HE was by birth a Saxon, and being made captive, was carried into the Low Countries, where he was ransomed and baptized by St. Eligius. That apostolical man sent him to his abbey of Solignac, in Limousin. St. Thillo was called thence by St. Eligius, ordained priest, and employed by him some time at Tournay, and in other parts of the Low Countries. The inhabitants of the country of Isengihen, near Courtray, regard him as their apostle. Some years after the death of St. Eligius, St. Thillo returned to Solignac, {107} and lived a recluse near that abbey, in simplicity, devotion, and austerities, imitating the Antonies and Macariuses. He died in his solitude, about the year 702, of his age ninety-four, and was honored with miracles. His name is famous in the French and Belgic calendars, though it occurs not in the Roman. St. Owen, in his life of St. Eligius, names Thillo first among the seven disciples of that saint, who worked with him at his trade of goldsmith, and imitated him in all his religious exercises, before that holy man was engaged in the ministry of the church. Many churches in Flanders, Auvergne, Limousin, and other places, are dedicated to God, under his invocation. The anonymous life of St. Thillo, in Bollandus, is not altogether authentic; the history which Mabillon gives of him from the Breviary of Solignac, is of more authority, (Mab. Sæc. 2, Ben. p. 996.) See also Bulteau, Hist. Ben. T. i. l. 3, c. 16. Molanus in Natal. Sanct. Belgii, &c.
ST. CANUT,
SECOND son of Eric the Good, king of Denmark, was made duke of Sleswig, his elder brother Nicholas being king of Denmark. Their father, who lived with his people as a father with his children, and no one ever left him without comfort, says the ancient chronicle Knytling-Saga, p. 71, died in Cyprus, going on a pilgrimage to the holy land, in which he had been received by Alexius Comnenus, emperor, at Constantinople, with the greatest honor, and had founded an hospital at Lucca for Danish pilgrims. He died in 1103, on the 11th of July. Mallet, 1. 2, p. 112.
Canut set himself to make justice and peace reign in his principality: those warriors could not easily be restrained from plundering. One day, when he had condemned several together to be hanged for piracies, one cried out, that he was of blood royal, and related to Canut. The prince answered, that to honor his extraction, he should be hanged on the top of the highest mast of his ship, which was executed. (Helmold, l. 6, c. 49) Henry, king of the Sclavi, being dead, and his two sons, St. Canut his nephew succeeded, paid homage to the emperor Lothaire II. and was crowned by him king of the Obotrites, or western Sclavi. St. Canut was much honored by that emperor, in whose court he had spent part of his youth. Valor, prudence, zeal, and goodness, endeared him to all. He was slain by conspiracy of the jealous Danes, the 7th of January, 1130, and canonized in 1171. His son became duke of Sleswig, and in 1158 king of Denmark, called Valdemar I. and the Great, from his virtuous and glorious actions.
{108}
JANUARY VIII.
ST. APOLLINARIS, THE APOLOGIST,
BISHOP
From Eusebius, Theodoret, St. Jerom, &c. See Tillemont, Mem. t. 2, p. 492, and Hist des Emp. t. 2, p. 309.