Bertin

Bertin (; 615 – c. 709 AD), also known as Saint Bertin the Great, was the Frankish abbot of a monastery in Saint-Omer later named the Abbey of Saint Bertin after him. He is venerated as a saint by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The fame of Bertin's learning and sanctity was so great that in a short time more than 150 monks lived under his rule. Among them were St. Winnoc and his three companions who had come from Brittany to join Bertin's community and assist in the conversions. Nearly the whole Morini region was Christianized.

== Life == thumb|Reconstructed exterior of the St Bertin Altarpiece thumb| Reconstructed interior of the St Bertin Altarpiece. thumb| Scheme of reconstructed St Bertin Altarpiece thumb|upright=1.8|Part of the St Bertin altarpiece, Berlin thumb|upright=1.8|Part of the St Bertin altarpiece, Berlin thumb|Ruins of the church Saint-Bertin, c. 1850 Bertin was born near Constance, then in the Frankish Duchy of Alamannia. At an early age, he entered the Abbey of Luxeuil, where, under the austere rule of its abbot, Columbanus, he prepared himself for a future missionary career. About the year 638 he set out, in company with two confrères, Mummolin and Ebertram, for the extreme northern part of France in order to assist his friend and kinsman, Bishop Omer, in the evangelization of the Morini. This country, now in the Department of Pas-de-Calais, was then one vast marsh, studded here and there with hillocks and overgrown with seaweed and bulrushes. On one of these hillocks, Bertin and his companions built a small house and they went out daily to preach the Christian faith to the natives, most of whom were still pagans.