Vuillerme of Léaval

Vuillerme of Léaval (in Italian Guglielmo de Léaval) is honored as blessed in the Roman Catholic Church, as a parish priest at Morgex in the Aosta Valley. His cult was confirmed by Pope Pius IX in 1877.

A tradition unsupported by historical documents says he lived in the 7th century and was a priest and second parish priest of Morgex. He is held to belong to the noble house of Léaval, but there is no evidence of the family earlier than 1295. His cult at Morgex is attested from the early 15th century: the records of the pastoral visits of 1414 and 1416 mention among the church's relics a spoon and fragments of a wooden cup of his. He was believed to be buried in the parish church, near an altar called that of Blessed Vuillerme, where with the bishop's permission Mass was celebrated twice a week. The tomb was found by chance in 1687 when the church was rebuilt, and a chalice and a pewter paten were found in it, dated by an expert in 1986 to the 12th and 13th centuries. A study likewise places the blessed's existence in that period.

Tradition praises his holiness, chastity and ascetic struggle and tells miracles: spring water given to him in sickness turned to wine; at a Christmas Mass an invisible choir of angels answered his prayer; he saved by prayer a man who fell into a precipice; at the hour of his death the bells of Morgex are said to have rung by themselves. In 1876 a canonical process was opened, and Pope Pius IX confirmed the cult on 15 February 1877, with the title of blessed. The century in which he lived thus remains uncertain.