Saint Winnoc
Abbé
en Flandre (✝ v. 715)
Winnoc ou Pinnock,
avec saint Ingenoc, saint Madoc et saint Quadranoc.
Quatre saints d'origine bretonne qui vinrent se mettre sous la houlette
de saint Bertin, abbé du monastère de Sithiu près de la ville
de Saint-Omer. L'on a conté bien des miracles dans la vie de saint Winnoc.
Quand il fut âgé et n'ayant plus de forces, il fut aidé par les anges pour
tourner la meule du moulin de son monastère. Pour cette raison, il est devenu
en Bretagne le protecteur des meuniers.
Trouvé sur le site du diocèse de Quimper et Léon: "Né en
Armorique, dans le pays de Dol, il s'expatrie pour trouver une solitude où
mener une vie d'ermite avec quelques compagnons. En Flandre, lui et ses
compagnons sont reçus par saint Bertin, qui les aide à bâtir un monastère à
Wormhoud, sur une hauteur appelée depuis Mont-Saint-Winoc. Les attaques des
Normands se multipliant, les reliques du saint sont mises en sûreté à l'église
Saint-Bertin de Saint-Omer. La paix revenue, ces reliques sont ramenées à
Bergues. L'église de Plouhinec, chez nous, n'est sous le patronage de saint
Winoc que depuis le XIVe siècle. Elle reçut un fragment de relique de Bergues
peu après 1900. Le culte de saint Winoc, encore vivant en Flandre, est localisé
à la paroisse de Plouhinec."
Avec ses compatriotes bretons, il était venu se placer sous la
direction spirituelle de saint Bertin, abbé de Sithiu (Saint-Omer). A leur
intention, Bertin fonda une abbaye non loin de Sithiu, à Wormhoudt. Winnoc y
fut chargé de moudre le blé pour la communauté. La légende veut que fort âgé,
un ange l'ait aidé à tourner la meule. Ainsi les meuniers en firent leur saint
patron. (source: Saints du Pas de Calais - diocèse d'Arras)
Des internautes nous signalent:
- "St Winnoc né en 640 mort le 6 Novembre 717, natif soit du Pays de
Galles, soit de Plouhinec (56), titulaire de l’église anglicane de Lostwithiel
en Cornouilles"
- "Winoc fut abbé de son monastére à Wormhout (59470), en France,
monastère où il décéda en 717. Auparavant Saint Bertin l'avait envoyé sur le
Groenberg, colline de 22 mètres, qui par la suite deviendra la ville de
Bergues, pour évangéliser la région.
En 1022, les comtes de Flandres édifieront sur la colline une puissante
abbaye bénédictine en souvenir du passage du saint, abbaye détruite à la
révolution et dont il ne subsiste que l'une des deux tours de l'église
abbatiale. La paroisse possède toujours les reliques du saint. Un collège porte
le nom de St Winoc."
Breton de naissance, il fut accueilli par saint Bertin parmi les moines de
Sithiu, qui fut envoyé bâtir un petit monastère à Warmhoudt, dont il devint le
supérieur, travaillant beaucoup de ses propres mains.
Martyrologe
romain
Winnoc of Wormhoult, OSB
Abbot (RM)
(also known as Winoc)
Died 717. Winnoc was of royal blood and, while probably of British origin, was
raised in Brittany. It is likely that, like many others, his family fled to the
Continent to escape the Saxons. He became a monk at Sithiu under Saint Bertin,
by whom he was eventually sent with three companions to establish a new
foundation among the Morini at Wormhoudt near Dunkirk. He became its first
abbot and from that center evangelized the whole neighborhood. Winnoc's name
figures in many medieval English calendars; he is apparently titular saint of
Saint Winnow near Lostwithiel (Attwater, Benedictines).
Saint Winnoc is
depicted as an abbot with a crown and scepter at his feet, turning a hand-mill.
There is generally a church and a bridge near him. Sometimes he is shown (1) in
ecstasy while grinding corn, or (2) with Saint Bertinus. Abbot of Wormhoult.
Venerated at Sithiu (Roeder). He is the patron of millers (Encyclopedia).
SOURCE
: http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/1106.shtml
St.
Winnoc
Abbot or Prior
or Wormhoult, died 716 or 717.
Three lives of this saint are
extant: the best of these, the first life,
was written by a monk of St. Bertin in the middle of the ninth century, or perhaps
a century earlier. St. Winnoc is generally called a Breton,
but the Bollandist de Smedt shows that he was more
probably of British origin. He came to Flanders, to the Monastery
of St. Sithiu, then ruled by St. Bertin, with three companions, and was soon
afterwards sent to found at Wormhoult,
a dependent cell or priory (not an abbey, as it is generally called). It is not known
what rule, Columbanian or Benedictine, was followed at this time in the two monasteries. When enfeebled by old age, St.
Winnoc is said to have received supernatural assistance in the task of grinding corn for
his brethren and the poor; a monk who, out of curiosity, came to see how the old
man did so much work, was stuck blind, but healed by the saint's intercession.
Many other miracles followed his death, which occurred
6 November, 716 or 717. We only know the year from fourteenth-century tradition.
The popularity of St. Winnoc's cultus is attested by the frequent
insertion of his name in liturgical documents and the numerous translations of his
remains, which have been preserved at Bergues-St-Winnoc to the present day. His
feast is kept on 6 November, that of his translation
on 18 September; a third, the Exaltation of St. Winnoc, was formerly
kept on 20 February.
Sources
Acta SS., II Nov., 253; Acta SS. O.S.B.,
III, i; 291; Acta SS. Belgii, VI,
383; SURIUS, Vitae SS., VI, 127;
BENNETT in Dict. Christ. Biog., s.v.
Winnocus; GUERIN, Petits Bollandistes,
XIII, 232.
Webster, Douglas Raymund. "St. Winnoc." The Catholic Encyclopedia.
Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 6 Nov. 2016
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15658a.htm>.
Transcription. This
article was transcribed for New Advent by Thomas M. Barrett. Dedicated to Saint
Winnoc.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur.
+John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
St. Winoc, Abbot
AMONG the Britons, who, flying from the swords of the English Saxons,
took refuge in the maritime province of Armorica, in Gaul, several turned their
afflictions into their greatest spiritual advantage, and from them learned to
despise transitory things, and to seek with their whole hearts those which are
eternal. Hence Armorica, called from them Brittany, was for some ages a country
particularly fruitful in saints. Conan founded this principality of Lesser
Britain in 383. His grandson and successor, Solomon I., was murdered by his own
subjects, provoked by his zeal to reform their morals, in 434. Some think this
prince, rather than the third of that name, to be the Solomon whose name has
been inserted in some Armorican calendars. Gratton, the third prince, founded
the abbey of Landevenec. Budic, the seventh of these princes, was defeated by
the Franks, and seems to have been slain by King Clovis about the year 509. His
son Riowald or Hoel I. gathered an army of Britons dispersed in the islands
about Great Britain, and returning in 513, recovered the principality in the
reign of Childebert, and is called by many the first duke of Brittany. St.
Winoc was of blood royal, descending from Riowald, and kinsman to St. Judoc. 1 The example and instructions of holy tutors made a deep impression
upon his tender soul: he learned very early to be thoroughly sensible of the
dangers, instability, and emptiness of all worldly enjoyments, and understood
what great watchfulness and diligence are required for a Christian to stand his
ground, and daily to advance in virtue. The most excellent precepts which a
person has received from his masters in a spiritual life, become useless to
him, if he ever think himself sufficiently instructed, and cease to preach
these important lessons over and over again to himself, and to improve daily in
spiritual knowledge and sentiments by pious attention and assiduous earnest
meditation.
Winoc was careful by this method to nourish the good seed which had been
sown in his soul. In company with three virtuous young noblemen of his country
he made several journeys of devotion, in one of which he visited the new
monastery of Sithiu or St. Peter’s, now St. Bertin’s, at St. Omer; and was so
edified with the fervour and discipline of the monks, and the wisdom and
sanctity of the holy abbot St. Bertin, that he and his three companions all
agreed to take the habit together. This they did, not in 660, as Mabillon
conjectured, but later than the year 670, perhaps nearer 690. St. Winoc’s three
companions were, Quedenoc, Ingenoc, and Madoc. The edifying lives of these
servants of God spread an odour of sanctity through the whole country: and the
chronicle of St. Bertin’s testifies that St. Winoc shone like a morning star
among the hundred and fifty fervent monks who inhabited that sanctuary of
piety.
It was judged proper to found a new monastery in a remoter part of the
vast diocess of Terouenne, which might be a seminary of religion for the
instruction and example of the inhabitants of that part of the country. For the
Morini who composed that diocess, comprised, besides Artois and part of
Picardy, a considerable part of what was soon after called Flanders. 2 Heremar, a pious nobleman, who had lately embraced the faith, bestowed
on St. Bertin the estate of Wormhoult, very convenient for that purpose, six
leagues from Sithiu. St. Bertin sent thither his four illustrious British monks
to found a new monastery, not in the year 660, as Mabillon imagined, but some
years later; Stiltin says, in his life of St. Bertin, in 690. Mabillon tells
us, from the traditionary report of the monks, that St. Winoc first led a
solitary life at Groenberg, where the monastery now stands: but no mention is
made of this in his life. Having built their monastery at Wormhoult, Quedenoc,
Ingenoc, and Madoc, who were elder in years, successively governed this little
colony. After their demise St. Winoc was appointed abbot by St. Bertin. He and
his brethren worked themselves in building their church and cells together,
with an hospital for poor sick; for nothing in their whole lives was more
agreeable to them than to labour for the service of God, and that of the poor.
St. Winoc saw his community in a short time very numerous, and conducted
them in the practices of admirable humility, penance, devotion, and charity.
The reputation of his sanctity was enhanced by many miracles which he wrought.
Such was his readiness to serve all his brethren, that he seemed every one’s
servant; and appeared the superior chiefly by being the first and most fervent
in every religious duty. It was his greatest pleasure to wait on the sick in
the hospital. Even in his decrepit old age he ground the corn for the use of
the poor and his community, turning the wheel with his own hand without any
assistance. When others were astonished he should have strength enough to ply
constantly such hard labour, they looked through a chink into the room, and saw
the wheel turning without being touched, which they ascribed to a miracle. At work
he never ceased praying with his lips, or at least in his heart; and only
interrupted his manual labour to attend the altar or choir, or for some other
devotions or monastic duties. His ardent sighs to be dissolved and to be with
Christ were accomplished by a happy death, which put him in possession of his
desired bliss on the 6th of November, before the middle of the eighth century.
For fear of the Danish plunderers, who, in the following century, made a
descent upon the coast of Flanders, his bones were carried to Sithiu. Baldwin
the Bald, count of Flanders, having built and fortified the town of Berg, in
920, that it might be a strong barrier to his dominions; Count Baldwin IV. or
the Bearded, in 1028, built and founded there a stately abbey in honour of St.
Martin and St. Winoc, which he peopled with a colony from St. Bertin’s, and he
enriched it with the relics of St. Winoc; and the lands or estates of the
monastery of Wormhoult, which were not far distant, were settled by the founder
upon this house, and the town bears the name of Berg-St.-Winoc.
Dom de Cousser, actual prior of St. Winoc’s, in his MS. annals of his
monastery, endeavours to prove that a succession of monks had continued to
inhabit a cell at Wormhoult, from the destruction of that abbey to its
restoration in the city of Berg. The walls of the fortress did not take in the
abbey till, in 1420, the abbot Moer raised a wall round the hill. The abbey of
Berg was burnt with the town, by the French in 1383, when twelve candlesticks of
massy gold, of an incredible weight and size, and other immense riches, were
consumed in the church, and with them many shrines and relics of saints,
particularly of St. Oswald the English king and martyr, and his cousin the holy
virgin St. Hisberga, whom Molanus by mistake confounds with the Flandrican St.
Isberge. Nothing of these relics escaped the flames, except a small parcel of
little bones of St. Oswald kept separate. They are still exposed in that church
in a reliquary made in the figure of an arm. 3 The relics of St. Winoc were not damaged. They are now preserved in a
triple shrine raised over the high altar, and the head in a large silver bust
apart. See the life of St. Winoc, with a relation of many miracles after his
death, written probably in the ninth century before the devastation of the
Normans in 880, MSS. in the Library of Berg-St.-Winoc, published by Surius, and
more correctly by Mabillon, sæc. 3. Ben. p. 1. Also see the Chronology of St.
Winoc’s, nearly of the same age. Thirdly, Drogo or Dreuoc, a monk of St.
Winoc’s in the middle of the eleventh century, in his history of the miracles
of St. Winoc, to many of which he had heen an eye-witness. He prefixed a life
of St. Winoc, in Mabillon, sæc. 3. p. 310. He likewise composed a life of St.
Lewina, an English virgin, in Mabillon, ib. and the Bollandists, 24 Julii, p.
613. and of St. Oswald, king and martyr, in Surius, 5 Aug. Some make this
writer the same who was bishop of Terouenne from 1031 to 1078, and who wrote
the life of St. Godeleva, virgin. But the monk expressly mentions this bishop
his namesake and contemporary. See also on St. Winoc, Thomas the Deacon, a monk
of Berg, who wrote in the fourteenth century, was eye-witness to the plunder
and burning of the abbey and city by the French in 1383; a most faithful and
accurate historian.
St. Winoc’s history is abridged by Anian de Coussere, monk of Berg, and
abbot of St. Peter’s of Aldenberg, who wrote a chronicle from the birth of
Christ, and the translation of St. Arnulph, abbot of Aldenberg, and died in
1468.
Likewise by Peter of Wallen Capelle, prior of Berg, abbot of Broin at
Namur, from 1585 to 1592, whilst his brother Francis, a Franciscan, was bishop
of that city. Peter returned to Berg, and there died. He is author of two
excellent treatises on the monastic state, the one called Illustrationes, the
other Institutiones Monasticæ, to which the learned Vanespen was much indebted
in what he wrote on this subject. Consult also on St. Winoc, Miræus in Fastis
Belgicis, and Chron. Belgico. Meyer, Chronic. Gramaie, Descr. Historica Winoci
Bergens. Abbatiæ, p. 148–153, &c.
Note 1. The pedigree of St. Winoc, prefixed
to his ancient life, though drawn up by another hand, commences from Riwal,
whose seven successors of his posterity are named to Judicaël, eldest son of
Hoel III., and father of St. Judoc, of Alan II. the eldest, and Urbian. The two
latter succeeded him in different parts of his principality. Winoc is here said
to have been another son to B. Judicaël: he must rather have been his grandson
or little nephew. For Judicaël abdicated his kingdom about the year 638, and
died in the abbey of Gaël about the year 658. Whereas St. Winoc did not arrive
at Sithiu before the year 670, and was at that time very young. [back]
Note 2. St. Owen, in 678, is the most ancient
writer who, in his life of St. Eligius, makes use of the name of Flanders,
which he confines to the city and territory of Bruges, under the title of
Municipium Flandrense. Lewis le Debonnaire and Charles the Bald, in the ninth
century, and others, give the name of Mempiscus to the territory on both sides
of the brook Yper from Ypres to the German Ocean at Yperæ or Isaræ Portus,
which Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders, made a celebrated harbour and town
called Nieuport, in 1168. In Mempiscus were the town Roslar, now Rousselaer,
and the village Helsoca, now Esche, between Bailleul and Cassel; consequently
also Wormhoult and the abbey of St. Winoc; also Torhoult in the diocess of
Bruges, which reaches to the gates of Nieuport. Wastelaine, in his Gaule Belgique,
printed at Lille in 1761, derives the name Mempiscus from the Menapii who
inhabited only villages from the Escaut to the Rhine and beyond it. They might
have made a settlement among the Morini: and Cassel has been called by some,
Castellum Morinorum. But this etymology seems to others quite improbable. This
territory was soon after comprised in Flanders when that name was extended from
the castle of Bruges to almost all the country which lies betwixt the Somme,
the Scheldt, and the ocean, given by the Emperor Charles the Bald as a dower
with his daughter Judith married to Baldwin I. or of the Iron-Arm, founder of
the hereditary sovereign counts of Flanders, in 863. Flanders, thus
circumscribed, comprised part of the Menapii, all the territory of the Morini
and Atrebates, Tournay, (placed by the Tables of Peutinger, among the Nervii,
not mentioned before Antoninus and St. Jerom,) and Bagacum, (now Bagaye in
Haynault,) the old capital of the Nervii, which honour, when that city was
destroyed by the Huns in 385, was transferred to Cambray. The Nervii were
extended from the Atrebates, and the Morini as far as Treviri. [back]
Note 3. Drogo relates that Balger, a monk of
St. Winoc’s, going into England, was highly in favour with St. Edward the
Confessor. In his return he brought with him, in 1038, the relics of St.
Oswald, king and martyr, and his cousin Hisberg, virgin. Twenty years after,
being driven by a northerly wind into the harbour of Zevort, not far from
Canterbury, he carried back with him from the church of St. Andrew, served by
the monks of Canterbury, the relics of St. Lewine, a virgin who suffered
martyrdom when St. Theodore was archbishop of Canterbury. Her feast fell on the
22d of July, but to make place for St. Mary Magdalen was transferred to the
24th. See Drogo, Mayer ad an. 1058. Peter of Wallon Capel. Molanus,
&c. [back]
Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume
XI: November. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.
SOURCE
: http://www.bartleby.com/210/11/062.html
Saint Winnoc of Wormhoult
Saint Winnoc of Wormhoult
Also known as
- Winnoc of Flanders
- Winnoc of Wormhoudt
- Vinocus of…
- Vinnoco of..
- Winnow of…
- Winoc of…
- Winocus of…
- Winok of…
- Wunnoc of…
- Winnok of…
- 6 November
- 18 September (translation of relics)
- 20 February (exaltation of Saint
Winnoc)
Profile
Born to the
nobility, possibly a prince, and some sources say his father was Saint
Judicael. Raised and educated in Brittany, his family running there to escape the Saxons. Monk. Founded Saint Winnow’s church in Cornwall, England. Monk at Sithiu (Saint Omer) under abbot
Saint
Bertin. Founded the monastery,
church and hospital of Wormhoult, Belgium, served as abbot,
and used it as a base to evangelize the area.
Humble, and ever
mindful of the apostolic precept “if any would not work, neither should he
eat”, Winnoc threw himself into the manual labour of the monasteries,
doing as much of the tough and disagreeable as any monk in the house. When enfeebled by old age, Winnoc prayed
for help to continue his work; he received divine help to work a hand corn mill, making flour for his brothers and the poor. Another monk, out of curiosity, peeped through a crack in the mill-house door to see how the old man did so much work; he was
stuck blind for his impertinence, but was healed by Winnoc’s intercession.
Born
- 6 November 716 or 717 at Wormhoult, Belgium of natural causes
- originally buried at Wormhoult
- relics translated to Bergues-Saint-Winnoc in 899
- people who stood along the route taken by the monks were reported to have been healed of many illnesses, especially coughs and fevers, and they have been brought out to stop drought
- the monastery was burned by Protestants in 1558 destroying some relics
- abbot
with a crown and scepter at his feet,
turning a hand-mill,
often with a church and bridge nearby
- in ecstasy while grinding grain
to flour
- with Saint Bertin