FRIDOLIN (FRIDOLD) : Reputed founder of the monastery of Säckingen (on the Rhine, 20 m. above Basel), which is first mentioned as presented by Charles the Fat in 878 to his wife. According to the detailed but unreliable life by Balther, a monk of St. Gallen of the tenth or eleventh century. Fridolin was born in Ireland of noble parents. He received an excellent education, and decided to become a priest. After preaching the Gospel in his own country he went to Gaul as a missionary, making his abode at Poitiers. Here he occupied himself chiefly with collecting relics of St. Hilary, and the saint appeared to him in a vision and exhorted him to revive his cult. With the aid of Clovis, the ruler of the Franks, he erected a church for the bones of Hilary, who then commanded him to go to Alemannia to an island in the Rhine. After founding a monastery and several churches on the Rhine he finally reached the island (Säckingen), and founded a church and a nunnery there. He was highly esteemed for saintliness and on account of the miracles which he wrought. This report was written about 500 years after the date of the alleged events. Balther claims to have taken his account from an older biography of Fridolin, but this is doubtful, and the whole history seems to have been Balther's invention as it fits into neither the reign of Clovis I. nor that of Clovis II.

(A. HAUCK.)