FROM various fragments of ancient histories of his life, the most modern
of which was compiled in the twelfth century, it appears that Vaneng was
made by Clotaire III. governor of that part of Neustria, or Normandy,
which was anciently inhabited by the Caletes, and is called Pais de
Caux, {119} at which time he took great pleasure in hunting.
Nevertheless, he was very pious, and particularly devout to St. Eulalia
of Barcelona, called in Guienne, St. Aulaire. One night be seemed, in a
dream, to hear that holy Virgin and Martyr repeat to him those words of
our blessed Redeemer in the gospel, that "it is easier for a camel to
pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to be saved." Soon
after this he quitted the world, assisted St. Vandrille in building the
churches of SS. Peter and Paul at Fontenelles, and founded in the valley
of Fecam[1] a church in honor of the holy Trinity, with a great nunnery
adjoining, under the direction of St. Owes and St. Vandrille.
Hildemarca, a very virtuous nun, was called from Bourdeaux, and
appointed the first abbess. Under her, three hundred and sixty nuns
served God in this house, and were divided into as many choirs as were
sufficient, by succeeding one another, to continue the divine office
night and day without interruption. St. Vaneng died about the year 688,
and is honored, in the Gallican and Benedictin Martyrologies, on the 9th
of January; but at St. Vandrille's, and in other monasteries in
Normandy, on the 31st of January. This saint is titular patron of
several churches in Aquitain and Normandy; one near Touars in Poictou
has given its name to the village of St. Vaneng. His body is possessed
in a rich shrine, in the abbatial church of Our Lady at Ham, in Picardy,
belonging to the regular canons of St. Genevieve. See Mabillon, t. 2, p.
972; Bollandus, and chiefly the life of St. Vaneng, judiciously
collected and printed at Paris in 1700;[2] also, the breviary of the
abbey of Fontenelle, now St. Vandrille's. The abbeys of Fecam, St.
Vandrille, Jumiege, Bec, St. Stephen's at Caen, Cerisy, &c., are now of
the reformed congregation of St. Maur, abbot of St. Benignus, at Dijon,
whose life Bollandus has given us among the saints, January 1. Fecam,
honored by the dukes of Normandy above all their other monasteries, is
the richest and most magnificent abbey in Normandy.
Footnotes:
1. The monastery of Fecam was ruined in the invasion of the Normans.
Rollo, who came into France in 876, was baptized, and, after having
founded the duchy of Normandy, died in 917. His sepulchral monument
is shown in one of the chapels near the door in the cathedral at
Rouen. His son William built a palace at Fecam, where his son
Richard was born. The church of the Holy Trinity being
re-established, this Richard placed in it secular canons; but, on
his death-bed, ordered it to be put into the hands of the monks.
This was executed by his successor, the monks being sent by William
the most holy abbot.
2. Ferrarius, an Italian servite, Du-Saussaye, Bollandus, and F. Giry,
place among the saints of this day, Sithride, or Sedredo, an English
virgin, and second abbess of Farmoutiers. Bede tells us (l. 3, c. 8)
that she was daughter of St. Hereswide, by a former husband, before
she married Annas, king of the East Angles, and that going to the
monastery of Brie, (now Farmoutiers,) she was second abbess between
St. Fara and St. Aubierge, King Annas's own daughter. But though St.
Aubierge be honored at Farmoutiers in July, with great solemnity,
and St. Arthongate in February, the name of Sedredo is not found in
the calendar of any church, nor are any of her relics enshrined like
the others, unless she be the same with St. Sissetrudis, who in some
calendars is named on the 6th, in others on the 7th of May. But St.
Sissetrude is called by Jonas of Bobio, cellerer, not abbess. See
Chatelain, &c. 3.
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