Biography
Domninus of Vienne
About Domninus of Vienne
Domninus was a sixth-century bishop of Vienne, remembered between Julian and Pantagathus in the city’s succession of bishops.
His epitaph gives a brief account of the life his community wished to remember. Its heading calls him a poor bishop in Christ’s name. The verses describe a man who offered his possessions to Christ, joined learning with faith, and sought nothing for himself.
The poem’s most concrete praise concerns people in need. It credits him with ransoming those held by an enemy and supplying clothing, food, drink and shelter. These details survive as the testimony of a commemorative inscription, rather than as a sequence of separately documented episodes.
Léger’s account of the bishops of Vienne preserves the poem within a notice praising Domninus’s sacred and secular learning. It also records a basilica built at his tomb and transmits a dedication naming Flavius Lacanius and his household as its benefactors.
The inscription reaches us through written transmission. Louis Duchesne notes that its text was preserved in the Hagiologue and in Dubois’s edition. That distinction matters: the printed text is evidence for his remembrance, without establishing that the original stone survives.
The Catholic Church in Norway lists his commemoration on November 2.
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