Rusticus (archbishop of Lyon)

Saint Rusticus (c. 455 – 25 April 501) was the Archbishop of Lyon, since the year 494, the successor of Saint Lupicinus of Lyon (491-494). Later canonized, his feast day is 25 April. He was the son of Aquilinus (c. 430-c. 470), nobleman at Lyon; and a schoolfellow and friend of Sidonius Apollinaris (c. 400), who was a vicarius of a province in Gaul under the father of Sidonius between 423 and 448, and his wife Tullia (born 410), and the great-grandson of Decimus Rusticus and his wife Artemia, and also of Saint Eucherius and his wife Gallia. He was also the brother of St. Viventiolus.

Married before 480 to a daughter (born c. 460) of Ruricius, Bishop of Limoges (then Augustoritum) and his wife Ommance, they were the parents of three children:

• St. Sacerdos, Archbishop of Lyon
• Leontius, Archbishop of Lyon
• Artemia, the wife of Florentinus, born in 485, a Senator, who were the parents of:
  • Gondulf of Provence, Duke, Bishop of Metz
  • Arthemia, wife of Munderic Vitrey, Pretender of Austrasia
  • St. Nicetius, Archbishop of Lyon

Sources and references

• Ford Mommaerts-Browne, "A Speculation", http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-ANCIENT/2004-03/1079586413.
• Sidonius Apollinaris, The Letters of Sidonius (Oxford: Clarendon, 1915) (orig.), pp. clx-clxxxiii; List of Correspondents, Notes, V.ix.1.