Ansegisus of Fontenelle

Saint Ansegisus of Fontenelle was a reformer of Frankish monasticism, abbot of Fontenelle and the compiler of a collection of the laws of the Frankish emperors. He was born around 770 of noble parents and reposed on 20 July 833 or 834.

At the age of eighteen he entered the monastery of Fontenelle (also called Saint-⁠Wandrille after its founder) in the diocese of Rouen, where a relative of his, Saint Girowald, was then abbot. On Girowald's recommendation Emperor Charlemagne entrusted him with the government and reform of two monasteries, Saint Sixtus near Reims and Saint Memmius (Saint-⁠Menge) in the diocese of Châlons-⁠sur-⁠Marne, in which he succeeded. In 817 Louis the Pious made him abbot of the famous abbey of Luxeuil, founded by Saint Columbanus as early as 590, which he also reformed. In 823, after the death of Einhard, he was transferred as abbot to Fontenelle, where he had begun his monastic life, and reformed it with the same success. He was responsible for compiling a number of capitularies, collections of civil and ecclesiastical law, and commissioned the first history of the abbey. He is commemorated on 20 July as a saint of the undivided Church, by the New Calendar.