Suggest an Edit — Raoul of Turenne

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Biography

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Rodulf, known in French as Raoul de Turenne, was a ninth-century Frankish nobleman who served as Archbishop of Bourges from 840 until his death. He belonged to the family of the counts of Turenne, a leading aristocratic house in the Limousin in Aquitaine. Surviving records name his father as Count Raoul of Turenne and his mother as Aiga. The year of his birth is not preserved in contemporary sources. Raised amid the political and religious world of the later Carolingian empire, he entered the clergy and in 840 was appointed to the metropolitan see of Bourges, one of the principal archbishoprics of Aquitaine, during the reign of King Charles the Bald.

As archbishop, Rodulf took part in the conciliar activity that marked the West Frankish church in the mid-ninth century. He was present at the Council of Tusey in 860 and at other assemblies concerned with doctrine, discipline, and the relations between kings and bishops. He issued a set of diocesan statutes, known as his capitula, which instructed the priests of the diocese of Bourges on pastoral duties, the administration of baptism and penance, the observance of feast days, and standards of clerical life. These texts remain an important source for the history of the Carolingian church at the local level and show him as a bishop concerned with reform and the education of his clergy.

Together with kinsmen, Rodulf founded the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Pierre at Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne on family property around the middle of the 850s. He endowed the house with lands and obtained royal and papal protection for it, establishing a lasting religious institution in the Dordogne valley. The foundation illustrates the close connection between aristocratic piety and monastic patronage in the Carolingian age. Rodulf also supported the cult of relics and the liturgical life of his cathedral and diocese.

Rodulf died on 21 June 866. He was thereafter honoured as a saint, and his feast is kept on 21 June. Contemporary narrative sources for his personal life are scarce; knowledge of him rests chiefly on charters, the acts of councils, his own capitula, and later liturgical and hagiographical notices. The precise place of his death and burial is not securely recorded. His memory was preserved especially in Bourges and in the Limousin, where the abbey of Beaulieu continued as a monument to his family and his episcopate.

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