He was nobly born at Sylviaco in the territory of Boulogne in
Picardy. Renouncing the world in his youth, he entered himself a
brother in the abbey of Hautmont in Haynault, where it was his
employment to keep the cattle, and to hew wood for the community.
He was distinguished for his eminent spirit of prayer, and being
compelled by obedience to receive holy orders, was promoted to the
priesthood. He after this obtained leave to live alone in a hermitage
near mount Cassel, and afterward in 688 founded in a wood upon his
father’s estate in Sylviaco in the Boulognois, the abbey of Samer,
corruptly so called for St. Ulmar’s, at present of the Congregation
of St. Maur. St. Ulmar founded a nunnery at Vileria, now Wiere
aux bois, a mile from his own monastery, in which he placed his
niece Bertana abbess. Ceadwalla, king of the West-Saxons, passing
that way in his journey to Rome to receive baptism, conferred on
St. Ulmar a notable largess toward carrying on his foundation. In
close retirement in his hermitage near mount Cassel, the saint
preserved himself always free from worldly passions by flying from
the occasions which chiefly excite them, and by withdrawing from
the great scene of earthly business, envy, avarice, and strife.
Here shutting out the busy swarm of vain images which besets us in
the world, he inured his mind to happy recollection and heavenly
contemplation. In this sweet repose he daily advanced in fervor and
divine charity till he was called to the joys of his Lord on the
20th of July, 710. He was glorified by miracles, and is named in the
Roman and other Martyrologies on the 20th of July. On the 17th of
June his relics were conveyed to Boulogne for fear of the plunder of
the Normans; and from thence to the abbey of St. Peter’s at Ghent,
where they were burnt by the fury of the Calvinists in the sixteenth
century. See his life written soon after his death in Mabillon, Act.
Bened. t. 3, p. 237; and more full, with new remarks, by Cuper the
Bollandist, Jul. t. 5, p. 81.