Emmeram of Regensburg

Saint Emmeram of Regensburg was a missionary bishop in Bavaria, born at Poitiers in Aquitaine, of a noble family. A bishopric at Poitiers, mentioned by some later writers, cannot be proved.

Hearing of idolatry in Bavaria, he set out after the year 649 for Regensburg, to the court of Duke Theodo I, who received him. For three years he laboured there as a missionary, became known as a pious man and founded the monastery that bears his name; by some sources he was its abbot and then bishop. He then went on a pilgrimage to Rome, but five days into the journey, at Kleinhelfendorf south of Munich, he was attacked by the duke's son Lantpert, who tortured him cruelly. He died soon after at Aschheim, around 652; some sources give 690 as the year of his death. The cause of the attack is not certain. Legend adds a tale about the duke's daughter Uta, but scholars regard its details as invented.

His life was written in 750 by Arbeo of Freising. His relics are kept in the monastery at Regensburg that bears his name, where he was venerated as a martyr. He is commemorated on 22 September, as a saint of the undivided Church, by the New Calendar.