Roman Catholic Diocese of Le Mans - Saints Held in Veneration

Saints Held in Veneration

The diocese honours in a special manner as saints: Peregrinus, Marcoratus, and Viventianus, martyrs; Hilary of Oizé, nephew of St. Hilary of Poitiers (in the fifth century); Bommer, Almirus, Leonard, and Ulphace, hermits; Gault, Front, and Brice, solitaries and previously monks of Micy; Fraimbault, hermit, founder of a small monastery in the valley of Gabrone; Calais, hermit and founder of the monastery of Anisole, from whom the town of Saint-Calais took its name; Laumer, successor to St. Calais; Guingalois or Guénolé, founder of the monastery of Landevenec in Brittany, whose relics are venerated at Château du Loir.

All in the sixth century: Rigomer, monk at Souligné, and Ténestine, his penitent, both of whom were acquitted before Childebert, through the miracle of Palaiseau, of accusations made against them (d. about 560); Longis, solitary, and Onofletta, his penitent; Siviard, Abbot of Anisole and author of the life of St. Calais (d. 681); the Irish St. Cérota, and her mistress Osmana, daughter of a king of Ireland, died a solitary near St-Brieuc, in the seventh century; Ménélé, and Savinian (d. about 720), natives of Précigné, who repaired to Auvergne to found the Abbey of Ménat, on the ruins of the hermitage where St. Calais had formerly lived; there is also a particular devotion in Le Mans to Blessed Ralph de La Fustaye, monk (twelfth century), disciple of Blessed Robert d'Arbrissel and founder of the Abbey of St. Sulpice, in the forest of Nid de Merle in the Diocese of Rennes. The celebrated Abbot de Rancé made his novitiate at the Abbey of Perseigne in the Diocese of Le Mans. Also there may be mentioned as natives of the diocese, Urbain Grandier, the celebrated curé of Loudun, burned to death for sorcery in 1634; and Mersenne, the Minim (d. 1648), philosopher and mathematician and friend of Descartes and Pascal.