Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Victricius
Victricius, St., 8th archbp. of Rouen, friend
of St. Martin of Tours (Sulpic. Sev. Dial. iii. 2;
Boll. Acta SS. Aug. ii. 194) and St. Paulinus
of Nola, to whose letters we owe some details
of his life. He became bp. of Rouen before
390, and occupied himself with the conversion
of the heathen Morini and Nervii in Flanders
and Brabant. He was summoned in 394 or
395 to Britain to assist the bishops there in
re-establishing peace, probably in their contest
with Pelagianism (Victricius, Lib. de
Laude SS., Migne, Patr. Lat. xx. 443). An
accusation of heresy, as it seems (cf. Ceillier,
viii. 76), brought him to Rome at the close of
403 to defend himself before the pope (Paulinus,
Ep. xxxvii. [36], Migne, Patr. Lat. lxi.
353). While there he received, in answer to a
request for information, the famous letter of
Innocent I. called the Liber Regularum, treating
of various heads of ecclesiastical practice and
discipline (Patr. Lat. lvi. 519).
[INNOCENTIUS.]
The church at Rouen flourished under his
care. The relics he obtained, the musical
services he instituted, and the devotion—under
his guidance—of the virgins and widows,
caused the city, hitherto unknown, to be
spoken of with reverence in distant lands, and
counted among cities famed for their sacred
spots (Paulinus, Ep. xviii. § 5, Patr. Lat. col.
239). In 409 he was apparently dead (Ep.
xlviii. col. 398). (Migne, Patr. Lat. xx. 437,
438; Hist. Litt. ii. 752–754; Le Brun in Boll.
Acta SS. u.s.; Gall. Christ. xi. 7.)
An extant treatise or sermon called the Liber de Laude Sanctorum, composed on the occasion of the receipt of some relics from St. Ambrose of Milan, was formerly ascribed to St. Germanus of Auxerre (Hist. Litt. ii. 261, 750), but the discovery of a MS. at St. Gall, in the 18th cent., made it clear that it belonged to Victricius (see Praefatio of the abbé Lebeuf in Migne, Patr. Lat. xx. 437–442) It gives a few details of the condition of the church at Rouen. Paulinus had perhaps read this document (Ep. xviii.).
[S.A.B.]