Historical Figure
According to the research of the Belgian historian Pierre Bolle in 2001 in an account of the saint's life, he is not properly a historical saint. Bolle used historical methods to clarify which of the hagiographies were the oldest and which were retellings and additions.
According to Bolle, Saint Roch is a hagiographical doublet of a more ancient saint, Saint Racho of Autun who died about 660 AD. Racho was invoked for protection against storms and Bolle believes that his name was the basis of the name of this saint and of his patronage of plague-sufferers via a process of aphaeresis of the Old French word for a storm, ("tempeste") to "-peste" (plague). This also accords with equilibrium of humours theory of medieval medicine that held that illness could be caused by corruption of the air.
According to André Vauchez, introducing the volume of essays resulting from a symposium on Roch in Padua in 2004, Bolle's doctoral thesis "devastates pretty much everything we thought we knew about St. Roch and his sect". So Bolle's thesis has perspective, even if the existence of doublets and homonyms in the process of the creation of new saints is widespread.
Gian Paolo Vico, of the Associazione San Rocco Italia, states that a prisoner of French origin held for five years died in Voghera, Italy the night between the 15 and 16 August, between 1376 and 1379, who according to some sources attained a certain fame for sanctity in Piacenza and Sarmato. According to Vico the 1391 calendar of Voghera records a mid-summer festival in honor of Sancti Rochi (St. Roch of Montpellier, the 16 August) and not Sancti Rochonis(St. Racho of Autun, 25 January), indicating the existence of two different saints. This information proves that a local cult and feast of St. Roch of Montpellier existed at least as early as 1391, starting in Voghera before Montpellier. We also have documentation of the body of St. Roch of Montpellier present in Voghera in 1469 and it being venerated since at least then; and of a feast in his honor being celebrated in 1483 in the presence of his remains. This information has led to the now common belief that St. Roch probably died in Voghera, Italy, instead of Montpellier, France.
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