to the church.

The holiness of this blessed abbot also shone through the power he had over demons, for there was no possessed person who did not find in his prayer a sure remedy against this misfortune.

It was during his stay at Lagny that Saint Fursy lent his assistance to Audobert, Bishop of Paris, and perhaps to his successor Saint Landry, by fulfilling the functions of chorepiscopus, which were equivalent to those of our current vicars general. It is undoubtedly in this capacity that, in concert with Saint Bobolin, he built a church at Compans, which he had consecrated by Bishop Audobert.

Erchinoald, redoubling his generosity, went to Lagny and announced to our Saint that he was going to have a second monastery built for him on a mountain near Péronne (this is the origin of the abbey of Mont-Saint-Quentin), and furthermore a church on the Mount of the Swans, on the site of this castle chapel, where the Irish Apostle had often gone to pray.

Saint Fursy led some monks from Lagny to Péronne. "A very ancient book, written by hand and kept at the monastery of Mont-Saint saint Eloy Founder of the monastery and spiritual advisor to Saint Aurea. -Quentin," "states that Saint Eloy, who was then Bishop of Noyon, was asked to perform the ceremony of the consecration of the church; which was accomplished solemnly in the presence of the greatest of the nobility of the surroundings and an innumerable multitude of people who came from all sides."

Various religious men, whom Saint Fursy had once trained in Ireland for the monastic life, among others Saint Emilian, wished to place themselves under his direction again. They left their homeland and came to Lagny, where their presence soon gave new impetus to the piety that reigned in this sanctuary. Saint Fursy, who wanted to visit the English monastery of Onobbersburg, whose direction he had entrusted to Saint Foillan, placed the government of Lagny in the hands of Saint Emilian and set off on a journey that was to be interrupted at its very beginning by death. He fell ill upon arriving a Mézerolles Place of death of Saint Fursey. t Mézerolles, an estate that Count Haymon had once offered him. Clovis II and Erchinoald rushed to visit him, and perhaps they were witnesses to his death.

At that very hour, Saint Fursy fulfilled the promise he had made to Duke Haymon to warn him of his passing; for he appeared to him dressed in priestly vestments and accompanied by two levites who, like him, held burning candles in their hands. The holy missionary had indeed announced to him in the past that when he appeared to him with three lights, the moment of his death would have arrived. The duke was then at the table and had guests with him; but he alone shared in this vision. He explained it to his guests and left immediately with his entire household. Upon arriving at Mézerolles, he found near the body all the clerics, the virgins, and the people of the region gathered to pay their final honors to the Saint.

While he was thinking of appropriating the relics of Saint Fursy, the same desire animated Erchinoald, as well as Berchaire, Count of Laon, who had once invited the missionary to come and evangelize the city of Laon. Erchinoald sent a courier to Duke Haymon to claim the body of the Saint in the name of the king, and warned him that in case of refusal he would use force. The Count of Ponthieu replied to the messenger that Providence seemed to have designated him to be the possessor of this treasure, that the Saint had died on his lands, that he had resurrected his son there and performed many other wonders, and finally that he had appeared to him immediately after his death. He added that it would be unjust and cruel to stain with blood the funeral of one who had preached peace and concord on earth. Erchinoald, who had already brought a threatening cavalry to the banks of the Authie, allowed himself to be touched by these considerations and consented to submit to what was then called the judgment of God. The body of the Saint was placed on a chariot yoked to two untamed bulls, left to their own instinct, and it was agreed that it would become the property of the one whose lands would serve as a stopping point for the adventurous journey of the chariot. This agreement was executed the next day with a great concourse of wonders. At the moment when the body was placed on the chariot, a woman from the region, blind from birth, arrived. She mingled with the assistants: hardly had she applied her eyes to the funeral shroud than Our Lord restored her sight: at this spectacle, all threw down their weapons and began to pray before the coffin, giving thanks to God and to "My Lord" Saint Fursy. The two bulls were yoked to the chariot as had been agreed, and without being led, they headed toward Péronne: on the road, it also happened that a paralytic was healed.

In the meantime, a third competitor appeared: it was Berchaire, Count of Laon, accompanied by a body of cavalry. He first set forth the rights he thought he had. Had he not given a portion of his goods to the monasteries founded by the Irish missionary? If Fursy had not gone to Laon, it was because Erchinoald had prevented him. Did he not, moreover, have a right of suzerainty over the land where the Abbot of Lagny had died? Not having been able to see him when he was alive, should he not claim his rights of possession over his mortal remains? They succeeded in calming the wrath of Berchaire and made him accept the decision that the judgment of God would render. At his request, the bulls were unyoked and replaced by two seven-year-old children. A supernatural force, unknown to that age, took hold of these new drivers, and the chariot arrived without incident at the Mont-des-Cygnes, in Péronne. It was received there by Erchinoald, in front of the unfinished portal of the church he was building. A tent was set up to shelter the precious remains while awaiting the completion of the work, which was to last a month. During this time, the body, guarded night and day, was preserved without alteration.

Erchinoald hastened to finish the church, which was later to take the name of Saint-Fursy and become one of the most famous collegiate churches in Picardy. He spared no expense for this work, to the great displeasure of his wife Leutsinde, who was very stingy. She reproached him for squandering his patrimony and compromising the future of his children to erect a church to a foreigner, whose name she blasphemed. Erchinoald tried in vain to recall the favors he owed to the intercession of this holy abbot and to exhort her not to awaken his wrath: "What do I have to fear," she exclaimed, "from a corpse fallen into dissolution?" "I have such confidence in God," replied the castellan of Péronne, "that I am certain that this body has remained sheltered from the defilements of death. If it were not so, and we shall know at the moment of the Elevation, I pledge to return to you a hundredfold what the erection of this church has cost."

Twenty-five days after the death of Saint Fursy, on February 9, at the moment when Saint Eloi, Bishop of Noyon, and Saint Aubert, Bishop of Cambrai, were going to consecrate the new church, they opened the coffin where the remains of the Abbot of Lagny lay. Leutsinde stepped forward curiously to contemplate them, when she was struck with blindness. Repentant of her fault, she then recommended herself to the prayers of the two bishops and the assistants, and invoked the Saint she had despised. Her supplications being answered, she was then able to contemplate the body of the Blessed one, which had undergone no corruption.

Leutsinde was later to atone for her avarice and her inconsiderate conduct by using a portion of her goods for the maintenance of the church of the Mont-des-Cygnes.

The two consecrating bishops carried the body of the Blessed one behind the high altar dedicated to Saint Peter. Numerous miracles were accomplished in this church, which was soon to have as its guard of honor the chapter that Erchinoald founded.

## RELICS, CULT, AND MONUMENTS.

Four years after the burial of Saint Fursy, on September 28, 654, Saint Eloi, Bishop of Noyon, and Saint Aubert, Bishop of Cambrai, returned to Péronne to proceed with the elevation of the relics, whose miracles were multiplying. The body, found in a perfect state of preservation, was placed in a shrine that had been commissioned by Erchinoald from the famous goldsmith Saint Eloi, and placed on the high altar of the church of Mont-des-Cygnes. Saint Foillan, Abbot of Fosse, and Saint Emilien, Abbot of Lagny, assisted at this translation.

The third translation of the body of Saint Fursy took place on September 17, 1256, in the presence of Saint Louis, who had just returned to France after an absence of six years. The shrine that replaced that of Saint Eloi was made of gilded copper, adorned with precious stones, and decorated with statues of the twelve Apostles.

The seal of Saint Louis was destroyed in '93, as well as the piece of parchment where this report was recorded; but the four episcopal seals were saved; they are today in the possession of Mr. Desnoyers, Vicar-General of Orléans, and were drawn in the *Histoire du Chapitre royal de Saint-Fursy de Péronne*, a work by Mr. J. Gosselin.

On September 13, 1641, this shrine was opened, where the body of Saint Fursy was found in such a state of preservation that the faithful of Péronne redoubled their piety for the memory of their patron saint. The head was removed and placed separately in a silver casket, one of the sides of which was made of crystal. In 1644, a bust of Saint Fursy was given as a pedestal to this reliquary, supported by two oxen intended to recall the memory of the miraculous chariot.

It was on the occasion of the opening of the great shrine that the Chapter gave the Benedictine abbey of Lagny a fragment of the head of Saint Fursy, and received in exchange the Saint's maniple.

In 1760, the shrine of Saint Fursy was placed in the new chapel that had just been erected for him.

At the annual procession of the siege of Péronne, four aldermen carried the great gilded copper shrine; the mercer merchants, the arm of Saint Fursy; the gunners and arquebusiers, the reliquary of the head.

The three shrines of Saint Fursy were profaned in '93; but the bones, saved by a pious faithful, were later restored to the veneration of the city and deposited in the church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste.

This person kept a brachial bone which she gave to a former sister of charity. This humerus, divided into three fragments, was authenticated in 1852; new divisions made later provided relics of Saint Fursy to various parishes and to several individuals, among whom we will cite Mr. J. Gosselin, parish priest of Pertain, and Mr. Josse, parish priest of Gorenfios.

On January 12, 1853, the bishops of the province of Reims, who were assembled in Amiens for a provincial council, went to Péronne and placed the head of Saint Fursy in a shrine in the shape of a silver dish, chiseled with the arms of Péronne and surrounded by an ebony oval.

Abbé Vattnelle, vicar of Saint-Jean of Péronne, drew up the exact list of the bones of Saint Fursy preserved in his parish church:

A portion of the skull including the frontal bone and the nasal bones, etc. — The entire lower jaw, fourteen vertebrae, including six cervical, five dorsal, and three lumbar. — The entire sacrum. — One of the two entire hip bones. — The two entire shoulder blades. — An entire collarbone. — The upper portion of the sternum. — Several entire ribs. — The two femurs. — The two entire tibias. — A portion of a fibula. — The two kneecaps. — Several bones of the tarsus and metatarsus. — An entire humerus. — An entire ulna. — A considerable portion of the other ulna. — A portion of the radius. — A large number of the bones of the carpus and metacarpus. — Five hand bones and several phalanges.

Lagny was also able to hide from the revolutionaries the relic of Saint Fursy that had been given to it in 1641.

We do not believe that any relics of Saint Fursy have been preserved in England. Let us recall, however, that when Saint Fursy left his homeland to go to France, he left as a souvenir to his saddened monks the belt he used.

Among the relics that have disappeared today, we must cite those that old inventories indicate at Notre-Dame de Noyon, at Saint-Vaast d'Arras, at Notre-Dame de Longpré, and at Saint-Pierre d'Abbeville; the chasuble and stole that were once kept at the monastery of Lagny; and finally, a pastoral staff, which was supposed to have belonged to our Saint, and which the treasurer of the collegiate church of Péronne carried in various solemn processions.

Some relics of the patron of Péronne are kept at the Holy Sepulcher of Abbeville, and in the churches of Beaumont, Bernaville, Frohen, Mailly, and Mont-Saint-Quentin.

The cult of Saint Fursy dates, so to speak, from the day of his death. Throughout the Middle Ages, he was invoked especially for various diseases that are enumerated in an ancient hymn, such as fever, paralysis, stones, dropsy, bowel diseases, hernias, etc.

It was from the arrival of the relics of Saint Fursy that Péronne took on a certain importance. Pilgrims flocked there from all the provinces of France, and even from the depths of Ireland, which caused this city to be given the name *Perona Scotorum*, and one of its districts the name of Brittany.

The devotion to Saint Fursy, which is manifested mainly during the novena of January 16, was even much more vivid in the past. The sick used to have cloths touched to the tomb of Saint Fursy and did not fail to drink water from the fountain that bore his name, water that was previously blessed by the treasurer of the collegiate church.

But it was especially in times of plague or war that confidence in the patron saint broke out. At the siege of 1536, waged by Henry of Nassau, the protection of the Saint was frequently invoked and often felt.

Saint Fursy is not only the patron of the city of Péronne, but also of that of Lagny-sur-Marne and of seven churches in the diocese of Amiens: Authuille, Les Bœufs, Frohen-le-Grand, Frohen-le-Petit, Gueschard, Le Meillard, and Pys.

Saint Fursy is still venerated today in Ireland and especially at Kill-Fursa, a church that has kept his name and which was built on the ruins of the monastery of Clunaferte, where the childhood and youth of the holy abbot were spent.

In the current Proper of Arras, the feast of Saint Fursy is transferred to January 19. The diocese of Cambrai celebrates it, like Amiens, on January 16. On the same date, Saint Fursy is commemorated in the Paris breviary and in several of those that were modeled on the Parisian liturgy.

Place names bear the name of Saint-Fursy in the communes of Assevillers, Bouchavesnes, Cérisy-Gailly, Combles, Feuillères, Gineby, Ilem-Nenacu, etc.

At the collegiate church of Saint-Fursy, besides the main feast of January 16, the feast of two translations was celebrated, on February 9 and September 17.

After the restoration of the Roman liturgy, the very ancient office that is dedicated to him in the old Peronne Proper of 1669 was resumed in Péronne.

On the site currently occupied by the prisons of Péronne, at the place still called the *butte Saint-Fursy*, one could see, before the Revolution, a vast Romanesque church which, despite successive reconstructions and the alleged embellishments that weakened it during the reign of Louis XV, was nonetheless one of the monumental glories of Picardy and even of France. It was the Collegiate Church of Saint-Fursy, where the ashes of Charles the Simple rested, almost ignored, but where the venerated remains of a humble Irish missionary had attracted, for a thousand years, the eager crowd of pilgrims. This vast church had succeeded the oratory that Erchinoald had built on the tomb of Saint Fursy.

The old monastery founded at Lagny by Saint Fursy is today completely abandoned and covered (5th profanation!) in stables and warehouses. Of this convent, a true and venerable nursery of Saints and learned Benedictines, only a single semicircular arch remains.

An Anonymous author, who wrote around the year 665, and having undoubtedly been a disciple of Saint Fursy in Ireland or England, left us Acts of the famous abbot of Lagny. He dwells at length on his visions, but gives only incomplete information on his stay in France. This Life was published by Surius (vol. 1, p. 259), with stylistic mutilations; by J. Bolland (January 18), and by Mabillon (vol. III, p. 269).

The Venerable Bede, in his *History of England* (vol. III, c. 19), analyzed the anonymous work of the 7th century and modified it on some points. Living half a century after Saint Fursy, he was able to collect various testimonies from his contemporaries.

A much more detailed Life of Saint Fursy, from the end of the 11th century, was edited by J. Bolland and by J. Colgan (*Acta Sanctorum Scotiae*, vol. 75). There can be no doubt that it is by Arnoul, Abbot of Lagny: for a manuscript coming from the Library of Alex. Petan, and today preserved in the Vatican Library, under no. 568, bears this title: *Fursei vita et miracula per Arnulidum abbatem Latinisci*.

Montfaucon mentions a *Vita S. Fursei nemurbi et servus in curatum*, forming part of the Library of Lorenzo de' Medici; it appears to us to be a different work from those we have just mentioned.

Jean Mielot, canon of Saint-Pierre de Lille and chaplain to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, translated in 1468 the Life written by Arnoul of Lagny. One finds there certain passages that prove well that he used a text different from the one published by Bolland and Colgan. We have had the opportunity to call for the acquisition of these special accounts. The original manuscript, coming from the Library of the Chapter of Saint-Fursy, belongs today to Mr. Carton, chaplain of the Saint-Quentin high school. Baron de La Fons de Millinacq published, in *La Picardie* (vol. 1, p. 452), some short fragments relating to the visions of Saint Fursy.

Doumay, canon of the church of Saint-Fursy, published in 1507 the *Life of Saint Fursy, patron of the city of Péronne*, which was reissued in 1525 and 1715. Ralliat said of this work that it was done "without discernment and perhaps without much love for the truth."

While a canon of Péronne was publishing a third edition of the *Life of Saint Fursy* by Doumay, put into better French, Vincent Mignon, Doctor of the Sorbonne and parish priest of Saint-Jean, had published in Péronne, by the same printer Lebeau, an abridgment of this work, under this title: *History of the life of Saint Fursy, patron of Péronne, with the lives of Saint Follicin and Saint Ulisie, his brothers*. 1715, small in-8°. It is a very summary account, interspersed with historical digressions on the city of Péronne.

To correct and complete the life of Saint Fursy, we have drawn abundantly from the laborious and conscientious work of Abbé Corbist (*Hagiography of the diocese of Amiens*, vol. II, p. 260).