nastery which he had founded in
a valley of that name, a league distant from Aniane, in the diocese
of Lodeve. St. William received the habit at the hands of St.
Benedict of Aniane, was directed by him in the exercises of a
religious life, and sanctified himself with great fervor, embracing
the most humbling and laborious employments, and practising
extraordinary austerities, till his happy death in 812, on the 28th
of May, on which day his festival is kept in the monastery of
Gellone, (now called St. Guillem de Desert, founded by this saint in
804,) and in the neighboring churches. See, on him, Mabillon, Saec.
Ben. 4, p. 88. Henschenius, diss, p. 488. Bultea p. 367. and Hist.
Gen. du Languedoc par deux Benedictins, l. 9. Many have also
confounded our saint with William, the last duke of Guienne, who,
after a licentious youth, and having been an abettor of the
anti-pope, Peter Leonis, was wonderfully converted by St. Bernard,
sent to him by pope Innocent II., in the year 1135. The year
following he renounced his estates, which his eldest daughter
brought in marriage to Louis the Young, king of France; and clothed
with hair-cloth next his skin, end in a tattered garment expressive
of the sincerity of his repentance and contrition, undertook a
pilgrimage to Compostella, and died in that journey, in 1137. See
Ordericus Vitalis, Hist. Norman. et Armoldus Bonae-Vallis, in vita
Bernardi; with the Historical Dissert. of Henschenius on the 10th of
February; and Abrege Chronol. des Grands Fiefs, p. 223.

{395}

SAINT ERLULPH, BISHOP AND MARTYR.

SEVERAL Scottish missionaries passed into the northwestern parts of
Germany, to sow there the seeds of the faith, at the time when
Charlemagne subdued the Saxons. In imitation of these apostolic men, St.
Erlulph, a holy Scotchman, went thither, and after employing many years
with great success in that arduous mission, was chosen the tenth bishop
of Verdun. His zeal in propagating the faith enraged the barbarous
infidels, and he was slain by them at a place called Eppokstorp, in 830.
See Krantzius, l. 3. Metrop. c. 30. Democh. Gatal. episc. Verd.
Pantaleon, &c.[1]

Footnotes:
1. This saint must not be confounded with Ernulph, a most holy man, the
apostle of Iceland, who flourished in the year 890; on whom see
Jonas, Histor. Islandiae.

FEBRUARY XI.

SS. SATURNINUS, DATIVUS,

A