Their story
Landelin was born of a noble family at Vaux near Bapaume in 623 and was educated by St Aubert, bishop of Cambrai. Led on by flattering relatives, he drifted into a life of pleasure and then of serious wrongdoing. The sudden death of a companion terrified him. He went back to Aubert, who had never stopped praying for him, and threw himself at his feet.
Aubert placed him in a strict monastery to do penance. He later made him deacon and, at thirty, priest. Landelin asked to weep for his sins in solitude and settled at Laubach, now Lobes, on the Sambre. Followers gathered, and the great abbey of Lobes grew up about 654. Feeling unworthy to rule it, he left his disciple St Ursmar in charge.
He went on to found Aine and, with his companions Adelin and Domitian, the abbey of Crespin in a forest between Mons and Valenciennes, which he finally had to govern himself. He died on sackcloth and ashes in 686.


