Leodegar of Autun

Born around 616 into the Frankish aristocracy, raised at the court of Chlothar II and then by his uncle the bishop of Poitiers, he became bishop of Autun around 663 and governed it well: he repaired the town, held a council, calmed rival factions. But the age did not leave a bishop outside politics. He took sides in the struggle between Childeric II and Ebroin, mayor of the palace of Neustria, and became the latter's personal enemy. Besieged in Autun in 675, he gave himself up to spare the city. His eyes were put out, his tongue cut, and he was moved from monastery to monastery for two years; then a tribunal degraded him and he was beheaded around 679 in a forest of Artois. The people held him a martyr at once, and his name — Leodegarius — gave Léger, and then Saint-Léger, to dozens of French communes.