Saint Waldebert

Waldebert (also known as Gaubert, Valbert[1] and Walbert), (died c. 668), was a Frankish count of Guines, Ponthieu and Saint-Pol who became abbot of Luxeuil in the Order of St. Columban, and eventually a canonized saint in the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church, like several among his kinsmen who protected the Church, enriched it with lands and founded monasteries.[2]

Saint Waldebert
Bornunknown
France
Diedc. 668
Venerated inRoman Catholic Church
Eastern Orthodox Church
Feast2 May

Like his predecessor at Luxeuil he was born of the noble Frankish family of Duke Waldelenus of Burgundy, highly influential in seventh-century Frankish politics[3] and served in the military before dedicating himself to the contemplative life and joining the monastery at Luxeuil on the borders of Austrasia and Burgundy (in modern-day France), where he dedicated his weapons and armour, which hung in the abbey church for centuries.[4] He lived as a hermit close to the abbey until the death of the monastery's abbot, Saint Eustace of Luxeuil, when Waldebert was elected Luxeuil's third abbot (c. 628).

He was abbot of the monastery for forty years, during which the school of Luxeuil trained the Frankish aristocrats who became bishops in the Frankish kingdoms; Waldebert added the Benedictine Rule to the Rule of St. Columban, though in the rule he drew up for the convent of Faremoutiers he drew upon the rules of Columbanus as well as Benedict, but made no mention whatsoever of a ritual of either profession or oblation.[5] He also gained from Pope John IV the independence of his community from episcopal control and increased the size and prosperity of the monastery's territories and buildings. Naturally Jonas dedicated to him[6] his vita of Saint Columbanus. Among numerous houses founded from Luxeuil during his tenure, he was instrumental in aiding Saint Salaberga found her convent at Laon.

After his death his wooden bowl was credited with miraculous powers.[7]

His feast day in the Roman Church is 2 May. The basic modern study is that in J. Poinsotte, Les abbés de Luxeuil (1900). His vita is categorized as BHL 8775[8].

Notes
  1. J.B. Clerc, Eremitage et vie de S. Valbert, 1861.
  2. His brother was Saint Faro, for instance; Lambert Of Ardres, Leah Shopkow, tr., The History of the Counts of Guines and Lords of Ardres, ch. 3.3.rques, with its associated rights,
  3. Marilyn Dunn, The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages (Blackwell) 2003:161
  4. Alban Butler, Butler's Lives of the Saints (Continuum International) 1994, s.v. 2 May.
  5. Mayke Jong, In Samuel's Image: Child Oblation in the Early Medieval West (Brill) 1996:36.
  6. Jointly with the abbot of Columbanus' foundation at Bobbio. Jonas' remarkable silence concerning the royal founding of Luxeuil is noticed by Ian Wood, "Jonas, the Merovingians and Pope Honorius", in Walter A. Goffart and Alexander C. Murray, eds, After Rome's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History (University of Toronto) 1998:
  7. Butler.
  8. "Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Antiquae Et Mediae Aetatis 1898, Volume 2, K-Z". Bruxellis : Socii Bollandiani. May 11, 1898 – via Internet Archive.
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