Ansegisus

Who was Ansegisus?

Saint Ansegisus was a monastic reformer of the Franks.

Born about 770, of noble parentage, at the age of eighteen he entered the Benedictine monastery of Fontenelle in the diocese of Rouen. St Girowald, a relative of Ansegisus, was then Abbot of Fontanelle. Upon the recommendation of the Abbot St Girowald he was entrusted by the Emperor Charlemagne with the government and reform of two monasteries, St Sixtus near Reims and St Memius in the diocese of Challons-sur-Marne, in which he was successful.

In 817, Louis the Pious made him abbot of the famous Luxeuil Abbey, founded by Saint Columbanus as early as 590. Finally, having also reformed Luxeuil, he was transferred in 823, after the death of Einhard, as abbot to Fontenelle, where he had begun his monastic life and which he reformed as successfully as the previous monasteries. He was responsible for compiling a number of capitularies, a document of civil and ecclesiastical law.