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.

Anne of Kiev & Culture Shock

Kiev is in the news a lot lately, and it makes me think of Anne of Kiev, whose name at birth was Anna Yaroslavna, an 11th century queen of France.

Statue of Anna in Senlis, France

When King Henry I of France became a widower upon the death of Matilda of Frisia in 1044, he searched for a suitable replacement bride. Unfortunately, because of laws of consanguinity, he could not find anyone in Europe who was both of marriageable age and not related to him! Therefore, he looked further afield, finally sending a delegation to Kiev, whose culture, called the Kievan Rus, was enjoying something of a golden age (before it was destroyed by the Mongol invasion in 1240).

His years-long search for a new bride over, Henry and Anna married on 19 May 1051, in Reims Cathedral. A year later, she bore Henry a son, Philip I. "Philip" was not a common name in France prior to this; it may be that the Greek name was introduced by Anna: the area around Kiev was identified with Scythia, which was supposedly converted to Christianity by St. Philip, making his name important to that culture.

The political alliance formed by this marriage was fortunate for France: it gave them links to important families in Byzantium and Sweden; it gave them an ally in Kiev on the far side of France's potential rival, the Holy Roman Empire. But the transition from Kiev to France could not have been easy for Anna. In a letter to her father, she says France is "a barbarous country where the houses are gloomy, the churches ugly and the customs revolting."

Anna was accustomed to a very different society. She knew five languages, including Greek and Latin, and considered the majority of Franks illiterate—including her new husband, who signed his name with an "X". She was also used to fancier dining: her wedding feast had only three courses, whereas at home she was accustomed to five courses at dinner.

When Henry died in 1060, she continued to show her intellect by acting as regent for young Philip and impressing many with her political acumen, including Pope Nicholas II, who wrote a very friendly letter to her, praising her for her wisdom and piety.

That piety and wisdom did not prevent her from the emotional act of falling for Count Ralph III of Valois, who decided to marry Anna in 1062. Unfortunately, this upset Count Ralph's wife, who felt that being told "I don't want you any more" was not sufficient as a divorce proceeding. She appealed to Pope Alexander II, who declared Ralph an adulterer and excommunicated the couple. Ralph, who would not return to his former wife, died in 1074. Anna returned to court, forgiven by her son. She died a year later.

St. Rémy

In the history of medieval Christianity, there are stories of entire countries converting all at once. The tale of St. Rémy (c.437-533) is one.

St. Rémy baptizes Clovis

Rémy, also known as Remigius, was born to a very prominent Gallo-Roman family in Laon. He studied literature at Reims. His reputation for piety and learning was so great that at the age of 22 he was appointed Archbishop of Reims. Clovis I, King of the Franks (reigned 481-511), had a Christian wife, the Burgundian Clotilde. Clovis was friendly and generous to the church in Reims. Rémy decided to make it his life's work to Christianize the Frankish kingdom.

One legend in particular attests to the good relations between the king and the archbishop. When Clovis conquered Soissons under Syagrius in 486, his soldiers plundered the church there. St. Rémy asked Clovis to return, if nothing else, at least the very special Vase of Soissons, one of the greatest pieces owned by the church of Soissons. Clovis agreed, claiming the Vase as his own part of the booty, but the soldier who had taken it was angry at having to give it up and broke it irreparably. Clovis returned the pieces to the church; a year later, he had that soldier killed with his own axe, telling him "Just as you did to the vase at Soissons!"

According to chronicler Gregory of Tours (writing a century later), Clovis agreed to convert to Christianity after his 496 victory at Tolbiac: he had prayed to his wife's God after seeing so many of his men being killed against the Alemanni tribes. We are told that the Alemanni began to flee at the completion of Clovis' prayer. Clovis agreed to be baptized; it was performed by St. Rémy, along with the baptisms of 3000 Franks.

More specifically, Clovis was baptized into Roman Catholic Christianity, which helped to make a distinction between him and the other German tribes establishing themselves in Europe. Groups like the Visigoths and Vandals were Christians, but had embraced Arianism, which by this time was deemed heretical. The choice of Clovis brought him into the favor of Rome and aligned him with the more mainstream version of Christianity. This was a major event in the life of St. Rémy, who is now considered the patron saint of France. St. Rémy also supposedly converted an Arian bishop to Roman views at a synod Rémy held in 517.

Of his writings, all are lost except for a few letters, two of which are to Clovis. A legend that attached itself to St. Rémy is the Baptism of the Moribund Pagan. When a dying pagan asked for baptism, Rémy discovered that he did not have the chrism—the sacred oils—needed to perform the ceremony. He placed two empty vials on the altar and prayed, whereupon they were filled with the two oils needed. When his crypt was opened during the reign of Charles the Bald (823-877), they found two vials containing very aromatic oils. Scholars have hemmed and hawed over these. Were they actually the two vials of the legend? Were they two vials placed symbolically in the coffin because of the legend? Or were they two vials of perfumes placed in the coffin to cover the odor of putrefaction?*

To the Archbishop of Reims at the time, Hincmar, it was clear: these vials confirmed the Legend of the Baptism of the Moribund Pagan. Clearly, the oil was that very same used for Baptism, and since Rémy also baptized King Clovis, it was clear (to Hincmar) that Reims ought to be recognized as the appropriate church for the future anointing of the Kings of France. Any relics associated with him (the locations of the two vials are no longer known for certain) now reside in the Abbey of Saint-Rémy in Reims.

*This particular theory also points out that the method of making perfumed oils was known to the Romans, but lost to Europe by the time of the Carolingians. In the 800s, they would have seemed miraculous, since the art of making perfume was unknown.

Geometry in Nature

The Fibonacci series, mentioned here, has been found to correlate to patterns found in nature. There is no evidence that Fibonacci himself ever made the connection between his arithmetical progression and the world around him, but the link between math and nature was recognized in other ways in the Middle Ages.

There is a unique manuscript called "The Sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt." We know nothing about Villard except what can be gleaned from the internal evidence of this manuscript, which seems to be a notebook of his travels and interests. MS Fr 19093 now is in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris; it has been extensively copied and studied since it became widely known in 1849.

From the language and the 250 drawings found in his 33-page manuscript, we assume he was an architect from Picardy in northern France (there is a village called Honnecourt-sur-l'Escault in Picardy), traveling in the early-to-mid 1200s. Although architectural features make up the majority of his sketches (and presumably his interest) by far, there is no documentary evidence that he ever was connected with the design or construction of a building; nor did he sign his name with a title such as "master," to which he would have been entitled had he trained as an architect.

Still, he seems particularly introduced in buildings, drawing detailed façades of Laon and Reims Cathedral, a clocktower, the geometry of buildings; but he also depicts animals and insects, sculptures and mechanical devices such as a trebuchet, a machine for lifting heavy objects, a self-operating saw, a crossbow that never misses, and a perpetual motion machine. Alas, he draws them without explaining how to make them work.

Some of his notes, such as the one attached to the Lion shown above, are suspect. It is a very good drawing, but the caption tells us "Here is a lion seen from the front. Please remember that he was drawn from life." It seems unlikely that he saw a lion himself. The porcupine on the same page has the note "a little beast that shoots its quills when aroused," which tells us that he was getting his information from traditional bestiaries, not from real-life observation. On the lion's face you can still see the faint symmetrical guidelines he drew to start the artistic process.

Sketching guidelines was not an unusual start for medieval artists. Villard, however, offers us several examples of the correlation between geometry and representations of organic figures. Shown to the right is Page XXXVI of his manuscript, in which he shows how geometry fits into faces and figures.

His note in the bottom of the page depicted here says "Here begins the method of representation as taught by the art of geometry, to facilitate work. Elsewhere you will find the method of masonry."

A brief video showing some of his pages is here: