Saint Godfrey of Amiens

Godfrey had been a monk at Mont-Saint-Quentin, near Péronne, before he came to Nogent-sous-Coucy. ¹ The Martyrology says he was formed in the monastic life. ² Guibert, the next abbot of Nogent, tells how Godfrey got the abbey. ¹ Nogent had been held, along with two richer houses, by an aged abbot with weak eyes who wanted to hand it to a nephew, but the monks chose instead "a young man, named Godfrey, a native of those parts." ¹ The old abbot gave up the house to him. ¹

Under Godfrey, Guibert says, the abbey grew rich in land and revenue. ¹ "The man knew how to adapt himself to the manners of the outside world," Guibert writes, "being courteous and liberal in his dealings with others and in the management of their legal business." ¹ Compared with the monasteries around it, where zeal was low, Nogent under him seemed "as a tiny light in the midst of darkness." ¹ Guibert also credits him with a firm line on simony: "he forbade any simony in that church in act or thought," and treated the buying of church office as an accursed thing. ¹ katolsk.no, the Norwegian bishops' saints database, likewise says he came to Amiens from the abbey of Nogent. ³

His skill in business made him known in the towns, Guibert says, and there was talk first of a richer abbey for him and then of a bishopric. ¹ The see of Amiens had been vacant for nearly two years. ¹ Godfrey put forward an archdeacon of the city as a candidate, but the demand grew for Godfrey himself, a monk with a reputation for shrewdness, and at a council at Troyes, under the papal legate Richard, he was appointed bishop of Amiens and moved from Nogent. ¹ katolsk.no dates this to 1104. ³

At first, Guibert says, he was everywhere "venerated as the mirror of all religion." ¹ On the day of his reception he preached to the people from a raised place and promised he would always climb to the heights, so that no one could quote the poet against him: "The mountains are in labour - an absurd little mouse shall be born." ¹ Guibert calls the words a "true prophecy of what would follow," and says his reputation soon began to decline. ¹

katolsk.no describes the bishop differently. ³ He became known for the strict church reforms he carried out, it says; they may seem excessively strict, but he was at least as strict with himself. ³ The Martyrology speaks of his efforts to reform the morals of clergy and people. ²

The crisis came with the commune. ¹ After the uprising at Laon, Guibert writes, the townspeople of Amiens bribed the king and formed a commune, which the bishop, in Guibert's view, ought never to have favored. ¹ The count of the city, Enguerrand, saw his old rights being destroyed and attacked the citizens, who drove him back into the castle. ¹ Enguerrand's son Thomas and Adam, the captain of the tower, then attacked the Vidame and the citizens, and because they "charged the Bishop and the clergy with taking part with the citizens," they seized church property. ¹ Guibert says the quarrel could easily have been settled by Godfrey at the start, "had he not been afraid of the Vidame," a lord on the citizens' side who, Guibert says, always held the bishop in contempt. ¹

Guibert records an omen. ¹ Before the worst of it, on a feast day, the priest before Godfrey had unknowingly consecrated water alone, and the same thing happened to the bishop; when he tasted it he said, "Be sure, some great misfortune threatens this church." ¹ Seeing that he was welcome neither to his clergy nor to his people, Guibert says, he sent his ring and sandals back to the archbishop of Reims, declaring he would go into exile and never be a bishop again. ¹

He went first to Cluny, and then to a place Bland's translation calls Chartres, though Guibert says he had described it at the beginning of his book, and the place described there is the Carthusian hermitage in the mountains near Grenoble. ¹ There he lived in a cell outside the community. ¹ After two months the archbishop recalled him, and he returned to a cool welcome from clergy and people who, Guibert says, had already been busy choosing another bishop. ¹

Back in Amiens he backed the king's assault on the tower. ¹ Guibert says that on a solemn feast he preached a sermon "more like one of Catiline's speeches than one that proceeded from God," promising the kingdom of heaven to those who died in the attack, and then went barefoot to Saint Acheul, which Bland calls St. Aceolus, "undeserving of a hearing in such a cause." ¹ The assault failed, some eighty men were wounded, and the king himself was hit by a shaft on his mailed breast. ¹ Guibert ends the chapter with a warning that the judgments of God are not the same for all men, "so that a bishop should be free to incite others to murder." ¹

Guibert's portrait is the only one drawn by an eyewitness, and it is harsh. ¹ He followed Godfrey as abbot of Nogent, and he wrote while the blockade of the tower was still going on. ¹ The Martyrology reads the same years as suffering. ² It says Godfrey suffered much in trying to reconcile the lords and the people of the city and to reform the morals of clergy and people. ² katolsk.no adds the strictness, toward others and toward himself. ³

Godfrey died in 1115, according to katolsk.no. ³ The Martyrology marks his burial at Soissons. ²

None of the sources consulted names a patronage for Saint Godfrey of Amiens. ¹²³ He is remembered in the Martyrology as bishop of Amiens, buried at Soissons, and katolsk.no remembers him for his reforms. ²³

Saint Godfrey's feast day is November 8. ²³ The current Roman Martyrology enters him on that day as bishop of Amiens, recording his burial at Soissons. ² katolsk.no gives November 8 in its text, though the heading of its entry shows September 12. ³

Godfrey was good at running an abbey and, by Guibert's account, out of his depth in a city at war with its lords. ¹ He knew it. He tried to give up his see, sent back the ring, and went to live in a cell among hermits. ¹

He was sent back. ¹ The Martyrology does not call his time as bishop a success; it says he suffered much in them, trying to make peace and to reform clergy and people. ²

His one close witness thought him a failure, and the page leaves that judgment standing. ¹ Beside it stands the Church's memory of a reformer who, katolsk.no says, was at least as strict with himself as with anyone else. ²³