St. MaurusMaurus was the son of a Roman nobleman; his birth date is not known. Maurus was a close disciple of St. Benedict and St. Gregory the Great describes Maurus as a model of virtue. According to a life of St. Maurus, supposedly written by one of his monks, Maurus founded a monastery in Gaul in 543 at Glanfeuil in France, but some sources believe this was a forgery written several centuries after the saint’s death. Maurus died in 584. He is represented as an abbot with the crozier (staff) or a censer and book, or holding the scales and the food given to him by St. Benedict. He is invoked against hoarseness and gout and is the patron of shoemakers, charcoal burners, and coppersmiths. |