WILLIAM of Volpiano, St.
William of Volpiano, a Benedictine abbot of Saint-Bénigne in Dijon, was born in 962 to Count Robert of Volpiano on the Isola San Giulio in Orta (Novara) and died on 1 January 1031 at Fécamp.
William entered the monastery of Saint Genuario at Lucedio near Vercelli at a young age, where he later became a monk. He studied at Vercelli and Pavia, and in 987 followed Abbot Maiolus to Cluny. In 988 he was entrusted with the reform of Saint-Sernin (near Avignon), and in 989 that of Saint-Bénigne in Dijon, where he was elected abbot in 990 and ordained priest by Bishop Brunone.
A fervent disciple of St Benedict, he soon inspired a new spirit among his monks, whose numbers increased so greatly that he was able to extend his reform to other monasteries in Lorraine, France, and Italy. Among these was the abbey of Fruttuaria (v. IVREA), which William founded in 1003 with the help of his brothers and King Arduin, his uncle, and which became a flourishing centre of Cluniac reform. From there, William’s influence spread around 1070 to St Blasien and Siegburg in Germany. In William, strength was joined to prudence, and the austerity of discipline to the gentleness of heart. He showed boundless charity to the people, established centres of advanced learning, yet did not neglect the education of the common people. He gave a strong impulse to the arts, especially Romanesque architecture in Burgundy, Normandy, and Piedmont; his masterpiece remains the church of Saint-Bénigne in Dijon. His cult has not been formally approved, but he is commemorated in the Benedictine Martyrology on 1 January.