Éon de l'Étoile

Éon de l'Étoile (died 1150) was a Breton religious leader and "messiah". He opposed the Roman Catholic Church to the point of pillaging abbeys and monasteries and accumulating a large treasure during a period of eight years (1140–48).

Born near Loudéac to a noble family, Eudon, as he was originally called, was briefly an Augustinian monk taking up a hermit's life in the Brocéliande (Brécheliant). Around 1140, during the reign of Conan III of Brittany, Éon took up residence in the abandoned priory of Moinet, but he did not remain there long. According to his own story, one day while attending the mass, he heard the priest say "Per eum qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos" ("by he whose it is to judge the living and the dead") and interpreted this as applying to himself. Considering himself a prophet and messiah, he soon gathered about himself a body of faithful who met at his priory. He took the name "Éon" from the "eum" of the liturgy.

He became renowned for his magic, the glow which supposedly surrounded him, his ability to be in many places at once, and the sumptuous feasts to which he treated his guests. He secured the loyalty of the poor by granting them great riches, stolen from castles and monasteries. As an article of faith, the established Church was worldly, its wealth, its sacraments, and its offices worthless and ineffectual. Éon's band of followers attacked the rich and redistributed their wealth amongst themselves. Members were ranked as "angels", "apostles", etc. Their principal message was of the Parousia. Éon and his followers spread their message throughout northern Brittany and as far as Gascony.

Éon's epithet, "de l’Étoile" ("of the star"), derives from a comet which appeared in 1148. Generally considered bad omens in the Middle Ages, a comet often signified the downfall of an illustrious person. Under Pope Eugene III, the Council of Reims in 1148 condemned Éon's movement as heresy ("hérésie éoniste"). The prelates ordered him arrested and brought before an ecclesiastical tribunal. He was tortured into confessing his messiahship and condemned to life imprisonment. He was sent to the Abbey of Saint-Denis, where he died in 1150. His followers were hunted down, with difficulty, and burnt at the stake, though none would disavow their master.

ources

*Avril, Jean-Loup. "Mille Bretons, dictionnaire biographique". Saint-Jacques-de-la-Lande: Les Portes du Large, 2002. ISBN 2-914612-10-9.
*Salmon-Legagneur, Emmanuel. "Les noms qui ont fait l'Histoire de Bretagne". Coop Breizh/Institut Culturel de Bretagne, 1997. ISBN 2-84346-032-8.

External links

* [http://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/T230596/EON_DE_L_ETOILE.htm Éon de l'Étoile] at Encyclopédie Universalis