Omer, or Audomar (c595-c670), was a seventh-century bishop, after whom St Omer, in the Pas-de-Calais, was named. Nine, 10 and more centuries after his death, from 1593 to 1762, the town would play an important part in educating English Catholics.
Omer was born near Coutances, just south of the Contentin peninsular, in what is now Normandy.
Yet, even in Coutances, the reputation of Luxeuil, the monastery which St Columbanus had founded some 500 miles away near Besançon, exerted a call. About 615 Omer travelled there with his father to enrol as monks.
In the late 630s King Dagobert, apparently advised by Bishop Acharius of Noyon, a former monk at Luxeuil, appointed Omer to the bishopric of Thérouanne, in what is now the Pas-de-Calais.
