Baring-Gould’s sources: Galilean Martyrology. His translation is celebrated variously on May 3rd, 4th, or 30th. Authority: — Two ancient lives, one by a monk of Pontoise, a disciple of S. Walter and eye-witness of the greater port ol what he describes; the other of uncertain date.] Walter, in Latin Galterius, in French Gautier, was bom in the village of Andainville, in Picardy, towards the end of the reign of Robert I. He assumed the Benedictine habit in the abbey of Rubais, in the diocese of Meaux. It happened that an unfortunate peasant was locked up by the abbot in the monastery dungeon for having been guilty of some wrong done to the property of the monastery, and he left him there to perish of starvation. Walter, filled with pity, at night fed the emaciated wretch with his own food, and opening the prison door took him on his shoulders, for he was too far gone with exhaustion to be able to walk, and •S’. Walter.

…carried him out of the monastery and placed him where he would be safe. In the morning, the abbot and brethren finding their captive gone, and ascertaining that Walter had liberated him, fell on Walter and beat him unmercifully. Walter was elected by the monks first abbot of S. Germain’s near Pontoise. 1 He received episcopal benediction for his office, and king Philip I. gave him the pastoral stafij holding it by the shank of the crook; but Walter put his hand upon that of the king, saying, " It is not from thee, but from God, that I receive my spiritual authority.”

After a while, wearied of the burden of the charge, he fled by night to Cluny, but his monks brought him back again; then he retired into a cave near his monastery. Again he attempted to fly, but was brought back again. Afterwards he visited Rome, and implored pope Gregory VII. to relieve him of his charge, but in vain. On the assembling of a council of bishops and abbots at Paris, in 1092, to receive and consult upon letters received from the pope touching the marriage of priests, and forbidding the faithful to assist at masses celebrated by married priests, the bishops having declared that “ these commands were intolerable, and altogether irrational,” S. Walter stoutly opposed them, and was subjected to great abuse and even to blows for his advocacy of celibacy; and some of the royal servants so far forgot themselves as to spit in his face and draw him out of the council before the king. But Walter declared, “ I will die rather than yield.” He was therefore, cast into prison. At this time the bad habit of sitting during the recitation of the Psalms in choir had crept into the Church, but Walter never would yield to indolence, for to extreme old age he stood during the singing of the Psalms.

1 Alter wards the dedication was altered to S. Martin [St. Martin of Tours (d. 397), soldier turned bishop].