Burgundofaro

Burgundofaro , also Faro or Faron (* 596 ; † around 672 ) was the 19th bishop of Meaux under the rule of the Merovingians . He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church .

Life

The existence of Burgundofaro is documented in two hagiographies ( Vita Faronis and Vita Columbani ) and several Merovingian documents in particular by a privilege for the Rebais monastery, which was issued by the bishop in Clichy in 637 .

Burgundofaro was born in the Franconian part of Austrasia , probably on the Villa Pipimisiacum estate , today's Poincy . He was the second born son of Chagnerich , Comes in the Pagus Meldensis around the main town of Meaux and his wife Leudegundis. Burgundofaro came from the noble family of the Burgundofarones , who are considered to be the outstanding family of the Austrasian ruling class until the rise of the Pippinids and Arnulfinger . The family was related to the Agilolfinger and Waltriche clans and was later named after him.

Since his older brother Chagnoald was destined for a clerical office from his youth, he was probably intended by his father to succeed him in the office of Comes. In this circumstance and in the prominent position of his family, research sees the reason why Burgundofaro was not educated in a convent school, as usual, but at the palace school of the Frankish king Chlothar II in Paris . There he received a comprehensive education together with Sulpicius II of Bourges , Desiderius of Cahors , Abbo of Metz and his cousins Ado, Rado and Audoenus-Dado . The king's son Dagobert I and the elder Eligius von Noyon also belonged to this circle of friends .

Burgundofaro then served in various functions at the court of Chlothar II and married Blidechild, whose family was well off in the Soissons area . After Chlothar's death in 629, Dagobert I appointed his friend from his early days as referendarius or custodian of the royal seal ring , who in this function issued the king's documents, signed them and sealed them. Burgundofaro thus held the second highest office in the Franconian Empire , after the Hausmeier .

Despite his high-ranking position, Burgundofaro decided to switch to a clerical career around the year 633 and renounced the earliest office. His wife Bildechild renounced worldly life completely and retired to a monastery owned by her own, not known by name, probably at Pavant's . Burgundofaro, on the other hand, founded a monastery in Meaux, which he consecrated to the Holy Cross of Christ , but four years later it can be proven that he was Bishop of Meaux. This and the fact that he asked Bildechild to renew the vows indicate that he was not ordained a monk before his episcopate.

After the death of his friend Dagobert I in 639, Burgundofaro, as the head of the neustrian greats, got into a bitter power struggle with the caretaker Aegas , who had been appointed by Dagobert's widow Nantechild . This dispute finally culminated in 641 with the murder of Burgundofaro's brother Chagnulf , the Comes of Meaux, by Aega's son-in-law. The fact that Nantechild expressly allowed the Burgundofarones to take blood revenge on Chagnulf's murderer in the same year suggests that Burgundofaro succeeded in conveying the concerns of the Neustrian nobility to the queen widow and reaching an agreement.

According to the Beda Venerabilis report , Burgundofaro hosted Theodore of Tarsus , Archbishop of Canterbury , on his family's estate in Meaux in the spring of 669 . Theodore had been ordained High Shepherd of England by Pope Vitalian the year before and was on his way to the island to end the long vacancy of the British cathedra .

The last documentary evidence as Bishop of Meaux dates back to 668 - his term of office thus comprised more than 35 years. Burgundofaro died around 672, presumably in Meaux, and was buried there in the Saint-Croix Abbey he founded.

siblings

Burgundofaro still had four brothers and sisters:

Chagnoald (before 627 - before 633/34 Bishop of Laon )
Chagnulf (Comes de Meaux; murdered 641)
Burgundofara (founder of Faremoutiers Abbey , † after 633/34)
Agnetrade († after 633/34)

Adoration

The day of remembrance for Burgundofaro is celebrated by the Catholic Church on October 28th .

Source edition

Vita Columbani - Bruno Krusch (ed.): Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi 37: Ionae Vitae sanctorum Columbani, Vedastis, Iohannis. Hanover 1905, pp. 1–294 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
Vita Faronis - Bruno Krusch , Wilhelm Levison (eds.): Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 5: Passiones vitaeque sanctorum aevi Merovingici (III). Hanover 1910, pp. 171–203 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )

literature

Yaniv Fox: Power and Religion in Merovingian Gaul: Columbanian Monasticism and the Formation of the Frankish Aristocracy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2014, ISBN 978-1-107-58764-9 , pp. 66, 200, 206, 235, 217.
Jo Ann McNamara, John E. Halborg, E. Gordon Whatley (Eds.): Sainted Women of the Dark Ages Duke University Press, Durham 1992, ISBN 978-0-822-31216-1 , pp. 156-157, 174.
Margarete Weidemann: Noble families in the Chlotharreich. Relationships of the Frankish aristocracy in the first third of the 7th century in: Beihefte der Francia, Volume 15, Paris 1987, pp. 843–844, 849.
Horst Ebling: Burgundofarones in: Lexicon of the Middle Ages , Volume II, Column 1098/99.
Eugen Ewig: The Merovingians and the Franconian Empire . Verlag W. Kohlhammer Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, 1993, pp. 124, 133, 135, 152, 157.
Patrick J. Geary: The Merovingians. Europe before Charlemagne. CH Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-49426-9 , p. 174.
Martin Heinzelmann: L'aristocratie et les évêchés entre Loire et Rhin, jusqu'à la fin du VIIe siècle , in: Revue d'histoire de l'Église de France, tome 62, n ° 168, 1976. La christianisation des pays entre Loire et Rhin (IVe-VIIe siècle) pp. 81-82, 88.
Alexander O'Hara: Jonas of Bobbio and the Legacy of Columbanus - Sanctity and Community in the Seventh Century . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2018, ISBN 978-0-19-085801-8 , pp. 3, 126, 150, 245.
Frans Theuws, Mayke B. de Jong, Carine Van Rhijn: Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages , in: Transformation of the Roman World Volume 6. Brill, Leiden 2001, ISBN 978-9-004-11734-1 , pp. 251-253.
Erich Zöllner: The origin of the Agilulfinger. In: Communications from the Institute for Austrian Historical Research, 1951 p. 3
Alfred Friese: Studies on the history of rule of the Franconian nobility: The mainland-Thuringian area from the 7th to the 11th century (history and society) . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 978-3-129-13140-4 , pp. 17-26.

Individual evidence

^ Yaniv Fox: Power and Religion in Merovingian Gaul: Columbanian Monasticism and the Formation of the Frankish Aristocracy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2014, ISBN 978-1-107-58764-9 , p. 206.

Web links

Heiligenlexikon.de

predecessor	Office	successor
Gondoald	Bishop of Meaux around 626–672	Hildevert

personal data
SURNAME	Burgundofaro
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Faro; Faron
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Saint of the Roman Catholic Church and Bishop of Meaux
DATE OF BIRTH	596
DATE OF DEATH	at 672

[1] Yaniv Fox: Power and Religion in Merovingian Gaul: Columbanian Monasticism and the Formation of the Frankish Aristocracy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2014, ISBN 978-1-107-58764-9 , p. 206.