Saint Servatius - Legend

Legend

An important source about the life of Saint Servatius is Gregory of Tours. In the late 6th century, Gregory wrote about Servatius' journey to Rome, the transfer of the Episcopal see to Maastricht, and Servatius' death shortly thereafter. According to the Frankish historian, the translation of the see from Tongeren to Maastricht occurred when the Huns threatened Tongeren, and a certain Aravatius (identified by some scholars as Saint Servatius) went on pilgrimage to Rome. Keeping vigil at Saint Peter's tomb, he had a vision in which Peter forecast the destruction of Tongeren because of unfaithfulness and sinfulness. He then ordered Aravatius to move the episcopal see to Maastricht. Peter then handed the key to the Gates of Heaven to Aravatius, thereby transferring to him the power to forgive sins. Aravatius returned to Tongeren and brought the relics of his predecessors to Maastricht. There he died on 13 May 384 according to consistent tradition.

Legends accumulated round the historical figure of the bishop. Two medieval Vitae ("Lives") place Servatius' birth in Armenia and make him a distant relative of John the Baptist and Jesus, through his mother, now called Memelia. A mid-15th century, late Gothic wooden sculpture of a standing Memelia with the infant Servatius in her arms, identifiable by the bishop's mitre he is already wearing (Vendsyssel Historiske Museum, Denmark), was iconographically so similar to contemporary Madonna and Child sculptures, that it was long misattributed.

According to another tradition, he fled to Maastricht where he built a church over the Roman temple of Fortuna and Jupiter, the present-day Church of Our Dear Lady.

Around 1075, the French priest Jocundus was commissioned by the clergy of the church of Saint Servatius to write another biography of Saint Servatius. Jocundus is also the author of the Miracula. Both were composed, according to P.C. Boeren, to quell doubts about the genealogy of Servatius — said by Jocundus to have been a cousin and contemporary of Jesus, blessed with a miraculously long life — that were raised at the council of Mainz in 1049, until the arrival of envoys from the Eastern Emperor, confirmed accounts by a certain Alagrecus and asserting that the birthplace of Servatius was Fenuste, southeast of Damascus. Jocundus conflates Servatius with the exploits of others, linking his to the success of the Franks at Poitiers (in 732) by mistaking him for Saint Servandus (according to Boeren).

At the end of the 12th century the poet Henric van Veldeke wrote a legend about the life of Saint Servatius, based on the earlier story of Gregory of Tours to which he added many more miracles, thus emphasizing Saint Servatius' saintliness.