The Dove of St. Nivard

St. Nivard was one of those early medieval saints of whom we know next to nothing. He was archbishop of Reims from before 657 CE until 673. He was the brother-in-law of Childeric II (King of Austrasia). The best info Catholic.org has to offer is the his feast day, 1 September

Charles Forbes, the Count de Montalembert, a member of the French Royal Academy, published in 1861 The Monks of the West, from St. Benedict to St. Bernard. In a chapter called "The Monks under the First Merovingians" he writes:

In the following century, St. Nivard, Archbishop of Reims, visiting his diocese on foot, arrived in the fine country which overlooks the course of the Marne, opposite Epernay; and, finding himself fatigued, slept under the shed of a great beech, on the knees of his companion, Berchaire. During his sleep he saw a dove descend from heaven upon the tree, and, after marking the same circuit three times by flying round it, reascend to the skies. Berchaire, who had not slept, saw the same saw the same vision. They agreed to build an abbey there, which was called Hautvillers. Berchaire was its first abbot; and the high altar rose upon the same spot where the tree had stood when the dove alighted, a sweet symbol of the tranquil innocence which was to reign there.

From there he discusses the many legends of holy men encountered tearing animals and taming them.

Where Forbes found the original story is still a mystery to me, but at least one faithful reader of this blog "need[ed] a few more details about this dove." I had been less than thorough in my origin story of Hautvillers, so I hope this helps.

Next time, I'll talk about who these "First Merovingians" of the chapter title were.

The Utrecht Psalter

Vellum—fine parchment made from the skin of a calf—is more durable than paper. Even so, manuscripts that survived for centuries are precious, and sometimes we have them only due to extraordinary measures taken by individuals.

One such individual was Sir Robert Cotton, whose hobby was collecting old manuscripts of all kinds in his personal library. Despite a fire that destroyed some, there are countless things we know about the Middle Ages that we would not know except for his collection, including poems such as Beowulf. One unique manuscript that he collected was the Utrecht Psalter. (I should say "near-unique" for reasons explained a little later.)

A psalter is the Book of Psalms from the Bible. The word psalter is Old English (p)saltere from Latin psalterium from Greek psaltērion and means a stringed instrument. (Remember that the Psalms are songs.) This particular psalter came to the Cotton Library from Canterbury Cathedral some time after the Dissolution of the Monasteries (in the 1530s when Henry VII changed things). Robert had the pages bound, and then lent the manuscript to the Earl of Arundel, who took it into exile in the Netherlands (during the English Civil War in the 1640s); upon his death it was sold, and somehow wound up in the library of Utrecht University by 1716.

One of its distinguishing features is the style of art. Each vellum page contains a psalm, and the background of each page illustrates every image from each line of the psalm in understated color called bistro, a shade of brown or grayish brown. The pages are 10x13 inches—an unusually large size choice, unless it were intended to be used by several people reading/singing at once. It might have been a monks choir book rather than intended for personal instruction, as the mnemonic device of the illustrations would suggest.

Created in the 800s during the Carolingian period, it influenced a style that is called the "Utrecht style." There are at least three copies that were made of it prior to its acquisition by Cotton: the Harley Psalter (in the British Library), the Edwin Psalter (at Trinity College, Cambridge), and the full-color-with-gold-backgrounds Anglo-Catalan Psalter (so-called because it was half-illustrated by an English artist in 1180-1200 and finished in Catalan in 1340-50 in a different style), in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

But whence came the original? An argument is made for it originating near Reims, because the style is similar to the Ebbo Gospels, suggesting that, like them, the psalter was sponsored by Archbishop Ebbo of Reims. Also, some believe the illustrations draw from details that would have been gleaned from the travels of none other than or recent predestination heretic, Gottschalk of Orbais. Besides psalms, it includes the Athanasian Creed, to which Ebbo's successor Archbishop Hincmar of Reims was partial.

This puts it in the vicinity of Hautvillers, which gives me a reason to re-visit Hautvillers and clear up a few details about which I was terribly neglectful yesterday. Tomorrow I answer the question: what about that dove?

Hautvillers

Hautvillers is a commune in northeastern France. In 650 the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter (in French it was the Abbaye Saint-Pierre d'Hautvillers) was established; it remained active until the French Revolution in 1789.

It was founded by St. Nivard, the Bishop of Reims, when a dove indicated where it was to be established. The abbey was devoted to the Rule of St. Benedict and of St. Columbanus, whose monastery practices in Ireland were in some cases even more strict than Benedict's.

The Abbey was known for its illuminated manuscripts. The very vibrantly illustrated Ebbo Gospels came from this Abbey. A well-known book of psalms known as the Utrecht Psalter (discovered in the Netherlands in the Utrecht University Library in 1858) is illustrated in a similar style to the Ebbo Gospels, and so might have come from here as well.

In 841, a priest from Reims stole from Rome the bodily relics of St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine and finder of the True Cross. Pilgrimages to see the relics helped bring donations to the Abbey, allowing it to purchase more property. (After the French Revolution, the relics were transported to Paris; they went to the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre in 1819.)

One of the uses of more land was, of course, to provide the Abbey with its own food and drink. Vineyards were always a good idea. One of the monks at Hautviller disliked using white grapes, because of their tendency to enter "refermentation." Refermentation happened after the wine was bottled: in the warmer weather, remaining yeast would "wake up" and start producing carbon dioxide again. Enough and you have sparkling wine; too much and you have exploding bottles. This monk laid down some rules for the best wines and best sparkling wines, such as blends of grapes from multiple vineyards (before pressing, not after they were already wine). His name was Dom Perignon. He did not develop the brand now known as "Dom Perignon," but it was named for him. The myth that Perignon invented champagne was created by a later monk, Dom Groussard, who made up many stories about the Abbey to garner fame.

Next: whether it came from Hautvillers or not, the Utrecht Psalter is worth a look.

Gottschalk of Orbais

I believe and confess that omnipotent and unchangeable God foreknew and predestined saint angels and elect men to eternal life gratis and that He equally predestined devil, head of all demons, with all of his apostates, and also reprobate men, namely his members, on account of their own most certainly foreknown evil merits, through the most right judgment to deserved eternal death; for thus says the Lord himself in His Gospel: “The prince of this world is already judged”

So wrote Gottschalk of Orbais (c.808 - 30 October 868 CE). He studied at Fulda Monastery in Germany where he became friends with Strabo and studied under Hrabanus Maurus. His first act of "rebellion" was being ordained in France (where he joined the Abbey at Corbie) not by his bishop, but by the local choriepiscopus of Rheims, a lesser functionary in the bishop's. By 840 he had left France for Italy where he preached his views on predestination, before being driven out by Hrabanus Maurus who at that time had become Archbishop of Mainz.

He preached and gained followers in Germany until the Synod of Mainz in 848. It was presided over by Hrabanus Maurus with King Louis the German present. Gottschalk was declared heretical, beaten, and for hidden to return to the Kingdom of Francia under Louis the German. He was sent to Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims to be kept under confinement, but he continued to preach his double predestination.

Six months after the Synod of Mainz was the Council of Quierzy—with Archbishop Hincmar and King Charles the Bald—at which Gottschalk's preachings were questioned again; this time, however, there was no calm theological debate. When Gottschalk refused to accept that is interpretation of Augustine was wrong, he turned to verbal abuse of his opponents. He was defrocked (both in the sacerdotal and sartorial sense), beaten, and imprisoned in a monastery at Hautvillers for the next 20 years, until his death.

Hautvillers; now there's a place worth talking about. Next time.