DEODATUS OF NEVERS, ST.

Bishop (known also as Dié, Didier), probably Irish;d. probably June 18, 679. He is the founder (669) of the monastery of Jointures in the Vosges named Val de Galilée. From King Childeric II (660–73) he obtained, for the monastery, part of the valley of the Meurthe and exemption from the jurisdiction of the bishop of Toul. His monastic constitutions were drawn from the rules of St. Benedict and St. Colomban. The abbey and the town that grew around it were named for him. In the past his cult was very active, as indicated by the many translations of his relics (e.g., 1003, 1648, 1679, 1735, 1766, 1792, 1808, 1851). The few relics remaining after the destruction of the church in 1944 were placed in a ceramic reliquary blessed in 1950. The Vita Deodati written in 1048 by humbert of silva candida, a monk of the neighboring monastery of moyenmoutier, adds much information, some of which is legendary: for instance, that Deodatus was bishop of Nevers, that he traveled to Alsace, and that he knew hidulf (d. 707), who was the founder of Moyenmoutier.

Feast: June 19.

Bibliography: Sources. j. m. pardessus, ed., Diplomata…ad res gallo-francicas spectantia, 2 v. (Paris 1843–49) 2:147. "Vita…Deodati," Richeri Gesta Senoniensis ecclesiae, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores 25:259–262, 276–277. j. b.e. l'hÔte, ed., "Praefatio in vitam S. Deodati," Analecta Bollandiana 6 (1887) 151–160. Literature. c. pfister, "Les Légendes de S. Dié et de S. Hidulphe," Annales de l'Est 3 (1889) 377–408, 536–588. j. b. e. l'hÔte, "Les Reliques de Saint Dié," Analecta Bollandiana 11 (1892) 75–99. g. baumont and a. pierrot, Iconographie de Saint-Dié (Mulhouse-Dornach 1936).

[p. cousin]