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

charters are still kept among the archives of that house, and were shown
me there. This parish, and that of Rye, were of the exemption of Fecam,
that is, were not subject to the jurisdiction of the diocesan, but to
this abbey, as twenty-four parishes in Normandy are to this day. For in
the enumeration of the parishes which belong to this exemption in the
bulls of several popes, in which it is confirmed, Steninges and Rye are
always mentioned with this additional clause, that those places are
situated in England.[1] St. Cuthman was titular patron of Steninges or
Estaninges, and is honored to this day, on the 8th of February, in the
great abbeys of Fecam, Jumieges, and others in Normandy: and his name
occurs in the old Missal, used by the English Saxons before the Norman
conquest, kept in the monastery of Jumieges, in which a proper mass is
assigned for his feast on the 8th of February. In the account of the
principal shrines of relics of saints, honored anciently in England,
published by the most learned Dr. Hickes, mention is made of St.
Cuthman's, as follows: "At Steninge, on the river Bramber, among the
South-Saxons, rests St. Cuthman." See Narratio de Sanctis qui in Anglia
quiescunt, published by Hickes, in his Thesaurus Linguarum veterum
Septentr. t. 1, in Dissert. Epistol. p. 121. See also two lives of St.
Cuthman, in Bollandus, t. 2, Feb. p. 197, and the more accurate lessons
for his festival in the breviary of Fecam. He is honored in most of the
Benedictin abbeys in Normandy.
Footnotes:
1. Bollandus had not seen these charters and bulls, or he could not
have supposed Steninges to be situated in Normandy, and St. Cuthman
to have died in that province. Dom Le Noir, a learned Benedictin
monk of the congregation of St. Maur, and library-keeper at Fecam,
who is employed in compiling a history of Normandy, gives me the
following information by a letter from Fecam: "On tient ici à Féca,
pas une espèce de tradition que Hastings, port d'Angleterre, sur la
Manche, dens le comté de Sossex, et dans le voisinage de Rye, est le
Staninges de l'Abbaye de Fécam. Si le nom est un pen différent
aujourd'hui on voit des noms des lieux qui ont souffert des plus
grandes altérations." This pretended tradition is an evident
mistake. Hastings was a famous sea-port under the same name, in the
ninth century, and Stening is at this day a borough in Sussex,
situated under the reins of Bramber castle, not far from the river,
which was formerly navigable so high, though at present even
Shoreham at its month has no harbor, the sea having made frequent
changes on this coast, especially in the twelfth century.
FEBRUARY IX.
ST. APOLLONIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR.
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