Leudinus Bodo

Leudinus Bodo , also Leudoin , Leudovinus or Bodon , (* around 610 , † around 673 ) was a monastery founder and under the rule of the Merovingians the 17th bishop of the diocese of Toul . He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church .

Life

Origin and family

Leudinus Bodo was born around the year 610 in the Franconian part of Austrasia , probably like his sister in the Villa Mosa . This stately farm can be located in Val-de-Meuse on the upper reaches of the Moselle . He was the eldest son of Gundoin , Dux des Pagus Bassianensis and the area around the Bernese Jura , and his wife Saretrud. He came from an influential aristocratic family in northern Burgundy , who had extensive goods, especially in the Bassigny area , and were related to the Agilolfinger and Burgundofarones clans . Named after Leudinus father, who later became the first Duke of Alsace , the Gundoinen family was remembered as the founding clan of the Weissenburg Monastery around the Speyer bishop Dragobodo .

Leudinus had four more siblings, including Fulculfus-Bodo as the younger brother and the holy Salaberga as the older sister.

Life and founding a monastery

The existence of Leudinus Bodo is, in addition to mentions in the Vita Sadalbergae, also partly attested by the Vita sancti Columbani of Jonas von Bobbio , which he wrote around the years 640 to 643 as a monk of the Bobbio Abbey .

According to his sister's hagiography , Leudinus was married to Odila. With her he had a daughter, Teutberga.

Around the year 657 Leudinus Bodo followed the example of his sister Salaberga and renounced worldly life together with his wife. Both entered the Notre-Dame de Laon Abbey as a nun and monk , which had recently been founded as a double monastery by Salaberga. Before that, however, he founded three monasteries on his own property: the Etival Abbey ( Stivagium ), Offonville ( Offonis villa ) and the Bonmoutier women's monastery ( Bodonis monasterium ) in Val-et-Châtillon , of which his daughter Teutberga was the abbess . Leudinus gave the majority of the family property as a gift to these new foundations and his sister's abbey in Laon . Since Leudinus Bodo, the eldest son, did not inherit the political legacy of his recently deceased father, researchers, and here in particular Michèle Gaillard, suspect that Gundoin's children were victims of the domestic political turmoil in Austrasia at that time. Due to the family ties to the Wulfoalde family , the Gundoines came into opposition to the Pippinids and Arnulfinger in the power struggle for the Austrasian king Childebertus adoptivus . Leudinus Bodo probably renounced his inheritance under pressure from them, but not without at the same time securing the extensive paternal fortune by donations to his family's own monasteries from royal access.

When Bishop Eborin of Toul died in 667, Leudinus Bodo was elected as his successor by the people and clergy of the city. The Vita Sadalbergae states that he enjoyed such a high reputation for his holy life as a monk. The immediate confirmation of the choice of Gundoinen by Childeric II suggests that the Austrasian nobility was keen to remove one of the most important bishoprics of the French Empire from the influence of the Pippinids.

He held the office of Bishop of Toul until his death around the year 673. There he was buried in the church of St. Mansuetus , later his relics were transferred to the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Laon - the grave site of Leudinus Bodo has not been preserved, however, as the monastery was partially devastated during the Huguenot Wars .

Adoration

The day of remembrance for Leudinus Bodo is celebrated by the Catholic Church on September 11th .

Source editions

• Vita Sadalbergae - Bruno Krusch , Wilhelm Levison (eds.): Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 5: Passiones vitaeque sanctorum aevi Merovingici (III). Hanover 1910, pp. 40-66 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
• 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 )

literature

• Hans Josef Hummer: Politics and Power in Early Medieval Europe - Alsace and the Frankish Realm, 600–1000. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2006, ISBN 0-521-85441-5 , pp. 35, 42, 45.
• Hans Josef Hummer: The Merovingian origin of the Vita Sadalbergae , in: German archive for research into the Middle Ages. Cologne 2003, Vol. 59 pp. 459-493
• 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. 181, 189.
• Horst Ebeling: Prosopography of the officials of the Merovingian Empire from Chlotar II (613) to Karl Martell (741) in: Beihefte der Francia, Volume 2, Munich 1974, pp. 166-167.
• AD Thiery: Histoire de la ville de Toul et de ses eveques, suivie d'une notice sur la cathedrale. Kessinger Pub Co., Whitefish 2010, ISBN 978-1-160-66960-3 , pp. 63-65.
• Pere Benoit de Toul: Histoire ecclesiastique et politique de la ville et diocese de Toul. Laurent, Toul 1707, pp. 263-267.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michèle Gaillard: Les Vitae des saintes Salaberge et Anstrude de Laon, deux sources exceptionnelles pour l'étude de la construction hagiographique et du contexte socio-politique in: Revue du Nord, ed. 391–392, No. 3, 2011, p 655-669.