Audoin (bishop)

Saint Audoin
Statue of St Audoin (left) and St Waninge (right), in Fécamp, France.
Bishop
Born 609
Sancy, Kingdom of the Franks
Died 686
Clichy
Venerated in Eastern Orthodox Church
Roman Catholic Church
Anglican Communion
Feast 24 August
Patronage deaf people; invoked against deafness

Audoin (AD 609 – 686; also spelled Audoen, Ouen, Owen; Latin: Audoenus; known as Dado to contemporaries)[1][2][3] was a Frankish bishop, courtier, chronicler, and Catholic saint. Audoin was both Lord Chancellor of France and Référendaire of France.

Life

Audoin came from a wealthy and noble Frankish family who held lands in the upper Seine and Oise valleys. His father was Saint Authaire (Audecharius). Audoin was a first cousin of Agilbert, bishop of the West Saxons. Educated at the court of Chlothar II (d.629), where training both military and literary was given to young noblemen, he served Dagobert I as one of his referendaries (administrators).[4] "Clothar's household seems to have been of particular importance in determining who was to be of political importance for the next two reigns."[5]

He was part of a group of young courtiers like Saint Wandrille and Saint Didier of Cahors and was a close friend of Saint Eligius, whose vita he wrote. He and Eligius served as royal envoys to persuade Amadus to baptize Dagobert's son. According to Ian Wood, "...Audoin and Eligius were arguably the most influential churchmen in Francia during the seventh century."[5]

In 635 He and his brothers Ado and Rado founded Rebais Abbey, on land donated by King Dagobert. Audoin appointed his relative, Agilus, as first abbot. He also took part in the founding of Saint-Wandrille monastery in Rouen, and a nunnery at Fécamp. Fredegar reports that even as court referendary, Audoin had a reputation of being a religious man.[6]

Audoin was consecrated bishop of Rouen in 641.[4] He became an advisor of Theuderic III and upheld the policy of Ebroin, the mayor of the palace, to such a degree that he was involved in the treatment of Saint Leger. Nevertheless, the author of the Liber Historiae Francorum, thoroughly hostile to the memory of Ebroin, invariably referred to Audoin as "blessed" or "sainted," and in describing his death said he "migravit ad Dominum," a phrase he otherwise reserved in the original part of his history for the death of the "glorious lord of good memory, Childebert"(III), "the just king."[7]

A poem on Audoin's life was written in the 10th century by Frithegod, but it is now lost.[8]

References

  1. ↑ ""Ouen", Oxford Reference".
  2. ↑ "Example of the use of this spelling". Archived from the original on 2016-05-09.
  3. ↑ "Example of the use of this spelling".
  4. 1 2 Fouracre, Paul and Gerberding, Richad A., Late Merovingian France, Manchester University Press, 1996 ISBN 9780719047916
  5. 1 2 Wood, Ian. The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751, Routledge, 2014, ISBN 9781317871156
  6. ↑ The Chronicle of Fredegar, IV, Ch.78, (J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed.), London, 1960, p. 66
  7. ↑ Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptorum Rerum Merovingicarum t. II, pp. 320-322, 324.
  8. ↑ Lapidge, Michael (2004). "Frithegod (fl. c.950–c.958)" (fee required). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 19 May 2010.

Sources

  • Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints, edited, revised and supplemented by Thurston and Attwater - Christian classics, Westminster, Maryland.


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