ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER Saints celebrated on the 27th of November WELCOME! JOHN GERSEN DE CANABACO, ABBOT Johannes Gersen de Canabaco [John, Giovanni] was abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St Stephen in Vercelli in Piedmont. His name Gersen (Gerzen) indicates descent of a German family that probably moved to Italy along with the German emperors. Some writers claim that John was an offspring of the noble von Rohrbach family, which (according to Zedler , 32, 571 ) is documented as early as A.D. 934. It flourished in Bavaria especially from the 12th century onwards and had its ancestral home in the Upper Bavarian town of Rohrbach (Cannabacum) on the Ilm in the diocese of Augsburg. Bucelin *, who mentions our John as venerable on November 27, states that he was of Canabaco , commonly known as Cavaglia, a town near Vercelli, where this German family might have settled. Be that as it may, John was born at the end of the 12th century, and after turning to monastic life,