_The history of St. German._ He was a native of Gaul, about the year of our Lord 380, born of wealthy, rich, and Christian parents, by whom he was bred up and baptized into the Christian religion. After which he followed the study of the liberal arts and sciences, and so profited therein that he was generally noted for a very learned man. But that which made him most famous was his piety and virtue; wherein he so far excelled most other men of his time, that he could not be at rest, or have peace in himself, till he made known his propensions to a religious course of life. Whereupon he was admitted into deacon’s orders, then into priest’s, and lastly advanced to the dignity of Bishop of Antiscidorum, or Auxerre, in France, anno Dom. 425. After he took upon him the office of a bishop, he discharged the same with great justice and piety, admitting none into orders within his jurisdiction, but such as were men of great learning and sound faith, but especially such as were neither Arians nor Pelagians. For about that time the Christian church was grievously pestered with two heretics; the one Arius, born and bred at Constantinople; the other an inhabitant of Britain, viz. Pelagius. But the doctrines of Pelagius manifesting themselves throughout this land, to the great disturbance of the orthodox faith and churches thereof, after great heats and animosities between Catholics and heretics about those doctrines, it was at last agreed upon between those parties that a General Council of the Clergy in Britain should be convened at St. Alban’s, in Hertfordshire, and those tenets further examined and discussed. But the British Catholics, knowing the interest, skill, and subtlety of the heretics to be great, thought it not safe for religion, and the orthodox faith, in this convention to trust alone to their own skill and learning, therefore concluded on this expedient, viz. against the day of meeting to send for some foreign divines for their coadjutors or helpers in this controversy; and accordingly applied to St. German, Bishop of Antiscidorum aforesaid, or Auxerre, in Gallia, now France, a city situate upon the river Auxona, now called Le Disne, and Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, in that country, for their counsel and assistance, who gladly granted their request; and accordingly against the day, and at the place appointed, met the British Clergy on both sides; where the tenets and doctrines being heard, and particularly examined, chiefly by the skill and learning of St. German, were all refuted and condemned, according to the sense of the General Councils, as impious and heretical, to the great satisfaction of the orthodox clergy.