Mérolle
Mérolle , religious évéque French, of Mans of 772 with 785. Priest of the abbey of Évron, it became chorévêque of Saulges under Charlemagne, thus assisting the bishop of the Mans Gauziolène (725 - 753 and 763 - 770).
Biography
The Actus pontificum Cenomannis give a biographical note of this Carolingian bishop. Monk of the abbey of Évron, it would have been claimed for Chorévêque, in 761, by the church of the Mans, and by Gauziolène which occupied the seat of it, then after being ordered by three bishops, it would have received like title and residence the public and canonical borough of Saulges.The same author adds that Gauziolène had as a successor Hoding who, after two years of episcopate, passed on the seat of Beauvais and whom then, in 772, Mérolle was delegated near Charlemagne to require a bishop of him for which the Church of Mans had the most pressing need.
Angilram, Archichapelain of the court, knowing that Mérolle had been ordered by three bishops, and finding in him all necessary qualities to reorganize the diocese, indicated it with the king. The chroévêque one thus returned in Mans bishop in title. It accepted there the Visit of Charlemagne which ordered to make return to the capacity of the Church all the goods alienated after the death of the holders.
Several monasteries and some villas, among which Mayenne and Céaulcé, was even restored of continuation. Mérolle, after having controlled the Church during 30 years, died the March 18th with Evron, in villa cujus vocabulum is Sancta Spina . The following day one carried his body in Mans, and one buried it in the church of the apostles, where Saint Victeur rested.
The author of this account, in the absence of written documents, could know by tradition some of the details of the life of Mérolle. One half-century hardly spéarait them one of the other. Its narration is not less inaccurate. It gives 30 years of reign to Mérolle which, even by including/understanding the time of sound chorépiscopat there, cannot count 25 of them, since it had a successor in 786. In any instrument, Mérolle does not appear with its quality of chorévêque and one can believe that this title was allotted to him only by the writer of the Actus that to prepare rights to the seat of Mans, because according to strong probabilities, it was itself chroévêque of Saint Aldric, disabled person.
Several documents of another nature and whose authenticity is not seriously disputed make known us the administration of Mérolle. It accepted from Charlemagne towards 774 the right of coinage; made an exchange with the abbot of Saint-Calais the February 9th 774, and gave on a purely precarious basis with Willibert the villas of Mézangers, of Saint-Fraimbault, Fyé, Ingrande, Sémur, Villiers-Charlemagne, fountain, Montreuil, Neuville. It is true that these last three acts are dated from 29th and the 32ème year of the reign of Charlemagne, which cannot agree with the episcopate of Mérolle.
See too