Background
According to tradition, Judoc was the son of Saint Judicael, King of Brittany.
According to tradition, Judoc was the son of Saint Judicael, King of Brittany.
He travelled to Rome along the via Francigena, returning safely shortly before his death. The name Judoc is the 14th century Breton version of Iudocus in Latin, Josse in French, Jost, Joost or Joos in Dutch and Joyce in English. Meaning "lord", the name became rare after the 14th century.
In about 636, Judoc renounced his inheritance and wealth, and went on a pilgrimage to Rome.
Whilst there, he was ordained a priest, and became hermit in Ponthieu, in a place called Saint-Josse-sur-Mer. Judoc died here, and it was maintained that his body was incorruptible.
Apparently his followers would cut his beard and hair as it continued to grow. Saint Judoc, never formally canonised, developed a local cultus.
The Abbey of Saint-Josse, beginning as a small monastery on the site of his retreat, was built in the eighth century at the place where Judoc"s shrine was kept.
In 903, some monks of the abbey, fleeing the Norman raiders, took refuge in England, bearing his relics. The tradition of the New Minster of Hyde at Winchester (founded 901), was that the relics were translated there by Street Grimbald, and the date was commemorated annually, on 9 January. These feasts were accorded high rank at the cathedral.
From France, the veneration of Saint Josse spread through the Low Countries, England Germany and Scandinavia, regions where variations of Josse, Joyce, Joos, Joost, and the diminutive Jocelyn, et cetera became popular names for both men and women, and chapels and churches were dedicated to him.
The mal Saint Josse was the term for the ills resulting from snakebite, against which the saint"s name was invoked by the fifteenth-century French poet Eustache Deschamps in an imprecatory ballade: "..Du mau saint Leu, de l"esvertin, Du saint Josse et saint Matelin.. soit maistre Mahieu confondus!". According to Alban Butler, the abbey was given by Charlemagne to Alcuin and functioned as a hostel for those crossing the English Channel.
lieutenant became a centre of pilgrimage, especially popular with Flemish and Germans in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Louisiana vie de Saint Josse was written in Old French verses by the learned and competent poet and translator Pierre de Beauvais in the thirteenth century.
The Suaire de Street-Josse, the "Shroud of Saint Judoc " that is now conserved in the Musée du Louvre is a rich silk samite saddle cloth that was woven in northeastern Iran, some time before 961, which was used to wrap the bones of Saint Judoc when he was reinterred in 1134.
The abbey was closed in 1772, sold and then dismantled in 1789, leaving no traces of the monumental buildings. The abbey church became the parish church of the French commune of Saint-Josse. Saint Judoc or Josse has his feast-day on 13 December.
Usually portray him holding the pilgrim"s staff
He is also shown with a crown at his feet, referring to the renunciation of his lands and his fortune. In Austria, there is a fine representation of Saint Judoc on the mausoleum of Maximilian at Innsbruck.
Saint Judoc was most famously mentioned by Chaucer"s Wife of Bath, who swears "by God and by Seint Joce". This suggests that his name was often invoked in oaths.