Columban and Luxeuil and Europe

So great was the influence of Columban and his disciples in 7th century Europe, it is impossible to pinpoint accurately all of the towns, cities and provinces which, in some way or other, benefited their amazing influence.

Place names throughout Europe constantly recall memories of the work accomplished by the monks of Luxeuil. We can say without exaggeration that the roads of France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy are studded with memorials of the great Columbanian Revival.

Thanks to the LES AMI DE ST COLUMBAN for the material on this page.

In Fr anche - Comté

Saint DESLE (Deicolus), an Irish monk, set out with Columban on the road into exile but was compelled by advancing years to halt some miles from Luxeuil, where he founded the Abbey of Lure.

A ducal family of Burgundy, in token of gratitude to Saint Columban on the birth of a son (Saint DONATUS, who became Bishop of Besançon), founded St Paul's in Besançon, Jussa-Moutier, Bèze, Bregille, and, it is believed, Faverney, whilst Saint ERMENFROY a Burgundian lord, established within his domains the monastery of Cusance to which he retired himself.

Alsace and the Rhineland

Saint Léobard began Marmoutier and other disciples settled at Munster, Saint Amarin, Murbach, Bergholz and Ebersmunster, and evangelized the Sundgau, the district of Haguenau, and Trèves, and Tholey in Rhenish Prussia.

The Vosges and Lorraine

Saint Amé, who had been attracted to Luxeuil by St Eustace, was entrusted with a mission to Loraine and in company with Saint ROMARIS, who had also spent a period at Luxeuil, went to found the famous twin abbeys of the Saint-Mont, later known as Remiremont, in the Vosges.

We should mention St Hidulph, Abbot of Moyenmoutier, St Gondelbert, Abbot of Senones, St Bodon, Bishop of Toul, and the Abbey of St Goeric at Epinal. All of these had close relations with Luxeuil.

Il de France, Brie and Champagne

In the neighbourhood of Meaux, Columban, as we have seen, had given his blessing to certain children. Of these, St FARA later founded the community of nuns at Evoriacum, which came to be known as Faremoutiers. ADON built Jouarre, not far from Reuil, founded by RADON. St AILE was placed over a community established at Rebais by St Ouen, bishop of Rouen

The Abbey of St-Maur-des-Fossés near Paris was ruled by Saint Bobolenus. The nuns at Chelles and St Martial adopted the Columbanian Rule.

Saint BERCHARIUS founded Hautvillers, near Epernay, Montnirendé, Puel-lemoutier and Montier-en-Der, whilst St FROBERT established a colony at Moutier-la-Celle, and St SALABERGA a convent of nuns on the Hill of Laon. Two former monks of Luxeuil, Saints CAGNOALD and ERMENFROY, were respectively Bishops of Laon and Verdun.

NORMANDY

Saint POTENTIN, companion of Columban, was the founder of the Abbey of Coutances, and Saint WANDRILLE built Fontenelle, now called after him St-Wandrille. Its monks evangelised the Land of Caux in Normandy and established another foundation at Fécamp.

St Philibert had chosen Jumièges, at a bend on the Seine, for a monastic settlement, and there were Montivilliers, Pavilly, Saint-Saens, and Noirmoutier-en-l'Ile. These abbeys of Normandy were begun during the episcopacy of Saint Ouen at Rouen and adopted the Rule of Luxeuil.

Flanders

Saint VALERY, missionary, with Saint WALDOLENUS, in the territory of the Amiénois, founded Leuconaüs, now known as St-Valery-sur-Somme, on the estuary of that river.

St RIQUIER built Centule on his own domains and Saint OMER, future Bishop of Térouanne, had, with the collaboration of Saint BERTIN, founded Sithiu in the territory of the Morins

Other foundations in Flanders and Hainault were the work of Luxovian monks, some of whom became bishops. St ACHARIUS and Saint MUMMOLIN were Bishops of Noyon and Tournai and St AUTBERT, Bishop of Cambrai and Arras.

Sons of Luxeuil like St AMAND, who had gone to labour as a missionary in the part of Gaul now known as Belgium, to be raised there to the See of Maestricht, had sent to Luxeuil for teachers for the peoples of Ghent, Antwerp and Nivelles. Saint REMACLUS established monastic foundations at Malmédy and Stavelot in the Valley of the Meuse.

Elsewhere in France

Saint Eloi, Bishop of Noyon and friend of Luxeuil, came there to seek guidance for his project of raising an abbey at Solignac in the Limousin.

The Institute of Columban made its way into Auvergne with monasteries at Clermont- Chamaières, La Marmande; and to Nevers, Bourges; Charenton, Jouet, Vaison and St-Benoit-sur-Loire, where his Rule was followed at the beginning.

Switzerland and
S. Germany

One of the most famous abbeys deriving from Luxeuil was St Gall, which, thanks to the protection of the Carolingian princes, became the intellectual centre of the German world. The Monastic Library of St Gall still remains to bear witness to the high level of culture that existed there.

In the Grisons, Saint SIGISBERT began Dissentis, the only Columbanian foundation that has been occupied without interruption down to the present day by the sons of St Columban and St Benedict.

In the country of the Raurasques St RAGNACHAIRE was Bishop of Bale. St URSANNE, who accompanied Columban on his departure from Luxeuil, halted on the shore of the Lac de Bienne and settled in the Valley of the Doubs at a place where now stands a town bearing his name. During the abbotship of St Walbert at Luxeuil, St GERMAIN, the first martyr of Luxeuil, founded Moutier-Grandval.

The existence of the famous monastery of Bregenz is continued into our own time by its offshoot, the Cistercian Abbey of Mehrerau on the shore of Lake Constance near by.

What was the influence of Luxeuil?

Luxeuil spread its influence, not so much as the centre of a single monastic Order, as an unfailing source of zealous apostolic vocations. The continued vitality of the Columbanian foundations is indeed remarkable. If it is the fact that the Rule of Saint Benedict finally prevailed in remains true that "Saint Benedict only reaped where Saint Columban had sown".

Pope Pius XI wrote: "Columban, has every right to be counted among the number of those outstanding figures which it is the way of Divine Providence to raise up in every age and at the most crucial moments of history, in order to win back that which to all appearance was irretrievably lost."

"The sons of St Benedict", he goes on, "came to take possession, as it were of a heritage, of those territories where Columban had toiled with such painstaking diligence. The more that period which is known as the Middle Ages delivers its secrets to the searchings of the learned, the more evident it becomes that it was thanks to the initiative and the labours of Columban that the re-birth of Christian Virtue and Christian Civilization became possible in many regions of Gaul, Germany and Italy" .

"Many Benedictine abbeys owe their origin to the Founder of Luxeuil, and we may recall the saying of Dom Cabrol, Abbot of Farnborough, that "Saint Benedict did not reach manhood until the day he came to dwell in the house of Saint Columban."