Maurontus

ON ST. MAURONTUS, OR MAURONTIUS, ABBOT OF SAINT-FLORENT-LE-VIEIL.

End of the Seventh Century.

Maurontus, Abbot of Saint-Florent-le-Vieil in Gaul (St.)

[1] Glanna, or Gloma — in the manuscript Life of St. Florentius called Glomna, and in Argentraeus's Britannica called Glouva — commonly known as Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, is an ancient monastery in Anjou near the borders of Nantes. When this was destroyed by the Bretons, another monastery was built in the name of St. Florentius near the town of Saumur in the same Angevin territory, not far from the Loudun district, Monastery of St. Florentius: at the mouth of the river Thoedus or Thoeda, commonly called the Thouet, where it flows into the Loire; to which his body was translated. The former, Argentraeus writes in book 2 of his History of Brittany, chapter 14, was built by Charlemagne destroyed, repaired. and endowed by Louis the Pious — which does not agree with the era of St. Maurontus, as we shall presently say, unless a certain restoration is meant that was made through the effort and expense of Charles or Louis. The ancient writer of the Life of Louis has the following: "And indeed many monasteries were repaired in his domain by him, or indeed built from the foundations, but especially these: the monastery of St. Mary and St. Peter de Ferrariis, etc. The monastery of St. Florentius, etc., and very many others, by which, as by lamps, the whole kingdom of Aquitaine is adorned." Argentraeus moreover adds that when Neomenius, King of the Bretons, devastated it in the time of Charles the Bald, he received a wound in the thigh — a clear proof that St. Florentius was offended by this crime, under whose protection that place was — and therefore he took care to have it repaired at his own expense. We shall treat of St. Florentinus on September 22.

[2] St. Maurontus is reported to have been Abbot of that ancient monastery, and to have flourished in the times of King Childebert — not the first (as Hugo Menardus testifies is written in the ancient records of that place, in book 2 of his Observations, which he says he found to be grievously corrupted), but of the one who succeeded his brother Clovis III in the year 694, Its Abbot, St. Maurontus — when he lived. and died in 711. From which one may infer that Maurontus did not depart this life in the year 691 (as the same Menardus and Claudius Robertus write), since Childebert had not yet begun to reign. In the Life of St. Hermelandus on March 25, it is said that St. Pascharius, Bishop of Nantes (of whom we treat on July 10), procured that the monastery of Antrum belonging to St. Hermelandus, and whatever possessions he had bestowed on it, should be confirmed by the authority of King Childebert; and afterward the death of St. Maurontus is treated. Pascharius had obtained Hermelandus from St. Lantbert, then still Abbot of Fontenelle, who was afterward elevated to the Archbishopric of Lyon through the patronage of King Theodoric III and Pippin of Herstal, and had as his successor St. Ansbertus, who shortly after succeeded St. Audoenus in the See of Rouen. From these facts the era of St. Maurontus can be established more certainly.

[3] Concerning his death, the following is reported in the Life of St. Hermelandus in Surius: His death: "On a certain night the holy man (Hermelandus), intent upon divine contemplation in the basilica of the Blessed Apostle Peter, as was his custom, saw the soul of Abbot Maurentus (the manuscript of Rouge-Val reads Maurontus), a very venerable man, depart from the body, led by angels, from the monastery of St. Florentius, which they call Glanna, thirty miles distant from the monastery of Antrum, and migrate to the heavens," etc. Claudius Robertus reports that Maurontus died 275 years after the death of St. Florentius.

[4] His feast day is celebrated thus in the Benedictine Martyrology by Hugo Menardus on the sixth day before the Ides of January: His annual feast. "In the monastery of Glanna, of St. Maurontius the Abbot." And in the Gallican Martyrology, Andreas Saussaius writes: "At Saumur, of St. Maurontius, Abbot and Confessor, who in the time of King Childebert, placed in charge of the monastery of St. Florentius, was illustrious for his wondrous humility and innocence: whose soul, on the very day on which he departed to the Lord, St. Hermelandus saw being carried to heaven by angels." Claudius Robertus also calls him Maurontius. We shall treat of another St. Maurontus, Abbot, son of Sts. Adalbald and Rictrudis, on May 5.