Confessor Aquilinus

Saint Aquilinus, known in French as Saint Aquilin, was a bishop of Évreux in seventh-century Neustria, in the region that is now Normandy in northern France. He is venerated in the Catholic Church as a confessor. Traditional accounts state that he was born at Bayeux of a noble Frankish family. In his youth he served as a soldier in the armies of the Merovingian king Clovis II. After leaving military life he married and, together with his wife, gave much of their wealth to the poor and lived in piety. Later medieval lives describe the marriage as continent, a conventional theme in the hagiography of married saints of this period.

Aquilinus subsequently withdrew into a more solitary, ascetic existence. When the see of Évreux fell vacant, the clergy and people elected him bishop. He accepted the office and is remembered in later tradition as a humble and charitable pastor. Hagiographical texts attribute miracles to him, including healings of the blind and the sick; such reports reflect the legendary development of his cult rather than independently attested events of his own lifetime.

Little can be established about Aquilinus from contemporary seventh-century sources. His biography, like those of many Merovingian bishops, was written or expanded in subsequent centuries and mixes local veneration with standard saintly motifs. He died at Évreux, according to tradition on 19 October in the later seventh century, and was buried in the city. A cult grew around his tomb, and he came to be honoured as the confessor-bishop of Évreux.

His feast day is 19 October. He is regarded as a patron of the city of Évreux. No writings by Aquilinus survive, and neither an exact year of birth nor a precisely documented year of death can be confirmed from reliable independent historical evidence. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him at Évreux as bishop and confessor.