t of the unwearied and undaunted zeal, assiduous sermons and
exhortations, and the admirable example and sanctity of the holy
prelate; whose learning, eloquence, and piety, are exceedingly extolled
by the two historians of his life. The saint, on his road to the court
of king Childeric, whither he was going for the affairs of his diocese,
restored to health St. Damarin, or Amarin, a holy abbot of a monastery
in the mountains of Voge, who was afterwards martyred with him. This
king caused Hector, the patrician of Marseilles, whom the saint had
severely rebuked for having ravished a young lady of Auvergne, a rich
heiress, and having unjustly usurped considerable estates belonging to
his church, to be put to death for this rape and other crimes. One
Agritius, imputing his death to the complaints carried to the king by
St. Prix, in revenge {221} stirred up many persons against the holy
prelate, and with twenty armed men met the bishop as he returned from
court, at Volvic, two leagues from Clermont, and first slew the abbot
St. Damarin, whom the ruffians mistook for the bishop. St. Prix,
perceiving their design, courageously presented himself to them, and was
stabbed in the body by a Saxon named Radbert. The saint, receiving this
wound, said, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, for they know not
what they do." Another of the assassins clove his head with a
back-sword, and scattered his brains. This happened in 674, on the 25th
of January. The veneration which the Gallican churches paid to the
memory of this martyr began from the time of his death. His name was
added to the calendar in the copies of the Sacramentary of St. Gregory,
which were transcribed in France, and churches were erected under his
invocation in almost every province of that kingdom. The principal part
of his relics remain in the abbey of Flavigny, whither they were carried
about the year 760. Some portions are kept in the abbey of St. Prix at
St. Quintin's, of the congregation of Cluni; another in the priory of
St. Prix near Bethune, and in certain other places. See the two lives of
St. Prix, the first written by one who was acquainted with him, the
other by one of the same age, both extant in Bollandus, pp. 628, 636,
and in Mabillon Act. Ben. t. 1, pp. 642, 650.

ST. POPPO, ABBOT OF STAVELO

ST. POPPO was born in Flanders in 978, and received a pious education,
under the care of a most virtuous mother, who died a nun at Verdun. In
his youth he serve