Baring-Gould’s sources: GalUcan Martyrology. Authority A life written by a monk of S. Die in the qth or 9th cent., which was afterwards amplified by the abbot of Mayenne, in the nth cent. This life was approved by Leo IX., in 1049, and he allowed it to be read in church for lections on the festival of S. Deodatus. Deodatus in French is Didier% DU or DicudonniS\ S. Deodatus was a member of an illustrious family of Western France. After the death cf Eucherius, he was elected bishop of Nevers, about the year 655, and in the year 657 was present at the Council of Sens, where he met S. Ouen, bishop of Rouen, S. Faro of Meaux, S. Eligius of Noyon, S. Amandus of Maestricht, S. Palladius of Auxfcrre, and S. Leuco of Troyes. S. Deodatus occupied the see of Nevers only three years, and then, drawn to solitude, he resigned the see, and retired into the forest of Hagenau among the Vosges, with S. Arbogast, and lived an eremitical life with him, till S. Arbogast was elected bishop of Strasburg. Then Deodatus moved to the island of Ebersheim, where, in 661, he associated with some solitaries who had settled there to be at peace. He was chosen their superior, and as his virtue attracted many others, he founded there, with the assistance of Childeric H., king of Austrasia, the abbey of SS. Peter and Paui. Then he went away from the crowd of monks, and found a lone place at Ongiville in the diocese of Basle, where he built an hermitage, but was unable to remain there on account of that country being a prey to marauders and petty warfare. He therefore retired to the Vosges mountains, and settled in the valley called after him Val S. Didier.

In 669, as many disciples surrounded him, he built there the abbey of Jointures, so called because it was at the point of junction of the Rothbach and the Meurthe. S. Hildulf, bishop of Trfeves, had left his see and retired to Moyen-Moutier, and a warm friendship sprang up between the two men. When S. Deodatus visited S. Hildulph, the latter came out to meet him with all his monks, took his hand and led him into the church, where they prayed together, and having entered the monastery, spent the night in heavenly converse and in singing the praises of God. It was the same when S. Hildulph came to Jointures. When S. Deodatus grew very old, he retired from his abbey to a little cell, near a chapel he had built and dedicated to S. Martin [St. Martin of Tours (d. 397), soldier turned bishop]. S. Hildulph came to see him in his last sickness, and administered to him the last sacraments, and closed his eyes.

A town formed in time round the abbey of Jointures, which took the name of the saint, and is called after him, S. Di£, to this day. It was erected into the seat of a bishop in 1771. The bishopric was suppressed in 1801, but was re-established in 1817.