Saint Didier of Cahors

Saint Didier, also known as Desiderius (c. 580 AD – November 15, 655), was a Merovingian-era royal official of aristocratic Gallo-Roman extraction. He succeeded his own brother, Rusticus of Cahors, as bishop of Cahors after the latter's murder. Didier was ordained by Sulpitius the Pious, bishop of Bourges, on April 8, 630, and governed the diocese, which flourished under his care, until his death in 655. Didier's career, like that of his brothers, is an example of a church and a monastic system controlled by the ruling, landholding class that was closely linked to the Merovingian monarchy. "This was no innovation of this period, but rather represented a continuation of a state of affairs which had existed since late Roman and early Merovingian times". Born in the town of Albi about the year 580, to a father with the expressly Christian name of Salvius and a literate mother with the Frankish name Herchenfreda, Desiderius had two brothers, named Rusticus and Syagrius. The three boys were sent to the court of the Frankish king Clotaire II (584–629; from 613 sole sovereign), and with other boys of noble family received an excellent education at the Merovingian court-school. Rusticus assumed holy orders at an early age and became archdeacon in the town of Rodez before being appointed abbot of the palatine basilica of Clotaire, who at length appointed him bishop of Cahors, in Quercy. The second brother, Syagrius, after long service in the palace household of the Franks and long familiarity with Clotaire, was made comte d’Albi and exercised juridical authority as praefectus in the city of Marseille. Desiderius combined a love of letters with a native Gallican eloquence, according to his Vita. While still adolescent he received the dignities of the royal household and turned his studies towards Roman (i.e. canon) law, with the result that a Roman gravity of demeanor tempered the gallic richness and brilliance of his discourse.