Confusion with Saint Maurus Abbot of Glanfeuil A long Life of St. Maurus appeared in the late 9th century, supposedly composed by one of St. Maurus's contemporaries. According to this account, the bishop of Le Mans, in western France, sent a delegation asking Benedict for a group of monks to travel from Benedict's new abbey of Monte Cassino to establish monastic life in France according to the Rule of St. Benedict. The Life recounts the long journey of St. Maurus and his companions from Scholars now believe that this Life of Maurus is a forgery by the 9th-century abbot, Odo of Glanfeuil. It was composed, as were many such saints' lives in Carolingian France, to popularize local saints' cults. The bones of St. Maurus had supposedly been found at Glanfeuil by one of Odo's immediate predecessors. By the mid-9th century, the abbey had become a local pilgrimage site supplementing (or rivalling) the nearby abbeys of Fleury, which claimed to have the bones of St. Benedict himself, and Le Mans, which had supposedly obtained the bones of St. Benedict's sister, St. Scholastica. The study that accompanied the revision in 1969 of the Roman Catholic calendar of saints[1] states: "Saint Maurus, the disciple of Saint Benedict, who is mentioned in the Dialogues of Saint Gregory the Great, is now universally distinguished from Maurus of Glanfeuil in the region of Angers in France, who is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology[2] on 15 January." Odo and the monks of Glanfeuil had been obliged to flee to By the late Middle Ages, the cult of St. Maurus, often associated with St. Placidus, had spread to all Benedictine monasteries. He was sometimes identified with the semi-legendary Saint Amaro, who is said to have travelled to the Earthly Paradise. The Congregation of St. Maur took its name from him. (Wikipedia) |
Saturday, 16 January 2010
Maurists Benedictine Congregation
Note to the previous Post on Saints Maurus & Placid
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