Medardus

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Saint Medardus

Statue of Saint Medardus, Saint Médard d'Eyrans
Born ~456
Died ~545
Venerated in Roman Catholic Church
Feast June 8
Attributes Episcopal garments
Patronage the weather; invoked against toothache
Saints Portal

Saint Medardus (French Médard; c.456–8 June, c.545) was Bishop of Vermandois and Noyon.

Medardus was born at Salency (Oise), in Picardy. His father, Nectardus, was of Frankish origin, while his mother Protagia was Gallo-Roman. The Roman Martyrology includes the fanciful tale that Saint Gildardus , Bishop of Rouen, was his brother, "born on the same day, consecrated bishops on the same day, and on the same day withdrawn from this life". His youth, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, was entirely consecrated to the practice of Christian virtues and to the study of sacred and profane literature. A pious fiction links his childhood to his future bishoprics: "He often accompanied his father on business to Vermand and Tournai, where he frequented the schools, carefully avoiding all worldly dissipation" (CE).

His exemplary piety and his knowledge, considerable for that time, decided the Bishop of Vermand to confer holy orders on him, in ca 505, and caused him eventually to be chosen as the bishop's successor in 530. Despite his objections, he found himself obliged to accept the heavy responsibilities of the position, to which he devoted himself zealously.

Evidence for his deeds as bishop is thin. He is held to have removed the see from Vermand, a little city with no defences, to Noyon, the strongest place in that region. The year is traditionally given as 531, the year in which Clotaire marched against the Thuringii with his brother Theuderic I, but struggles with the Burgundians also troubled Frankish Neustria. He was a councillor to Clotaire, the Merovingian king at Soissons.

It is also claimed that in the following year, after the death of Saint Eleutherius, Bishop of Tournai, Medardus was invited to assume the direction of that diocese also. He refused at first, but being urged by Clotaire himself he at last accepted. The union of the two dioceses of Noyon and Tournai lasted until 1146, when they were again separated. Tournai was a center for evangelizing the pagan Flemings. There he accepted Radegund of Thuringia as a deaconess and nun, until she removed to her own foundation at Saix.

Clotaire, who had paid Medardus a last visit at Noyon, where he died, had his body transferred to his own manor of Crouy, at the gates of the royal city of Soissons; there over his tomb was erected the celebrated Benedictine abbey which bears his name, the Abbey of Saint-Médard. The selection of the site was given authenticity through a familiar trope of hagiography:

"When the procession reached Crouy, which is about three miles from Soissons, the bier became wholly immovable. The king then promised to give half the borough of Crouy to the new church. On trying again to lift the bier, it was found that the half facing the part given to the church was loose and could be moved, but the other half was as fast as ever. Clotaire now promised the whole borough to the church. The bier instantly became so light that it could be lifted and carried without any trouble to its final destination." (Walsh 1897)

Doubts have been cast about the ecstatic behaviour of the female convulsionaries of the saint at the chaple of Abbé Paris, with some claiming that these convulsions were in fact orgasms. Rachel Maines mentions these in passing in her book The technology of orgasm[1].


The Bibliotheque Royale, Brussels, (MS. 1221 = 9850-52) conserves a fragment of a Psalter and patristic writings written at the Abbey of St. Medard in Soissons, in the time of Childebert III (Lowe and Rand, note 9). The Abbey's early 9th-century Gospel Codex, produced at Aachen is a monument of book production of the Carolingian renaissance. During the Carolingian fraternal struggles, in 833 Louis the Pious in a public ceremony at the Abbey, was forced to lay down his sword, was stripped of his royal vestments and made to don a penitent's coarse robe. There Raoul of France was later crowned king July 9, 923.

[edit] Veneration

Saint Medardus was one of the most honoured bishops of his time. His memory has always been popularly venerated, first in the north of France, then in Cologne and extending to western Germany (Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon, and he soon became the hero of numerous legends. His cultus is mentioned by both Venantius Fortunatus and Gregory of Tours. His feast is celebrated on 8 June.

He is invoked for toothache. It is believed also that, as with Saint Swithun, whatever the weather on his feast day, it will continue for the forty days following.

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[edit] References

  1. ^ Maines, Rachel The Technology of Orgasm Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

[edit] Sources

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
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