The life of St Eloi of Noyon
His skill and honesty carried him into royal service, first under the treasurer of the Frankish court and then directly for King Clotaire II, who was so pleased with a jeweled gold throne Eligius made for him that he set him over the mint at Marseilles. He continued in high royal favor under Clotaire's successor Dagobert, but after the king's death in 639 he stepped away from court life together with a close friend and entered the priesthood.
The following year, on the death of the bishop of Noyon-Tournai, Eligius was chosen by the unanimous voice of clergy and people to succeed him. His new diocese was still largely pagan, and he gave himself to missionary work among the Flemings, the Frisians, and other peoples along the coast, laboring to bring them to the faith. He founded a monastery at Solignac, shaping its life in part after the Irish monastic rule, and helped establish a convent in Paris as well. He died at Noyon on the first of December, 660, remembered afterward above all for the same qualities that had marked his earlier life at court: a craftsman's exactness joined to an uncommon honesty.
