Domninus

Holy Martyr Domninus was a child of about ten, put to death for Christ at the end of the 3rd century or the beginning of the 4th. He is counted as the first martyr of the Vendée in France and is venerated especially at Avrillé.

According to the surviving tradition he was crucified, with nails driven through his whole body. He is thought to have been one of a group of some forty young people killed at L'Île-⁠d'Olonne by a certain Dacianus, at the start of the persecution of Diocletian or slightly before. Part of the list of their names survives, including Domninus, Simplicianus of Poitiers and Clarus of Loudun.

From the later 9th century his relics were kept at the abbey of Manglieu. In 1143 they were divided between the cathedral of Le Puy-⁠en-⁠Velay and the priory church of Champdieu, where a pilgrimage grew up around him. The relics at Champdieu vanished at the Revolution; the crypt of the church still holds a reliquary in the form of a child's tomb. The saint is commemorated on 16 July, by the Western calendar (new style).