Ruricius of Limoges

Ruricius of Limoges (* approx. 440, died 507/510) was bishop of Limoges from 485 until his death .

Ruricius came from a Gallo-Roman senatorial family; in a later source this is even counted as being related to the extremely noble Roman Anicier family . Ruricius had a brother named Leontius and had been married to a woman named Hiberia from about 468, who came from a Senatorial Auvergne family. He had five sons and a daughter with her. He owned land in the Cahors area .

Around the year 477 he joined the clergy under the influence of his friend Faustus von Riez and acted as Bishop of Limoges from 485. He had the Church of St. Augustine built there. He did not attend the council of Agde in 506 because of an illness. The exact year of his death is not known: as a rule, research is based on the year 507, but occasionally the time around 510 is also suggested. His family would later play a very important role in the Gallo-Roman episcopate; so his grandson of the same name later also became Bishop of Limoges.

Ruricius was educated and wrote several letters, which ( standing in the tradition of Roman epistolography ) were collected in two books and comprised a total of 83 pieces. He was in contact with Sidonius Apollinaris and the bishops Graecus of Marseille, Victorinus of Fréjus , Sedatus of Nimes, Euphrasius of Clermont-Ferrand and Caesarius of Arles . The preserved collection of letters was a not unimportant source for the late antique period of upheaval in Gaul around 500.

Translations

Ralph W. Mathisen (Ed.): Ruricius of Limoges and Friends. A Collection of Letters from Visigothic Gaul ( Translated Texts for Historians ). Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 1999.

literature

Martin Heinzelmann : Gallic Prosopography 260-527. In: Francia . Vol. 10, 1982, pp. 531-718, here p. 683 .
John Robert Martindale: Ruricius. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1980, ISBN 0-521-20159-4 , p. 960.
Karl Friedrich Stroheker : The senatorial nobility in late antique Gaul. Tübingen 1948 (Reprint Darmstadt 1970), pp. 209f., No. 327.

Remarks

↑ On this milieu see still Karl Friedrich Stroheker: The senatorial nobility in late antique Gaul. Tübingen 1948 (ND Darmstadt 1970), p. 5ff.
^ Venantius Fortunatus carm. 4,5,7f.
↑ Cf. Sidonius Apollinaris carm. 10 and 11.
^ Karl Friedrich Stroheker: The senatorial nobility in late antique Gaul. Tübingen 1948 (ND Darmstadt 1970), p. 210 (with references to the numbers of the prosopography there).
↑ So Heinzelmann, Stroheker and the PLRE , see references in the article.
↑ For the later date of death, see for example Ralph W. Mathisen (Ed.): Ruricius of Limoges and Friends. A Collection of Letters from Visigothic Gaul. Liverpool 1999, p. 44.
^ Karl Friedrich Stroheker: The senatorial nobility in late antique Gaul. Tübingen 1948 (ND Darmstadt 1970), p. 210, no.328.

personal data
SURNAME	Ruricius of Limoges
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Bishop of Limoges
DATE OF BIRTH	around 440
DATE OF DEATH	at 510

[1] On this milieu see still Karl Friedrich Stroheker: The senatorial nobility in late antique Gaul. Tübingen 1948 (ND Darmstadt 1970), p. 5ff.

[2] Venantius Fortunatus carm. 4,5,7f.

[3] Cf. Sidonius Apollinaris carm. 10 and 11.

[4] Karl Friedrich Stroheker: The senatorial nobility in late antique Gaul. Tübingen 1948 (ND Darmstadt 1970), p. 210 (with references to the numbers of the prosopography there).

[5] So Heinzelmann, Stroheker and the PLRE , see references in the article.

[6] For the later date of death, see for example Ralph W. Mathisen (Ed.): Ruricius of Limoges and Friends. A Collection of Letters from Visigothic Gaul. Liverpool 1999, p. 44.

[7] Karl Friedrich Stroheker: The senatorial nobility in late antique Gaul. Tübingen 1948 (ND Darmstadt 1970), p. 210, no.328.