Baring-Gould’s sources: The Martyrologies of Jerome, Hrabanus, Reichenau, Fulda, Ado, Usuardus. Gallican and Roman Martyrologies. York, not Sarum or Hereford Kalendars. Authorities: — A Life attributed to Fortunatus of Poitiers (d. circ. a.d. 600), or to Gregory of Tours (d. A.D. 594); by others thought to be later, by Raimon, B. of Angers in the 10th cent.1 A second Life by Magnobod, B.of Angers (d. circ. A.D. 630). A third Life, of no value, because late, by Marbod of Rennes (d. a.d. 1133).] The tolerably authentic life of S. Maurilius by Magnobod of Angers, written in the 6th century, about two hundred years after the death of the saint, and the purely apocryphal story which was forged in the 10th century and attributed to Fortunatus and Gregory of Tours, are very different. The authentic biography is sober and remarkable only for its dulness; the apocryphal tale is a charming romance.

We will give the facts first and the fictions afterwards. Maurilius, a native of Milan, on the death of his father came to Tours, where he was ordained sub-deacon and deacon by S. Martin [St. Martin of Tours (d. 397), soldier turned bishop]. Marbod says he also received his consecration as Bishop of Angers from S. Martin, but this is not probable; S. Martin died about a.d. 396. Maurilius we are told was Bishop of Angers thirty years, so that he must have been ordained after the death of S. Martin. It is however possible, if we admit that Bishop Prosper of Angers died in a.d. 390, and that the death of Maurilius took place in 420 instead of 431. The date, moreover, of the death of Maurilius cannot be fixed with anything approaching to certainty.

1 This the Bollandists [Jesuit scholars who since the 1600s have critically studied the lives of the saints] do not even deign to print. Its authenticity was attacked and demolished by Delaunoy, Dissert, de auctorc vitae Maurilii, Paris, 1650. It is published by Surius, and in the works of Vcnantius Fortunatus, Roma;, 1786. It is a mediaeval forgery. The Life by Marbod is published in the works of Hildebert of Sens, Paris, 1708, and not by the Bollandists. S. Mauritius.

When only a priest at Angers, Maurilius heard that there was a temple of idols at Calonne on the Loire, and it had been struck by lightning. He at once seized his opportunity, consecrated the spot, and built a church on it. He destroyed another temple at Prisciacus, and built there also a church. Soon after, the Bishop of Angers dying, Maurilius was elected in his room, by the advice, say the biographers, of S. Martin.

There was a rock covered with trees in his diocese which was dedicated to Mars, around which the natives assembled once a year for a grand dance and merry-making; the bishop went there with a swarm of monks before the festival, and spent the night in prayer, and when the peasants came to the rock next morning the place stank so abominably, that they were obliged to abandon their dance in the immediate proximity. After having performed many other notable miracles he died at the age of ninety, having been forty years working at Angers, thirty of which were as bishop. Next for the legend.

Maurilius was the son of noble parents at Milan. From infancy he was educated there by S. Martin, who after he had quitted Hungaiy, had built an abbey at Milan. S. Ambrose [bishop of Milan (d. 397)] ordained him lector in his church. The Arians [followers of Arius, who taught that the Son is a created being, not fully God] drove S. Martin from Milan, after having beaten him through the streets.

Maurilius, on the death of his father, followed his beloved master into Gaul [roughly modern France and Belgium], and found him seated on the Episcopal throne of Tours. He spent many years with him, and then, having received sacred orders from his hands, he went to Angers, there to preach the Gospel. He built a monastery at Calonne on the ruins of the temple consumed by lightning. One day a convoy of slaves was being carried down the Loire, when a youth escaped and took refuge in the monastery. The slave-driver demanded his property. Manrilius offered what little money he had as his ransom. It was refused. When the holy abbot found that he had no human resource, he knelt in prayer. The slave-driver fell down in a fit, and was so frightened that he left the young slave in the hands of Maurilius, and gave him many other gifts.

On the death of the Bishop of Angers, Maurilius was elected in his room. One day he was saying mass, when a poor woman came weeping to the church to say that her son was dying and was unconfirmed. Maurilius went on with the sacrifice, and then, when it was completed, attended to the prayer of the poor woman. But it was too late, the boy was dead.

Full of humiliation and despair, Maurilius determined to leave the diocese; he fled away in disguise, and on reaching the sea on the coast of Brittany, he wrote with his fingers on a rock, “ I, Maurilius of Angers, passed this way,” with the date. Then he took a boat, and as he was crossing the channel, the keys of his cathedral fell overboard. Then he vowed he would not consider himself reinstated in his episcopal dignity, till they were restored to him. And when he came to Britain he went into service to a noble, as his gardener, and nursed for him his pot-herbs and flowers. Now after a while the good people of Angers began to find it exceedingly inconvenient to be without a bishop, and with the impossibility of canonically electing another. So they sent out a deputation in quest of their lost bishop. And after they had traversed all lands and had not found him, one day they were sadly walking on the beach in Brittany, when they saw a rock with the inscription, “ I, Maurilius of Angers, passed thisway.” Then they took ship for Britain; and as they were sailing, a fish leaped on board, and when they opened it, lo ! it had in its belly the key of the cathedral church of Angers. Then they went on, and S. Eulogins.

came to a castle, and met a gardener, carrying a bunch of roses, and they recognised Maurilius, and fell at his feet, and saluted him. But he said, “I cannot return to Angers without the keys of my church.” Thereupon they presented him with the keys found in the belly of the fish. And he went with them, and reascended his episcopal throne, and was received with shouts of joy. Now he remembered the boy who had died without confirmation, so he went to his grave, and called with a loud voice, and the boy arose, and he confirmed him “ Renatus,” because he was born again. And Renatus afterwards became Bishop of Sorrento. The story of the fish and the key is another version of the Rabbinic tale of Solomon and his ring; or that by Herodotus of Polycrates. It is told also of S. Ethelwold and S. Lupus of Troyes, and many other Saints, with slight variation. Also in the Indian tale of Sakuntala, and in the mediaeval romance of Pierre de Provence and the beautiful Maguellone.

The name of Renatus given to a child “ born again” at the baptismal font originated the fable of the resurrection of the child after having been many years dead and buried. S. Maurilius is represented with the keys and fish as his symboL