CHLODULF OF METZ, ST.

Bishop; d. May 8 c. 663 or 696. Chlodulf (Clodulf, Clou), son of Arnulf of Metz and brother-in-law of (St.) begga; became bishop of Metz in 652 or 656. There he trained trudo of Brabant. The discrepancy in his death dates results from the attempt to give him the 40-year episcopate that a ninth-or tenth-century catalogue attributed to him. But although a passage from the Miracles of St. gertrude of nivelles says that he was alive at her death on March 16, 659, and his name is among those who witnessed a document of Numerius of Trier c. 663, it was Chlodulf's successor at Metz who signed the charter of Drausius of Soissons for the monastery of Sainte-Marie on June 25, 667. Chlodulf's vita (Acta Sanctorum June 2:127–132) is ninth-century and unhistorical. The celebration of his feast on June 8 may stem from a mistake in months in the Roman Martyrology. His bones are in the former Benedictine church, Lay-Saint-Christophe, near Nancy, and in St. Arnuf's, Metz.

Feast: June 8.

Bibliography: Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores 2:264, 267, 269. Bibliotheca hagiograpica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis (Brussels 1898–1901) 1:1735. j. depoin, "Grandes figures monacales des temps mérovingiens," Revue Mabillon 11(1921) 245–258; 12 (1922) 13–25, 105–118. j. l. baudot and l. chaussin, Vies des saints et des bienhereux selon l'ordre du calendrier avec l'historique des fêtes (Paris 1935–56) 6:147–148. a. butler, The Lives of the Saints, ed. h. thurston and d. attwater (New York 1956) 2:503. r. aigrain, Catholicisme 2:1262–63.

[g. j. donnelly]