Gondulf of Maastricht

Saint Gondulf of Maastricht (in Latin Gondulfus or Gundulphus) was bishop of Tongeren and Maastricht at the turn of the sixth and seventh centuries and reposed around 607. Together with Saints Servatius and Monulf he is one of the patrons of the city of Maastricht. Very few sure facts are known about him; an old Orthodox list says that he reposed at Bourges, but tradition ties him to Maastricht.

According to the legend his parents were Munderic and Arthemia, and his wife was Palatina, the daughter of a Gallo-⁠Roman aristocrat, Maurilion Gallo. By some reconstructions they had a son, Bodegisel II, duke of Aquitaine. It is debated whether he might be the same as Betulph, a bishop of Maastricht mentioned in 614. According to tradition he held the see for seven years. His medieval biographies are largely extracts from the Life of Saint Servatius, written by the priest Jocundus in the eleventh century, more than four centuries after his death, and for that reason are not reliable. Jocundus relates that Gondulf endeavoured to rebuild the town of Tongeren, destroyed in the barbarian invasions, and that furious wolves devoured the pagan colonists before the bishop's eyes.

Tradition says he was buried in the nave of the church of Saint Servatius at Maastricht, built by his predecessor Monulf. The bodies of Monulf and Gondulf were exhumed in 1039 by Bishop Nithard of Liège and Gerard of Florennes, in the presence of the emperor Henry III, and in the eleventh century the provost Humbert raised a cenotaph over their tomb. He is commemorated on 17 June as a saint of the West before the Great Schism (a saint of the undivided Church), by the New Calendar.