Baino di Thérouanne

Saint Bain (Latin Bainus; also Baino or Bainone in later Italian usage) was a Frankish monk, bishop, and abbot of the late seventh and early eighth centuries. Nothing reliable is recorded of his parentage, the year of his birth, or his native place. He appears in the sources as a monk of the Abbey of Fontenelle in Neustria, the house founded by Saint Wandregisel (Wandrille) on the lower Seine, in the region of what is now Normandy. Fontenelle followed the monastic tradition associated with Wandrille and with Saint Ansbert, and it is in that community that Bain received his formation. The chief narrative witness to his life is the ninth-century Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium, supplemented by later martyrologies and by the episcopal tradition of Thérouanne.

Later compilations state that he was called from the monastery to become bishop of Thérouanne, the ancient see of the Morini in the Pas-de-Calais. Traditional dates assign this appointment to the last decades of the seventh century, often around 685. The diocese had been shaped in the preceding generation by Saint Audomarus (Omer) and remained a centre of pastoral work in northern Francia. After governing the church of Thérouanne for a number of years, Bain resigned the bishopric, a course taken by more than one monk-bishop of the Merovingian age who wished to return to cloistered life.

He was then chosen abbot of Fontenelle, in succession to the line of Wandrille and Ansbert; abbatial lists commonly place the start of his rule near the beginning of the eighth century, about 701. As abbot he is remembered for the translation of the relics of Saints Wandregisel and Ansbert, an event that confirmed the abbey’s cult of its founders. Some later accounts also link him to the restoration of the monastery of Saint Peter at Ghent (Blandinium), said to have been aided by a Merovingian royal grant and by monks sent from Fontenelle. Such notices, even where they cannot be verified in every particular, are consistent with Fontenelle’s influence in the early eighth century.

According to the received chronology he died in 711, while abbot of Fontenelle, and was buried at the abbey. His cult remained local, tied to Fontenelle and to the church of Thérouanne. He is commemorated on 20 June. Like most saints of the Merovingian monastic episcopate, he was venerated by popular and liturgical custom well before the age of formal papal canonization, and no decree of canonization by a named pope is recorded. Standard hagiographical repertoires do not attach to him a developed list of patronages of places, trades, or causes.