Saints celebrated on the 17th of May
LAURENCE, ABBOT OF VILLERS
Laurence (Laurentius), remembered on May 17, was a monk at Clairvaux Abbey to start with. A student of Saint Bernard, Laurence afterwards became the first abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Villers /Villiers (Villaria) in Brabant. The establishment flourished under Laurence's leadership: the initially small monastery, through the holiness of its monks and the generosity of the faithful, became one of the most distinguished in Belgium.
Laurence loved holy poverty to the highest degree and bore all its hardships with admirable patience. He had the oratory and the huts for the brothers built from tree branches; his sustenance consisted of vegetables and water, and his clothing barely covered his limbs. After his term had ended, he continued to serve God in utter humility, and concluded his holy life, glorified by miracles, in 1154.
Several hagiographers list Laurence with the title "blessed," notably Bucelin*, from whom the above notes are taken. However, other notable authors do not mention him at all or count him among the "pious." The Bollandists* include him among their praetermissi with the remark that the “Treasury of Saints of Belgium” had contained over 30 abbots or monks of Villers who lived with a reputation for holiness, and that the Bollandists* themselves had begun to incorporate quite a few of them into their work. Later, however, they did not include them any more as saints, as some readers of their books did not think that adding all of them was a particularly good idea. (IV. 3).
(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, Volume 3, Augsburg, 1869, pp. 718-19)
*A hagiography source used by the authors
Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints - Sources and Abbreviations
Sources of these articles (in the original German): books.google.co.uk, de-academic.com, zeno.org, openlibrary.org
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