ST. POPPO was born in Flanders in 978, and received a pious education,
under the care of a most virtuous mother, who died a nun at Verdun. In
his youth he served for some time in the army, but even while he lived
in the world, he found the spiritual food of heavenly meditation and
prayer, with which the affections of the soul are nourished,[St. Aug.
Tr. 26. in Joan.] to be incomparably sweeter than all the delights of
the senses, and to give himself up entirely to these holy exercises, he
renounced his profession and the world. In a visit which he made by a
penitential pilgrimage to the holy places at Jerusalem, he brought
thence many precious relics, with which he enriched the church of our
Lady at Deisne, now a marquisate between Ghent and Courtray. He made
also a pilgrimage to the shrines of the apostles at Rome, and, some time
after his return, took the monastic habit at St. Thierry's, near Rheims.
Richard, abbot of Verdun, becoming acquainted with his eminent virtue,
obtained with great difficulty his abbot's consent to remove him
thither; and being made abbot of St. Vedast's, at Arras, upon the
deposition of Folrad, who had filled that house with scandalous
disorders, he appointed Poppo procurator. In a journey which our saint
was obliged to make to the court of St. Henry, he prevailed with that
religious prince to abolish the combats of men and bears. St. Poppo was
chosen successively prior of St. Vedast's, provost of St. Vennes, and
abbot of Beaulieu, which last he rebuilt. He was afterwards chosen abbot
of St. Vedast's, and some time later of the two united abbeys of Stavelo
and Malmedy, about a league asunder, in the diocese of Liege; also, two
years after this, of St. Maximin's at Triers. Those of Arms and
Marchiennes were also committed to his care: in all which houses he
settled the most exact discipline. He died at Marchiennes, on the 25th
of January, in 1048, being seventy years of age. St. Poppo received
extreme unction at the hands of Everhelm, abbot of Hautmont, afterwards
of Blandinberg at Ghent, who afterwards wrote his life, in which he
gives a particular account of his great {222} virtues. The body of St.
Poppo was carried to Stavelo, and there interred: his remains were taken
up and enshrined in 1624, after Baronius had inserted his name in the
Roman Martyrology; for Molanus, in his Indiculus, and Miraeus observe
that he was never canonized. Chatelain denies against Trithemius that
any commemoration was ever made of him in the public office in any of
the abbeys which he governed. But Martenne assures us that he was
honored among the saints at Stavelo, in the year 1624. See his life
written by the monk Onulf, and abridged by Everhelm, abbot of Hautmont,
in Bollandus, p. 673, and Martenne, Amplis. Collectio, t. 2, Praef. p.
17.