The most important document in this department of literature, and one which bears directly upon scientific investigations, is the martyrology of Ado, Bishop of Vienne. Ado was born in northern France about 800, and entered at an early age the Monastery of Ferrières in the diocese of Sens, from whence he was sent to the Monastery of Prüm where he lived for many years under Abbot Markward (829-853). In consequence of some misunderstandings he left Prüm and went to Rome, where he spent five years and then went to Ravenna. He returned to France later and lived for some time as a simple monk in a monastery in the neighbourhood of Lyons. After the death of Bishop Agilmar of Vienne († 7th July 860) he succeeded to the see and died on the 16th December 873.
He compiled the martyrology which bears his name in 858 before he became bishop,[819] the basis of his work being a very ancient martyrology with which he had become acquainted in Ravenna. If his information can be trusted, a bishop of Ravenna, whose name he does not give, received this ancient document from a bishop of Rome who is also nameless. The rest of the material he collected himself, and in particular he made notes of any information concerning martyrs which had come in his way. Many of the sources at his disposal have since been lost, thus rendering his martyrology all the more important for us.
It consists of three parts: 1. A calendar containing the names of one or more saints for each day accompanied by notices naturally brief; in the printed edition it bears incorrectly the title, Vetus Martyrologium Romanum, given to it by its first editors, Jacob Mosander and Heribert Rosweyde;[820] 2. A Libellus de Festivitatibus SS. Apostolorum;[821] 3. The martyrology itself,[822] consisting of extracts from the acts of the martyrs and other writings.
His preface contains matter which deserves attention.[823] He had often been urged, he says, by holy men, by his superiors, and by Bishop Remigius of Lyons to complete the martyrology; since the martyrology of Bede, which Florus had enlarged, still leaves many days without saints, he had undertaken to fill up these gaps, and for this purpose he had made use of the MSS. describing the sufferings of the martyrs, from which he had made quotations for the benefit of the weaker brethren; the ancient martyrology which came originally from Rome, served him as a foundation upon which to build.
The frank avowal of his intention to fill in the spaces left vacant by his predecessors, might create a prejudice against the trustworthiness and excellence of his work, but a closer inspection will dispel this suspicion, and this would be still more the case had we the original form of the work before us; in the existing editions there are additions of a later date, such as the name Rictiovarus.
From the entries on the 20th April and the 17th November it is plain that the Cologne MS. of this martyrology edited by Rosweyde comes from Stablo, and it may have been that at Stablo the names of some Frankish saints were inserted into it. Ado went much further than Bede in admitting names from the Old Testament. Roseweyde’s conjecture that this calendar, the so-called “Little Ado,” is the Roman martyrology mentioned by Gregory I. in his letter to Eulogius, is devoid of proof and obviously mistaken, for in that document there were no Old Testament names. This “Little Ado” is not a martyrology at all, but a calendar, and displays none of the peculiarities which characterise the calendars of the city of Rome of that date; neither is it an independent work, but only an abstract made by Ado from his own larger work, and a summary of its contents. The preface prefixed to the two other parts is chiefly concerned with the martyrology, and not with this abstract, and it is only the circumstance that this abstract is found in MSS., with some later additions and altogether separate from the larger work, which led the first editor to regard it as a treatise by itself; it is merely the abstract used at Stablo and Malmedy, and not an original Roman work, though it is plain from Ado’s preface that the existing Roman calendar was employed in its composition.[824]
Two or three decades later, Usuardus composed his martyrology after Ado’s example, which he dedicated to Charles the Bald in 875. Usuardus was a monk of St Germain des Près, then outside the gates of Paris, but now surrounded by the city; his work is by no means so full as Ado’s, but is more polished in style, and more uniform in its treatment of the different entries, and on this account is more suited for use in choir. It was accordingly used throughout the entire West, and in all Benedictine monasteries,[825] and even in Rome itself with the exception of the Vatican basilica. At the end of the fifteenth century it was so to speak, the universal martyrology of the Western Church, and indeed no other was known.[826]
The value of these works depends naturally upon the sources employed by the redactor, and also upon his personal qualities, as, for instance, whether he revelled in the miraculous or was inclined to be critical.
Two martyrologies by German authors must now be dealt with—those of Rabanus Maurus and Notker Balbulus.
The former when Archbishop of Mainz completed a martyrology which he had compiled from secondary sources; it is dedicated to Abbot Radleich of Seligenstadt, who died in 853-54, and whose epitaph was composed by Rabanus,[827] but the composition of the martyrology must be dated a few years earlier, about 850, though the exact date cannot be discovered. As sources, he drew upon the Acts of the martyrs which he found ready to hand, and also the Hieronymianum, Bede, and Florus; the treatment of the material is very unequal, sometimes a long account being given, sometimes nothing more than the name; legends and historical errors are frequent.