Genebald of Laon

Genebald, also rendered Genebaud, was a sixth-century Frankish hierarch remembered as the first bishop of Laon in northern Gaul. He was a kinsman of Saint Remigius, the bishop of Rheims who baptized Clovis, and according to the tradition that relationship was by marriage. He is commemorated on September 5.

By tradition Genebald was a married cleric when Remigius, finding the diocese of Rheims too large to govern alone, established a separate see at Laon and chose Genebald as its first bishop, around the year 499. To take up the episcopate Genebald separated from his wife. His life is remembered above all for a grave fall and a long penance, an account preserved by the tenth-century canon and chronicler Flodoard in his history of the church of Rheims.

The episode is the reason the Church honors him: not for an unblemished record but for the depth of his repentance. The synaxarion tradition presents him as an example of a bishop who sinned gravely, accepted a severe penance, and was restored, and the controlled facets of this entry accordingly center on repentance, humility, and faith.