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Editorial
This article examines the wide range of anonymous and pseudonymous naming practices to be found in West African newspapers between the 1880s and 1930s, and asks about the shape of a West African history of anonymity as compared with recent histories of anonymity in European literature. The article also discusses the ways in which colonial West African uses of anonymity and pseudonyms challenge postcolonial scholarship on agency, subjectivity, resistance, authenticity and identity.

The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints

A >> Alban Butler >> The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints




ST. GILDAS THE ALBANIAN, OR THE SCOT, C.[1]

HIS father, who was called Caunus, and was king of certain southern
provinces in North Britain, was slain in war by king Arthur. St. Gildas
improved temporal afflictions into the greatest spiritual advantages,
and, despising a false and treacherous world, aspired with his whole
heart to a heavenly kingdom. Having engaged himself in a monastic state,
he retired with St. Cado, abbot of Llan-carvan, into certain desert
islands, whence they were driven by pirates from the Orcades. Two
islands, called Ronech and Ecni, afforded him for some time a happy
retreat, which he forsook to preach to sinners the obligation of doing
penance, and to invite all men to the happy state of divine love. After
discharging this apostolical function for several years, he retired to
the southwest part of Britain into the abbey of Glastenbury, where he
died and was buried in 512. William of Malmesbury[2] and John Fordun[3]
mention his prophecies and miracles. See F. Alford, an. 512. Dom
Lobineau, Saints de Bret. p. 72. Dom Morice, Hist. de Bret. t. 1, in the
notes.

Footnotes:
1. Mr. Gale has cleared up the dispute about the two Gildases, and
demonstrates this to have been a distinct person from the former,
which is also proved by Dom Lobineau and Dom Morice.
2. Gul. Malmesb. de Antiq. Glast.
3. Scoti-chron. c. 22.

On this day is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology, ST. SABINIANUS of
TROYES in CHAMPAGNE, a martyr of the third century. His festival is kept
at Troyes on the 24th. See Bollan. 29th Jan. p. 937. Tillem. Hist. des
Emp, t. 3, p. 541.

Also, ST. SULPICIUS, surnamed SEVERUS, Bishop of Bourges in 591. See
Greg. Tour. Hist. Franc. l. 6, c. 39. Gall. Christ. and Ben. XIV. Pref.
in Mart. Rom.


JANUARY XXX.

ST. BATHILDES, QUEEN OF FRANCE.

From her life written by a contemporary author, and a second life, which
is the same with the former, except certain additions of a later date,
in Bollandus and Mabillon, sec. 4, Ben. p. 447, and Act. Sanct. Ben. t.
2. See also Dubois, Hist. Eccl. Paris, p. 198, and Chatelain. Notes on
the Martyr. 30 Jan. p. 462. See Historia St. Bathildis et Fundationem
ejus, among the MS. lives of saints in the abbey of Jumieges, t. 2. Also
her MS. life at Bec, &c.

A.D. 680.

ST. BATHILDES, or BALDECHILDE, in French Bauteur, was an English-woman,
who was carried over very young into France, and there sold for a slave,
at a very low price, to Erkenwald, otherwise called Erchinoald, and,
Archimbald, mayor of the palace under King Clovis II. When she grew up
he was so much taken with her prudence and virtue, that he committed to
her the care of his household. She was no ways puffed up, but seemed
{311} the more modest, more submissive to her fellow-slaves, and always
ready to serve the meanest of them in the lowest offices. King Clovis
II. in 649 took her for his royal consort, with the applause of his
princes and whole kingdom: such was the renown of her extraordinary
endowments. This unexpected elevation, which would have turned the
strongest head of a person addicted to pride, produced no alteration in
a heart perfectly grounded to humility and other virtues. She seemed
even to become more humble than before, and more tender of the poor. Her
present station furnished her with the means of being truly their
mother, which she was before in the inclination and disposition of her
heart. All other virtues appeared more conspicuous in her, but above the
rest an ardent zeal for religion. The king gave her the sanction of his
royal authority for the protection of the church, the care of the poor,
and the furtherance of all religions undertakings. She bore him three
sons, who all successively wore the crown, Clotaire III., Childeric II.,
and Thierry I. He dying in 655, when the eldest was only five years old,
left her regent of the kingdom. She seconded the zeal of St. Owen, St.
Eligius, and other holy bishops, and with great pains banished simony
out of France, forbade Christians to be made slaves,[1] did all in her
power to promote piety, and filled France with hospitals and pious
foundations. She restored the monasteries of St. Martin, St. Denys, St.
Medard, &c., founded the great abbey of Corbie for a seminary of virtue
and sacred learning, and the truly royal nunnery of Chelles,[2] on the
Marne, which had been begun by St. Clotildis. As soon as her son
Clotaire was of an age to govern, she with great joy shut herself up in
this monastery of Chelles, in 665, a happiness which she had long
earnestly desired, though it was with great difficulty that she obtained
the consent of the princes. She had no sooner taken the veil but she
seemed to have forgotten entirely her former dignity, and was only to be
distinguished from the rest by her extreme humility, serving them in the
lowest offices, and obeying the holy abbess St. Bertilla as the last
among the sisters. She prolonged her devotions every day with many
tears, and made it her greatest delight {312} to visit and attend the
sick, whom she comforted and served with wonderful charity. St. Owen, in
his life of St. Eligius, mentions many instances of the great veneration
which St. Bathildes bore that holy prelate, and relates that St.
Eligius, after his death, in a vision by night, ordered a certain
courtier to reprove the queen for wearing jewels and costly apparel in
her widowhood, which she did not out of pride, but because she thought
it due to her state while she was regent of the kingdom. Upon this
admonition, she laid them aside, distributed a great part to the poor,
and with the richest of her jewels made a most beautiful and sumptuous
cross, which she placed at the head of the tomb of St. Eligius. She was
afflicted with long and severe colics and other pains, which she
suffered with an admirable resignation and joy. In her agony she
recommended to her sisters charity, care of the poor, fervor, and
perseverance, and gave up her soul in devout prayer, on the 30th of
January, in 680, on which day she is honored in France, but is named on
the 26th in the Roman Martyrology.

* * * * *

A Christian, who seriously considers that he is to live here but a
moment, and will live eternally in the world to come, must confess that
it is a part of wisdom to refer all his actions and views to prepare
himself for that everlasting dwelling, which is his true country. Our
only and necessary affair is to live for God, to do his will, and to
sanctify and save our souls. If we are employed in a multiplicity of
exterior business, we must imitate St. Bathildes, when she bore the
whole weight of the state. In all we do God and his holy will must be
always before our eyes, and to please him must be our only aim and
desire. Shunning the anxiety of Martha, and reducing all our desires to
this one of doing what God requires of us, we must with her call in Mary
to our assistance. In the midst of action, while our hands are at work,
our mind and heart ought to be interiorly employed on God, at least
virtually, that all our employments may be animated with the spirit of
piety: and hours of repose must always be contrived to pass at the feet
of Jesus, where in the silence of all creatures we may listen to his
sweet voice, refresh in him our wearied souls, and renew our fervor.
While we converse with the world, we must tremble at the sight of its
snares, and be upon our guard that we never be seduced so far as to be
in love with it, or to learn its spirit. To love the world, is to follow
its passions; to be proud, covetous, and sensual, as the world is. The
height of its miseries and dangers, is that blindness by which none who
are infected with its spirit, see their misfortune, or are sensible of
their disease. Happy are they who can imitate this holy queen in
entirely separating themselves from it!

Footnotes:
1. The Franks, when they established themselves in Gaul, allowed the
Roman Gauls to live according to their own laws and customs, and
tolerated their use of slaves, but gradually mitigated their
servitude. Queen Bathildes alleviated the heaviest conditions, gave
great numbers their liberty, and declared all capable of property.
The Franks still retained slaves with this condition, attached to
certain manors or farms, and bound to certain particular kinds of
servitude. The kings of the second race often set great numbers
free, and were imitated by other lords. Queen Blanche and Saint
Lewis contributed more than any others to ease the condition of
vassals, and Louis Hutin abolished slavery in France, declaring all
men free who live in that kingdom according to the spirit of
Christianity, which teaches us to treat all men as our brethren. See
the life of St. Bathildes, and Gratigny, [OE]vres posthumes, an. 1757.
Disc. sur la Servitude et son Abolition en France.
2. In the village of Chelles, in Latin Cala, four leagues from Paris,
the kings of the first race had a palace. St. Clotildis founded near
it a small church under the invocation of St. George, with a small
number of cells adjoining for nuns. St. Bathildes so much enlarged
this monastery as to be looked upon as the principal foundress. The
old church of St. George falling to decay, Saint Bathildes built
there the magnificent church of the Holy Cross, in which she was
buried. Gisela, sister to the emperor Charlemagne, abbess of this
house, rebuilt the great church, which some pretend to be the same
that is now standing. At present here are three churches together;
the first, which is small, the oldest, and only a choir, is called
the church of the Holy Cross, and is used by six monks who assist
the nuns; the lowest church is called St. George's, and is a
parochial church for the seculars who live within the jurisdiction
of the monastery: the great church which serves the nuns is
dedicated under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, and is said to
be the same that was built by the abbess Gisela, and much enlarged
and enriched by Hegilvich, abbess of this monastery, mother to the
empress Judith, whose husband, Louis le Debonnaire, caused the
remains of our saint to be translated into this new church, in 833,
and from this treasure it is more frequently called the church of
St. Bathlides, than our Lady's. Two rich silver shrines are placed
over the iron rails of the chancel, in one of which rest the sacred
remains of St. Bathildes, in the other those of St. Bertilla, first
abbess of Chelles: these rails, which are of admirable workmanship,
were the present of an illustrious princess of the house of Bourbon,
Mary Adelaide of Orleans, abbess of this house in 1725, who not
thinking her sacrifice complete by having renounced the world, after
some years abdicated her abbacy, and died in the condition of humble
obedience, and of a private religious woman, near the shrines of SS.
Bathildes and Bertilla, and those of St. Genesius of Lyons, St.
Eligius and Radegondes of Chelles, called also little St. Bathildes.
The last-mentioned princess was god-daughter to our saint, and died
in her childhood, in this monastery, two or three days before her.
See Piganiol's Descr. de Paris, t. 1 and S. Chatelain's notes in
martyr. p. 464, and especially Le Boeuf, Hist. du Diocese de Paris,
t. 6, p. 32. This author gives (p. 43) the full relation of a
miracle approved by John Francis Gondy, archbishop of Paris,
mentioned in a few words by Mabillon and Baillet. Six nuns were
cured of inveterate distempers, attended with frequent fits of
convulsions, by touching the relics of Saint Bathildes, when her
shrine was opened on the 13th of July, in 1631.

ST. MARTINA, V.M.

SHE was a noble Roman virgin, who glorified God, suffering many torments
and a cruel death for his faith, in the capital city of the world, in
the third century. There stood a chapel consecrated to her memory in
Rome, which was frequented with great devotion in the time of St.
Gregory the Great. Her relics were discovered in a vault, in the ruins
of her old church, and translated with great pomp in the year 1634,
under the pope Urban VIII., who built a new church in her honor, and
composed himself the hymns used in her office in the Roman Breviary. The
city of Rome ranks her among its particular patrons. She is mentioned in
the Martyrologies of Ado, Usuard, &c. The history of the discovery of
her relics was published by Honoratus of Viterbo, an Oratorian. See
Bollandus.

{313}

ST. ALDEGONDES, V. ABBESS.

SHE was daughter of Walbert, of the royal blood of France, and born in
Hainault about the year 630. She consecrated herself to God by a vow of
virginity, when very young, and resisted all solicitations to marriage,
serving God in the house of her holy parents, till, in 638, she took the
religious veil, and founded and governed a great house of holy virgins
at Maubeuge.[1] She was favored with an eminent gift of prayer, and many
revelations; but was often tried by violent slanders and persecutions,
which she looked upon as the highest favors of the divine mercy, begging
of God that she might be found worthy to suffer still more for his sake.
His divine providence sent her a lingering and most painful cancer in
her breast. The saint bore the torture of her distemper, also the
caustics and incisions of the surgeons, not only with patience, but even
with joy, and expired in raptures of sweet love, on the 30th of January,
in 660, according to Bollandus. Her relics are enshrined in the great
church of Maubeuge, where her monastery is now a college of noble
virgins canonesses. Her name occurs on this day in the ancient breviary
of Autun, and in the martyrologies of Rabanus, Usuard, and Notker: also
in the Roman. At St. Omer, where a parish church bears her name, she is
called Saint Orgonne. See her life written some time after her death: a
second a century later, and a third by Hucbald, a learned monk of St.
Armand's, in 900, with the remarks of Mabillon, (Act. Bened. t. 2, p.
937,) and the Bollandists. Consult also Miraeus's Fasti Belgici, and La
Vie de St. Aldegonde, par P. Binet, Jesuite, in 12mo. Paris, 1625.

Footnotes:
1. The act of this foundation, published by Miraeus, is spurious, as
mention is made therein of persons who were not living at that time:
neither could it have been made in the twentieth year of Dagobert,
as it contains facts which cannot be reconciled with the history of
that prince. See the note of Bollandus, t. 2, p. 1039, and
Chatelain, p 461.


ST. BARSIMAEUS, B.M.

CALLED BY THE SYRIANS BARSAUMAS.

HE was the third bishop of Edessa from St. Thaddaeus, one of the
seventy-two disciples. St. Barsaumas was crowned with martyrdom, being
condemned to die for his zeal in converting great multitudes to the
faith, by the president Lysias, in the reign of Trajan, when that
prince, having passed the Euphrates, made the conquest of Mesopotamia in
114. St. Barsimaeus is mentioned on the 30th of January in the Roman
Martyrology, and in the Greek Maenology.

{314}


JANUARY XXXI.

SAINT PETER NOLASCO, C.

FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF OUR LADY FOR THE REDEMPTION OF CAPTIVES.

From Chronica Sacri et Militaris Ordinis B.M. de Mercede, per Bern. de
Vargas, ej. Ord. 2 vol. in fol. Panormi, 1622, and by John de Latomis in
12mo. in 1621, and especially the Spanish history of the same by Alonso
Roman, 2 vol. fol. at Madrid, in 1618, and the life of the saint
compiled in Italian by F. Francis Olihano, in 4to. 1668. See also
Baillet, and Hist. des Ordres Relig. par Helyot, and Hist de l'Ordre de
Notre Dame de la Merci, par les RR. Peres de la Merci, de la
Congregation de Paris, fol. printed at Amiens, in 1685.

A.D. 1258.

PETER, of the noble family of Nolasco, in Languedoc, was born in the
diocese of St. Papoul, about the year 1189. His parents were very rich,
but far more illustrious for their virtue. Peter, while an infant, cried
at the sight of a poor man, till something was given him to bestow on
the object of his compassion. In his childhood he gave to the poor
whatever he received for his own use. He was exceeding comely and
beautiful; but innocence and virtue were his greatest ornaments. It was
his pious custom to give a very large alms to the first poor man he met
every morning, without being asked. He rose at midnight, and assisted at
matins in the church, as then the more devout part of the laity used to
do, together with all the clergy. At the age of fifteen he lost his
father, who left him heir to a great estate: and he remained at home
under the government of his pious mother, who brought him up in
extraordinary sentiments and practices of virtue. Being solicited to
marry, he betook himself to the serious consideration of the vanity of
all earthly things; and rising one night full of those thoughts,
prostrated himself in fervent prayer, which he continued till morning,
most ardently devoting himself to God in the state of celibacy, and
dedicating his whole patrimony to the promoting of his divine honor. He
followed Simon of Montfort, general of the holy war against the
Albigenses, an heretical sect, which had filled Languedoc with great
cruelties, and over spread it with universal desolation. That count
vanquished them, and in the battle of Muret defeated and killed Peter,
king of Aragon, and took his son James prisoner, a child of six years
old. The conqueror having the most tender regard and compassion for the
prince his prisoner, appointed Peter Nolasco, then twenty-five years
old, his tutor, and sent them both together into Spain. Peter, in the
midst of the court of the king at Barcelona,[1] where the kings of
Aragon resided, led the life of a recluse, practising the austerities of
a cloister. He gave no part of his time to amusements, but spent all the
moments which the instruction of his pupil left free, in holy prayer,
meditation, and pious reading. The Moors at that time were possessed of
a considerable part of Spain, and great numbers of Christians groaned
under their tyranny in a miserable slavery both there and in Africa.
Compassion for the poor had always been the distinguishing virtue of
Peter. The sight of so many moving objects in captivity, and the
consideration of the spiritual dangers to which their faith and virtue
stood exposed under their Mahometan masters, touched his heart to the
quick, and he soon spent his whole estate in redeeming as many as he
could. Whenever he saw {315} any poor Christian slaves, he used to say:
"Behold eternal treasures which never fail." By his discourses he moved
others to contribute large alms towards this charity, and at last formed
a project for instituting a religious order for a constant supply of men
and means whereby to carry on so charitable an undertaking. This design
met with great obstacles in the execution, but the Blessed Virgin, the
true mother of mercy, appearing to St. Peter, the king, and St. Raymund
of Pennafort, in distinct visions the same night, encouraged them to
prosecute the holy scheme under the assurance of her patronage and
protection. St. Raymund was the spiritual director both of St. Peter and
of the king, and a zealous promoter of this charitable work. The king
declared himself the protector of the Order, and assigned them a large
quarter of his own palace for their abode. All things being settled for
laying the foundation of it, on the feast of St. Laurence, in the year
1223, the king and St. Raymund conducted St. Peter to the church and
presented him to Berengarius, the bishop of Barcelona, who received his
three solemn religious vows, to which the saint added a fourth, to
devote his whole substance and his very liberty, if necessary, to the
ransoming of slaves; the like vow he required of all his followers. St.
Raymund made an edifying discourse on the occasion, and declared from
the pulpit, in the presence of this august assembly, that it had pleased
Almighty God to reveal to the king, to Peter Nolasco, and to himself,
his will for the institution of an Order for the redemption of the
faithful, detained in bondage among the infidels. This was received by
the people with the greatest acclamations of joy, happy presages of the
future success of the holy institute.[2] After this discourse, St. Peter
received the new habit (as Mariana and pope Clement VIII. in his bull
say) from St. Raymund, who established him first general of this new
Order, and drew up for it certain rules and constitutions. Two other
gentlemen were professed at the same time with St. Peter. When St.
Raymund went to Rome, he obtained from pope Gregory IX., in the year
1225, the confirmation of this Order, and of the rule and constitutions
he had drawn up. He wrote an account of this from Rome to St. Peter,
informing him how well pleased his Holiness was with the wisdom and
piety of the institute. The religious chose a white habit, to put them
continually in mind of innocence: they wear a scapular, which is
likewise white: but the king would oblige them, for his sake, to bear
the royal arms of Aragon, which are interwoven on their habit upon the
breast. Their numbers increasing very fast, the saint petitioned the
king for another house; who, on this occasion, built for them, in 1232,
a magnificent convent at Barcelona.[3]

King James having conquered the kingdom of Valencia, founded in it
several rich convents; one was in the city of Valencia, which was taken
by the aid of the prayers of St. Peter, when the soldiers had despaired
of {316} success, tired out by the obstinacy of the besieged and
strength of the place. In thanksgiving for this victory, the king built
the rich monastery in the royal palace of Uneza, near the same city, on
a spot where an image of our Lady was dug up, which is still preserved
in the church of this convent end is famous for pilgrimages. It is
called the monastery of our Lady of mercy del Puche.[4] That prince
attributed to the prayers of Saint Peter thirty great victories which he
obtained over the infidels, and the entire conquest of the two kingdoms
of Valencia and Murcia. St. Peter, after his religious profession,
renounced all his business at court, and no entreaties of the king could
ever after prevail with him to appear there but once, and this was upon
a motive of charity to reconcile two powerful noblemen, who by their
dissension had divided the whole kingdom, and kindled a civil war. The
saint ordained that two members of the Order should be sent together
among the infidels, to treat about the ransom of Christian slaves, and
they are hence called Ransomers. One of the two first employed in this
pious work was our saint; and the kingdom of Valencia was the first
place that was blessed with his labors; the second was that of Granada.
He not only comforted and ransomed a great number of captives, but by
his charity and other rare virtues, was the happy instrument of inducing
many of the Mahometans to embrace the faith of Christ. He made several
other journeys to the coasts of Spain, besides a voyage to Algiers,
where, among other sufferings, he underwent imprisonment for the faith.
But the most terrifying dangers could never make him desist from his
pious endeavors for the conversion of the infidels, burning with a holy
desire of martyrdom. He begged earnestly of his Order to be released
from the burden of his generalship: but by his tears could only obtain
the grant of a vicar to assist him in the discharge of it. He employed
himself in the meanest offices of his convent, and coveted above all
things to have the distribution of the daily alms at the gate of the
monastery: he at the same time instructed the poor in the knowledge of
God and in virtue. St. Louis IX. of France wrote frequently to him, and
desired much to see him. The saint waited on him in Languedoc, in the
year 1243, and the king, who tenderly embraced him, requested him to
accompany him in his expedition to recover the Holy Land. St. Peter
earnestly desired it, but was hindered by sickness, with which he was
continually afflicted during the last years of his life, the effect of
his fatigues and austerities, and he bore it with incomparable patience.
In 1249, he resigned the offices of Ransomer and General, which was six
or seven years before his death. This happened on Christmas-day, in
1256. In his agony, he tenderly exhorted his religious to perseverance,
and concluded with those words of the psalmist: _Our Lord hath sent
redemption to his people; he hath commanded his covenant forever_.[5] He
then recommended his soul to God by that charity with which Christ came
from heaven to redeem us from the captivity of the devil, and melting
into tears of compunction and divine love, he expired, being in the
sixty-seventh year of his age. His relics are honored by many miracles.
He was canonized by pope Urban VIII. His festival was appointed by
Clement VIII. to be kept on the 31st of January.

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