BAVO (ALLOWIN), ST.

Monastic founder and patron of Ghent; b. Hesbaye, Belgium, c. 600; d. at a hermitage near Ghent, Belgium, Oct. 1, 660. The oldest vita of the saint was composed in the ninth century, some 200 years after his death; it records that Bavo was descended from a noble Belgian family and was married to the daughter of a certain Count Adilion. After his wife's death, he decided to devote himself to the religious life and sought out the missionary amandus, who was then at Ghent. He sold all his possessions and founded in that city a Benedictine monastery dedicated to St. Peter and later renamed Saint-Bavon. Bavo accompanied Amandus on a missionary journey through Flanders and on his return settled in a hermitage near the abbey he had endowed. He was buried at Ghent, and when the abbey church was destroyed in 1540, his relics were taken to the new cathedral. His name appears in the liturgy from the early ninth century.

Feast: Oct. 1.

Bibliography: Acta Sanctorum Oct. 1:199–302. Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores rerum Merovingicanum 4:527–545. j. mabillon, Acta sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti (Venice 1733–40) 2:396–403. Bibliotheca hagiograpica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis (Brussels 1898–1901) 1049–60. l. van der essen, Étude critique et littéraire sur les vitae des saints mérovingiens de l'ancienne Belgique (Louvain 1907) 349–357. É. de moreau, Saint Amand (Louvain 1927) 220–223. a. m. zimmermann, Kalendarium Benedictinum, (Metten 1933–38) 3:122–124. j. van brabant, Sint Bavo, edelman, boeteling en monnik (Wilrijk, 1968). r. podevijn, Bavo (Bruges 1945). r. aigrain, Catholicisme 1:1323–24.

[b. j. comaskey]