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ST. JODOC, OR JOSSE, C.
THOSE Britons who, flying from the swords of the
English-Saxons, settled in Armorica in Gaul, upon the ruins of the
Roman empire in those parts, formed themselves into a little state on
that coast till they were obliged to receive the laws of the French.
Judical, commonly called Giguel, eldest son of Juthael, became king
of Brittany about the year 630.* This prince soon after renounced
this perishable crown to labor more securely for the acquisition of
an incorruptible one, and retired into the monastery of St. Meen, in
the diocese of St. Malo, where he lived in so great sanctity as to be
honored after his death with the title of the Blessed Judical. When
he resigned the crown he offered it to his younger brother Jodoc,
called by the French Josse. But Jodoc had the same inclinations with
his elder brother. However, to consult the divine will, he shut
himself up for eight days in the monastery of Lanmamiont, in which he
had been brought up, and prayed night and day with many tears that
God would direct him to undertake what was most agreeable to him, and
most conducive to his divine honor and his own sanctification. He put
an end to his deliberation by receiving the clerical tonsure at the
hands of the bishop of Avranches, and joined a company of eleven
pilgrims who purposed to go to Rome. They went first to Paris, and
thence into Picardy in 636, where Jodoc was prevailed upon by Haymo,
duke of Ponchieu, to fix upon an estate of his, which was at a
sufficient distance from his own country, and secure from the honors
which there waited for him Being promoted to priest’s orders,
he served the duke’s chapel seven years, then retired with one
only disciple named Vurmare, into a woody solitude at Ray, where he
found a small spot of ground proper for tillage, watered by the river
Authie. The duke built them a chapel and cells, in which the hermits
lived, gaining by the tillage of this land their slender subsistence
and an overplus for the poor. Their exercises were austere penance,
prayer, and contemplation. After eight years thus spent here they
removed to Runiac, now called Villers-saint-Josse, near the mouth of
the river Canche, where they built a chapel of wood in honor of St.
Martin. In this place they continued the same manner of life for
thirteen years; when Jodoc having been bit by an adder, they again
changed their quarters, the good duke who continued their constant
protector, having built them a hermitage, with two chapels of wood,
in honor of SS. Peter and Paul. The servants of God kept constant
enclosure, except that out of devotion to the princes of the
apostles, and to the holy martyrs, they made a penitential pilgrimage
to Rome in 665. At their return to Runiac they found their hermitage
enlarged and adorned, and a beautiful church of stone, which the good
duke had erected in memory of St. Martin, and on which he settled a
competent estate. The duke met them in person on the road, and
conducted them to their habitation. Jodoc finished here his
penitential course in 669, and was honored by miracles both before
and after his death. Winoc and Arnoc, two nephews of the saint,
inherited his hermitage, which became a famous monastery, and was one
of those which Charlemagne first bestowed on Alcuin in 792. It stands
near the sea, in the diocese of Amiens, follows the order of St.
Bennet, and the abbot enjoys the privileges of count. It is called
St. Josse-sur-mer. St. Jodoc is mentioned on this day in the Roman
Martyrology. See the life of this saint written in the eighth
century; Cave thinks about the year 710. It is published with learned
notes by Mabillon, Act. Ben. t. 2, p. 566: Gall. Chr. Nov. t. 10, pp.
1289, 1290.
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