Gérard of Brogne

Saint Gérard (in Walloon Sint-Djuråd) (c. 895 – October 3, 959) founded Brogne Abbey and reformed eighteen others according to the Benedictine Rule.

Life Gérard was born at Staves (Namur). His father was Stance, a member of the family of dukes of Lower Austrasia. His mother was Plectrude, sister of Bishop Stephen of Liège. Originally a soldier, he rebuilt a family chapel into a large church staffed by canons.

About 917, while in Paris on business, he happened to stay at the Abbey of St-Denis. He was so impressed with the life of the monks that he decided to join them. Having arranged his affairs, he became a monk, yet still kept an interest in the church at Brogne. The abbot of Saint-Denis gave him a relic of St Eugenius Brogne for the community there. A charter of 923 granted land in Hesbaye to the church at Brogne. Around 928, Gérard was ordained a priest. He returned to Brogne, where he eventually replaced the lax clerics there with monks. He then retired to a cell near the monastery for a stricter way of life. When he reformed the Abbey of Saint Bertin in 944, dissident monks fled to King Edmund I of England. Towards the end of his life, he placed vicars or abbots in his stead, in the various abbeys with which he was charged. He traveled to Rome to obtain a papal bull to confirm the privileges of Brogne Abbey. On his return he paid a final visit to all the communities which he had reorganized, and then retired to Brogne where he died in October 959. Brogne was later renamed Saint-Gerard Abbey.