Abbo, Floriacensis

, or Abbot of Fleuri, a Benedictine monk of the tenth century, was born in the territory of Orleans, and educated in the abbey of Fleuri, and afterwards at Paris and Rheims, where he distinguished himself in all the learning of the times, and particularly in mathematics, theology, and history. Oswald, bishop of Worcester, in 985, applied to the abbey of Fleuri to obtain a proper person to preside over the abbey of Ramsay, which he had founded, or rather re-established. Abbo was sent over to England for this purpose, and much caressed by king Ethelred and the nobility. Returning to Fleuri upon | the death of the abbot, he was declared his successor. Here he experienced many vexations from some of the bishops, against whom he asserted the rights of the monastic order. His enemies charged him with some acrimony against his persecutors. In his justification, he wrote an apology, which he addressed to the kings Hugh and Robert. Some time afterwards he dedicated to the same princes a collection of canons on the duties of kings and the duties of subjects. King Robert, having sent him to Rome to appease the wrath of Gregory V. who had threatened to lay the kingdom under an interdict, the pope granted him all he requested. Abbo, on his return from this expedition, set about the reform of the abbey of Reole in Gascony. He was here slain in a quarrel that rose between the French and the Gascons, in 1004. His works are: 1. “Epitome de vitis Pontificum,” taken from Anastasius Bibliothecarius, and published with an edition of that author by Busscus, Mentz, 1602, 4to. 2. “Vita S. Edmundi Anglorum Orientalium regis & martyris,” printed in Surius’ Lives of the Saints. There is a ms. of it in the Cottonian Library. 3. “Collectio, seu epitome Canonum,” printed by Mabillon. 4. “Epistola ad abbatem Fuldensem,” in Baluze’s Miscellanies, 1678, 8vo. 5. “Letters to Hugh, king of France, to St. Bernard, Gregory,” &c. and his Apology, are inserted whole, or in fragments, in his Life by Aimonius, a monk of Fleuri, and his pupil.¹