Amandus, Saint: Chartae

Two documents are preserved under the name of Amandus, the seventh-century missionary bishop active in Gaul and the Low Countries. In the first, Amandus, calling himself a wretched sinner, gives to the abbot Andreas the estate of Barisiacum in the district of Laon, which he had received from King Childeric and Queen Chimnechild, for a monastery he had begun there in honour of the apostles Peter and Paul under the rule of Benedict or Columbanus. The charter ends with a long list of subscribing clergy and laymen. The second is a codicil concerning the burial of his body.

These charters are rare documents associated with one of the best-known missionaries of Merovingian Gaul and with the monastic foundations that spread under the mixed rule of Benedict and Columbanus. The donation preserves names of royal benefactors and witnesses, while the codicil gives a glimpse of a saint’s concern for his resting place. Both are valuable for historians of Merovingian law, land tenure and monastic patronage, though like many such documents they have been studied critically for later alterations.