St. Mort - Saint of Death

By John Palmer from Northern Earth 68

According to an anonymous 15th century manuscript preserved in the Royal Library, Brussels, there lived in the village d'Antvalle (probably the present Andenelle, near Andenne on the River Meuse) a pious woman who, by the will of God, became aware that the child she was carrying in her womb was dead. She visited a church near Huy, where a miraculous aspect of the Virgin was revered - the Vierge Marie de la Vignette(the Virgin of the Vineyard), who took compassion on infants born dead. The woman gave birth to her child in front of the altar, and in tears she prayed to the Holy Virgin. The child miraculously came to life, and the mother called her son Mort (= dead), because he had been resurrected from death. Mort became a hermit in the forest of Haillot, and lived to about 80 years of age. Bandits, imagining that the hermit guarded some treasure, finally fell upon him, and finding no treasure beat him to death.

The inhabitants of Andenne, among whom the hermit was well liked, wished to bury him within the confines of their town. However, when they tried to transport his corpse on a cart, the horses refused to move. Seeing in this the hand of God, they decided to give the animals free rein; they ran to Huy, to the church where Mort had been born dead. There he was buried and in due course declared a saint.

Of interest is the mediaeval practice of placing a dead infant in church, in front of a statue of the Virgin,to allow time for baptism prior to interment. The Virgin is a chaste reflection of the earlier pagan Goddess,guardian of life and death.

Divinatory siting of shrines by animals given free rein occurs in an analogous legend of St James, or Jacob of Compostela. His disciples moored their ship to Patron, one of two megaliths on the Padron shore known as Barca (ship) and Patron (skipper), and when moving the body for burial placed it in an ox cart.The oxen, left to themselves, halted below a high pagan site, at a garden which became the original burial site of this saint.

The St Mort church near Huy was built in grey stone in the 13th century, with a later facade added in Baroque style. A Romanesque 7th century tympanum is all that remains above ground of an older structure.There is a mention in 1170 of a church dedicated to St John the Baptist and in 1178 to one of St John the Evangelist; both probably relate to the same site, which was again mentioned in 1216, built on land granted to the ministeriales by the prince-bishop of Liege.

The cure Molanus, who died before 1588, left a description of how the reliquary of St Mort rested on a stone slab, underneath which was another stone, supported by two pillars, upon which pilgrims placed their offerings. This structure was known as the Bed of St Mort; the stones may have been megaliths moved into the church in mediaeval times.

On May 9th, 1624, the remains of St Mort were transferred to an elaborately carved baroque casket, on which stood his statuette and angels at the four corners, surmounted by an image of the crowned Virgin with Child, which was annually carried in procession. The Pelerinage de St Mort now occurs on August 5th. The date of the perambulation, and the route, were changed following a banal accident on September 8th, 1674. While crossing a narrow bridge over the River Hoyoux, the casket toppled over the side and dropped into the stream below.

The chapel of St Mort at Haillot is an oratory where, underneath the arch of a simple wooden altar, is a conical stone embedded in bare earth. It is said that this stone served St Mort as a 'pillow', to support himself when he died, on bent knees. The surface of the stone, protruding about two feet from the ground,is worn smooth by the touch of the many pilgrims who have visited the oratory. On the altar above are painted in an arc the words 'L'an 613 de ce lieu ST. MORT monta aux CIEUX' (In the year 613 St Mort ascended from this spot to heaven).

Though this early date may be suspect - the year 900 is actually far more likely - there is no doubt that this stone is a prehistoric menhir. Its earliest mention so far found is in the records of the Conseil de Provincial de Namur for 1621, and in a proclamation of 1731 the 'Pierre St Mort' is explicitly cited as marking the parochial limits between Haillot and Andenne. From this it is apparent that the stone served as a mediaeval boundary marker, further supported by a toponym 'a la borne', near Haillot.

Prior to the 17th century, however, there appears to be no trace of a local cult of St Mort at this christianised site. The oratory is a hybrid structure of which the oldest part, the choir, built of grey stone,dates only from 1621. At some time the oratory was enlarged in reddish stone, and in 1904 a brick tower was added. The date 1793, found at a niche, marks a restoration.

From a topographical point of view, the site is interesting, for it is bounded by several springs, and at seven of these springs were found neolithic silex artefacts. In addition, the hamlet of Haillot is situated near a pagan necropolis of the 4th and 5th centuries, and a Merovingian cemetery of the 5th and 6th centuries.

Furthermore, at the edge of a nearby field road lies a stone slab locally called Pierre du Diable (Devil's Stone). Such names attached to unchristianised stones are the results of former efforts by the church to discredit the original pagan significance of megaliths, for a number of other stones in the Ardennes are known as La Pierre Qui Tourne (Turning Stone), meaning they turn with the sun - a poetic pagan image of solar orientation.

The name Devil's Stone is not uncommon in the Ardennes, and in the province of Namur alone it was attached to a number of destroyed ancient monuments, including the dolmens Thy-le-Bauduin, Weillen, Clermont-lez-Walcourt, Anhee and Jambes. At Ellemelle in the Condroz lies a massive slab, possibly the capstone of a dolmen, which local people say 'fell from the sky'.

Another toponym, found in the vicinity of Coutisse, near Haillot, is Vieux Tauve, with nearby a fortified farmstead, Ferme de Vieux Tauve; both may refer to a vanished standing stone. It may have had a staff-shape, possibly similar to the extant Xhurdebise menhir between Stavelot and Malmedy, a slab which was recarved into a Tau (T) form, probably at some time during the late Gaulish or early mediaeval period. Moreover, legend tells of this stone having healing properties.

Other placenames near Haillot include Tombu, which indicates a tomb or barrow, and La Motte -although the latter also means a castle mound, there is a barrow or tumulus beyond Evelette at Ossogne. The site of a supposed seventh monument from which the stones for St Mort's Bed came, is unknown.

In view of the foregoing, it may be wondered whether the hermit St Mort had made his home in a dolmen, hence the appellations 'Bed' and 'Pillow' of St Mort. At Velaine, a site near Jambes in Namur province, there once existed a 'devil's stone' which was a dolmen - a capstone supported by four orthostats(standing stones), surrounded by a circular kerb of stones. Though the site was christianised in the 16th century with a chapel dedicated to St Materne, the monument was, sadly, totally destroyed by a farmer in the 1800s.

The cult of Vierge Marie de la Vignette mentioned in the 15th century legend of St Mort is curious, for where are the grapes? Vine cultures in the Condroz were mentioned in 1322, but this Mary was also the patron of archers. Nearby Coutisse contains the placenames Les Arches and Bois des Arches, while Haltinnehas Haute-Arche, Basse-Arche and Chateau des Arches.

The old Belgic peoples were fond of both mead and wine, and in classical antiquity the heliacal rising of the star Epsilon Virgo, which happens to be a stellar constellation of seven bright stars known to the Greeks as Protigetrix and to the Romans as Vendemiatrix, heralded the autumn equinox and the start of the grape harvest.

One of the seven springs around Haillot originates near the St Begga chapel at Coutisse, another christianised site, marked by a pillar with a lantern containing a statuette of St Begga. Another spring originates at St Donat's chapel at Sur-le-Try, near Ohey; it is the source of the River Lilot, which flows into the Hoyoux and then passes St Mort's church near Huy on its way to the River Meuse.

At Mozet, in Namur province, there is a spring associated with St Mort, and in the vicinity a farm called Baseilles, which was recorded in a charter of 875 as Villa Bacilla. At Cointe, in Liege province (modern provincial boundaries do not coincide with mediaeval times), there is another, older, oratory, built in 1402.It was consecrated to the Virgin and St Matthias, where from the 16th century onwards the cult of St Mort was imported from Huy and established. Near this chapel is another spring, whose waters are considered to be curative of rheumatic elements.

St Mort, therefore, died, lived and died again in an area now scattered with christianised ancient pagan sacred sites - sites of stone and water, possibly linked to a celestial configuration: a sacred landscape, it seems, of long standing.

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