Ecumenical Commemoration
Bishop of Reims & Apostle to the Franks
October 1 · d. 533
Remigius, bishop of Reims, was the churchman who baptized Clovis, king of the Franks, and so brought the first great Germanic kingdom of the West into the Catholic faith. He held his see for some seventy years, an episcopate of extraordinary length, and the church has honored him ever since as the apostle of the Franks. His feast is October 1.
Remigius was born in Roman Gaul about the year 437 and was made bishop of Reims, the old city the Romans called Durocortorum, while he was still a young man of twenty-two. He would hold that see for over seventy years, and the story of much of what we know of his long life flows from a single, pivotal night that changed the course of Europe through the obedience of a king and his partnership with Remigius.
The Franks who had settled in northern Gaul were pagans, and their king, Clovis, was a hard and victorious warrior. His wife, the Christian queen Clotilde, had long pressed him toward the faith, and he had long resisted her. Then Clovis went to war against the Alemanni and was losing. On the field at Tolbiac, with his men falling around him, the king who would not pray to Clotilde's God bent his knee: if he were granted the victory, he would believe and be baptized. The battle turned. The Franks won, and Clovis kept his word.
Remigius received him. On Christmas Day the king came to Reims to be baptized, and the church was hung with white and bright with candles, so that Clovis is said to have asked whether this was the kingdom of heaven the bishop had promised him. As the king bowed to the water, Remigius spoke the famous words that Gregory of Tours, a historian from the next generation recorded: "Gently bend your neck, O Sicambrian; worship what you burned; burn what you worshipped." With Clovis, Gregory writes, more than three thousand of his army were baptized that day, following his humility to bow before the King of Kings. Gregory spoke of the remainder of his reign like a righteous Old Testament king, Clovis "walked before God with an upright heart" while recording the politics and wars of his reign. Remigius helped legitimate and pastorally shape Clovis as a Christian ruler. We have two surviving letters from Remigius to Clovis where he consoles him pastorally over the death of his sister, advises him in just government, using his bishops as counselors, protection of the vulnerable, encouraging education for them, and generosity as the King to ransom captives with his wealth and to create a welcoming court accessible to all. His closing encourages Clovis to play and joke with the young and deliberate with the old as part of his recipe for a noble reign!
Many in Gaul already professed a Christian faith, but many were uneducated and the aristocracy of the Visigoths in the South held to a Homoian formulation of the Trinity. Late in his reign, Clovis waged a political war to subdue the Visigoths. After his conquest of much of Aquitaine, he summoned the Council of Orleans to support ecclesiastical order across the enlarged kingdom, and in its canons it created paths for Homoian clergy to be accepted into the Nicene orthodox church and a policy to consecrate Homoian churches in the Nicene faith. He united much of his kingdom under the orthodox Creed, not by destroying their churches in the conquest, but by creating a conciliar path into the catholic faith for them.
The church of Rheims has long told that heaven itself sent the chrism for that anointing: one story goes that as Remigius reached for the holy oil and the press of the crowd kept it from him, a dove came down bearing an ampulla filled from above. For a thousand years many kings of France were crowned and anointed at Reims with oil said to have descended in that same vessel. The memory of the bishop who baptized the barbarian king was bound to that font and that anointing stood behind the throne of what would become France and its Christian heritage. Late in his life, Remigius was conspicuously absent from the Council of Orleans (511) that Clovis called; this may be unremarkable as Remigius would have been older at the time and such a journey difficult from Rheims, or it may reflect tension with Clovis and the beginning of Frankish kings working to exert more dominance over the Frankish bishops, a political interplay and attempted political control of the church that would be true with many French kings over the next millennium.
Remigius lived on into great old age, twenty years longer than Clovis, planting churches and ordaining bishops across the lands Clovis gave him, the way cleared for missions by a believing king. He died at Reims about the year 533, almost a centenarian. He had turned a warrior-king toward the God who conquers not by the sword. The kingdoms Clovis conquered have passed away. The faith into which Remigius received him remains.
How we know Remigius is a study in the two kinds of source that a sixth-century bishop leaves behind. For the central fact of his life we stand on firm ground: Gregory of Tours, writing his History of the Franks around 590 within a century of much of what it records. He records the baptism of Clovis by "Remigius, bishop of the city of Reims," and Gregory preserves the bishop's words at the font and the number of Franks baptized with the king. Remigius's own hand survives as well, in four letters, among them two to Clovis and a defense of his conduct in the affair of a priest named Claudius, together with a Testament; these are the words of the man himself. The date of the baptism is debated (Christmas of 496 is the traditional year, though some scholars now argue for as late as 508), but that Remigius baptized Clovis, and that this was the hinge on which the Franks turned Catholic, is as secure as anything in the period.
The thicker growth of legend comes later, and its greatest flower is the Holy Ampulla. The church long told that a dove descended at the baptism bearing chrism from heaven, and for centuries the kings of France were anointed at Reims with oil held to come from that vessel. The documentary situation is plain: no source near the events knows of it. The story is first attested in the ninth century, in the Life of Remigius written by Hincmar, himself archbishop of Reims, some three hundred years after the bishop's death; Hincmar wove it from older elements and from the fragrant vials found when the saint's tomb was opened in his own day, and the legend served the standing of his church. It is a later elaboration, and honestly named as one.
Yet the tradition is itself a piece of history, and a long one. Whether or not a dove came down over the font, the belief that it had shaped the coronation of a nation: from Reims Cathedral, generation upon generation, the kings of France were crowned and anointed with the chrism of the Holy Ampulla, until the vial was broken in the Revolution in 1793. However, Charles X in 1825, was purportedly anointed with oil recovered from the broken vial. Few legends have reached so far into the actual life of a people. Beneath it stands the sober fact the story was reaching to honor, that a bishop of Reims once received a Frankish king into the church and set the pattern by which that people would understand its kings as Christian kings for more than a thousand years.
Remigius is kept on October 1 in the West, the date of the translation of his relics; Reims also honors the day of his death, January 13. In art he is shown as a bishop, often with the dove of the Holy Ampulla at his shoulder or the vial in his hand, and sometimes with a book and a lamp. He is venerated as the apostle of the Franks and honored as a patron of France, and by an old association his intercession was sought against fevers. His relics rest at the great Abbey of Saint-Remi at Reims, which bears his name, beside the cathedral where for centuries the kings he foreshadowed came to be crowned.
History of the Franks (Historia Francorum), on the baptism of Clovis(Latin, c. 590)
The near-contemporary witness (c. 590), our earliest source for the baptism, the bishop's words at the font, and the number of Franks baptized; public domain in Brehaut's translation.
Public domain: Ernest Brehaut translation, Fordham Medieval Sourcebook
The Life of Saint Remigius (Vita Remigii)(Latin, 9th century)
The fountainhead of the medieval legend, the Holy Ampulla among it; an elaboration written three centuries after the events, and the source that shaped the cult.
Public domain: Latin text in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica
The Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea), "The Life of Saint Remigius"(Latin, c. 1260)
The medieval life that carried Remigius's story, dove and ampulla and all, to a wide readership; public domain in Caxton's English.
Public domain: William Caxton translation (1483)
The Franks(English, 1988)
The standard readable modern account of the Frankish people and the king Remigius baptized; sober on the sources, the best single volume for the history around the saint.
Public domain: Borrowable at the Internet Archive
Primary sources. The indispensable near-contemporary witness is Gregory of Tours, whose History of the Franks (c. 590) records the baptism of Clovis by Remigius and preserves the bishop's words; it is freely available in Ernest Brehaut's 1916 translation at the Fordham Medieval Sourcebook. Remigius's own four letters and his Testament survive in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica.
Principal hagiography. The ninth-century Life of Remigius by Hincmar of Reims is the source of the fuller legend, the Holy Ampulla among it; it must be read as an elaboration three centuries after the events, but it is the fountainhead of the medieval cult. The medieval Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine carried the story to a wide readership and is available in William Caxton's public-domain English.
Recommended modern biography. For the historical setting, Edward James's The Franks (Blackwell, 1988) is the standard readable account of the people and the king Remigius baptized, sober about the sources and generous to the tradition; it is borrowable at the Internet Archive.
Further reading. The Catholic Encyclopedia's article on Remigius gives a compact scholarly summary of his life and works; the entry on the Holy Ampulla traces the growth and reach of the coronation legend.
Remigius is said of remi, that is to say feeding, and geos, that is earth, as who says feeding the earthly people with doctrine. Or of geon, that is a wrestler, for he was a pastor and a wrestler he fed his flock with the word of preaching, with suffrages of praying, and with example of conversation. There is three manner of armour that is for the defence, the shield, for to fight, the sword, for his salvation and health, the habergeon and helm. He wrestled against the devil with the shield of faith, with the sword of the word of God, and with the helmet of hope. Ignatius Archbishop of Rheims wrote his life.
Of the Life of S. Remigius.
Remigius, an holy doctor, and confessor glorious of our Lord, was tofore his birth provided of our Lord, and foreseen of a holy hermit. When the persecution of the Vandals had almost wasted and destroyed nigh all France, there was a man recluse, holy and virtuous, which had lost his sight, which oft prayed to our Lord for peace and welfare of the church of France. He had on a time a vision, and him seemed an angel came to him and said: Know you that the woman that you know named Aline shall bring forth a son that shall be named Remigius, which shall deliver all the country from this persecution. And when he awoke he came to the house of this Aline and told to her his vision, and she would not believe it because of her age. The recluse said: It shall be so as I have said, and when you have given your child suck, you shall give to me of your milk, to put upon mine eyes, and therewith I shall be whole and recover my sight again. And like as he said all these things happened. And the woman had a child named Remigius, which when he came to the age of discretion, he fled the world, and entered into a reclusage. And sith after, for the great renown of his holy life, when he had been twenty-two years therein he was elect and chosen to be Archbishop of Rheims. He was so debonair that little birds came and ate on his table and took meat at his hand. It happed on a day that he was lodged in an house of a good woman which had but a little wine in her tonnel or vessel, and S. Remigius went in to the cellar and made the sign of the cross upon the ton, and prayed a while. Anon the ton was so full that it leapt over, by the merits of the good saint.
Now it happed that Clodovius the king of France, which was a paynim, might not be converted for any preaching that his wife might do, which was a christian woman, unto the time that a great host of Alemans came into France. Then by the admonishment of his wife he made a vow that if the God that his wife worshipped would give him victory, he would be baptized at his returning from the battle. Thus, as he demanded, he vanquished the battle, and after came to Rheims to S. Remigius and prayed him that he would christen him. And when S. Remigius baptized him he had no chrisom ready, then a dove descended from heaven which brought the chrisom in an ampull of which the king was anointed and this ampull is kept in the church of S. Remigius at Rheims, of which the kings of France be anointed when they be crowned. S. Remigius had a niece which was married to a clerk named Genebaldus, which by devotion left his wife for to enter into religion. Then S. Remigius saw that the see of Rheims was over great, and ordained a see of a bishopric at Laon and made Genebald first bishop of that place. When Genebald was bishop his wife came thither to see him, and he remembered of the privily that they were wont to have together, and lay on a night with her, and engendered on her a child. When his wife knew that she was great and let him have knowledge thereof, and when he knew that it was a son, he commanded that it should be named Thief, because he had engendered it by theft. After for to quench the suspicion and the words of the people, he suffered that his wife should come to him as she did tofore, and anon after she conceived a daughter, whom he commanded to name a fox's whelp, and after came to S. Remigius and confessed him of his sin, and took the stole off his neck and would leave his bishopric, but S. Remigius, after he had confessed him, comforted him, and gave him penance, and shut him in a little cell seven years long, and gave to him bread and water, and in the meanwhile he governed the church himself. At the end of seven years an angel came to the prison, and said to him that he had done well his penance, and bade him go out of the prison. To whom he said: I may not go out, for my lord S. Remigius has closed the door and sealed it. And the angel said to him: Know you that the door of heaven is opened to you; I shall open this door without breaking of the seal which S. Remigius has sealed. And anon the door was opened. Then Genebald fell down in the midst of the door in manner of a cross, and said: If our Lord Jesu Christ came hither I shall not go out but if S. Remigius, which shut and closed me herein, come and bring me out. And then the angel went anon and fetched S. Remigius and brought him to Laon, and he delivered him out of prison, and remised him and set him again in his see there, where he lived after, all the days of his life, holily. After his death, Thief his son was made bishop after him, which is also a saint in heaven, and at the last S. Remigius, after that God had shown many miracles for him, he departed out of this life unto everlasting joy the year of the incarnation of our Lord five hundred.
Almighty and everlasting God, you called your servant Remigius to preach the Gospel to the people of the Frankish kingdom: Raise up in this and every land evangelists and heralds of your kingdom, that your Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Readings for a Missionary
Isaiah 49:1–7Psalm 98Romans 10:11–18Luke 5:1–11