The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

ack-sword, and scattered his brains. This happened in 674, on the 25th
of January. The veneration which the Gallican churches paid to the
memory of this martyr began from the time of his death. His name was
added to the calendar in the copies of the Sacramentary of St. Gregory,
which were transcribed in France, and churches were erected under his
invocation in almost every province of that kingdom. The principal part
of his relics remain in the abbey of Flavigny, whither they were carried
about the year 760. Some portions are kept in the abbey of St. Prix at
St. Quintin's, of the congregation of Cluni; another in the priory of
St. Prix near Bethune, and in certain other places. See the two lives of
St. Prix, the first written by one who was acquainted with him, the
other by one of the same age, both extant in Bollandus, pp. 628, 636,
and in Mabillon Act. Ben. t. 1, pp. 642, 650.
ST. POPPO, ABBOT OF STAVELO
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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