ON ST. GAUDUS, BISHOP OF EVREUX IN GAUL.
Around the year 500.
CommentaryGaudus, Bishop of Evreux in Gaul (St.)
From various sources.
[1] The Eburovices, or Ebroici, were a people of Celtic Gaul, whose city is now commonly called Evreux, in French Evreux, adorned with a bishopric from the most ancient times, as is clear from the ancient List of Cities of Gaul. St. Gaudus, Bishop of Evreux The first in the catalogue of Bishops of that see is St. Taurinus, of whom we shall treat on August 11; the second is St. Gaudus, whom some call Gandus, others Valdus. His deeds are not known to us. His feast is celebrated on this day, as is customary for bishops, with no special reading taken from his Acts.
[2] His name is inscribed in various Martyrologies. The Carthusians of Cologne in the additions to Usuard, and Canisius, have the following: feast day, Of Gandus, Bishop and Confessor of York. Galesius: At York in Britain, of St. Gandus, Bishop and Confessor — but he corrects this error in his Notes, into which Molanus also fell in his first edition, attributing him to the city of York in England; but in the later edition he wrote: At the city of Evreux, of Blessed Gandus, Bishop of that same city. Ferrari also calls him Gandus.
[3] More fully, Andrew Saussay writes of him on this day in the Gallican Martyrology: At Evreux in Normandy, under the second province of Lyon, Eulogy from Saussay, of St. Gaudus, Bishop and Confessor of that city. He, succeeding St. Taurinus, the first Bishop, after a long interregnum, gathering and restoring this new Church, which had been scattered by the dire whirlwinds of persecutions, relying on divine grace, constructed sacred buildings and destroyed the temples of idols; having ordained the clergy and excellently instructed the people in the sacred disciplines of religion, withdrawal, inflamed with love of the heavenly homeland, in order to devote himself entirely to the divine service and more freely give himself to the contemplation of heavenly things, he voluntarily abdicated his bishopric. And so, having designated Maurusius as the Pastor in his place, to whom he commended his flock with heartfelt love, he withdrew to a hidden place in the territory of Coutances, not far from the sea, where he built a hut, and entering upon a course of religious exercises, sustained his body on the most frugal and meager diet, solely for the preservation of life; he continually mortified himself with sleeping on the ground, vigils, and watchfulness; death, and so cultivated, adorned, and elevated his soul by praying and meditating that he rendered it close to the heavenly beings through the assimilation of a divine manner of life and the perennial drawing of graces. And after he had spent some years there in the most holy manner, he at length, in fulfillment of his prayers, happily dispatched his most pure soul, freed from the bonds of the body, to the abodes and fellowship of the Blessed; burial, and was buried on the slope of a hill, where afterward a monastery was erected in his honor — which, though later destroyed by barbarian incursions, yet the place and tomb of so great a Saint long afterward remained memorable.
[4] So Saussay. Maurusius, or Maurusio, Bishop of the Church of Evreux, attended the Council of Orleans date. in the thirtieth year of Clovis, the year of Christ 511, in the consulship of Felix. Whence the date of St. Gaudus can be established.