Saint of the Day – 14 March – Saint Leobinus of Chartres (Died c 558)

Saint of the Day – 14 March – Saint Leobinus of Chartres (Died c 558) Bishop of Chartres, Abbot, Hermit, Miracle worker – he had the gift of healing, especially of dropsy or edema – born as Lubin at Poitiers, France and died on 14 March 558 of natural causes.   Patronages – against dropsy/oedema, against rheumatism, of innkeepers and wine merchants.

Leobinus’s parents were peasants from the region of Poitiers in France.   As a young boy, Leobinus had an aptitude for learning and applied to a monastery where he was employed in menial tasks.

His work occupied him the entire day and he was obliged to do most of his studying at night, screening his candle as best he could.   The monks complained that the light disturbed their slumbers but by much humility and perseverance Lubin advanced in knowledge.

He eventually joined the monastery and, probably at the suggestion of St Carilef, for a time lived as a hermit under the guidance of St Avitus.   Later, he settled in an abbey near Lyons, remaining for five years.

In a war between the Franks and the Burgundians this monastery was raided and all the monks fled with the exception of Leobinus and an old monk.   The enemy, unable to extort from Leobinus the location of the monastery’s “treasure”, tortured him by first strangling him with a rope and then by tying his feet and dipping him, head first, into the river.   Left for dead, he recovered and was received in the monastery of Le Perche.

After Avitus died, Leobinus continued living as a hermit until he was ordained by Bishop. Aetherius of Chartres, who appointed him Abbot of Brou.   He served until apparently deciding he did not like administrative duties.   So he left to become a monk at Lérins.
He remained there until St Caesarius, the Bishop of Arles and a former monk at Lérins convinced him to return to Brou, rather than to leave his people “like sheep without a shepherd.”

Leobinus participated in the Fifth Council of Orleans and in the Second Council of Paris and died on March 14, about the year 558, after a long illness.   He was buried at the Church named for him in Chassant, Eure-et-Loir, France.