Saint Exuperius of Bayeux (Exupère), also known as Spirius (''Spire, Soupir, Soupierre''), is venerated as the first

bishop of Bayeux The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bayeux and Lisieux (Latin: ''Dioecesis Baiocensis et Lexoviensis''; French: ''Diocèse de Bayeux et Lisieux'') is a diocese of the Catholic Church in France. It is coextensive with the Department of Calvados and is ...

. The date of his episcopate is given as 390 to 405, but local legends made him an immediate disciple of St. Clement, who lived during the 1st century, and that St. Regnobertus was Exuperius' disciple.Catholic Encyclopedia: Bayeux
/ref> This legend was found in

breviaries A breviary (Latin: ''breviarium'') is a liturgical book used in Christianity for praying the canonical hours, usually recited at seven fixed prayer times. Historically, different breviaries were used in the various parts of Christendom, such as ...

of the 15th century. According to the ''

Catholic Encyclopedia The ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'' (also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedia'') i ...

'', “the

Bollandists The Bollandist Society ( la, Societas Bollandistarum french: Société des Bollandistes) are an association of scholars, philologists, and historians (originally all Jesuits, but now including non-Jesuits) who since the early seventeenth century h ...

and M.

Jules Lair Jules–Auguste Lair (25 May 1836 – 16 May 1907) was a French lawyer, businessman and scholar. At the École des Chartes he studied palaeography, and was offered a position with the Archives, but he decided instead to become a lawyer. At the ag ...

found little ground for this legend; it was only towards the middle of the fourth century that St. Exuperius founded the See of Bayeux; after him the priest St. Reverendus worked to spread

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

in these parts.” As Henry Wace writes, “this is only an instance of the tendency of the Gallic churches to claim an apostolic or subapostolic origin.”.Henry Wace, ''A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines'' (1880), 439.

Veneration

In the times of the invasion of the

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

Exuperius’

relics In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangi ...

were

translated Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

from Bayeux, and eventually were deposited at

Corbeil Corbeil may refer to: Places * Corbeil, Ontario, Canada * Corbeil, Marne, a commune in the Marne département in north-eastern France * Corbeil-Cerf, a commune in the département of Oise in northern France * Corbeil-Essonnes, a commune in the so ...

; the Saint-Spire cathedral in Corbeil-Essonnes is dedicated to him. He is sometimes called a bishop of Corbolium (Corbeil) as a result of this translation.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Exuperius Of Bayeux Bishops of Bayeux Gallo-Roman saints 405 deaths Year of birth unknown