Walchunus

Walchunus was a bishop, presumably of the Diocese of Maurienne, circa 739. When Abbo, the saecular rector of the region of Maurienne and Susa and later Patrician of Provence, founded the Abbey of Novalesa on 30 January 726, he put it under the Benedictine rule and independent of the local bishop, that of Maurienne.^[1] When he drew up his will thirteen years later (739) he directed that Novalesa should come under the protection of Bishop Walchunus.^[2] This action did not place Novalesa under episcopal authority; it merely recognised the saecular stature of the bishop in the region.^[3] The role of protector of the monastery passed in the later years of the century to the ruling Carolingians, who also confirmed its independence of the bishop.

Notes

1. Marios Costambeys, Power and Patronage in the Early Medieval Italy: Local Society, Italian Politics, and the Abbey of Farfa, c.700–900 (Cambridge: 2007), pp. 2–3.
2. The identification between the Walchunus of Abbo's testament and the contemporary bishop of Maurienne was argued by C. Cipolla, ed., Monumenta Novaliciensia Vetustiora (Rome: 1898–1901), vol. I, p. 7, n. 1.
3. A point made by Patrick Geary, Aristocracy in Provence: The Rhône Basin at the Dawn of the Carolingian Age (Stuttgart: 1985), pp. 124–25.