Namphase

Namphase, also called Namphaise or Naphaise, was a hermit who lived in the Quercy region, in the present department of Lot in France, around the year 800. He is honored as a saint in the region.

According to the tradition kept in late lives, Namphase was an officer of Charlemagne. After many battles he is said to have rebuilt several monasteries, among them that of Marcilhac-⁠sur-⁠Célé, and then to have withdrawn to a solitary place in the Quercy forest. There he is said to have hollowed out several troughs in the rock to water the flocks. He is said to have died killed by a furious bull and, before dying, to have hurled his miner's hammer as far as he could, and it fell at Caniac-⁠du-⁠Causse.

The monks of the abbey of Saint-⁠Pierre at Marcilhac built a crypt under the church of Caniac-⁠du-⁠Causse for his relics. In the Middle Ages the place was a pilgrimage much visited by sufferers from epilepsy.

His first biography dates from 1659, in the Proper of the Saints of the diocese of Cahors, and contains errors, for example that he renewed the monastery of Marcilhac, which was built only in the 9th century. Later works added only praise. He is remembered locally on 16 November, and according to some sources on 12 November. He is a local saint of the West; no Orthodox synodal canonization is known, and his life is largely legendary.