Ebrulf

Who was Ebrulf?

Ebrulf was a Frankish saint, hermit, and abbot. He was born at either Bayeux or Beauvais. A Merovingian courtier at the court of Childebert I, he was a cup-bearer to the king and an administrator of the royal palace.

It was some time before he was given leave to go from court, but Ebrulf wished to become a monk so he arranged for his wife to be able to support herself, and entered the abbey of Deux Jumeaux. He became a monk at Bayeux before deciding to become a hermit at Exmes, but at Exmes, crowds came to visit him and ask for his advice, so he settled in the densely-wooded Pays d'Ouche in Normandy.

A legend states that he converted a robber to Christianity when the robber visited the rough settlement that Ebrulf had built near a spring of water, which consisted of a hedge enclosure and wattle and daub huts. The robber warned Ebrulf of the dangers of the forest, but Ebrulf informed him that he feared no one. Repenting of his own sins, the robber brought a gift consisting of three loaves baked in ashes and a honeycomb, and asked to be admitted as a monk.

This settlement became the abbey of Saint-Evroul. He founded other monastic houses, fifteen in total, all of which placed emphasis on manual labor both as a spiritual and economic exercise. Members of the nobility came to Ebrulf offering him money, land, houses to build monasteries. He founded, after 560, several monasteries in the diocese of Séez; one of them became the important Abbey of St-Martin-de-Séez.