Draft:Sulpice de Bayeux

Saint Sulpice (Sulpitius) was a semi legendary ninth-century bishop of Bayeux in Northern France during the Dark Ages. Little is known of his episcopate.. Sulpice de Bayeux was a semi legendary bishop of Bayeux and is also considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.

Biography
According to legend, Saint Sulpice was originally from the village of Livry, where Saint Gerbold, another bishop of Bayeux, had founded a monastery in the 7th century. There is no evidence to confirm or refute this place of birth.

According to legend, he succeeded Carveniltus as bishop of Bayeux around the year 840.

Little is known of his episcopate.

Death
While visiting his diocese or retiring to solitude in Livry, he is said to have been put to death by the Danes during the Viking invasions of France in the mid-9th century.

His body stolen by Simon, abbot of La Celles in Saint-Ghislain in Hainaut, returning from a pilgrimage to Mont-Saint-Michel, brought him to the abbey of Saint-Ghislain. The monks of Saint-Ghislain are said to have returned some of the relics of Saint Sulpice to the Abbey of Saint-Vigor-le-Grand in 1662.

Legacy
A town in Calvados bore the name of Saint-Sulpice. It was attached to Saint-Vigor-le-Grand in 1856. The chapel of Saint-Sulpice de Livry was built on the spot where Sulpice was massacred. Several fountains to which tradition attributes miraculous cures to Saint Sulpice existed in Calvados at Secqueville-en-Bessin, Livry and Maisoncelles-sur-Ajon.

As a saint, his feast day is celebrated September 43.

Controversy
It is unlikely that Sulpice was really bishop of Bayeux because at the time of his death in 844, the episcopate of Saint Baltfride is attested from 843 to 858. His very existence is not certain, the chronology of the bishops of Bayeux being only partially known before 843. Sulpicius is included in the episcopal list of Bayeux only because he is named in a hagiographical text: Gallia christiana XI, p. 351, which Duchesne, p. 221 note 5, considers "des moins recommendables".