medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Romacharius (also Rompharius; in French, Romacaire, Romphaire, Rumphaire) was bishop of Coutances (Manche) in the later sixth century. As an historical figure he is known from brief mentions by St. Venantius Fortunatus (_Carmina_, 3. 6. 27-28), where he is named among the bishops of other sees present at St. Felix of Nantes' dedication of his own cathedral, and by St. Gregory of Tours (_Historia Francorum_, 8. 31), where he is said to have come to Rouen to officiate at the funeral of its murdered bishop St. Praetextatus (St. Prix). Thought to have been the immediate successor of Coutances' bishop St. Laud (St. Lô), he enjoyed from the eleventh century onward a cult along with the latter at Laud's priory in Rouen as well as later at Angers and at Coutances itself. Romacharius has a brief Vita (BHL 7294), first attested from a breviary of Coutances printed in 1601 but thought to have been composed in about 1499. This makes him an Englishman who while traveling to Aquitaine was driven by storm to today's Barfleur (Manche), who became an associate of St. Laud, and who evangelized at Barfleur and vicinity. Greven's expanded Usuard of 1515 enters Romacharius under today.
In 1470 relics traditionally believed to be those of Romacharius and of Sts. Laud and Fromundus that had been removed from the priory at Rouen and had now been returned were newly enshrined there. At that time Romacharius' relics consisted of a skull with a jaw and some teeth as well as some rib bones with flesh attached, other bones, and parts of the stomach and intestines (the state[s] of the soft-tissue parts are not described; presumably, whatever bits adhered to those rib bones were quite desiccated). See Léonce de Glanville, _Histoire du Prieuré de Saint-Lô de Rouen_ (Rouen: Espérance Cagniard, 1890-91), vol. 1, pp. 258-59. The modern church dedicated to Romacharius (a replacement for a medieval one of the same dedication) at Saint-Romphaire (Manche; near Saint-Lô) displays this putative relic of him:
http://tinyurl.com/ylfhgw6
The mostly eighteenth-century église paroissiale Saint-Pierre at Gatteville-le-Phare (Manche; near Barfleur) replaced a predecessor dedicated to Romacharius (attested from 1236 onward). It incorporates an originally eleventh-century tower called the Tour Saint-Romphaire:
http://tinyurl.com/qdyvks2
That church houses several fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century statues, variously described. This one is said to represent Romacharius (his somewhat similar modern statue in the église Saint-Nicolas at Barfleur has him holding a book in his left hand and a pastoral staff in his right):
http://tinyurl.com/p7xqmfq
http://tinyurl.com/ykpkrtz
Romacharius as depicted in a later fifteenth-century ambulatory window (bay 9; 1470) of the église Notre-Dame in Carentan:
http://tinyurl.com/pt9fz6j
The window as a whole:
http://www.mesvitrauxfavoris.fr/index_htm_files/351087.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/nvy3zdx
Best,
John Dillon
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