584?-679. A founder of Belgian monasticism. Apparently at twenty he became a monk at Ye, and later he lived many years as a hermit. In 629, after consecration as a missionary bishop, he evangelized in Flanders and Carinthia. There is confusion about the next phase of his life. Temporary exile for criticism of King Dagobert I's moral behavior (628-39) might explain subsequent missionary work which could have been in the Danube or in the Basque country. Ultimately Dagobert forgave him and asked him to baptize his son Sigebert. Amandus then proselytized in the Scheldt and Scarpe river regions, becoming bishop of Tongeres-Maasricht about 649. Founder of eight abbeys, he retired to one at Elnon near Tournai as abbot in 675 and there wrote his Testamentum, the only reliable evidence about his life.