HE was born of a noble family, allied to the kings of France, about the
year 540. He was applied to learning as soon as he was capable of
instruction, and sent to the court of king Clotaire I., (whose cousin he
was,) being about twenty years of age. He signalized himself by his
prudence and valor, both in the court and in the army, and acquitted
himself of all Christian duties with extraordinary exactitude and
fervor. Fasting and prayer were familiar to him, and his heart was
always raised to God. King Chilperic made him count or governor of
Anjou, and being overcome by the importunities of his friends, the saint
consented to take a wife about the year 578. But the lady was struck
with a leprosy on the morning before it was to be solemnized. This
accident so strongly affected Licinius, that he resolved to carry into
immediate execution a design he had long entertained of entirely
renouncing the world. This he did in 580, and leaving all things to
follow Jesus Christ, he entered himself among the clergy, and hiding
himself from the world in a community of ecclesiastics, found no
pleasure but in the exercises of piety and the most austere penance, and
in meditating on the holy scriptures. Audouin, the fourteenth bishop of
Angers, dying towards the year 600, the people, remembering the equity
and mildness with which Licinius had governed them, rather as their
father than as a judge or master, demanded him for their pastor. The
voice of the clergy seconded that of the people, and, the concurrence of
the court of Clotaire II. in his minority, under the regency of his
mother Fredegonda, overcame {409} all the opposition his humility could
make. His time and his substance were divided in feeding the hungry,
comforting and releasing prisoners, and curing the bodies and souls of
his people. Though he was careful to keep up exact discipline in his
diocese, he was more inclined to indulgence than rigor, in imitation of
the tenderness which Jesus Christ showed for sinners. Strong and
persuasive eloquence, the more forcible argument of his severe and
exemplary life, and God himself speaking by miracles, qualified him to
gain the hearts of the most hardened, and make daily conquest of souls
to Christ. He renewed the spirit of devotion and penance by frequent
retreats, and desired earnestly to resign his bishopric, and hide
himself in some solitude: but the bishops of the province, whose consent
he asked, refusing to listen to such a proposal, he submitted, and
continued to spend the remainder of his life in the service of his
flock. His patience was perfected by continual infirmities in his last
years, and he finished his sacrifice about the year 618, in the
sixty-fifth of his age. He was buried in the church of St. John Baptist,
which he had founded, with a monastery, which he designed for his
retreat. It is now a collegiate church, and enriched with the treasure
of his relics. His memory was publicly honored in the seventh age: the
1st of November was the day of his festival, though he is now mentioned
in the Roman Martyrology on the 13th of February. At Angers he is
commemorated on the 8th of June, which seems to have been the day of his
consecration, and on the 21st of June, when his relics were translated
or taken up, 1169, in the time of Henry II., king of England, count of
Anjou. See his life, written from the relation of his disciples soon
after his death; and again by Marbodius, archdeacon of Angers,
afterwards bishop of Rennes, both in Bollandus.