ANSOALD, BISHOP OF STRASBOURG - 16 NOVEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 16th of November 

ANSOALD, BISHOP OF STRASBOURG

Ansoald - or Agnoald, as he is also called - was first a monk, then abbot of the Gregor-Münster monastery (Münster im Gregorienthal) in Alsace.

In A.D. 676 he was elevated to the episcopal See of Strasbourg. As a bishop, he faithfully followed in the footsteps of his predecessors, Remigius, Arbogast, Amandus, etc., and died in A.D. 680. Our source ascribes to him the title "saint". (Buc. Sppl.)

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, Volume 1, Augsburg, 1858)

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Strasbourg [Erzbistum Straßburg] is a German diocese immediately dependent on the Papal See. According to legend the Diocese of Strasbourg was founded in the third or fourth century. St Arbogast and Florentius were distinguished bishops of the sixth or seventh century. 

The first bishop known to history is Ansoald, one of the signers of the Acts of the Council of Paris of 614. His successor Eddo or Heddo, of the ducal family of Ettichos, organised his ecclesiastical diocese in conjunction with St Boniface, aided by the Carlovingians. 

The boundaries then given remained essentially the same throughout the Middle Ages. On the left bank of the Rhine the diocese extended over the present Province of Alsace with exception of the south-eastern part between the Ill, Blind, and Rhine; on the right bank it extended from the Rhine to the crest of the Black Forest, and southward from the mouth of the Murg to the Elz. This territory was divided into seven archdiaconates, of which one included Strasbourg, and one the region on the right bank of the Rhine. This subdivision remained substantially the same from the eleventh century to the French Revolution.

(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)