…fin German Martyrologies on this day, but in some French ones on July xst, misled by Peter de Natalibus. Authority A life written by a contemporary.] S. Theobald, a Frenchman of Provins, near Sens, the son of noble and wealthy parents, preferred a life of solitude and poverty to one in the world surrounded with plenty.
Following the advice of a hermit named Burkhard, who lived on the banks of the Seine, he left home with a companion of like mind, a knight Gauthier, or Walter, in company with a band of horsemen, and well apparelled. But when they reached Rheims, they left their horses 6". Theobald.
and baggage at the hotel, and fled on foot and destitute, and did not rest till they reached Piltung, in Swabia. There they worked as day labourers, reaping corn, mowing grass, and carrying stones for masons, till their virtues caused them to be regarded as saints, when they left the place, and made a pilgrimage to Compostella. One night Theobald stumbled over a man who was lying across the road. The fellow jumped up, and disappeared over the hedge, and Theobald was convinced that he had been tripped up by the devil himself. At Treves [Trier in Germany] he suddenly came across his father, looking anxious and aged, for the good old noble was troubled at the disappearance of his son.
Theobald thought proper to leave him in his anxiety, and retire without making himself known; doubtless fearing lest his father should use his parental authority to force him to return to Provins, and the state of life to which he had been born. He afterwards made a pilgrimage to Rome, and settled down in 1056, with his friend Gauthier, at a solitary place named Salanigo, near Vicenza, where he found the ruins of a church dedicated to SS. Hermagoras and Fortunatus. Sindichar, bishop of Vicenza, ordained Theobald priest; and the renown of the saint having reached Provins, his father and mother visited him, and the latter, unable to part again with a son she dearly loved, built a cell near his, and spent the remainder of her days there.
He died at Salanigo, but his body was translated to Metz. Portions are exhibited at Provins, others in the parish church of S. Thibault, near Lagny. He is sometimes represented with a couple of swans, because the story is told that two fishermen near Rheims saw one day a flight of wild swans, whereupon one exclaimed, “ Would to S. Thibault some of them would let me catch them !” whereupon two swans settled down on the water, and he caught them, and carried them off, one under each arm, to the bishop, and declared the marvel wrought by the blessed Theobald.
