Poppo of Stavelot

Saint Poppo of Stavelot
Abbot of Stavelot-Malmedy
Born	977 Deinze, now in Belgium
Died	25 January 1048 Marchiennes, now in France
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church Roman Catholic Church
Major shrine	Stavelot
Feast	25 January

Saint Poppo (Deinze, 977 – Marchiennes, 25 January 1048) was a knight of noble descent who turned to a monastic life after experiencing a spiritual conversion. He became one of the best known abbots of Stavelot and was one of the first recorded Flemish pilgrims to the Holy Land. Liturgically, he is commemorated on the 25th of January.

The Vita Popponis, the biography of Poppo, was written shortly after his death by the monk Onulf and the abbot Everhelm of the Abbey of Hautmont. According to this source, Poppo belonged to a noble family of Flanders; his parents being Tizekinus and Adalwif. Around the year 1000, he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with two companions. Soon after this he also went to Rome. He was about to marry a lady of noble family, when a when a flame suddenly burst came out of the sky late at night and kept his lance radiating. Poppo believed this to be an illumination of the Holy Spirit, and soon after, he decided to enter the monastery of Saint Thierry at Rheims in 1005.

Around 1008, Abbot Richard of Saint Vannes at Verdun, a reformer of monasteries, took Poppo to his monastery. Richard made Poppo prior of St. Vaast in Arras, in the Diocese of Cambrai, at around 1013. This job consisted of reclaiming the monastery's lands from vassals and securing the possession of the monastery by deeds. Sometime before 1016, he was appointed to the same position at Vasloges (Beloacum, Beaulieu) in the Diocese of Verdun.

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