He was of the family of the counts palatine of Champagne, and son of
count Arnoul. He was born at Provins in Brie in 1017, and was called
Theobald from the most virtuous archbishop of Vienne, who was his
uncle. In his youth he preserved his heart free from the corruption
of the world amidst its vanities; and the more pains others took
to make him conceive a relish for them, the more diligent he was
in fencing his heart against their dangers, the more perfectly he
discovered their emptiness and secret poison. In reading the lives
of the fathers of the desert he was much affected by the admirable
examples of penance, self-denial, holy contemplation, and Christian
perfection, which were set before his eyes as it were in a glass,
and he earnestly desired to imitate them. The lives of St. John the
Baptist, of St. Paul the hermit, St. Antony, and St. Arsenius in
their wildernesses, charmed him, and he sighed after the like sweet
retirement, in which he might without interruption converse with God
by prayer and contemplation. He often resorted to an holy hermit
named Burchard, who lived in a little island in the Seine; and by
making essays he began to inure himself to fasting, watching, long
prayers, and every rigorous practice of penance. He declined all
the advantageous matches and places at court or in the army which
his father could propose to him. His cousin Eudo, count palatine of
Champagne, and count of Chartres and Blois, upon the death of his
uncle Rodolph, the last king of Burgundy, in 1034, laid claim to that
crown as next heir in blood; but the emperor Conrad the Salic seized
upon it by virtue of the testament of the late king.[5] Hereupon
ensued a war, and count Arnoul ordered his son to lead a body of
troops to the succor of his cousin. But the young general represented
so respectfully to his father the obligation of a vow by which he
had bound himself to quit the world, that he at length extorted his
consent.
Soon after the saint and another young nobleman called Walter, his
intimate friend, each taking one servant, went to the abbey of St.
Remigius in Rheims, and thence having sent back their servants
with their baggage, they set out privately; and in the clothes of
two beggars, in exchange for which they had given their own rich
garments, they travelled barefoot into Germany. Finding the forest
of Petingen in Suabia a convenient solitude for their purpose, they
built themselves there two little cells. Having learned from Burchard
that manual labor is a necessary duty of an ascetic or penitential
life, and not being skilled in the manner of working to make mats
or baskets, they often went into the neighboring villages and there
hired themselves by the day to serve the masons, or to work in the
fields, to carry stones and mortar, to load and unload carriages, to
cleanse the stables under the servants of the farmers, or to blow
the bellows and to make fires for the forges. With their wages they
bought coarse brown bread, which was their whole subsistence. Whilst
they worked with their hands, their hearts were secretly employed in
prayer; and at night retiring again into their forest, they watched
long, singing together the divine praises, and continuing in holy
contemplation. Their carriage and the tenderness of their complexion
discovered that they had not been trained up in manual labor, and
the reputation of their sanctity after some time drew the eyes of
men upon them. To shun which they resolved to forsake a place where
they were no longer able to live in humiliation and obscurity. They
performed barefoot a pilgrimage to Compostella, and returned into
Germany.
Passing through Triers, it happened that Theobald there met his
father count Arnoul; but with his tanned face, and in his ragged
clothes, passing for a beggar, he was not known by him. He was
strongly affected, and was scarcely able to stifle the tender
sentiments with which his heart was quite overcome at the sight of
so dear and affectionate a parent. However, he suppressed them;
but to quit the neighborhood where he might be again exposed to
the like trial, he undertook a pilgrimage to Rome. The two fervent
penitents travelled everywhere barefoot; and after they had visited
all the holy places in Italy, they chose for their retirement a
hideous woody place called Salanigo, near Vicenza, where with the
leave of the lord of the manor they built themselves two cells, near
an old ruinous chapel. Prayer and the exercises of penance were
their constant employment, till after two years God called Walter
to himself. Theobald looked upon this loss as a warning that he had
not long to live, and he exerted his whole strength, redoubling his
pace to run with greater vigor as he drew near the end of his race.
He had lived on oat bread and water, with roots and herbs, but at
length he interdicted himself even the use of bread, taking no other
food but herbs and roots. He always wore a rough hair shirt; his
bed was a board, and for the five last years of his life he took
his rest sitting on a wooden seat. The bishop of Vicenza promoted
him to priest’s orders, and several persons put themselves under
his direction. His lineage and quality being discovered, his aged
parents were no sooner informed that their son was alive, and that
the hermit of Salanigo, the reputation of whose sanctity, prophecies,
and miracles filled all Europe, was that very son whose absence
had been to them the cause of so long a mourning; but they set out
with great joy to see him. His frightful desert, his poor cell, his
tattered clothes, and above all his emaciated body, made so strong
impressions upon their hearts at the first sight that they both
cast themselves at his feet, and for a considerable time were only
able to speak to him by their tears. When they were raised from the
ground, and had recovered from their first surprise, faith overcame
in them the sentiments of nature, and converted their sorrow into
joy. The sight of so moving an example extinguished in their hearts
all love of the world, and they both resolved upon the spot to
dedicate themselves to the divine service. The count was obliged
by his affairs to return into Brie, but Gisla, the saint’s mother,
obtained her husband’s consent to finish her course near the cell of
her son. The saint made her a little hut at some distance from his
own, and took great pains to instruct her in the practice of true
perfection. He was shortly after visited with his last sickness;
his body was covered over with blotches and ulcers, and every limb
afflicted with some painful disorder. The servant of God suffered
this distemper with a most edifying patience and joy. A little before
his death he sent for Peter the abbot of Vangadice, of the order of
Camaldoli, from whose hands he had received the religious habit a
year before. To him he recommended his mother and his disciples: and
having received the viaticum he expired in peace on the last day of
June, 1066, being about thirty-three years old, of which he had spent
twelve at Salanigo and three in Suabia, and in his pilgrimages. His
relics were translated to the church dependent on the abbey of St.
Columba, at Sens, and afterward to a chapel near Auxerre called St.
Thibaud aux Bois. He was canonized by Alexander III. and his name is
in great veneration at Sens, Provins, Paris, Auxerre, Langres, Toul,
Triers, Autun, and Beauvais. See his life faithfully written by a
contemporary author.