Maxime

Who they were

Maxima of Callian, in Provence, was a nun of the monastery of Saint-Cassien, also called Arluc, which the abbot Aigulf founded near Callian towards the end of the seventh century for young women who wished to live under the rule of Saint Benedict. What is known of her comes from the martyrologies and from local tradition; Ado of Vienne and Usuard both record her in the ninth century and give 16 May as the day of her death, so her life probably fell in the eighth century.

Her superiors called her to govern the monastery of Callian, where she spent her last days and where the parish kept her relics. The relics were sheltered in the cathedral of Frejus from 1391 to 1517, after Callian was sacked, and then returned. She is patron of Callian and of Sainte-Maxime, where her feast is kept on 15 May rather than 16 May because the bishop of Frejus moved it by one day in 1826.

The miracles

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

Why that counted as sanctity

An eighth-century abbess in Provence, patron of Callian and of Sainte-Maxime.

Connected on this site

• Ado of Vienne Saint
  “What is known of her comes from the martyrologies and from local tradition; Ado of Vienne and Usuard both record her in the ninth century and give 16 May as the day of her death, so her life probably fell in the eighth century.” — this site's research