St. Fructuosus, Archbishop of Braga, Confessor


HE was a prince of the royal blood of the Visigoth kings in Spain; but, from his youth, desired to consecrate his life to the divine service in a holy retreat beyond the reach of that whirlpool of business, faction, pleasure, and sin, called the world. After the death of his parents, he found himself at large, and at full liberty to dispose of himself according to his desire. He therefore procured himself to be instructed in the sacred sciences, in the great school which the bishop of Palencia had established for the education of his clergy. He sold the greater part of his estate, and bestowed the whole price upon the poor, and with the rest founded several monasteries, especially a great one on his estate upon the mountains near Vierzo, under the title of SS. Justin and Pastor, martyrs of Complutum, or Alcala; whence he called this abbey Complutum. He put on the monastic habit, and governed this house as abbot till he saw it settled in good order. He then appointed another abbot, and retired into a wilderness, where he led a most austere life, clothed with the skins of beasts in imitation of the ancient hermits. He afterwards founded several other monasteries, and a great nunnery called None, because nine miles from the sea. We have two monastic rules compiled by him, the one called Of Complutum, the other the common rule. He was consecrated bishop of Duma, near Braga, and, in 656, archbishop of Braga. His innocence and virtue were no security from the shafts of envy: but he overcame injuries by meekness and patience: and died laid on ashes before the altar, as he desired, on the 16th of April, 665. His body now rests at Compostella. See his life wrote by a contemporary author in Mabillon, sæc. 2; Ben. Bulteau, Hist. de l’Ordre de St. Benoit. t. 1; and Henschenius, Apr. t. 2, p. 430.	1

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