Libert

Who they were

Aybert was born in 1060 near Tournai to a soldier's family. From childhood he preferred prayer and solitude to feasting, and after hearing a beggar tell of the hermit Saint Theobald, he left home for the monastery of Crespin, where he lived as a hermit for twenty years with the monk Giovanni. After a pilgrimage to Rome he entered the monastery itself, becoming provost and cellarer without softening his ascetic life.

His reputation for holiness spread even to nobles, bishops and scholars, and crowds tore pieces from his habit to keep as relics. The bishop of Cambrai ordained him priest so he could hear confessions more easily, and popes Paschal II and Innocent II granted him special privileges. He died at Crespin on Easter Sunday, 7 April 1140, after fifty years of religious life, and continued to be invoked afterwards, especially against fever.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

Benedictine hermit and monk of Crespin, famed for holiness and miracles; died Easter Sunday, 7 April 1140.