M

A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.

Read the essentials →
January 6 · Bishop

St. Melanius of Rennes

St. Melanius of Rennes

A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.

Traditional feast

January 6
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1914)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Bishop

Their story

Adapted in modern English from Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints · Baring-Gould original below · little is known

Melanius was a native of Placs, in the diocese of Vannes in Brittany. After some years in a monastery he was compelled by the clergy and people to become Bishop of Rennes after St Amandus.

He was known for humility and constant prayer. King Clovis honoured him after his conversion, and idolatry was almost rooted out of the diocese of Rennes through his work. He died in a monastery he had built at Placs. Butler gives 490 (following Dom Morice); Baring-Gould, the text on this page, gives 580. The sources differ. St Gregory of Tours mentions a church raised over his tomb.

Early life

Selected sentences from the original account, unaltered.

Thin entry · the 1914 book gives only 104 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

S. Melanius was born at Plas, in the neighbourhood of Vannes, in Brittany, and became a monk when grown to man's estate.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Learn from the kind of life it was. A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.

Keep their day. Remember them on January 6 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 104 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on this day. His life was written by a contemporary, according to Ducange.

S. Melanius was born at Plas, in the neighbourhood of Vannes, in Brittany, and became a monk when grown to man's estate. Upon the death of S. Amandus, Bishop of Rennes, he was compelled by the clergy and people to fill that see. He accepted the election of himself with great reluctance. He is related to have performed many miracles, and to have extirpated the last remnants of heathenism in his diocese. He died on a journey through his diocese, at La Vilaine. His body was placed in a boat, which, says the legend, returned to Rennes against the stream, without oars or sail.

Feast days

Feast: January 6

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Melanius of Rennes's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on January 6
E

The Epiphany

January 6 · Feast
M

St. Macra

January 6 · Virgin, Martyr
P

St. Peter of Canterbury

January 6 · Abbot
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Story sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new and revised edition (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1914; first edition 1872). Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new and revised edition (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1914; first edition 1872). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.