The pope’s man in Gaul, and three times reproved by that same pope.
A monk and then abbot of Saint-Symphorien at Autun — all that Gregory of Tours says of him —, he became archbishop of Arles in 588 with the support of Syagrius. A late Life brings him from Lérins, but it is copied from the Life of Maximus of Riez and is worth nothing. Gregory the Great confirmed him in the prerogatives of his predecessors and named him, on 1 August 595, apostolic vicar of the Holy See for the Gauls: from then on he was the intermediary between Rome and the Frankish bishops. It was in that capacity that he received at Arles, in 596, Augustine and his monks on their way to England, and it was very probably he who consecrated Augustine bishop of the Angles the following year. The same pope wrote three times to reprove him: in 591 because he was pressing for the forced conversion of Jews who had taken refuge in Provence — Gregory reminded him that souls are won by preaching and not by constraint; in 596 over his management of church property, which he placed under the oversight of the bishop of Aix; in 599 for not having prevented the forced marriage of a nun. He came out of it diminished. At Arles he had the basilica of Saint Stephen rebuilt and a church of the Saviour raised. He died on 1 October 610, or about 618 according to the Roman Martyrology.
An archbishop in mitre and pallium; sometimes shown laying hands on Augustine of Canterbury.