Biography
Namatius of Clermont
About Namatius of Clermont
Namatius, known in French as Namace, was a fifth-century bishop of Clermont in Auvergne. The Catholic Encyclopedia places his episcopate between 446 and 462 and includes him among the city’s saintly bishops.
He is remembered for building Clermont’s first cathedral.
Much less is known about the man than about the building associated with him. Historian Christian Lauranson-Rosaz emphasizes the limits of the biographical record. He distinguishes the bishop from other men called Namatius, including a later bishop of Vienne and a correspondent of Sidonius Apollinaris who commanded a fleet.
The cathedral’s early history also requires care. Lauranson-Rosaz cautions that Gregory of Tours’s architectural description draws on the imagery of Revelation and should not be treated as a literal technical survey. He likewise questions the familiar story of a rebuilding after the city’s fire in 761: the account of the fire does not name the cathedral.
Clermont continued to honor Namatius long after his lifetime. The nineteenth-century statues of the present cathedral’s western towers include him among the bishops associated with the church’s history. Viollet-le-Duc’s drawings for these figures date from 1874. The selection brought together local saints and people who had contributed to the cathedral, giving Namatius a visible place in the city’s remembrance of its earlier bishops.
The French Catholic calendar Nominis lists his local feast on 27 October.
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