Lomer (died January 19th, 593), also known as Laumer, Laudomarus, Launomar, or Launomaro, is a Christian

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...

whose feast day is January 19. He founded an abbey at

Corbion Corbion N.V., formerly Centrale Suiker Maatschappij (CSM) N.V. (Central Sugar Company in English), is a Dutch food and biochemicals company headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It produces bioingredient-based foods, chemicals derived from org ...

near

Chartres Chartres () is the prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 170,763 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Chartres (as d ...

in present-day France. The ''

vita Vita or VITA (plural vitae) is Latin for "life", and may refer to: * ''Vita'', the usual start to the title of a biography in Latin, by which (in a known context) the work is often referred to; frequently of a saint, then called hagiography * Vit ...

'' of Saint Lomer reveals that, as a youth, Lomer was a shepard, before being accepted into the monastery of St. Mesmin, near Orleans, and would eventually become a priest in Chartres. The ''vita'' also states that Lomer lived to be more than one hundred years old. One known copy of this ''vita'' was begun by

Orderic Vitalis Orderic Vitalis ( la, Ordericus Vitalis; 16 February 1075 – ) was an English chronicler and Benedictine monk who wrote one of the great contemporary chronicles of 11th- and 12th-century Normandy and Anglo-Norman England. Modern historia ...

while he was copyist at the library of Saint-Évroul. Lomer was initially trained for the priesthood by a priest by the name of Chirmirius, was ordained, and then served as priest in Chartres and the surrounds, were he was made both

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western can ...

and

cellarer A cellarium (from the Latin ''cella'', "pantry"), also known as an ''undercroft'', was a storehouse or storeroom, usually in a medieval monastery or castle. In English monasteries, it was usually located in or under the buildings on the west range ...

. Later in life, Lomer withdrew to live a

eremitic A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Chr ...

lifestyle in the forests of La Perche. Due to his reputation for performing miracles, including the gift of

prophecy In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a ''prophet'') by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or prete ...

, a number of disciples came to his hermitage in the forest. According to Rev. Alban Butler, the location of this hermitage was later the site of

Fontevraud Abbey The Royal Abbey of Our Lady of Fontevraud or Fontevrault (in French: ''abbaye de Fontevraud'') was a monastery in the village of Fontevraud-l'Abbaye, near Chinon, in the former French duchy of Anjou. It was founded in 1101 by the itinerant preache ...

. The presence of these disciples led Lomer to eventually found a cenobitic community, the monastery of Curbio, in c. 570. Following his death in 593, his relics 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 ...

Blois Blois ( ; ) is a commune and the capital city of Loir-et-Cher department, in Centre-Val de Loire, France, on the banks of the lower Loire river between Orléans and Tours. With 45,898 inhabitants by 2019, Blois is the most populated city of the ...

in c. 920, where a monastery had been constructed and dedicated to him, the monastery of Saint-Lomer. These

Benedictine monks The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict ( la, Ordo Sancti Benedicti, abbreviated as OSB), are a Christian monasticism, monastic Religious order (Catholic), religious order of the Catholic Church following the Rule of Saint Benedic ...

were fleeing from the Scandanvian invasion of

Neustria Neustria was the western part of the Kingdom of the Franks. Neustria included the land between the Loire and the Silva Carbonaria, approximately the north of present-day France, with Paris, Orléans, Tours, Soissons as its main cities. It later ...

, which would come to be known as Normandy. While most of his body is said to have been translated to the monastery at Blois, his head was allegedly interred at a

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or nuns (such as the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Carmelites), or monasteries of mon ...

Auvergne Auvergne (; ; oc, label=Occitan, Auvèrnhe or ) is a former administrative region in central France, comprising the four departments of Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal and Haute-Loire. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region Auverg ...

. The monastery outside of Blois would eventually be destroyed during the

French Wars of Religion The French Wars of Religion is the term which is used in reference to a period of civil war between French Catholic Church, Catholics and Protestantism, Protestants, commonly called Huguenots, which lasted from 1562 to 1598. According to estim ...

, although the church itself still stands, known as the Church of

Saint Nicholas Saint Nicholas of Myra, ; la, Sanctus Nicolaus (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343), also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greeks, Greek descent from the maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor (; modern-da ...

. In the early twentieth century, an event in the life of St. Lomer - an incident involving the theft of the saint's favourite cow - was published i
''The Book of Saints andFriendly Beasts'',
a collection of brief hagiographical tales for children, compiled by

Abbie Farwell Brown Abbie Farwell Brown (August 21, 1871March 5, 1927) was an American author. Biography Brown was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the first of two daughters of Benjamin F. Brown, a descendant of Isaac Allerton, and Clara Neal Brown, who contribut ...

. Lomer's ''vita'' states that the abbot was so holy that 'savage wild beasts obeyed when he commanded'; according to Robert Bartlett, this obedience was intended to remind readers of the idyllic lives of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

References

430s births 539 deaths French saints {{Saint-stub