LEBUINO (LEBUINUS, LIAFFIN, LIWIN, LEWIN), SANTO - Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. VII, p. 617

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

LEBUINO (Lebuinus, Liaffin, Liwin, Lewin), Saint. — Born in England of Anglo-Saxon parents at an unknown date. While educated in a monastery he was inspired with missionary zeal and, after his ordination as priest, he went to Holland to evangelize the Frisians. He built a church and established the center of his activity at Deventer, on the eastern bank of the River IJssel. He also attempted the conversion of the Saxons, but without success. He died about 12 November in the year 780 at Deventer, of which he is the patron saint. Feast: 12 November.

He is certainly a duplication of St. LIVINO, a 7th-century bishop and martyr venerated at Ghent in Flanders on 12 November, a legendary figure invented by the monks of St. Bavo around the 11th century to justify a supposed relic of him venerated in their church. The author of the Passio Livini drew upon the ancient Vita Liaffinii (cf. Analecta Bollandiana, 59 [1941], p. 277).

BIBL.: Vita S. Lebuini by Uebaldo of St. Amand, in MGH, Scriptores, II, pp. 360-64; another ancient Vita Lebuinii, ed. J. A. Moltz, De oude lichbeschrijving van Lebuinus, in Nederlandsch Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, new series, 6 (1919), pp. 221-35, and in a critical edition by A. Hofmeister, in MGH, Scriptores, XXX, II, pp. 789-95. The prologue of Uebaldo’s Vita was first published by A. Hofmeister, Über die älteste Vita Lebuinii und die Stammesverfassung der Sachsen, in Geschichtliche Studien für Albert Hancks, Leipzig 1916, pp. 85-107. A poem by Radbodo, in MGH, Poetae, IV, pp. 169-72. A new Vita, in Anal. Boll., 34-35 (1915-16), pp. 306-30 (with a lengthy critical introduction). Cf. also I. Van der Essen, Etude critique et littéraire sur les vices des saints mérovingiens de l'ancienne Belgique, Louvain 1907, pp. 368-75. On St. Livino cf. O. Holder-Egger, Zu den Heiligengeschichten des Genver St. Baewskloster, in Historische Aufsätze, dem Andenken an Georg Wintz gewidmet, Hanover 1886, pp. 622-665. The legendary Vita of St. Livino, in J. Mabillon, Acta SS. OSB, 2 (1733), pp. 431-42; cf. M. Coens, Anciennes litanies des saints, in Anal. Boll., 59 (1941), pp. 277-80; Martyrologium Romanum, p. 515. Ulderico Vicentini