Rusticus of Cahors

Rusticus of Cahors was born at Albi around the year 570 and died at Cahors in 636. He was a Frankish cleric, bishop of Cahors, killed in a revolt and considered a martyr by the local Church.

He was the son of Salvius and Ercanfreda, of the Gallo-⁠Roman nobility of the city, and the brother of Desiderius, who succeeded him as bishop. He was brought up at court, where King Clothar II summoned him with his brothers, so that on growing up they might hold high office. He embraced the clerical state and was archdeacon of Rodez and palatine abbot (that is, steward of the king's chapel), until he was named bishop of Cahors around the year 623.

As bishop he had conflicts with the local lords, whose unevangelical conduct he criticised. This provoked hatred, which led to a revolt in which the rebels killed him. They threw his body into the river Lot at the end of 636. His mother Ercanfreda, who had lost her husband and two sons within a few months, asked Desiderius, named bishop in place of Rusticus, to demand from the king the punishment of the guilty. King Dagobert I had already begun the pursuit, however, and after they were captured he sentenced them to death, perpetual servitude or exile, according to the degree of guilt.

The body of Rusticus was taken to Sent Peire de Silva Agra and honoured as a martyr, in the hamlet of Gacounets, where the ruins of that church stood until the nineteenth century. His feast, of local reach, is on 19 August. The Occitan village of Sent Rostesi took its name from him. His relics were also venerated at the abbey of Lo Mas d'Asilh, destroyed in the sixteenth century in the wars of religion.