Saint Ansegisus (c. 770 – 20 July 833 or 834) was a monastic reformer of the

Franks file:Frankish arms.JPG, Aristocratic Frankish burial items from the Merovingian dynasty The Franks ( or ; ; ) were originally a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine river, Rhine-river military border of Germania Inferior, which wa ...

. Born about 770, of noble parentage, at the age of eighteen he entered the monastery of Fontenelle (also called St Wandrille after the name of its founder) in the diocese of Rouen. Saint Girowald, a relative of Ansegisus, was then Abbot of Fontanelle. Upon the recommendation of the abbot Girowald he was entrusted by the Emperor

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( ; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was List of Frankish kings, King of the Franks from 768, List of kings of the Lombards, King of the Lombards from 774, and Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian ...

with the government and reform of two monasteries, St. Sixtus near Reims and St. Memmius (St. Menge) in the diocese of Châlons-sur-Marne, in which he was successful. In 817,

Louis the Pious Louis the Pious (; ; ; 16 April 778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor, co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aquitaine from 781. As the only ...

made him abbot of the famous

Luxeuil Abbey Luxeuil Abbey (), the ''Abbaye Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul'', was one of the oldest and best-known monasteries in Franche-Comté, located in what is now the département of Haute-Saône in Franche-Comté, France. History Columbanus The abbey was f ...

, founded by Saint

Columbanus Saint Columbanus (; 543 – 23 November 615) was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries after 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil Abbey in present-day France and Bobbio Abbey in presen ...

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 capitulary (medieval Latin ) was a series of legislative or administrative acts emanating from the Frankish court of the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties, especially that of Charlemagne, the first emperor of the Romans in the west since th ...

, a document of civil and ecclesiastical law, and also commissioned the first abbey history, the ''

Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium The ''Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium'' (Deeds of the Abbots of Fontenelle), also called the ''Gesta sanctorum patrum Fontanellensis coenobii'' (Deeds of the Holy Fathers of the Monastery of Fontenelle), is an anonymous Latin chronicle of the Abbey o ...

''.Régis Rech
"Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium"
in ''

Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle The Medieval Chronicle Society is an international and interdisciplinary organization founded to facilitate the work of scholars interested in medieval annals and chronicles, or more generally medieval historiography. It was founded in 1999 and in ...

'', edited by Graeme Dunphy and Cristian Bratu (Brill, 2016). Consulted online on 6 May 2019.

References

Primary sources

*Capitularies of Ansegisus (assembled 827), ed. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ansegisus, Saint 770s births 830s deaths Abbey of Saint Wandrille Saints from the Carolingian Empire Colombanian saints