Saint Chrodegang of Metz

He was born in the Hesbaye, in what the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia calls Belgian Limburg, of a noble Frankish family, at the beginning of the eighth century. ¹ Fabio Arduino, writing for santiebeati.it, gives the year as 712 and names his parents as Sigramnus and Landrada. ⁴ Butler says Pepin, the son of Charles Martel, was his uncle on his mother's side. ²

Francis Mershman, the encyclopedia's author, says he was educated at the court of Charles Martel, the mayor of the palace who governed the Franks. ¹ Butler and Arduino say instead that he was educated at the abbey of Saint-Trond. ²⁴ All agree on where his gifts took him. He became Charles Martel's private secretary, then his chancellor, and in 737 his chief minister. ¹²

Butler draws him as an ascetic in the middle of the court. He dressed poorly from his youth, fasted, kept vigils and wore a hair shirt, and, Butler says, "he supported an incredible number of poor, and was the protector and father of orphans and widows." ² Mershman describes "a man of imposing appearance, of a mild, though firm, character, of great liberality to the poor," at home in Latin and German. ¹

After Charles Martel died, Chrodegang was made bishop of Metz in 742; Mershman gives the date as March 1. ¹² Arduino says he was consecrated on September 30 of that year, and that he was still a layman when he was chosen and had to be ordained deacon and priest first. ⁴ Pepin would agree to his ordination only if he stayed at the head of the state, Butler says, and so he kept his civil office. ¹² Mershman says that in that position he "laboured earnestly for the welfare of Church and State, and was ever solicitous to strengthen the bonds of union between the temporal and spiritual rulers." ¹

He was sent on the business of both. In 753 Pepin sent him to the pope, whom the Lombards were pressing hard, and Chrodegang brought the pope over the Alps into the Frankish kingdom. ¹² Mershman and Butler number the pope Stephen III, and Arduino Stephen II; it is the same man. ¹²⁴ Butler tells how Pepin rode out to meet him, got down from his horse and walked beside the pope's. ² In 754, Butler says, Pepin sent Chrodegang to the Lombard king Aistulf to ask him to leave Rome in peace and give back the towns he had taken, and "this embassy was without effect." ²

Mershman says that after the death of Saint Boniface the pope gave Chrodegang the pallium, in 754 or 755, which made him an archbishop without raising the see of Metz itself. ¹ Arduino says he received it in Rome in 753. ⁴ The encyclopedia's article on Metz, by Joseph Lins, says his successor Angilram also received the pallium, "like his predecessor," and that Metz was always reckoned a suffragan of Trier. ⁵ The same article prints his years as bishop as 742-46, a figure no other source shares; he was still bishop when he died in 766. ¹⁵

What the Church remembers him for is his clergy. The Martyrology says he arranged for them to live as though within the walls of a cloister, under an exemplary rule of life. ³ Mershman says he introduced "community life for the clergy of his cathedral, and wrote a special rule for them." ¹ It had thirty-four chapters and was modeled on the rule of Saint Benedict and the canons of the Lateran. ¹ Butler says the first chapter lays down humility as the foundation of the rest, and that the canons were bound to confess to the bishop at least twice a year, before Advent and before Lent. ²

Mershman dates the rule about 755 and Butler to 755. ¹² Anthony Allaria's article on canons regular puts it in 763, and says Chrodegang "assembled the clergy of his cathedral around him, led with them a community life, and gave them a rule taken from the statutes of ancient orders and canons." ⁶ Allaria adds that the rule required a hospital near the canons' house so that they could care for the sick. ⁶

The rule spread. Mershman says it gave "a might impulse to the spread of community life among the secular clergy," and that it later grew to eighty-six chapters. ¹ William Fanning's article on the chapter says that from this rule or canon the members of such a body took the name of canons. ⁷ Arduino tells it the other way round: a chapter of the rule was read every day before the whole community, he says, and the gatherings came to be called the chapter. ⁴ Butler, writing in the eighteenth century, notes that the churches that took it up, Metz among them, had since gone back to secular life. ²

Mershman says he introduced the Roman liturgy and chant in his diocese, and the Martyrology says he did much to promote liturgical chant. ¹³ Arduino says the singing school of Metz was renewed under him and was famous for centuries, and that in 805 Charlemagne ordered every master of chant to be trained there. ⁴

He founded the abbey of Gorze, near Metz, in 748, and remained its friend and protector. ¹ He also founded the abbey of Saint Peter on the Moselle and did much for Gengenbach and for Lorsch, in the diocese of Worms. ¹² Mershman says he is said to have obtained the relics of Saint Nazarius for Lorsch and of Saint Gorgonius for Gorze. ¹ Lins names Gorze first among the things he did as bishop. ⁵

In 762, during a dangerous illness, he set up among his priests a confraternity of prayer that Mershman calls the League of Attigny. ¹ Arduino says he presided over councils at Verneuil in 755, at Compiègne in 757, and at Attigny. ⁴

He died at Metz on March 6, 766, and was buried at Gorze. ¹² Butler says his will, which left the abbey several estates, was still in existence when he wrote. ² Arduino says Gorze was the abbey he loved above all the others, and that tradition holds some of his relics are also kept at the church of Saint-Symphorien in Metz. ⁴

None of the sources consulted for this page names a patronage for Saint Chrodegang, and none is given here. ¹²⁴ Butler says he was named in the French, German and Belgian martyrologies. ²

Saint Chrodegang's feast is March 6, the day he died in 766. ¹² The current Roman Martyrology lists him on that day, and Butler and santiebeati.it both keep him there. ²³⁴

He was a man of the court all his life. He was chancellor before he was a priest, and as bishop he went on carrying the king's business, across the Alps and to the Lombards, with no success on the second errand. ¹² Butler places the hair shirt and the night vigils inside that life, not after it. ²

His best-remembered work was ordinary: he asked the priests of his own cathedral to live together, to eat and pray in common, to confess, and to care for the sick at their door. ²⁶ The rule he wrote for them begins, Butler says, with humility. ²

He also gave his church its music. The Martyrology, summing up his life in one sentence, mentions the chant alongside the rule. ³

When he was dangerously ill, he did not leave a monument. He asked his priests to pray for one another. ¹