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Date of birth unknown; d. 13 April, 585. Leovigild, theArian King of theVisigoths (569-86), had two sons, Hermengild and Reccared, by his first marriage with theCatholic Princess Theodosia. Hermengild married, in 576, Ingundis, aFrankishCatholic princess, the daughter of Sigebert and Brunhilde. Led by his own inclination, and influenced by his wife as well as by the instructions ofSt. Leander of Seville, he entered theCatholic fold. Leovigild's second wife, Goswintha, a fanaticalArian,hated her daughter-in-law and sought by ill-treatment to force her to abandon theCatholicFaith. Hermengild had accordingly withdrawn, with hisfather's sanction, toAndalusia, and had taken his wife with him. But when Leovigild learned of his son's conversion he summoned him back to Toledo, which command Hermengild did not obey. The fanaticalArianism of his step-mother, and hisfather's severe treatment ofCatholics inSpain, stirred him to take up arms in protection of his oppressed co-religionists and in defence of his ownrights. At the same time he formed an alliance with theByzantines. Leovigold took the field against his son in 582, prevailed on theByzantines to betray Hermengild for a sum of 30,000 goldsolidi, besieged the latter in Seville in 583, and captured the city after a siege of nearly two years. Hermengild sought refuge in a church atCordova, whence he was enticed by thefalse promises of Leovigild, who stripped him in camp of his royal raiment and banished him to Valencia (584). His wife, Ingundis, fled with her son toAfrica, where she died, after which the boy was given, by order of Emperor Mauritius, into the hands of his grandmother Brunhilde. We are not fully informed as to Hermengild's subsequent fate.
Gregory the Great relates (Dialogi, III, 31, in P.L. LXVII, 289-93) that Leovigild sent anArianbishop to him in hisprison, onEaster Eve of 585, with a promise that he would forgive him all, provided he consented to receiveHoly Communion from the hands of thisbishop. But Hermengild firmly refused thus toabjure hisCatholicbelief, and was in consequence beheaded onEaster Day. He was latervenerated as amartyr, andSixtus V (1585), acting on the suggestion of King Philip II, extended the celebration of his feast (13 April) throughout the whole ofSpain.
Acta SS., April, II, 134-138; GAMS, Kirchengeschichte Spaniens, II (Ratisbon, 1864), i, 489 sqq.; II (1874), ii, 1 sqq.; GÖRRES, Hermengild in Zetschrift für historische Theologie, 1873, 1-109; LECLERCQ, L'Espagne chrétienne (Paris, 1906), 254 sqq.
APA citation.Kirsch, J.P.(1910).St. Hermengild. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07276a.htm
MLA citation.Kirsch, Johann Peter."St. Hermengild."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 7.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1910.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07276a.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by Gordon and Pat Hermes.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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