Amadour

Saint Amadour (Amator) of Rocamadour is a legendary hermit, regarded as the founder of the shrine of Our Lady at Rocamadour in France. He is commemorated on 20 August. Our sources present him as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, who lived in an unknown century, probably in late antiquity or the early Middle Ages. No proof of his existence survives: he is regarded as probably an imaginary person, and the sources show no canonization. The year 1 on the record has no meaning.

In 1166 (according to the Greek source, in 1162) an ancient tomb with an unidentified body was found at Rocamadour, near the entrance of the chapel of Notre-⁠Dame. Popular piety gave him the name Amator, lover or friend of God, in keeping with the courtly literature of the time, and the legend of Amadour began to develop. The legend says that he was a servant of the Mother of God, then husband of Saint Veronica and later a missionary in Gaul. He was identified with Zacchaeus of the Gospel. Driven from Palestine by persecution, Amadour and Veronica are said to have embarked in a frail skiff and, guided by an angel, landed on the coast of Aquitaine, where they met Bishop Saint Martial, who was preaching the Gospel in the southwest of Gaul. After a journey to Rome, where he is said to have witnessed the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul, Amadour returned to France and, after the death of his wife, withdrew to a wild spot where he built a chapel in honour of the Blessed Virgin, near which he died a little later.

Like similar legends, the story does not appear until long after the age in which those it speaks of are deemed to have lived. The name of Amadour occurs in no document before the compilation of his Acts, which cannot be judged older than the twelfth century. The mention of Saint Martial, of the third century, in a tale of the first century shows the Acts of Saint Amadour to be a forgery. It is considered probable that the story of Amadour is completely unfounded and that he himself may be a wholly imaginary person. There is no real foundation for identifying him with Saint Amator, bishop of Auxerre (388 to 418).

The shrine of Our Lady of Rocamadour is under the Diocese of Cahors, which holds that the remains could be those of one of the hermits established in the Alzou canyon from the seventh century, whose cave could have been the first chapel of the site. Since 2016, which marked the 850th anniversary of the discovery of the body of Saint Amadour, the relics are exhibited in a reliquary in the basilica.