Saint Galactorius (French : Saint Galactoire) was a bishop of Lescar in the early 6th century. His feast is celebrated on 27 July. [1]
Saint Galactorius (French : Saint Galactoire) was a bishop of Lescar in the early 6th century. His feast is celebrated on 27 July. [1]
Galactorius took part in 506 in the Council of Agde, when he was described as "Galactorius, episcopus de Benarno", [2] along with the bishops Saint Gratus of Oloron and Gratianus of Dax, as well as several delegates of the bishops of Tarbes and of Aire. His tenure as bishop is attested and it is known that his diocese was well administered. [1]
The legend, told in the breviary of Lescar, printed in 1541, portrays Galactorius fighting the Visigoths at Mimizan in 506 at the head of an armed band and seeking help from Clovis. [3] Taken prisoner, he is said to have met a martyr's death, refusing to abjure his Roman Catholic faith. [4] A religious building is said to have been raised in his honour on the site, later replaced by the belltower of the church of Mimizan.
It is difficult to conceive of the bishop, despite his possible sympathy with Clovis, taking arms in 506 against Alaric II, who had just given evidence of his tolerance for Roman Catholics by authorising them to hold a council. It is more likely that Galactorius was at Mimizan towards 507 to meet the bishop of Bordeaux and was surprised by Visigoth troops retreating towards the Pyrenees after having been routed at the Battle of Vouillé by the Frankish army. Doubtless humiliated by their defeat, hostile to Roman Catholics and eager for vengeance, such a group would easily have put to death the Catholic bishop of Lescar. [1]
The relics of Galactorius were preserved until the Reformation in a casket beneath the high altar of Lescar Cathedral. It is unknown when, and how, they disappeared. [1] [5]
Alaric II was the King of the Visigoths in 484–507. He succeeded his father Euric as king of the Visigoths in Toulouse on December 28, 484; he was the great-grandson of the more famous Alaric I, who sacked Rome in 410. He established his capital at Aire-sur-l'Adour in Aquitaine. His dominions included not only the majority of Hispania but also Gallia Aquitania and the greater part of an as-yet undivided Gallia Narbonensis.
Isidore of Seville was a scholar and, for over three decades, Archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the oft-quoted words of the 19th-century historian Montalembert, as "the last scholar of the ancient world".
The 500s decade ran from January 1, 500, to December 31, 509.
Clovis was the first king of the Franks to unite all of the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the form of leadership from a group of royal chieftains to rule by a single king and ensuring that the kingship was passed down to his heirs. He is considered to have been the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled the Frankish kingdom for the next two centuries.
Clotilde, also known as Clothilde, Clotilda, Clotild, Rotilde etc., was a princess of the kingdom of Burgundy. She was supposedly descended from the Gothic king Athanaric and became the second wife of the Frankish king Clovis I in 493. The Merovingian dynasty to which her husband belonged ruled Frankish kingdoms for over 200 years (450–758). Venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church as well as by the Eastern Orthodox Church, she played a role in her husband's famous conversion to Christianity and, in her later years, became known for her almsgiving and penitential works of mercy. She is credited with spreading Christianity within western Europe.
The Battle of Tolbiac was fought between the Franks, who were fighting under Clovis I, and the Alamanni, whose leader is not known. The date of the battle has traditionally been given as 496, though other accounts suggest it may either have been fought earlier, in the 480s or early 490s, or later, in 506. The site of "Tolbiac", or "Tolbiacum", is usually given as Zülpich, North Rhine-Westphalia, about 60 km east of what is now the German-Belgian frontier. The Franks were successful at Tolbiac and established their dominance over the Alamanni.
Genevieve, is the patron saint of Paris in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. Her feast day is kept on 3 January.
Saint Remigius, French: Remi, Rémi or Rémy, was the Bishop of Reims and "Apostle of the Franks". On 25 December 496 he baptised Clovis I, King of the Franks. This baptism, leading to the conversion of the entire Frankish people to Christianity, was a momentous success for the Church and a seminal event in European history.
The Council of Agde was a regional synod held in September 506 at Agatha or Agde, on the Mediterranean coast east of Narbonne, in the Septimania region of the Visigothic Kingdom, with the permission of the Visigothic King Alaric II.
The First Council of Orléans was convoked by Clovis I, King of the Franks, in 511. Clovis called for this synod four years after his victory over the Visigoths under Alaric II at the Battle of Vouillé in 507. The council was attended by thirty-two bishops, including four metropolitans, from across Gaul, and together they passed thirty-one decrees. The bishops met at Orléans to reform the church and construct a strong relationship between the crown and the Catholic episcopate, the majority of the canons reflecting compromise between these two institutions.
Lescar Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church and former cathedral dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It is located in the town of Lescar, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France. It has been listed since 1840 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.
The former Roman Catholic Diocese of Oloron was a Latin rite bishopric in Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, Aquitaine region of south-west France, from the 6th to the 19th century.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Lescar, in south-western France, was founded in the fifth century, and continued until 1790. It was originally part of the Province of Novempopulania, and Lescar held the seventh place among the cities. Its see was the Cathedral of the Assumption in Lescar, begun in 1120; the crypt of the cathedral was also the mausoleum of the family of Albret in the 16th century.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bayonne, Lescar, and Oloron, commonly Diocese of Bayonne, is a suffragan diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France in the ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Bordeaux, in the administrative region Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The diocese comprises the Department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, in the Region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Historically, at one time or another, the diocese belonged to the Dukes of Aquitaine, the Kings of England, the Kings of Navarre, and the Kings of Spain. The people are Basques, and the Basque language flourishes.
Gaul was an important early center of Latin Christianity in late antiquity and the Merovingian period. By the middle of the 3rd century, there were several churches organized in Roman Gaul, and soon after the cessation of persecution the bishops of the Latin world assembled at Arles, in AD 314. The Church of Gaul passed through three dogmatic crises in the late Roman period, Arianism, Priscillianism and Pelagianism. Under Merovingian rule, a number of "Frankish synods" were held, marking a particularly Germanic development in the Western Church. A model for the following Frankish synods was set by Clovis I, who organized the First Council of Orléans (511).
The Abbey of St Genevieve (Abbaye-Sainte-Geneviève) was a monastery in Paris. Reportedly built by Clovis, King of the Franks in 502, it became a centre of religious scholarship in the Middle Ages. It was suppressed at the time of the French Revolution.
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Saint Gratus of Oloron was the first bishop of Oloron. He is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church.
Christianization of the Franks was the process of converting the pagan Franks to Catholicism during the late 5th century and early 6th century. It was started by Clovis I, regulus of Tournai, with the insistence of his wife, Clotilde and Saint Remigius, the bishop of Reims.