WE know nothing of the birth or quality of this saint: he seems to have
been a Frenchman, and is on this account honored in the new Paris Missal
and Breviary. He is thought to have passed his youth in the army, and to
have given into a licentious manner of living, too common among persons
of that profession. The first accounts we have of him represent him as a
holy penitent, filled with the greatest sentiments of compunction and
fervor, and making a pilgrimage to the tombs of the apostles at Rome.
Here he begged pope Eugenius III. to put him into a course of penance,
who enjoined him a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the year 1145. In
performing this, with great devotion, the saint spent eight years.
Returning into Tuscany, in 1153, he retired into a desert. He was
prevailed upon to undertake the government of a monastery in the isle of
Lupocavio, in the territory of Pisa, but not being able to bear with the
tepidity and irregularity of his monks, he withdrew, and settled on
Mount Pruno, till, finding disciples there no less indocile to the
severity of his discipline than the former, he was determined to pursue
himself that rigorous plan of life which he had hitherto unsuccessfully
proposed to others. He pitched upon a desolate valley for this purpose,
the very sight of which was sufficient to strike the most resolute with
horror. It was then called the Stable of Rhodes, but since, Maleval; and
is situated in the territory of Sienna, in the diocese of Grosseto. He
entered this frightful solitude in September, 1155, and had no other
lodging than a cave in the ground, till being discovered some months
after, the lord of Buriano built him a cell. During the first four
months, he had no other company than that of wild beasts eating only the
herbs on which they fed. {394} On the feast of the Epiphany, in the
beginning of the year 1156, he was joined by a disciple or companion,
called Albert, who lived with him to his death, which happened thirteen
months after, and who has recorded the last circumstances of his life.
The saint, discoursing with others, always treated himself as the most
infamous of criminals, and deserving the worst of deaths; and that these
were his real sentiments, appeared from that extreme severity which he
exercised upon himself. He lay on the bare ground: though he fed on the
coarsest fare, and drank nothing but water, he was very sparing in the
use of each; saying, sensuality was to be feared even in the most
ordinary food. Prayer, divine contemplation, and manual labor, employed
his whole time. It was at his work that he instructed his disciple in
his maxims of penance and perfection, which he taught him the most
effectually by his own example, though in many respects so much raised
above the common, that it was fitter to be admired than imitated. He had
the gift of miracles, and that of prophecy. Seeing his end draw near, he
received the sacraments from a priest of the neighboring town of
Chatillon, and died on the 10th of February, in 1157, on which day he is
named in the Roman and other martyrologies.
* * * * *
Divine Providence moved one Renauld, a physician, to join Albert, a
little before the death of the saint. They buried St. William's body in
his little garden, and studied to live according to his maxims and
example. Some time after, their number increasing, they built a chapel
over their founder's grave, with a little hermitage. This was the origin
of the Gulielmites, or Hermits of St. William, spread in the next age
over Italy, France, Flanders, and Germany. They went barefoot, and their
fasts were almost continual: but pope Gregory IX. mitigated their
austerities, and gave them the rule of St. Benedict, which they still
observe. The order is now become a congregation united to the hermits of
St. Austin, except twelve houses to the Low Countries, which still
retain the rule of the Gulielmites, which is that of St. Benedict, with
a white habit like that of the Cistercians.
The feast of St. William is kept at Paris in the Abbey of
Blancs-Manteaux, so called from certain religious men for whom it was
founded, who wore white cloaks, and were of a mendicant Order, called of
the Servants of the Virgin Mary: founded at Marseilles, and approved by
Alexander IV., in 1257. This order being extinguished, by virtue of the
decree of the second council of Lyons, in 1274, by which all mendicants,
except the four great Orders of Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and
Austin friars, were abolished, this monastery was bestowed on the
Gulielmites, who removed hither from Montrouge, near Paris, in 1297. The
prior and monks embraced the order of St. Bennet, and the reformation of
the Congregation of St. Vanne of Verdun, soon after called in France, of
St. Maur, in 1618, and this is in order the fifth house of that
Congregation in France, before the abbeys of St. Germany-des-Prez, and
St. Denys.[1]
Footnotes:
1. Villefore confounds this saint with St. William, founder of the
hermits of Monte Virgine in the kingdom of Naples, who lived in
great repute with king Roger, and is commemorated in the Roman
Martyrology, June 25. Others confound him with St. William, duke of
Aquitaine, a monk of Gellone. He was a great general, and often
vanquished the Saracens who invaded Languedoc. In recompense,
Charlemagne made him duke or governor of Aquitaine, and appointed
Toulouse for his residence. Some years after, in 806, having
obtained the consent of his duchess, (who also renounced the world,)
and or Charlemagne, though with great difficulty, he made his
monastic profession at Gellone, a monastery which he had founded in
a valley of that name, a league distant from Aniane, in the diocese
of Lodeve. St. William received the habit at the hands of St.
Benedict of Aniane, was directed by him in the exercises of a
religious life, and sanctified himself with great fervor, embracing
the most humbling and laborious employments, and practising
extraordinary austerities, till his happy death in 812, on the 28th
of May, on which day his festival is kept in the monastery of
Gellone, (now called St. Guillem de Desert, founded by this saint in
804,) and in the neighboring churches. See, on him, Mabillon, Saec.
Ben. 4, p. 88. Henschenius, diss, p. 488. Bultea p. 367. and Hist.
Gen. du Languedoc par deux Benedictins, l. 9. Many have also
confounded our saint with William, the last duke of Guienne, who,
after a licentious youth, and having been an abettor of the
anti-pope, Peter Leonis, was wonderfully converted by St. Bernard,
sent to him by pope Innocent II., in the year 1135. The year
following he renounced his estates, which his eldest daughter
brought in marriage to Louis the Young, king of France; and clothed
with hair-cloth next his skin, end in a tattered garment expressive
of the sincerity of his repentance and contrition, undertook a
pilgrimage to Compostella, and died in that journey, in 1137. See
Ordericus Vitalis, Hist. Norman. et Armoldus Bonae-Vallis, in vita
Bernardi; with the Historical Dissert. of Henschenius on the 10th of
February; and Abrege Chronol. des Grands Fiefs, p. 223.
{395}