at
it was then tied to a great stone and cast into the sea in a sack, but
miraculously carried to the shore, and revealed to two Christians. They
laid it in a little chapel out of the walls of Valentia, where God
honored these relics with many miracles, as the acts and St. Austin
witness. Prudentius informs us, that the iron on which he lay, and other
instruments of his passion, were likewise preserved with veneration.
Childebert, king of France, or rather of Paris, besieging Saragossa,
wondered to see the inhabitants busied continually in making
processions. Being informed they carried the stole of St. Vincent about
the walls in devout prayer, and had been miraculously protected by that
martyr's intercession, he raised the siege upon condition that relic
should be given him. This he with great solemnity brought to Paris, and
enriched with it the magnificent church and abbey of St. Vincent, now
called St. Germain-des-Pres, which he built in 559, and which his
successor Clotaire caused to be dedicated.[3] In the year 855, his
sacred bones were discovered at Valentia, and conveyed into France, and
deposited in the abbey of Castres, now an episcopal see in Languedoc,
where they remain; but several portions have been given to the abbey of
St. Germain-des-Pres at Paris, and other churches; and part was burnt at
Castres by the Huguenots about the end of the sixteenth century.[4]
Aimoinus, a contemporary monk, wrote the history of this translation,
with an account of many miracles which attended it.[5] St. Gregory of
Tours mentions a portion of his relics to have been famous for miracles,
in a village church near Poictiers.[6] In the life of St. Domnolus,
mention is made of a portion placed by him in a great monastery in the
suburb of the city of Mans. But it is certain that the chief part of
this martyr's body was conveyed to Lisbon. To escape the cruel
persecution of the Saracen king Abderamene, at Valentia, many Christians
privately withdrew themselves, and, carrying with them the body of St.
Vincent, took shelter on the southwest cape, called {196} the Sacred
Promontory, and from these relics St. Vincent's, in the kingdom of
Algarb, then under the Saracens. Alphonsus Henry, the most pious first
king of Portugal, son of count Henry, having defeated five Moorish
kings, at Ourique, in the year 1139, received from those faithful
keepers the body of St. Vincent, sent it by sea to Lisbon, and built the
royal monastery of the Cros