Rictiovarus

Paganism in the Middle Ages
Verbeke, Werner, Marenbon, John, Steel, Carlos
Published by Leuven University Press
Verbeke, Werner, et al.

Paganism in the Middle Ages: Threat and Fascination.
Leuven University Press, 2013.
Project MUSE. muse.jhu.edu/book/29232.
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Brigitte MEIJNS
MARTYRS, RELICS AND HOLY PLACES:

THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE COUNTRYSIDE
IN THE ARCHDIOCESE OF RHEIMS
DURING THE MEROVINGIAN PERIOD1
Lemarignier’s ‘Gaule monastique’ and ‘Gaule conciliaire’
At a pioneering conference dedicated to ‘Agriculture and the Rural

World in the Early Medieval West’ in the Italian town of Spoleto in
1965, Jean-François Lemarignier presented a highly powerful hypothe-
sis, which has been influential ever since.2 While tackling the origins of
places of worship, their geographical location and their organization dur-
ing the Merovingian period, he determined that there were, so to speak,
two Gauls: a conciliar Gaul (‘la Gaule conciliaire’) and a monastic Gaul
(‘la Gaule monastique’). According to Lemarignier, both existed side by
side, rather than influencing one another.
With ‘conciliar Gaul’, Lemarignier meant the South of Gaul, an
intensely Romanized region and the venue of most of the 6th-century
Church councils. Thanks to the works of Gregory of Tours, we are well
1. I have more thoroughly explored the subject of this paper jointly with Charles
Mériaux (Université Charles-de-Gaulle, Lille-3) in a lecture at the conference Les pre-
miers temps chrétiens dans le territoire de la France actuelle. Hagiographie, épigraphie
et archéologie: nouvelles approches et perspectives de recherche organized by the Centre
d’Études sur le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance of the Université de Picardie Jules Verne in
Amiens on 18th-20th January 2007. [Cf. B. Meijns and C. Mériaux, ‘Le cycle de Rictiovar
et la topographie chrétienne des campagnes septentrionales à l’époque mérovingienne’, in
D. Paris Poulain, D. Istria and S. Nardi Combescure, eds., Les premiers temps chrétiens
dans le territoire de la France actuelle. Hagiographie, épigraphie et archéologie (Rennes,
2009), p. 19-33.] I am greatly indebted to Charles Mériaux for his judicious comments on
an earlier version of this article. I would also like to thank former colleagues at the
Department of History of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Werner Verbeke and Jean
Goossens for carefully reading this text and for their encouragement and assistance.
2. J.-F. Lemarignier, ‘Quelques remarques sur l’organisation ecclésiastique de la
Gaule du VIIe à la fin du IXe siècle principalement au Nord de la Loire’, in Agricultura e
mondo rurale in Occidente nell’Alto Medioevo, 22-28 aprile 1965, Settimane di Studio
del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 13 (Spoleto, 1966), p. 451-486, especially
p. 461: ‘C’est un peu comme s’il y avait deux Gaules, la Gaule conciliaire et la Gaule
monastique, qui se juxtaposeraient bien plutôt qu’elles ne se pénétreraient’.
110 B. MEIJNS
informed about the way in which faith was established in these rural
areas. In this region, the bishop largely took upon himself the work of
Christianization, as a founder of churches in agglomerations designated
as vici. These churches were serviced by a group of clerics, responsible
for the propagation of the faith in the surrounding area. Much more rare
were the oratoria, rural places of worship founded by wealthy land-
owners on their domains (villae). Monasteries were scarce in this region,
and the few that were to be found did, with some exceptions, not really
inspire a following.
In sharp contrast to the South of Gaul stood the North, ‘monastic
Gaul’. In this more lightly Romanized region, the heartland of the Frank-
ish rulers, the number of monastic foundations soared during the 7th cen-
tury, and especially during the period 630-660. This expansive and rural
kind of monasticism was very prominent between the rivers Seine and
Meuse. Lemarignier situated his dividing line between the two Gauls in
the region of the Seine and Paris. In his ‘monastic Gaul’ numerous
abbeys, which had been founded on the estates of the Merovingian rulers
and nobles, lived according to Irish-Frankish, Benedictine-Columban
ideas.3 Moreover, as a result of the religious policy of several Meroving-
ian kings and queens, these abbeys obtained some degree of autonomy
at the expense of the diocesan bishop. The monks undertook missionary
activities on the numerous rural domains belonging to their abbey. In this
way, the Christian faith reached the rural population, which was at that
time still considered predominantly pagan.
Since 1965, Lemarignier’s working hypothesis, powerful in its sim-
plicity, has received widespread acceptance. In recent publications about
the Christianization of the North of Gaul, it has even been applied to the
entire Merovingian period, as for instance in the special issue on Chris-
tianisation en Gaule, de Clovis à Charlemagne of the journal Mélanges
3. Cf. A. Dierkens, ‘Prolègomènes à une histoire des relations culturelles entre les îles
britanniques et le continent pendant le haut moyen âge. La diffusion du monachisme dit
colombanien ou iro-franc dans quelques monastères de la région parisienne au VIIe siècle
et la politique religieuse de la reine Bathilde’, in eds. H. Atsma, ed., La Neustrie. Les pays
au nord de la Loire de 650 à 850. Colloque historique international, Beihefte der Francia,
16-2 (Sigmaringen, 1989), p. 371-393; A. Diem, ‘Was bedeutet der « Regula Colum-
bani »?’ in W. Pohl and M. Diesenberger, eds., Integration und Herrschaft. Etnische
Identitäten und soziale Organisation im Frühmittelalter, Österreichische Akademie der
Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Denkschriften, 301, Forschungen zur
Geschichte des Mittelalters, 3 (Vienna, 2002), p. 63-89.
THE CHRISTIANIZATION IN THE ARCHDIOCESE OF RHEIMS 111
de Science religieuse from 1996.4 Lemarignier himself, on the other

hand, did introduce an important refinement by making a chronological
distinction in his ‘monastic Gaul’ between the first missionary wave in
the 6th century, which originated with the bishops in their cathedral cit-
ies, and the second phase in the 7th century of a predominantly monastic
nature in the countryside.5
In this contribution, I would like to propose some slight nuances to
this traditional and fairly monolithic model of the Christianization of the
countryside in Northern Gaul. I will argue that traces can be found of
the presence of a more diversified religious landscape, with alternative
cult sites. In doing so, I will focus on the archdiocese of Rheims, a prov-
ince of twelve dioceses in the area that is today northern France and the
western half of Belgium. It is, clearly, impossible to ignore the spectacu-
lar proliferation of monastic foundations in this area, especially during
the 7th century, which – sometimes rather quickly – are assumed to have
been exclusively populated by monks or nuns from the first.6 One could,
however, wonder whether this large number of monastic communities
might not obscure our view of a more varied landscape possessing other
foci of the Christian faith? And is not the historian’s horizon severely
limited by the sources, deriving as they do predominantly from monastic
circles? Surprisingly, a look at recent studies about the Christianization
of the surrounding area seems to make of ‘monastic Gaul’ even more of
an exception than Lemarignier ever suspected. In the Netherlands and
the Rhineland, as well as in Italy, the bishop was – as was the case in
4. Cf. E. Magnou-Nortier, ‘La christianisation de la Gaule (VIe-VIIe siècles). Esquisse

d’un bilan et orientation bibliographique’, in Christianisation en Gaule, de Clovis à
Charlemagne, Mélanges de Science religieuse, 52 (Lille, 1996), p. 5-12; J. Blair, ‘Les
recherches récentes sur la formation des paroisses en Angleterre: similitudes et diffé-
rences avec la France’, in D. Iogna-Prat and E. Zadora-Rio, eds., La paroisse. Genèse
d’une forme territoriale, Médiévales, 49 (2005) p. 33-44; J. Blair, The Church in Anglo-
Saxon Society (Oxford, 2005), p. 34-43, who, however, calls Lemarignier’s distinction too
rigid and supposes a certain overlap between the two Gauls.
5. Lemarignier, ‘Quelques remarques’, p. 463.
6. Cf. C. Mériaux, ‘Aux origines lointaines des paroisses en Gaule du Nord: quelques
observations sur la christianisation du diocèse de Cambrai (VIe-VIIIe siècles)’, in La
paroisse à l’époque préromane et romane, Cuxa, 1999 (Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de
Cuxa, 30) p. 171-180, especially p. 175: ‘… la définition des communautés religieuses au
VIIe siècle pose quelques problèmes. (…) Bref, il semble qu’il faille mettre l’accent sur
le statut incertain des communautés religieuses rencontrées. Rapidement cataloguées
comme monastiques, elles semblaient davantage fonctionner comme des relais pastoraux
et liturgiques dans des campagnes où ni les densités de population, ni les effectifs du
clergé, ni les ressources de l’Église… ne permettaient encore d’entretenir un desservant
par oratoire.’
112 B. MEIJNS
Southern Gaul7 – definitely the key figure for providing a framework for
the faithful in the countryside, among other reasons because he founded
churches in vici and castra. Depending on the region, these centres of
Christian life were called munsters,8 Klerikerkollegien or Landesmonas-
teria9 or pievi.10 Can it be that the region north of Paris, to which the
archdiocese of Rheims belonged, really constituted a striking anomaly?
Against the background of these general considerations, I would like
to present two sources that, in my view, provide helpful starting points
from which to call into question the rigid distinction between the two
Gauls and more specifically to adjust somewhat the rather one-sided
view of ‘monastic Gaul’. Both case studies contain indications of the
existence of specific rural cult sites in the archdiocese of Rheims, in
which the memory of a martyr was honoured. These cults were focused
on the mortal remains of a local saint, who was supposed to have died a
martyr’s death on or near the cult location. On the basis of Merovingian
canon law – about which there will be more to say later – the care for
relics presupposed the presence of a group of clerics. In a later period,
this group might develop into a more institutionally structured community
7. A. Angenendt, ‘Die Liturgie und die Organisation des kirchlichen Lebens auf dem
Lande’, in Cristianizzazione ed organizzazione ecclesiastica delle campagne nell’alto
medioevo: espansione e resistenze, Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi
sull’alto medioevo, 28 (Spoleto, 1982), p. 169-226; M. Weidemann, Kulturgeschichte der
Merowingerzeit nach den Werken Gregors von Tours (Mainz, 1982); V. Saxer, ‘Les par-
oisses rurales de France avant le IXe siècle: peuplement, évangélisation, organisation’, in
La paroisse à l’époque préromane et romane, p. 5-48; C. Pietri, ‘Chiesa e communità
locali nell’Occidente cristiano (IV-VI d.C.): l’esempio della Gallia’, Società romana e
impero tardoantico, 3 (1986) p. 177-210.
8. K. Van Vliet, In kringen van kanunniken. Munsters en kapittels in het bisdom
Utrecht, 695-1227 (Zutphen, 2002), p. 64-68 and passim.
9. J. Semmler, ‘Mission und Pfarrorganisation’, in Cristianizzazione, p. 823-859;
J. Semmler, ‘Monachus – clericus – canonicus. Zur Ausdifferenzierung geistlicher Insti-
tutionen in Frankenreich bis ca. 900’, in S. Lorenz and T. Zotz, eds., Frühformen von
Stiftskirchen in Europa. Funktion und Wandel religiöser Gemeinschaften vom 6. bis zum
Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts. Festgabe für Dieter Mertens zum 65. Geburtstag, Schriften
zur südwestdeutschen Landeskunde, 54 (Leinfelden-Echterdingen, 2005), p. 1-18, espe-
cially p. 12-17; F.-J. Heyen, ‘Das bischöfliche Kollegiatstift ausserhalb der Bischofsstadt
in frühen und hohen Mittelalter am Beispeil der Erzdiözese Trier’, in I. Crusius, ed.,
Studien zum weltlichen Kollegiatstift in Deutschland, Veröffentlichungen des Max-
Planck-Instituts für Geschichte, 114 – Studien zur Germania Sacra, 18 (Göttingen, 1995),
p. 35-61.
10. C.D. Fonseca and C. Violante, eds., Pieve e parrochie in Europa dal Medioevo
all’età contemporanea, Commissione italiana per la storia delle pieve e delle parrocchie,
Studi e Ricerche, 2 (Galatina, 1990); H. Zielinski, ‘Kloster und “Stift” im langobar-
dischen und fränkischen Italien’, in Frühformen von Stiftskirchen, p. 97-161, especially
p. 127-130.
of, for example, canons or monks. However, this was not necessarily the
case, and precisely this makes it hard to trace such cult places. It is
highly unlikely that these burial basilicas operated independently from
the diocesan bishop. Even when the bishop was not personally responsi-
ble for the creation of a certain cult, he more than likely strove to subject
it to his supervision.11 It is, in any case, reasonable to assume that these
loca sanctorum played a specific role in the Christianization of the space,
beside the far better known and more visible monastic communities of
that period.12
The process of Christianization in the Archdiocese of Rheims13
The archdiocese of Rheims goes back to the Roman province of Bel-

gica secunda. The conciliary lists, the only contemporary documents at
our disposal, can – to some extent – be relied on to trace the very slow
progress of the propagation of the faith in this region. The signature of a
bishop on a list of conciliar decrees implies the existence of an episcopal
see, which presupposes the presence of an organized community of
Christians. The first network of episcopal churches was organized around
11. On the episcopal right of control of the cult of relics: H. Delehaye, Sanctus. Essai
sur le culte des saints dans l’Antiquité, Subsidia hagiographica, 17 (Brussels, 1927),
p. 180-185; B. Beaujard, Le culte des saints en Gaule. Les premiers temps. D’Hilaire de
Poitiers à la fin du VIe siècle, Histoire religieuse de la France, 15 (Paris, 2000), p. 408-
409.
12. On the concept of loca sanctorum: L. Pietri, ‘Loca sancta. La géographie de la
sainteté dans l’hagiographie gauloise (IVe-VIe siècle)’, in S. Boesch Gajano and
L. Scaraffia, eds., Luoghi sacri e spazi della sanctità (Turin, 1990), p. 23-36; S. Boesch
Gajano, ‘Des loca sanctorum aux espaces de la sainteté. Étapes de l’historiographie
hagiographique’, in J. Pirotte and E. Louchez, eds., Deux mille ans d’histoire de l’Église:
Bilan et Perspectives historiographiques, Revue d’Histoire ecclésiastique, 95,3 (Louvain,
2000), p. 48-70; A. Vauchez, ed., Lieux sacrés, lieux de culte, sanctuaires: approches
terminologiques, méthodologiques, historiques et monographiques, Collection de l’École
française de Rome, 273 (Rome, 2000).
13. This overview is largely based on: C. Pietri, ‘Remarques sur la christianisation du
nord de la Gaule (IVe-VIe siècles)’, Revue du Nord, 66 (1984), p. 55-68; J. Pycke and
J. Dumoulin, ‘L’évangélisation de la Belgique seconde du IIIe au VIe siècle. État de la
question.’, in Recueil d’Etudes d’Histoire hainuyère offertes à Maurice A. Arnould (Mons,
1983), vol. 1, p. 439-460; M. Weideman, ‘Die kirchliche Organisation der Provinzen
Belgica und Germania vom 4. bis zum 7. Jahrhundert’, in P. Bange and A.G. Weiler, eds.,
Willibrord, zijn wereld en zijn werk (Nijmegen, 1990), p. 285-316; P. Demouy, Genèse
d’une cathédrale. Les archevêques de Reims et leur église aux XIe et XIIe siècles (Langres,
2005), p. 183-187; L. Pietri, e.a., eds., Topographie chrétienne des cités de la Gaule des
origines au milieu du VIIIe siècle, 14. Province ecclésiastique de Reims (Belgica Secunda),
(Paris, 2006), p. 18-19 and passim.
114 B. MEIJNS
Rheims. In this administrative capital of the Roman province from the

Late Empire, a bishop is already attested in 314, one year after Christian-
ity had become religio licita. In the 4th century, bishops are also men-
tioned for Châlons-sur-Marne, Soissons, Amiens, and for the Nervii,
a bishop without a permanent see in the area around Bavay and Cambrai.
Itinerant missionaries supposedly gave the initial impetus to the evange-
lization of the north and west of the archdiocese, at that time still truly
a mission field. The settlement of the ‘barbarians’, acutely felt in this
region, disrupted the situation, as becomes clear from, among other
sources, the gaps in the lists of bishops.
After Clovis came to power at the end of the 5th century, stability
returned and great pains were taken to restore Christianity and continue
the work of evangelization, two endeavours Remigius of Rheims had
very much at heart during his long episcopacy, from c. 460 to c. 530.
This metropolitan, schooled in the best Roman tradition, was responsi-
ble for the restoration of the dioceses of Soissons, Amiens and Châlons-
sur-Marne, and for the installation of new bishops in Laon, Senlis and
the Vermandois area (either in Vermand, or already in Noyon). In the
civitates of the Atrebati and the Nervii, the faith was preached by
Vedastus, possibly at the instigation of Remigius, but without occupa-
tion of a permanent see. The installation of the first bishop of Tournai
might also date back to the time of Remigius. At the end of the 6th
century, there was the establishment of an episcopal see in Beauvais
and of a see in Cambrai at the expense of Arras. With the appointment
of Omer as missionary bishop in Thérouanne by King Dagobert and
Bishop Acharius of Noyon-Tournai, and with the joining of the dio-
ceses of Tournai and Noyon during the first decades of the 7th century,
the formal organization of the archdiocese of Rheims came to an
end. The topography of most of these episcopal cities – especially
those of the oldest generation – shows similarities with the cathedral
cities of southern Gaul.14 The ecclesia, the cathedral, was located
within the perimeter protected by what was left of the walls of the
Roman castellum, and in certain cases, as in Amiens and Rheims, there
was an intra muros community of nuns. In the necropoles along the
Roman approach roads in the suburbium, burial basilicas were situated,
where the graves of the martyrs or of the first bishops were serviced by
the episcopal clergy.
14. Cf. Pietri, et al., eds., Topographie chrétienne.

If the institution of the episcopal sees in this region is often somewhat

unclear, it is still more difficult to find information about the process of
Christianization in the countryside and about the continued existence of
pagan cults.15 The nature of the available sources precludes an easy
answer to these questions. The textual sources, mainly of a hagiographi-
cal nature, pose complicated problems where critical interpretation is
concerned, and it is often completely impossible to discover the histori-
cal reality behind the hagiographical topos. Moreover, certain sources –
mostly hagiographical documents – possess the remarkable quality of
becoming more loquacious the further the facts being discussed are from
the time of writing. This clearly does not enhance their trustworthiness.
The interpretation of archaeological finds is also open to discussion.16
The same goes for the interpretation of lists of bishops, and conciliary
and penitentiary sources.17
At the risk of proceeding far too schematically, one might say that the
establishment of Christianity in the southern half of the archdiocese of
Rheims took place earlier than in the northern missionary field, and, as
a result, took better hold there. The question remains what exactly is
meant by the assimilation of the Christian faith, since Ludo Milis has
convincingly demonstrated that this is a process without end.18 Never-
theless, it should be kept in mind that Christianity had been the official
religion of the Roman Empire ever since the 4th century, and that the
establishment of the still pagan Frankish groups in this area can, at
most, only have been a temporary disruption. Several studies, among
them the study by Yitzhak Hen, have demonstrated that the Frankish
15. C. Mériaux, Gallia irradiata. Saints et sanctuaires dans le nord de la Gaule du

haut Moyen Âge, Beiträge zur Hagiographie, 4 (Stuttgart, 2006), p. 20-31 (sources) and
p. 21-51 (paganism).
16. A. Dierkens, ‘Christianisme et “paganisme” dans la Gaule septentrionale aux Ve
et VIe siècles’, in D. Geuenich, ed., Die Franken und die Alemannen bis zur “Schlacht
bei Zülpich” (496/497), Ergängzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertums-
kunde, 19 (Berlin – New York, 1998), p. 451-474; S. Racinet, ‘Recherches archéologiques
et textuelles sur les traces de la christianisation en Picardie’, in Christianisation en Gaule,
p. 43-60.
17. J. Dubois, ‘Les listes épiscopales, témoins de l’organisation ecclésiastique et de la
transmission des traditions’, in P. Riché, ed., La christianisation des pays entre Loire et
Rhin (IVe-VIIe siècle). Actes du colloque de Nanterre (3-4 mai 1974), Revue d’Histoire de
l’Église en France, 62-168 (Paris, 1976; reprint: Cerf, Histoire religieuse de la France, 2,
Paris, 1993), p. 9-23.
18. L. Milis, ‘La conversion en profondeur: un processus sans fin’, in Actes du col-
loque Saint Géry et la christianisation dans le nord de la Gaule. Ve-IXe siècles, Lille,
1986, Revue du Nord, 68, p. 487-498.
116 B. MEIJNS
aristocracy, at least, presented itself since the 6th century as being

exclusively Christian in a society which had to a large extent been
Christianized.19
The Cycle of Rictiovarus
The first source, or rather set of sources, to which I would like to draw
attention, is the so-called Cycle of Rictiovarus20. This cycle consists of six
passiones in which some – mainly Roman – missionaries become the vic-
tims of one and the same persecutor, to wit Rictiovarus. According to these
stories, Rictiovarus was a prefect under Maximian, who was emperor
together with Diocletian between 285 and 305. Camille Jullian, who exam-
ined the cycle in 1923, thought one could identify this figure with the
commander of a group of barbarians mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum,
the Raetobarii.21 The Notitia Dignitatum is a precious Roman itinerary
from about 400 and the document indicates that these Raetobarii were
stationed between Rheims and Amiens as Roman auxiliary troops. Accord-
ing to Maurice Coens, the oldest spelling of the name, Rigoalis, contains
the stem Ricja, which is Germanic for ‘king’ or ‘powerful leader’22. What-
ever may be the case, this Rictiovarus is mentioned only in these Latin
passiones and nowhere else, which may cause us to seriously doubt his
19. Y. Hen, Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul A.D. 481-751, Cultures,
Beliefs and Traditions. Medieval and Early Modern Peoples, 1 (Leiden – New York –
Cologne, 1995), p. 154-206 (Chapter six: Superstitions and Pagan Survivals).
20. L. Duchesne, Fastes épiscopaux de l’Ancienne Gaule, III, Les provinces du Nord
et de l’Est (Paris, 1915), p. 141-152: ‘Appendice. De quelques légendes relatives aux
origines chrétiennes dans la province de Reims’; C. Jullian, ‘Notes Gallo-Romaines.
C. Questions hagiographiques. Le cycle de Rictiovar’, Revue des Études anciennes,
25 (1923), p. 367-378; H. Leclercq, ‘Rictiovarus’, Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne,
14 (1940-1948), col. 2419-2422; M. Coens, ‘Nouvelles recherches sur un thème
hagiographique: la céphalophorie’, Bulletin de la classe des Lettres de l’Académie royale
de Belgique, 5e série, 48 (1962), p. 231-253, reprint: M. Coens, Recueil d’études bollandi-
ennes, Subsidia Hagiographica, 37 (Brussels, 1963), p. 9-31, here p. 12-21; R. Kaiser,
Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Civitas und Diözese Soissons in römischer und mero-
wingischer Zeit, Rheinisches Archiv. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Geschichtliche
Landeskunde der Rheinlande an der Universität Bonn, 89 (Bonn, 1973), p. 141-143;
L. Pietri, ‘La christianisation de la Belgique Seconde (IVe-VIe siècle)’, in D. Bayard, ed.,
La Picardie, berceau de la France. Clovis et les derniers Romains. 1500me anniversaire de
la bataille de Soissons, 496-1986 (s.l., 1986), p. 173-182, especially 173-174; Racinet,
‘Recherches archéologiques’, 55-58.
21. Jullian, ‘Notes’, p. 375-376.
22. M. Coens, ‘Aux origines de la céphalophorie. Un fragment retrouvé d’une anci-
enne passion de S. Just, martyr de Beauvais’, Analecta Bollandiana, 74 (1956), p. 86-114,
here p. 103-104.
historicity. What is more, this assessment might actually be applied to the

entire cycle, ever since Louis Duchesne characterized the Passio sancti
Quintini as ‘a work of imagination’ in the appendix to his Fastes épisco-
paux de l’ancienne Gaule of 191523. Since then, other historians who have
studied this problem have agreed with this opinion. Does this mean that
the cycle of legends is completely useless for historical research? Not at
all. Thanks to the passiones, it is possible to discover how – at the time
when these stories were put into writing – people thought the first preach-
ing of the Christian faith had taken place. Moreover, these sources supply
the evidence for the existence of locally venerated saints, who were seen
as martyrs for the Christian faith. It is precisely this aspect to which I will
now pay closer attention.
The criterion for any passio to be counted among the Cycle of Ric-
tiovarus, is that the demise of the main character be the result of a
martyr’s death imposed by Rictiovarus. By this standard, six passiones
belong to the cycle, more specifically the passions of the Roman
missionaries Quintinus24, Crispinus and Crispinianus25, Valerius and
Rufinus26, Victoricus and Fuscianus27, the child-martyr Justus of
23. Duchesne, Fastes, p. 143: ‘Sauf le nom du saint et le lieu de son culte, la pas-
sion de s. Quention est, d’un bout à l’autre, une œuvre d’imagination’ and p. 143: ‘…
Rictiovarus, personnage inconnu d’ailleurs et très évidemment imaginaire.’
24. Passio prima et inventio (Bibliotheca hagiographica latina (Brussels, 1898-1901),
nr. 6999-7004): De S. Quintino martyre Augustae Viromanduorum in Gallia, B. Bossue,
ed., Acta Sanctorum, Octobris, 13 (Paris, 1883), p. 781-787; Passio secunda et inventio
(BHL 7005-7007): ibidem, p. 787-793; cf. J.-L. Villette, ‘Passiones et inventiones
S. Quintini, l’élaboration d’un corpus hagiographique du Haut Moyen Âge’, in Vies de
saints dans le Nord de la France (VIe-XIe s.), Mélanges de Science religieuse, 56 (Lille,
1999), p. 49-76, who situates the origin of the Passio prima et inventio at the start of the
8th century and that of the Passio secunda et inventio in the 9th century.
25. Passio BHL 1990: De SS Crispino et Crispiniano MM., B. Bossue, ed., AASS
Octobris, 11 (Paris and Rome, 1868), p. 535-537; cf. H. Delehaye, Étude sur le légen-
daire romain, les saints de Novembre et de Décembre, Subsidia hagiographica, 23
(Brussels, 1936), p. 126-129.
26. Passio (BHL 7373): De SS. Rufino et Valerio martyribus in agro Suessionensi,
G. Henskens, ed., AASS Iunii, 3 (Paris and Rome, 1867), p. 285-286; Passio by Paschasius
Radbertus, abbot of Corbie (843/4-851) (BHL 7374) based on a libellus given to him by
the inhabitants of the place where the martyrs were executed and which was possibly the
Passio BHL 7373: Paschasius Radbertus, De passione SS. Rufini et Valerii, J.-P. Migne,
ed., Patrologia Latina, 120 (Paris, 1852), col. 1489-1508, here col. 1489.
27. Passio (BHL 3226): C. Salmon, ‘Actes inédits des saints martyrs Fuscien, Victoric
et Gentien’, Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Picardie, 18 (1861), p. 113-143,
with an edition of a version of the Passio from an 11th century manuscript from Paris,
Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, BBl nr. 43. According to Salmon the edition by
Ghesquière in the AASS Belgii, I, p. 166-169, only gives a summary of the Sainte-
Geneviève manuscript. Inventio (BHL 3229): Salmon, ibidem, p. 144-147.
118 B. MEIJNS
Auxerre28 and the female martyr Macra29. These last two passiones
together with the passio of Lucianus30, a companion of Quintinus, who
was not martyred by Rictiovarus himself, but who is associated with
Rictiovarus’ victims in several manuscripts, were probably afterwards
added to the oldest core concerning the Roman missionaries. Louis
Duchesne has demonstrated that the stories belonging to this oldest
core show great similarities, with regard to content as well as to form31.
All of these stories also follow a similar pattern: Rictiovarus unrelent-
ingly persecutes Christians, he learns about the presence and the activ-
ities of the heroes in question, he hunts them down and claps them in
irons, terrible tortures alternate with violent discussions about the
renunciation of the Christian faith, an angel appears to the heroes dur-
ing their captivity, and, finally, the protagonists are led to the place of
execution and decapitated, their bodies are either thrown into a nearby
river (Quintinus, Rufinus and Valerius), or just left behind (Crispinus
and Crispinianus, Victoricus and Fuscianus). The main obstacle is
always the heroes’ unwillingness to offer to the Roman gods (men-
tioned are Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury, Saturn, Diana and Venus). They
underscore their refusal by testifying to their Christian faith in a few
28. Passio (BHL 4590): De S. Justo puero et martyre, E. Carpentier, ed., AASS, Octo-
bris, 8 (1853), p. 338-342; M. Coens, ‘Aux origines’, p. 94-96 (Altera pars passionis
S. Iusti); cf. H. Röckelein, ‘Just de Beauvais alias Justin d’Auxerre: l’art de dédoubler un
saint. Avec l’édition de la Passio s. Iustini (BHL 4579) par François Dolbeau et Hedwig
Röckelein’, in M. Heinzelmann, ed., Livrets, collections et textes. Études sur la tradition
hagiographique latine, Beihefte der Francia, 63 (Ostfildern, 2006), p. 323-360; Cf.
P. H. Wasyliw, Martyrdom, Murder, and Magic. Child Saints and their Cults in Medieval
Europe, Studies in Church History, 2 (New York, 2008).
29. Passio (BHL 5126): De Sancta Macra virgine martyre in territorio Remensi,
G. Henskens, ed., AASS Ianuarii 1 (Brussels, 1863), p. 325-326; Translatio (BHL 5127):
ibidem, p. 326. Although preserved in 11th or 12th century manuscripts, the vita and trans-
latio can probably be situated in the 9th century (cf. infra). Flodoard looks back on her
martyr’s death, burial, translation and on the miracles she produced: Flodoard of Rheims,
Die Geschichte der Reimser Kirche, M. Stratmann, ed., Monumenta Germaniae Historica,
Scriptores, 36 (Hannover, 1998), book IV c. 51, p. 453-454.
30. Passio S. Luciani (BHL 5008): Ch. Salmon, ‘Actes inédits de S. Lucien’,
Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de la Picardie, 25 (1861) p. 490-494 and Les
Passions de saint Lucien dérivés céphalophoriques, H. Moretus Plantin, ed. (Louvain-
Paris, 1953), p. 66-70; Passio s. Luciani (BHL 5010): Ibidem, Moretus Plantin, ed.,
p. 74-82 (rewriting from the first third of the 9th century by a benedictine monk); Passio
s. Luciani, Maxiani atque Iuliani (BHL 5009) by bishop Odo of Beauvais (861-†881)
from c. 860: ibidem, Moretus Plantin, ed., p. 86-107; Coens, ‘Nouvelles recherches’,
p. 21; Pietri, e.a., eds., Topographie chrétienne, p. 133 and p. 139.
31. Duchesne, Fastes, p. 143: ‘Dans le trame du récit et même dans le détail de la
rédaction, elles décèlent une parenté littéraire incontestable’.
sentences. There is always a final attempt by Rictiovarus to persuade

them by promising them gold and other honours, offers that they
promptly reject with great indignation.
It is not easy to state precisely the period in which the passiones
belonging to the Cycle of Rictiovarus originated, and this problem cer-
tainly deserves further research. With the exception of Macra, all the
stories are preserved in 8th or 9th-century manuscripts. The passiones of
Lucianus, Justus, Quintinus, Crispinus and Crispinianus and Victoricus
and Fuscianus are preserved in a manuscript from the abbey of Corbie
dated at the turn of the 8th-9th centuries.32 However, in the view of the
editor H. Moretus Plantin, the copyist of the Passion of Lucianus seems
to have made an effort to render a Merovingian text more acceptable to
his Carolingian readers.33 Also for the Passio Iusti a Merovingian origin
seems highly likely since the discovery of a fragment of this work in a
manuscript from the first half of the 8th century, which probably goes
back to a 7th-century Vorlage34. The same Corbie manuscript also con-
tains the Passiones of Crispinus and Crispinianus, as well as Victoricus
and Fuscianus in their eldest occurrence. The Passio prima et inventio of
Quintinus was written in the course of the 7th century, but opinion differs
regarding the exact moment, before or after the inventio by Saint Eligius
(641-660). The oldest manuscript containing this hagiographical text
goes back to the 8th century.35 Only the vita of Macra was written down
no earlier than the 9th century, probably on the occasion of the translation
of her relics to a new church in her honour, an event which, according to
the Translatio and to Flodoard’s Historia ecclesiae Remensis, took place
32. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 12598; Coens, ‘Aux origines’,
p. 87-88; Coens, ‘Nouvelles recherches’, p. 13: ‘un codex de la seconde moitié du
VIIIe siècle’. We find the passiones of the same saints also in Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale,
ms D V 3; cf. Meijns and Mériaux, ‘Le cycle de Rictiovar’, n. 13. For a detailed analysis
of the contents of this manuscript: M. Gaillard, ‘Remarques sur les plus anciennes ver-
sions de la Passio et de l’Inventio des saints Fuscien, Victoric et Gentien’, in M. Goullet,
ed., Parva pro magnis munera. Études de littérature tardo-antique et médiévale offertes
à François Dolbeau par ses élèves (Turnhout, 2009), p. 397-409.
33. Les passions, Moretus Plantin ed., p. 18.
34. Coens, ‘Aux origines’, p. 86-114; Coens, ‘Nouvelles recherches’, p. 13-20;
Kl. Zechiel-Eckes, ‘Unbekannte Bruchstücke der merowingischen Passio sancti Iusti
pueri (BHL 4590c)’, Francia, 30-1 (2003) p. 1-8, concerning the discovery of another,
severely mutilated, fragment from the same codex, probably of Northumbrian origin
dating from the end of the 8th century; cf. Meijns and Mériaux, ‘Le cycle de Rictiovar’,
n. 20.
35. Villette, ‘Passiones’, p. 63-64.
120 B. MEIJNS
during the reign of Charlemagne.36 So, there are numerous indications

that these stories, except the one about Macra, were already circulating
in the 8th century, while the passiones of Quintinus and Justus even sug-
gest late Merovingian origins (7th century or the first half of the
8th century).37 But there is more.
Quintinus, Crispinus and Crispinianus, as well as Valerius and Rufinus
and Victoricus and Fuscianus had certainly been venerated since the end
of the 6th century. These martyrs appear in the Auxerre version of the
Martyrologium Hieronymianum, which was recorded under the episco-
pacy of Aunacharius (561- †605)38. In it, their names were entered on the
same day and month as given in their passiones. The location of their
graves also corresponds in the two sources. The mention of what
H. Delehaye called ‘coordonnées hagiographiques’39 implies veneration
near the graves of these martyrs. Moreover, the registration of their
names in this oldest martyrology proves that their cult was already quite
well known and widespread at the end of the 6th century. Quintinus,
however, is not present in the Auxerre version, but his name appears in
a manuscript of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum from England from
the start of the 8th century.40 But already at the end of the 6th century, a
cult near Quintinus’s grave is mentioned by Gregory of Tours in his
Liber in gloria martyrum.41 The bishop of Tours probably based his
account on a lost passio and inventio of Quintinus. In his Historia
Francorum, Gregory mentions a basilica devoted to Crispinus and
Crispinianus in the episcopal city of Soissons.42 Justus appears for the
36. De Sancta Macra virgine, Henskens, ed, p. 326; Duchesne, Fastes, p. 146.
37. Coens, ‘Aux origines’, p. 106.
38. Martyrologium Hieronymianum, J.-B. De Rossi and L. Duchesne, eds., AASS
Novembris, 2,1 (Brussels, 1894); Duchesne, Fastes, p. 141-142; cf. J. Dubois, Les mar-
tyrologes du Moyen Âge latin, Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, 26
(Turnhout, 1978), p. 33-37.
39. Dubois, Les martyrologes du Moyen Âge latin, p. 71; R. Aigrain, L’hagiographie,
ses sources, ses méthodes, son histoire (Paris, 1954), p. 252-253.
40. Villette, ‘Passiones’, p. 64 (Agusta Veromandorum sancti Quintini martyris) and
p. 55 n. 32 with a reference to other martyrologies mentioning Quintinus.
41. Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum, MGH, Scriptores rerum merovingi-
carum, 1,2, B. Krusch, ed. (Hannover, 1885; reprint 1969), p. 86-87 c. 72: ‘Apud Vir-
mandinsim vero oppidum Galliarum Quintinus martyr quiescit, cuius beatum corpus a
quadam religiosa, quae dudum fuerat caecata, repperitur..’; cf. Pietri, e.a., eds., Topogra-
phie chrétienne, p. 74-76.
42. Gregory of Tours, Libri historiarum X, B. Krusch and W. Levison, eds., MGH,
SRM, 1,1 (Hannover, 1937 and 1942), book V, c. 34, p. 240-241 and book IX, c. 9,
p. 423; cf. Pietri, e.a., eds., Topographie chrétienne, p. 55-57.
first time in 8th-century additions to the Martyrologium Hieronymi-

anum.43 Macra turns up in the so-called ‘litanies carolines’, copied
between 783 and 794 in Notre-Dame at Soissons44. Justus, Macra and
Lucianus are all present in the 9th-century martyrologies of deacon Florus
of Lyon († 860), of archbishop Ado of Vienne (c. 855-865) and of
Usuard, monk of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (c. 860-870).45 So it would
seem that the cycle of stories was written at a time when the martyrs in
question – or rather their tombs – had already been the object of local
veneration for decades, if not centuries46.
Following Jullian and Duchesne, I believe that the historic value of
this cycle lies, among other things, in the numerous geographic locations
mentioned.47 These are very precise, not only concerning the burial
places of saints, but also with regard to the river system and – even more
so – the road system in the southern half of the archdiocese of Rheims,
since almost all events take place along Roman highways, known to us
from ancient itineraries. Moreover, most of these roads still exist today,
as French departmental roads.48
The depositio martyrum in the Cycle of Rictiovarus contains the fol-
lowing elements: Quintinus’s final resting place was situated on a hill in
present-day Saint-Quentin, which was in Roman times called Augusta
Viromanduorum or Augusta Vermandorum, an important road junction
on the left bank of the Somme and, until the middle of the 3rd century,
43. Justus appears in the abbreviated version of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum,

which is called Gellone from the second half of the 8th century, cf. Coens, ‘Aux origines’,
p. 107-108.
44. M. Coens, Anciennes litanies des saints, Subsidia hagiographica, 37 (Brussels,
1963), p. 286; A. Krüger, Litanei-Handschriften der Karolingerzeit, MGH, Hilfsmittel, 24
(Hannover, 2007), p. 78-90, 347-349 and here p. 497.
45. Cf. J. Dubois and G. Renaud, Édition pratique des martyrologes de Bède, de
l’Anonyme lyonnais et de Florus (Paris, 1976); J. Dubois and G. Renaud, Le martyrologe
d’Adon, ses deux familles, ses trois recensions. Texte et commentaire, Sources d’histoire
médiévale publiées par l’Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (Paris, 1984);
J. Dubois, Le martyrologe d’Usuard. Texte et commentaire, Subsidia hagiographica, 40
(Brussels, 1965).
46. Maybe the striking discrepancy between the first occurence of the cult of certain
martyrs (6th century) and the oldest manuscripts containing their passiones (7th-8th centu-
ries) can be explained by the fact that these passiones are part of hagiographical collec-
tions. These legendaria are much better preserved than the source material they must
used, the older libelli dedicated to a particular saint.
47. Duchesne, Fastes, p. 149; Jullian, ‘Notes’, p. 370-371; Racinet, ‘Recherches
archéologiques’, p. 55-58.
48. Cf. M. Rouche, ‘L’héritage de la voirie antique dans la Gaule du Haut Moyen Âge
(Ve-XIe siècle)’, in M. Rouche, ed., Le choc des cultures. Romanité, Germanité, Chré-
tienté, durant le Haut Moyen Âge (Lille, 2003), p. 37-58.
122 B. MEIJNS
the caput civitatis, before the nearby oppidum of Vermand assumed this
role in the Late Empire.49 When Gregory of Tours writes about the grave
of Quintinus at the end of the 6th century, the place is a somewhat sleepy
town in the shadow of the episcopal city of Vermand, 12 kilometres to
the west. The basilica of Crispinus and Crispinianus, mentioned by
Gregory, was located outside the Roman walls of the episcopal city of
Soissons.50 Moreover, until the erection of a burial basilica in honour
of Bishop Medardus, who died c. 561, this was the only suburban burial
basilica of Soissons. Lucianus’s grave, too, was situated in a suburban
basilica, just northwest of Beauvais, the caput civitas of the Bellovaci
and a castrum in the Late Empire.51 In both Soissons and Beauvais, the
burial basilicas stood along important Roman approach roads and on
the site of ancient necropoles. Victoricus and Fuscianus and their com-
rade, the converted pagan Gentianus, were venerated in the place that is
now known as Sains-en-Amienois, where a Christian burial inscription
has been unearthed.52 It is located 8 kilometres southeast of the episcopal
city of Amiens, along the Roman road towards Saint-Just-en-Chaussée
and Senlis. As the name already suggests, Saint-Just-en-Chaussée is the
final resting place of the child-martyr Justus.53 This Roman stopping
place where the road between Beauvais and Vermand crosses the road
between Senlis and Amiens was called Sinomovicus in Antiquity.
Rufinus, Valerius and Macra found their final resting place along the Via
49. Jullian, ‘Notes”, p. 373-374; J.-L. Collart, ‘Le déplacement du chef-lieu des Viro-
mandui au Bas-Empire, de Saint-Quentin à Vermand’, Revue archéologique de Picardie,
3-4 (1984), p. 245-258; J.-L. Collart and M. Gaillard, ‘Vermand, Saint-Quentin et Noyon:
le chef-lieu d’une cité à l’épreuve de la christianisation’ in A. Ferdière, ed., Capitales
éphémères (Tours 6-8 mars 2003). Des capitales de cités perdent leur statut dans
l’Antiquité tardive, actes du colloque de Tours (6-8 mars 2003), Revue archéologique du
Centre, 25e supplément (Tours, 2004), p. 83-102; Pietri, e.a., eds., Topographie chréti-
enne, p. 74-76.
50. Pietri, e.a., eds., Topographie chrétienne, p. 55-56.
51. Pietri, e.a., eds., Topographie chrétienne, p. 138-140.
52. The place of execution is traditionnaly situated in nearby Saint-Fuscien. Salmon,
‘Actes inédits’, p. 151 and p. 153; Jullian, ‘Notes’, p. 370 n. 1. During the 19th century a
late 6th- or 7th-century epitaph of a certain ‘Ansebertus’ was found in Sains-en-Amienois,
cf. S. Nardi Combescure, ‘Le culte de Victoric, Fuscien et Gentien et les recherches de
l’abbé Messio à Sains-en-Amiénois (1863-1874). Chronique d’une fouille du XIXe siècle’,
in G. Gros, ed., Champ fructueux. Images du legs estéthique et religieux de la Picardie
de la latinité tardive au XIXe siècle (Amiens, 2007), p. 17-36; Pietri, ‘La Christianisation
de la Belgique Seconde’, p. 181.
53. Coens, ‘Aux origines’, p. 101-102 and p. 107-108; Jullian, ‘Notes’, p. 370;
M. Roblin, Le terroir de l’Oise aux époques gallo-romaine et franque. Peuplement,
défrichement, environnement (Paris, 1978), p. 201-202 and 229-230.
Agrippae from Soissons to Rheims; Rufinus and Valerius in Bazoches-

sur-Vesle54 – which probably derives from the Latin word Basilica55 –
and Macra barely 5 kilometres east from there, in Fismes, a name derived
from fines, Latin for ‘border’.56 Indeed, Fismes marked the boundary
between the Roman civitates, and the medieval dioceses, of Soissons and
Rheims. Bazoches was the final border station on the territory of Sois-
sons, Fismes on that of Rheims. Oddly enough, the name of the female
martyr of Fismes, Macra, reminds us of the word marca, the Germanic
word for ‘border’.57
In this sacred topography, apart from the suburbium of the old episco-
pal see of Soissons and the much more recent cathedral city of Beauvais,
the location in vici, towns or sites along Roman roads stands out, namely
in Saint-Just – the old Sinomovicus – Bazoches, Fismes and Saint-
Quentin, which in the 9th century was called Vicus Sancti Quintini. Vici
are secondary agglomerations of Gallo-Roman origin, situated along
major Roman roads and generally spawned by important commercial,
religious or agricultural activity.58 It is precisely in such places that the
bishops of Lemarignier’s ‘conciliar Gaul’ founded important churches,
54. De SS. Rufino et Valerio, Henskens, ed., p. 286: ‘Ducti autem sunt eminus, quasi
septem passuum [millia] juxta callem publicum, super littora Vidole fluminis, ubi beati
Martyres martyrio sunt decorati…’. Paschasius Radbertus, De passione SS. Rufini et
Valerii, Migne, ed., col. 1508: ‘… juxta pervium publicum super ripam fluminis Vuin-
dolae’. Cf. Jullian, ‘Notes’, p. 368; Duchesne, Fastes, p. 145-146; Kaiser, Untersuchun-
gen, p. 263.
55. Flodoard is the first to give the exact name of the place of execution and burial of
Rufinus and Valerius: Flodoard, Die Geschichte der Reimser Kirche, ed. Stratmann,
book IV, §53: ‘ad villam, quae Basilica dicitur… ad ecclesiam sanctorum martyrum…’.
In Flodoard’s time the relics were still honoured in the local church.
56. The vita and translatio omit the exact location of the tomb, although the translatio
mentions a church dedicated to St Martin near Macra’s original burial place to which she
is transferred many years after her death. In the vita, Macra’s place of torture is situated
on a island between the rivers Vesle and Ardre, which have their confluence in Fismes:
‘… in insulam, quae vocatur Litia, ubi Arida fluviolus in fluvium influit Vidulam.’ De
Sancta Macra virgine, Henskens, ed., p. 325; Duchesne, Fastes, p. 146; Jullian, ‘Notes’,
p. 371-372; Demouy, Genèse, p. 195-196.
57. Jullian, ‘Notes’, p. 372 n. 8.
58. C. Delaplace, ‘Les origines des églises rurales (Ve-VIe siècles). À propos d’une
formule de Grégoire de Tours’, Histoire et sociétés rurales, 18 (2002) p. 11-40, here
p. 23; J.-P. Petit and M. Mangin, eds., Les agglomérations secondaires. La Gaule Bel-
gique, les Germanies et l’Occident romain. Actes du colloque de Bliesbruck-Reinheim/
Bitche (Moselle), 21, 22, 23 et 24 octobre 1992 (Paris, 1994), p. 223-246 (Picardie). On
archpriests: R. Godding, Prêtres en Gaule mérovingienne, Subsidia hagiographica, 82
(Brussels, 2001), p. 240-265; J. Avril, ‘Une association obligée: l’archiprêtré ou doy-
enné’, Revue d’Histoire de l’Église en France, 93 (2007), p. 25-40.
124 B. MEIJNS
which were serviced by a group of clerics led by an archpriest (archipres-

biter). The passiones in the Cycle of Rictiovarus do not explicitly men-
tion clerics near the grave of the martyr, but this is not exceptional for
this literary genre. They do, however, mention pilgrims flocking to the
tomb,59 and the occurrence of miracles, and some even indicate that
a place of prayer was built.60 According to the first Passio Luciani the
heathen inhabitants of Beauvais built a monumentum novum on the site
of the execution of Lucianus and his comrades. Later, Christians replaced
the building with a templum novum. The Carolingian rewritings of the
Passio speak of a basilicam admodum non parvam61 and bear witness to
the vigour of the local cult in the 9th century. The Passio of the Soissons
martyrs Crispinus and Crispinianus, conserved in the Corbie manuscript
from the turn of the 8th to 9th centuries, describes the building of a mag-
nam ecclesiam above their burial place.62 The discovered fragment of the
Passio Iusti speaks about an important flocking towards the tomb of
the child martyr on his feast day and ends with the desire that God should
hear the prayers of the faithful ‘for us, for our bishop and his clergy, for
our king and his army, for the sick and for the Christian people’.63
However, a place of prayer, miracles and pilgrims necessarily presup-
poses the presence of a group of clerics to steer the local cult in the
right direction.64 This presupposition is confirmed by certain canons of
59. Cf. the Passio of Victoricus and Fuscianus: Salmon, ‘Actes inédits’, p. 141: ‘…
mox quidam fideles christiani clam pergentes ad locum quo corpora sanctorum inhumata
iacebant concorditer pervenerunt, eaque cum hymnis et laudibus pro ut causa tempusque
dictaverat sepulture tradentes, pro eorum fide atque constantia et martirii palma glorifi-
caverunt deum dicentes.’ The story of the inventio, which is situated in the 6th century,
mentions the building of a templum and the occurrence of miracles. Salmon, ibidem,
p. 147.
60. Cf. Passio prima et inventio sancti Quintini: De S. Quintino, Bossue, ed., p. 786.
61. Les passions, Moretus Plantin, ed., p. 106; cf. Pietri, e.a., eds., Topographie chré-
tienne, p. 139.
62. De SS. Crispino et Crispiniano, B. Bossue, ed., p. 537; Pietri, e.a., eds., Topogra-
phie chrétienne, p. 56.
63. Coens, ‘Aux origines’, p. 96: ‘Martirizatus est autem sanctus Iustus innocens
quinto decimo kalendas novembris et sepultus est a parentibus suis in loco quod ipse
elegit sibi [= Saint-Just-en-Chaussée]. In quo loco multi in sollemnitate eius et tota die
dar(e) gloriam et honorem Deo conveniunt. Cuius oratio pro nobis, pro pastore nostro et
omni clero, pro reg(e) nostro et eius excercitu, pro infirmantibus et omni populo intercedat
ad Deum Patrem omnipotentem…’.
64. Delaplace, ‘Les origines’, p. 11-40 with reference to the canons of the Meroving-
ian councils; L. Pietri, ‘Les abbés de basilique dans la Gaule du VIe siècle’, Revue
d’Histoire de l’Église en France, 69 (1983), p. 5-28; H. Noizet, ‘Les basiliques martyri-
ales au VIe et au début du VIIe siècle’, Revue d’Histoire de l’Église en France, 87 (2001),
p. 329-355; Beaujard, Le culte des saints en Gaule, p. 333-354; cf. B. Meijns, ‘Des
Merovingian councils. Most explicit is canon 25 of the council of Epaone

in 517: ‘That the relics of the saints would not be placed in the oratories
of the estates, except if such an oratory is situated in the neighbourhood
of the clerics of some parish, who might surround those sacred ashes
with frequent psalmody. If these are not present, they will not be ordered
to come there for that purpose until sufficient food and clothing are
available for them’.65 This canon echoes the concern of the bishop that
relics, housed in private churches on domains, might not be surrounded
with sufficient reverence. The care for the relics evidently implied the
presence of a group of clerics with sufficient material means to fulfil
their liturgical tasks undisturbed.
Apart from their topographical precision, most passiones also offer an
explicit account of the precise location of the martyr’s grave. The ano-
nymous authors make use of two techniques to do so: either the failed
translation, or the theme of the ‘cephalophory’. In the passiones of Quin-
tinus, Victoricus and Fuscianus and Rufinus and Valerius, an attempt to
transfer the saintly remains to another place was thwarted, because the
bodies of the martyrs became too heavy to be moved. After a blind
Roman noblewoman had miraculously found the body and severed head
of Quintinus, which had been dumped in the river Somme,66 her attempt
to transfer it to the nearby episcopal city of Vermand failed because the
basiliques rurales dans le nord de la France? Une étude critique de l’origine mérovingi-
enne de quelques communautés de chanoines’, Sacris Erudiri. A Journal on the Inherit-
ance of Early and Medieval Christianity, 41 (2002), p. 301-340; B. Meijns, ‘La chris-
tianisation des campagnes. Quelques observatoins sur la présence des basiliques rurales
dans la province ecclésiastique de Reims’, in L. Verslype, ed., Villes et campagnes en
Neustrie. Sociétés – Économies – Territoires – Christianisation. Actes des XXVe Journées
Internationales d’Archéologie Mérovingienne de l’A.F.A.M, Europe médiévale, 8
(Montagnac, 2007), p. 293-300.
65. Delaplace, ‘Les origines’, p. 30: ‘Sanctorum reliquiae in oratoriis villarebus non
ponantur, nisi forsitan clericàs cujuscumque parociae vicinus esse contingat, qui sacris
cineribus psallendi frequentia famulentur. Quod si illi defuerint, non ante propriae ordi-
nentur, quam eis compitens victus et vestitus substantia depotetur.’ Cf. also Les canons
des conciles mérovingiens (VIe-VIIe siècles), J. Gaudemet and B. Basdevant, eds. and
transl., Sources chrétiennes, 353-354 (Paris, 1989), vol. 1, p. 112-113.
66. Passio prima et inventio: De S. Quintino, B. Bossue, ed., p. 783 (Passio prima):
‘Tunc Ricciovarus jussit custodire corpus beati viri Quintini usque in noctem, et secrete
jussit in fluvium supplumbare corpus ejus, et de limo terræ cooperire præcepit, dicens
quod nec corpus beati viri Quintini a populo christiano honorem aut laudem accipiat.’;
(Inventio) p. 785: ‘… vade intra Gallias, require locum qui dicitur Agusta Veromando-
rum, juxta fluvium qui vocatur Somna, ubi transit agger publicus qui venit de Ambianen-
sium civitate et pergit contra Lugdunum Clavatum. In ipso igitur loco require, et invenies
sub aqua cadaver sancti Quintini, mei martyris. At ubi revelatum latens per te in populo
fuerit demonstratum…’; cf. Racinet, ‘Recherches archéologiques’, p. 55-56.
126 B. MEIJNS
remains refused to go beyond Augusta Vermandorum, present-day Saint-

Quentin67. Finally, she decided to erect a small church on the spot of the
discovery and she promptly regained her sight. Something similar hap-
pened according to the Passio when, at an unspecified moment, the
clergy and people tried to carry the bodies of Rufinus and Valerius from
Bazoches-sur-Vesle to Rheims, but were unable to lift them because of
their enormous weight.68 Also the transport of the martyrs Victoricus and
Fuscianus from their resting place in Sains-en-Amienois, which was hid-
den by woods (criptam obtectam nemoribus), to Paris, after the inventio
during the reign of a king Childebert, probably Childebert I of Paris
(511-558), was stopped in a similar manner.69 Moreover, in this last case,
the martyrs chose their own final resting place by picking up their sev-
ered heads and taking them for a one kilometre stroll.70 Their final des-
tination was the place where their recently converted companion Gen-
tianus had lived. This bizarre act of Victoricus and Fuscianus is a good
example of ‘cephalophory’, namely the activity of a martyr picking up
his decapitated head in order to carry it to the place of his choice for his
burial.71 Lucianus too, according to his second and third Passio from the
9th century, took his head into his own hands and crossed a small local
river near Beauvais, the Thérain, collapsing on the other side closer to
the Roman city.72 Finally, there is the nine-year-old martyr Justus. This
67. Passio prima et inventio: De S. Quintino, B. Bossue, ed., (Inventio) p. 786: ‘Tunc
præfata matrona, accipiens venerabile corpus, involvit eum in linteamine mundo et voluit
eum in Viromandis civitatem sepelire. Cumque in iter proficiscerentur, venerunt in quod-
dam municipium quod Agusta Veromandorum nuncupatur; deponentes eum, quia præ
pondere ambulare non poterant. Cognoscens autem hæc quæ agebantur, præfata matrona
sepelivit eum in eodem loco, et super sepulcrum ejus cellulam ædificavit; et pro beneficio
sepulturæ, exiit ab oculis ejus tamquam squamæ et lumen oculorum recepit … Statim
quanticumque ibi in ipsa hora infirmi venerunt, pristinam receperunt sanitatem.’ Duchesne,
Fastes, p. 144; Villette, ‘Passiones’, p. 53.
68. De SS. Ruffino et Valerio, Henskens, ed., p. 286; Paschasius Radbertus, De pas-
sione SS. Rufini et Valerii, Migne, ed., col. 1508.
69. Salmon, ‘Actes inédits’, p. 144-147 (Inventio); Duchesne, Fastes, p. 147-148.
70. Salmon, ‘Actes inédits’, p. 141-142: ‘Nam cum abscisis iacerent truncata capiti-
bus, divina sunt gratia disponente super pedes erecta, et manibus propria recipientes cap-
ita, firmo recto que gradu ad hospitium beati gentiani de quo educti fuerant revenerunt, ut
quia eum exortando habuerant comitem, cum eodem simul dormirent in requie.’ Coens,
‘Nouvelles recherches’, p. 20.
71. Coens, ‘Nouvelles recherches’, p. 9-10 and p. 16-17.
72. According to the first Passio Luciani, Lucianus and his companions Maximianus
and Julianus were martyred on a hillside overlooking the river Thérain (quasi quattuor
milia ab urbe civitatis Belloacensium in montem super amnis Tare). The Passio secunda
describes Lucianus carrying his head from the place of execution, now three miles from
Beauvais, to his burial place uno a praedicata urbe milliario distans in agello publico.
is the earliest known example of ‘cephalophory’, even though Justus was

not an ambulant cephalophore. According to his passio, he placed his
severed head in his lap and calmly communicated his final wishes regard-
ing the location of his burial, namely in a maqueria antiqua, an ancient
construction near a spring called Sirica, the source of the river l’Arré,
a tributary of the Oise.73 The latter description is typical for the precision
with which the original burial places are located in the cycle. The ques-
tion in the case of Justus remains, to what extent this is an example of
the reuse of what might have been an ancient cult location since Roman
times, considering the small dilapidated ancient building and the spring.74
Even though the content of the passiones from the Cycle of Rictiovarus
is legendary, the importance attached to the topographical location and
the legitimization of the final resting place reveal the presence of burial
basilicas for persons considered to be martyrs in the countryside and in
the areas surrounding the episcopal cities of Beauvais, Soissons and
Amiens during the Merovingian period. On the basis of the presence of
certain martyrs in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum and in the works
of Gregory of Tours, the existence of the basilicas in Soissons (Crispinus
and Crispinianus), Saint-Quentin (Quintinus), Sains-en-Amienois
(Victoricus and Fuscianus) and Bazoches-sur-Vesle (Valerius and
Rufinus) might even be dated as early as the second half of the 6th cen-
tury.75 Interestingly, the entire archdiocese of Rheims, at the end of the
This description is also adopted by the writer of the third Passio. Les Passions, Moretus
Plantin, ed., p. 68 (Passio prima), p. 78 (Passio secunda) and p. 106 (Passio tertia).
73. Coens, ‘Aux origines’, p. 95: ‘… et viderunt corpus eius et sedentem et capud
suum in sino suo tenentem… Et loquebatur lingua de ca(pi)te et dixit ad eos: Ite in spe-
luncam et quaerite maceriam antiquam opertam de sidulio et de edera et infodite corpus
meum…’ and p. 96: ‘et postquam reversi sunt pueri Rizoalis imperato(ris) removi corpus-
culum eius et sepelivi eum in maceria antiqua quae est in pago Belacinse iuxta S(iric)a
fontem (ex) q(uo) procedit (A)reano flumen.’
74. M. Roblin, ‘Fontaines sacrées et nécropoles antiques, deux sites fréquents d’églises
paroissiales rurales dans les sept anciens diocèses de l’Oise’, in Riché, ed., La christiani-
sation, p. 235-251, here p. 242-243.
75. Duchesne, Fastes, p. 146-147 n. 2, mentions the discovery in the neigbourhood of
Pettau in the Roman province of Noricum (part of present-day Austria) of a 4th century
bronze lamp with an inscription referring to the cult of a certain ‘Crispinus’. In 1978 a
glass bowl was found in the grounds of Darenth Park Hospital, Dartford (Kent) in England
on the site of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in a tomb containing a male skeleton buried at
the end of the 5th or the start of the 6th century. The decorated glass bowl probably dates
from the 3rd quarter of the 5th century and has an inscription that mentions a saint ‘Rufinus’
or ‘Rufina’. At least 21 similar bowls (but lacking a Rufinus/a inscription) have been
unearthed, of which 19 originated in the Aisne region (France) or the region around
Namur (Belgium). Cf. L. Webster, D. Harden, M. Hassall, ‘Exhibits at Ballots. 2. The
Darenth Park Bowl’, The Antiquaries Journal, 60 (1980), p. 338-340 + plate LXIII. With
128 B. MEIJNS
6th century, did not yet contain a single monastic community, with the
exception of the intra muros female communities of Saint-Martin in
Amiens and Saint-Pierre-le-Haut in Rheims.76 The martyrial basilicas
in Beauvais, Saint-Just-en-Chaussée and Fismes might date from the
7th century, the century par excellence of monastic foundations; they
more than likely already existed during the first half of the 8th century.
The passiones reveal nothing about the initiators of the local devo-
tions. Did these cults originate spontaneously, for instance as a result of
the discovery of a grave with the mortal remains of a child without a
skull? I refer here to the youthful martyr Justus, whose decapitated head
was carried, at some point, back to his mother in Auxerre and was vener-
ated there.77 Did the Merovingian bishops create a devotion in a certain
location, for instance by a staged inventio? Did the 6th and 7th-century
bishops of Northern Gaul act as impresarios for the veneration of saints,
as their Late Antique colleagues had done around the shores of the Med-
iterranean, as has been described by Peter Brown?78 In whatever manner
the cult originated, the bishop – being the main dignitary responsible for
Christianization in all its forms – would have closely followed the devel-
opment of the local devotions, by virtue of his office.79 Indeed, the burial
basilicas which were spread over the dioceses of Amiens, Beauvais,
Soissons and Rheims would, as focal points for Christian devotion, have
played a very tangible role in the establishment of the faith in the country
and in providing a framework for the devotions of the recently converted.
A transfer to the episcopal city itself was discouraged by the topoi of the
failed translations and the cephalophorous martyrs. Some martyr’s graves
were – possibly intentionally – established in rural vici and were clearly
supposed to stay there.80 The fact that the body of Quintinus became too
heavy to be transported from Augusta to nearby Vermand almost cer-
tainly reflects the rivalry between Saint-Quentin and Vermand during the
8th and 9th century.81 Highly intriguing is the localization of the cult
sincere thanks to Didier Bayard (DRAC-Picardie, Service Régional Archéologique) for

pointing out this archaeological find.
76. Pietri, et al., eds., Topographie chrétienne, p. 39-40 (Rheims) and p. 151-152
(Amiens) with reference to the sources and secondary litterature.
77. Coens, ‘Aux origines’, p. 105-106.
78. P. Brown, The cult of the saints. Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chi-
cago, 1981), p. 31-49.
79. Beaujard, Le culte des saints en Gaule, p. 408-409; Racinet, ‘Recherches
archéologiques’, p. 58.
80. Coens, ‘Aux origines’, p. 114; Coens, ‘Nouvelles recherches’, p. 10.
81. Jullian, ‘Notes’, p. 374 n. 2; Racinet, ‘Nouvelles recherches’, p. 56.
places of Bazoches-sur-Vesle and Fismes, very close to one another but

each apparently defining the frontier of their respective dioceses,
Soissons and Rheims.82
Even though the bishop’s role is not mentioned in the passiones, the
later history of several of the burial basilicas clearly demonstrates that
they had strong ties with the episcopal see. This close relationship with
the bishop or the cathedral is very prominent when looking at the basili-
cas located in the countryside, at some distance from the episcopal city.
The church where Macra’s body was honoured in Fismes was the setting
for two synods of the Church of Rheims, one in 881 under archbishop
Hincmar,83 another in 935 under archbishop Artold.84 According to the
distribution of the prebends of the cathedral chapter of Rheims from
1249 and 1328, the church of Fismes was assigned to the prebend of one
of the cathedral canons.85 At the start of the 12th century the churches
of Saint-Just-en-Chaussée and Bazoches-sur-Vesle were attended by
a college of secular canons.86 Although the origins of these canonical
82. Cf. C. Delaplace, ‘La mise en place de l’infrastructure ecclésiastique rurale en

Gaule à la fin de l’antiquité (IVe-VIe après J.-C.)’, in La paroisse à l’époque préromane
et romane, p. 153-170, especially p. 166-16: ‘Le zèle missionnaire des évêques et de leurs
clercs les a t-il conduits à évangéliser d’abord les zones-frontières des diocèses, de façon
à éviter que de grands vides ne se fissent entre les cités épiscopales voisines? Y avait-il
une volonté de marquer en quelque sorte le territoire de la cité, d’en signaler les frontières
diocésaines afin d’éviter des conflits de territorialité entre les évêchés contigus?’; Blair,
The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, p. 37 n. 111.
83. Hincmar of Rheims, Capitula in synodo apud S. Macram ab Hincmaro promul-
gata, J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina, 125, Paris, 1852, col. 1069-1086, here col.
1069-1070: ‘…apud martyrium sanctae Macrae, in loco qui Finibus Rhemensis parochiae,
in nomine Christi convenimus…’; G. Schmitz, ‘Hincmar von Reims, die Synode von
Fismes 881 und der Streit um das Bistum Beauvais’, Deutsches Archiv, 35 (1979), p. 463-
486.
84. Flodoard, Die Geschichte der Reimser Kirche, p. 417, book IV, c. 25: ‘Anno post
istum secuto synodo septem episcoporum apud sanctam Macram Artoldo episcopo
vocante convenit. In qua predones et ecclesiarum rerum pervasores ad satisfactionem
venire vocantur’; I. Schröder, Die westfränkische Synoden von 888 bis 987 und ihre Über-
lieferung, MGH, Hilfsmittel 3 (München, 1980), p. 229; Flodoard also mentions the synod
in his Annales at the year 935: The annals of Flodoard of Reims, 919-966, S. Fanning and
B.S. Bachrach, transl., Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures, 9 (Peterborough,
2004), p. 36; M. Sot, Un historien et son église. Flodoard de Reims (Paris, 1993), p. 343.
85. Pouillés de la Province de Reims, Recueil des historiens de la France, Pouillés, 6,
A. Longnon, ed. (Paris, 1908), p. 6 E (1249: belonging to the prebend of a certain canon
Romanus, archdeacon) and p. 52 B (1328: belonging to a canon and deacon called Petrus
de Chambly).
86. Bazoches: Kaiser, Untersuchungen, p. 264 n. 232 and A. Luchaire, Louis VI le
Gros. Annales de sa vie et de son règne (1081-1137), (Paris, 1890), p. 263 nr. 577 (refer-
ring to a letter of bishop Joscelin of Soissons, informing the canons of Bazoches that their
church will become a priory of Marmoutier). Saint-Just-en-Chaussée: D. Lohrmann,
130 B. MEIJNS
communities are obscure, the close association with their respective bish-
ops is clear.87 The church of Bazoches was not only the seat of a deanery
during the Middle Ages, which is an indication of the ecclesiastical
prominence of the place; the bishop of Soissons had, according to
Flodoard, a residence built next to the church where he stayed when
visiting Bazoches.88 The church of Saint-Just-en-Chaussée was a propri-
etary church of the bishops of Beauvais and stood under episcopal gov-
ernance until 1119. The bishops were responsible for the distribution of
the prebends of the secular canons until they were replaced by regular
canons in 1119.89
Even the suburban basilica of Saint-Lucien in Beauvais, which devel-
oped into an important monastic community, was closely associated with
the episcopacy. According to a charter of Charles the Bald dating from
868 the abbey was subditum atque conjunctum sanctae nostrae ecclesiae
Belvacensi and, in later times, the abbey belonged to the mensa
Papsturkunden in Frankreich. Neue Folge. 7. Band, Nördliche Ile-de-France und Ver-

mandois, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. Philologisch-
Historische Klasse, Dritte Folge, nr. 95 (Göttingen, 1976), p. 45 and 63. Secular canons
are mentioned in the charter of bishop Peter of Beauvais from 1119: Gallia Christiana, X
(Paris, 1751), col. 250-251; L. Pihan, ‘Saint-Just-en-Chaussée. Étude historique et
archéologique’, Mémoires de la Société académique de l’Oise, 11 (1880), p. 443-786, here
p. 684-691.
87. Flodoard, Die Geschichte der Reimser Kirche, Stratmann, ed., p. 455 speaks about
the presence of a priest and several subordinate priests attending the church of the martyrs
Rufinus and Valerius in Bazoches during the episcopacy of bishop Riculfus of Soissons
(c. 889-900). Traditionally, the foundation of a basilica above the tombs of the two mar-
tyrs and the foundation of a community of canons was attributed to bishop Lupus of
Soissons or archbishop Remigius. Cf. Kaiser, Untersuchungen, p. 226-227 n. 6 with refer-
ence to further litterature, and p. 263-264.
88. Pouillés, Longnon, ed, p. XXVIII and p. 95; Flodoard, Die Geschichte der Reim-
ser Kirche, Stratmann, ed., p. 456; Sot, Un historien, p. 243-245.
89. Bishop Peter of Beauvais confers the distribution of the prebends at that moment
to the regular canons: Gallia Christiana, X, col. 250-251: ‘Praebendarum vero disposi-
tiones quae prius in manu nostra erant, eis omnino dimisimus’. In the same charter, the
bishop states that the ‘justitiam ecclesiasticam post episcopum, jus archidiaconale et
capellam integram in eadem ecclesia, et in parrochia pertinentem ad eamdem ecclesiam’
were granted by his predecessors to the collegiate church of Saint-Just. When the regular
canons of Saint-Just were replaced by premonstratensians in 1147, bishop Odo of Beauvais
designates the church as ecclesia nostra (Gallia christiana, X, col. 256-257). However, it
is not clear how long the church had already belonged to the mensa episcopalis. Pihan,
‘Saint-Just-en-Chaussée’, p. 691-696; Lohrmann, Papsturkunden, p. 63; O. Guyotjeannin,
Episcopus et comes. Affirmation et déclin de la seigneurie épiscopale au nord du royaume
de France (Beauvais-Noyon, Xe-début XIIIe siècle), (Genève-Paris, 1987), p. 20, who con-
siders Saint-Just as one of the ‘importants centres du temporel épiscopal’ from 1015
onwards.
episcopalis.90 Moreover, it was from the tomb of Lucianus that the new
bishops of Beauvais departed to make their solemn entry in the city, and
from the 9th century onwards there is evidence for the burial of several
bishops in the church of Saint-Lucien.91
During the Carolingian period, Benedictine monks had replaced the
clerics of the suburban basilica in Soissons where the relics of Crispinus
and Crispinianus rested.92 However, the abbey of Saint-Crépin-le-Grand
came under royal influence in the course of the 9th and 10th centuries.
The burial basilica of Quintinus in Saint-Quentin was headed by an abbot
in Carolingian times – one was Hugo, one of Charlemagne’s sons – and
was generously favoured by the Carolingian rulers.93 At that time, the
abbey became an eminent place of pilgrimage consisting of a consider-
ably extended Merovingian basilica and a newly built crypt, and a chapel
along the Somme on the spot where the body of the saint had been dis-
covered by Eusebia; the martyr Quintinus was the subject of a prolific
hagiographical production. In the 11th century secular canons had
replaced the Benedictine monks, a situation which probably goes back to
the middle of the 10th century. The collegiate church of Saint-Quentin
was one of the most prestigious and important churches of the Verman-
dois region during the Middle Ages and the early modern period.
The martyrial basilica at Sains-en-Amienois, the burial place of
Rufinus and Valerius near Amiens, on the other hand, did not develop
into a community of canons or monks. According to a late medieval
inventory of benefices, the patron of the church was the abbot of Saint-
Fuscien. The abbey of Saint-Fuscien was founded in 1105 in honour
of the local martyr in the homonymous village where the martyrdom of
90. Guyotjeannin, Episcopus et comes, p. 17; L.-E. Deladreue et Mathon, Histoire de

l’abbaye de Saint-Lucien, Mémoires de la Société académique de l’Oise, 8 (1871-1873)
p. 258-285 and 541-704.
91. C. Fons, ‘L’abbaye de Saint-Lucien de Beauvais. Étude historique et archéologique’,
Positions de thèses de l’École nationale des chartes, (1975) p. 77-84; cf. L. Renet, Saint
Lucien et les autres saints du Beauvaisis, Beauvais, 1892-1895, 3 vol.; J. Becquet,
Abbayes et prieurés de l’ancienne France. Recueil historique des archevêchés, évêchés,
abbayes et prieurés de France, 18. Province ecclésiastique de Reims. Diocèse actuel de
Beauvais (Ligugé, 1989), p. 124-129.
92. Lohrmann, Papsturkunden, p. 166-167; J. Becquet, Abbayes et prieurés de
l’ancienne France. Recueil historique des archevêchés, évêchés, abbayes et prieurés
de France, 17. Province ecclésiastique de Reims. Diocèse actuel de Soissons (Ligugé,
1985), p. 173-177.
93. Becquet, Abbayes et prieurés 17, p. 91-97; Lohrmann, Papsturkunden, p. 104-
105; Villette, ‘Passiones’, p. 68-69.
132 B. MEIJNS
Fuscianus and his companions was by tradition located, only two kilo-
metres north of Sains-en-Amienois.94
The Life of St Eligius
A far clearer example of episcopal initiative regarding the promotion

of saints’ cults established in burial basilicas is to be found in the Life of
St Eligius. The life of this saint, bishop of Noyon-Tournai, was probably
written between 673 and 675, more than a decade after his death, by his
friend St Audoenus, bishop of Rouen.95 Although the version preserved
was composed before 743 by a monk from the abbey of Saint-Éloi in
Noyon, recent research suggests that this version is much closer to the
vita prima than was formally thought.96 In the second book, the author
mentions the intensive search undertaken by Eligius from the moment he
was consecrated bishop in 641. The purpose of this quest was to find the
bodies of saints who had died a martyr’s death.97 In the story, we see
Eligius in action in the vicus of Seclin, in the diocese of Tournai, where
he discovered the remains of the martyr Piatus, who had supposedly
propagated the faith in Belgica secunda at the end of the 3rd century, and
again at the burial basilica of Quintinus in the diocese of Noyon, which
also appeared in the Cycle of Rictiovarus. But also two other burial
basilicas from this cycle play a part in the Life of St Eligius, namely that
of Crispinus and Crispinianus, and that of Lucianus, situated respectively
in the episcopal cities of Soissons and Beauvais, so outside Eligius’s own
diocese of Noyon-Tournai. According to the hagiographer, Eligius made
an inventio in all these places, because ‘he had, because of his virtues,
94. Pouillés, Longnon, ed., p. 536 E (pouillé from 1301); Gallia Christiana, X, col.
299-300; J. Becquet, Abbayes et prieurés de l’ancienne France. Recueil historique des
archevêchés, évêchés, abbayes et prieurés de France, 16. Province ecclésiastique de
Reims. Diocèse actuel d’Amiens (Ligugé, 1981), p. 138.
95. Vita Eligii episcopi Noviomagensis, B. Krusch, ed., MGH SRM, 4 (Hannover,
1902; reprint 1977), p. 634-761; Vie de saint Éloi, I. Westeel, transl. (Noyon, 2002).
96. M. Banniard, ‘Latin et communication orale en Gaule franque: le témoignage de
la « Vita Eligi »’, in J. Fontaine and J.N. Hillgarth, Le septième siècle. Changements et
continuités, Studies of the Warburg Institute, 42 (London, 1992), p. 58-86; Mériaux, Gal-
lia irradiata, p. 353 nr. 18; C.M.M. Bayer, ‘Vita Eligii’, Reallexikon der Germanischen
Altertumskunde, 35 (2007) col. 461-524.
97. Vita Eligii, Krusch, ed., p. 697-700, Book II c. 7; cf. P. Fouracre, ‘The work of
Audoenus of Rouen and Eligius of Noyon in extending episcopal influence from the town
to the country in seventh-century Neustria’, in D. Baker, ed., The Church in Town and
Countryside, Studies in Church History, 16 (Oxford, 1979), p. 77-91.
received from the Lord the ability to discover the bodies of the martyr-
saints, who had been hidden from the people during so many centuries
until this day’.98 A careful reading of the passages concerned, combined
with the knowledge already at our disposal about the burial basilicas
gleaned from the Cycle of Rictiovarus, leads to suspicion that Eligius’s
inventiones were merely a hagiographical topos.
Eligius’s action in the burial basilica in honour of Quintinus is
described first, and in most detail.99 After three days of fasting and after
intensive digging, Eligius found the grave of the saint in the back of the
church. The grave was opened and some corporeal and non-corporeal
relics were removed, following which the mortal remains were placed
behind the main altar, in a tomb made by Eligius himself, ‘of admirable
craftsmanship, made of gold, silver and precious stones’.100 He also stim-
ulated the enlargement of the church, the better to cope with the pilgrims
flocking to the tomb. Eligius’s action was successful, unlike the endeav-
our of a certain Maurinus, the cantor of the royal palace, who paid for
his vain effort to try to find Quintinus with his life.101 A clear message
that discovering saints’ bodies was an episcopal prerogative. But was
this really a case of an inventio ex nihilo? Probably not. The Inventio
sancti Quintini, belonging to the hagiographical dossier of this saint,
offers a plausible explanation for the excavations.102 According to this
source, the original chapel built by order of Eusebia, the blind noble-
woman who had discovered the body and head of Quintinus, had fallen
into decay. After a miraculous rediscovery by a King Childeric during
a hunting party, it was replaced by a new basilica. However, during the
construction, the floor had been tiled and they had neglected to mark
98. Vita Eligii, Krusch, ed., p. 697, Book II c. 6: ‘Huic itaque viro sanctissimo inter
cetera virtutum suarum miracula id etiam a Domino concessum erat, ut sanctorum mar-
tyrum corpora, quae per tot saecula abdita populis actenus habebantur, eo investigante a
nimio ardore fidei indagante, patefacta proderentur; siquidem nonnulla venerabantur prius
a populo in locis quibus non erant, et tamen quo in loco certius humata tegerentur, prorsus
ignorabatur.’; Vie de saint Éloi, Westeel, transl., p. 82.
99. Vita Eligii, Krusch, ed., p. 697-699, Book II c. 6; Vie de saint Éloi, Westeel,
transl., p. 82-84.
100. Vita Eligii, Krusch, ed., p. 699, Book II c. 6: ‘tumbam denique ex auro argen-
toque et gemmis miro opere desuper fabricavit.’
101. Vita Eligii, Krusch, ed., p. 697-699, Book II c. 6; Vie de saint Éloi, Westeel,
transl., p. 82-84.
102. Inventio (BHL 7015): Inventio secunda corporis S. Quintini Veromanduensis
martyris ex Cod. Paris. lat. 5301, Analecta Bollandiana, 8 (1889), p. 429-442 edition
based on a late 10th C. manuscript. Cf. L. Van der Essen, ‘Vies de saint Médard et de saint
Éloi’, Annuaire de l’Université catholique de Louvain, 68 (1904) p. 372-390, here p. 384-
389; Villette, ‘Passiones’, p. 53, 61-62 and 66-69.
134 B. MEIJNS
the exact spot of the martyr’s grave. Could the digging be inspired by the
ordinary desire to find the precise place where Quintinus had been bur-
ied? Archaeological excavations have established the continued occupa-
tion of the ecclesial site on the basis of burials during the 6th and 7th cen-
tury, so we might suppose a continuation of the veneration of Quintinus.103
Anyway, once he had discovered them, Eligius made clever use of his
find by transferring the saint’s remains to a far more prominent place,
namely behind the main altar. Something similar probably happened in
the suburban basilica in honour of Crispinus and Crispinianus in Sois-
sons.104 The vita states only that Eligius removed the remains of these
martyrs from a crypt, and that he decorated their new grave with remark-
able ornaments. And he also made a splendid tomb for the martyr
Lucianus in Beauvais. In neither of these cases was there an inventio in
the strict sense of the word, that is, the vita does not breathe a word
about it. These martyrs were perhaps well known at the time, their mem-
ory was honoured in the churches where their graves could be seen and
venerated.
It is possible that only in Seclin did Eligius literally discover a long-
forgotten martyr.105 Here too, the remains were interred in a mausoleum
made by Eligius. Nothing is known about the veneration of this late
3rd-century martyr previous to Eligius’s intervention around the middle
of the 7th century. The Passio of Victoric and Fuscianus (eldest occur-
rence in the Corbie handschrift from the turn of the 8th-9th centuries)
mentions Piatus alongside Victoricus and Fuscianus, Rufinus and Vale-
rius, Crispinus and Crispinianus, Quintinus and some others who were
sent from Rome to accompany St Denys on his missionary activity in
103. Collart and Gaillard, ‘Vermand, Saint-Quentin et Noyon’, p. 96-98; Pietri, e.a.,
eds., Topographie chrétienne, p. 75-76.
104. Vita Eligii, Krusch, ed., p. 700, Book II c. 7: ‘Suessonis quoque civitate sanctos
martyres et germanos Crispinum et Crispinianum ex quadam cripta prolatos mirifice
conposuit eorumque memoriam insigni ornamento decoravit necnon et Belloacus muni-
cipio beatum martyrem Lucium, collegam quondam sancti Quintini, inventum similiter
fabricavit atque conposuit; sed et alias quam multas memoriis sanctorum inpendit dili-
gentias, quae nunc non sufficit narrantis evolvere lingua.’ Vie de saint Éloi, Westeel,
transl., p. 85.
105. Vita Eligii, Krusch, ed., p. 699-700, Book II c. 7: ‘Post haec [the inventio of
Quentin] simili modo grandi labore atque instantia invenit in territurio Medenantense vico
Saclinio sanctum martyrem Piatonem, cui similiter clavos prolixos ex corpore ablatos
populis in argumentum monstravit. Corpus denique, sicut martyrem decuit, eliganter con-
posuit atque mausoleum urbane desuper fabricavit.’ Vie de saint Éloi, Westeel, transl.,
p. 85.
Gaul106. A Merovingian basilica in Tournai, which has been archaeo-

logically attested, might have been devoted to Piatus, but there is no
certainty about the church dedication prior to the 12th century.107 Only
in the 9th century did the name Piatus appear in martyrologies and in
various litanies.108 Eligius’s action in Seclin can be seen as the launch-
ing of the veneration of a previously obscure saint. Once again, the
location is remarkable: a town in an important transit region traversed
by Roman roads, where various remains of Gallo-Roman agrarian com-
plexes have been discovered.109 Seclin was undoubtedly still an agglom-
eration of some importance in the early Middle Ages, as becomes clear
from its designation as vicus in the Life of St Eligius. From the 11th
century onwards there are clear indications of the presence of a com-
munity of secular canons attending the church of Seclin where the tomb
of Piatus was still venerated.110 In the 12th century Eligius was believed
to be the founder of this collegiate church.111
In Saint-Quentin, Soissons and Beauvais, Eligius was mainly inter-
ested in boosting the existing devotion by upgrading a martyr’s grave by
106. Salmon, ‘Actes inédits’, p. 124: ‘una cum venerabili Dionysio praesule, comiti-
bus caeteris Piatone, Ruffino, Crispino, Crispiniano, Valerio, Luciano, Marcello, Quintino
et Regulo ab urbe Roma progredientes…’
107. A Passio sancti Piati was only written during the 10th century: J. Dumoulin and
J. Pycke, ‘Les saints Piat et Éleuthère’, in Childéric-Clovis. 1500e anniversaire. 482-1982
(Tournai, 1982), p. 172-173; J. Dumoulin and J. Pycke, ‘Topographie chrétienne de Tour-
nai des origines au début du XIIe siècle. Problématique nouvelle’, in Liber amicorum.
N.-N. Huyghebaert. O.S.B. Sacris Erudiri, 25 (Steenbrugge – Den Hague, 1982), vol. 2,
p. 1-50, especially p. 5 and 39; M. Coens, ‘Note sur saint-Piat’, in M. Amand and
H. Lambert, eds., Le sous-sol archéologique de l’église de Saint-Piat à Tournai, Archae-
ologica Belgica, 222 (Brussels, 1980), p. 70-71; L. Verslype and M. Siebrand, ‘Premiers
édifices religieux dans l’environnement de la cathédrale Notre-Dame’, in Le patrimoine
archéologique de Wallonie (Namur, 1997), p. 452-455, here p. 452; Meijns, ‘Des basi-
liques rurales’, p. 309-316; Meijns, ‘La christianisation des campagnes’, p. 293-295;
Mériaux, Gallia irradiata, p. 334; Mériaux, ‘Piat, Nicaise ou Éleuthère. Quels étaient les
saints spécialement honorés à Tournai pendant le haut Moyen Âge’, in Verslype, ed.,
Villes et campagnes, p. 301-304.
108. The first martyrology mentioning Piat is that of Usuard. Mériaux, Gallia irra-
diata, p. 326-327 and 364.
109. Cf. R. Delmaire, ed., Carte archéologique de la Gaule 50: Nord (Paris, 1996),
395-406.
110. T. Leuridan, Histoire de Seclin (Lille, 1929-1931), 3 vol; S. Révillon and
L. Baillet, ‘Seclin (crypte de la collégiale Saint-Piat)’, in Les premiers monuments chré-
tiens de la France, 3, Ouest, Nord et Est, Atlas archéologique de la France (Paris, 1998),
p. 272-273.
111. Herman of Tournai, Liber de restauratione monasterii Sancti Martini Tornacen-
sis, G. Waitz, ed., MGH, SS, 14 (Hannover, 1883), p. 295 c. 47; Herman of Tournai, The
Restoration of the Monastery of Saint Martin of Tournai, L.H. Nelson, transl. (Washing-
ton D.C., 1996), p. 70.
136 B. MEIJNS
erecting a splendid, highly visible and strategically-placed tomb. This

should not surprise us; the first book of the Life of St Eligius also tells
us that the bishop had already created many tombs for saints in gold,
silver and precious stones while he was still a layman and goldsmith.112
Moreover, the translatio of the bones to their new resting place meant
that parts of the mortal remains could be separated from the body, and
installed and venerated in other locations.113 Both components of
Eligius’s manner of proceeding clearly served a common purpose,
namely promoting the cults of new (obscure) or old (well known) mar-
tyrs, both on the site of their original burial place and, by means of the
relics separated from their remains, in numerous other locations. The
basilicas of Soissons and Beauvais were situated in the shadow of the
cathedral. Eligius’s action in Saint-Quentin and Seclin, on the other
hand, takes us once more to settlements of some importance in the coun-
tryside. Even though he founded several monasteries114 and he lived dur-
ing the boom of Irish-Frankish monastic foundations, Eligius apparently
was also interested in a different type of religious institution. He was
supposedly to some extent familiar with the churches which were
founded in rural vici and which were closely related to the episcopacy.
Eligius originated from the Limousin region, and in this part of ‘conciliar
Gaul’ he is bound to have come into contact with these places of prayer.
In search of an alternative christian landscape: martyrial basilicas in

the countryside of the archdiocese of Rheims?
Both the Cycle of Rictiovarus and the Vita Sancti Eligii contain ele-
ments indicating that the Merovingian religious landscape of Northern
Gaul was possibly more varied than one would initially suspect, and that
the idea of ‘monastic Gaul’ may need to be slightly adjusted. The Cycle
112. Vita Eligii, Krusch, ed., p. 688, Book I c. 32: ‘Hic idem vir beatus inter cetera
bonorum operum insignia multa sanctorum auro argentoque et gemmis fabricavit sepul-
chra, id est Germani, Severini, Piatonis, Quintini, Lucii, Genovefae, Columbae, Maximiani
et Loliani, Iuliani, adhuc autem et aliorum multorum.’ Vie de saint Éloi, Westeel, transl.,
p. 66.
113. This is evidently the case with some corporeal and non-corporeal remains (the
clavos or long nails used during torture) of Quentin during the translation to the shrine.
Vita Eligii, Krusch, ed., p. 699, Book II c. 6; Vie de saint Éloi, Westeel, transl., p. 84.
114. Vita Eligii, Krusch, ed., Book I, c. 15-16 p. 680-68 and Book II c. 5, p. 697
(Solignac in the Limousin and nunneries in Paris and Noyon).
and the Life of Saint Eligius offer glimpses of what we might call an
alternative Christian landscape, a landscape dotted with the tombs of
locally venerated martyrs, which acted as focal loci and contributed to
the Christianization of the countryside. These holy places, where the rel-
ics of martyrs were looked after by a local community of clerics, seem
to have coexisted chronologically with the Irish-Frankish communities of
monks. Some places of cult probably even predate the 7th-century monas-
tic communities and originate in the 6th century, or perhaps even earlier.
However, the dozens of institutions considered to be ‘monastic’, and
the numerous sources they have left behind, force themselves on our
attention. In sharp contrast to this, there is the very meagre number of
sources left by the religious connected to the basilicas under discussion.
The rare sources testifying to their earliest history are mainly of a hagi-
ographical or liturgical nature. As a result, the authors of the vitae or
passiones focus on the saint whose mortal remains granted all kinds of
favours to a certain location, and in whose shadow we would expect
the presence of a group of clerics responsible for the maintenance of the
saint’s cult. The fame of the saint inexorably overshadowed the local
clerical community, and this makes it difficult indeed to trace them. Nor
is their later history always very helpful. The outline of these basilical
clerics becomes sharper when they enter the Carolingian period, either
as canons or as monks, and when they succeed in surviving seculariza-
tions in post-Carolingian times. With regard to the aforementioned
examples, this was the case for the burial basilicas in the suburbium of
Soissons and Beauvais, and in the countryside in Saint-Quentin, Saint-
Just-en-Chaussée, Bazoches-sur-Vesle and Seclin. The churches of
Sains-en-Amienois and Fismes, on the other hand, only re-emerge during
the High Middle Ages as humble parish churches.
Research into the Christianization of the countryside in ‘monastic
Gaul’ may well profit from a less exclusively institutional approach. In
my own view, it would be more fruitful to use the local tombs of the
saints as a starting point for further research, rather than the religious
houses themselves. A quick glance at the dozens of religious communi-
ties, canonical as well as monastic, within the archdiocese of Rheims
shows the presence of numerous saints whose bones served as a nucleus
around which a community originated. But as the examples of Sains-en-
Amienois and Fismes have shown, the bodies of holy martyrs could also
rest in (what later became) ordinary local churches. Very often the saints
were well known and enjoyed a more or less widespread veneration in a
138 B. MEIJNS
specific region or even beyond. But sometimes obscure names can be

detected, saints whose cult must have been extremely local. It would
be enlightening to make an inventory of the resting places of all these
saints, and to study the identity of the saints and the history of the sites.115
Were these saints martyrs of the faith, missionaries, hermits, bishops,
monks, founders of religious communities, heads of religious houses,
laypeople, men, women or even children? Do they appear in martyrolo-
gies? Were their lives recorded in hagiographical sources? Where was
their cult centred? This last question leads us inevitably back to the insti-
tutional framework: the best guarantee for the lasting memory of a saint
was the presence of a group of religious men or women who dedicated
their lives to his or her cult. The importance of a saintly tomb for a reli-
gious community, regardless of whether it was tended by canons or
monks, is clearly demonstrated by the list of abbeys and collegiate
churches drawn up in the second book of the Deeds of the Bishops of
Cambrai from c. 1024-1025.116 Almost every religious community men-
tioned could boast the presence of the body of one or more saints. It
would be interesting to see which type of institution developed around
the saintly burial place, and even what actually came first: the tomb of a
person considered to be a saint around which a group of clerics gathered,
or the religious institution itself which afterwards received the burial of
its founder or saintly patron? The renewed study of the well known
abbeys within the archdiocese of Rheims as well as the search for the
burial places of far more obscure saints proceeding from this specific
point of view might well result in surprising new insights into the origins
and nature of the Christianization of the countryside of northern Gaul in
the early Middle Ages.
115. An inspiring volume is that edited by A. Thacker and R. Sharpe on Local Saints
and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West (Oxford, 2002), in which the contribution
by J. Blair, ‘A Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Saints’, pp. 495-566, is particularly noteworthy.
An inventory of the saints resting in the northern dioceses of the province of Rheims
(Thérouanne, Arras, Cambrai and Tournai) up to the 11th century has been made by
Mériaux, Gallia irradiata, p. 345-372.
116. Gesta pontificum Cameracensium, L. C. Bethmann, ed., MGH SS, 7 (Hannover,
1846), p. 454-465.

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Paganism in the Middle Ages

Verbeke, Werner, Marenbon, John, Steel, Carlos

Published by Leuven University Press

Verbeke, Werner, et al.

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For content related to this chapter

MARTYRS, RELICS AND HOLY PLACES:

Lemarignier’s ‘Gaule monastique’ and ‘Gaule conciliaire’

At a pioneering conference dedicated to ‘Agriculture and the Rural

de Science religieuse from 1996.4 Lemarignier himself, on the other

4. Cf. E. Magnou-Nortier, ‘La christianisation de la Gaule (VIe-VIIe siècles). Esquisse

The process of Christianization in the Archdiocese of Rheims13

The archdiocese of Rheims goes back to the Roman province of Bel-

Rheims. In this administrative capital of the Roman province from the

14. Cf. Pietri, et al., eds., Topographie chrétienne.

If the institution of the episcopal sees in this region is often somewhat

15. C. Mériaux, Gallia irradiata. Saints et sanctuaires dans le nord de la Gaule du

aristocracy, at least, presented itself since the 6th century as being

The Cycle of Rictiovarus

historicity. What is more, this assessment might actually be applied to the

sentences. There is always a final attempt by Rictiovarus to persuade

during the reign of Charlemagne.36 So, there are numerous indications

first time in 8th-century additions to the Martyrologium Hieronymi-

43. Justus appears in the abbreviated version of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum,

Agrippae from Soissons to Rheims; Rufinus and Valerius in Bazoches-

which were serviced by a group of clerics led by an archpriest (archipres-

Merovingian councils. Most explicit is canon 25 of the council of Epaone

remains refused to go beyond Augusta Vermandorum, present-day Saint-

is the earliest known example of ‘cephalophory’, even though Justus was

sincere thanks to Didier Bayard (DRAC-Picardie, Service Régional Archéologique) for

places of Bazoches-sur-Vesle and Fismes, very close to one another but

82. Cf. C. Delaplace, ‘La mise en place de l’infrastructure ecclésiastique rurale en

Papsturkunden in Frankreich. Neue Folge. 7. Band, Nördliche Ile-de-France und Ver-

90. Guyotjeannin, Episcopus et comes, p. 17; L.-E. Deladreue et Mathon, Histoire de

The Life of St Eligius

A far clearer example of episcopal initiative regarding the promotion

Gaul106. A Merovingian basilica in Tournai, which has been archaeo-

erecting a splendid, highly visible and strategically-placed tomb. This

In search of an alternative christian landscape: martyrial basilicas in

specific region or even beyond. But sometimes obscure names can be

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