Severinus of Paris

Saint Severinus of Paris, a venerable father, was a hermit in 6th-⁠century Paris and died around 540. Drawn to the contemplative life, he spent most of his life shut in a cell on the bank of the Seine, praying and meditating. His example drew many Parisians, who became his disciples; among them was Saint Clodoald (Cloud), a Merovingian prince who gave up royal life and became a monk.

He was buried in the place of his hermitage, where a chapel was raised and then the church of Saint-⁠Séverin in Paris, one of the oldest surviving churches of the city. The chapel, built near an oratory dedicated to Saint Martin, was destroyed by the Normans in the 9th century and rebuilt in the 11th in the Romanesque style.

He was venerated long before the canonization procedures of the Middle Ages, by the voice of the people. The Roman Martyrology remembers him on 23 November in the Western calendar; formerly he was remembered on 27 November, as "monk and solitary at Paris".