Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/398

 HILARY

350

HILDEBERT

of the Gallic bishops, and easily proved that, contrary to the opinion current in the East, these latter were not Sabellians. Then he took part in the violent discussions which took place between the Semi-Arians, who inclined toward reconciliation with the Catholics, and the Anomceans, who formed as it were the extreme left of Arianism.

After the council, which had no result beyond the wider separation of these brothers in enmity, he left for Constantinople, the stronghold of heresy, to con- tinue his battle against error. But while the Semi- Arians, who were less numerous and less powerful, besought him to become the intermediarj' in a recon- ciliation between themselves and the bishops of the West, the Anomceans, who had the immense advan- tage of being upheld by the emperor, besought the latter to send back to his own country this Gallic bishop, who, they said, sowed discord and troubled the Orient. Constant ius acceded to their desire, and the exile was thus enablctl to set out on his journey home. In 361 Hilary re-entered Poitiers in triumph and re- sumed possession of his see. He was welcomed with the liveliest joy by his flock and his brothers in the episcopate, and was visited by Martin, his former disciple and subsequently Bishop of Tours. The success he had achieved in his combat against error was rendered more brilliant shortly afterwards by the deposition of Saturninus, the Arian Bishop of Aries by whom he had been persecuted. However, as in Italy the memory still rankled of the efforts he had made to bring about a reconciliation between the nearly con- verted Semi-Arians and the Catholics, he went in 30-1 to the Bishop of Vercelli to endeavour to overcome the intolerance of the partisans of the Bishop Lucifer mentioned above. Almost immediately afterwards, that it might be seen that, if he was full of indulgence for those whom gentleness might finally win from error, he was intractaljle towards those who were obstinate in their adherence to it, he went to Milan, there to assail openly Aiuxentius, the bishop of that city, who was a firm ilefender of the Arian doctrines. But the Emperor Valentinian, who protected the heretic, ordered Hilary to depart immediately from Milan.

He then returned to his city of Poitiers, from which he was not again to absent himself and where he was to die. This learned and energetic bishop had fought against error with the pen as well as in words. The best edition of his numerous and remarkable writings is that published liy Dom Constant under the title: " Sancti Hilarii, Pictavorum episcopi opera, ad manu- scriptos codices gallicanos, romanos, belgicos, necnon ad veteres editiones castigata" (Paris, 1693). The Latin Church celebrates his feast on 14 January, and Pius IX raised him to the rank of Doctor of the L^ni- versal Church. The Church of Puy glories in the supposed possession of his relics, but according to one tradition his body was borne to the church of St-Denys near Paris, while according to another it was takenfromthc church of St-Hilaire at Poitiers and burned by the Protestants in 1.572.

Baronius. Ann. (l.MO). .■i.5.5. 69-8.3; 3.5S, 11-19; 360, 1-17; 362. 228-238; 369, 6-27; Tillemont. Mem. pour sen ir a I'hvil. ercles. (1700). VII, 432-469; Ceii-ueh, Jlist. gm. des aut. sacr. et eccles. (Paris, 173.")), VI. l-l.'jQ; Dl'TEMS. Clergc de France (Paris, 1774), II, 396-402; .\d, Vieiiavser, Hilariiis Pictarim- sis peschild. in .':ejnem Kampfe gcoen den Ariani.smu.<: (Klagen- furt, 1S60); Barbier, Vie tie .^. Hilnire, ert'que de Poitiers, doc- teuT et ptre de VEglise (Tours and Paris, 1SS2).

Leon Clugnet.

Hilary of Rome. See .\mbrosi.\.ster.

Hilda (or llii.i)). Saint, Abbess, b. 614; d. 6S0. Practically speaking, ;dl o\ir knowledge of St. Hilda is derived from the pages of Bcde. She was the daugh- ter of Hereric, the nephew of King Edwin of Xorth- umbria, and she seems like lier great-uncle to have become a Christian through the preaching of St. Paul- inus about the year (j27, when she was thirteen years

old. Moved by the example of her sister Hereswith, who, after marrying Ethelhere of East Anglia, became a nun at Chelles in Gaul, Hilda also journeyed to East Anglia, intending to follow her sister abroad. But St. .\idan recalled her to her own country, and after leading a monastic life for a while on the north bank of the Wear and afterwards at Hertlepool, where she ruled a double monastery of monks and nuns with great success, Hilda eventually undertook to set in order a monastery at Streaneshalch, a place to which the Danes a century or two later gave the name of Whitby. Under the rule of St. Hilda the monastery at Whitljy became very famous. The Sacred Scrip- tures were specially studied there, and no less than five of the inmates became bishops, St. John, Bishop of Hexham, and still more St. Wilfrid, Bishop of York, renilering luitold service to the Anglo-Sa.xon Church at this critical period of the struggle with paganism. Here, in 664, was hekl the important synod at which King Oswy, convinced by the arguments of St. \\ il- frid. decided the oliservance of Easter and other moot points. St. Hilda herself later on seems to have sided with Theodore against Wilfrid. The fame of St. Hilda's wisdom was so great that from far and near monks and even roj-al personages came to consult her. Seven years before her death the saint was stricken down with a grievous fever which never left her till she breathed her last, but, in spite of this, she neglected none of her duties to God or to her subjects. She passed away most peacefully after receiving the Holy Viaticum, and the tolling of the monastery bell was heard miraculously at Hackness thirteen miles away, where also a devout nun named Begu saw the soul of St. Hilda borne to heaven by angels. With St. Hilda is intimately connected the story of Ciedmon (q. v.), the sacred bard. When he was brought before St. Hilda she admitted him to take monastic vows in her monastery, where he most piously died. The cultus of St. Hilda from an early period is attested l)v the inclusion of her name in the calendar of St. Willilirord, written at the beginning of the eighth century. It was alleged at a later date that the re- mains of St. Hilda were translated to Glastonbury by King Edmund (Malmesbury, " Gesta Pont.", 198) ■ but this is only part of the " great Glastonliury myth" (see Stubbs, "Memorials of St. Dunstan'', p. cxvi). Another story states that St. Edmimd brought her relics to Gloucester. St. Hilda's feast seems to have been kept on 17 November. There are a dozen or more old English churches dedicated to St. Hilda on the north-east coast and South Shields is probably a corruption of St. Hilda.

The editions of Bede's Ecclesiastical History by Plumuer (Oxford, ISfl6) and Mayor and Lumbt (Cambridge. 1879) con- tain in the notes ne:»rly all that is known of St. Hilda from other sourres. Cf. also Stanton. English jVenologt/ (London, 1892); .■\rnold-Forster, Church Dedications (London, 1S99) II, 396- 401; Dunbar, Dictionary of Saintly Women (IvOndon, 1902); Bes.\nt in Diet. Christ. Biog.; Venables in Dirt. Nat. Biog.

Herbert Thurston.

Hildebert of Lavardin, Bishop of Le Mans, Arch- liishop of Tours, and celebrated medieval poet; b. about 10.')6, at the Castle of Lavardin near Montoir on the Loire; d. 8 December, 1133 or 1134. Nothing is known of him until the year 1085, when Hoel, Bishop of Le Mans, made him .scholastic us at his cathedral school. .Appointed archdeacon in 1091, he became five years later Bishop of Le Mans. Some of his enemies, among them Duke Ellas of Le Mans, in their efforts to prevent his election, did not scrujile to blacken his char.acter. The relations lietween Hildebert and the duke became more friendly l:iter. .\fter the taking of Le Mans by William II of lOngland in 1099, Hildebert was summoned to England by the king who suspected him of aiding the Duke of Le Mans in oppos- ing the English rule. In 1100 he was permitted to rettirn to his see. .\ year later he went to Rome, hav- ing authorized Henry of Lausanne to preach in the