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Biography

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Saint Genebald (Latin Genebaldus; French Génebaud, Genebaud, or Genebauld; also Genebaldo) was a Frankish cleric of the later fifth and sixth centuries, remembered in the tradition of northern Gaul as the first bishop of Laon. The medieval historical writers of the church of Reims, above all Hincmar of Reims in the ninth century and Flodoard of Reims in the tenth, present him as a kinsman of Saint Remigius, archbishop of Reims, the prelate who baptized the Frankish king Clovis. Remigius is said to have organized the see of Laon and to have consecrated Genebald as its first bishop. No source from Genebald’s own lifetime records his birth, parentage, birthplace, or the precise year of his consecration, and those facts remain unknown.

The same Reims tradition preserves a striking account of his marriage and penance. Genebald had a wife, whose name is not given in the surviving texts. After he had been raised to the episcopate he continued marital relations with her. They had two children: a son named Latro (also called Larron), who later became bishop of Laon and was himself venerated as a saint, and a daughter whose name is not recorded. When Remigius learned that the bishop of Laon had not observed the continence expected of his rank, he imposed a severe penance. Genebald was shut in a small cell beside the church at Laon, chained, and left there for seven years, receiving food only through a narrow opening. Later centuries told the episode as a lesson in episcopal discipline and as a demonstration of Remigius’s authority over the bishops of his province.

According to the legend, at the close of the seven years an angel appeared to the imprisoned bishop, struck off his chains, and declared that his sin had been forgiven and that he was to resume the care of his diocese. Remigius accepted the vision as a divine judgment and restored Genebald to his see. Genebald is then described as having governed the church of Laon piously until his death. His son Latro succeeded him as bishop. The name Latro, which means thief, is explained in the hagiographical narrative as a memorial of the child’s conception in a union forbidden to a bishop.

Later martyrologies place Genebald’s death in the middle of the sixth century, commonly about the year 550, and locate it at Laon. No contemporary obituary or inscription confirms an exact date. He is commemorated on 5 September. His cult belongs to the local churches of Laon and Reims and is already assumed by the Carolingian writers who told his story. Because those writers lived several centuries after the period in which he is supposed to have lived, historians treat the outline—an early bishop of Laon named Genebald, associated with Remigius—as a genuine ecclesiastical memory, while regarding the marriage, the seven-year confinement, and the angelic deliverance as legendary elaboration. The name of his wife, his place of birth, his burial site, and any wider patronages are not attested in reliable form.

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