Desiderius of Bourges

Desiderius served the Frankish court as referendary — keeper of the royal seal — before becoming bishop of Bourges, where he succeeded Arcadius; the year of his election is nowhere attested. He signed the acts of the fifth Council of Orléans, on 28 October 549, where the Church of Gaul legislated on the hospitality owed to the sick and the poor — another Desiderius, bishop of Verdun, subscribed the same act seventeen lines below, which long entangled their two dossiers. The Martyrology records that he endowed his church with relics; Gregory of Tours credits him with building Saint-Symphorien in Bourges, where his tomb was a place of pilgrimage until the Revolution.