Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology. The Martyrologies of Bede and Usuardus on Oct. 1. Authority:— Gregory of Tours, De Vitae Patrum, c. 17; Do Gloria Confessorum, c. 94. His own letters.] Nicetius came into the world with a fringe of hair about his head, and it was therefore supposed that he was predestined to the religious life. He was educated in a monastery and became its abbot.1 King Thierry held him in high respect because he boldly rebuked the king for what he did amiss, and on the see of Trfeves falling vacant in 527, Thierry had him consecrated to it, with the consent of the clergy and people.
On his way to Trbves, before his consecration, the officers of the king, when camping for the night, turned their horses out into the cornfields of the peasants. Nicetius at once interfered. “ Remove your horses from the fields of these poor people,” he said, “ or I shall excommunicate you all.” “ Ha !” said the officers, “ You are not yet bishop, and you excommunicate us !”
“ The king,” answered Nicetius, “ has drawn me, a poor abbot, from my quiet cloister, to set me over this people, and by God’s grace I will do my duty by them and protect them from wrong and robbery.” And he went himself into • the fields and drove the horses out.
Theodebert succeeded Thierry (a.d. 534), and Nicetius was obliged to show great firmness towards this prince also, to check the violence committed against the weak, and to restrain the licentious nobles of the court. One day that 1 This was his advice to his monks: — “Avoid scurrility and idle talk, for as the body should be kept pure, so should talk be decent. A man may fall in three ways — by what he thinks, by what he says, and by what he does.'* Theodebert entered the church at Trbves, a madman began to howl out that Theodebert was an adulterer and a ravager of the poor. The king begged the saint to stop the disturbance. Nicetius answered, “Let the adulterers, murderers, and robbers of thy train, sire, be expelled the church, and then I can cast the devil out of this poor mad fellow.” He preached almost daily to the people, denouncing by name all wrong-doers, especially the nobles and princes who ill-used the poor, utterly indifferent to his own safety, so long as he could save his poor people from oppression. Clothair, who came to the throne in 554, called down the excommunication of the intrepid bishop on his head, and the king revenged himself by sending Nicetius into banishment (a.d. 561). But Clothair died immediately, and the bishop was recalled by Sigebert.
That the morals of the people of Trfeves were as bad as bad could be, is evident from the city becoming a prey to a shameful malady, which, indeed, ravaged Gaul [roughly modern France and Belgium] in the 6th century, and which made its first appearance in 546. To this Gregory of Tours [bishop and historian of the Franks (d. 594)] alludes again and again. It was fatal, and the city suffered terribly. One night it was reported that voices of demons had been heard on the bridge of the Moselle, saying, “ What can we do ? Maximinus guards one gate, Eucherius the other, and Nicetius keeps watch in the centre. We can prevail no longer.” After that the plague ceased, and, it is to be hoped, the morals of Trbves mended. A dream of S. Nicetius is recorded. He saw a tall tower, with angels guarding it, and an angel stood on it with a book in his hand, and he read out of it as he turned over the pages the names, qualities, and length of reign of all the kings of France, that had been, were, and would be, to the end of the monarchy. And after declaring the name and quality of each king, the other angels cried, Amen. S. Nicetius attended the Council of Clermont held at the S'. Nicetius.
beginning of the reign of Theodebert, the 5 th Council of Orleans, in 549, and the 2nd Council of Paris, in 551. He wrote to Clodesind, wife of Alboin, king of the Lombards [a Germanic people who ruled much of Italy from 568 to 774], on the occasion of her sending ambassadors to her brothers the kings of the Franks [the Germanic people who ruled Gaul and gave France its name], exhorting her to labour at the conversion of her husband from Arianism [followers of Arius, who taught that the Son is a created being, not fully God], and bidding her make him observe that miracles were wrought abundantly in Catholic churches, but none in those of the Arians. He also wrote to the Emperor Justinian [Byzantine emperor 527–565], as already mentioned in the life of S. Sabas. Nicetius died shortly after writing this letter, and was succeeded by his disciple, S. Magneric.