Biography
Latuin of Séez
About Latuin of Séez
Latuin is honored as the first bishop of Séez, in Normandy. The diocese places him in the fifth century and remembers him baptizing in the River Orne near the site of the present cathedral. His personal story survives chiefly as religious tradition.
The early episcopal succession is uncertain. Georges Goyau’s account, reporting Louis Duchesne’s criticism, warns against relying on the old catalogue for its earliest names. It also records a much later tradition that sent Latuin from Rome in the first century. These competing chronologies do not establish a reliable birth or death year.
The Orne departmental archives distinguish the remembered beginnings from a dated record: Literadus attended the council of Orléans in 511, with his seat then at Exmes. That document concerns another bishop; it does not supply a contemporary biography of Latuin.
The diocesan life tells of Latuin healing a widow’s blind daughter and withdrawing to Cléray when opposition grew. It also preserves a harsher legend: a governor’s wife desired him and died insane after he rejected her. These are stories of his cult, not independently established events. A fountain at Belfonds became a place where people sought healing and left used cloths on its surrounding grille.
The same diocesan account traces his relics through Anet and records their return in stages during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It identifies their present setting as the Saint-Latuin chapel in Sées cathedral, with a procession on June 20.
A church at Cléray, in Belfonds, also bears his name. Lain is another form of his name, and his feast falls on June 20. His dedication continues in the Saint-Latuin-au-Pays-de-Sées parish. The diocesan page announces a priest appointed to the new parish from September 2026.
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