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St. Livin of Flanders

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Saints and feasts

St. Livin of Flanders

Bishop and Martyr

Livin is remembered as an Irish missionary bishop in Flanders. Butler follows the traditional account of his prayer at Ghent, preaching near Alost and Hautem, and martyrdom.

Sources

The life below remains the existing Butler-based reading, with its edition citation. The profile preserves the feast date and source title already listed in the library. Additional personal dates and historical details are shown only when separately documented.

Mission remembered: Flanders, especially the country near Alost and Hautem
Butler connects the mission with prayer at St Bavo’s tomb in Ghent and preserves disagreement about the year of Livin’s death.

Butler sourceAlban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XI (November), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; November 12, “St Livin, Bishop and Martyr,” pp. 276-277.

Butler’s Lives of the Saints (1846)Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XI (November), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; November 12, “St Livin, Bishop and Martyr,” pp. 276-277.

The reading

ⓘ Butler source

Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XI (November), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; November 12, “St Livin, Bishop and Martyr,” pp. 276-277.

Livin is presented in Butler as a learned Irish bishop who went to Flanders to preach the Christian faith. Before beginning that work, the traditional account says that he spent thirty days in prayer at the tomb of St. Bavo at Ghent, offering Mass there each day.

He then preached in the country around Alost and Hautem. Butler also records an elegy on St. Bavo and a letter associated with Livin. The notice draws together missionary work, devotion and the written remembrance of a fellow saint.

Livin was killed at Esche and buried at Hautem. Butler records the later translation of his relics to a monastery at Ghent, while preserving disagreement about the year of his death. His account also remembers Craphaildes and her infant son Brictius among those killed. Their distinct part in the narrative is not replaced by a claim that every person named died in precisely the same circumstances.

Historical note

An original Novena Regina reading adapted and summarized from the cited pre-1962 sources. This is not a transcription of Butler’s words.

The missionary and martyrdom narrative follows the older life used by Butler. He records competing death years, 633 and 655; neither is adopted as certain. The reported earlier bishopric of Dublin is not asserted in this adaptation.

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