Romaric of Remiremont

Son of the Austrasian noble Romulf, who died in the party of Theudebert II, he was himself stripped of his goods by Brunhilda; having rallied to Chlothar II after the queen’s fall, he became one of the notable men of the kingdom. One meeting decided his life: that of Amatus, a monk of Luxeuil come to preach at court. Romaric freed his serfs, gave away his goods, entered Luxeuil, then offered his own mountain in the Vosges for a monastery — the Romarici Mons, which would become Remiremont. It was a double monastery of men and women, and the laus perennis was established there — tradition credits Amatus with it as much as him: seven choirs relieving one another so that the psalmody stopped neither by day nor by night. Abbot on Amatus’s death, he governed a quarter of a century. Past seventy he still went down to court to reproach the mayor of the palace over the treatment of a royal child. He died a few days after returning, in 653.