Saint Theobald of Provins

The strongest inclination of our young lord was toward solitude. He was charmed by the angelic life of Elijah and Elisha on Mount Carmel, of Saint John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan, and he felt the greatest joy at the account of the virtues of Paul, Anthony, Hilarion, and Pachomius in the deserts of Egypt and the Thebaid; the severity of their silence, their continual abstinence, their assiduity in the exercise of prayer and contemplation, their love for poverty, and the familiarity they had with the Angels were all-powerful attractions that carried away his soul and made the delights of the court insipid to him. He therefore formed the design of imitating them; but, as he was gifted with great wisdom and singular prudence, distrusting his own lights and the sentiments he felt in his heart, he resolved to consult a hermit named Burchard, who lived as a recluse on the banks of the Seine, where he was in Burchard Bishop of Würzburg who transferred the relics in the following century. great reputation for holiness. Some say that this hermit had been his tutor, and that, disgusted by the vices of the court, he had retired to these shores to do penance, and that he later became a religious at Sens in the abbey of Saint-Pierre le Vif. Others believe that it was the blessed Burchard, who, from a hermit on the banks of the Seine in Burgundy, was made Archbishop of Vienne at the solicitation of Rudolph, King of Burgundy, and Irmengarde, his wife; God manifested his holiness in our days, said Father Giry in 1685, by a great number of miraculous healings, which were performed and are still being performed at his tomb: thus Jerome de Villars, archbishop and count of the same city, informed Pope Paul V and the Sacred College of Cardinals of it.

Thibaut therefore went to visit this holy hermit and declared to him the design that God was inspiring in him to leave his parents and all his acquaintances to embrace the solitary life. Burchard kept him for a few days in his hermitage; and, to test his vocation, he made him practice during this time all the exercises of a penitent life. He accustomed him to wearing a hair shirt, to bloodying his body with harsh disciplines, to fasting often, to spending entire hours in prayer, with arms extended and eyes raised toward the heaven, to mortifying his inclinations and appetites, in a word, to waging a continual war against himself. When he had sufficiently tested him, recognizing the truth of the eminence of his vocation, he encouraged him to obey it; Thibaut felt himself drawn to it more than ever, and he conceived such a great desire for this blessed state which detaches the soul from all sensible things to attach it only to the celestial and eternal ones, that, from then on, no difficulty or temptation, nor even all the rage of the demons, could tear it from his heart. In this sentiment, he asked for Burchard's blessing and, having taken leave of him, he returned to his parents to await the favorable time for the execution of his design.

Scarcely had he arrived there when his father, who wished to engage him in the world and establish his fortune through a great alliance, spoke to him of marriage. Indeed, as he was very well-formed, and his good qualities of body and mind, joined to the advantages of his birth and the riches of his house, made him one of the best matches in the kingdom, he could not hope for less than a great princess; but the most accomplished person was not capable of pleasing him, because, having consecrated himself to eternal wisdom, he saw nothing on earth that could be compared to it. "All the beauties of this world," he said to himself, "will pass like a dream, and we will pass with them. Would I be miserable enough to amuse myself with them? They would soon leave me; I must therefore be the first to leave them." Meanwhile, Odo II, Count of Blois, to whom Queen Constance, wife of King Robert, had given the city of Sens, raised a large army to take possession of the kingdom of Upper Burgundy, which he claimed belonged to him after the death of Rudolph III (1032), and which was disputed by the Emperor Conrad, called the Salic. Arnoul, father of our Saint, who was a relative and vassal of Odo, and in this capacity obliged to support him, raised several companies of soldiers for this war. He wished to give the command to his son, who was still very young, and who by this means would have been at the head of the nobility of Champagne. But our Saint refused this honor: he desired to serve God and not princes, to fight against himself instead of shedding the blood of others. After spending a few more years in his father's house, he resolved to abandon the world definitively: he left his family with a gentleman of his friends, named Gauthier, and went to Reims, where he l odged in Gauthier Companion of Thibaut in hermitage and pilgrimage. the abbey of Saint-Remi. They were both on horseback, and each had a servant who followed them; but having left the servants and the horses at the inn, they left the city on foot, exchanged clothes with two poor pilgrims they met on the way, and thus fled barefoot and covered in rags: having crossed the Rhine, they stopped in the forest of Petingen, in Swabia (1053), and built themselves cells.

One cannot conceive of anyt hing more humilia forêt de Petingen Forest in Swabia where Theobald lived as a hermit and laborer. ting than their way of life in this retreat. To see them, one would say they were not only solitaries, but also poor men and mercenaries; for, to have enough to eat, they go from time to time into the neighboring villages and hamlets, where they carry stones with the masons, work in the meadows with the mowers, make charcoal with the charcoal burners, clean the stables and barns with the lowliest servants, and lower themselves to the other most vile ministries of the countryside. If they receive any money for their work, it is only to have a little bread, which usually makes up the entire dish of their table and the entire provision of their hermitage; as long as these provisions last, they spend the days and nights, sometimes contemplating the greatness of God and the mysteries of our salvation, sometimes singing psalms and hymns in honor of their sovereign Lord, sometimes afflicting their bodies with bloody disciplines, painful postures, and long prayers, face to the ground. How admirable are these first steps of Thibaut's life! How perfect are these trial runs! How worthy of praise is this novitiate! Thibaut, nourished in delights and raised in the pleasures of a rich and abundant house; Thibaut, who, far from suffering any inconvenience, has always been treated with such delicacy, is now in continuous suffering and sighs under the rigor of the cold and the ice of the North. He who rested on purple and brocade, and who ate the most delicious dishes, has only the earth for a bed, only bad rags for clothing, and only a little hard, black bread for food, which he moistens with the water of his tears; he whose exercises were noble and pleasant, who conversed only with the children of princes, and whose ears were accustomed to hearing the praises, caresses, and flatteries of courtiers, sees himself beaten down under the most vile labors, and has no other company than the animals of the woods, or poor laborers who have for him only insolence and hardness. How virtuous one must be to live in this way! How deep an humility one must possess to expose oneself thus voluntarily and without necessity to the insults, mockery, and insolence of uncultured and coarse people! But, moreover, how happy Thibaut is to find in his workshops, his furnaces, his stables, and his desert, the fulfillment of his pious desires and the will of God! He fled the court and his father's house only out of aversion to the grandeurs and vanities of the world, and he finds himself in a state so low that he has nothing to fear from the side of pride. This is also what he said to his dear companion to animate him to patience and to bear courageously the pains he endured. "How happy we are to be sheltered from the pride, envy, and so many disorders that reign in the world! For my part, I value our poverty, which shelters us from so many storms, more than the scepters and diadems that are exposed to an infinity of cares, sorrows, and dangers." Furthermore, if he did not at first embrace an entirely solitary life, it was only by the advice of Burchard, whom he had consulted from the beginning; for this holy man, who was very experienced in spiritual guidance, also advised him not to separate himself all at once from the commerce of men, but to prepare himself for such a difficult and perfect state by the practice of the most austere virtues, and above all of humility and holy abjection.

However, he subsequently drew so many blessings upon the houses of the masters for whom he worked that people in the region began to honor him and consider him a saint. Having noticed this, he felt extreme distress; and, so as not to lose in Petingen what he had sought to avoid by leaving Provins, he resolved with Gauthier to make pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, to Saint Peter's in Rome, and to the holy places of Palestine. They set off for Santiago, barefoot, and having only a little money remaining from the wages of their labor. One cannot imagine how much they suffered on the way from the heat, the cold, the stones, the thorns, the hunger, the thirst, the harshness of their clothing, and other things that usually inconvenience travelers. But none of this was capable of weakening their courage or slowing their devotion. Their fervor in this place of holiness was admirable; they spent several days there in prayer: their bodies were on the earth, but their spirits were in heaven. Their conversation was with the Saints and with Jesus Christ himself; and the consolations they received from it were so abundant that they could not cease to bless the day they had left the world to give themselves to the service of God. On the return journey, the demon, to whom Thibaut's austerity was unbearable, appeared to him in human form and, having lain down in his path, caused him to fall very roughly; but the Saint received no harm from it, and having made the sign of the cross over him and implored the assistance of Our Lord, he compelled this monster to disappear and retreat into the abyss. What caused him the most pain was, upon arriving in Trier, meeting Lord Arnoul, his father, who was searching for him everywhere and was in extreme pain due to his absen ce. He recognized le seigneur Arnoul Brother of Tarcice and treasurer of Charlemagne. him easily, but was not recognized by him, because his austerities and the fatigues of so many labors and journeys had made him unrecognizable. His bowels were moved at the sight of this object whom he loved tenderly, and by whom he knew he was infinitely loved; but he rose above nature and stifled all these human feelings that urged him to declare himself. In order not to be exposed to such a trial, he resolved with his companion to move away from Trier. They then went to Rome and honored the ashes of the blessed apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul. They also visited the other places of devotion there, which they often bathed with their tears, and spent days and nights in prayer. After fulfilling these duties, they resolved once again to make the journey to Palestine to adore the vestiges of the Savior of the world and to reveal those places that He sanctified by His presence and watered with His tears and His blood. For this, they went to Venice with the intention of embarking; but, when they believed they were about to set sail, they learned with great sorrow that the war ignited between the Christians and the Saracens closed the entrance to the Holy Land and made this pilgrimage impossible (1055). In this accident, they adored the secrets of God's Providence, and, prostrating themselves before His majesty, they prayed with tears for Him to inspire them as to what they should do to be more pleasing to Him (1056). Their request was granted, and God made it known to them that He wished for them to live as solitaries in a place called Salanigo, near Vicenza, in Italy. They found there an old chapel that had been dedicated under the name of Saint Hermagoras and Saint Fortunatus, martyrs, but which was so muc h in rui Salanigo Site of the saint's final hermitage and death near Vicenza. ns that divine offices were no longer celebrated there. Having judged it suitable for their purpose, they obtained it as a gift from those to whom it belonged and built two cells nearby to retire each into his own privacy.

Thibaut, seeing himself in the place where God willed that he should end all his travels, was animated by such fervor that it seemed he had done nothing until then. He gave himself over to new austerities of such rigor that one cannot think of them without dread. For five years, he wore a hair shirt that he never took off except to have the means to scourge himself with a discipline made of long leather straps. He first forbade himself all kinds of meat, then he reduced himself to barley bread and water; finally, which is very extraordinary even among the most severe penitents, he deprived himself even of bread and water, contenting himself with raw fruits and herbs, such as he found in the fields. His bed was, at the beginning, a chest or a board, his pillow a tree trunk, and his blanket the very habit he wore; but, in the end, he had no other bed than the wooden seat where he was accustomed to sit.

His sleep was very short, because he spent almost the entire night in prayer; but he had the cleverness, to hide his mortification, to appear to be sleeping before the one who assisted him retired, and to do the same a few moments before he returned.

Sindichérius, Bishop of Vicenza, a very vigilant prelate and very carefu l for t Vicence City where John was bishop and where he suffered martyrdom. he salvation of his people, being charmed by the holiness of Thibaut and persuading himself that he would be even more useful to the Church if he were honored with the character of the priesthood, absolutely wanted to ordain him a priest. Rayer, canon and counselor of Provins, who composed his life in our language, says that he only received the diaconate and that he never suffered to be promoted to the priesthood; but we have too powerful testimonies of his ordination to the priesthood to be able to call it into doubt. His history assures that he healed a religious named Odo, by saying Mass for him and by communicating him with his own hands. His eulogy, in the form of an epitaph, which one sees in his chapel, in the cathedral church of Vicenza, says that he was a titular priest of that church, as reported by Ughellus, in volume V of the Italia Sacra, under the title of the bishops of Vicenza.

This new dignity giving him even more reputation and credit in the country, a great number of people gathered around him who desired to be instructed by his mouth and to imitate his actions. In place of Gauthier, his faithful companion, whom death took from him two years after his establishment at Salanigo, he found himself surrounded by a troop of disciples, who walked courageously in his footsteps and composed a new monastery of which he was the father and abbot. However, the demon, unable to suffer the great fruits he produced by his word and by his example, tormented him in various ways, in the hope that, by the importunity of his temptations and persecutions, he would finally constrain him to relax in his spiritual practices and to lead an easier and less severe life; but the heart of Thibaut was too well fortified by grace to yield to the efforts of the infernal monster. He overcame him in all sorts of encounters, and even when, through his malice, he fell into a river, he emerged not only without discomfort, but also without being wet. Moreover, our Saint was often consoled by heavenly visions and revelations. The Angels visited him several times and showed themselves to him in forms and representations full of sweetness; and, one day when he was weeping bitterly for his sins, one of them said to him: "Weep no more, for your sins are forgiven you." Around the same time, the holy martyrs Hermagoras and Fortunatus, whose oratory he had restored, honored him with their conversation and thanked him for the care he took to have them praised and venerated in that place.

His reputation, no longer able to remain confined to Italy, spread as far as France, and reached the ears of his father, his mother, and his relatives. One cannot express the joy they had in knowing that Thibaut, not only was not dead, but that he had risen, by the grace of God and by his generous efforts, to such a high degree of holiness. They went expressly to Italy to see him, to embrace him, to rejoice with him in the happy choice he had made, and to commend themselves to his prayers. They could not stop their tears in his presence; but they were tears of holy gladness rather than of sadness and pain. His pale and emaciated face, his body broken by labors and austerities, his vile and despicable habit did not give them disdain, but on the contrary a holy desire to walk in his footsteps and to perform a serious penance for their own sins. His mother was so touched by his example that, forgetting the splendor and riches of her house and all that the world had presented to her until then as agreeable, she urgently begg ed her Sa mère Wife of Saint Evrard. husband to allow her to remain in a cell near her son. She finally obtained it through the effort of her prayers, and Thibaut, who housed her in a small, secluded hermitage, took particular care to instruct her in everything necessary for her perfection; until her death, neither heat, nor cold, nor rain, nor snow could ever prevent him from paying her the visits she needed to strengthen her in a way of life so different from that which she had led in the world.

God then rewarded the piety of his servant with a most extraordinary grace: two years before he died, he was freed from all kinds of temptations and illusions of the devil, and from the disordered movements of the flesh; but, as it was necessary that he should depart from this world as pure as gold refined seven times in the crucible, divine Providence sent him a terrible illness, which caused him extreme pain. He did not have a single healthy limb that he could use freely. His feet were so weak that they could not support him, and his hands were so paralyzed that he could not raise them to his mouth. However, in such a great deluge of evils, he never wanted to relax any of his fasting or his other ordinary austerities. Seeing his end approaching, he sent to ask Peter, Abbot of Vangadice, of the Camaldolese Order, who was his faithful fri Ordre des Camaldules Religious order to which John of Lodi belonged. end and who had given him the monastic habit, to come and see him, and he commended to him his mother and his disciples, whom he was about to leave orphans by his death. Three days before he arrived, a great earthquake occurred five times in his cell, a sign of the presence of Him of whom it is written: "He looks at the earth, and he makes it tremble." Then, Thibaut entered into a terrible agony, where he suffered much, according to the testimony of those who were present; but, having emerged victorious, he received the last sacraments with admirable fervor and devotion. Finally, having often repeated these words full of charity: "Lord, have mercy on your people!" he rendered to God his soul, fully laden with merits and prepared to receive the crown of glory. This was on the last day of June, around the year 1066, although it is usually commemorated in the divine offices only on July 1st or 4th.

His body, after his death, appeared quite different from what it had been during his life, for one no longer saw any wounds or ulcers, but a surprising beauty and radiance, which made it sufficiently known that it was destined for the glorious resurrection. The Abbot of Vangadice, of whom we have just spoken, and who is believed to be the author of the first history of the Saint, says that the inhabitants of Vicenza, in Italy, and those of the neighboring castles, having learned of his death, all went in crowds to his solitude and brought him to the city, where he was buried in the church of Our Lady of Vicenza. Many miracles subsequently occurred at his tomb: a dropsical person and a paralytic, five cripples, and twelve blind people were healed there.

## CULT AND RELICS.

The question of Saint Thibaut's relics is not without some difficulties. Ughellus, who wrote in the 17th century, says that his body rested in the cathedral of Vicenza; but at the same period, the vicar general of Vicenza (Silvina Trissimus) declared that there was only a chapel and an altar dedicated to Saint Thibaut in Vicenza, and that, according to tradition, his body, after having rested in this chapel, had since been carried to the abbey of Vangadice. It seems indeed quite certain that the body of a Saint Thibaut rested in the church of the abbey of Vangadice. Ferrari says that the hermit of Vicenza later became abbot of Vangadice, and that he died there. The author of the history of the Camaldolese (Augustinus Florentinus) also has him die at Vangadice, but simply as a guest of the abbot, opinions formally denied by the author of the life of Saint Thibaut, as we have seen above. Thus, to resolve this difficulty, the Bollandists admit, in addition to our saintly hermit, another Saint Thibaut, abbot of Vangadice, who died in 1050.

Whatever may be the case regarding the relics of Saint Thibaut that may have remained in Italy, it is incontestable that a notable part of his body was brought to France. Du Saussay, as well as the historians of the abbeys of Sainte-Colombe and Lagny, state this formally. The cult of Saint Thibaut spread very early both in France and in Germany, and a great number of churches or chapels were erected there in his honor.

According to the common opinion, it was Saint Thibaut's own brother, Arnoul, abbot of Sainte-Colombe-les -Sens and of Lagny, who went to claim t Arnoul, abbé de Sainte-Colombe-les-Sens Brother of Saint Thibaut, abbot of Sainte-Colombe and Lagny, and translator of his relics. he Sain t's r Lagny Monastery where Giraud took the religious habit. elics in Italy in the year 1078. Upon his return, passing through the priory of Beaumont, today Saint-Thibaut-aux-Bois, which depended on the abbey of Saint-Germain d'Anzerre, he left a portion of his precious deposit there, at the insistence of the prior and the monks. These relics, transferred in 1400 to the abbey of Saint-Germain d'Anzerre, were burned there in 1507 by the Calvinists. While they were still at Beaumont, the abbot of Saint-Germain is said to have given a portion to the Cordeliers of Provins in 1321; but no trace of them remains. Richer, archbishop of Sens, went as far as Joigny to meet the holy relics, which were received with great pomp at the abbey of Sainte-Colombe. Arnoul could not forget his abbey of Lagny, and it is certain that he brought relics of his brother there, notably an arm. But historians do not agree on the date of this translation, which some place in 1078 and others in 1096.

Shortly after these relics had been brought to Lagny, following apparitions of the Saint and numerous miracles, Abbot Arnoul had a church built near his abbey, at the place called the Bois du Fou (or des Bêtres), where the Saint's relics were deposited. This is the origin of the priory of Saint-Thibaut des Vignes, whose church was erected as a parish by the bishop of Paris in 1543.

The current church certainly dates back to the beginning of the 12th century. Mgr Allon, bishop of Meaux, while visiting the relics of his diocese in 1834, found in the reliquary of Saint Thibaut two bones of the right arm (humerus and radius), some small bones, and the remains of a hair shi deux os du bras droit Bodily relics preserved in Lagny and Meaux. rt. The two arm bones were wrapped in a cloth of gold and deposited in a new gilded copper reliquary given by the Bishop, who reserved a portion of the radius to give fragments to the churches of his diocese where Saint Thibaut is particularly honored, and notably to two churches in Provins, Sainte-Croix and Saint-Quiriace, which no longer had any relics of the Saint.

We have composed this biography based on the abbot of Vangadice, Ughellus, Du Saussay, and Rayer; local notes have allowed us to draw up with less uncertainty the primitive state and the current state of the cult and the relics. Cf. Vies des Saints du diocèse de Troyes, by the abbot Defer.