Rusticus (archbishop of Lyon)

Saint Rusticus (c. 455 – 25 April 501) was the Archbishop of Lyon, since the year 494, the successor of Saint Lupicinus of Lyon (491-494). Later canonized, his feast day is 25 April.

He and his brother St. Viventiolus were the sons of Aquilinus (c. 430-c. 470), nobleman at Lyon, a schoolfellow and friend of Sidonius Apollinaris (c. 400), who was a vicarius of a province in Gaul under the father of Sidonius between 423 and 448. Aquilinus was the son of Tullia (born 410) and her husband whose name is unknown. This husband was the son of Decimus Rusticus and his wife Artemia, and Tullia was the daughter of Saint Eucherius and his wife Gallia.

Married before 480 to Hiberie de Limoges (born c. 460), daughter of Ruricius, Bishop of Limoges (then Augustoritum) and his wife Ommance, they were the parents of three children:

• St. Sacerdos, Archbishop of Lyon
• Leontius, Archbishop of Lyon
• Artemia, the wife of Florentinus, born in 485, a Senator, who were the parents of:
  • Gondulf of Provence, Duke, Bishop of Metz
  • Arthemia, wife of Munderic Vitrey, Pretender of Austrasia
  • St. Nicetius, Archbishop of Lyon

Sources and references

• Ford Mommaerts-Browne, "A Speculation", http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-ANCIENT/2004-03/1079586413.
• Sidonius Apollinaris, The Letters of Sidonius (Oxford: Clarendon, 1915) (orig.), pp. clx-clxxxiii; List of Correspondents, Notes, V.ix.1.