Abel of Reims
8th-century Scottish Benedictine monk and archbishop, Catholic saint, companion of Boniface deposed as Archbishop of Reims
Abel (fl. 744–747) served as the Bishop of Reims in Francia, now modern-day France. He has sometimes been venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, particularly by the Bollandists.
Origins
In the late 10th century, Folcuin wrote that Abel had been a monk in Lobbes Abbey (modern day Belgium) while Bishop Ermino (d. 737) served as abbot, and had been born in Ireland. In contrast Boniface, in a letter to a priest in the English kingdom of Mercia, insisted that Abel had in fact been born and raised in England. The modern historian Wilhelm Levison has suggested there were two individuals with the same name, but Eugen Ewig accepts the identification by Boniface as more accurate. If Folcuin's later testimony has any basis in reality, it may be that Abel, like his near contemporary Ecgberht (d. 729), had once visited Ireland and formed a close association.
Bishop of Reims
In March 744, Boniface presided over the Council of Soissons and the conciliar acts record that Abel was elected archbishop (but of an unspecified see).
The public source identifies “Abel of Reims” as 8th-century Scottish Benedictine monk and archbishop, Catholic saint, companion of Boniface deposed as Archbishop of Reims. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Abel, Reims and 8th-century.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q318504. VIAF identifies the subject as 90812234. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Abel of Reims” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.