GIOVANNI da FÉCAMP. – Benedictine abbot and theologian, born in Ravenna at the end of the 10th century, died at Fécamp (Normandy) on 22 February 1078. Nephew of the celebrated Abbot Bl. William of Volpiano, he soon became his favourite disciple at the abbey of S. Benigno in Fruttuaria. He followed his uncle when the latter went to France to found the monastery of S. Benigno in Dijon, and in 1017 was appointed by him as prior of the abbey of the Holy Trinity in Fécamp, of which he became abbot in 1028. From 1052 to 1054 he also governed the abbey of Dijon. It was precisely at this moment that Fécamp became the centre of a Benedictine Congregation, to which the monasteries of Blangy, Saint-Taurin, and Bernay subsequently adhered.
Even if, in that fervent period of monastic reforms supported by Cluny, St-Vanne, and S. Benigno of Dijon, there were no rivalries, the leaders nevertheless had to take part in the entire political-religious movement of the time and endure its shocks and upheavals. G., a friend of the English king Edward the Confessor, was also acceptable to William the Conqueror, who gladly visited Fécamp; in contact with Fruttuaria, he did not lose touch with Italy and the Empire; he had epistolary relations with the Empress Agnes, mother of Henry IV.
Endowed with a strong sensitivity, in contact with great men he suffered greatly from the incomprehension and roughness of others. Small in stature (he was therefore called Jannelin, a diminutive which G. did not disdain), of gentle spirit, he governed with that moderation which is characteristic of the Rule of St Benedict. Burning with divine love, he desired to instil inner fervour into his monks. A hermit at heart, he was a forerunner of that tendency which, in the same period, was to spread widely through the work of St Romuald and St Bruno. Thirsting for contemplation, he carried out his great duties while in his heart he felt the yearning for solitude and the nostalgia for the “homeland.” Under this religious pressure, his pen does not linger on human matters, but is like an arrow aimed at heaven.
He wrote: *Confessio theologica* (PL 40, 909-36; new ed. by J. Leclercq – I. P. Bonnes, pp. 109-83 in three parts: Trinity, Redemption, the redeemed soul); *Libellus de Scripturis et verbis Patrum*, in four parts (Incarnation and divine perfections, love of Christ, contemplation, prayers); *Confessio fidei* (PL 101, 1027-98), in four parts (God One and Triune, Incarnation of the Word, explanation of the Creed, Eucharist). The manuscript 245 of the Municipal Library of Metz contains a compendium of the *Confessio fidei*, once attributed to Alcuino. These three writings are nothing more than different versions of the same work, which may be considered a “theology of prayer” from which were drawn the *Meditations*, the *Soliloquies*, and the *Manual* attributed to St Augustine and widely circulated down to our own times. J. Leclercq and I. P. Bonnes have edited new opuscula: *Deploratio quietis et solitudinis derelictae* (op. cit., pp. 184-97): a work of maturity, perhaps the most personal; *Lessus paenitentiae* (ibid., pp. 222-228) and *Pater mi* (ibid., pp. 229-30): two spiritual poems; four letters of spiritual direction (ibid., pp. 198-220) revealing his character and method; the third is addressed to the Empress Agnes. Migne (PL 147, 463-73) had already published other letters of governance, in which G. appears calm but energetic. Wilmart has attributed various *Meditations* and *Preces* (especially the prayers considered to be by St Ambrose, which the Roman Breviary appends as preparation for Mass) to G., but Leclercq expresses serious doubts about their authenticity.
These works, despite their simple style, the repetition of concepts, and the redundancy of phrases made up of unquoted biblical and patristic texts, possess a special *virtus saucia* and, after a thousand years, still have the freshness of a mountain spring. Wilmart rightly considered them the finest ascetical production of the Middle Ages before St Bernard, and one might add that the Eucharistic chapters of the *Confessio fidei* are among the most beautiful of the age. These writings, circulated under the name of St Augustine, have endured through the centuries because they reflect the incoercible yearning of the Christian soul for Paradise.