umbers to
his tomb, which was honored by innumerable miracles. Four months after
his death, the priory of Ambazac, dependent on the great Benedictin
abbey of St. Austin, to Limoges, put in a claim to the land of Muret.
The disciples of the holy man, who had inherited his maxims and spirit,
abandoned the ground to them without any contention, and retired to
Grandmont, a desert one league distant, carrying with them his precious
remains. From this place the order {384} took its name. The saint was
canonized by Clement III., in 1189, at the request of king Henry II. of
England. See Gallia Christ. Nova, t. 2, p. 646.

APPENDIX

TO

THE LIFE OF ST. STEPHEN OF GRANDMONT.

Such was the fervor and sanctity of the first disciples of St. Stephen
of Grandmont, that they were the admiration of the world in the age
wherein they lived. Peter, the learned and pious abbot of Celles, calls
them angels, and testifies that he placed an extraordinary confidence in
their prayers. (Petr. Cellens. ep. 8.) John of Salisbury, a contemporary
author, represents them as men who, being raised above the necessities
of life, had conquered not only sensuality and avarice, but even nature
itself. (Joan. Salisb. Poly. l. 7, c. 23.) Stephen, bishop of Tournay,
speaks of them in as high strains. (Steph. Tournac. ep. 2.) Trithemius,
Yepez, and Miraeus, imagined that St. Stephen made the rule of St. Bennet
the basis of his order; and Mabillon at first embraced this opinion,
(Mabill. Praef. in part 2, sec. 6, Bened.,) but changed it afterwards,
(Annul. Bened. l. 64, n. 37 and 112,) proving that this saint neither
followed the rule of Saint Bennet nor that of St. Austin. Dom Martenne
has set this in a much fuller light in his preface to the sixth tome of
his great collection. (Amplise Collect. t. 6, n. 20, &c.) Baillet,
Helyot, and some others, pretend that St. Stephen never wrote any thing
himself, and that his rule was compiled by some of his successors from
his sayings, and from the discipline which he had established. But some
of the very passages to which these critics appeal, suffice to confute
them, and St. Stephen declares himself the author of the written rule
both in the prologue, and in several other places, (Regula Grandim. c.
9, 11, 14,) as Mabillon, or rather Martenne, (who was author of this
addition to his annals,) takes notice. (Annal. t. 6, l. 74, n. 9l.) The
rule of this holy founder consists of seventy-five chapters. In a
pathetic pro