Saint Fructuosus of Braga

The sources agree that he was born into the Visigothic nobility and disagree on how high. ¹²³ The Catholic Encyclopedia calls him the son of a Gothic general; Butler calls him "a prince of the royal blood of the Visigoth kings in Spain"; and Manuel Díaz y Díaz, writing for Catholic.net's Spanish saints' calendar, says his family was related to some of the Visigothic kings and his father commanded in the army. ¹²³ The Archdiocese of Braga places the family in the region of El Bierzo. ⁴

He studied at Palencia, in the school its bishop had founded for his clergy. ¹² Díaz y Díaz names that bishop as Conantius and says many young men had been drawn there by his learning. ³ After his parents died, Butler says, Fructuosus sold most of his estate and gave the price to the poor. ² Díaz y Díaz has him give his goods to churches and to the poor while he was still young, so as to be free of them. ³

He withdrew as a hermit into a wild place in Galicia, and the disciples who gathered round him became the monastery of Complutum, now Compludo. ¹ Butler says he built it on his own estate in the mountains near the Bierzo, under the title of Saints Justin and Pastor, as he names them, martyrs of Complutum, or Alcalá, and so gave the abbey the name of their city. ² He governed it until it was in good order, appointed another abbot, and went back into the wilderness, where, Butler says, he lived "clothed with the skins of beasts, in imitation of the ancient hermits." ¹²

In time he founded nine more monasteries, the encyclopedia says, and one for eighty women under an abbess named Benedicta. ¹ Díaz y Díaz says the movement was so strong that whole families followed it, and that his biographer reports, with some innocence, that the king's commanders began to fear they would have no men left to raise for their campaigns. ³ The Archdiocese of Braga says his foundations spread through Galicia, present-day Spanish Extremadura and Andalusia, and that for all their severity they were imitated long after the Arab invasion, some lasting into the twelfth century. ⁴

Two rules of his survive. ¹² The first, of twenty-five chapters, was written for Complutum and has an appendix, the pactum, with the form of the monks' consecration and vows; the second, the common rule, is addressed mainly to the superiors of a union of monasteries under an abbot-bishop. ¹ Díaz y Díaz calls his rule hard and energetic, made for men of the north, with a strong sense of community and of obedience. ³

Díaz y Díaz records a pilgrimage to Mérida, out of devotion to Saint Eulalia, and a journey south from there as far as Seville and Cádiz, with new foundations along the way. ³ Later Fructuosus resolved to go east, probably to Egypt, the home of the monastic life, but the king and his counselors heard of it and took steps to keep him in Spain. ³

His biographer, Díaz y Díaz says, fills the Life with miracles: Fructuosus praying in a thicket, dressed in skins, and nearly taken for an animal; carrying his books across a river without their getting wet; walking on the sea to bring back a drifting boat. ³ The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that he is shown with a stag, which, it says, was devoted to him because he had saved it from the hunters. ¹

Braulio of Zaragoza, the bishop and friend of Isidore of Seville, praised him in his own day; Díaz y Díaz says Braulio called him a brilliant light of Spanish spirituality, and insisted he was writing from truth and not from flattery. ³

He was made abbot-bishop of Dumio, the monastery outside Braga, in 654 by the encyclopedia's date, and accepted it, Díaz y Díaz says, not without reluctance. ¹³ In 656 he attended the Tenth Council of Toledo as bishop-abbot of Dumio. ⁴ There the metropolitan of Braga, Potamius, was removed for faults that, according to Díaz y Díaz, he had confessed of his own accord, and the bishops chose Fructuosus to take his place. ³⁴ The encyclopedia dates his appointment to Braga to December 1, 656. ¹

The current Roman Martyrology says that, chosen by the fathers of that council, he governed the church of Braga and his monasteries together with prudence. ⁵ Díaz y Díaz admits that almost nothing is known of what he did as archbishop, except that he went again and again to King Recceswinth to admonish him and plead for clemency. ³ Butler says his innocence did not protect him from envy, which he overcame "by meekness and patience." ²

He went on founding to the end. ³ His last foundation seems to have been the monastery of Montelios, close to Braga, where he died and where his body was kept. ³⁴ Taken ill with fever, Díaz y Díaz says, he told his weeping disciples that he was dying, settled the affairs of several of his houses, and had himself carried into the church, where he received penance and lay all night in prayer until dawn. ³ Butler says he "died laid on ashes before the altar, as he desired, on the 16th of April, 665." ² The encyclopedia gives the year as about 665, and the Archdiocese of Braga as 665 with a question mark. ¹⁴ In 1102 his relics were taken to Compostela, by Archbishop Gelmírez in Díaz y Díaz's account. ¹³

No source used for this page names Saint Fructuosus of Braga as patron of anything. ¹²³ He is remembered as a founder of monasteries and a monastic legislator, and the encyclopedia calls him the greatest of Spanish monastic bishops. ¹⁵

Saint Fructuosus of Braga's feast day is April 16, the day he died. ¹² The Catholic Encyclopedia gives that date for both his death and his feast, and the current Roman Martyrology enters him on April 16 at Braga as a monk and founder of monasteries, bishop of Dumio, and metropolitan of Braga. ¹⁵ Díaz y Díaz notes that it is the liturgical books of Braga that give the day of his death. ³

He kept trying to be alone, and kept failing. ³ Each time he left a monastery for the wilderness, more people followed him there, and his biographer says his disciples would not let him go. ¹³

He gave up a great deal: an inheritance, a family position near the throne, and in the end the solitude he wanted most, when he accepted a bishop's office he did not seek. ¹²³ Even as archbishop he kept the hard life of a monk. ³

His own rule asked for obedience and community, and his biographer saw his real work as a renewal of the Church in a century of faction and bitterness. ³ Butler says that when he was envied and wronged, he answered with meekness and patience. ²

At the end he asked to be laid down in the church, before the altar. ²³ He spent his last night there in prayer. ³