Died 884; Montague shows his feast on January 30. The Irishman Eusebius,
called Scotigena by Ratpert of Saint Gall, was a pilgrim who took the
Benedictine habit in the Swiss abbey of Saint Gall. Ekkehard, another
chronicler of the abbey, reports that Eusebius was from Ireland. Soon
after his arrival in Switzerland, Eusebius opted for the life of
solitude as a hermit on Mount Saint Victor in the Vorarlberg, where he
spent 30 years.
He was highly venerated in his lifetime by King Charles, son and
successor to King Louis. In 883, the emperor founded an Irish monastery,
Raetia, for him on the mountain. Two years later Charles deeded by royal
charter the revenues of one of his villas near Rottris in the Voralberg
to the monastery for a hospice for Irish pilgrims. Here 12 pilgrims
could be accommodated on their way to Rome.
When he was denouncing the sins of some godless peasants, one of them
struck and killed him with a scythe; hence, he is venerated as a martyr
(
Attwater2,
Benedictines,
Coulson,
D'Arcy,
Encyclopaedia,
Gougaud,
Montague,
O'Hanlon,
Tommasini).