The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny: Reform and the Investiture Contest in the Late Eleventh Century...

THE CHRONICLE OF HUGH OF FLAVIGNY

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The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny

Reform and the Investiture Contest in the Late Eleventh Century

Patrick Healy Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

iv List of Abbreviations

© Patrick Healy, 2006

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Patrick Healy has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Gower House Suite 420 Croft Road 101 Cherry Street Aldershot Burlington Hants GU11 3HR Vermont, 05401–4405 England USA

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Healy, Patrick The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny: Reform and the Investiture Contest in the Late Eleventh Century. - (Church Faith and Culture in the Medieval West) 1. Hugh, of Flavigny. Chronicon. 2. Papacy - History –To 1309. 3. Europe – Church history – 600–1500. I. Title 270.4

US Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Healy, Patrick. The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny: Reform and the Investiture Contest in the Late Eleventh Century / Patrick Healy. p. cm. – (Church, Faith, and Culture in the Medieval West) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Hugh, of Flavigny, b. ca. 1064. 2. Investiture. 3. Church history – Middle Ages, 600– 1500. 4. France – Church history – Middle Ages, 600-1500. I. Title. II. Series. BX1198.H43 2006 282’.4409021–dc22 2005033953

ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-5526-8 ISBN-10: 0-7546-5526-1

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.

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Contents

Acknowledgements vi List of Abbreviations vii

1 Introduction 1

2 The Abbey of St-Vanne, Verdun, from its Foundation until 1085 22

3 The Life and Career of Hugh of Flavigny 63

4 The Manuscript of the Chronicon and its Transmission 89

5 Sources of the Chronicon 100

6 Kingship and Tyranny in the Chronicon 138

7 Lay Investiture and Simony: Auctoritas and Consuetudo 175

8 Reforming Attitudes to Ecclesiastical Promotion 201

9 The Chronicon as Polemic 215

Appendix 1 229 Appendix 2 235

Bibliography 237 Index 257

vi List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

In writing this book, my first and greatest debt is to Professor I.S. Robinson, Department of History, Trinity College Dublin, who supervised the doctoral thesis on which this book is based. His profound knowledge of and instinct for the conditions of medieval learning have been an inspiration. For their help and advice – which has saved me from many errors – I would also like to record my gratitude to the external and internal supervisors of my PhD thesis, respectively The Rev. Dr H.E.J. Cowdrey, St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, and Professor Christine Meek, Department of History, Trinity College Dublin. My publishers at Ashgate Publishing have been invariably helpful, efficient and courteous, in particular Dr John Smedley, my commissioning editor. The research contained in this book could not have been undertaken without the generous help of the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and I acknowledge their support with gratitude. The staff of the Library at Trinity College Dublin have been very helpful and I would like to thank especially the staff in the Inter-Library Loans Office, who procured many rare and important studies for my benefit. My family have been supportive throughout my studies, and have at least feigned interest in the controversies of the late eleventh century. My father deserves special mention in this regard, but also my late grandmother, in whose memory this book is dedicated. Finally, I would like to acknowledge with love and gratitude the assistance of my wife, Stephanie Hayes-Healy, who took time off from her own studies in medieval pilgrimage to help in the preparation of this book. Without her support this study would never have been published.

Abbreviations

A. SS. OSB. Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Sancti Benedicti Carlyle and Carlyle Carlyle, R.W. and Carlyle, A.J., A History of

Medieval Political Thought in the West, 6 vols (Oxford, 1903–22; 2nd edn., Edinburgh and London, 1927–36).

CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina CHMPT J.H. Burns, ed.,The Cambridge History of

Medieval Political Thought c.350–c.1450(Cambridge, 1988).

CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum

DA Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters

EV Gregory VII, Epistolae Vagantes, ed. and trans. H.E.J. Cowdrey, The Epistolae vagantes of Pope Gregory VII (Oxford, 1972).

HJ Historisches Jahrbuch Hugh of Flavigny Chronicon Hugonis Monachi Virdunensis et

Divionensis Abbatis Flaviniacensis, ed. G.H. Pertz, MGH SS, 8 (Hanover, 1848), 288–502.

HZ Historische Zeitschrift JE, JK, JL P. Jaffé, Regesta pontificum romanorum, ed.

secundam curaverunt S. Loewenfeld (JL: an.882–1198), F. Kaltenbrunner (JK: an.?–590), P. Ewald (JE: an.590–882) (Leipzig, 1885. Repr. Graz 1956).

JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History JGLGA Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für lothringische

Geschichte und Altertumskunde Mansi Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima

collectio, ed. J.D. Mansi, 31 vols (Florence and Venice, 1759–98).

viii List of Abbreviations

MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica Briefe Die Briefe der deutschen Kaiserzeit Const. Constitutiones et acta publica imperatorum et

regum DM Deutsches Mittelalter Libelli Libelli de lite imperatorum et pontificum

saeculis XI et XII conscripti Schriften Schriften der MGH SRG (NS) Scriptores rerum Germanicarum (Nova Series) SS Scriptores MIÖG Mitteilungen des Institute für österreichische

Geschichtsforschung NA Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere

deutsche Geschichte PL J.-P. Migne, Patrologia cursus completus,

series latina, 221 vols (Paris, 1844–64). Pseudo-Isidore Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae et Capitula

Angilramni, ed. P. Hinschius (Leipzig, 1863). Reg. Das Register Gregors VII., ed. E. Caspar, MGH

Epistolae Selectae 2 (1920–23). RHGF Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la

France, ed. M. Bouquet et al., 24 vols (Paris, 1738–1904).

RTAM Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale

SG Studi Gregoriani Thiel Epistolae Romanorum pontificum genuinae I: a

S. Hilaro usque ad Hormisdam Ann. 461–533.ed. A. Thiel (Braunsberg, 1868).

ZBLG Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte ZRG kan. Abt. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für

Rechtsgeschichte, kanonistische Abteilung

Chapter 1

Introduction

According to Hugh of Flavigny, Pope Gregory VII (1073–85) ‘advanced unshaken along the royal way with the arms of righteousness, without deviation to the right or to the left’.1 This was an allusion to the wanderings of the people of Israel in the desert of Pharan, as described in Numbers 21:22. The Israelites asked Sehon, king of the Amorrhites, for passage through his land, promising not to stray into the fields and vineyards, nor to drink from the wells. They undertook to follow the ‘royal road’ (via regia) until they had passed beyond the borders of that kingdom. When Sehon refused he was defeated by the Israelites – ‘slain by them with the edge of the sword’ – who then ruled the kingdom in his stead. Hugh’s metaphor of the ‘royal road’ to describe the pontificate of Gregory VII was well chosen, conveying as it did a current of biblical interpretation that considered this story to represent allegorically the contemporary struggle for Church liberty. For example, in one of his exegetical works Peter Damian (†1072) had interpreted the oppression of Israel by Sehon as a type of secular persecution of the Church. He wrote: ‘who are the people whom Sehon gathered against Israel unless those reprobates by whom the church is persecuted? From the ranks of these reprobates are tyrants, generals (duces) and princes of the world …’.2 When Hugh of Flavigny composed his Chronicon in the decade or so after the pope’s death in 1085, the tribulations and eventual triumph of Israel must have been of consolation to the supporters of the reform papacy, who lived to endure the oppression of another Sehon in the person of Henry IV of Germany (1056–1106). Henry’s bitter struggle with Gregory VII, which resulted in widespread schism and civil war in Germany and Italy, was considered by many to be a time of tribulation for the faithful unparalleled since the sufferings of Israel described in the Old Testament. However, just as Sehon had been defeated by Israel, so – it was believed – Henry IV’s tyranny would also come to an end. Like Hugh of Flavigny, Bonizo of Sutri (c. 1045–c. 1089) sought to consider the contemporary persecution of the Church in its biblical perspective and was able to locate Gregory VII’s pontificate in the world-historical scheme of punishment and redemption that was written in the

1 Hugh of Flavigny, 423/8–9: ‘regiam tamen viam, quam semel intraverat, inconcussus, immotus, per arma justitiae a dextris et a sinistris fortiter incessit’.

2 Peter Damian, Liber Testimoniorum Veteris ac Novi Testamenti, c. 11, PL, 145, 1042C: ‘Quis est autem populus ille quem Seon congregat adversus Israel, nisi reprobi quique qui persequuntur Ecclesiam? Ex his sunt tyranni, duces, et principes mundi …’.

2 The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny

history of the Israelites.3 This kind of reforming and ‘Gregorian’ exegesis was prompted by the demands of circumstance. Henry IV’s conquest of Rome in 1084 and his imperial coronation at the hands of the antipope Clement III (Wibert of Ravenna), together with Gregory’s death in exile at Salerno in the following year –these events forced reforming intellectuals such as Hugh of Flavigny to take refuge in the allegorical interpretation of Scripture and the typological identification of the reform papacy with the people of Israel.

Hugh witnessed the deleterious consequences of the conflict of Church and State at first hand. As a young monk at the monastery of St-Vanne in Verdun, he and the other pro-papal brothers of that house were forced to flee their abbey in 1085 because of intimidation suffered at the hands of their pro-Henrician diocesan, Bishop Theoderic of Verdun.4 Theoderic was particularly aggrieved at Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne, who was at that time the foremost representative of Pope Gregory VII in the German duchy of Upper Lotharingia. After the pope’s death in exile at Salerno in 1085 the bishop of Verdun took the opportunity to rid his diocese of this agent of Roman primacy and Roman intervention. Rudolf and his monks took refuge with Jarento, abbot of the equally fervent house of St-Bénigne in Dijon and another trusted emissary of Gregory VII. These eminent reformers doubtless stimulated Hugh to record the tribulations incurred by the pope and his party in the name of reform. They also exposed him to a Gregorian ‘friendship network’ in Lotharingia and Burgundy that must have furnished Hugh with many of the documents and instrumenta which he copied into his Chronicon and which constitute its enduring historical significance. It was in this friendship network that Hugh met and came to serve Archbishop Hugh of Lyons (formerly bishop of Die), who had been the most zealous and uncompromising legate in Gregory VII’s service. Archbishop Hugh’s conception of reform must have heavily influenced the young monk he had come to regard as his own special protégé and it was on the archbishop’s recommendation that Hugh was appointed abbot of Flavigny in the Diocese of Autun in 1096. The careers of Rudolf of St-Vanne, Jarento of St-Bénigne and Hugh of Lyons are accorded special attention in the Chronicon,which, in many ways, is a local history of reform and its consequences in Lotharingia and Burgundy. Pride of place, however, goes to Pope Gregory VII. Hugh considered the pope’s childhood and adolescence in some detail and gave particular attention to Gregory’s election in 1073, an event of crucial polemical significance as opponents of the pope claimed that it did not accord with the provisions of the Papal Election Decree of 1059. The chronicler was especially keen to inscribe the letters of Gregory VII into his Chronicon: not only did they constitute the sole narrative for long passages of the work, Hugh seems to have considered them to be sources of doctrinal and theological instruction that were

3 I.S. Robinson, The Papal Reform of the Eleventh Century: Lives of Pope Leo IX and Pope Gregory VII (Manchester, 2004), pp. 51–5.

4 References for what follows in this paragraph can be found in Chapter 2, notes 174–6.

Introduction 3

scarcely inferior to the Scriptures themselves. In the Chronicon, Gregory’s epistolary oeuvre, but also his life and death, were the embodiment, physical and literary, of reform. His tribulations were considered by Hugh to be representative of the calamities endured by the whole Church, and were stretched back by the chronicler to encompass a tradition of suffering recorded in the Old Testament. The great pope’s influence dominates the second half of the Chronicon; after the description of Gregory VII’s death in 1085, the affairs of the reform papacy are hardly considered in Hugh’s narrative. It was because of the preoccupation with Pope Gregory VII in works such as the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny that Augustin Fliche could characterise a whole movement under the rubric of ‘Gregorian’ reform.5

The election of Archdeacon Hildebrand as Pope Gregory VII on 22 April 1073 was a controversial and divisive event and required some explanation by pro-papal supporters such as Hugh of Flavigny. Hugh therefore copied into his ChroniconGregory’s letter to Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino of 23 April 1073, where the pope expressed his version of events most clearly. While Pope Alexander II was being buried in the Lateran, there arose ‘a great tumult and uproar of the people’. In a deliberate allusion to the election of Gregory the Great, the new pope compared himself with the prophet David: ‘I came into the depth of the sea and the tempest overwhelmed me’ (Psalm 68:3–4).6 Gregory VII’s epistolary account of popular compulsion was an imprecise but clearly discernible allusion to the election of Gregory the Great, which was also effected through popular acclaim and which was believed to be the result of divine inspiration. By establishing contact with the legacy of his great predecessor, the new pope sought to pre-empt any accusations of irregularity that could be made about his election.7 Nonetheless, and despite this tendentious account of events, Gregory VII probably devoutly believed that his election took place at divine instigation: per inspirationem. That is to say, he thought that the Holy Spirit acted through the Roman crowd, which spontaneously and forcibly elevated him on to the papal throne. The direct intervention of the Holy Spirit also corresponded to the medieval ideal that the will of God expressed itself through the unanimitas of the electors.8

The pope’s version of events was open to dispute for a number of reasons. First, Gregory VII’s account of a tumultuous election is contradicted by the official protocol of the election, inserted at the beginning of the Register of his letters.

5 Augustin Fliche, La Réforme Grégorienne, 3 vols (Louvain and Paris, 1926–37). 6 Hugh of Flavigny, 422/43 = Reg., 1.1, p. 3/26–7: ‘… ita ut cum propheta possim

dicere “Veni in altitudine maris et tempestas demersit me”’; cf. the letter of Gregory the Great describing his election, Gregorii I Papae Registrum, 1.5, eds. P. Ewald and L. Hartmann, MGH Epistolae, 1, 6/10: ‘Undique causarum fluctibus quatior ac tempestatibus deprimor, ita ut recte dicam “Veni in altitudinem maris et tempestas demersit”’.

7 See below, notes 9–12. 8 H.-G. Krause, Das Papstwahldekret von 1059 und seine Rolle im Investiturstreit =

SG, 7, pp. 159–60.


According to this Commentarius, Archdeacon Hildebrand was elected by the cardinal-clergy of the Roman Church at the basilica of St Peter in vincoli, with the acclamation ‘of many crowds of both sexes and different orders’.9 Second, there was the accusation that Gregory had been elected pope in contravention of the 1059 papal election decree: on the one hand he had undoubtedly been elected inconsulto rege – that is, without reference to the ‘due honour and reverence’ that was owed to the German court; on the other hand, as Cardinal Beno later pointed out, no cardinal had ratified the election of 1073, which was thus void according to the terms of the 1059 decree.10 Perhaps the most serious accusation against Gregory VII – and the one Hugh of Flavigny was most concerned to refute – was that the friends of Archdeacon Hildebrand had deliberately contrived the whole affair by bribing the mob, and that the pope was therefore a simonist.11 Hugh of Flavigny showed that he was aware of these calumnies when he commented that Gregory VII’s ‘entry’ (introitus) into the Holy See was smeared with the allegation of simony by Henry IV, who himself was guilty of this heresy.12 Elsewhere, Hugh alluded to the allegations that the pope was a ‘sorcerer, impostor, heretic, homicide and fornicator’, perhaps paraphrasing the accusations made at the synod of Brixen in June 1080: ‘against this same most brazen Hildebrand, who preaches sacrilege and arson, who defends perjury and homicide, who questions the catholic and apostolic faith concerning the body and blood of our Lord, who is an ancient disciple of the heretic Berengar, a manifest believer in dreams and divinations, a necromancer, dealing in the spirit of prophecy …’.13 Thus, Hugh of Flavigny was concerned to emphasise Hildebrand’s humility and reluctance for advancement: in his eyes, Gregory had been forced to accept the ‘burden’ (iugum) of office although he abhorred it; his acceptance of the papal throne was the act of a ‘gentle

9 Reg. 1.1* (Commentarius Electionis Gregorii VII. Papae), pp. 1–2. 10 Detlev Jasper, Das Papstwahldekret von 1059: Überlieferung und Textgestalt,

(Beiträge zur Geschichte und Quellenkunde des Mittelalters, 12: Sigmaringen, 1986), pp. 104/84–105/91: ‘… salvo debito honore et reverentia dilectii filii nostri Henrici, qui inpraesentiarum rex habetur et futurus imperator Deo concedente speratur, sicut iam sibi concessimus, et successorum illius, qui ab hac apostolica sede personaliter hoc ius impetraverint’; Cardinal Beno, Gesta Romanae Ecclesiae, 1.2, MGH Libelli, 2, 370/9: ‘Sed cardinales non subscripserunt in electione eius’; ibid., 2.12, MGH Libelli, 2, 380/24: ‘… in cuius electione nullus cardinalium subscripsit’.

11 Cf. Guido of Ferrara, De Scismate Hildebrandi, 2, MGH Libelli, 1, 553/18–19: ‘Testantur quidem qui fuere praesentes quod Alexandro defuncto sequenti nocte tesauros suos eduxerit multumque pecuniae per Romanos effuderit’.

12 Hugh of Flavigny, 430/19–20: ‘… introitum beatissimi papae Gregorii VII. culpare cepit (sc. Heinricius IV.), ut culpas symoniae, quae ab eodem in se puniri timebat, in illum reflecteret’.

13 Ibid., 458/6–7: ‘in beati Petri turpia et nefanda concrepans intonuit (sc. Henricius IV.), dicentium magum eum esse et impostorem, hereticum, homicidam, fornicarium …’; cf. Die Briefe Heinrichs IV., ed. Carl Erdmann, MGH DM, 1, Appendix C, p. 72/1–6.

Introduction 5

soul bowing his neck to God’.14 Hugh’s partisan account of Gregory’s election – based on and supported by the pope’s letter to Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino – was framed as an answer to the accusations of irregularity of which Hugh was clearly aware. It also introduces a recurring leitmotif: the close bond between Hugh’s narrative and the documentary evidence that was adduced in support of it.

The via regia was not simply a metaphor for persecution and deliverance: it was also a metaphor for a programme of reform. In his Historia Mediolanensis,Landulf Senior included a series of debates on Church reform that took place at Milan some time before 1066. One speech was apparently delivered by Landulf Cotta and Ariald, the leaders of the reform party in Milan, the patarini. In this speech, the reformers denounced the practice of clerical marriage – nicolaitism – claiming that fornicating clerics could not ‘offer up sacrifices to God’. They called upon the clerics in Milan to renounce this practice ‘so that we advance along the royal way, not deviating to the left or the right’.15 The same reforming association was also present in Hugh of Flavigny’s allusion to the via regia, where it was cited in connection with Gregory VII’s decree against lay investiture of November 1078.16 In reforming circles, progress along the ‘royal road’ was an allegory for the reform of abuses such as lay investiture, simony and nicolaitism.17 Moreover, it was felt in the most radical reforming circles that no progress could be made along the royal way unless reform was directed by the Holy See: the via regia also denoted the community of the faithful who were obedient to the pope. In a letter of 1083, Gregory VII expressed his desire to take counsel with the highest ecclesiastics in France about ‘how we may recall those in schism to travel by the royal way to the bosom of their mother the Church’.18 Thus, when Hugh of Flavigny described the pope’s undeviating progress along the ‘royal road’, armed with the ‘weapons of righteousness’, he managed to describe succinctly the fundamental aspects of Gregory’s pontificate: the tribulations of the Church at the hands of the secular power; the redefinition of the faithful, comprising only those who were obedient to the Holy See; and the legislative drive to rid the Church of abuses such as simony and clerical marriage.

14 Hugh of Flavigny, 422/32: ‘… mansuetum animal Domino suo cervicem subdidit’; this account was taken verbatim from the Epistola of Wenrich of Trier: see Chapter 9, notes 6–7.

15 Landulfi Historia Mediolanensis, 3.25 (24), MGH SS, 8, 92/40: ‘Nunc autem agere vos omnes expedit, ut via regia gradiamur, non declinantes a dexteris nec a sinistris’; cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, ‘The Papacy, the Patarenes and the Church of Milan’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 18 (1968), 29–30.

16 Hugh of Flavigny, 423/23–424/23; cf. Reg. 6.5b, pp. 402/34–403/5. 17 In traditional exegesis, the via regia was an allegory of the monastic life: J.

Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (London, 1978), pp. 102–4. 18 The Epistolae Vagantes of Pope Gregory VII, ed. H.E.J. Cowdrey (Oxford, 1972),

no. 51, pp. 124–5: ‘… Desideramus enim una vobiscum tractare, divino fulti auxilio, qualiter possimus … ad gremium matris ecclesiae scismaticos via regia incedendo revocare’.


Hugh of Flavigny thought that the conflict of the regnum and sacerdotium – the so-called ‘Investiture Contest’ between Gregory VII and Henry IV – was the result of the pope’s desire to reform abuses by legislation. The papal decree against lay investiture of November 1078 – erroneously dated by Hugh to the beginning of Gregory’s pontificate – was an attempt to ‘correct and amend’ which aroused a diabolical opposition:19

For this reason, namely, that [the pope] wished Holy Church to be free, chaste and catholic20 and, because he wished to expel simoniacal heresy and the fetid pollution of libidinous contagion from God’s sanctuary, the members of the devil sought to rise against him, presuming to raise their hands against him even to the shedding of blood so that they might trouble him with death or exile … thus began the quarrel (contentio)between the royal power and the priestly power, an unusually grave tribulation for Holy Church.21

Hugh’s analysis of the causes of conflict was reductive in the extreme, and in this case, heavily influenced by Gregory VII’s decree of anathema against Henry IV in 1080, itself a highly tendentious version of the events it describes.22 Indeed, Hugh’s narrative for almost all of the significant events of the Investiture Contest was pieced together from facts gleaned from the many letters of Gregory VII that he inserted into his Chronicon. His composition, while generally devoid of personality or any literary merit, has the great value of reflecting events as they were perceived by the pope. Hugh of Flavigny was also misinformed by some crucial errors in dating. The idea that the pope took up the cudgels against lay investiture at the beginning of his papacy – evident in the passage quoted above – is reinforced by the chronicler’s similarly inaccurate dating of Gregory’s investiture prohibition of Lent in 1080 to 1074/75.23 According to this distorted view, the pope’s investiture legislation was part of a coherent policy that characterised Gregory’s pontificate from its very inception. Such a schematic and teleological interpretation might have been embraced by Hugh of Flavigny in the decade after the pope’s death in 1085, when Gregory’s reputation and legacy were

19 For Hugh’s dating of Gregory VII’s investiture legislation, see Chapter 7, note 11. 20 A formulation borrowed from Gregory VII’s letters: cf. Epistolae Vagantes, no. 54,

p. 132: ‘... libera, casta, et catholica ….’21 Hugh of Flavigny, 424/34–40: ‘Ob hanc igitur causam, quia scilicet sanctam Dei

ecclesiam castam esse volebat, liberam atque catholicam, quia de sanctuario Dei Symoniacam et neophytorum heresim et fedam libidinosae contagionis pollutionem volebat expellere, menbra diaboli ceperunt in eum insurgere, et usque ad sanguinem praesumpserunt in eum manus inicere, et ut eum morte vel exilio confunderent, multis eum modis conati sunt deicere. Sic surrexit inter regnum et sacerdotium contentio, accrevit solito gravior sanctae Dei ecclesiae tribulatio’.

22 The passage cited in note 21 relies heavily on Reg. 7, 14a (7 March 1080), pp. 483/21–484/2.

23 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/8–17; cf. Reg. 7.14a, p. 480/17–30.

Introduction 7

open to question. It was perhaps necessary at this time to present Gregory’s pontificate in terms of an undeviating progress along the via regia of reform, thus ignoring the pope’s initially ambiguous attitude to the practice of lay investiture.24

However, Hugh’s explanation of the causes of conflict, although simplistic, does give rise to a number of questions. Who were the ‘members of the devil’ who rose up against the pope? How could reforming legislation against lay investiture be synonymous with the heresies of simony and nicolaitism? Perhaps most importantly, how did the ‘Investiture Contest’ fit into the historical tribulations of the Church? The conflict of Empire and Papacy was an ‘unusually grave tribulation’ (solito gravior tribulatio) for the Church: this phrase illustrates Hugh of Flavigny’s desire to locate this quarrel in an ancient tradition of persecution, an understandable desire in a chronicler whose composition embraced the history of the world since the incarnation of the Lord.25 The historical tribulations of the Church were most often suffered at the hands of the secular power – men like Sehon, whom Peter Damian considered to be a type of secular persecutor of the faithful. It was these principes mundi who had enslaved the Church in the past, and the scope of Hugh’s incarnation chronicle allowed him to find many precedents for the oppression wrought by Henry IV of Germany. Hugh could, for example, refer his reader to the fourth-century Sermo Contra Auxentium of Ambrose of Milan, where that Church Father preached against lay control of churches. This sermon, Hugh thought, ‘we believe to be apt for our times’ (nostris temporibus congruere scimus).26 Clearly, Hugh felt that Gregory VII’s reforming endeavours had many precedents and that his programme for a ‘free, chaste and catholic’ Church was part of a great historical struggle for ecclesiastical liberty. Ever since the composition of Cardinal Humbert’s Libri III Adversus Simoniacos in 1058, the more radical adherents of the reform papacy considered the practice of lay investiture to be the most pernicious practice in the secular enslavement of the Church.27 However, the antiquity of this custom (consuetudo/usus) was undeniable. Hugh of Flavigny even reported that when Gregory VII inquired of his cardinals as to the status of lay investiture, they answered that it was a custom of the Church, and to be considered legal, although

24 Cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085 (Oxford, 1998), p. 547. 25 Cf. A.-D. Von den Brincken, Studien zur lateinischen Weltchronistik bis in das

Zeitalter Ottos von Freising (Düsseldorf, 1957), pp. 160–61. 26 Hugh of Flavigny, 302/40–42; cf. Ambrose of Milan, Sermo Contra Auxentium de

Basilicis Tradendis, PL, 16, 1007B–1018C. 27 Humbert of Silva Candida, Libri III Adversus Simoniacos, ed. G. Thaner, MGH

Libelli, 1, 95–253. Rudolf Schieffer, Die Entstehung des päpstlichen Investiturverbots für den deutschen König (Schriften der MGH, 28: Stuttgart, 1981), pp. 42–7, made the point that, whatever about the influence of his ideas, Humbert’s Libri III seems to have had a very limited circulation and impact on reforming theory concerning lay investiture in the second half of the eleventh century.


it could not be supported by any ‘authority’ (auctoritas).28 This last caveat was crucial for the progress of reform because, by virtue of it, ‘custom’ could be superseded by ‘authority’ and ‘truth’.29 Thus, Hugh could claim, in the context of Gregory’s investiture prohibition of 1080, that ‘in the pontificate of Lord Gregory the truth concerning ecclesiastical election in Holy Church, which was obscured for many years, shone forth’.30 In the Gregorian view, the pernicious custom of lay investiture was necessarily subordinate to the truth because, as it was asserted in a letter attributed to Gregory VII, ‘the Lord said “I am the truth and the life”; he did not say “I am the custom” but “the truth”’.31

However, the truth about the correct method of ecclesiastical election, newly rediscovered by Gregory VII, was not palatable to everyone, especially those who preferred ‘to adhere to the discipleship of Simon [Magus] rather than serve the poverty of Christ in the unity of faith’.32 Hugh of Flavigny felt that the problem of simony – the buying and selling of Church offices – was endemic in kingdoms where ecclesiastical offices were controlled by the secular power. In France, where Bishop Hugh of Die was appointed papal legate in 1074, Hugh claimed that ‘the iniquitous pest of simony crawled about everywhere, so that there were very few who were not simoniacs, or ordained by simoniacs, or invested by a lay hand’.33

Hugh’s reforming horror at the apparent ubiquity of simony is indicative of the intensified reforming sensitivity to this heresy since the middle of the eleventh century. In the Liber Gratissimus Peter Damian asserted that Pope Leo IX’s plan to declare all simoniacal ordinations invalid in 1049 provoked a great tumult as it was feared that this measure would deprive almost all churches of their priests.34 Of course, Hugh of Flavigny’s analysis of the situation in contemporary France may have been exaggerated: by the late eleventh century an accusation of simony was very often a polemical slur with no basis in fact.35 Indeed, Hugh of Flavigny himself alluded to the polemical smearing of Pope Gregory VII with the taint of

28 Hugh of Flavigny, 411/54–412/1: ‘Quibus respondentibus usum aecclesiae hunc esse, hunc haberi pro lege, cum auctoritas eis nulla ad hoc suffragaretur …’.

29 The dichotomy between ‘truth’ and ‘custom’ in Gregory VII’s pontificate has attracted the attention of scholars such as Cowdrey and Ladner: see Chapter 7, note 31.

30 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/40–41: ‘… sanctae Dei aecclesiae sub papatu domni Gregorii multis retro annis obnubilata aelectionis aecclesiasticae splenduit veritas’.

31 Epistolae Vagantes, no. 67, p. 151. 32 Hugh of Flavigny, 423/15–16. 33 Ibid., 412/43–5: … in Gallia, ubi plurimum symoniae serpebat pestis iniqua; quia

perrari illic erant, qui non essent aut symoniaci, aut a symoniacis ordinati, aut per manum laicam investiti.

34 Petri Damiani Liber Gratissimus, c. 37, MGH Libelli, 1, 70/10–13: Nam cum omnes symoniacorum ordinationes sinodalis vigoris auctoritate cassasset, protinus a Romanorum multitudine sacerdotum magnae seditionis tumultus exortus est, ita ut non solum ab ipsis, sed a plerisque diceretur episcopis, omnes pene basilicas sacerdotalibus officiis destitutas ....

35 Cf. Gerd Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 172–3.

Introduction 9

simony on account of that pope’s allegedly irregular election in 1073.36 It is undeniable, however, that whatever about the incidence of simony, the concept of this heresy had broadened since the pontificate of Leo IX (1048–54).37 It was in this context that Hugh of Flavigny conflated the different sins of simony and lay investiture: in the same breath he denounced simonists along with those who had been invested by a ‘lay hand’. Humbert’s treatise reflected an article of faith among the more radical reformers that the two practices of simony and lay investiture were but different aspects of the same heresy. As the cardinal-bishop of Silva Candida questioned rhetorically: did not secular princes practice simony under ‘the false name of investiture’?38

In Hugh’s Chronicon, the arch-simonist was King Henry IV of Germany. It was he, by virtue of the evil policy of his counsellors (familiares), who had simoniacally introduced ‘wolves’ instead of pastors in the bishoprics and monasteries of the realm. Admonished by the pope to abstain from the company of his advisers – they had been excommunicated by Pope Alexander II (1061–73), possibly because of simony – Henry IV acquiesced and wrote a penitential letter to Gregory VII in September 1073. However, the king had only submitted because of the crisis of a rebellion in Saxony, and having defeated the Saxons in battle on the River Unstrut in June 1075, Henry IV received his excommunicated advisors back into the royal household – like a ‘dog returning to its own vomit’ (cf. Proverb. 26:11 and II Peter. 2:22) according to Hugh of Flavigny.39 The example of his simoniacal heresy, moreover, had contaminated the whole episcopate in Germany. Inspired by the king’s example, the bishops revealed themselves to be ‘not pastors of sheep but hirelings’ (cf. John. 10:12–13). Hugh of Flavigny particularly had in mind Bishop Otto of Constance, who was unable to enforce the pope’s reforming legislation on clerical chastity in his diocese and who, on that account, was censured by Gregory VII in a series of letters in late 1075.40 The corruption of these bishops was manipulated by Henry IV who, enraged by the pope’s threat of deposition in late 1075, had resolved to make a ‘shipwreck of the faith’41 by

36 See above, note 12. 37 Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe, p. 169. 38 Libri III Adversus Simoniacos, 3.6, MGH Libelli, 1, 206/1–2: ‘Nonne saeculi

principes prius vendiderunt et vendunt ecclesiastica sub falso nomine investitionis’? 39 Hugh of Flavigny, 424/46–425/47, where the narrative is to a large extent based on

the summary of events contained in Gregory VII’s letter to the faithful in Germany of summer 1076, Epistolae Vagantes, no. 14, p. 34; for Henry’s excommunicated counsellors, see I.S. Robinson, Henry IV of Germany 1056–1106 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 114, 125; the king’s penitential letter is contained in Hugh of Flavigny, 425/17–42, and Die Briefe Heinrichs IV., no. 5, pp. 8–9.

40 Hugh of Flavigny, 426/12–14: ‘… praecepta sedis apostolicae parvipendere non timuerunt, et se non pastores ovium, sed mercennarios evidenti indicio probaverunt …’; Gregory’s letters to Otto of Constance and to the faithful of this diocese are contained in Hugh of Flavigny, 426/18–427/3 = Epistolae Vagantes, nos 9 and 10, pp. 18–26.

41 A possible allusion to 1 Timothy 1:19; cf. Epistolae Vagantes, no. 14, p. 38.


forcing almost all of the bishops in Italy and Germany to renounce their obedience to the pope.42 Thus, Hugh of Flavigny’s narrative of the events leading up to the fateful council of Worms in January 1076 shows no trace of the objections to the pope that were ventilated at that assembly: Gregory’s arrogant disregard for the traditional rights of the bishops; his subjection of the bishops to the ‘common frenzy’ of the mob; his novel intrusion into their jurisdictions, unsupported by canon law.43 These mainly ecclesiological complaints find no trace in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny. Hugh preferred to see the council of Worms as an assembly of simoniacal ‘wolves’, who resisted reform in the shape of Gregory’s investiture prohibitions – erroneously dated by Hugh to 1074–75 – and who were not afraid to ignore the reforming letters with which the pope had attempted to disseminate reforming instructions. Led by the ‘tyrant’ Henry IV, who had become ‘an unhappy member of him who is king over all the sons of pride’,44 these bishops ‘not wishing to live a blameless life and … defiling the canonical institutions … sought to judge the mother of the Universal Church’.45

And yet, after this dramatic preamble to the council of Worms, the events themselves were described in the Chronicon in much more restrained language. This is because Hugh took his account of the council from the Epistola of Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg to Hermann of Metz of 1081, both of whom were, like Hugh of Flavigny, ardent supporters of Gregory VII.46 For his part, Gebhard framed the bishops’ renunciation of the pope at Worms against a background of concord between the regnum and the sacerdotium. He emphasised this point to incriminate the bishops of rebellion against the pope who, at that point, had issued no sentence of excommunication against them.47 Thus Hugh of Flavigny, following Gebhard, asserted that right up to the feast of St Andrew (30 November) 1075 harmony prevailed between the pope and king. It was only when the bishops proudly shook off the ‘yoke of discipline’ that relations between Gregory VII and Henry IV broke down: ‘this was the first leaven that corrupted the

42 Gregory reproved Henry IV for his sins and threatened him with deposition in a letter of 8 December 1075: Reg. 3.10, pp. 263–7.

43 Briefsammlungen der Zeit Heinrichs IV., ed. C. Erdmann and N. Fickermann, (MGHBriefe der deutschen Kaiserzeit 5: Weimar, 1950), no. 20, p. 48/10–11: ‘... omnique rerum ecclesiasticarum administratione plebeio furori per te attributa’; cf. I.S. Robinson, ‘Periculosus homo: Pope Gregory VII and Episcopal Authority’, Viator, 9 (1978), 103–31.

44 A phrase deriving from Job 41:25 and popular with Gregory VII: cf. Reg. 8.21, p. 552/19–20.

45 Hugh of Flavigny, 430/49–52: ‘Episcopi, inquam, si tamen episcopi dicendi sunt qui inreprehensibiliter vivere nolentes et reprehendi a suis primoribus refugientes, instituta canonica temerantes, et canonica invectione notari nolentes, ipsi etiam universorum matri ecclesiae et apostolicae sedi praejudicium fecerunt’.

46 Hugh of Flavigny, 459/43–460/8 also cited the second letter of Gebhard of Salzburg to Hermann of Metz of 1084 and referred to the alia scripta of that bishop on p. 460/10; see below, note 74.

47 Cf. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII, pp. 215–16.

Introduction 11

whole lump of the church’.48 One of Gebhard’s main objections to the proceedings at Worms was that the pope had been judged in his absence, ‘unconvened and unheard’ (inconventus et inauditus): the proceedings against him were therefore void according to canon law. This objection had been made by Bishop Hermann of Metz at the council of Worms itself, and although he was not heeded on that occasion, Hermann’s criticism soon became persuasive. The king’s coalition against Gregory, so formidable at Worms, began to erode throughout the course of spring and summer of 1076 when a general consensus emerged among the German episcopate that the council of Worms had acted ultra vires.49 This was a theme that Hugh of Flavigny took up assiduously, and he fleshed out Gebhard’s narrative on the council of Worms with a great number of canon law sententie asserting that the pope could not be deposed, nor be judged by any human agency: only the Almighty was fit to arbitrate on cases involving the Roman pontiff.50

The pope’s response to the events at Worms was presented by Hugh through the medium of the letter which Empress Agnes – Henry IV’s mother – wrote to Bishop Altmann of Passau. In this letter, Agnes described the arrival the king’s legates at Rome during Lent 1076; their message of denunciation and renunciation, and the measures adopted by Gregory VII in response. All those who had been forced into signing the Worms decree were to be given until the feast of St Peter (1 August) to recant. Henry IV himself, on account of his contact with his excommunicated counsellors and his general recidivism, was deprived of the royal dignity and pierced with the sword of anathema; further, all oaths that had been sworn to the king were dissolved.51 Agnes’s letter was the signal for an extended theoretical excursus on the nature of kingship in Hugh’s Chronicon, revolving around three themes: the definition of tyranny and its application to Henry IV; the legality of the pope’s dissolution of feudal oaths ‘by the licence and authority of apostolic liberty’, and the historical precedents for Gregory VII’s judgment of the king.52

Henry IV’s reaction to his excommunication at the hands of the pope was of immense interest to pro-papal authors, including Hugh of Flavigny.53 The king assembled a synod at Utrecht on 26 March 1076 in order to excommunicate Gregory VII and to demonstrate publicly Henry’s authority as ‘vicar of God’ within his realm.54 Bishop Pibo of Toul had originally been deputed to pronounce

48 Hugh of Flavigny, 431/7–23; cf. Gebehardi Salisburgensis Archiepiscopi Epistola ad Herimannum Mettensem Episcopum Data, cc. 34–5, MGH Libelli, 1, 279/7–27.

49 See Chapter 2, note 143. 50 See Chapter 2, note 162. 51 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/16–29; cf. Gregory’s sentence of excommunication against

Henry, pronounced at the Lent synod at Rome in 1076: Reg. 3.10a, p. 270. 52 See Chapter 6, notes 159–60. 53 For the following see Hugh of Flavigny, 458/22–459/1. Hugh dated the synod of

Utrecht to 1080, perhaps confusing it with the council of Mainz of 31 May 1080. 54 Cf. Robinson, Henry IV of Germany, p. 149.


the sentence of excommunication on Easter Sunday, 27 March, but being ‘of a timid mind and very inconstant’, according to Hugh of Flavigny, he fled Utrecht together with Bishop Theoderic of Verdun on the eve of Easter. Instead, Bishop William of Utrecht performed the task. However, because he then received the Eucharist in such a state of rebellious sinfulness, William did not escape divine punishment (ultio divina), bursting into flames in penalty for his crimes. Although it would appear that William of Utrecht did not die on Easter Sunday – he perished on 27 April – his passing does seem to have been sudden and painful and to have been interpreted by the ‘Gregorian’ party in Germany as a welcome confirmation that they belonged to the righteous.55 Hugh’s version of William’s fiery death may have been influenced by the lightning that burned the church of St Peter in Utrecht to the ground on Easter Sunday 1076 – perceived by many as a token of divine displeasure – but may also have been modelled on the genre of Eucharistic miracles, where it was believed that the Host was immune from the ravages of fire.56

Bishop William’s sudden death, together with growing disquiet about the legality of the episcopal renunciation of Gregory VII at Worms, induced many German bishops to seek papal forgiveness for their rebellion throughout the course of 1076. Aware of the sin of disobedience, rebel bishops such as Udo of Trier made their way to Rome to do penance; just as in the Old Testament book of Job (23:4), ‘their mouths were full of [self] reproach’.57 Among these penitents was Bishop Theoderic of Verdun who, although absent from the council of Worms in January 1076, was nonetheless identified with the rebels. Theoderic conveyed his submission to Rome via Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne, and was received back into communion once he had performed due satisfaction to the foremost papal representative in Upper-Lotharingia, Bishop Hermann of Metz.58 Pope Gregory VII was certainly anxious to welcome back into communion those who repented of their sins, and the pope wrote a letter to this effect – copied into the Chronicon ofHugh of Flavigny – addressed to all the faithful of the Roman Empire and dated 25 July 1076.59 Hugh of Flavigny was determined to embroider the theme of this letter, and emphasised that the pope was motivated by a desire for reconciliation and wanted to deal mildly with the party of Henry IV. To this end, Hugh added a patristic gloss to this letter of Gregory VII, claiming that ‘like Ambrose, [Gregory VII] was solicitous not to act rashly or negligently’. Henry IV, on the other hand, had let slip ‘the reins of moderation’ (aurigae moderamina) and had allowed his

55 Cf. Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernolds von Konstanz 1054–1100, ed. I.S. Robinson, MGH SRG, NS, 14 (Hanover, 2003), 242/6–12.

56 Robinson, Henry IV of Germany, p. 151; Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe, pp. 97–8.

57 Hugh of Flavigny, 444/39: ‘… replebatur os eorum increpationibus …’ cf. Chapter 2, notes 142–3.

58 Cf. Chapter 2, note 145. 59 Reg. 4.1, pp. 289/20–292/20; cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 440/45–441/45.

Introduction 13

violent appetites to destroy his mind.60 The pope’s alleged mildness and clemency was contradicted by his increasingly hostile attitude to Henry IV – by 3 September he mentioned the possibility of a new royal election in Germany – and may have been emphasised by Hugh in response to criticism that Gregory VII had been unduly harsh with the king.61

Hugh of Flavigny’s somewhat confusing narrative for the years 1077–80 was based almost exclusively on the interpretation of events offered by the letters of Gregory VII. Gregory’s second sentence of excommunication against Henry IV of Lent 1080 fortified the chronicler in his assertion that Henry IV was only restored to communion at Canossa in January 1077, not to the kingship, nor was it commanded that fealty should again be observed towards the king.62 Equally tendentious and derivative is Hugh’s narrative – again taken from the decree of Lent 1080 – surrounding the election of Rudolf of Rheinfelden as anti-king at Forchheim in March 1077. Hugh claimed that Rudolf only received the government of the realm under duress because ‘the bishops and princes beyond the mountains, hearing that [Henry IV] had not fulfilled to [Gregory VII] what he had promised, as though despairing of him … elected for themselves Duke Rudolf to be king’.63

The narrative of the Chronicon is perhaps at its most unsatisfactory when describing the complex political manoeuvres in Germany between 1077 and 1080; here, Hugh’s account is almost wholly reliant on the jaundiced record of Gregory’s letters. In respect of one incident, however, the chronicler managed to go beyond the narrow purview of papal missives. Soon after the Lenten synod of 1079, Gregory sent two papal legates into Germany, Cardinal-bishop Peter of Albano and Bishop Udalric of Padua. Their task was to procure agreement with the king about the time and place of the proposed conference to settle the question of the kingship in Germany. At a conference at Fritzlar in June 1079 the legates managed to persuade Henry IV to accept the papal plan of a future conference to settle the kingship. After the negotiations at Fritzlar, Peter and Udalric returned to the king’s court at Regensburg, a move that angered the party of the anti-king Rudolf of Rheinfelden. The followers of the anti-king had expected the papal legates in 1079

60 Hugh of Flavigny, 441/52–442/4: ‘Sollicitus etiam erat (sc. Gregorius VII.), iuxta beatum Ambrosium, ne quid temere aut incuriose ageret ... verum Heinrici perturbata mens effuso appetitu ... nec sentiebat aurigae moderamina ...’; cf. Ambrose of Milan, De Officiis Ministrorum, c. 47, PL, 16, 91Bff.

61 Reg. 4.3, pp. 298–300/5; for criticism of Gregory’s treatment of Henry IV, see Chapter 2, note 156.

62 Hugh of Flavigny, 446/39–42: ‘Regi itaque praefato Heinrico, ut in verbis domni papae colligere possumus, sola est communionis gratia reddita, non tamen regno restitutus, nec fidelitas omnium qui ei vel juraverant vel juraturi erant, ut sibi servaretur praeceptum est’. Cf. Reg. 7.14a, p. 484/12–15.

63 Hugh of Flavigny, 446/44–6: ‘Verum praedicti episcopi et principes ultramontani audientes illum non servare quod promiserat, quasi de eo desperati, absque domni papae consilio elegerunt sibi Rodulfum ducem in regem.’ Cf. Reg. 7.14a, p. 484/21–4.


to behave like their predecessors in 1077, when the representatives of the pope had shown outright hostility to Henry IV and had approved the election at Forchheim. The studied impartiality of Peter of Albano and Udalric of Padua in 1079 prompted Rudolf’s adherents to send a stream of hostile invective about the legates to Rome.64 This propaganda, which the pope showed himself aware of but refused to believe, found an echo in Hugh’s Chronicon.65 The legates, he claimed, ‘because corrupted by gifts, deviated from the design and intention of apostolic authority … [declaring] Henry to be restored to the kingship and excommunicating Rudolf publicly from the church as a perverter and invader of the kingdom’.66 Hugh’s curious assertion that the legates publicly excommunicated Rudolf of Rheinfelden might be a particularly distorted account of the Council of Würzburg in August 1079. The party of the anti-king refused to attend this council because of their distrust of the papal legates and, because of their non-attendance, Henry IV demanded the excommunication of his enemies on the grounds of disobedience towards the pope.67 The allegation of the corruption of the two papal legates is also evident in other near-contemporary compositions that were sympathetic to the pope. Berthold of Reichenau reserved his criticism exclusively for Udalric of Padua – perhaps because of the royal diploma that Udalric obtained for his church on 23 July 1079 – and referred to him, in terms similar to those employed by Hugh of Flavigny, as ‘corrupted by gifts’ (muneribus corruptus).68 Bruno of Merseburg asserted that the legates had exploited their position to extort money from both sides in Germany ‘in Roman fashion’.69 Clearly, the alleged legatine corruption in Germany of 1079 was an incident of particular importance to pro-papal writers in that realm: for them it was yet another example of the unregenerate simony of Henry IV and indicative of the insincerity of the king’s submission at Canossa in 1077.

64 Robinson, Henry IV of Germany, p. 191. 65 In a letter of July–October 1079 the pope wrote that ‘there are some who are –

although without convincing us – beginning to complain of your conduct as legates’; Epistolae Vagantes, no. 31, p. 80. Gregory also mentioned the failings of his legates in a letter to his supporters in Germany of 1 October 1079, Reg. 7.3, pp. 462/21–463/19. Both letters are contained in Hugh of Flavigny, 450/22–451/34.

66 Hugh of Flavigny, 451/6–9: ‘His acceptis litteris quia corrupti muneribus a sententia et proposito gravitatis apostolicae deviaverunt, aliud quam quod eis impositum fuerat agentes, Heinricum videlicet in regnum reformantes et Rodulfum pervasorem et invasorem regni ab aecclesia publice precidentes …’.

67 Robinson, Henry IV of Germany, p. 191. 68 Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernolds von Konstanz, s.a. 1079, p.

368/7; for Henry’s privilege for the Church of Padua, see D H IV 312. 69 Brunos Buch vom Sachsenkrieg, c. 116, ed. H.-E. Lohmann, MGH DM, 2 (Leipzig,

1937), p. 109/15–17: ‘… nunc nobis, nunc hostibus nostris apostolicum favorem promittentes, ab utrisque pecuniam, quantum poterant more Romano conquirere, secum detulerunt’; for Hugh of Flavigny’s distate at Romana avaritia see p. 463/29–30 and Chapter 3, note 47, with reference to the ‘insatiable whirlpool of Roman greed’.

Introduction 15

It may even be the case that Henry’s alleged bribing of Udalric of Padua was a major factor in the pope’s decision to excommunicate the king for a second time at the Lent synod of 1080.70 This measure was certainly elicited by Gregory’s perception that Henry had thwarted his plans to resolve the question of the kingship in Germany, a perception that must have been bolstered by the failure of Peter and Udalric’s legatine mission in 1079. The pope’s second anathema of Henry IV, which influenced Hugh’s narrative so profoundly, encountered far greater opposition than the first excommunication of the king in 1076.71 Gregory’s behaviour was widely believed to be unjust, especially among those who believed in the principle of ‘sacral’ kingship. Thus, Hugh of Flavigny alleged that the pope wrote his second doctrinal letter to Bishop Hermann of Metz in March 1081 in order to answer those who claimed that the pope had no authority to depose a king elected by God, and who asserted like St Paul (Romans. 13:1) that there was no power but from God.72 Hugh included this letter in his Chronicon with scant regard for chronology, perceiving it to have been written in response to those who claimed that Gregory could not depose the king who had been ‘elected by God’ (aDeo electus). It is likely that the proceedings of the synod of Brixen in June 1080, where Gregory VII was called upon to abdicate and where Wibert of Ravenna was designated in his place, had more influence on Gregory’s decision to write his second letter to Bishop Hermann of Metz.73

Hugh narrated the events of the synod of Brixen in the light of Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg’s letter to Hermann of Metz of 1084, a copy of which was inscribed into the Chronicon.74 The tone of Gebhard’s letter was manifestly eschatological and was composed in the aftermath of Henry’s capture of Rome in 1084 and the installation of his antipope, Wibert of Ravenna, as Clement III. In a clear allegory of the coming of antichrist, Henry’s designation of Wibert was compared by Gebhard to Nabuchodonosor’s setting up of a golden statue in the

70 The various arguments are summarised in Robinson, Henry IV of Germany, p. 194. 71 Reg. 7.14a; cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 451/42–453/3. 72 Hugh of Flavigny, 453/36–42: ‘… intentaret adversa indignatio regia, et fallax

adulantium ei lingua, conquerentium non posse auctoritatem sanctae Romanae aecclesiae regem imperatoris filium a Deo electum et honoratum, sanctam illam regiae majestatis dignitatem a seculis honoratam deponere ... cum non esset potestas nisi a Deo, quae autem sunt a Deo, ordinata sunt: et ille a sede apostolica contra rabiem oblatrantium curationis expeteret antidotum, ut erga eorum impetus scriptis apostolicis quasi clypeo defensionis muniretur …’; the letter itself is Hugh of Flavigny, 453/47–458/2 = Reg. 8.21, pp. 546/13–562/25.

73 For the synod of Brixen, see Robinson, Henry IV of Germany, pp. 198–201; for the reasons behind Gregory’s second letter to Hermann of Metz, see Carlyle and Carlyle, Vol. 3, p. 97, and Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII, pp. 614–15.

74 Hugh of Flavigny, 459/43–460/8; for Hugh’s knowledge of Gebhard’s other writings, see above, note 46.


book of Daniel (3:1).75 Hugh of Flavigny’s analysis of the transactions at Brixen was similarly eschatological: the assembly was a ‘synagogue of Satan’, and Wibert, by accepting designation as pope, had undertaken the ‘business of antichrist’ (antichristi negocium).76 And yet Hugh displayed an awareness of Wibert’s reforming credentials as archbishop of Ravenna, as the following quote illustrates:77

What could be of greater insanity than that a man, very learned in letters, imbued with ecclesiastical knowledge … holding a place of great dignity and authority in the church, should arrive at such a condition of mind that he should proudly rebel against God, wholly desiring to imitate him who said ‘I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north, I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High’ (Is. 14:13–14).78

In becoming the royal nominee to the papacy, Wibert had abjured his learning and status in order to become like the proud rebel Satan. Hugh of Flavigny commented, with reference to Henry IV’s receipt of the imperial crown from Wibert at Rome on Easter Sunday (31 March) 1084, that ‘it was proper that such a king should institute such a pope and receive [back] from him the crown of ignominy and the sceptre of dishonour’.79

In Hugh’s Chronicon the designation of Wibert at Brixen in 1080 and Henry’s conquest of Rome in 1084 are considered together in a breathless and confusing passage, which was perhaps composed on the evidence of Gebhard of Salzburg’s second letter to Hermann of Metz. It is only in the following pages of the Chronicon that a coherent narrative emerges on the events leading up to the royal capture of Rome, Gregory’s asylum at the Castel S. Angelo, and the pope’s flight from Rome and eventual death at Salerno in 1085. Hugh’s account of the pope’s sanctuary in the Castel S. Angelo – ‘in the tower of the Crescentii’ (in turre Crescentis) – on the occasion of Henry’s march on Rome in 1084 was very probably taken from the eyewitness account of Abbot Jarento of St-Bénigne,

75 Hugh of Flavigny, 460/4–6: ‘Caveat igitur omnis christianus, caput antichristo inclinare, statuam quam Nabuchodonosor erexit adorare, sicque se ipsius heresiarchae perniciosissimo anathemati innodare’. Cf. Paul of Bernried’s Vita of Gregory VII, c. 108, in Robinson, ed., The Papal Reform of the Eleventh Century, p. 351 n. 582.

76 Hugh of Flavigny, 459/20–42, esp. lines 23 and 31. The eschatological elements in Hugh’s Chronicon have been overlooked: cf. Timothy Reuter, ‘Past, Present and No Future in the Twelfth Century Regnum Teutonicum’, The Perception of the Past in Twelfth Century Europe, ed. Paul Magdalino (London, 1992), p. 33.

77 On Wibert’s opposition to clerical marriage and simony, see Robinson, Henry IV of Germany, pp. 200–201.

78 Hugh of Flavigny, 460/32–38; the biblical reference to Isaiah 14:13–14 is also cited by Gebhard of Salzburg in his second letter to Hermann of Metz.

79 Hugh of Flavigny, 460/14–16.

Introduction 17

Hugh’s mentor between 1085 and 1096.80 Jarento was at Rome when Henry stormed the city in March 1084, and he shared Gregory’s captivity at the Crescentii stronghold with such fidelity that the pope apparently referred to Jarento as his ‘fellow-captive’ (concaptivus). The pope then entrusted the abbot of St-Bénigne, together with ‘certain cardinals’, with the responsibility of summoning Duke Robert Guiscard of Apulia to help rescue the beleaguered Gregorian party at Rome.81 Robert Guiscard’s rescue mission was a success of sorts, forcing Henry IV’s army to retreat from Rome. However, because the king managed to take with him the ‘seal of the lord pope’ (sigillum domini papae), Margravine Matilda of Tuscany wrote a letter – possibly composed by Bishop Anselm II of Lucca – to the faithful in Germany, warning them not to trust any papal pronouncements issued under the stolen seal.82 The great bond between this ‘daughter of the Roman Church’ (Romanae aecclesiae filia) and Gregory VII is evident in the Chronicon ofHugh of Flavigny. Hugh was especially concerned to refute the many allegations of impropriety between Matilda and the pope: for example, the German bishops at Worms in 1076 – clearly with Matilda of Tuscany in mind – accused Gregory of having scandalised the whole Church because of his ‘intimacy and cohabitation with another man’s wife’.83 Therefore Hugh felt compelled to answer the ‘detractors of the faith and despisers of the truth’, who alleged the crime of ‘incest’ (crimen incestus) between Gregory and Matilda.84 To this end, he cited a fragment of a letter of Gregory’s to Matilda of February 1074 on the theme of frequent communion, a suitably chaste topic which would illustrate the pope’s pastoral concern for the salvation of the margravine.85

Despite the support of such powerful nobles as Matilda of Tuscany and Robert Guiscard, the pope could not maintain himself at Rome. Gregory’s liberation in 1084 had come at a heavy price and because of what Hugh of Flavigny euphemistically described as ‘Norman instability’ – denoting the rapine and cruelty of the invading soldiers – the pope had become alienated from the Roman people

80 See Chapter 3, note 40–43. 81 Hugh of Flavigny, 462/40–45, esp. line 45: ‘Hunc (sc. abbas Divionensis) ergo ad

evocandum ducem cum quibusdam cardinalibus misit’. 82 Ibid., 462/53–463/12. On Bishop Anselm’s possible authorship of this letter, see

Patrick Healy, ‘Merito Nominetur Virago: Matilda of Tuscany in the Polemics of the Investiture Contest’, Victims or Viragos: Studies on Medieval and Early Modern Women,ed. Christine Meek and Catherine Lawless (Dublin, 2005), pp. 53–4; cf. Robinson, The Papal Reform of the Eleventh Century, p. 356 n. 620.

83 Briefsammlungen der Zeit Heinrichs IV., no. 20, p. 49/22: ‘… gravissimi scandali totam ecclesiam replesti de convictu et cohabitatione alienae mulieris familiariori quam necesse est’.

84 Hugh of Flavigny, 462/18–19: ‘Hec est mulier illa, de qua ab ottrectatoribus fidei et conculcatoribus veritatis crimen incestus sancto pontifici objiciebatur’.

85 Ibid., 462/26–39; cf. Reg. 1.47, pp. 71/23–72/12. It is perhaps significant that Hugh showed his awareness on p. 462/23 of many letters written by Gregory VII to Matilda: ‘Extant ad eam plures epistolae papae …’.


and was forced to take refuge at Salerno.86 From there he wrote a letter to all the faithful of July–November 1084 – the last letter of Gregory VII that is included in Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon – explaining the plight of the Church and appealing for help.87 This letter had a wide circulation and was transmitted to Portugal by Abbot Jarento, to Germany by Cardinal Odo of Ostia, and to France by Cardinal Peter of Albano and Prince Gisulf of Salerno, ‘the most faithful servants of St Peter’, according to Gregory VII, and ‘among the leading men of his household’.88

Hugh of Flavigny’s account of Jarento’s journey – probably garnered from Jarento’s own account – is indicative of the dire straits in which the Gregorian party found itself and the obstacles that had to be surmounted in the diffusion of this papal letter: ‘the abbot of Dijon, together with Fiery Peter [of Albano] and the prince of Salerno travelled by sea from Salerno, as they feared to travel by land because of the violence of the watchful enemy, finally putting in at St Gilles (in Languedoc) after a long tedious journey’.89

According to Hugh of Flavigny the pope gave thanks for the tribulations that he had incurred. Gregory was ‘comforted in the Lord’ and although exiled in Salerno ‘remembered his predecessors Gregory, Leo and others who, the more perfect they became in the way of God, the more gravely they were persecuted by the Romans and were thus found to be worthy’.90 This was perhaps an allusion to the tribulations of popes such as Leo III, whose near-mutilation and expulsion from Rome in 799 was well known to Hugh of Flavigny through the medium of the Liber pontificalis.91 It was at Salerno that the pope had a premonition of his own passing, and having convoked ‘the cardinal bishops and other fellow captives’, he delivered his famous ‘death-bed testament’.92 Hugh of Flavigny had notice of this disposition from the fragment of a lost letter of Pope Urban II (1088–99) that he inserted into his Chronicon and which contained an incomplete summary of

86 Hugh of Flavigny, 462/48–53. 87 Ibid, 464/6–465/16 = Epistolae Vagantes, no. 54, pp. 128–34. 88 Epistolae Vagantes, no. 54, p. 130: Sunt enim beato Petro fidelissimi et inter primos

domus eius ….89 Hugh of Flavigny, 465/17–19: Abbas igitur Divionensis cum Petro Igneo et principe

Salernitano apud Salernitanam urbem mare ingressi, quia per terram ire propter discursantium hostium impetus pertimescebant, longa navigatione pertesi tamdem applicuerunt apud Sanctum Egidium ….

90 Ibid., 465/37–9: Rememorabatur praedecessorum suorum Romanorum pontificum, Gregorii, Leonis et aliorum, qui quanto perfectiores in via Dei fuerunt, tanto a Romanis gravius insectati sunt, et ideo digni inventi sunt.

91 Ibid., 352/49–57. 92 Ibid., 466/1–2: Sciens ergo imminere diem vocationis suae, longe ante convocatis

cardinalibus episcopis et caeteris concaptivis, diem obitus sui praedixit …; this passage mentions only the cardinal bishops and is perhaps indicative of the erosion of support for Gregory within the orders of the cardinal priests and deacons in the year 1084: cf. Cowdrey, Gregory VII, pp. 228, 321.

Introduction 19

Gregory’s final wishes.93 Hugh’s version of the pope’s final testament contains two stipulations. First, the pope mentioned three possible successors to the Holy See: Bishop Anselm II of Lucca, Cardinal-bishop Odo of Ostia and Archbishop Hugh of Lyons. Second, Gregory absolved all those under sentence of excommunication who acknowledged him as pope with the exception of Henry IV and Wibert of Ravenna, although even these two might be readmitted to communion if they performed ‘due and canonical satisfaction’.94 After this final mandate Gregory passed away: ‘[thus] giving his spirit to the Creator, in the year of the incarnation of the Lord 1085, died [this] martyr and confessor’.95

Hugh of Flavigny’s attitude to Gregory’s successor, Pope Victor III (1086–88), was unusually hostile and requires some explanation. It would seem that before his election as Pope Victor III, Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino took the initiative in providing a successor to Gregory VII in his capacity as cardinal-priest of S. Cecilia. However, before an election could be arranged the reform papacy was thrown into crisis on 18 March 1086 with the death of Bishop Anselm II of Lucca. Anselm had been the leading candidate in the proposed election, and apparently in a climate of growing anxiety about the succession, Abbot Desiderius was tumultuously elected pope at the church of S. Lucia in Rome on Pentecost (24 May) 1086. Soon after, the new pope, who had been unwillingly elected as Pope Victor III, divested himself of the papal insignia and returned to Montecassino. It was only at the council of Capua in March 1087 that Desiderius, under concerted pressure from Prince Jordan of Capua and Duke Roger Borsa of Apulia, confirmed his election of the previous year and resumed the papal insignia.96 These events provoked the ire of Archbishop Hugh of Lyons who, as one of the three possible successors mentioned in Gregory VII’s final testament, may have been disappointed that he had not been considered for election to the Holy See in 1086. Archbishop Hugh’s objections to Victor’s election were conveyed in a letter of April or May 1087 to Matilda of Tuscany. This letter is preserved in Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon; Hugh was a close associate of the archbishop of Lyons in the 1090s and may have gained access to a copy of the letter directly from its author.97

Archbishop Hugh’s objections to the election of Desiderius were manifold. Hugh had arrived at Rome too late to witness the election of May 1086 but had travelled on to Montecassino at Desiderius’s invitation. There, the archbishop of

93 Hugh of Flavigny, 466/23–33; cf. Briefsammlungen der Zeit Heinrichs IV.,Hildesheimer Briefe no. 35, pp. 5, 75–6.

94 Cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, The Age of Abbot Desiderius: Montecassino, the Papacy and the Normans in the Late Eleventh Century (Oxford, 1983), p. 181.

95 Hugh of Flavigny, 466/20–21. 96 Cowdrey, The Age of Abbot Desiderius, pp. 185–206, esp. 194–201, where Cowdrey

sifts the complicated evidence of the Chronica monasterii Casinensis.97 Hugh of Flavigny, 466/37–468/3; for Hugh’s association with the archbishop of

Lyons, see Chapter 3, note 63.


Lyons was shocked to hear that Desiderius had sworn an oath to Henry IV and had promised to help the king obtain the imperial crown. Moreover, Desiderius praised Cardinal Atto of Milan, who had defected from the party of Gregory VII in 1084 and had died outside the communion of Rome – in the same letter to Matilda, Archbishop Hugh even implied that Desiderius himself had been excommunicated by Pope Gregory and had not performed penance for his crimes.98 The objective explanation for Desiderius’s apparently traitorous stance is perhaps more innocent: Archbishop Hugh may have misrepresented debates with the Roman cardinals at Montecassino in which Desiderius adopted a moderate stance towards the Henrician faction as part of an established papal policy and in accordance with Gregory VII’s final testament.99 Hugh of Lyons also placed his misgivings about Desiderius’s election on an ecclesiological and canonical footing. On the one hand Archbishop Hugh asserted that the order of bishops should participate in papal elections, a claim that was also advanced in the mid-eleventh-century treatise De ordinando pontifice. He informed Matilda of Tuscany that he had been invited with others to Capua in March 1087 ‘so that we would, with general advice, elect the Roman pontiff’ (ut communi consilio Romanum pontificem eligeremus).100 On the other hand Archbishop Hugh asserted that Desiderius had refused to acknowledge his own election on the grounds of its tumultuous character and was even active in promoting a new election with new candidates. According to this view Desiderius’s election of May 1086 was now null and void and the council of Capua should have assembled to carry out a new election, not confirm an old one.101

This is the background to Hugh of Flavigny’s laconic summary of Desiderius’s pontificate as Victor III. After his consecration in St Peter’s at Rome, over which Bishop Odo of Ostia presided on the Sunday after Ascension Day (9 May) 1087, Desiderius was struck by what Hugh called the ‘judgement of God’ (iudicium Dei),probably a reference to the severe dysentery that is mentioned in other hostile accounts.102 Desiderius then belatedly repented for his sins, abdicated the papal throne, and, dying soon after, was buried in the chapter of his abbey not as pope but as abbot of Montecassino.103 This passage marks the terminus of Hugh of

98 Hugh of Lyons imputed this statement to the monk Guitmund during the discussions of March 1087 concerning Desiderius’s election: cf. Cowdrey, The Age of Abbot Desiderius,p. 162.

99 Cowdrey, The Age of Abbot Desiderius, p. 191. 100 Hugh of Flavigny, 467/20; cf. Cowdrey, The Age of Abbot Desiderius, p. 190 n. 50;

De ordinando pontifice, ed. Erwin Frauenknecht, MGH Studien und Texte, 5 (Hanover, 1992), p. 86/156–9: Quod cum ita sit in minoribus, fiat una provincia in spatio ecclesiae totius orbis, ut vel praesentia vel consensu omnes episcopi conveniant in ordinationem summi pontificis. Alioquin legitima non sit.

101 For these objections to the legality of Desiderius’s election see Cowdrey, The Age of Abbot Desiderius, pp. 190, 199.

102 Ibid., p. 206 n. 90. 103 Hugh of Flavigny, 468/4–7: Hic igitur consecratus ab Ostiensi episcopo, cum missas

apud Sanctum Petrum diceret, infra actionem iudicio Dei percussus est. Et quamvis tarde,

Introduction 21

Flavigny’s interest in the reform papacy. In the narrative of his Chronicon the pontificate of Urban II is virtually ignored and the mere fact of Paschal II’s election is noted.104 This surprising lacuna in the narrative of the Chronicon can be at least partially explained by the circumstances surrounding Desiderius’s election in 1086–87 and the alienation of Hugh’s mentor, Archbishop Hugh of Lyons, from the new centres of power in the reform papacy. Archbishop Hugh was particularly critical of the behaviour of Odo of Ostia – the future Pope Urban II – at the council of Capua in March 1087: the archbishop accused Odo of cynically acquiescing in the uncanonical confirmation of Desiderius as Pope Victor III in order to preserve his own right of consecrating the new pope (by virtue of his status as cardinal-bishop of Ostia).105 Hugh of Lyons duly suffered the consequences of his hostility, being excommunicated as a schismatic by Pope Victor III in 1087, thereby losing his status as papal legate until the turn of 1093/94.106 Hugh of Flavigny, as a loyal adherent of the archbishop of Lyons, may have shared his patron’s attitudes and disappointments. Like Hugh of Lyons – who had to be censured by Gregory VII in 1075 because of his overzealous attitude to reform – Hugh of Flavigny belonged to the uncompromising and radical fringe of the Church reform movement.107 For this group, the relatively conciliatory approach that characterised Urban II’s pontificate was a betrayal of Gregory VII’s desire for the Church to be ‘free, chaste and catholic’.108 Thus, in Hugh of Flavigny’s narrative there is the implicit assumption that the papal reform of the second half of the eleventh century was almost exclusively the personal work of Gregory VII, the ‘martyr and confessor’, who had ‘advanced unshaken along the royal way without deviation to the right or to the left’.

cognoscens se errasse, se ipse deposuit … et in capitulo non ut papam, sed ut abbatem sepeliri.

104 Ibid., 481/19–20. 105 Ibid., 467/52–3: … [Ostiensis episcopus] timens forte ne sui dignitate privaretur, si

ab alio prima manus consecratio ei imponeretur, conversus est in die belli; cf. Cowdrey, The Age of Abbot Desiderius, p. 206 n. 86.

106 Cf. Theodor Schieffer, Die päpstlichen Legaten in Frankreich vom Vertrage von Meersen (870) bis zum Schisma von 1130 (Berlin, 1935), pp. 141–3, 153.

107 Cf. Reg. 2.43, pp. 179–80. 108 In a letter of late 1093/early 1094 Bishop Ivo of Chartres alluded to Archbishop

Hugh’s initial reluctance to accept once more a commission as papal legate; in his reluctance Hugh of Lyons had apparently relied too heavily on the advice of those who asserted that it would be pointless to represent a papacy with such a ‘weak head’ (languidum caput), that is, Pope Urban II: Yves de Chartres: Correspondance, ed. J. Leclercq, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1949), no. 24, p. 96.

Chapter 2

The Abbey of St-Vanne, Verdun, from its Foundation until 1085

The church of St-Vanne first functioned as the episcopal seat for the bishops of Verdun; then, after the fifth century, as the sometime funereal church for the local bishops. Described as a basilica (meaning presumably a magna ecclesia) until the middle of the tenth century, the church was refounded as a monastery in 951. The monastery of St-Vanne was established by Bishop Berengar of Verdun in order to provide a refuge for local men who sought to renounce the world; the abbey was thus intended to stem the flow of prospective monks from the environs of Verdun. The foundation was deliberately intended to be dependent primarily on the patronage of the local diocesan: this aspect of the monastery’s constitution emerges clearly from the imperial and papal documents which confirmed Bishop Berengar’s foundation charter. However, by the last quarter of the eleventh century the abbey of St-Vanne had become estranged from the bishop of Verdun. The contemporary conflict of Church and State known as the Investiture Contest accentuated the hostility between monastery and bishop to the extent that the greater part of the monks, who were supporters of Pope Gregory VII, were forced into exile from St-Vanne in 1085 by Bishop Theoderic of Verdun, a partisan of King Henry IV of Germany. This breach may be seen as the culmination of a process whereby the abbey sought to win its autonomy from the almost proprietary domination of the local bishop. Hostility between bishop and abbey derived impetus from three different elements: the relationship between St-Vanne and the comital house of Verdun, a family with a traditional hostility to the bishops of Verdun and which became ardent supporters of the reform papacy in the third quarter of the eleventh century; the regional policy of the Salians in Lotharingia, who sought to augment the power of the imperial episcopate in that duchy at the expense of noble lordships; and the growing importance of St-Vanne as a centre of monastic reform in the abbatiate of Richard (1004–46), a phenomenon conducive to the growing self-confidence and independence of the abbey. The first church in Verdun, dedicated to the apostles Peter and Paul, was founded by Bishop Sanctinus of Meaux – later bishop of Verdun – on the site of the first Christian preaching in that city. There is some confusion in the sources concerning the foundation date of this church, which would later become the abbey of St-Vanne. The priest and canon Berthar of St-Vanne composed his Deeds of the Bishops of Verdun in 916/17 and included mutually exclusive accounts of the life of Sanctinus (he seems to have been unaware of this problem). According to the first account, a church dedicated to St Peter was founded at Verdun by Sanctinus,

The Abbey of St-Vanne, Verdun 23

then bishop of Meaux, who had stopped in Verdun while travelling to Rome in order to give an account of the martyrdom of St Denis to Pope Clement. This legend, which made Sanctinus into a disciple of Denis – the later patron of Paris – would place the construction of the church of St Peter, the first church in Verdun, at the end of the first century.1 However, Berthar also asserted that Sanctinus, as bishop of Verdun, took part in the synod of Cologne in 346, where the archbishop of Cologne was deposed. As there is other evidence that Sanctinus figured among the clerics present at Cologne in 346, a fourth-century date for the foundation of the church of St Peter at Verdun can safely be assumed.2

Although located in the suburbs of the city, the church of St Peter – St Paul was also occasionally recognised as a patron – remained the only church in Verdun for over a century and was apparently the episcopal seat of the bishops of Verdun.3

According to a Vita of Bishop Sanctinus, which was composed after Berthar’s time but before the translation of Sanctinus’s relics from Meaux to Verdun in 1031/32, Sanctinus was elevated to ‘the seat of pontifical honour’ at the church of St Peter in Verdun.4 Thus, the church of St Peter in Verdun originally discharged the functions of a cathedral. It may have been badly destroyed by the depredations of the Huns in the Verdunois in 450/51 – perhaps because of its suburban location – because at this time Bishop Pulchronius transferred the seat of his bishopric to a new church in the centre of Verdun, dedicated to the Virgin Mary.5

1 Berthar of St-Vanne, Gesta Episcoporum Virdunensium, c. 1, ed. G.H. Waitz, MGH SS, 4, 30/6–15. Berthar’s narrative was continued into the middle of the thirteenth century by the monks of St Vanne; see also Laurent of Liège, Laurentii de Leodio Gesta Episcoporum Virdunensium et Abbatum S. Vitoni, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS, 10, 489–516. Hugh of Flavigny, 290/12–20, adapted this legend to claim that Sanctinus was one of the 72 Disciples of Christ.

2 Hubert Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, Abbé de Saint-Vanne de Verdun(Louvain and Paris, 1946), p. 63 n. 3; cf. Gallia Christiana, 13, 1162–3, where a date c. 332 is offered for the foundation of the first church at Verdun.

3 St Paul’s role as a patron of this church seemed to emerge more clearly in the period after the refoundation of the church as a monastery in 951. See c. 2 of the continuation of Berthar’s Gesta, MGH SS, 4, 45/35–6: Hic basilicam sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli...; see also the late-eleventh/early-twelfth-century text celebrating the history of the monastery (as it then was), Proemium in vitam et historiam SS. Patronorum ecclesie S. Vitoni Virdunensis, ed. Joseph Van Der Straeten, Les manuscrits hagiographiques de Charleville, Verdun et Saint-Mihiel avec plusieurs textes inedits (Subsidia Hagiographica,56: Brussels, 1974), p. 131: Beatorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli necnon et sanctorum confessorum Vitoni, Sanctini, Pulcronii, Possessoris, Firmini, Magdalvei ... magnificis iste locus illuster honoribus ....

4 Vita Sancti Sanctini Primi Pontificis Urbis Clavorum, c. 5, ed. Van Der Straeten,Les manuscrits hagiographiques, p. 155: Ac sic universi populi acclamantes ... in ecclesia beati Petri, apostolorum principis, quam de novo inchoaverat, in sedem statuunt pontificalis honoris.

5 Information on this transfer is provided in a late-eleventh/early-twelfth-century document on the history of St-Vanne, De dignitate istius loci ac reverentia (a sister


The old church of St Peter, however, was not abandoned. A community of clerks – perhaps canons – was assigned to it so that the divine office would still be celebrated in that place.6 It would seem that the canons who served there were governed by an ‘abbot’ (abba) – in a charter of 775 Madalveus is described as ‘bishop, or rather abbot’ of the house – but this should not be taken to mean that the church of St Peter housed a community of monks.7 In the Merovingian period the title of ‘abbot’ designated not only the head of a monastery, but also the head of a body of clerics who served in a basilica. Most of the documents of which we have notice in connection with this church before the introduction of monks-proper in 951 mention a basilica; only one refers to the church as an abbatia.8

The church of SS Peter and Paul retained a special place in the ecclesiastical hierarchy at Verdun and seems, at least occasionally, to have functioned as the official funerary church of the local bishops. When Berthar wrote his Deeds of the Bishops of Verdun in 916/17 he claimed that 9 of the 29 bishops of Verdun were buried at this church which, on this account, was much revered by the faithful of the diocese.9 The tenor of Berthar’s narrative, as is the case with the later Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny, seems to suggest that the church of St Peter became the official Grabkirche in Verdun on account of the burial there of the saint-bishop Vanne (502/3–528/9).10 In fact, this was not the case and it seems that Bishop Madalveus, who died c. 775/82, played the formative role in tradition of episcopal burial at the church of St Peter in Verdun. In any case this tradition fell into abeyance over the course of the tenth century, as other churches and monasteries began to dispute the monopoly on episcopal patronage which the church of St Peter briefly possessed.11

document to the Proemium in vitam et historiam SS. Patronorum ecclesie S. Vitoni Virdunensis in note 3 above), ed. Van Der Straeten, Les manuscrits hagiographiques, p. 128: ... apud Virdunum post Hunorum discessum repedantes et confracta menia erigentes et ecclesias dirutas resarcientes, episcopatus sedem ad ecclesiam beate Virginis transtulerunt.

6 Mention is made of the ‘canons’ of St Peter (now St Vanne) in two documents, dating from 882 and 911–23 respectively, in the house cartulary: Hermann Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden des Klosters St. Vanne zu Verdun’, JGLGA, 10 (1898), 384–7, nos VI and VII. Of the ten documents preserved from the time before the introduction of the Benedictine Rule in 951, almost all speak of the basilica sancti Vitoni or the ecclesia sancti Vitoni; only one mentions the abbatia sancti Vitoni.

7 Ibid., no. III, p. 380. 8 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 64. 9 Berthar of St-Vanne, c. 4, p. 41/11–14: Basilica siquidem, ubi praedicti requiescunt

sancti, in honore sancti Petri apostoli est antiquitus constructa, quae pro antiqua dignitate habet multa episcoporum sepulcra, et propterea a fidelibus cunctis multum est veneranda.

10 Hugh of Flavigny, 349/25–30. On the dating of St Vanne’s pontificate see the Annales Sancti Vitoni Virdunensis, MGH SS, 10, 525 and Gallia Christiana, 13, 1166.

11 Michael Borgolte, ‘Fiktive Gräber in der Historiographie. Hugo von Flavigny und die Sepultur der Bischöfe von Verdun’, Fälschungen im Mittelalter, Vol. 1 (MGH Schriften33: Hanover, 1988–90), 210, 214.


According to Berthar, Madalveus particularly promoted the cult of St Vanne, which developed so emphatically after his burial that the name of this saint was added to – and often substituted for – the ancient patrons of this church, the apostles Peter and Paul.12 The most ancient charters that have survived for the church, dating from 702 to 947, all include St Vanne as a patron of the basilica. St Vanne’s role as a patron of the church of St Peter – and as the patron saint of the city of Verdun – seems to have been stimulated by the miracles which took place at his grave. These miracles, apparently, were still occurring at the grave of this bishop in the eleventh century: in his Vita and Libellus de miraculis of St Vanne, Richard of St-Vanne recorded the miracles which had been performed at the tomb of St Vanne in his own lifetime and those which he had seen with his own eyes.13

A particularly arresting miracle was interpolated into Richard’s Vita of St Vanne during the course of the twelfth century. According to this legend, St Vanne delivered the Verdunois from a great serpent that had terrorised the countryside, a legend which may represent metaphorically the saint’s successful battle against the last vestiges of paganism in the region around Verdun.14 The cult of St Vanne continued to thrive after the introduction of a monastic community in 951. In the official documents pertaining to the monastery after this date, the name of St Vanne is sometimes preceded by that of St Peter alone, sometimes by the names of both SS Peter and Paul.15

Very little is known of the community of clerks who officiated at the basilica of St-Vanne prior to the introduction of monks there in 951. In the late-eleventh century Hugh of Flavigny claimed that Bishop Madalveus instituted the norm of a regular life for the clerics of Verdun, although it is unclear whether Hugh understood this in respect of the cathedral clergy or the clerics at the basilica of St-Vanne, or both.16 We are on firmer ground when considering the ecclesiastical reforms of three bishops of Verdun in the second half of the ninth century: Hatto (847–70), Berhard (870–79) and Dado (880–923). According to Dado, his uncle and predecessor Berhard displayed a great zeal for ecclesiastical discipline, and to this end introduced eight canons into the basilica sancti Petri et sancti Vitoni,endowing them generously.17 For his part, Dado had governed the basilica of St-

12 On Madalveus’s reverence for the cult of St Vanne see Berthar of St-Vanne, c. 12, p. 44/31.

13 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 361–78. 14 Vita Sancti Vitoni Virdunensis Episcopi, c. vii, ed. Dauphin, Le Bienheureux

Richard, p. 368: Tempore quo idem gloriosus presul Domini Vitonus adhuc in carne degens mortali ... delituisse fertur serpens mire magnitudinis ...; cf. Gallia Christiana, 13, 1166.

15 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 65 n. 2. 16 Hugh of Flavigny, 341/55–7: Clericos deinde regulariter vivere, septies in die laudes

Deo dicere ... ordinavit. 17 Fragmentum Dadonis, MGH SS, 4, 37/34–8: ... Berhardus, avunculus videlicet

noster, in ecclesiasticis disciplinis ultra quam credi vel fieri possit ferventissimus extitit ... in basilica etiam sancti Petri et sancti Vitoni posuit canonicos octo, et dedit illis res que adipsam ecclesiam pertinent ...; cf. Berthar of St-Vanne, c. 19, p. 45/12–23.


Vanne before he became bishop of Verdun and he did not relinquish this position when elevated to episcopal office.18 He also imitated the benefactions of his uncle and generously endowed the clergy of the cathedral of the Virgin Mary at Verdun. This gift was later confirmed by Pope Leo IX in 1049.19

Bishop Dado – together with his nephew and successor Bernuin (925–39) – supported religious reform but their patronage seems to have focused predominantly on canonries in the diocese of Verdun.20 However, Dado also participated in the movement towards monastic reform in Lotharingia in the first decades of the tenth century. The abbey of Montfaucon, which had been given to the church of Verdun by a certain Arnulf, was then transferred by Bishop Dado to a group of Irish monks who had been driven from their homeland by the Vikings. Their leader, Andrew, later developed close contacts with the reformer John of Gorze as did Bishop Dado himself: John of Gorze’s biographer described Dado as ‘a man of the greatest talent and of the most celebrated sanctity’ ([vir] summi ingenii et famosissimae sanctitatis).21

The abbeys of Gorze (diocese of Metz), St-Evre (Toul) and St-Maximin (Trier) pioneered the reform of monastic life in Lotharingia in the 930s.22 This movement derived, in the main, from the initiatives of local bishops in the dioceses of Metz, Toul and Trier. Bishop Adalbero I of Metz (929–62) – the ‘father of monks’ and ‘the first restorer of holy religion’ – began the restoration of Gorze with a charter of 16 December 933/4.23 Despite an early dispute between bishop and abbey concerning the restitution of Gorze’s property of Varangéville, the reformed abbey of Gorze soon exercised an immense influence and was quickly adopted as a model of reform.24 In 934 Bishop Gauzlin of Toul (922–63) restored the monastery of St-Evre.25 As inspiration for this reform Gauzlin was apparently forced to look to the monastery of Fleury-sur-Loire because – as we are informed by the Miracles of St Evre – ‘the rule of St Benedict was unknown to all the inhabitants of this kingdom’

18 Hugh of Flavigny, 356/53–5: Dado episcopus Virdunensis ante episcopatum praefuit abbatiae sancti Vitoni, quam etiam sumpto episcopatu non omisit ....

19 JL 4192 = PL, 143, 628–30, esp. col. 629D for mention of Dado’s generosity. See below, note 71.

20 Egon Boshof, ‘Kloster und Bischof in Lotharingien’, Monastische Reformen im 9. und 10. Jahrhundert (Vorträge und Forschungen, 39: Sigmaringen, 1989), p. 209.

21 Vita Iohannis Gorziensis abbatis, c. 12, ed. G.H. Pertz, MGH SS, 4, 340/27. 22 Cf. Flodoardi Annales, s.a. 934, ed. G.H. Pertz, MGH SS, 3, 382/32–3: Religio

regulae monachorum in quibusdam monasteriis per regnum Lothariense reparatur. 23 Pater monachorum: Stepelini miracula sancti Trudonis, c. 2, ed. O. Holder-Egger,

MGH SS, 15, 822/36–7; Reparator sanctae religionis primus: Sigeberti vita Deoderici, 1.3, ed. G.H. Pertz, MGH SS, 4, 465/24.

24 Boshof, ‘Kloster und Bischof’, pp. 224–5. 25 Annales sancti Benigni, s.a. 934, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS, 5, 40/38: Conversio

monachorum sancti Apri. Bishop Gauzlin’s restoration charter for St-Evre is dated 11 October 936.


(Lotharingia).26 The reform of St-Maximin in the diocese of Trier took its impulse from the renunciation by Duke Giselbert of Lotharingia of the office of lay-abbot in 934. In this case Archbishop Robert of Trier was not immediately involved in the initiative for monastic reform, but he did reform the abbey of Metlach in 941 and he presided over the consecration of the newly built abbey church of St-Maximin on 13 October 942. The general characteristics of Lotharingian monastic reform combined the concession of libertas ecclesiae – the right of the monks to elect an abbot from within their community, in accordance with Chapter 64 of the Rule of St Benedict – with the episcopal prerogative of supervision and intervention in the interests of religion. Thus, in the reformed abbeys of Lotharingia there was an inherent tension between a monastic community’s desire for libertas and the tendency of local bishops to treat such reformed houses as ‘proprietary churches’ (Eigenklöster).27 Bishop Gauzlin’s restoration charter for St-Evre in 936 expresses this tension perfectly. On the one hand Bishop Gauzlin expressly reserved for himself the right to intervene in abbatial elections, to visit the monastery and redress wrongs committed there. However, the libertas monasticae religionis was not thereby infringed and this libertas could be defended by right of appeal to the metropolitan or the king.28 This was another key characteristic of Lotharingian monastic reform: the king of Germany was expected to act as the underwriter and guardian of monastic liberty and monastic property. The reforms of Bishop Adalbero of Metz and Bishop Gauzlin of Toul were confirmed and strengthened with the imprimatur of Ottonian diplomas.29

At first the diocese of Verdun remained outside of the movement of monastic reform in Lotharingia. However there was clearly a great need and desire for monastic reform in this bishopric. The most prestigious abbey in the diocese of Verdun, St-Mihiel, had remained aloof from the current of reform that swept

26 Ex miraculis sancti Apri, c. 30, ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH SS, 4, 519/9–11: ... regulam sancti Benedicti, huius regni habitatoribus omnibus ignotam ...; cf. John Nightingale, Monasteries and Patrons in the Gorze Reform. Lotharingia c. 850–1000 (Oxford, 2001), p. 12, challenges these traditional assumptions about pre-reform decadence and post-reform vigour.

27 Boshof, ‘Kloster und Bischof’, p. 222. 28 Annales OSB, vol. 3, ed. J. Mabillon (Paris, 1706), appendix no. XLIX, p. 706: Si

quis tamen episcoporum, quod absit, anteriorem censum quod continetur in eorum authoritatibus compulerit eos solvere; reddat eis praedictas quatuor villas ex integro. Si vero hoc contempserit agere, licentiam habeant metropolitanum diocesis adire et necessitatis suae causam exponere. Si autem opem ferre neglexerit, adeant regis praesentiam, suasque terras legaliter requirant. Itemque unicuique abbatum eidem congregationi praeficiendorum omnimodis interdicimus et sub contestatione divinae vocationis prohibemus, ne praedictamcellam quolibet ingenio aut machinatione, vel per se vel per aliam objectam personam ab episcopii potestate submovere moliatur: sed salva libertate monasticae religionis pontifici urbis Leuchorum absque ulla contradictione semper maneat subjecta.

29 Otto I’s diploma for Gorze is dated 13 July 945, that for St-Evre is dated 3 August 947: MGH Diplomata, 1, nos 70 and 92, ed. T. Sickel, pp. 149 and 174.


through Lotharingia in the 930s.30 Moreover, Hugh of Flavigny claimed, sub anno934, that there was as yet no ‘congregation of monks’ in the city of Verdun and that certain cathedral canons wishing to ‘abandon the world’ (saeculum deseruere)were forced to travel to the monastery of St-Evre in Toul.31 The response to this neglect was supplied in the pontificate of Bishop Berengar of Verdun (940–59), a Saxon and apparently related to the Liudolfing kings of Germany.32 Bishop Berengar’s appetite for reform may have been stimulated at the synod of Verdun in 947 when the participants included the foremost monastic reformers in Lotharingia: Archbishop Robert of Trier, Bishop Adalbero I of Metz and Gauzlin of Toul.33 It is clear that Bishop Berengar must have been influenced by these bishops in the cause of monastic reform because the three – together with Duke Conrad of Lotharingia – petitioned the royal court to confirm Berengar’s enterprise of 951: the refoundation of the basilica of St-Vanne as a monastery under the Rule of St Benedict.34

The foundation charter for the monastery of St-Vanne contains only one dating formula. This clause asserts that Bishop Berengar founded the abbey in the twelfth year of his pontificate, thus corresponding partly with 951, partly with 952. However, Berengar’s charter certainly preceded Otto I’s diploma of confirmation for St-Vanne, which is dated 21 January 952: it seems highly likely, therefore, that Bishop Berengar’s charter dates from 951.35 Berengar’s motive in founding the abbey – dedicated first to St Peter and then to the saint-bishops of Verdun who had been buried in this church – is clearly articulated in the foundation charter itself.36

30 Nightingale, Monasteries and Patrons in the Gorze Reform, p. 19. 31 Hugh of Flavigny, 359/23–31. Hugh’s account in this respect was probably

informed by two sources: the text of the foundation charter of the abbey of St-Vanne, which is incorporated in the Chronicon, 362/51–364/2; Flodoard’s narraative s.a. 934, which is repeated almost verbatim in Chronicon, 359/30–31: ... et fervor ordinis in eodem coenobio (sc. sancti Apri) et in quibusdam aliis per regnum Lothariense reparatur.

32 Gesta Episcoporum Virdunensium, Continuatio, c. 2, ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH SS, 4, 45/34–5: ... primi Ottonis imperatoris consanguineus, vir nobilis et Saxonicus.

33 Hugh of Flavigny, 361/8–14, again depending on Flodoard of Rheims. 34 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 10 (1898), no. XII, p. 397 = MGH

Diplomata, 1, no. 140 (21 January 952), p. 219: Nos ... consultu fidelium regni nostri procerum, Cohonradi Lotharii quondam regni ducis magnifici nec non Rodberti Treverici sedis archiepiscopi et Adelberonis Mettensis ecclesie archimandrite seu Godlini Leucorumurbis antistitis, prescriptas res cenobio sancti Vitoni concessas nostre auctoritatis precepto corroboramus ....

35 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 10 (1898), no. XIa, p. 392: Noverit omnium catholicorum ... quod ego Berengerus sancte Virdunensis ecclesie nomine non merito episcopus anno mee ordinationis XII ...; see also Bloch’s introductory exposition on p. 359.

36 Ibid., XIa, p. 393: ... concessimus ei quoddam monasterium ad construendam congregationem monachorum in honore sancti Petri apostolorum principis stabilitum, in quo requiescunt corpora sanctorum confessorum atque episcoporum Vitoni, Pulchroni,Possessoris, Firmini atque Madelvei ....


The bishop deplored the fact that those who desired a monastic life had to leave Verdun for abbeys outside the diocese (cenobia extra nostram parrochiam consita tentabant adire); he therefore resolved to establish a monastery ‘in which the brothers of our church wishing to flee the active life may find, in future, the solace of the contemplative life’.37 Berengar appointed as abbot of the new monastery a certain Humbert, who had been born and educated at Verdun before seeking the vita contemplativa at the abbey of St-Evre in Toul.38

Bishop Berengar’s desire to provide for the spiritual welfare of his flock in founding the abbey of St-Vanne was thus part of the Lotharingian monastic reform that originated in the 930s. In contrast to his predecessors Berhard and Dado, who sought to promote religious discipline in the reform of canonries, Berengar sought to implement Benedict’s monastic Rule in his diocese as the most suitable vehicle of spiritual renewal. Indeed, his refoundation of the house of canons at St-Vanne as a monastery was typical of Lotharingian monastic reform. For example, in 941 Bishop Adalbero replaced the canons of St-Arnulf in Metz, who were opposed to reform, with a community of monks; Otto I confirmed this refoundation with a diploma of 10 January 942.39 Similarly, Duke Frederick of Upper Lotharingia introduced a fervent community of monks at Moyenmoutier, having first expelled the lax canons who had been there. This phenomenon was not confined to Lotharingia: communities of canons were also replaced by monks in the northeastern French dioceses of Rheims and Laon.40

In its dependence on the local diocesan – the bishop of Verdun – the new monastery of St-Vanne reflected another characteristic of Lotharingian monastic reform. Like the abbeys of Gorze and St-Evre, St-Vanne was placed under the tutelage of the local bishop. This aspect of its constitution emerges, not from the foundation charter itself, but from the imperial and papal confirmations of Berengar’s act of foundation. Otto I’s diploma for St-Vanne of 21 January 952 – in which the ‘norm of St Benedict’ (norma sancti Benedicti abbatis) is mentioned for the first time in connection with the new monastery – explicitly stipulates the duty of obedience owed by the abbot and his monks to their bishop. Pope John XII’s bull for St-Vanne of 9 January 956 reiterates the subjection of the community of St-Vanne to their bishop.41 In these documents – Berengar’s foundation charter,

37 Ibid., p. 392: ... in quo nostre ecclesie fratres activam vitam fugientes contemplative vite solatium futuris temporibus valerent invenire.

38 On Humbert see Kassius Hallinger, Gorze-Kluny. Studien zu den monastischen Lebensformen und Gegensätzen im Hochmittelalter (Rome, 1950–51), pp. 76–7.

39 Adalbero’s charter for St-Arnulf is contained in Gallia Christiana, 13, instrumenta ecclesiae Mettensis, no. 19, col. 387; cf. MGH Diplomata, 1, no. 45, p. 130.

40 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 67. 41 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 10 (1898), no. XII, p. 397: ... quatinus

easdem res Virdunensis ecclesie pastoris consilio omni tempore ordinatas abbas predicti monasterii as monachi iussionibus illius obtemperantes quieto ordine habeant et secundum rectitudinis normam sine cuiuspiam contradictione possideant; ibid., no. XIII, p. 399 = JL


Otto’s diploma of 952 and John XII’s bull of 956 – nothing is said about the freedom or otherwise of abbatial elections: the libertas monasticae religionis. In practical terms, the rights reserved to the bishop of Verdun were analogous to those of a secular founder of a monastery. St-Vanne, even more so than reformed monasteries like Gorze and St-Evre, was an episcopal Eigenkloster. The proprietary character of the monastery of St-Vanne, and its dependence on the tuitio of the bishop of Verdun in the first century after its foundation, is reflected in the various imperial documents that confirmed the abbey in its possessions. Otto II’s diploma of 980 explicitly acknowledges Bishop Wilfrid of Verdun as the interveniens in favour of St-Vanne at the imperial court; Henry II’s diploma of 1015 was similarly petitioned by Bishop Heimo; Conrad II’s diploma of 1031 was also procured at the request of the bishop of Verdun, Rambert.42

The right of the local bishop to intervene in the affairs of St-Vanne was generally maintained in an atmosphere of fraternal cordiality in the first century after the foundation of the abbey in 951. Bishop Berengar’s solicitude and esteem for the abbey – according to the necrology of St-Vanne he became a monk there before his death – was maintained by his successors.43 Bishop Wigfrid (959–84) showed his love for the abbey of St-Vanne in a gift of 987.44 Although the possessions of St-Vanne were depleted during the negligent pontificate of Bishop Adalbero II (984–8) of Verdun – a son of Count Godfrey ‘the captive’ of Verdun – the fortunes of the monastery were restored under Bishop Heimo (988–1024). It was Heimo who took the initiative, c. 995, in appointing the Irish monk Fingen as abbot of St-Vanne. The abbey had suffered during the war involving the local count, Godfrey ‘the captive’ in 985: its possessions had been depleted and St-Vanne was facing local competition in the form of the newly instituted abbey of St-Paul in Verdun.45 Thus by the time of Fingen’s appointment, the monastery of St-Vanne was in a state of crisis. Fingen had been part of a colony of Irish monks,

3676: ... [monasterium sancti Vitoni] abhinc et deinceps in membro sibi subiecto consilio sui episcopi atque providentia religiosi abbatis Humberti.

42 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 10 (1898), no. XX (3 June 980), p. 412 = MGH Diplomata, 2, no. 218, p. 245: ... qualiter nos per interventum Wilgfridi fidelis nostri sanctae Virdunensis ecclesiae episcopi expetiti sumus ut res ecclesiae suae antea ... ecclesiae et monasterio beati Petri collatas ... conferremus; no. XXIV (1015), p. 420 = MGHDiplomata, 3, no. 340, p. 431: ... qualiter nos per interventum Heimonis fidelis nostri sancte Virdunensis ecclesie episcopi ...; no. XXXIII (23 April 1031), p. 435 = MGH Diplomata, 4, no. 166, p. 219: ... qualiter nos per interventum Ramberti fidelii nostri sancte Virdunensis ecclesie episcopi ....

43 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 14 (1902), p. 144, II. id. Aug.: obiit recolendae memorie domnus Berengarius episcopus Virdunensis et monachus, nobilis institutor huius loci et renovator.

44 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 10 (1898), no. XVII, p. 405: Monasterium ... omni post ordinationem nostram amore coluimus ....

45 For these events and the foundation of the abbey of St-Paul see Boshof, ‘Kloster und Bischof’, pp. 232–6.


led by St Cadroë, which had assisted in monastic reform at Metz. Bishop Adalbero I of Metz entrusted Cadroë with the reform of the abbey of St-Felix in the city of Metz; Fingen proved himself an excellent administrator and succeeded Cadroë as abbot of St-Felix c. 980.46 Bishop Heimo’s appointment of Fingen as abbot of St-Vanne illustrates once again the desire of the bishops of Verdun to intervene in the affairs of that monastery in the interests of the spiritual wellbeing of the whole community, as well as demonstrating the close relations that existed between the Lotharingian dioceses of Verdun and Metz in the promotion of monastic reform. The succession to Fingen (†1004) at St-Vanne once again demonstrated the influence of the local bishop on the affairs of that abbey. Although Chapter 64 of the Regula Benedicti entrusted to the monks themselves the right of electing a new abbot, the majority of the new abbeys in Lotharingia in the tenth century were episcopal foundations and the various bishops jealously guarded their rights of intervention. The other abbey in Verdun, St-Paul, which was founded some twenty years after St-Vanne, had an unusual privilege in that it explicitly enjoyed the right of electing its own abbot.47 In 1004 Bishop Heimo clearly wished to influence the election in favour of the Richard, a new monk and possibly magister of the school at St-Vanne, while ostensibly allowing the monks a free choice. There seems to have been a division in the community at St-Vanne between those who favoured Richard, and the Irish contingent, who favoured one of their own number to succeed Fingen. It would seem that the deliberation (tractatio) on the choice of a suitable successor had become prolonged when Bishop Heimo intervened, asking the young oblates their preference. Their response was unanimous in favour of Richard and was quickly endorsed by the whole community. Heimo himself saw the choice as being the result of divine inspiration, which expressed itself ‘in the mouths of babes’ (Psalm 8:3).48 Leaving aside these tokens of supernatural election, it is clear that Heimo’s intervention was part of a tradition of episcopal intervention in the affairs of St-Vanne and was calculated, like most such episcopal intrusions, to secure the regularity of monastic observance at the monastery. Not every episcopal intervention, however, was beneficial for the monastery of St-Vanne. The pontificate of Theoderic (1046–89) was characterised first by the concord that had traditionally prevailed between the bishop and abbey, but was increasingly marked by the bishop’s arrogant disregard for the rights of the abbot and monks of St-Vanne. Soon after his elevation as bishop of Verdun, some time between 1046 and 1052, Theoderic showed his favour to the abbey of St-Vanne by granting it the right of the ban over the neighbouring Mont-St-Vanne. By this act Theoderic played the traditional role of benefactor that was expected of the bishop of Verdun: his predecessor Bishop Heimo had granted to the abbey the right to

46 J. Semmler, ‘Iren in der lothringischen Klosterreform’, Die Iren und Europa im früheren Mittelalter, Vol. 2, ed. H. Löwe (Stuttgart, 1982), pp. 950f.

47 Boshof, ‘Kloster und Bischof’, p. 236 n. 279. 48 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 84–7.


hold a market on the same Mont-St-Vanne.49 As late as 1066 Bishop Theoderic intervened to protect St-Vanne’s rights over the cursum aquae in the region of Escance outside Verdun.50 Indeed the good relationship that had existed between bishop and monastery is attested thirty years after his death, when a number of forged papal bulls emanated from St-Vanne, confirming the house in privileges and possessions which were lost during the vicissitudes of the ‘Investiture Contest’. Some of these bulls were attributed to the intervention of Bishop Theoderic. For example, the false bulls of Pope Nicholas II and Pope Leo IX, purporting to emanate from 1065 (sic) and 1053 respectively, are addressed to Theoderic.51 The forgers at St-Vanne in the twelfth century appealed to a genuine tradition of amity between bishop and abbey when drafting their spurious privileges. However, some time between 1066 and 1075, Theoderic’s attitude towards St-Vanne became high-handed and proprietary. An undated document from the abbatiate of Grimold (1060–75) shows that the relations between bishop and abbey had become embittered. In this document Abbot Grimold alienated the monastery’s property at Liny-devant-Dun in favour of a certain Leudo, son of Franco, to be held in fief for the lifetime of the recipient. Grimold asserted in this document that he executed the gift ‘on the demand of lord bishop Theoderic’ (ob postulationem domini episcopi Teodorici) and the abbot further maintained that he complied with Theoderic’s request although ‘unwilling and coerced’ (quamvis invitus, coactus simul et adductus).52 In the light of the relatively good relations that prevailed between the bishop and the abbey as late as 1066, when Theoderic intervened to protect St-Vanne’s rights in Escance, it is possible that Grimold’s forced alienation of abbey property can be more precisely dated between 1066 and the end of his abbatiate in 1075. The end of Grimold’s career as abbot reveals Bishop Theoderic’s increasingly tyrannical attitude to the monastery of St-Vanne. The chronicler Hugh of Flavigny claims that Grimold simply resigned his office in 1075 but it is likely that Hugh suppressed some details surrounding this event, as they might have reflected badly on Grimold’s successor and Hugh’s mentor,

49 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 14 (1902), no. XLII, p. 50: Inde est, quod ad victum fratrum inibi deo servientium pro remedio anime nostre et spe immortalis vite ... bannum in monte sancti Vitoni ex consensu clerici et populi contradimus ... et quoniamdominus Haymo presul in eodem monte constituit haberi mercatum, nos digne et ordinate contradimus insuper ex toto bannum a cruce que stet iuxta ecclesiam sancti Remigii usque ad ecclesiam sancti Amantii ....

50 Ibid., no. LV, pp. 80–1: concesserim loco sancti Petri et sancti Vitoni cursum aque ... vos ergo servi dei, qui in supradicto loco sub regula sancti Benedicti degitis, memoriam semper nostri tenete, pro excessibus vite humane sedulo intercedite, posterique vestri teneant nostrum perpetuum memoriale.

51 Ibid., nos XLVI and XLVII, pp. 62–72. 52 Ibid., no. LVI, pp. 81–2.


Rudolf of St-Airy.53 The later commentator Laurent of Liège is likely to be closer to the truth when he claims that Bishop Theoderic judged Grimold incapable of holding abbatial office in 1075 and therefore ordered his dismissal.54 Even this narrative probably represents some distortion on the events of 1075: it seems more likely, especially in the aftermath of the forced alienation of abbey property at Liny-devant-Dun, that Grimold’s resignation/dismissal was the result of a conflict between Theoderic’s concept of St-Vanne as an episcopal Eigenkloster and Grimold’s natural desire to preserve the possessions and autonomy of the abbey in the spirit of the Regula Benedicti. Although well disposed towards St-Vanne, Theoderic had a conception of reform influenced by his service in the capella regis of King Henry III. It was an idea of reform characterised by the determination to assert episcopal authority within dioceses in the name of the king as vicarius Christi. Bishop Theoderic himself had many attachments to the German court. He was the son of a German count, Wezilo, and had been a chaplain to Henry III, and then a canon, and later provost, at Basle. He clearly owed his elevation to the see of Verdun to the influence of Henry III and he was a royalist bishop in the pattern of the ‘Imperial Church System’.55 Theoderic did, however, combine loyalty to the crown with an appetite for reform and, influenced by Pope Leo IX in the years 1048-49, he developed a keen reforming hostility to simony.56 Nevertheless, as he grew older Theoderic developed an increasingly authoritarian attitude to the abbeys in his diocese, as might be expected of a Lotharingian bishop whose predecessors had always claimed a proprietary right to regulate monastic affairs in their bishopric. By the 1070s such an attitude did not sit comfortably in the ambience of ‘Gregorian’ reform. Like the abbey of St-Vanne, the ancient monastery of St-Mihiel in the diocese of Verdun experienced unwelcome diocesan intrusion. This is indicated by a letter of Pope Gregory VII to Archbishop Udo of Trier in 1074. From this letter we learn that Bishop Theoderic wished to impose new customs (novae consuetudines) on the inhabitants near the monastery of St-Mihiel: Theoderic had tried to force them to make an annual procession to his episcopal seat. When the inhabitants in the region of St-Mihiel resisted, they were placed under interdict by Theoderic. Moreover, it is clear from Gregory’s letter that the Holy See had previously tried to intervene in this case and that Bishop Theoderic,

53 Hugh of Flavigny, 413/48–9: Anno ab incarnatione Domini 1075. Grimoldus abbatiam dimisit die sancti Nicholai. Rodulfus sucessit, ordinatio eius die sancti Urbani.

54 Laurent of Liège, 495/28–33: Et quia sub Grimoldo abbate ... religio per quorundam insolentiam deperibat, quia per illum non poterat corrigi, eum amovit, et venerabilem Rodulfum Sancti Agerici monachum ... huic loco induxit.

55 Cf. Josef Fleckenstein, Die Hofkapelle der deutschen Könige, vol. 2 (MGHSchriften, 16/2: Stuttgart, 1966), pp. 257, 277; cf. Stefan Weinfurter, The Salian Century: Main Currents in an Age of Transition (English translation: Philadelphia, 1999), pp. 96–9.

56 Cf. Franz-Reiner Erkens, ‘Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz am Vorabend des Investiturstreits’, Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte, 125 (1989), 150–51.


after making a superficial show of obedience, had disregarded papal instructions. Archbishop Udo was now ordered by the pope to force Theoderic to respect the wishes of Rome, although Gregory confided privately that he did not have much confidence in the prospect of Theoderic’s obedience.57 Theoderic’s growing antagonism towards the monasteries in his diocese, and his desire to vindicate the traditional rights of episcopal intervention and supervision in the affairs of these communities, provides the context for the decisive split with Abbot Rudolf and the monks of St-Vanne in 1085. Bishop Theoderic’s early charters in favour of the monastery of St-Vanne – after 1066 there is no documentary evidence of his goodwill towards the abbey – indicate the important penitential and intercessory function that this monastery fulfilled in the spiritual life of Verdun. Theoderic’s grant of the ban over Mont-St-Vanne between 1046 and 1052 was made with the stipulation that the monks would pray for the absolution of his sins after his death. Again, the bishop’s intervention in favour of St-Vanne’s rights at Escance in 1066 was accompanied with a plea that the monks intercede for him with their prayers.58 Moreover, and in spite of his later hostility to the abbey, Bishop Theoderic was indeed remembered in the prayers of the monks. The necrology of St-Vanne commemorates the anniversary of Theoderic’s death on 28 April and explicitly mentions the bishop’s gift of the ban of Mont-St-Vanne.59

The careful observance of the Rule of St Benedict at St-Vanne explains the high level of patronage – ecclesiastical and secular – enjoyed by the monastery during the course of the eleventh century. The widespread aristocratic admiration for the efficacy of the prayers of the monks at St-Vanne is reflected in the necrology of St-Vanne. This book of the dead, first established towards the end of Richard’s abbatiate in 1046, describes the donations of the secular aristocracy to the abbey in unusual detail. The most generous benefactors, and the most eminent local family mentioned in the necrology, were the counts of Verdun (house of Ardennes). From the end of the tenth century, Count Godfrey ‘the captive’ and his sons – with the egregious exception of Bishop Adalbero II of Verdun – supported the abbey with pious gifts and donations to such an extent that St-Vanne became perhaps the favourite monastery of the house of Verdun. Both Godfrey ‘the captive’ (3 September) and his wife Matilda (25 May) are commemorated in the necrology of St-Vanne but it was their son, Frederick, who really inaugurated the sponsorship of the abbey by the house of Verdun. Frederick was captured with his father in 985 and probably came to share in the comital government of Verdun shortly after this date. In a charter of Bishop Heimo of

57 Reg. 1.81, p. 115/29–30: Unde nec nos quidem de eius obedientia, si privatim loquimur, multum confidentes ....

58 See above notes 49 and 50. 59 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 14 (1902), 139: IIII. kal. Mai. Teodericus

Virdunensis urbis episcopus qui dedit nobis altaria nostrarum ecclesiarum que sunt in hoc episcopio, et bannum in monte sancti Vitoni.


Verdun, dated 995, both Frederick and his father subscribed as ‘count’, perhaps indicating that they exercised power jointly by this time.60 In the last years of the tenth century Frederick resolved to renounce the world; at Rheims he met Richard – the future abbot of St-Vanne – and together they resolved to make their monastic profession at St-Vanne in Verdun.61 Frederick lived out the rest of his life as a monk in the service of St-Vanne – at the time of his death he was prior of the abbey of St-Waast in the diocese of Cambrai, an abbey that was reformed by Abbot Richard – and it was probably because of his example that his brother, Count Hermann of Eename in eastern Flanders, showed such great generosity to the abbey of St-Vanne. ‘More than any other mortal,’ says the necrology of St-Vanne, ‘[Hermann] enriched this monastery with his gifts and possessions.’62

Hermann inherited the county of Eename in Flanders from his father and it was there, especially in Brabant and Hainault, that the count granted many demesnes to St-Vanne. Like his brother Frederick, Count Hermann became a monk at St-Vanne (ex comite conversus) – probably towards the end of his life – and was buried in the cloister of St-Vanne after his death on 28 May 1029. Another brother, Godfrey II, who became duke of Lower Lotharingia in 1012 and who died in 1023, was also buried in the abbey of St-Vanne which he had helped so greatly to restore.63 The great influence which the comital house of Verdun exerted on the abbey of St-Vanne is reflected in a twelfth-century manuscript describing the most solemn anniversaries that were celebrated at the monastery in the century or so after the abbatiate of Richard (it is likely that Abbot Richard initiated these special celebrations). These commemorations were divided into three tiers reflecting the relative importance of the departed souls. The most revered class – the praecipua anniversaria – included the anniversaries of Count Hermann and his brother Frederick: this was a signal mark of honour as the other figures in this list included Abbot Richard of St-Vanne and Emperor Henry II. The second tier included the anniversaries of Duke Godfrey II (†1023), the brother of Frederick and Hermann, their nephew Duke Godfrey III the Bearded (†1069) and his step-daughter, Margravine Matilda of Tuscany.64

60 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 10 (1898), no. XXI, pp. 415–16. 61 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 57–62. 62 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 14 (1902), 140–1: V. kal. Jun. Anno

incarnationis dominice MXXIX obiit pie memorie domnus Herimannus ex comite conversus, qui pre cunctis mortalibus locum hunc ditavit suis donis ac possessionibus.

63 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 135 n. 5, p. 137; Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 14 (1902), 146: V. kal. Oct. Godefridus dux, frater Gocelonis ducis ... monasterium hoc admodum locupletavit.

64 De diversitatibus anniversariorum: Verdun, MS 7, f. 144v; from the sequence of names enumerated by Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 138 n. 1, I am assuming that ‘Matilda’ refers to Margravine Matilda of Tuscany, who had family connections with the house of Ardennes and the counts of Bar.


Count Hermann of Eename’s family displayed a particular devotion to the monastery of St-Vanne. His wife Matilda was also buried in the cloister of the abbey, as were their sons Gregory and Godfrey and their daughter Odile. She had been abbess of St-Odile de Hohenbourg in Alsace and died while celebrating Easter at St-Vanne with her parents; she was assisted in her last moments by Abbot Richard.65 Thus, the three sons of Godfrey ‘the captive’, Frederick, Hermann and Godfrey II, all displayed a remarkable devotion to the monastery of St-Vanne and facilitated the enormous expansion of the abbey’s influence and prestige during Richard’s abbatiate (1004–46). It is unusual, therefore, that a fourth son, Gozelo I, seems to have had no close ties with the monastery and that his anniversary is not mentioned in the necrology of St-Vanne. Dauphin speculated that the absence of any surviving document recording Gozelo’s generosity to the abbey may be an indication that he was on bad terms with the monastery.66 This argument ex silentiomust remain hypothetical and is perhaps contradicted by the esteem in which Gozelo’s son, Godfrey the Bearded, was held at St-Vanne: as we have seen, he and his step-daughter Matilda were remembered in the second tier of the most celebrated patrons of the abbey. The close relationship between the abbey and the comital house of Verdun may explain the most important process affecting St-Vanne in the second half of the eleventh century: on the one hand its gradual estrangement from the influence of the bishops of Verdun, and the ‘imperial church system’ in general (no imperial diploma for St-Vanne survives after that of Conrad II in 1031); on the other hand its growing attachment to the reform papacy, culminating in exile suffered for the cause of Pope Gregory VII in 1085. The generous patronage afforded to St-Vanne by the counts of Verdun must have complicated the traditional bond between the abbey and its diocesan. This is because the counts and bishops of Verdun were rivals in the exercise of power by the late tenth century. It would appear that the Ottonians, and subsequently the Salians, used the imperial church to impede the formation of hereditary and territorial lordships by ambitious feudal magnates. In a diploma of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa of 17 August 1156 it is claimed that Bishop Heimo of Verdun (988–1024) had been granted the county of Verdun by Otto III: according to this document, Count Frederick would therefore have held his county as a fief of the bishop.67 Dauphin thought that this situation was unlikely. At the most, he claimed, Frederick held only the city of Verdun as a fief of the bishop; the rest of the county was independent of episcopal control. Dauphin was right in claiming that the situation was unclear, but the events described in Barbarossa’s diploma acquire a certain verisimilitude when considered in the light

65 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 138–40. 66 Ibid., p. 140. 67 Ibid., p. 59 n. 5: Beneficium itaque comitatus et marchiae quod recolendae

memoriae Otho Romanorum imperator augustus, Haimoni Virdunensi episcopo et auccessoribus ejus donavit ....; cf. Regesta Imperii, 4.2: Lothar III and ältere Staufer, ed. Ferdinand Opll and Hubert Mayr (Vienna/Cologne, 1980), no. 413, p. 125.


of the subsequent politics at Verdun. In 1025 Duke Gozelo arranged for the murder in Verdun of Louis of Chiny, who had previously received the county of Verdun from Bishop Rambert (1025–39).68 Again, in 1044 when Godfrey the Bearded was deprived of the county of Verdun as a penalty for his rebellion against Henry III, the king entrusted the county to Bishop Richard so that it could be transferred to a suitable man.69 Thus, the alleged transfer of the county in the reign of Otto III can be seen as part of a coherent and consistent imperial policy: the desire to strengthen the bishop of Verdun as an agent of the crown at the expense of the comital house of Verdun. Seen in this context it becomes possible to see how the abbey of St-Vanne, which was so generously supported by the local counts of Verdun, might be detached from its traditional dependence on the local bishop. This development is only obliquely reflected in the contemporary narrative and charter evidence for the diocese of Verdun. Godfrey the Bearded’s rebellions against Henry III, in 1044–46 and 1047–49, were prompted by the emperor’s refusal to allow Godfrey to inherit the two Lotharingian duchies that had been united in the hand of his father, Gozelo I, since 1033. The war that ensued had a direct impact on the city of Verdun because Bishop Theoderic, a loyal fidelis of the emperor, refused to recognise Godfrey’s claims.70 The destruction wrought in Verdun by Godfrey is mentioned in a privilege of Pope Leo IX, dated 1049, for the cathedral canons of Verdun: in this privilege Leo alluded to his stay at Verdun on his way back from the synod of Rheims and referred to the conflagration that had consumed the charters and privileges of the cathedral canons.71 In spite of such depredations hardly a trace of these events – or the public penance that Godfrey was compelled to perform in Verdun in 1049 – survives in the pro-Gregorian chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny, who was probably very well informed about the circumstances of this revolt;

68 Laurent of Liège, c. 2, p. 492/13–17: Sed etiam antea sub tempore Ramberti episcopi nobilissimum comitem Chisneiensem Ludovicum, filium Ottonis comitis ... milites patris eiusdem ducis (sc. Gocelonis), intra urbem oppressum extinxerant, eo quod illum episcopalis auctoritatis praedicto urbis comitatui praefecisset; cf. Egon Boshof, ‘Lothringen, Frankreich und das Reich in der Regierungszeit Heinrichs III.’, Rheinische Vierteljahrsblatter, 42 (1978), 67.

69 Laurent of Liège, c. 2, p. 492/10–12: Hunc idem imperator inter multa alia comitatu huius urbis, quem a praedecessoribus suis tenebat, iam in curia sua exheredaverat, ipsumque comitatum Richardo urbis episcopo manu dederat, ut alteri, quem idoneum iudicasset, illum traderet; cf. Boshof, ‘Lothringen, Frankreich und das Reich’, 71.

70 Laurent of Liège, c. 2, p. 492/17–18: Eadem ducis infensio Theodericum mox episcopum infestabat, quia et ipse nominati comitatus principatum ei non recognoverat.

71 Boshof, ‘Lothringen, Frankreich und das Reich’, 99; JL 4192 = PL, 143, 628C: Redeuntibus igitur nobis a Remense synodo, contigit Virduni hospitari et non laetari, sed potius lacrymari. Respeximus enim crudele urbis excidium ... etenim tyrannorum ingressa civitatem saevitia, totam diruit per dira incendia, qui ignis nec ipsi ipsi ecclesiae sanctae Mariae pepercit ... ex qua conflagratione, inopinato superveniente, instrumenta etiam chartarum vestrarum praebendarum consumpta sunt ....


elsewhere Hugh’s chronicle is highly complimentary towards Godfrey III’s step-daughter Matilda of Tuscany.72 In his relative silence on these events, Hugh of Flavigny, who had made his monastic profession at St-Vanne, may have been concerned to preserve the reputation of a great patron of the abbey of St-Vanne. Godfrey’s inclusion in the second tier of the most solemn anniversaries commemorated at St-Vanne indicates his importance as a benefactor of the monastery and his generosity to the abbey is recorded in the house necrology.73

Godfrey’s involvement in the monastic affairs of Verdun both preceded and followed his rebellions in the 1040s. In 1026 the then Count Godfrey held the office of lay advocate for the abbey of St-Vanne.74 Much later, as duke and margrave of Lower Lotharingia, Godfrey intervened – at the intervention of his pious wife Beatrice (maxime uxoris mee Beatricis monitu et intercessione pulsatus)– in 1066 to regulate the rights and responsibilities of lay advocates in the whole diocese of Verdun. Moreover, in this charter of 1066, Godfrey indicated that his father, Duke Gozelo, had issued a similar decree in the presence of Bishop Richard some time between 1039 and 1044.75 Thus, the counts of Verdun were able to claim an influence in the life of the abbey of St-Vanne that was perhaps equal to that of their great rivals in the local politics of the Verdunois: the bishops. The abiding interest of this comital family in the affairs of St-Vanne, their generosity to the abbey and their patronage of it as a virtual family mausoleum: these circumstances may have compromised the simple obedience that the bishops of Verdun expected of this monastic community.

72 In Hugh of Flavigny, 406/11–13, there is only the laconic: Episcopatum autem Virdunensem Theodericus suscepit, Wezelonis comitis filius, cuius primo benedictionis anno templum sanctae Mariae a duce Godefrido et Balduino succussum est, vasa sacra ablata, civitasque destructa 8 Kal. Novembris.

73 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 14 (1902), 149: IX. kal. Jan. Godefridus dux et marchio, filius ducis Gocelonis, qui nobis dedit ecclesiam de Viviers pro se et pro patre suo duce Gocelone.

74 Godfrey’s advocacy is mentioned in a charter of Bishop Rambert for the abbey, Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 10 (1898), no. XXXII, p. 434: Advocati etiam loci nostri et comitis Virdunice civitatis Godefridi nomen hic adnotavimus in testimonium; on the advocates of the monastery of St-Vanne in general see Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 164–7.

75 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 14 (1902), no. LIV, p. 79: ... sicut vivente patre meo Gocelone meque adstante coram domno Richardo episcopo sicut a nobis acta et diffinita est presentibus tam clericis quam laicis, quid advocatis iuste provenire deberet, scripto confirmare. It is perhaps significant that Godfrey signed this charter dux et marchio,indicating that he was in possession of the duchy of Lower Lotharingia and the county/march of Antwerp by this date. Matthias Werner, ‘Der Herzog von Lothringen in salischer Zeit’, Die Salier und das Reich, vol. 1, Salier, Adel und Reichsverfassung, ed. S. Weinfurter (Sigmaringen, 1991), p. 423 n. 311, claimed there were no indications that Godfrey the Bearded held the county/march of Antwerp after his rehabilitation in 1065.


The patronage afforded to St-Vanne by the comital house of Verdun is a good illustration of the function of monasteries in aristocratic society. Many other noble benefactors wished to participate in the merits of the monks of St-Vanne and benefit from the prayerful intercessions of the religious community there. In particular, it was felt that burial in the cloister of St-Vanne would assist in the procurement of salvation and many noble donations to the abbey were made contingent on the right of burial there, a process that is recorded in the cartulary of St-Vanne. In that compilation there is notice of the donation to the abbey of the church of Aumetz by a certain Count Theoderic. As part of the transaction, concluded between 1033 and 1039, Theoderic chose St-Vanne as his final resting place. Count Theoderic’s charter is to a large extent based on a similar document of c. 960 in which a certain Rudolf, son of a count of the same name, donated the church of Joudreville to St-Vanne on the condition that he would be buried at the abbey.76 The cartulary of St-Vanne contains many more examples of this kind and the fact that the formulae for these transactions could become stereotyped by 1039 indicates the frequency with which local benefactors sought burial at the abbey in the first half of the eleventh century. St-Vanne’s repute among lay benefactors, and its perceived ability to assure salvation to patrons within secular society, was crucially developed and enhanced in the time of Abbot Richard of St-Vanne (1004–46). A charter of c. 1038–40 records that ‘for the love of [Richard] and Lord Frederick ... many nobles loved [St-Vanne] and donated items of value to that place with great devotion’.77 Abbot Richard’s great reputation in the eyes of the secular nobility was a response to the great monastic reforms that he undertook and his particular devotion to the cult of the dead. Richard’s emphasis on the care of souls is indicated in the praecipua anniversaria celebrated at St-Vanne: this solemn celebration of the abbey’s patrons and benefactors was probably instituted during Richard’s abbatiate. It is also likely that the book of the dead at St-Vanne was originally compiled at his direction.78

Unlike most other contemporary necrologies, St-Vanne’s necrology provides a detailed account of the generosity of the abbey’s patrons and benefactors. Moreover, according to Hugh of Flavigny, Abbot Richard stipulated that every monastic house in his care should possess a necrology.79 Richard’s attitude to the

76 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 10 (1898), no. XXXV, p. 441: Ipsi loco preest domnus abbas Richardus, cuius sanctitate sanctorumque intercessionibus hacque elemosina confisus corpus meum ibi sepeliendum devovi; cf. no. XIV, p. 402: Hac elemosina confisus corpus meum ibi sepeliendum devovi.

77 Ibid., no. XXXVII, pp. 443–4: ... et pro eius (sc. Richardi) amore dominique Frederici prefati ducis fratris ... multi nobiles locum diligebant bonaque sua cum omni studio loco tradebant. The ‘Frederick’ mentioned here is the son of Godfrey ‘the captive’; Frederick was formerly the count of Verdun.

78 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 130–31, p. 138 n. 1. 79 Hugh of Flavigny, 380/30–33: ... immo in omnibus monasteriis quae regebat, mox,

ut potuit, jure perenni constituit ut in kalendario, singulorum fratrum et benefactorum


role of monks in interceding for the dead is indicated in his treatise Quomodo orandum est pro defunctis, which precedes the necrology of St-Vanne in Verdun, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 7, and which was alluded to by Hugh of Flavigny.80

In Quomodo orandum the abbot explained that: ‘chiefly, and above all [are] the anniversaries of those whose votive gifts (we do not say enrich) improve our little place and free it from excessive poverty’. Moreover, ‘we rightly decree that in the annual calendar their names should be specially noted and whatever they have promised or given, either in gifts of treasure or in [the granting of] hereditary manors, should be expressly included’.81 Richard also made special mention – in a passage which confirms his influence on the institution of the praecipua anniversaria at St-Vanne – of those who elected to be buried at the abbey: ‘wherefore, throughout the course of the year, individual days should be noted with distinction and should be announced reverently and without confusion by the community of brothers: in the preponderant order each separate anniversary should be proclaimed, however small the interval between them; to these should be added the memory of the venerable ones who are above us and amongst us, including also those who wished to be buried with us, some of whom vowed to be joined with us [in monastic profession]’.82 Thus, Quomodo orandum elucidates the motives of the lay benefactors whose generosity to the monastery of St-Vanne is so clearly evident in the house cartulary. ‘Chiefly, and above all’ (precipue autem et pre omnibus) the monks would remember and intercede for those benefactors whose votive gifts had enriched the monastery. Richard also emphasised that those lay patrons who became conversi at the abbey of St-Vanne would have a special place in the prayers of the community and this reward was availed of by a considerable number of nobles: Frederick and Hermann, the sons of Godfrey ‘the captive’; Count Liétard of Longwy, who had become a monk at St-Vanne by 1015; and Count Louis of Chiny who, mortally wounded by the men of Duke Gozelo in 1025,

ecclesiae qui seculo excesserant, divisis paginis nomina, anniversaria quaque die in capitulo recitarentur ....

80 Ibid., 380/36–8: Quod ut acceptius fieret, sermonem inde habuit coram fratribus, quem exceptum kalendario eidem, cui hec inscribebantur, praescribi instituit ....

81 Quomodo orandum est pro defunctis, lines 17–27, ed. Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 355: Precipue autem et pre omnibus in eorum aniversariis quorum votivis elemosinis locellus noster videtur, non dicimus ditari, quodammodo meliorari, et de nimia inopia liberari ... unde dignum duximus ut annali kalendario eorum nomina annotentur specialius, inseraturque expressius quid voverint quidue optulerint, sive in thesauri donariis, seu in prediis hereditariis ....

82 Ibid., lines 7–13, p. 356: Quapropter per circulum anni dies anotentur singuli luculenter, et absque confusione communioni fratrum nuncietur reverenter: eo autem preponderante ordine ut interkaletur spacium quantulumcumque, quo memoria eorum inseratur venerabilis, quid adhuc supersunt et intersunt nobis, necnon illorum qui sibi nobiscum locum sepulture elegerunt, quorum eciam quidam nobis quandoque iungi devoverunt ....


became a monk at St-Vanne on his deathbed.83 It is clear that Richard emphasised the role of prayer (Opus Dei) for monastic benefactors as one of the most important aspects of Benedict’s Rule; this emphasis – inscribed in the necrology and precipua anniversaria of St-Vanne – responded well to the salvific aspirations of contemporary aristocratic society. A similar concentration on Opus Dei helped the order of Cluny to attain a position of paramount importance in the spiritual life of Western Europe in the first half of the eleventh century.84

Richard’s strict adherence to the Rule of St Benedict at the abbey of St-Vanne gained him an international reputation: over the course of his abbatiate he was invited to undertake the reform of many monasteries – perhaps as many as twenty one houses – in Lotharingia and northeastern France.85 Sigebert of Gembloux (†1112) considered Richard to have been the equal of Odilo of Cluny and William of St-Bénigne as a monastic reformer.86 The fact of Richard’s friendship with Abbot Odilo of Cluny (994–1049) and the contemporary process of monastic reform emanating from Cluny have allowed some scholars to perceive a ‘Clunisizing’ tendency in Richard’s reforms. Hallinger modified this historiography to suggest that Richard’s reforms represented a ‘mixed observance’: a Lotharingian blend of the traditions of Gorze and those of Cluny.87 However, Richard had no desire to construct an ‘order’ of dependent daughter houses on the Cluniac model. Rather, he was always conscious to preserve the autonomy of the monasteries in his care and sought to develop the individual identity of the various abbeys entrusted to him by the restoration of abbey buildings and the consolidation of temporal possessions, by the composition of Vitae of patron saints, by the promotion of relics associated with a particular house and by the compilation of necrologies recording the generosity of lay benefactors. Moreover, Richard’s reforms were not undertaken in a spirit hostile to traditional diocesan rights – as was often the case with Cluny – but with the consent of the local bishop.88

Richard’s reform of the abbey of St-Waast in Arras (diocese of Cambrai) is a good example of his methods. This abbey was entrusted to him in 1008 and he worked to revive its fortunes under the protection of Count Baldwin IV of Flanders (988–1035) and Bishops Erluin (995–1012) and Gerard I of Cambrai (1012–51).

83 On Liétard of Longwy see Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 14 (1902), 140: XIIII. kal. Jun. Lietardus ex comite conversus qui nobis quod habemus apud Baylodium contulit et dona auri et argenti preciosa; cf. Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 140–4. On Louis of Chiny see Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 14 (1902), 146: IIII. kal. Oct. Lodovicus ex comite monachus, pro cuius anima habemus V mansos apud Geronis villam; see above note 68.

84 Cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform (Oxford, 1970), pp. 121–35.

85 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 175. 86 Sigeberti Gemblacensis Chronica, s.a. 1027, ed. L. Bethmann, MGH SS, 6, 356/22–

5.87 Hallinger, Gorze-Kluny, pp. 493–516. 88 This, essentially, is Dauphin’s position, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 332–50.


One characteristic of Richard’s reforms is his cooperation with the local ecclesiastical and secular powers – the Deeds of the Bishops of Cambrai praises Richard’s obedience to the bishops of Cambrai – in contrast to his predecessor, Fulrade, who wasted the resources of his abbey in a series of bitter disputes with the local diocesan.89 Another characteristic of the great abbot’s methods was his introduction of a colony of monks from St-Vanne in order to exhibit a good example of devotion to the Rule of Benedict at the monastery to be reformed. In the case of St-Waast, the colony of Verdun monks was led by Richard’s long-time companion, Frederick, the former count of Verdun. Frederick later exercised the office of prior at St-Waast and died there in this capacity on 6 January 1022.90

It would appear that Richard’s assumption of control was not universally welcomed by the monks of St-Waast: soon after his arrival two of the religious plotted to kill him in his sleep. However, the monk entrusted with the act of murder, Leduin, could not carry it out and confessed his crime to Richard.91 The abbot’s gentle and compassionate reaction to this confession won him wide acclaim and acceptance at St-Waast and helped him to avoid the fate of many reforming abbots in the eleventh century. For example, Abbot Abbo of Fleury was murdered in November 1004 by servants of rebel monks of Fleury; much later, in the period 1096–1101, the historian and abbot Hugh of Flavigny would encounter intractable opposition to reform from the monks in his care. The phenomenon of monastic hostility to an abbot is well known, reaching as far back as the attempts of the monks of Vicovaro to poison St Benedict, and Richard’s patient and restrained reaction to the plot on his life would have done much to reassure the monks of St-Waast about his intentions as their abbot.92

Abbot Richard’s stewardship of the monasteries entrusted to him was never autocratic; he preferred to delegate authority to trusted lieutenants in a monastery undergoing reform and he generally withdrew completely once the necessary reforms had been achieved. Such a policy was only possible by virtue of Richard’s outstanding charisma. Leduin, the would-be murderer, became especially devoted to Richard and accompanied the abbot to St-Vanne, returning to St-Waast in 1022 to be installed as abbot.93 Another who felt the force of Richard’s personality was Poppo, the future abbot of Stablo. Born in 978 of noble blood, Poppo had

89 Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, 1.116, ed. L. Bethmann, MGH SS, 7, 453/49–51: Hic (sc. Richardus) etiam extincta Fulradi malicia, semper domno episcopo cum tota reverentia subiectus extitit, eique in omnibus, sicuti decet, intemerato amoris signaculo obsecundavit.

90 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 179, 184. 91 These events are described in cc. 12 and 13 of Hugh of Flavigny’s Vita of Abbot

Richard = Hugh of Flavigny, 378–9; for the identification of Leduin see 379/18. 92 For the opposition to Hugh of Flavigny see Chapter 3, notes 81–103; for the murder

of Abbo of Fleury see Aimoin, Vita sancti Abbonis, c. 20, A. SS. OSB., Saec. 6, 1, pp. 54–5; for the attempt on St Benedict see Gregory the Great, Dialogues, 2.3, PL, 66, 136.

93 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 192.


renounced the world and entered the monastery of St-Thierry in Rheims where he was discovered by Abbot Richard, who was returning to St-Vanne from St-Waast via the abbey of St-Thierry. Impressed by the holiness and devotion of Poppo, Richard prevailed upon the abbot of St-Thierry to allow the young monk to accompany him to St-Vanne. Poppo stayed there some time before becoming prior of St-Waast around the end of 1012.94 His time at St-Waast seems to have been fairly brief: Poppo was soon recalled to St-Vanne. Everhelme, Poppo’s biographer, asserted that Richard recalled Poppo in order to test his obedience and humility but it is more likely that Richard really had need of his talents in the service of reform.95 Circa 1015 Richard was entrusted with the reform of the monastery of St-Maurice in Beaulieu, in the neighbourhood of St-Vanne. The abbot delegated this task of total reconstruction to Poppo, who soon acquired such fame as a monastic reformer that he was appointed as pastor of the abbey of Stablo by Henry II in 1020. The enduring friendship between Richard and Poppo is indicated by the latter’s stipulation that Richard’s letters to him should be interred with him after his death.96

Richard’s successful reform of St-Waast had been undertaken at the behest of the bishop of Cambrai and the count of Flanders and these authorities helped to spread the abbot’s particular interpretation of the Rule of St Benedict. Gerard of Rumigny, the future bishop of Cambrai (1012–51) was a long-time friend of Richard’s: they had been canons together at Rheims. Upon Gerard’s entry into the imperial chapel, Richard, in concert with Count Hermann of Eename, successfully intervened with Emperor Henry II to procure Gerard’s nomination to the see of Cambrai in 1012. It is a measure of the confidence which Richard enjoyed at the imperial court by this date that he, together with Count Hermann and Abbot Berthold of Inda, was charged with escorting the bishop-elect Gerard back to his diocese.97 From then on, the two friends, Abbot Richard and Bishop Gerard, worked together to promote monastic reform in Cambrai and its neighbouring dioceses. In his reform of the abbeys of Flemish monasteries of Florennes, Hautmont and St-Amand, Richard had to rely on his cardinal principle of delegation. At Florennes, in the diocese of Liège, the family of Bishop Gerard of Cambrai had constructed a monastery in honour of St John the Baptist. This abbey was entrusted to Abbot Richard’s supervision and it soon prospered, both in terms of its material

94 Hallinger, Gorze-Kluny, p. 501 n. 27, makes the point that technically Poppo and his sucessor at St-Waast, Frederick, were praepositi.

95 Everhelme, Vita sancti Popponis abbatis Stabulensis, c. 13, ed. W. Wattenbach, MGH SS, 11, 301.

96 Everhelme, c. 30, p. 313/41–50; Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 183 n. 3, pp. 228–233.

97 Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, 3.1, pp. 465/35–466/2: ... abbatibus videlicet Richardo, et Berthaldo Endensi, sed et Herimanno comiti, per legationem precipit (sc. Henricius II) ut Gerardum comitantes ad urbem commissam usque deducerent.


resources and in respect of the holiness of its monks.98 The duration of Richard’s personal stewardship of Florennes is unclear but by 1018, with the institution of a sound monastic observance, the abbot withdrew, leaving Florennes under the stewardship of his disciple Benedict. Florennes eventually regained its full autonomy in 1018, by which time it had its own abbot, Wenrich. The abbey of Hautmont, in the diocese of Cambrai, was also reformed by Richard. Once again Richard’s intervention was due to Bishop Gerard of Cambrai, and after a short period of reform, the abbot was able to cede the governance of Hautmont to one of his monks, Folcuin. The latter had become abbot of Hautmont by 1018 when he concluded an exchange in his capacity of abbot with the aforementioned monastery of Florennes.99 Abbot Richard’s policy of cooperation with local secular and ecclesiastical lords helped to extend the sphere of his reforms. For example, Count Baldwin IV of Flanders, impressed by Richard’s reform of St-Waast, invited the abbot to reform the abbey of St-Amand in the diocese of Tournai after the death of Abbot Ratbod in 1013. Apparently the observance of Benedict’s Rule at St-Amand had become lax under Ratbod’s stewardship as abbot. Ratbod – who was of royal blood – was often absent from his congregation on royal business. Richard’s reform of St-Amand followed the pattern established at Florennes and Hautmont and, after a five-year period of personal government, Richard withdrew in favour of a monk of that house, Malbold.100 The reform of these three monasteries was typical of Richard’s methods. First, reform was undertaken in cooperation with, and often at the invitation of, local dignitaries, especially bishops: unlike Cluniac reforms Richard’s reforms were not subversive of episcopal authority. Second, after a short period of personal government, Richard typically handed the stewardship of these houses to disciples whom he had trained in the strict observance of the Rule of St Benedict. Although these disciples could be trusted to faithfully reflect Richard’s ideas of reform, there was no question of any ties of dependence linking these monasteries constitutionally to the abbot of St-Vanne. The most that can be said for the phenomenon of Richard’s monastic reform is that it comprised a loose confederation of like-minded men, trained and moulded by Richard of St-Vanne to exhibit a broad similarity in the interpretation of Benedict’s Rule.101

Richard was assiduous in developing the material resources of the abbeys in his care. In this respect he stood in the tradition of Lotharingian monastic reform

98 Ibid., 3.18, pp. 470/43–471/2. 99 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 187. 100 Ibid., p. 188. 101 Hallinger, Gorze-Kluny, pp. 493–7, maintained that the monastic reforms of Richard

of St-Vanne and Poppo of Stablo evinced a desire for centralisation analagous to the Cluniac ‘order’. As evidence for this assertion Hallinger referred to c. 5 of the Miracula Beati Richardi, A. SS. OSB., Saec. 6, 1, p. 532, written roughly one hundred years after the events it describes: here it was claimed that Richard imposed on reformed houses a legal obligation (pro lege eis constituerat) to send their abbots to St-Vanne every year.


which found characteristic expression in Bishop Gauzlin of Toul’s charter for the abbey of St-Evre in 941. In this document Gauzlin enlarged the possessions of St-Evre and called upon his successors to support permanently the material endowment of this house.102 Richard of St-Vanne was particularly concerned to provide the physical surroundings in which the Rule of St Benedict could flourish. His preoccupation with construction – illustrated by his total reconstruction of the abbey of St-Maurice in Beaulieu and imitated by his disciple, Leduin, who supervised the physical restoration of St-Waast – subsequently gave rise to a curious legend.103 In a letter of c. 1068 to the Roman prefect, Cencius, Peter Damian wrote on the themes of justice and spiritual reward. To illustrate the rewards of justice, Peter Damian related a legend he had heard from Duke Godfrey the Bearded, concerning the latter’s uncle, Duke Godfrey II of Lower Lotharingia (1012–23). The elder Duke Godfrey had apparently been a model of justice in his lifetime and he was a protagonist in a vision which was relayed to Godfrey the Bearded. In this vision, the elder Godfrey was attended by angels and was the personification of ‘justice’ (iustitia). Strangely Abbot Richard of St-Vanne also appeared in this vision, seemingly as the antithesis of Godfrey. Richard was observed in hell, raising machines for construction and fortification: it was said that he had no other thought than the pursuit of building. Just as he had vainly and frivolously pursued this end in life, so he would continue in purgatory.104 Of course the veracity of this vision is open to question: Peter Damian had it at third hand and Richard’s somewhat materialist interpretation of the Benedictine Rule would not have appealed to the austere hermit of Fonte Avellana. However, the mere fact of this legend’s inclusion in a letter of the late 1060s indicates Richard’s undoubted obsession with building and fortification. It was a characteristic of Richard’s monastic reforms that material restoration was the foundation for spiritual devotion: he emphasised the need for sound buildings and finances before attempting the complete implementation of Benedict’s Rule. Richard’s solicitude for the material resources of the houses in his care conduced to the promotion of their self sufficiency and individual identity. It is worth repeating that he had no desire to create a centralised or hierarchical ‘order’. In the same way the great abbot encouraged and enhanced the local cults of the

102 Gallia Christiana, 13, instrumenta ecclesiae Tullensis, no. 9, col. 453; cf. Boshof, ‘Kloster und Bischof’, p. 225.

103 On the reconstruction of Beaulieu, which was undertaken by Poppo on Richard’s instructions, see Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 229; on Leduin’s reconstruction of St-Waast see Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 192 n. 4.

104 Die Briefe des Petrus Damiani, vol. 4, ed. K. Reindel (MGH Briefe der Deutschen Kaiserzeit, 4: Munich, 1993), no. 155, pp. 72/21–73/5: ... vir quidam raptus in spiritu per soporem ... vidit Richardum Verdunensem abbatem velut excelsas turrium machinas erigentem, et anxium atque sollicitum tanquam munita castrorum propugnacula construentem. Hoc enim morbo laboraverat abbas ille dum viveret, ut in extruendis inaniter aedifitiis omnes fere diligentiae suae curas expenderet, et plurimas facultates aecclesiae in frivolis huiusmodi neniis profligaret.


monasteries entrusted to him. During one of his sojourns at the abbey of St-Maurice in Beaulieu, Richard wrote a Vita of the alleged founder of this monastery, St Rodingus.105 The same desire to develop the local traditions of the monasteries in his care is evident in his veneration of relics. Richard provided Bishop Gerard I of Cambrai with a relic of John the Baptist for a monastery in honour of that saint, constructed on Gerard’s paternal demesne of Florennes, and subsequently entrusted to Richard’s care.106 The discovery and veneration of the relics of monastic patrons seems to have been a characteristic of the monasteries reformed by the abbot of St-Vanne. This concern was evident in the abbey of St-Bertin, a venerable monastery in the diocese of Thérouanne, which had fallen into decadence by 1021 when Count Baldwin IV of Flanders entrusted it to Richard of St-Vanne. Richard imposed on the lax monks of St-Bertin an abbot taken from St-Waast, Roderick. One of Roderick’s successors, Bovo, discovered the relics of St Bertin during the course of the reconstruction of the abbey church in 1050.107 This example shows how one concern of Richard’s reforms – the reconstruction of monastic buildings – could promote another aspect of Richard’s monastic sensibility: the discovery and veneration of local relics. Abbot Richard’s methods of reform were perfected in his own monastery of St-Vanne. His abbatiate of over forty years at Verdun was characterised by the now-familiar striving for structural soundness, the promotion of local relics and the development of house documents and Vitae. All of these characteristics of Richard’s monastic reform tended to promote the internal cohesion and solidarity of a monastery in preparation for the work of Opus Dei. During his reconstruction of the monastery buildings of St-Vanne – an enterprise greatly supported by the brothers Frederick, Hermann of Eename and Duke Godfrey II of Lotharingia – it became necessary to translate the relics of five bishops who had been interred at the abbey: the saintly Madalveus, who was discovered incorrupt; Hilduin; Hatto; Dado, and Berengar, the founder bishop and later monk of St-Vanne, whose body was also apparently untouched by decay.108 These translations must have been a powerful demonstration of St-Vanne’s status as an episcopal Grabkirche. They also gave rise to a curious legend which, although undoubtedly spurious, sheds light on how the discovery of relics led to the intensification of religious feeling. The anonymous author of the Vita Richardi claimed that during the work of reconstruction, the tombs of eight bishops were discovered in the foundations of the abbey. Richard postponed the translation of the corpses until the following day.

105 A. SS. OSB., Saec. 4, 2, pp. 532–6; on Richard’s authorship of this text see the anonymous Vita Richardi, c. 12, ed. W. Wattenbach, MGH SS, 11, 286/37–8: Sancti Rodingi confessoris, cujus ipse vitam honorifico sermone composuit ....

106 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 184 n. 3; see above note 98. 107 Ibid., p. 191 n. 5. 108 These events are described in c. 8 of Hugh of Flavigny’s Vita Richardi = Hugh of

Flavigny, 373/43–55: Edificata igitur nova aecclesia maiori ambitu et elegantiori opere, necessarium fuit ut corpora quorundam sanctorum pontificum transmutari debuissent.


During the night, one of the eight bishops appeared to the monk who was guarding the church, explaining that the eight wished to be left in their resting place until the Last Judgement. As a token of the authenticity of this vision, the spirit vouchsafed that each of the eight bishops would be discovered with their right hand upon their respective chests, preserved from corruption. When the tombs were opened the next day, this prophecy was duly fulfilled and Abbot Richard, after having blessed the corpses with holy water, had the tombs resealed. According to the anonymous Vita Richardi, the great abbot also inscribed a monument on the floor above the tombs so that the monks could avoid stepping on the remains of the eight bishops.109 This legend is a faithful representation of the religious tension that was aroused by the discovery of relics. These miraculous points of contact with the afterlife produced, in the case of the abbey of St-Vanne, a more intense religious sensibility but also a more coherent sense of local tradition and identity. In this respect Richard achieved a notable coup in obtaining for St-Vanne the relics of Sanctinus, the founder-bishop of the see of Verdun. It would seem that in either 1031 or 1032, during a time of terrible famine in France, travelling merchants from Verdun were able to purchase the relics of Sanctinus at Meaux from the starving clerics there.110 A translation of the relics of Sanctinus to St-Vanne must have certainly taken place by 1033/39, according to a house charter which alludes to the abbey’s possession of the body of the founder-bishop of Verdun.111 This event undoubtedly augmented the prestige of St-Vanne and was a fitting culmination to Abbot Richard’s efforts to promote the local cults and relics of the abbeys in his care. Richard also fostered the traditions of the abbey of St-Vanne through hagiography. He composed a Vita of St Vanne, seemingly at the behest of his monks, who at that point, did not possess a life of their patron saint.112 This Vita was composed in order to be read out as an exhortation to the monks on the feast of St Vanne and this use of the Vita as a kind of hortatory sermon is reflected in the title of this work in one of the MSS preserving it: Sermo de Vita et Miraculis beatissimi Vitoni Virdunensis Episcopi. The miracles which Richard appended to

109 Vita Richardi, c. 8, MGH SS, 11, 284/1–35.110 Narratio qualiter delatum est corpus beatissimi Sanctini a negociatoribus ab urbe

Meldis in civitatem Virdunensem, ed. Van Der Straeten, Les manuscrits hagiographiques,pp. 160–65; cf. Borgolte, ‘Fiktive Gräber in der Historiographie’, p. 219.

111 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’ JGLGA, 10 (1898), no. XXXV, p. 441: Quod ego Theodericus dictus comes ... tradidi loco beati Petri apostolorum principis, ubi requiescunt corpora sanctorum Vitoni, Sanctini ....

112 Vita sancti Vitoni Virdunensis episcopi, ed. Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 361–70, esp. p. 361/5–11 for the monks’ desire for a Vita of St Vanne. Berthar of St-Vanne, c. 4, p. 41/10–11, mentioned that he was aware of a Vita of St Vanne, which had apparently been lost: Vitam beatissimi Vitoni a multis audivi se vidisse scriptam, sed hactenus a nobis est invisa.


the Vita had apparently been performed at the tomb of St Vanne in Richard’s own lifetime and the abbot claimed to have seen them with his own eyes.113

The request of the monks of St-Vanne for a Vita of their patron saint was part of a larger movement in which the abbey developed its identity and traditions in the first half of the eleventh century. Abbot Richard’s initiatives were instrumental in this regard. As we have seen, he instituted a necrology and the praecipua anniversaria of St-Vanne to commemorate the various patrons and benefactors of the abbey: these documents reflect the growing importance of the scriptorium of St-Vanne in Richard’s abbatiate. In the time of Richard’s abbatiate we know of the identity of two scribes at St-Vanne. One was Rothard who, besides working in the scriptorium of St-Vanne, also spent some time with his abbot in the monasteries of St-Waast and Lobbes. Three MSS from his hand are preserved: the Arithmetic of Boethius, executed at Lobbes; some treatises of Ambrose including De Fide, DeTrinitate, De Incarnatione and De Nabuthe Jezraelita, and the Vita and Epistolae of St Clement of Rome.114 The second scribe was Alberic. He transcribed, under the name of his abbot, a charter of 1019 between Richard and a certain Heroul. Also in his hand is a copy of the Expositio de Cantica Canticorum of Gregory the Great.115 The work of these scribes must reflect the range of devotional, theological and pedagogical works which Richard felt were essential to the intellectual and spiritual life of his monastery, as do some other MSS probably executed during his abbatiate, which include a Concordia Regularum and the poems of Venantius Fortunatus.116

The growing importance of the scriptorium and library of St-Vanne during Richard’s abbatiate may be observed in the catalogue of 36 volumes with which Abbot Gervin of St-Riquier (1045–75) enriched his abbey in the diocese of Amiens. Gervin had been a disciple of Abbot Richard and, indeed, owed his position as abbot of St-Riquier to his mentor’s influence and stature.117 Gervin must have retained a close bond with his former abbey of St-Vanne as many or all of the thirty six additions to the library of St-Riquier in his abbatiate – the list is preserved by Gervin’s biographer, Hariulf – emanated from St-Vanne. One volume contained Richard’s Vita of St-Vanne, while another contained the lives of SS

113 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 93; see above notes 13–14. 114 Ibid., pp. 100–101, and, for Richard’s reform of Lobbes, pp. 197–200. 115 Cf. E. Lesne, Histoire de la propriété ecclésiastique en France, vol. 4, Les livres,

‘scriptoria’ et bibliothèques (Lille, 1938), p. 271; on the charter of 1019 see Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’ JGLGA, 10 (1898), no. XXV, p. 426: Ego Albricus monachus iussu domini abbatis Richardi scripsi et subscripsi.

116 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 102; possibly the same verses of Fortunatus that Hugh of Flavigny included in his Chronicon, 335/42–336/34. See Max Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, Vol. 3 (Munich, 1931), p. 513, for the idea that these poems in Hugh’s Chronicon were copied from c. 6 of Berthar of St-Vanne.

117 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 222–4.


Bertin and Bavon, the patrons of two monasteries influenced by Richard’s reforms.118

Perhaps the most important product of Richard’s scriptorium was the cartulary, which was probably first compiled towards the end of his abbatiate and perhaps in imitation of the contemporary cartulary of Abbot Odilo of Cluny (994–1049).119

Richard must have been keenly aware of the need to support the claims and possessions of his monastery with authentic documents. The importance of the cartulary can be gauged by the fact that the original of this document ultimately came to rest at Dijon, the city where the monks of St-Vanne took refuge during their two periods of exile in 1085–92 and 1111–14. Thus, it is highly likely that the monks took the cartulary with them as one of their most precious documents in their periods of exile from Verdun.120 Moreover, in the first quarter of the twelfth century the monks of St-Vanne inserted forged papal bulls and imperial diplomas in their cartulary in order to recuperate privileges and dues that had been lost during the Investiture Contest.121 Richard’s institution of the cartulary was probably his most important contribution to the identity of the abbey and this document, being constantly augmented and enlarged from the late 1040s on, became the most important expression of the affiliations and aspirations which defined the monastery of St-Vanne. Thus, during Richard’s abbatiate the monastery of St-Vanne developed a powerful sense of identity and autonomy, which, aided by an enhanced literary tradition, threatened to alienate this house from its traditional dependence on the bishops of Verdun. This process was contemporary with the increasing influence of the comital house of Verdun on the abbey and the connections of the monastery of St-Vanne with reforming movements in Lotharingia. As was the case in the mid-tenth century, the impulse for monastic reform in Lotharingia in the middle of the eleventh century came from the bishops. The abbey of St-Vanne did not stand apart from these developments, principally through the immense prestige which Abbot Richard had acquired. For example, by the end of the tenth century the abbey of St-Evre in the diocese of Toul stood in need of reformation and restoration. The restoration of this abbey, undertaken by Bishop Berthold of Toul –

118 Hariulfus Aldenburgensis, Chronicon Centulense, 4.32, PL, 174, 1353D–55A; cf. Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 101. Aside from hagiographical material, the 36 volumes acquired by Gervin comprised many classic works of such Church fathers as Ambrose, Gregory Nazianzus, Jerome, Augustine, John Chrysostom and Gregory the Great (including the latter’s Registrum).

119 This is Dauphin’s hypothesis in Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 128 n. 1; cf. Hallinger, Gorze-Kluny, p. 513 n. 86.

120 On the evidence for Richard’s institution of a cartulary at St-Vanne see Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’ JGLGA, 10 (1898), 347–8, esp. 348 n. 2.

121 See the forged imperial diplomas of Henry II, Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’ JGLGA, 10 (1898), nos XXII and XXIII, pp. 416–19; cf. the forged papal bulls of Leo IX and Nicholas II, Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’ JGLGA, 14 (1902), nos XLV, XLVI, XLVII, pp. 58–72.


and entrusted to the saintly Abbot William of St-Bénigne in Dijon – was completed in the pontificate of Berthold’s successor, Bruno, the future Pope Leo IX (1048–54). Richard, along within his former disciple, Poppo of Stablo, subscribed some of the expenses necessary for the restoration of St-Evre, implicitly suggesting some personal connection between Abbot Richard and Bruno of Toul.122 It is perhaps significant in this regard that in 1053, as Pope Leo IX, Bruno was the first pope since John XII in 956 to renew the papal confirmation of the possessions of St-Vanne. A connection between Leo IX and the abbey may also have been fostered during the pope’s stay at Verdun in 1049.123 More circumstantial, though equally plausible, is Abbot Richard’s connection with Frederick of Lorraine, the future abbot of Monte Cassino and Pope Stephen IX (1057–58). Frederick was the brother of Duke Godfrey III the Bearded of Lotharingia and hence part of the comital family of Verdun which had such close relations with the abbey of St-Vanne. It is probable that Abbot Richard must have made his acquaintance, either in Verdun or in Liège, where, among other houses, Richard reformed the abbey of St-Laurent.124 Frederick, before he became Pope Stephen IX, had been canon and later archdeacon of the cathedral church of St-Lambert in Liège, a church which supplied many postulants to the abbey of St-Laurent.125

Richard’s connections with Bruno of Toul and Frederick of Lorraine ultimately orientated the abbey of St-Vanne towards Rome as these two became Popes Leo IX and Stephen IX respectively. This Roman orientation found an echo in the first quarter of the twelfth century when forged papal bulls in favour of St-Vanne, attributed to Leo IX and Nicholas II, were inserted in the house cartulary. These forgeries, however, were built on the bedrock of increasing connections between St-Vanne and Rome during and after Richard’s abbatiate. In 1021 Richard made a pilgrimage to Rome, and as a consequence of this visit to the relics of St Peter, Pope Benedict VIII issued a bull on 27 November 1021 in favour of the monastery of St-Waast, addressed to Richard of St-Vanne who at that time was abbot of that house.126 Also, early in the pontificate of the Tusculan Pope John XIX (1024–32) an embassy from the patriarch of Constantinople arrived at Rome, urging Roman recognition of the patriarch’s status as ‘ecumenical patriarch’. Hugh of Flavigny reports that Richard of St-Vanne was one of those who went to Rome, conveying

122 De instauratione coenobii S. Apri, PL, 143, 581–4; cf. Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 249 n. 3.

123 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’ JGLGA, 10 (1898), no. XIII, pp. 397–400; ‘Die älteren Urkunden’ JGLGA, 14 (1902), no. XLIV, pp. 53–8. See above note 71 for Leo IX’s stay at Verdun in 1049.

124 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 201–11. 125 Cf. Diversorum patrum sententie sive Collectio in LXXIV titulos digesta, ed. J.

Gilchrist (Vatican City, 1973), p. lxxv n. 24. 126 JL 4053; cf. Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 254 n. 2.


their hostility to this proposal to the pope.127 Hugh of Flavigny’s report of this embassy is uncorroborated by any other source but Richard’s intervention in favour of St-Waast may have created a tradition of recourse to Rome – rather than to the monastery’s traditional protector, the bishop of Verdun – in support of abbey possessions. For example, in 1060 Abbot Waleran procured a papal bull from Pope Nicholas II in favour of St-Vanne, commanding Count Robert of Rodez to make restitution to the abbey of property which he had appropriated.128

It is possible that these relations with the Holy See may have created an environment favourable to papal reform at the abbey of St-Vanne. The connection between St-Vanne and Rome, fostered in the pontificate of Nicholas II (1058–61), may be reflected in the autograph manuscript of Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon.129

In this work, Nicholas II’s letter to Count Robert of Rodez is included in the company of two other documents: the papal election decree of 1059 and the pope’s reforming letter, also of 1059, to the faithful in France.130 These three documents, together with some narrative on contemporary events, are contained on folios 95r–v of Hugh of Flavigny’s autograph.131 It is important to emphasise that this material, from a palaeographical perspective at least, forms a single unit. The immediately previous narrative – dealing with the deeds of Abbot Richard of St-Vanne – concludes at the top of folio 94v; the greater part of 94v has been left blank. The three items of Nicholas II can also be distinguished from the immediately following narrative – on folios 96r–v – dealing with the election of Bishop Hugh of Die in 1073. This narrative on the election of 1073 is contained in a text block of 30 lines and written in light ink. In contrast, the folios containing the three items of Nicholas II were written in a much more compressed text block of 40 lines – with some material squeezed into the left margin of folio 95v – and were inscribed in much bolder ink. The compression of the text, and its palaeographical distinctiveness from the material surrounding it, leave the impression that Hugh inserted the three items of Nicholas II into his Chronicon at the same time and possibly from the same source. Such observations beg the question how these three items, originally deriving from Rome, found their way into Hugh’s Chronicon. Could all three have been brought back to Verdun by

127 Hugh of Flavigny, 392/34–6: Nec defuit in his patris Richardi autentica praesentia: immo omnino sategit ut Constantinopolitanea praesumptio confutata conquiesceret, filium se Romanae aecclesiae, dum matris honori providebat, ostendens.

128 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’ JGLGA, 14 (1902), no. LII, pp. 76–7; cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 409/30–44, where there is a copy of this papal bull.

129 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, MS Phillipps 1870. 130 Detlev Jasper, Das Papstwahldekret von 1059. Überlieferung und Textgestalt

(Beiträge zur Geschichte und Quellenkunde des Mittelalters, 12: Sigmaringen, 1986); the letter to the faithful in France is JL 4404, partially edited by Weiland in MGHConstitutiones, 1, no. 385, p. 548.

131 Corresponding to Pertz’s edition in the MGH SS, 8, 408/6–410/9.


Abbot Waleran in 1060?132 The answer may lie in Nicholas II’s letter to the faithful in France (JL 4404), which itself was a partial distillation of the pope’s encyclical of 1059, Vigilantia universalis.133 This wide-ranging demand for reform – concerned, in Hugh of Flavigny’s abridged version, primarily with clerical chastity – was intended for a wide audience in Gaul, Aquitaine and Gascony.134 It is possible that the pope also wanted to disseminate his letter in Lotharingia and he may have chosen Abbot Waleran as a suitable agent for the task.135 Waleran, conveniently at Rome on account of his suit against Count Robert of Rodez, would have been able to diffuse the pope’s letter through the network of the many abbeys that had been reformed by Richard of St-Vanne and Poppo of Stablo. If this hypothesis is correct Nicholas II also entrusted Abbot Waleran with a copy of the papal election decree of 1059, although the pope’s possible motive in doing so is unclear. However, it may be significant that MS Bergamo MA 244, whose version of the papal election decree belongs to the same group as that contained in the Chronicon Hugonis, also contains a copy of Nicholas II’s letter of 1059 to the faithful in France (JL 4404). Moreover, in the Bergamo MS, this letter, as is the case in the Chronicon Hugonis, is inscribed in close proximity to the papal election decree.136 The fact that the Chronicon Hugonis and the Bergamo MS – whose copies of the papal election decree belong to the same family group – also contain copies of JL 4404 may indicate that the dissemination of these two texts in unison was part of a deliberate policy on the part of Nicholas II. In any case the pope’s ready answer to Waleran’s plea for papal protection indicates good relations

132 According to Hugh of Flavigny, 409/45, Abbot Waleran died on his return journey from Rome at Moustier Ramey (apud Aremare monasterium); evidently, however, Nicholas II’s letter to Count Robert of Rodez must have been transmitted back to Verdun as it is contained in the cartulary of St-Vanne and the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny.

133 Compare Hugh’s abbreviated version of JL 4404, Hugh of Flavigny, 409/17–26, with Vigilantia universalis, ed. Rudolf Schieffer, Die Entstehung des päpstlichen Investiturverbots für den deutschen König (MGH Schriften, 28: Stuttgart, 1981), Appendix 1, pp. 218/106–220/137.

134 Hugh of Flavigny, 409/15–17: Nicholaus episcopus, servus servorum Dei omnibus ... per omnes Gallias commorantibus, immo Aquitanicis, Wasconibus ...; for Gallia as a term denoting Lotharingia see Werner, ‘Der Herzog von Lothringen’, p. 374 n. 40.

135 Theodor Schieffer, Die päpstlichen Legaten in Frankreich vom Vertrage von Meersen (870) bis zum Schisma von 1130 (Berlin, 1935), pp. 60–1, refers to a legate of Nicholas II, only identified by the initial ‘G’, who possibly diffused JL 4404 throughout France in 1059; Augustin Fliche, La Réforme Grégorienne, vol. 1 (Paris and Louvain, 1926), p. 332, refers to the efforts of Cardinal Stephen to promulgate the agenda of reform in France at the councils of Vienne and Tours in early 1060. One of the participants at the council of Vienne was Bishop Hagano of Autun, the future patron of Hugh of Flavigny, cf. Robert Somerville, ‘Cardinal Stephan of St Grisogono: Some Remarks on Legates and Legatine Councils in the Eleventh Century’, Law, Church and Society: Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner, ed. K. Pennington and Robert Somerville (Philadelphia, 1977), p. 163.

136 Jasper, Das Papstwahldekret von 1059, p. 21 n. 75, p. 91.


between St-Vanne and the Holy See in 1060. This relationship, and the immense prestige of the abbey in Lotharingia, may have prompted Nicholas II to build on the legacy of Abbot Richard of St-Vanne and to employ Waleran in the cause of Church reform. Despite the developing autonomy of St-Vanne in the first half of the eleventh century, the abbey was still subordinate to the tuitio of Bishop Theoderic of Verdun in the 1070s. As has already been mentioned in connection with the abbey of St-Mihiel, Theoderic was determined – in the tradition of Lotharingian reform – to obtain the absolute obedience of the monasteries in his diocese. In 1075 he felt strong enough to dismiss Grimold from the abbatiate of St-Vanne and to appoint Rudolf of St-Airy in his place.137 Evidently the new abbot was chosen with some care and there seems to have been a bond of amity between them: Laurent of Liège later claimed that the dispute between them in 1085 ended their ‘old friendship’.138

Moreover, Hugh of Flavigny claimed that one of the complaints that were subsequently made against Rudolf was that he alone stood against Theoderic when he should have been the first to support the bishop.139 Clearly, Rudolf’s appointment in 1075 was made on the understanding that the new abbot should be a loyal agent of Theoderic’s policy. However, the relationship between bishop and abbot was soon complicated by the outbreak of hostilities between Henry IV of Germany and Gregory VII. The history of the abbey of St-Vanne between 1076 and 1085 needs to be considered in the context of the stance adopted by Bishop Theoderic of Verdun in this conflict of Church and State. The affair concerning the inhabitants of St-Mihiel in 1074 reflected two different conceptions of the structure of the Church. On the one hand, Bishop Theoderic felt entitled to regulate all aspects of ecclesiastical life within his diocese. On the other hand, Gregory VII, as head of the mater Romana ecclesia and successor to St Peter, felt entitled to intervene in any diocese in the interests of faith and righteousness. This latter conception quickly proved to be irksome to the German episcopate, especially the bishops in Lotharingia. In early 1075 Archbishop Udo of Trier wrote in protest to the pope concerning the latter’s condemnation of Bishop Pibo of Toul as an exepiscopus, although the legal process against Pibo had not yet been concluded. Udo also expressed his horror that Gregory VII had encouraged the clergy of Toul to investigate their bishop’s rectitude and way of life. Gregory’s conception of the Church would contravene the ancient canonical hierarchy within dioceses; it would be tantamount to ‘arming

137 For the events at St-Mihiel in 1074 see above note 56; for the dismissal of Grimold see notes 53 and 54.

138 Laurent of Liège, c. 9, p. 496/11: Hinc inter eos soluta est vetus illa pia amicitia. 139 Hugh of Flavigny, 468/15: Non potuit hoc diutius pati abbatis Rodulfi simplicitas,

maxime cum in eum omnium praecipue desevirent omnia, quasi dolentium quod solus ab eis dissentiret, qui unus illorum et inter primos esse deberet, et nunc ad illorum contumeliam novas leges, novas institutiones contra principem regni et sacerdotes proponeret.


sons against their fathers’ (filios in patres armare).140 The same complaints found an echo in the letter by which the German bishops renounced their obedience to Gregory VII at Worms in January 1076. In this letter the most damning charge was that the pope had subjected the administration of ecclesiastical affairs to ‘the fury of the mob’.141 The desire to preserve traditional episcopal rights, so prominent in the letter of Archbishop Udo in 1075 and in the episcopal renunciation at Worms in 1076, was also the defining characteristic of Bishop Theoderic of Verdun’s behaviour during the period 1076–85. Although he did not attend the synod of Worms in 1076, when the greater part of the German episcopate subscribed Henry IV’s renunciation of the pope, Theoderic was identified with the rebels. In a letter to Archbishop Udo of Trier of April 1076, Gregory VII included Theoderic among those who had complained about the pope, although the pope conceded that Theoderic might have been unwilling to do so.142 It is clear, however, that the bishop of Verdun exercised some discretion at this time and was reluctant to side openly with the king. Together with Pibo of Toul he fled the city of Utrecht, where Henry IV was celebrating Easter in 1076, so as not to witness Bishop William of Utrecht’s excommunication of the pope. This may have been more than a politic escape and may even have reflected Theoderic’s doubts on the canonical validity of the proceedings at Worms and Utrecht. Theoderic was part of the Upper Lotharingian episcopate, a body particularly sensitive to the norms of canon law, and he may have shared the concerns of Bishop Hermann of Metz that it was not licit to judge Gregory VII in his absence.143 Some time before the assembly at Tribur/Oppenheim in October 1076, the bishop of Verdun acknowledged his disobedience by sending Abbot Rudolf to Rome with the symbols of episcopal office – his ring and stole – as tokens of his subjection to Gregory VII. Like his metropolitan Udo of Trier, who also submitted to the pope, Theoderic had probably begun to doubt the legal validity of the business transacted at Worms. Moreover, the abrupt death of Bishop William of Utrecht, who had pronounced the sentence of excommunication against Gregory VII, on 27 April 1076 must have

140 Briefsammlungen der Zeit Heinrichs IV., ed. C. Erdmann and N. Fickermann, (MGHBriefe der deutschen Kaiserzeit, 5: Weimar, 1950), no. 17, p. 39/21–2.

141 Ibid., no. 20, p. 48/10–11: ... omnique rerum ecclesiasticarum administratione plebeio furori per te attributa.

142 Reg. 3.12, pp. 273–4. 143 Lampert of Hersfeld, Lamperti Annales, s.a. 1076, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SRG,

38, 254/1–10: Cumque caeteri omnes damnationi eius nihil hesitantes subscriberent, Adalbero Wirziburgensis episcopus et Herimannus Mettensis episcopus aliquamdiu restiterunt, dicentes incongruum valde et contra canonum scita esse, ut episcopus aliquis absens, absque generali concilio, sine legittimis et idoneis accusatoribus et testibus ... condemnaretur, nedum Romanus pontifex, adversus quem nec episcopi nec archiepiscopi cuiusquam recipienda sit accusatio; cf. Franz-Reiner Erkens, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz im Investiturstreit (Passauer Historische Forschungen, 4: Cologne/Vienna, 1987), pp. 20–22.


seemed like a divine judgement against the rebels.144 The pope readmitted Theoderic back into favour and gave Bishop Hermann of Metz the responsibility, after satisfactory penance had been performed, to absolve the bishop of Verdun from his sins.145 Despite no direct involvement in these affairs, the abbey of St-Vanne was crucially affected by the events of 1076. Abbot Rudolf had arrived at Rome as a faithful agent of his diocesan. Once there, however, he felt the full force of Gregory VII’s charismatic personality in a manner similar to his brother abbots Theoderic of St-Hubert-en-Ardennes and William of Hirsau.146 Rudolf’s inclusion into the ‘friendship network’ of the pope was to have profound consequences for the abbey of St-Vanne. Bishop Theoderic had been reconciled with the Holy See yet his position remained ambiguous. He probably negotiated on behalf of the king at the assembly of Tribur/Oppenheim and Lampert of Hersfeld claimed that he was the only bishop to attend Henry IV’s court at Speyer in late October/early November 1076. Theoderic even attempted to travel to Italy in early 1077 in the service of the king but was taken prisoner on the way by Count Adalbert of Calw.147 Thwarted on that occasion, Theoderic did manage to represent Henry IV in 1078 when, together with Bishop Benno of Osnabrück, he was present at the Lenten synod in Rome as a royal envoy.148 Theoderic’s royalism was again on display in 1079 when he was the only member of the Upper Lotharingian episcopate to support Egilbert, Henry IV’s nominee to replace Archbishop Udo of Trier.149 However, despite this formidable record of Theoderic’s position as a royal fidelis, the bishop of Verdun managed to remain on relatively good terms with Gregory VII and with the pope’s adherents in Lotharingia. The murder of Godfrey IV the Hunchback, the duke of Lower Lotharingia, on 26 February 1076 allowed Theoderic to exhibit his dual allegiance to the pope and the king. Theoderic’s intervention was necessary because the succession to Duke Godfrey’s offices and rights was disputed between Godfrey’s nephew, Count Godfrey of Bouillon, and his widow, Margravine Matilda of Tuscany. Verdun was an ‘episcopal county’ and Theoderic vindicated his right to regulate the succession to this office in the style of his predecessors: Heimo at the end of the tenth century, Rambert in 1025 and Richard in 1044.150

Theoderic decided in favour of Margravine Matilda, who then enfeoffed the county

144 Cf. Erkens, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz, pp. 27–8, esp. p. 28 n. 131, where Erkens advances convincing reasons for dating Theoderic’s submission to 1076.

145 Hugh of Flavigny, 459/2–10 for Theoderic’s subjection to the pope; 461/1–3 for Bishop Hermann’s papal commission.

146 Cf. I.S. Robinson, ‘The Friendship Network of Gregory VII’, History, 63 (1978), 1–2, 11–12, 19–20.

147 Lampert of Hersfeld, pp. 281, 289; cf. Erkens, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz, p. 29. 148 Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernolds von Konstanz 1054–1100,

s.a. 1078, ed. I.S. Robinson, MGH SRG, NS, 14 (Hannover, 2003), 313/22–314/2. 149 Gesta Treverorum, Additamentum et Continuatio, 1.11, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS, 8,

184/39–40. 150 See above notes 66–8.


to her reform-minded cousin, Count Albert III of Namur.151 This was an adroit manoeuvre on the part of the bishop. His decision would have been pleasing to Gregory VII as it benefited the pope’s most ardent noble supporter. It also attenuated the power of the house of Ardennes – in the person of Godfrey of Bouillon – the traditional rivals to the bishops in the exercise of power in Verdun. Finally, Theoderic’s decision would not have been displeasing to the royal court. The late Duke Godfrey had intended that all his public and private rights should pass to his nephew. This disposition conflicted with royal policy in Lotharingia; since the middle of the eleventh century the Salian kings of Germany were determined that the public offices of the crown should not become hereditary in the house of Ardennes. Thus, Godfrey the Hunchback’s last will and testament was not recognised by King Henry IV: he did enfeoff Godfrey of Bouillon with the march of Antwerp but invested his own son, Conrad, with the duchy of Lower Lotharingia.152 Henry IV was concerned that Godfrey of Bouillon should not become an over-mighty vassal like his grand-uncle Godfrey the Bearded in the 1040s. Theoderic’s solution to the succession problem at Verdun in 1076, therefore, was beneficial to the cause of Gregory VII in Upper Lotharingia and also accorded with the general drift of royal policy in that region. Theoderic’s pragmatic and diplomatic approach to the conflict of empire and papacy lasted throughout 1079, when he offered refuge to Bishop Hermann of Metz. As is evident in his letter to Gregory VII in early 1080, Theoderic’s hospitality to his brother bishop was offered in response to a papal request. The reform-minded Hermann, by now an ardent supporter of the pope, had been exiled from his see in 1078 by Duke Theoderic of Upper Lotharingia.153 Bishop Theoderic’s efforts at conciliation and diplomacy for the cause of Henry IV are evident in the same letter where he assured the pope that the election of Egilbert, the archbishop-elect of Trier, was untainted by simony.154 All this was to change in 1080 when the pope pronounced his second excommunication of Henry IV at the Lenten synod in Rome.155 This measure was widely perceived to be unjust and it provoked a terrific backlash against the pope.156 Bishop Theoderic of Verdun quickly rallied to the side of Henry IV. He attended the synod of Mainz on 31 May 1080 and, in the presence of the excommunicate king, renounced his obedience to

151 Laurent of Liège, c. 7, p. 494/19–26; cf. Erkens, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz, p. 30 n. 145.

152 Erkens, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz, pp. 31–2. 153 Gesta Treverorum, Additamentum et Continuatio, 1.13, p. 186/15–20: Gregorio

summo pontifici karissimo domino reverentissimo patri Theodericus Virdunensis episcopus ... Monitus a te suscepi confratrem meum Mettensem ...; cf. Erkens, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz, p. 45 n. 227.

154 MGH SS, 8, 186/26–9. 155 Reg. 7. 14a, pp. 479–87. 156 Cf. Carl Mirbt, Die Publizistik im Zeitalter Gregors VII. (Leipzig, 1894), pp. 147–

54.


the pope.157 Even more radically, Theoderic published the proceedings of the synod of Mainz in a public letter in June 1080, calling for the deposition of Gregory VII: ‘Hildebrand, who is called the head of the church, is its most vile part; who is called the foundation of the church, is its weakness; who is called the ornament of the church, is its disgrace.’158 And yet, only a few weeks after this damning indictment of Gregory VII, Theoderic had adopted a more defensive posture, pleading that he had been coerced to renounce the pope and that he had acted against his will. It would seem that the abbey of St-Vanne had played a crucial role in bringing about this surprising volte-face. Some weeks after his public denunciation of Gregory VII, Theoderic wrote another letter to Egilbert of Trier. He reported that, because of his participation at the synod of Mainz on 31 May 1080, he received a hostile reception on his return to Verdun. Apparently the clergy in his diocese refused him the kiss of peace and denied him their obedience, possibly because of his contact with the excommunicate Henry IV at Mainz. In any case Theoderic was – as he explicitly acknowledged in this letter – deprived of his episcopal and sacerdotal offices because of his presumptuous renunciation of the pope. He would not be acknowledged either as bishop or priest until he had made satisfaction for this crime.159 The pressure exerted on Theoderic to reverse his anti-papal stance probably came, above all, from the abbey of St-Vanne – whose abbot, Rudolf, had been drawn into the Gregorian ‘friendship network’ in 1076 – but to a lesser extent from the abbey of St-Mihiel also. St-Mihiel’s attachment to the cause of Gregory VII must have been fostered by the pope’s protection of the region around the abbey from the exactions of Bishop Theoderic in 1074 and this connection was enhanced in the abbatiate of Siegfried, appointed as abbot of St-Mihiel in 1076. He had been a colleague of Rudolf of St-Vanne at the monastery of St-Airy in Verdun and displayed the same eagerness for reform. Although he was invested in his office by Countess Sophie of Bar – a cousin of Matilda of Tuscany – he soon learned that lay investiture was prohibited by the canons and went to Rome in order to resign his office in to the hands of the pope.160 The contemporary reformers, Bishop Anselm II of Lucca and Bishop Hermann of Metz, also

157 Cf. I.S. Robinson, Henry IV of Germany 1056–1106 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 197; Erkens, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz, p. 66 n. 354.

158 Bibliotheca rerum germanicarum, vol. 5, ed. P. Jaffé (Berlin, 1869), no. 62, p. 129 = MGH Libelli de lite, 1, 282/9–11: Hildebrandus, qui dicebatur caput, iam est cauda ecclesiae; qui fundamentum, iam detrimentum est ecclesiae; qui decus, iam dedecus est ecclesiae. Bishop Huzmann of Speyer and Archbishop Egilbert of Trier also wrote similar letters calling for the deposition of the pope: Bibliotheca rerum germanicarum, Vol. 5, nos 60 and 61.

159 Bibliotheca rerum germanicarum, vol. 5, no. 63, p. 132: Reversum solito gravius ecclesia me suscepit ... proptem auditam tam temere abrenuntiationem et inauditam prius tantam temeritatem non modo ab episcopali sed a sacerdotali officio ... usque ad dignam beato Petro et vicario eius satisfactionem me submovit.

160 Erkens, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz, p. 85 n. 466.


renounced their invested offices into the hands of the pope once they learned that lay investiture was prohibited by canon law. Receiving back this office from Gregory VII, Siegfried may have been drafted into the pope’s Lotharingian ‘friendship network’. It is certainly noticeable that when Theoderic felt strong enough to reassert his episcopal authority in 1084–85, the abbey of St-Mihiel, no less than St-Vanne, felt the full force of his anger. As for the situation in 1080, the clergy of Verdun had clearly become radicalised in their support for Gregory VII. A possible agent of this radicalisation may have been Bishop Hermann of Metz, who took refuge in Verdun in 1079. His rejection of the proceedings at Worms in 1076, based on their irregularity and ‘want of law’, may be reflected in the punishment meted out to Bishop Theoderic at Verdun in 1080 – a punishment imposed because of the bishop’s ‘unheard of temerity’ (inaudita temeritas). As Theoderic himself acknowledged, he had rejected the pope in his absence and without a fair hearing: precisely the objections that had eroded the solidarity of the rebel bishops in 1076.161 Bishop Hermann of Metz’s legalism – and his conviction that the pope could not be judged – certainly found a parallel in the later writings of Hugh of Flavigny, then a young monk at St-Vanne and a close associate of Abbot Rudolf.162

In his letter to Egilbert, Bishop Theoderic begged to be excused from participating in Egilbert’s consecration as archbishop of Trier. As he was ‘suspended from office’ (ab ordine suspensum) it would be dangerous for the bishop of Verdun to perform a consecration.163 Clearly, Theoderic had given in to the local pressure in Verdun and was temporarily reluctant to be associated with the Henrician party in Lotharingia. Although he claimed that he had been unwilling to renounce the pope at Mainz (terribiliter astrictus, multipliciter coactus),Theoderic’s submission to the wishes of his clergy in Verdun did not spring from any true spirit of repentance or fidelity Gregory VII. Theoderic’s cynical advice to Egilbert, on the matter of the latter’s consecration, pierced the veil of his superficial show of penitence: Theoderic left it to the archbishop-elect to decide whether he wanted to swear an oath to him (i.e. the bishop of Verdun), now an exile because of his repudiation of the pope, or to Gregory VII, who had not been legitimately elected to the Holy See.164 Unlike 1076, there was to be no petition to

161 Bibliotheca rerum germanicarum, vol. 5, no. 63, p. 132: Abrenuntiavi sedenti in sede apostolica; et hoc sine ratione aliqua, cum praesens non audiretur, auditus discuteretur, discussus convinceretur.

162 Hugh of Flavigny, 431/21 repeated Bishop Hermann’s complaint that, at Worms, Gregory VII had been condemned inconventus et inauditus; cf. Patrick Healy, ‘Hugh of Flavigny and Canon Law as Polemic in the Investiture Contest’, ZRG kan. Abt., 91 (2005), 17–58. Hugh of Flavigny, 453/4–35 and 472/5–47, devoted long passages to the life and death of Bishop Hermann.

163 Bibliotheca rerum germanicarum, Vol. 5, no. 63, p. 131: Quod enim maximo cum dolore vobis refero, ab ordine suspensum, vos ordinare periculosum esset.

164 Ibid., : Hoc tempore tribulationis ... videndum est: quomodo ordinari velitis in examinatione ordinis, cui promissionem, cui obedientiam, cui dignam subjectionem vovere


Rome for papal forgiveness.165 Instead Theoderic adopted a more evasive position, which found characteristic expression in the polemic he commissioned from Wenrich, the scholasticus of Trier.166 Probably composed between June 1080 and July/August 1081, Wenrich’s Epistola repeated all the hostile criticism of the pope under the specious pretext of a request for guidance from Gregory VII. Theoderic/Wenrich claimed to be unable to answer the rationes and auctoritates of the pope’s enemies. In form, therefore, it corresponds very well with the sentiments Theoderic expressed in his letter to Egilbert of Trier: in both there is an unrepentant strain of hostility to the pope under the surface of a superficial neutrality. It is possible that Wenrich’s polemic was conveyed to Rome by Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne.167 It is certainly the case that Rudolf was in Rome in 1081 and, according to Hugh of Flavigny, it was there that Rudolf was entrusted with the transmission of the pope’s second doctrinal letter to Bishop Hermann of Metz.168 If the speculations of Augustin Fliche are correct, Gregory VII’s famous letter may even have been composed as a conscious rejoinder to Wenrich’s oblique polemic. The fact that Gregory entrusted Rudolf with what was perhaps the pope’s most important doctrinal letter indicates the esteem in which the abbot of St-Vanne was held at Rome. Moreover, the pope was confident that Rudolf could deliver the letter to Hermann of Metz: there must have been a good deal of contact between these two eminent adherents of the reform papacy in Upper Lotharingia. Indeed Rudolf came to play an increasingly important role in Gregory’s calculations now that Hermann was intermittently exiled from the see of Metz. In 1076 Hermann had been entrusted by the pope to receive the absolution of the penitent Theoderic of Verdun. In the early 1080s Gregory now looked to Rudolf to discharge this responsibility, and sometime between 1080 and 1083, the abbot of St-Vanne was given the task of readmitting to communion any penitent ex-royalists in the dioceses of Metz, Toul and Verdun.169 Just as Bishop Theoderic could only

debeatis, hoc per abrenuntiationem nostram expulso, alio per legitimam electionem nondum relocato.

165 Erkens, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz, p. 70. 166 Epistola sub Theoderici Episcopi Virdunensis Nomine Composita, ed. K. Francke,

MGH Libelli, 1, 280–99. 167 Augustin Fliche, La Réforme Grégorienne, Vol. 3 (Louvain and Paris, 1937), pp.

152–4, sets down the reasons in favour of dating this letter to c. November 1080 and asserts that its transmission to Rome was entrusted to Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne.

168 Reg. 8.21, pp. 544–64; Hugh of Flavigny, 453/43–6: ... hanc ei ab urbe mitissimus doctor misit epistolam per Rodulfum abbatem Virdunensis monasterii, ita auctoritatibus Scripturarum divinarum munitam atque refertam doctrinaeque apostolicae sale conditam, ut hec sola sufficiat fidelibus ad confutandam adversariorum ineptam stultitiam.

169 Laurent of Liège, c. 9, p. 496/17–19: Rodulfo autem abbati Apostolicus privilegium dedit, omnes ab Henriciano scismate resipiscentes reconciliandi in tribus episcopatibus, id est Virdunensium, Metensium Tullensium; cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 472/52: [Rodulfus] qui potestatem absolvendi eos qui ab excommunicatis redibant ab apostolica sede optinuerat ....


smoulder in his muted hostility to the pope, Rudolf of St-Vanne emerged as Gregory VII’s key agent in Upper Lotharingia. However, Theoderic only continued to tolerate Rudolf’s brilliant career as long as Gregory VII was secure in Rome. As the basis of the pope’s support fell away in 1084, the bishop of Verdun exacted a complete revenge for the humiliations he had endured at Verdun in 1080. As Henry IV informed Theoderic – sending ‘love, second to none’ – in an exultant letter some time before October 1084, the king had taken Rome on Benedict’s Day 1084 (21 March) and had been crowned emperor on Easter Sunday by the antipope Clement III.170 The bishop of Verdun quickly set about justifying the emperor’s confidence in him, anxious as he was to reassert his full episcopal prerogatives in his diocese. He began by exiling the followers of Gregory VII who had taken refuge in his diocese from the pro-Henrician bishop of Liège.171 A similar desire to vindicate his jurisdiction within his see is evident in his subjugation of the monks of St-Mihiel, who wished to secede from the diocese of Verdun and become part of the bishopric of Toul. As reformers under Abbot Siegfried, they no longer wished to be part of Theoderic’s court – his audientia.172 Possibly in 1084, Theoderic sent envoys to St-Mihiel to enforce the obedience of this abbey and, although the monks scored a temporary victory in taking prisoner these episcopal representatives, the bishop’s response was swift and absolute. He burned the palace of Bar – where his envoys were being held captive – to the ground; a much later account even claims that Bishop Theoderic attacked and destroyed the monastery of St-Mihiel itself.173 Now Theoderic was able to turn his ire on the monastery of St-Vanne, the last stronghold of Gregory VII in the diocese of Verdun. Confronted with the hostility of Theoderic, Abbot Rudolf and some of his monks took refuge in Flavigny-sur-Moselle, a priory of St-Vanne in the diocese of Toul. Events in Verdun made return unthinkable. In a dramatic scene, the monks who remained behind were summoned before what Hugh of Flavigny called the ‘senate’ of Verdun. With Bishop Theoderic presiding, they were commanded to swear on the Gospels that they recognised Clement III as the true and legitimate pope. Whoever refused this oath was beaten and chased naked through the streets of Verdun.174 It was at this moment that Abbot Rudolf encountered Abbot Jarento

170 Die Briefe Heinrichs IV., ed. Carl Erdmann, MGH DM, 1, no. 18, p. 27: Theoderico episcopo dilectionem nulli majorem. Imprimis te scire volumus quia nulli melius quam tibi confidimus ....

171 Hugh of Flavigny, 461/15–19. 172 Laurent of Liège, c. 9, p. 496/23–7. 173 Erkens, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz, pp. 77–8; the later account is that of Albert of

Troisfontaines, Chronicon s. a. 1084, MGH SS, 23, 800. It is from Albert that we have the date of 1084 for Theoderic’s proceedings against St-Mihiel.

174 Hugh of Flavigny, 468/19–21; 469/22–6: Textus evangelii in medio positus est, inde data sententia ut a maximo usque ad minimum omnes jurarent, Witbertum cognomento Clementem papam esse justum et catholicum, Heinricum imperatorem a Deo aelectum et


of St-Bénigne who, as one the most important members of the Gregorian ‘friendship network’ in Burgundy, must have been known to Rudolf – at least by reputation. Jarento was with the pope in the Castel-Sant-Angelo in 1084 when Henry IV took possession of Rome and he was sent as a papal envoy to obtain help from Gregory’s Norman vassal, Robert Guiscard. On his return to France in 1085 he was charged with disseminating the last letter of Gregory VII, informing the world of the lamentable situation of the pope and attempting to muster opposition to Henry IV.175 To this end he offered sanctuary to the oppressed community of St-Vanne, inviting Abbot Rudolf and his monks to take refuge at Dijon. Jarento had evidently corresponded with Rudolf on this matter and therefore came to St-Blin in the diocese of Toul, where St-Bénigne had some property, the better to receive the fugitives from Verdun. Jarento then guided Rudolf and the monks of St-Vanne into Burgundy and the band of exiles reached Dijon on 27 March 1085.176

Such an eventuality would have been scarcely conceivable in 951 when Bishop Berengar of Verdun founded the monastery of St-Vanne. It is a measure of the immense local dislocation caused by the conflict of Church and State that the abbey of St-Vanne was no longer content to be an episcopal Eigenkloster in the mould of Lotharingian monastic reform: the new structure of the Gregorian ‘friendship network’ had replaced the traditional pattern of obedience to the local bishop. Indeed, the example of Verdun was not without parallel. Some years later Abbot Jarento of St-Bénigne made a similar offer of sanctuary to Abbot Theoderic II and the hard-pressed monks of St-Hubert-en-Ardennes. As supporters of Pope Urban II (1088–99), these monks had incurred the enmity of Bishop Otbert of Liège, who, on his episcopal elevation in 1091, had shown himself to be a zealous supporter of Henry IV. Once again Jarento intervened and, c. 1093, he invited Theoderic II and the monks of St-Hubert to take refuge at Dijon after the example of the Israelites who, led by Moses, fled from Egypt and the persecution of Pharaoh.177 In the same way that Gregory VII’s reforms sought to attenuate the traditional jurisdiction of local bishops, the friendship networks he inspired developed in a manner that was hostile to episcopal authority in dioceses where the bishops were opposed to reform. These networks, inspired by a radically new ecclesiology, were not willing to tolerate the limitations to reform that might be imposed by episcopal conservatism. Thus, the events of 1085 are not quite as surprising as they might seem at first glance. Faced with the implacable hostility of Bishop Theoderic, the monks of St-Vanne preferred exile rather than the erosion of

coronatum; quod qui non fecisset, cum dedecore et ignominia vestibus nudatus ab urbe pelleretur.

175 The Epistolae Vagantes of Pope Gregory VII, ed. H.E.J. Cowdrey (Oxford, 1972), no. 54, pp. 128–35; cf. Robinson, ‘The Friendship Network of Gregory VII’, 4.

176 Hugh of Flavigny, 465/28–33, 468/8–39. 177 Chronicon S. Huberti Andaginensis, c. 71, ed. L. Bethmann and W. Wattenbach,

MGH SS, 8, 605/46–9; cf. A. Cauchie, La querelle des investitures dans les diocèses de Liège et de Cambrai, Vol. 2 (Louvain, 1891), p. 19 n. 2.


a tradition of independence that had been germinating since the first half of the eleventh century. The history of the abbey through the course of the eleventh century illustrates the two tensions that were inherent in Lotharingian monastic reform since its origin in the 930s: in 1085 the monks of St-Vanne preferred to strive for the libertas monasticae religionis even at the expense of their traditional concord with the bishop of Verdun.

Chapter 3

The Life and Career of Hugh of Flavigny

Hugh of Flavigny was born in 1064 or 1065 in the region around Verdun in the German duchy of Upper Lotharingia. We only know his date of birth indirectly and from the fact that he was aged 32 when elected to the Burgundian abbey of Flavigny.1 Hugh’s homeland was the city of Verdun, or the region around it, and he referred to this locale as his patria in the context of his exile from Verdun, along with Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne and some of the monks in 1085.2 In the necrology that precedes the Chronicon in Pertz’s edition for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Hugh commemorated the members of his family: his father Raynerus, his brothers Fredericus, Gerardus and Raynerus junior.3 Through his maternal grandmother, Chrotilda, Hugh claimed a royal ancestry from the German Emperors Otto III (994–1002) and Conrad II (1024–39). His claims must be viewed with some scepticism, however, as he asserted that Conrad II was the son of the childless Otto III.4 Hugh’s claim that Chrotilda was the daughter of Otto III and the sister of Conrad II was probably not a deliberate falsification on the part of the chronicler – Chrotilda may even have been the step-sister of Conrad II – and must simply reflect Hugh’s confusion about the succession of the Salian house to the Liudolfing kings of Germany.5

Hugh entered the monastery of St-Vanne in the suburbs of Verdun in the abbatiate of Abbot Rudolf – that is, some time after Rudolf’s ordination as abbot of

1 Hugh of Flavigny, 476/11–14; see below note 67. Hubert Dauphin’s introduction to his life of Abbot Richard of St-Vanne contains some good observations on Hugh’s biography: Le Bienheureux Richard, Abbé de Saint-Vanne de Verdun (Louvain and Paris, 1946), pp. 2–18.

2 Hugh of Flavigny, 468/50–52: … et peregrinationis huius comitem constituisti; multiplicans gratiam tuam in me, ut non me taederet adolescentulum notos, affines, patriam, et nidum quo coalueram relinquere ….

3 Necrologium, MGH SS, 8, 285–7: 3. Idus Febr. Fredericus laycus obiit, frater meus; 5. Kal. Aug. Raynerus obiit, pater meus; 17. Kal. Novbr. Gerardus laycus obiit, frater meus; 3. Idus Dec. Raynerus iunior obiit, frater meus.

4 Ibid.: 16. Kal. Novbr. Dada de monte Walcherii, mater mea, obiit, Chrothildis filia; 4. Non. Dec. Chrothildis Ottonis III filia, Conradi imperatoris soror, avia mea obiit. Conrad II’s alleged descent from Otto III is repeated in the Chronicon-proper 366/8 and 392/19–20.

5 Hugh’s claims, although entertained by Ohnsorge and Uhlirz, have been convincingly refuted by K. A. Eckhardt, Genealogische Funde zur allgemeinen Geschichte(Göttingen, 1962), pp. 91–124.


St-Vanne on 25 May 1076.6 He says that in his early years he adhered to the mundane delights of secular texts ‘under the pretence of study’ (sub specie discendi) and was only rescued from the ‘vanity of the world’ by the firm hand of Abbot Rudolf.7 Vanitas saeculi can probably be interpreted here as an attachment to classical Latin texts. Hugh’s account of his early days at St-Vanne bears a striking resemblance to his description of the novitiate of Jarento, later abbot of St-Bénigne in Dijon, at Cluny under St Hugh. Jarento apparently strove ‘to prosper in the transitory world and not in God’ (studebatque seculo crescere, non Deo) and Hugh compared him to the ‘beardless boy’ in the Ars Poetica of Horace who was given over to adolescent levity.8 Jarento eventually abjured the mundane world (saeculum) and the similarity of his ‘conversion’ (cnnversio [sic]) to that of Hugh suggests that the chronicler depicted his own adolescent personal reform in terms borrowed from his later mentor at St-Bénigne. Hugh’s particular form of adherence to the mundane world was ‘under the pretence of study’ and may imply an early predilection for the classics of Latin antiquity, a predilection replaced by a preference for Christian texts upon entry into monastic life. Writing as a mature monk, he was careful to disparage the Ars Poetica of the ‘pagan’ Horace and ostentatiously disclaimed any thorough knowledge of this heathen text, which ‘we do not remember’. The Ars Poetica did not exhaust Hugh’s classical knowledge.As well as the ‘beardless boy’ of the Ars Poetica, Hugh explicitly alluded – this time favourably – to the De Beneficiis of Seneca: as a rigorous moralist Seneca was much admired in the Middle Ages and would have been more acceptable to a monastic audience than Horace.9 Hugh’s rejection of classical learning and the vanitas saeculi may well have manifested itself in the study of Christian texts, in particular the writings of the Church Fathers which are widely dispersed throughout the Chronicon. The history of medieval scholarship abounds in examples where profane literature was abandoned in favour of the study of Holy Scripture. For example, Hugh of Flavigny’s near-contemporary, Bernhard of Hildesheim, was described by his pupils as ‘now embracing the mystical lute of David’ instead of the ‘frivolous lyre of Horace’.10

6 Hugh of Flavigny, 413/48–9; cf. Chapter 2 notes 53–4; see also Hubert Dauphin, ‘L'abbaye Saint-Vanne de Verdun et la querelle des investitures’, SG, 1 (1947), 240 n. 10.

7 Hugh of Flavigny, 468/47–50: Tu me, Domine, hujus tui muneris participem fecisti, tu me refugium et aliena magis querentem et sub specie discendi seculo adherere volentem per servum tuum abbatem Rodulfum a vanitate seculi subripuisti.

8 Ibid., 413/19–20: Implebatur in eo illud ethnici verissimum de juvene inberbi testimonium, cujus quia nostrum non est meminisse, qui novit recolat; cf. Q. Horatii Flacii Ars Poetica, line 161: Imberbus juvenis, tandem custode remoto ….

9 Hugh of Flavigny, 379/37–9: Nam cum homini probo, ut ait Seneca in libro de Beneficiis (2.1), ad rogandum os concurrat, et suffundatur rubor, qui hoc tormentum remittit multiplicat munus; cf. 379/32, 380/10, 380/13, 380/23.

10 De damnatione scismaticorum, MGH Libelli, 2, 47/27–8; cf. I.S. Robinson, ‘The Bible in the Investiture Contest: The South German Gregorian Circle’, The Bible in the

Life and Career 65

It is possible that Hugh received some schooling in Greek, as well as in Latin letters. In the codex which contains the autograph manuscript of Hugh’s Chronicon, folios 1–10 of MS Berlin, Phillipps 1870 – preceding the incipit of the Chronicon – were written in the same hand as the chronicle and seem to be also the work of Hugh of Flavigny. On the outer margins of folio 1r the Greek alphabet is listed with the corresponding Latin equivalent. On folio 1v there are two versions of the Pater Noster, once in Greek (uncial script) with a transcription in Latin, and once more in Greek (minuscule) with Latin translation. These two prayers perhaps indicate a rudimentary knowledge of Greek on the part of the author, something not evident in the Chronicon proper. The author’s interest in Greek is also witnessed on folio 6v where again the Greek alphabet is listed with Latin transcription and occasional comment, for example: ψ hec pro duabus litteris ponitur sicut est psalterium et psicomachia.11

The preliminary pages of codex Phillipps 1870 also indicate Hugh’s abiding interest in medicine and herbalism, an aspect of his learning that may have been imparted to him when still at St-Vanne, Verdun. On the margins of folio 3v there is a short prescription on the correct diet for the various stages of the month, together with the medicinal plants suitable for these times. On folio 4v there are a great number of remedies for many ailments, some grouped under the heading Electuarium domni Damiani. Medical marginalia of this kind were also inserted in the margins of the Chronicon proper but were omitted by Pertz in his edition for the MGH. Some idea of Hugh’s medical sources, and perhaps the practical uses of this knowledge, can be gleaned from the voluminous material inserted in the margins of folios 19v–23r. The material here is clearly derived from some form of the Medicina Plinii, an anonymous fourth-century compilation based primarily – but not wholly – on the Historia Naturalis of Pliny the Elder. A very common component of the Medicina Plinii, and one utilised by Hugh of Flavigny, was the Medicinae ex holeribus et pomis of the third-century Roman herbalist Gargilius Martialis. Hugh seems to have been especially interested in this latter work, which contained remedies that could be derived from plants and fruits. Beginning with horseradish (rafanus), Hugh included cures from 29 chapters of Martialis and his dependence on this important medical treatise of late antiquity – ignored by Pertz – merited the inclusion of the Chronicon in the modern critical apparatus of the Medicinae ex holeribus et pomis.12 In Hugh’s Chronicon the material from Gargilius Martialis is prefaced by an antidote against poison apparently devised by

Medieval World: Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley, ed. Katherine Walsh and Diana Wood (Studies in Church History, Subsidia, 4: Oxford, 1985), p. 64.

11 Cf. Valentin Rose, Die Handschriften Verzeichnisse der königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, 12 (Verzeichnis der Lateinischen Handschriften, 1: Berlin: 1893), p. 323.

12 Gargilius Martialis, Medicinae ex holeribus et pomis, ed. Brigitte Maire (Paris, 2002), pp. lxviii–lxxvi.


Mithridates, the antique king of Pontus.13 This Mithridatic formulation, which formed part of Book Three of the Medicina Plinii, is also present in a French manuscript of Gargilius Martialis deriving from the late ninth century: the family group of manuscripts to which this last codex belongs may have provided the exemplar for Hugh’s own text of Martialis’s herbal.14

It is likely that Hugh did not acquire his medical knowledge as part of the formal curriculum of studies in which he imbibed the seven liberal arts. Although Raban Maur considered it a useful and necessary skill that clerics should possess various remedies for diverse maladies, there was no formal medical syllabus in monastic or cathedral schools in the eleventh century.15 Instead, it is likely that Hugh was instructed in medicine by a master – probably at Verdun – who taught his young charge in a private capacity, as did Fulbert of Chartres in the early eleventh century for his student Hildegaire.16 The presence of skilled doctors was very necessary in a monastery – care of the sick merited a separate chapter in Benedict’s Rule – which not only tended to the health of the fratres of the abbey itself, but whose ‘guest house’ (xenodochium) often doubled as an infirmary for the sick of the entire neighbourhood community.17 Thus, as a young monk, Hugh was probably singled out for his intellectual promise at St-Vanne and instructed especially in the herbal remedies derived from the treatises of late antiquity. In the late eleventh century these herbal cures still lay at the core of contemporary medical practice, and their importance and ubiquity was witnessed at Bury St-Edmunds in the abbatiate of Baldwin (1065–97), who had been the physician to Edward the Confessor and whose personal influence may have stimulated the copying at Bury St-Edmunds of a fine illustrated herbal of Pseudo-Apuleius around the end of the eleventh century.18 Hugh’s formal education would have been long completed by the time Abbot Rudolf and his band of exiled monks reached Dijon on 27 March 1085.19 Not all the religious of St-Vanne went to Dijon. Some had been born in the north and took refuge in their native country. Two of these are mentioned in the Chronicon Affligemense, including Fulgence, who would later become the first abbot of

13 Rose, Handschriften Verzeichnisse, p. 324; cf. Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis,23.77.149, ed. J. André (Paris, 1971), p. 70.

14 MS Leiden, Voss. Lat. Oct. 92; cf. p. lxxv of Maire’s edition of the Medicinae ex holeribus et pomis and Rose, Handschriften Verzeichnisse, p. 324. Rose’s observations on Hugh’s possible sources might be the solution to the problem of where Hugh’s version fits in the stemma codicum of this medical text.

15 Raban Maur, De clericorum institutione, 3.1, PL, 107, 377. 16 Cf. E. Lesne, Histoire de la propriété ecclésiastique en France, Vol. 5: Les écoles

(Lille, 1940), pp. 689–90. 17 Ibid., p. 684; cf. Regula Benedicti, c. 36, CSEL, 75, 95–6. 18 Cf. R.M. Thomson, ‘The Library of Bury St Edmunds Abbey in the Eleventh and

Twelfth Centuries’, Speculum, 47 (1972), 624–6. 19 Hugh of Flavigny, 468/15–39 contains a detailed account of the flight of the monks

to St-Bénigne in 1085.

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Affligem. Fulgence and his fellow exile first sought refuge in the diocese of Cambrai but were denounced by Bishop Theoderic of Verdun, who wrote to Bishop Gerard II of Cambrai (1076–92) demanding that they be expelled from his diocese. Gerard, fearing the wrath of the King Henry IV, obliged.20

Because two communities now lived side by side in Dijon, Abbot Jarento suggested that the guest monks should swear a new oath of stability at St-Bénigne. It would seem that he was prompted to demand this measure on the advice of his old mentor, Abbot Hugh of Cluny (1049–1109), who counselled that it would be ‘impossible’ for different congregations to live under the same roof. Thus Jarento was advised that only those who would swear perpetual stability at St-Bénigne should be allowed stay; those who demurred should be sent away.21 Abbot Hugh’s advice was consistent with the desire for ‘stability’ (stabilitas) which lay at the core of the Rule of St Benedict and the abbot of Cluny may have been wary lest the community of St-Vanne become ‘wandering monks’ (gyrovagi), a class of monks greatly abhorred by Benedict’s Rule.22 Modern historians, such as Hallinger, have interpreted Hugh of Cluny’s intervention in more schematic terms and have seen the request for a new oath of stability in 1085 as a deliberate contrivance to bring the exiled monks of St-Vanne under the influence of the Cluniac ‘order’.23

Whatever its motivation, Abbot Hugh’s admonition – which was adopted by Jarento – was received with dismay by the guest monks from St-Vanne. They feared that such a new profession would be in breach of their first oath of monastic stability and would thus amount to perjury (timebant … primam professionem violare).24 Abbot Rudolf was also reluctant but agreed to place the matter into the hands of Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury, a noted contemporary expert on monastic affairs. Lanfranc addressed the problem of the original oath of stability by asserting ‘there are not different Churches diffused throughout the world but

20 Chronicon Affligemense, cc. 6–7, 9, MGH SS, 9, 409–11. The author of the Chronicon Affligemense thought that Fulgence and a certain Hermann came from the abbey of St-Airy in the diocese of Verdun but they evidently came from St-Vanne. Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne was at Liège for the feast of St Lambert in 1088 and was approached by pious persons wishing to found the abbey of Affligem. They tried to persuade Rudolf to give them an abbot in the person of his prior Laurent. Rudolf couselled them instead to choose Fulgence: Dauphin, ‘L’abbaye Saint-Vanne’, 247 n. 30, 249 n. 36.

21 Hugh of Flavigny, 473/8–11, esp. lines 10–11: ... eos qui vellent aecclesiae Divionensi perpetualiter stabilitatem firmare retineret, qui vero nollent a se omnini dimitteret.

22 Cf. Benedicti Regula, 1.10–11, CSEL, 75, 20: Quartum vero genus est monachorum, quod nominatur gyrovagum … semper vagi et numquam stabiles et propriis voluntatibus et guilae inlecebris servientes et per omnia deteriores sarabaitis.

23 Kassius Hallinger, Gorze-Kluny. Studien zu den monastischen Lebensformen und Gegensätzen im Hochmittelalter (Rome, 1950–51), pp. 77–9.



only one Church, just as only one God and one king is served everywhere’.25

Lanfranc’s concept of the Universal Church had developed in the context of his Eucharistic controversy with Berengar of Tours, but must have assumed a new dimension in the local schisms that resulted from the contemporary conflict of Church and State. As it was framed in Lanfranc’s letter to Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne, the idea of the Universal Church exempted ‘Gregorian’ monastic communities from their original oath of stability by virtue of their suffering for the Lord and for the ‘universal ordinary’: the pope. This was an appropriate solution to a dilemma of exile that had been incurred by fidelity to Pope Gregory VII, who, in his Dictatus Papae had claimed the sole prerogative to be called ‘universal’.26

Hugh of Flavigny interpreted the flight to Dijon in 1085 in much different terms than Lanfranc: he referred to it as an ‘exile’ (peregrinatio), a process that must be distinguished from the related but separate idea of pilgrimage to the holy places.27

The idea that monasticism was a form of exile – a form of peregrinatio – was a venerable one by the late eleventh century and it conveyed an ascetic ideal of righteous suffering that probably informed Hugh’s understanding of the asylum sought at St-Bénigne in 1085. Every Christian and, more especially, every monk was a ‘voyager’ (homo viator).28 Hugh’s concept of the ‘exile’ in Dijon may also have been informed by the Augustinian concept of the ‘wandering church’ (ecclesia peregrinans), which was both a situation of displacement and a process of restoration, and which therefore corresponded perfectly with Hugh of Flavigny’s own concept of righteous exile in the service of Christ.29 Indeed, Hugh of Flavigny’s idea of peregrinatio was the theological counterpart to Lanfranc’s ecclesiology of the Universal Church: just as the ecclesia peregrinans was merely the terrestrial counterpart of the heavenly Church, so the monks of St-Vanne had not abandoned one Church for another, but remained part of a single, indivisible and Universal Church. The great suspicion that was aroused by the request for a new oath of stability in 1085 – in the eyes of historians like Hallinger as much as in those of the protagonists themselves – may have derived from the pronounced Cluniac influence in the revival of St-Bénigne in Jarento’s abbatiate. He had been elected abbot of St-Bénigne in 1077 and installed on 21 September of that year. Jarento

25 The letter is preserved in Hugh of Flavigny, 469/41–54, esp. lines 51–2: Non sunt plures aecclesiae, sed una est toto orbe diffusa, et uni Deo ubique servitur, uni regi militatur. The authenticity of this letter, which has been disputed by scholars such as Margaret Gibson, has been defended by Patrick Healy, ‘A Supposed Letter of Archbishop Lanfranc: Concepts of the Universal Church in the Investiture Contest’, English Historical Review (forthcoming).

26 Cf. Reg. 2.55a, p. 202/8: II. Quod solus Romanus pontifex iure dicatur universalis. 27 Hugh of Flavigny, 468/8–9, 468/50. 28 Cf. J. Leclercq, Aux sources de la spiritualité occidentale (Paris, 1964), pp. 35, 42. 29 Cf. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 10.17, CCSL, 47, 291/9–10; On the theology of the

ecclesia peregrinans in the late eleventh century see Yves Congar, ‘L’Eglise chez Saint Anselme’, Spicilegium Beccense, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1959), pp. 373–4.

Life and Career 69

was determined to revive in St-Bénigne the ‘pristine rigour’ of his predecessor, William of Volpiano.30 To that end he obtained eight religious from St Hugh at Cluny to help him in his task of restauratio.31 However, although, under Jarento, St-Bénigne was influenced by the customs of Cluny, it was never dominated by them. Indeed St-Bénigne came to be perceived as an autonomous centre of monastic reform with aspirations for its own monastic empire. One of the causes of discord between Abbot Hugh of Flavigny and his monks after 1096 was their suspicion that he wished to bring the abbey of Flavigny under that of St-Bénigne.32

The new oath of stability at Dijon in 1085 made the professing monks true monks of St-Bénigne. Hugh of Flavigny is described as monachus Divionensis in a letter of Archbishop Hugh of Lyons to Bishop Hagano of Autun33 and in the necrology of St-Bénigne Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne was remembered as a ‘monk of our congregation’.34

Hugh of Flavigny was most reluctant to swear a new oath of stability at Dijon,35

and only finally relented when Abbot Jarento miraculously saved him from a hidden serpent. It was only with the killing of this serpent, which seemed to be a physical manifestation of Hugh’s aloof pride, that the young monk made the new monastic profession.36 Hugh did not forget St-Vanne, however, and like his fellow exiles must have keenly resented the administration of his mother abbey by Abbot Fulcadus of St-Paul, the other monastery in the city of Verdun.37 Bishop Theoderic had given the care of St-Vanne over to its great rival, St-Paul, in an attempt to destroy the special place that St-Vanne claimed in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Verdun on account of its function as the some time Grabkirche for the bishops of Verdun.38 Hugh’s riposte to this diminution in the status of his former abbey was to compose his Chronicon, which although adhering to the form of an incarnation chronicle, soon narrows down into a local history of the diocese of Verdun and a celebration of the special merits of the abbey of St-Vanne. The chronicler was particularly concerned to emphasise and develop the local traditions which ascribed to this abbey a pre-eminent status as an episcopal ‘seat of rest’ (sedes requietionis), with a prestige scarcely inferior to the episcopal seat of Verdun

30 Hugh of Flavigny, 415/29; cf. Kassius Hallinger, Gorze – Kluny, pp. 442–8. 31 Hugh of Flavigny, 417/52–418/15. 32 See below, note 86.33 See below, note 64. 34 Dom. B. de Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum MSS, Vol. 2 (Paris, 1739), p.

1161: V. Kal. Aprilis obiit Rodulphus abbas Sancti Vitoni nostrae congregationis monachus. 35 Hugh of Flavigny, 470/4: Ego eram, Jesu bone, de dubitantibus unus …. 36 Ibid., 470/23–9: … extinxisse in me omnia venena serpentis, quae me ab inplenda

obedientia professionis inplendae impediebant. The ‘poison of the serpent’ – venena serpentis – was a favourite metaphor of Hugh in the portrayal of pride and disobedience.

37 Laurent of Liège, Gesta Episcoporum Virdunensium et Abbatum S. Vitoni, c. 9,MGH SS, 10, 496/19–20: In his diebus Fulcradus abbas Sancti Pauli consensu praedicti pontificis (sc. Theoderici) hanc abbatiam cum quibusdam suorum invasit.

38 See Chapter 2, notes 10–11.


proper. The parts of his Chronicon concerning St-Vanne must have been completed by 1092 when peace had been finally been restored in the diocese of Verdun and Abbot Rudolf and the exiles were finally able to return to their home monastery, taking with them the local Gesta, Vitae and Instrumenta from which Hugh must have fashioned a large part of his narrative.39

Despite his fierce and polemical patriotism Hugh became devoted to Jarento in the years 1085–92 and chose to remain at St-Bénigne when Abbot Rudolf and his monks were finally able to return home to Verdun. In 1089 the ailing Bishop Theoderic had wished to be reconciled with the exiled monks and had apparently received absolution for his attachment to the cause of the antipope Wibert of Ravenna before his death on 4 May 1089 from an envoy of Abbot Rudolf: Gerard, a monk of St-Vanne and also the archdeacon of Verdun.40 Theoderic’s successor, Bishop Richer of Verdun (1089–1107), offered to the exiles the way of return but three years elapsed before Abbot Rudolf felt secure enough to lead his monk back to their abbey of St-Vanne.41 By 1092, however, Hugh identified more completely with his new home than with his patria of Verdun. His new identity as a monk of St-Bénigne is reflected in the necrology which he later compiled for his own private use and where the ‘commemoration’ of St Benignus of Dijon is remembered on the 2 November.42 Under Jarento’s tutelage, Hugh came to meet and be influenced by the most eminent clergy in Burgundy, especially those in the ‘friendship network’ that had formed in support of Pope Gregory VII. Jarento even brought Hugh with him to Cluny, where the young monk heard directly from the mouth of the great Abbot Hugh (ab eius ore audivi) the reasons why he had counselled Jarento in the matter of the new oath of stability in 1085.43

The close relationship between Jarento and Hugh, which provided the chronicler with an eyewitness account for events such as Henry IV’s capture of Rome in 1084, is illustrated in the journey that they made together to Normandy and England in early 1096.44 Pope Urban II entrusted Jarento with a mission to reconcile the warring brothers King William II of England and Duke Robert

39 On 1092 as a likely terminus for the composition of the St-Vanne material in the Chronicon see Michael Borgolte, ‘Fiktive Gräber in der Historiographie. Hugo von Flavigny und die Sepultur der Bischöfe von Verdun’, Fälschungen im Mittelalter, Vol. 1 (MGH Schriften, 33: Hanover, 1988), p. 218.

40 On the date and circumstances of Bishop Theoderic’s death see Franz-Reiner Erkens, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz im Investiturstreit (Passauer Historische Forschungen,4: Cologne/Vienna, 1987), p. 81 n. 439.

41 Hugh of Flavigny, 472/48–473/37; cf. Dauphin, ‘L’abbaye Saint-Vanne’, 250. 42 Hugh of Flavigny, 287/4. Non. Novbr. Commemoratio sancti Benigni. On the role

of this necrology in the exercise of Hugh’s personal devotion see Borgolte, ‘Fiktive Gräber’, pp. 230–1.

43 Hugh of Flavigny, 473/8–14: Nam et Cluniacensis abbas domnus Hugo … tale ei (sc. Jarentone) dedit consilium … hoc ipse ab eius ore audivi, cum essem cum eodem patre nostro Cluniaci.

44 For Jarento’s presence at Rome in 1084, see Chapter 1, note 80.

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Curthose of Normandy. The abbot of St-Bénigne was also instructed to reproach the king of England for his appropriation of Church income and his toleration of simony and nicolaitism.45 William II was a notorious opponent of Church reform and was highly suspicious of Jarento’s legation. He claimed to have sent an embassy to Pope Urban II with a gift of 10 marks of gold. While Jarento and Hugh were still at the king’s court this royal envoy returned accompanied by a person claiming to be both a papal legate and nephew of Urban II. The pretended legate granted the king a reprieve and William II affected to be surprised that the pope would annul the legatine mission of such an eminent person as Abbot Jarento.46

Hugh was aghast at this example of the apparent venality of the Roman court. He exclaimed: ‘What is left undisturbed by the insatiable whirlpool of Roman greed?’ (Sed quid inperturbatum relinquit inexplebilis gurges Romanae avaritiae).47 The failure of Jarento’s mission was a disillusioning one for Hugh, who was unaware of the delicate papal policy apropos the English kingdom. Moreover Hugh’s perception of corruption at the Roman curia, which must have reinforced the negative impression caused by the apparent venality of Udalric of Padua and Peter of Albano in 1079, may have prepared to the way for his later renunciation of the reform papacy.48

Hugh’s denunciation of avaritia Romana may be taken as a criticism of legatine corruption rather than an attack on the person of Urban II. The chronicler referred to the concordat of the previous year (1095) between William Rufus and the papal legate, Walter of Albano, where Urban II conceded that no papal legate should enter the kingdom except at the king’s request. According to Hugh the diminution of papal authority in England was a result of the avaritia and cupiditas of Walter of Albano49 and he lamented the situation where the English clergy dared not receive or obey papal letters except with royal consent.50 That this erosion of auctoritas Romana and libertas Romana should be the result of legatine corruption was all the more deplorable to Hugh: his conception of the legatine office was informed by his contemporary service in the entourage of Archbishop Hugh of

45 Hugh of Flavigny, 474/35–475/3: Tunc temporis pro componenda inter fratres Willelmi regis filios concordia, Willelmum videlicet regem Anglorum et Robertum comitem Normannorum, abbas Divionensis ex praecepto papae mare transierat ….

46 Hugh of Flavigny, 475/14–26. Dauphin, Bienheureux Richard, p. 7, thought that the legatine mission of Urban’s nephew was spurious and a ruse of William Rufus. Frank Barlow, William Rufus (London, 1983), pp. 364–5, accepted Hugh’s account of this legate at face value. According to Barlow, William Rufus ‘was learning that he could bribe a pope almost as easily as he could buy princes …’.

47 Hugh of Flavigny, 475/14; cf. Ambrose of Milan, De Nabuthe Jezraelita, c. 6.28, PL, 14, 739A: Quid est enim dives, nisi quidam inexplebilis gurges divitiarum ….

48 See Chapter 1, notes 63–7 and below notes 112–14. 49 Walter had probably been authorised by Urban II to make these concessions in order

to secure William II’s recognition of Urban II as the sole legitimate pope: Barlow, William Rufus, pp. 342–4.



Lyons, who had been the most vigorous reforming legate in the service of Pope Gregory VII.51

On their return journey Jarento and Hugh had better luck. Duke Robert of Normandy proved to be more tractable to the wishes of Urban II and agreed to join the First Crusade. To finance this enterprise Robert mortgaged his duchy to William Rufus and Jarento arranged that William should pay Robert 10,000 silver marks in return for the custody of Normandy for three years.52 In Normandy Jarento visited Bayeux where he restored monastic observance at the priory of St-Vigor.53 Jarento had been entrusted with the restoration of St-Vigor by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who had stayed in St-Bénigne on his way home from the council of Clermont in November 1095.54 In this act Jarento showed himself to be a true successor to his great predecessor, Abbot William of Volpiano, who had likewise instituted monastic reforms at Fécamp in Normandy at the behest of Duke Richard II (996–1026) in the early eleventh century.55 Bishop Odo’s grant of St-Vigor to Jarento was confirmed by a charter of the same date, 24 May 1096, of Duke Robert II of Normandy. This charter seems to have been written by Hugh of Flavigny. After an elaborate dating clause, the charter concludes in elongated capitals: ‘I Hugh, monk of the church of Dijon, have written and subscribed [this charter] by order of Duke Robert of Normandy on behalf of the chancellor Rudolf.’56 He also attested another charter, sealing an exchange of property between the abbeys of St-Bénigne and St-Etienne in Caen. Two other monks of St-Bénigne attested this exchange: Humbert and Robert. Thus Jarento’s legatine party in 1096 consisted of at least four people.57

In the exchange between St-Bénigne and St-Etienne, Hugh styled himself ‘Hugh, chaplain’ (Hugo capellanus) and it is possible that he also wrote this

51 Cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085 (Oxford, 1998), pp. 356–66; Hazel Goggin, ‘Hugh, Bishop of Die, and Archbishop of Lyons, 1082–1106: An Agent of Papal Reform in France’ (University of Dublin Ph.D. thesis, 1996), pp. 107–33.

52 Hugh of Flavigny, 475/27–30. 53 Chronicon S. Benigni Divionensis, Continuatio, PL, 162, 849; cf. the charter of

Bishop Odo of Bayeux granting St-Vigor to Abbot Jarento for the purposes of reform: Gallia Christiana, 11, 404–5, Instrumenta Ecclesiae Bajocensis, no. 8, pp. 76–7 (Ex Chartulario Sancti Vigoris). This charter is also contained in PL, 155, 475B (this latter edition coming, via the Histoire de Bourgogne of Placher, from the archives of the abbey of St-Bénigne, Dijon).

54 Dauphin, Bienheureux Richard, p. 8. 55 Hallinger, Gorze-Kluny, pp. 836–8. 56 Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum 1066–1154, Vol. 1 (Regesta Willelmi

Conquestoris et Willelmi Rufi 1066–1100, ed. H.W.C. Davis and R.J. Whitwell: Oxford, 1913), no. 367, p. 96: Ego Hugo, Divionensis ecclesiae monachus, jussu eiusdem Roberti ducis Normanniae scripsi et subscripsi, vice cancellarii Radulfi. Cf. Charles Homer Haskins, Norman Institutions (New York, 1967), pp. 66–7, p. 75.

57 Haskins, Norman Institutions, p. 285 (Appendix E, Charter no. 2). The charter is undated but must refer to Jarento’s mission in Normandy after Easter 1096.

Life and Career 73

charter in addition to the ducal confirmation of the grant of St-Vigor mentioned above: the handwriting of the exchange with Caen closely resembles both the handwriting of the ducal charter for St-Vigor and that of the Chronicon. This at least was the judgement of Haskins, who had seen both the charters in question. Care must be taken however: his only knowledge of the script of the Chronicon derived from the sample reproduction offered by Pertz in the introduction to his edition in the MGH Scriptores series.58 Hugh’s designation as ‘chaplain’ (capellanus) in the second charter may be explained by the conventions of the ducal chancery in Normandy in the late eleventh century. For example, Duke Robert’s charter for Mont-Saint-Michel of 1088 has, at the end of the list of witnesses, Signum R. capellani R. comitis. It seems that Rudolf, the head of the ducal chancery, discharged his functions under the interchangeable titles of capellanus/cancellarius. In a ducal charter for La Trinité at Caen, Rudolf is described as Radulfus capellanus de Airi in the body of the document, and he attested the charter with Signum Radulfi capellani. However, in a later charter of 1095 for Rouen, he is described as Radulfus cancellarius, a function he still exercised in 1096 when Hugh of Flavigny described himself acting ‘on behalf of the chancellor Rodulf’ (vice cancellarii Rodulfi). Moreover this dual title in the Norman chancery was not specific to Rudolf. Arnulf of Choques, who later accompanied Duke Robert on the First Crusade, becoming patriarch of Jerusalem, was another chaplain/chancellor.59 The chancery connotations of the term capellanus can also be seen in the famous letter of Count Stephen of Blois to his wife while on crusade in 1098. He concluded by informing her that the letter had been written by his chaplain Alexander: Dum vero capellanus meus Alexander … has litteras scriberet.60 Thus Hugh’s subscription as Hugo capellanus must be considered in the light of the chancery conventions at the ducal court in Normandy. The ducal charter for St-Vigor was written in a more formal hand than the autograph of the Chronicon and suggests that Hugh may have had some experience in drafting formal documents by 1096. Hugh’s knowledge of display scripts is also shown in the opening folios of his autograph manuscript (preceding the Chronicon proper) where he transcribed a Greek version of the Pater Noster in Uncial script.61

Hugh’s role in drafting the St-Vigor charter reveals the high esteem in which he was held by Jarento, who entrusted him with this important task. Hugh probably acted as Jarento’s secretary and amanuensis, which was a major responsibility in

58 Ibid., p. 76 n. 34. 59 References to the charters pertaining to Rudolf and Arnulf are found in Haskins,

Norman Institutions, p. 74. 60 Epistola Stephani Comitis Carnutensis ac Blecensis ad uxorem Adelam, ed. Luc

D’Achery, Spicilegium Sive Collectio Veterum Aliquot Scriptorum qui in Galliae Bibliothecis Delituerant, Vol. 3 (Paris, 1723), p. 431. Cf. J.F. Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus (Leiden, 1976), p. 132.

61 See above, note 11.


light of Jarento’s standing in the eyes of the papacy and his desire to restore the role of St-Bénigne in promoting monastic reform. Hugh’s evident learning recommended him to other major reformers in Burgundy, the most eminent being Hugh, bishop of Die (1073–82) and archbishop of Lyons (1082–1106).62 In his Chronicon Hugh of Flavigny referred to the ‘insoluble bonds of friendship’ between him and the archbishop and the chronicler probably served in the entourage (famulitio) of Archbishop Hugh of Lyons some time between 1085 and 1096.63 The close relationship between the two is indicated in a letter of Archbishop Hugh to Bishop Hagano of Autun in 1096, where Archbishop Hugh confirmed the election of his protégé as abbot of the monastery of St-Peter in Flavigny. In the letter the archbishop asserted that the young Hugh used to speak with his authority (immo cujus lingua vox nostra erat), raising the possibility that the future abbot of Flavigny had served as the archbishop’s amanuensis. This letter also provides the context of Hugh’s election as abbot of the Burgundian monastery of St-Peter at Flavigny (sur-Ozerain) in the diocese of Autun: Bishop Hagano had appealed to the archbishop of Lyons specifically for Hugh of St-Vanne/St-Bénigne to aid him in the renewal of the abbey of Flavigny (pro restauratione Flaviniacensis aecclesiae).64 In the Series Abbatum Flaviniacensium which follows the Chronicon in the MGH edition, Hugh alluded to the efforts of Bishop Hagano to ‘reform’ and ‘restore’ the abbey of Flavigny, particularly in respect of its dependent priory of Corbie, which had been alienated.65 Bishop Hagano of Autun had supported the programme of the reform papacy since the pontificate of Nicholas II (1058–61) and had attended the reforming synod that convened at Vienne in early 1060 to promulgate legislation on clerical chastity.66 Hagano’s correspondence with Hugh of Lyons indicates that he still adhered to the cause of reform in the 1090s despite the tribulations of the Investiture Contest and that he formed part of the Burgundian ‘friendship network’ headed by Hugh of Lyons.

62 Cf. I. S. Robinson, ‘The Friendship Network of Gregory VII’, History, 63 (1978), 3–4.

63 Hugh of Flavigny, 486/13–15: Videbam enim me praegravari a proprio episcopo, et ideo recurrendum mihi videbatur ad metropolitanum (sc. Hugonem Lugdunensem), secundum scita canonum, tum propter antiquam familiaritatem, et, ut rebar, indissolubilevinculum amicitiae, quo jugi obsequio me peculiari ipsius famulitio devinxerat sedula nostri devotio ….

64 Ibid., 475/47–476/10: Venerabili in Christo fratri, Haganoni Eduensi episcopo, Hugo Lugdunensis ecclesiae servus salutem … Quesistis a nobis multa sedulitate et instantia karissimum fratrem nostrum Divionensis ecclesiae monachum Hugonem, quem nobis assumpseramus, cujus nos sedulitati credebamus, immo cujus lingua vox nostra erat ….

65 Hugh of Flavigny, 503/32–9. 66 Cf. Robert Somerville, ‘Cardinal Stephan of St Grisogono: Some Remarks on

Legates and Legatine Councils in the Eleventh Century’, Law, Church and Society: Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner, ed. K. Pennington and Robert Somerville (Philadelphia, 1977), p. 163.

Life and Career 75

Clearly Hugh had distinguished himself in the service of such luminaries as Abbot Jarento of St-Bénigne and Archbishop Hugh of Lyons. Hugh wrote that he was aged 32 when elected abbot of Flavigny on Saturday 22 November, the feast of St Cecilia, in 1097.67 However, this feast did not fall on a Saturday in 1097 but rather in 1096 and it is this latter year – despite Hugh’s explicit reference to 1097 – that should be accepted in dating his election. Hugh’s inaccuracy concerning the year of his election, so surprising to modern eyes, is not so remarkable when one considers that dating from the incarnation of the Lord was one of a number of competing dating systems employed by contemporaries and one which frequently confused the new abbot of Flavigny.

It would seem that the Hugh quickly set about safeguarding the possessions and incomes of the monastery of Flavigny. His desire to augment and consolidate the temporalities of his abbey – a concern redolent of the reforming principles of Richard of St-Vanne (1004–46) – is evident in some passages towards the end of the Chronicon, where various house dues, expenses and endowments are recorded.68 Some of these may even have been excerpted from a cartulary of the abbey of Flavigny, which was compiled around the same time as the Chronicon and which can probably also be attributed to Hugh.69 The new abbot’s concern for the traditions of Flavigny is also discernible in the homily which evidently preceded the cartulary of Flavigny and which was also probably his own work.70 In this sermon Hugh dealt with the recent translation of the bones of St Regina into a golden reliquary. St Regina had been martyred in the region around Autun in the third century and her relics transferred to the abbey of Flavigny in 864. Hugh’s concern for the cult of Regina in this sermon corresponds to the place accorded to the saint in the necrology that Hugh compiled for his own personal use and to the description of the translation of her relics in the Chronicon proper.71

Hugh’s career as abbot of Flavigny proceeded smoothly until the death of Bishop Hagano on 25 June 1097 and the election of his successor Norgaudus72 on

67 Hugh of Flavigny, 476/11–14: Anno itaque dom. inc. 1097. ind. 5. anno aetatis 32. die 10. Kal. Decembris, qui est dies festus sanctae Ceciliae, 7. sabbati Flaviniacum nobis ingressis, in crastinum consecratione peracta, de profectu ecclesiae tractatum est; et si postdies paucos a domno episcopo et domno Divionense ceterisque discessum est.

68 Cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 476/15–477/25 and 479/18–480/53. 69 F. Grignard, ‘L’abbaye bénédictine de Flavigny en Bourgogne, ses historiens et ses

histoires’, Mémoires de la Société Eduenne, 14 (1885), 33–5. 70 Ibid., 35; Translatio S. Reginae Virginis, A. SS. OSB. Septembris, Vol. 3 (Antwerp,

1750), pp. 40–41. 71 MGH, SS, 8, 286, Necrologium: 7. Idus Sept. Sanctae Reginae virginis et martiris

Flaviniaci; cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 355/10–13. 72 Norgaudus was of the family of Touchy in the Auxerrois. He had previously been

praechantor and archdeacon of Autun and had also acquired the offices of archdeacon of Langres and canon of Auxerre: Hugh of Flavigny, 490/49–50; cf. Gallia Christiana, 4, Instrumenta Ecclesiae Eduensis, no. 45, col. 83B.


the feast of the Ascension (6 May) 1098.73 Hugh claimed that Norgaudus was elected controversially (sub contentione). Although Hugh had first voice in this election as abbot of Flavigny, he was absent (in exteris partibus), preferring instead to send envoys to represent him. This ostentatious snub provoked the fury of Bishop Norgaudus and poisoned any future relations between them.74 The claim that the abbot of Flavigny had the first voice, ‘which all should confirm’, in the episcopal election at Autun is repeated in another of Hugh’s compositions, the Series Abbatum Flaviniacensium.75 It probably represents an aspiration rather than a true reflection of reality: in the first half of the twelfth century cathedral chapters came to monopolise the electoral function in episcopal elections76 and it is unlikely that in the 1090s an abbot would have had the first voice in an episcopal election, bringing with him a pliant cathedral chapter. As abbot of Flavigny, however, Hugh would have had some role. By the time of the Second Lateran Council (1139) cathedral canons were admonished to take account of the views of ‘religious men’ in the election of bishops, and abbots of a given diocese would have been included in this category.77 This legislation was intended to reflect a position in canon law that had obtained before the complete triumph of the cathedral chapter in the early twelfth century and thus may reflect the conditions of episcopal election in the late eleventh century.

73 Hugh of Flavigny, 477/27–8, gives the year of Hagano’s death as 1098 but this is impossible as it would put Norgaudus’s election forward to the feast of the Ascension (19 May) 1099. This later date makes no sense in view of the sequence of events leading up to Hugh’s exile from Flavigny. It is worth bearing in mind that in his autograph manuscript Hugh misdated the year of Hagano’s death on the same folio, 137v, where he misdated the year of his own election as abbot of Flavigny, a fact not evident in Pertz’s edition of the Chronicon. This discrepancy is discussed in Dauphin, Bienheureux Richard, p. 9 n. 2. The lengthy gap between the death of Hagano and the election of Norgaudus can be explained in that Norgaudus was elected sub contentione.

74 Hugh of Flavigny, 477/29–33: Hic sub contentione electus est. Pro qua tamen electione cum multoties Eduam issem, quia vox nostra prima esse debebat in electione; tandem in ascensione Domini invitatus, cum essem in exteris partibus, occurrere nequivi.Quendam tamen e nostris misi, qui vicem nostram suppleret ….

75 Ibid., 503/35–6: Et quia abbatis Flaviniacensis est prima vox in electione episcopi, quam omnes debent confirmare ….

76 Cf. Robert L. Benson, The Bishop-Elect: A Study in Medieval Ecclesiastical Office (Princeton, 1968), p. 35.

77 Concilium Lateranense, 2, c. 28, Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, ed. J. Alberigo (Bologna, 1973), p. 203: Obeuntibus sane episcopis … sub anathemate interdicimus, ne canonici de sede episcopali ab electione episcoporum excludant religiosos viros, sed eorum consilio honesta et idonea persona in episcopum eligatur; cf. Decretum Magistri Gratiani, ed. E. Friedberg (Corpus Iuris Canonici, Pars Prior: Leipzig, 1879) Distinctio 63, dictum post c. 34, col. 247: episcoporum electio non a canonicis tantum [facienda] sed etiam ab aliis religiosis clericis, sicut in generali sinodo Inocentii papae Romae habita constitutum est.

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Considering its future consequences for his abbatiate, Hugh’s absence from the episcopal election at Autun is curious. The laconic statement that he was in exteris partibus probably hides a deeper explanation: Bishop Norgaudus was a simonist. At the later council of Valence of 30 September 1100, presided over by the cardinal-legates John and Benedict, Norgaudus was accused of simony by his canons. Moreover, it emerged at this council that the canons, led by Archdeacon Walter, had demanded assurances on this suspicion of simony before the election of 1098.78 It is possible that Hugh of Flavigny may have been aware of these accusations in 1098 and therefore chose to absent himself from the episcopal election at Autun. Hugh moved in circles of theological ‘rigorism’ and imbibed a belief in the contaminating effect of contact with excommunicates and also a belief that simonists had no power to mediate the grace of the Holy Spirit. In this sense he was a follower of Cardinal Humbert who, in the sacramental controversies of the 1050s, adopted the view that simoniacal orders were invalid.79 Hugh must also have been influenced in his sacramental theology by his mentors. For example, Hugh of Die/Lyons was also a ‘rigorist’ in sacramental matters. In the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny the events surrounding Bishop Hugh of Die’s election are instructive in this regard. When Hugh of Die went to Rome for episcopal consecration he was only in minor orders as ‘he despised simoniacal orders’ (detestabatur enim Symoniacorum ordinationes).80 Hugh of Die had refused to be ordained priest by a bishop suspected of simony and Hugh of Flavigny probably displayed the same abhorrence of simony in his absence from the episcopal election at Autun in 1098. Open hostility broke out between bishop and abbot on the occasion of a visit to Flavigny by Bishop Norgaudus in June 1098. There was a scuffle between the episcopal entourage and that of the abbey. Although no one was hurt, the altercation occurred on a Sunday night, thus during the ‘truce of God’ (in treua Dei). Consequently Norgaudus placed Hugh under interdict (ipse christianitatem mihi abstulit). It is possible that the bishop contrived the whole affair in order to provide a casus belli for ecclesiastical penalties against Hugh. Certainly Norgaudus pressed home his advantage and procured a judgement of the clergy and laity against the abbot of Flavigny (iudicium factum est per clericos et laycos). The

78 Hugh alluded to the accusations brought against Norgaudus by the canons of Autun at the synod of Valence: Hugh of Flavigny, 488/7–8: Eduensis autem interfuit, quia accusabatur a canonicis suis de symonia et aliis quibusdam …; cf. Theodor Schieffer, Diepäpstlichen Legaten in Frankreich vom Vertrage von Meersen (870) bis zum Schisma von 1130 (Berlin, 1934), p. 164.

79 Cf. J.T. Gilchrist, ‘Simoniaca haeresis and the problem of orders from Leo IX to Gratian’, Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law (The Vatican, 1965), pp. 218–19.

80 Hugh of Flavigny, 411/25–7: Non multo post ipse qui commendabatur advenit, et quia solam clericatus tonsuram habebat – detestabatur enim Symoniacorum ordinationes – in mense Decembrio per manum ejus usque ad presbiteratus gradum promotus est …; cf. Chapter 7, note 71.


bishop also tried to foment discontent against Hugh in the communities of Autun and Chatillon, intending ultimately to interdict ‘all places and churches pertaining to us’.81 Hugh went to Autun on seven occasions between the feast of the Apostles (29 June) and the feast of St Nicholas (6 December) 1098, in order to be reconciled with his bishop, but Norgaudus remained obdurate.82 Soon after the feast of St Nicholas, Norgaudus went to Rome and in his absence Abbot Hugh was released from anathema by his old mentor, Archbishop Hugh of Lyons.83

In June 1099 the campaign against him was revised and his monks blamed him for crimes which he blushed to enumerate (quae ipsae audire aures expavescerent).84 The hostility of the congregation at Flavigny may be explained by a tradition of independence among them that may have developed before Hugh’s election as abbot in 1096. For the previous seven years the abbey of Flavigny had been without an abbot and had been under the administration of the bishop of Autun.85 Hugh had clearly been hand-picked by Bishop Hagano for the vacant office of abbot and the monks of Flavigny must have resented that an outsider was imposed upon them without consultation. Moreover, they suspected that he wished to subject their abbey to that of St-Bénigne of Dijon.86 There may have been some truth in this accusation and it is entirely possible that the new abbot of Flavigny attempted to impose some reforms that were unpalatable to the community of Flavigny. Hugh’s original monastery, St-Vanne in Verdun, had been home to one of the most important monastic reformers of the eleventh century in Abbot Richard (1004–46).87 The currents of monastic reform still ran swiftly in St-Vanne in the late eleventh century, and during his exile at Dijon from 1085–92, the prior of St-Vanne, Laurent, eliminated customs at St-Bénigne that were irregular and replaced them with more authentic practices.88 Hugh of Flavigny had not only

81 Ibid., 477/36–478/25, esp. lines 23–5: communiam Eduensis et Cabilonensis paroechiae super nos postea Flaviniacum iuratam adducere voluit … voluit etiam interdicere omnes cellas et loca ad nos pertinentia ….

82 Ibid., 478/48–9.83 Ibid., 479/13: Recepi postmodum absolutionem a Lugduno …. 84 Ibid., 484/24–5. 85 Ibid., 475/35–8: Ibi quoque domnus Eduensis episcopus Hagano conquestus

plurimum desolationem Flaviniacensis ecclesiae, cum jam post obitum domni Raynaldi, fratris ducis, septem annis ecclesia eadem pastore viduata mansisset …; cf. 503/46–7 (Series Abbatum Flaviniacensium): Et post haec fere septem annis absque rectore fuit ecclesia, nisi quod Elmuinus solis duobus praefuit mensibus.

86 Ibid., 490/14–16: Hec autem fuit occasio modernae dissensionis, quia videbatur eis propter permissionem praeceptam in litteris faciendam in manu abbatis Divionensis, velle me Flaviniacensem aecclesiam subdere ditioni Divionensis; quod ego nec speraveram, necvolebam.

87 Cf. K. Hallinger, Gorze-Kluny, pp. 283–316, 493–517; see Chapter 2, notes 76–112. 88 Laurent of Liège, c. 33, p. 514/8–10: Prior sub abbate sanctae memoriae Gerentone

multa superfluae traditionis ibi (sc. St-Bénigne) inventa delevit vel mutavit, aliaque superinseruit honestiora; cf. Dauphin, ‘L’abbaye Saint-Vanne’, 252 n. 40.

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matured as a monk in this reforming environment at St-Vanne but was also influenced by Abbot Jarento, who attempted the renovation of St-Bénigne with the help of Hugh of Cluny. Thus, in St-Vanne, St-Bénigne and Cluny, Hugh had experienced an ambience of monastic reform which he may have attempted to emulate in his new abbey, to the detriment of long-cherished customs and traditions at Flavigny.

Bishop Norgaudus played a key role in fomenting opposition to Hugh at Flavigny: this seems to have been a consistent theme of his pontificate at Autun. He was also hostile to the abbot of St-Martin in Autun, another Hugh who, like Hugh of Flavigny, came from St-Bénigne in Dijon. Again, Norgaudus excited the religious against their abbot: Abbot Hugh of St-Martin was eventually poisoned by his congregation, and replaced by a candidate more amenable to the bishop.89

Norgaudus was also successful in his battle for control of Flavigny. Through false advice Hugh of Flavigny allowed himself to be wrong-footed and went to take refuge at the priory of Couches. This action allowed Bishop Norgaudus to accuse him of having taken flight and it was perceived as an admission of guilt by Hugh. Under the chairmanship of an envoy of Norgaudus, the chapter of the monks at Flavigny declared Abbot Hugh to be deposed. Hugh now appealed again to Archbishop Hugh of Lyons, who referred the matter to Abbot Jarento of St-Bénigne for judgement.90

It was at this juncture that Pope Paschal II entrusted a legation in France to John, cardinal-priest of St-Anastasia, and Benedict, cardinal-priest of St-Peter-in-chains.91 This legation was concerned with internal disputes within the diocese of Autun, as well as the unresolved marital situation of King Philip I of France. The legates came to France in the summer of 1100 and arranged for a synod at Autun. However this synod assembled instead at Valence on 30 September. Twenty-four prelates were present, a notable absentee being Archbishop Hugh of Lyons. He pleaded illness but probably resented the legation as an infringement of his metropolitan authority and prohibited his suffragan bishops of Langres and Chalon from participating. The first act of the synod was to reinstate Abbot Hugh of Flavigny and the legates gave Hugh a letter of protection addressed to the monks of

89 Hugh of Flavigny, 497/11–17: Non autem praetermittendus a nobis est domnus Hugo abbas Sancti Martini Eduensis, qui ad eandem aecclesiam in pristinum statum ordinis et religionis restituendam de ecclesia Divionensi raptus ….

90 Ibid., 484/46–7: Dederunt enim mihi verba, non consilia, ut Colticas irem …; 485/27–31: Mox enim ut ego Flaviniaco exivi, contrariae partis filii non segnes in exequutione sui propositi, Sedelocum ierunt pontifici nostro prima gaudia perlaturi, quod abbas Flaviniacensis, suus et aecclesiae hostis apertus, a quo tanta passus pontifex foret,aecclesiam dimiserat, fugae praesidium latiturus non reversurus elegerit; aecclesia jam sine pastore, locus sine rectore, castrum sine tutore …; 486/21–2: Attamen remissus sum ab eo (sc. Hugh of Lyons) pro defendenda et tuenda parte nostra ad illum, a cuius alarum patrocinio rapuerat me, domnum scilicet Divionensem ….

91 T. Schieffer, Die päpstlichen Legaten, p. 163; cf. W. Holtzmann, ‘Zur Geschichte des Investiturstreits’, NA, 50 (1933), 276, 278.


his abbey.92 At this synod Bishop Norgaudus was accused of simony by his canons. He denied that the canons of his church had any right of accusation and further maintained that it was in contravention of the customs of the Gallican Church that an accused should have to cleanse himself of suspicion before a legatine tribunal of the Holy See. However the legates insisted that the accusers had furnished proof, although they now postponed judgement until a new council, to be held at Poitiers. The following night it came to the attention of the legates that Norgaudus had sent bribes to the bishops who were present. They deprived him of his episcopal and sacerdotal office, and following the synod, thirteen envoys were deputed to bring an account of the transactions of this council to Rome.93

The next synod organised by the cardinal-legates met at Poitiers on 19 November 1100.94 Eighty bishops and abbots were present along with 35 canons of Autun. Archbishop Hugh of Lyons was again absent and was represented by the bishop of Die. At this council the dispute concerning Bishop Norgaudus broke out anew. The accused was allowed to choose oath-helpers at his own discretion. The bishops of Tours and Rennes were about to fulfil this role when the canons of Autun intervened. They impressed on the two bishops the danger of exposing themselves to the charge of perjury. The bishops of Rennes and Tours therefore withdrew and Norgaudus was suspended from office. As he refused to surrender the insignia of his office he was also excommunicated. Abbot Hugh of Flavigny’s position seemed to be secure and the synod closed with the promulgation of 16 canons against simony, dealing also with questions of ecclesiastical discipline.95

The position of Norgaudus was apparently untenable, but he was rescued by an unlikely ally: Archbishop Hugh of Lyons. The archbishop had been hostile to the legation of the cardinals Benedict and John and had conspicuously failed to attend the two synods of Valence and Poitiers. Although formerly a willing and zealous legate of the papacy in the pontificate of Gregory VII, he had fallen from favour after the latter’s death in 1085 and displayed considerable hostility to Gregory’s successor, Victor III, who even went so far as to excommunicate the contumacious archbishop of Lyons. Although Hugh of Lyons was eventually rehabilitated in the pontificate of Urban II, he always adopted a proprietary attitude to his legatine office in France and must have keenly resented the intrusion of Paschal II’s legates into his metropolitan province in 1100.96 Moreover, Archbishop Hugh had always been on the radical fringe of the ‘Gregorian’ party and his extremism no longer suited the aims of the reform papacy after 1085: his declining influence on papal

92 Hugh of Flavigny, 488/13–24: Johannes et Benedictus, sanctae Romanae ecclesiae cardinales et legati, monachis, clericis et laicis ad abbatiam Flaviniacensem pertinentibus, obedientibus, salutem ….

93 T. Schieffer, Die papstlichen Legaten, pp. 164–5. 94 The letter of invitation to Lambert of Arras: RHGF, 15, 191, no. 33; the refusal to

attend of Bishop Hildebert of Le Mans: RHGF, 15, 314. 95 T. Schieffer, Die papstlichen Legaten, p. 166; cf. Mansi, 20, 1123. 96 See Chapter 1, notes 105–7.

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policy can be measured in the rebuke delivered to him in 1097 by Bishop Ivo of Chartres concerning his intransigent attitude to lay investiture.97

By 1100, therefore, Archbishop Hugh’s former willingness to facilitate papal legatine activity had been replaced by hostility to legatine intrusion deriving from his position as archbishop of Lyons. In the 1070s as papal legate and bishop of Die, Hugh had been a vigorous opponent of metropolitan privileges that seemed to conflict with the operation of papal legatine administration. He was the central figure in the destruction of Archbishop Manasses of Rheims, deposed by Gregory VII in 1080 for resisting the authority of papal legates.98 In the intervening twenty years Hugh’s priorities had changed. He was now more concerned to protect the privileges and judicial integrity of his archiepiscopal see and was united with his suffragan Norgaudus in a common hostility to the legatine mission to France in 1100. Hugh of Flavigny even went so far as to accuse his former mentor of corruption and claimed that on the many occasions in which Norgaudus attended the court of Archbishop Hugh, the bishop of Autun was never without a gift.99

Some time after the middle of March 1101 Archbishop Hugh undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the company of Norgaudus and the bishop of Chalon. 100 On the way they met Cardinal-bishop John of Tusculum who had been entrusted with a legatine mission to England. This legate John undertook ‘in the absence of his accusers’ (absentibus accusatoribus) to support Norgaudus and travelled with him back to Autun to re-establish him there in his office. Archbishop Hugh of Lyons travelled on to Rome and procured a confirmation of this act from Pope Paschal II. The previous decisions of the legates John and Benedict had been rescinded and in understandable pique they withdrew from the papal curia.101

97 Epistola ad Hugonem Archiepiscopum Lugdunensem, ed. E. Sackur, MGH Libelli, 2, 644–6. The widespread acceptance of Ivo’s compromise on lay investiture is illustrated in The History of the Church of York 1066–1127, ed. M. Brett, C.N.L. Brooke and M. Winterbottom (Oxford, 1990), pp. 22–4, of Hugh the Chanter, where it is asserted that the ‘sound view’ on lay investiture is that of Ivo: Credo equidem de investituris sane sensisse venerabilem Iunonem Carnotensem episcopum ….

98 Hugh of Flavigny, 419/21–422/8; cf. I.S. Robinson, ‘Periculosus Homo: Pope Gregory VII and Episcopal Authority’, Viator, 9 (1978), 125. For the medieval bishop’s concept of his duties to his bishopric see R.W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (London, 1970), p. 186.

99 Hugh of Flavigny, 486/19–20: … nisi pluris constaret apud archiepiscopum numquam vacua a munere amicitia episcopi (sc. Norgaudus) servitio nostro.

100 Before going on pilgrimage, Hugh of Lyons held a council on 13 March 1101: Gallia Christiana, 4, 107.

101 Hugh of Flavigny, 494/14–24: Anno inc. dom. 1101. Iohannes Tuscolanus episcopus a papa in Angliam missus est propter censum beati Petri … hunc (sc. Hugonem Lugdunensem) Ierosolimam euntem praedictus Tuscolanus sive Labicanus episcopus invenitin itinere cum Cabilonense et ipso Eduensis ecclesiae invasore, et absentibus accusatoribus extra provinciam purgationem Eduensis suscepit …; 495/5–7: At vero cardinales in sua sententia permanentes, quod factum erat publice reprehendebant, quod non esset canonicum,


This sequence of events effectively ended any lingering hope that Hugh might be reinstated as abbot of Flavigny. He was a victim of ecclesiastical politics in the archdiocese of Lyons and in the Roman curia. One year later the situation within the diocese of Autun was still fraught: the episcopal appointment of a replacement for Hugh as abbot of Flavigny – Prior Gerard of Couches – had been badly received and Bishop Norgaudus, together with the bishop of Mâcon, had encroached upon the prerogatives of Cluny.102 Cardinal-bishop Milo of Palestrina was deputed to resolve these problems. Crucially, Milo succeeded in establishing peace between Norgaudus and the canons of his church and the legate also helped to have Norgaudus recognised as bishop in Autun and Cluny.103 Norgaudus was a wily foe and a clever politician. Hugh of Flavigny could not match his ability to placate opponents and win over powerful friends. From the evidence available in the Chronicon there is one further event in Hugh’s career that deserves comment: another journey to England, probably undertaken and completed before August 1100. He reports of the ‘marvels’ (monstruosa) which preceded the death of William Rufus (2 August 1100) and which occurred ‘throughout the whole island when we were there’.104 One interesting marvel reported by Hugh relates to the allegation of satanism against Bishop Gerard of Hereford, subsequently archbishop of York.105 According to Hugh, Gerard planned to make all his vassals, friends and servants into communicants of the Devil by feeding them a pig that had been ‘consecrated’ in a diabolical rite. He was, however, thwarted by a servant who had seen Gerard ‘worship’ the pig before its slaughter.106 This account probably reflects contemporary rumours that were circulating about Gerard, both as bishop of Hereford and archbishop of York: William of Malmesbury later accused Gerard of an interest in necromancy and related how Gerard read the works of the obscure theologian Julius Firmicus.107 Hugh did not reveal the purpose of his second journey to England and his Chronicon breaks off in 1102, after which we have no certain knowledge of the deposed abbot of Flavigny.

sed ab aequitate Petri alienum; et ob id a familiaritate et consilio papae se subtraxerunt …; cf. T. Schieffer, Die papstlichen Legaten, p. 168.

102 Hugh of Flavigny, 495/27–32; cf. RHGF, 14, 117, and A. Bruel ed., Recueil des Chartes de l’abbaye de Cluny, vol. 5 (Paris, 1894), no. 3818, p. 172–3.

103 T. Schieffer, Die papstlichen Legaten, p. 169. 104 Hugh of Flavigny, 496/54–5: Haec et alia monstruosa ferebantur hoc anno per totam

insulam, quando ibi fuimus. The whole tenor of this part of the narrative is that of an eyewitness. Hugh observed on p. 496/10 that London was a large and populous city: In eadem civitate spaciosa et populosa ….

105 Cf. Hugh the Chanter, The History of the Church of York, pp. 20–21, where the translation of Gerard from Hereford to York is described.

106 Hugh of Flavigny, 496/37–51. 107 William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum, c. 118, ed. N.E.S.A.

Hamilton (Rolls Series, 1870), p. 259 n. 6.

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It seems that Hugh had one more role to play in the ecclesiastical politics of Burgundy and Lotharingia, this time as the royalist abbot of St-Vanne, Verdun, from 1111–14. Bishop Theoderic of Verdun had died on 4 May 1089.108 His successor, Richer, had accepted royal investiture from Henry IV but was well disposed to the exiled monks: Abbot Rudolf and his congregation were able to return to St-Vanne in 1092. Through the intervention of Abbot Rudolf, Richer was consecrated bishop of Verdun by Archbishop Hugh of Lyons in 1095. The sense of concord that now existed between the bishop of Verdun and the abbey of St-Vanne can be seen after Abbot Rudolf died on 28 March 1099. Bishop Richer was very favourable to the new abbot, Laurent (the former prior of St-Vanne), and did not try to influence the election of the monks. As soon as the election was complete he confirmed and installed Laurent as abbot of St-Vanne. Richer’s affection for St-Vanne is shown towards the end of his life when he conferred on the abbey his fief of Paul-Croix and the ban of Maucourt in return for the prayers of the monks and burial in their abbey.109

Richer died in 1107 and was succeeded by Bishop Richard II (1107–14), archdeacon of Verdun and count of Grand-Pré. He had been elected to the archiepiscopal see of Rheims in the preceding year but had not followed the instructions of Pope Paschal II and those of the papal legate Richard of Albano and thus had not been consecrated. After accepting election at Verdun, the bishop-elect Richard of Grand-Pré went to Metz to receive royal investiture from Henry V. On Richard’s return the king paid a visit to Verdun lasting three days. The importance of the see of Verdun for the German crown has already been noted and the previous bishop of Verdun, Richer, had been forced to give his three brothers as hostages as a surety of his fidelity to Henry IV.110 Because of his irregular behaviour and ready acceptance of royal investiture, Bishop Richard was excommunicated by Paschal II and refused thereafter to be reconciled with the pope. The abbey of St-Vanne, maintaining its loyalty to the papacy, and in strict conformity to the papal anathema, refused their communion to Bishop Richard and his cathedral clergy. On one occasion when the canons came to perform their station at the abbatial church, the monks did not assist them in any way and afterwards tried to purify the church with holy water.111 This is an example of the kind of sacramental ‘rigorism’ which Hugh of Flavigny probably displayed regarding the episcopal election at Autun in 1098: his home abbey of St-Vanne clearly also had a heightened sensitivity to the sacramental implications of anathema and simony. In the discord between Bishop Richard II of Verdun and Abbot Laurent of St-Vanne there was an exact parallel with the enmity between Bishop Theoderic and

108 Cf. Laurent of Liège, c. 9, p. 497/1–3; see above, note 40.109 Hermann Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden des Klosters St Vanne zu Verdun’, JGLGA

14, (1902), no. 63, pp. 87–8. 110 On the importance of Verdun for the crown, see Chapter 2, notes 68–70. 111 Laurent of Liège, c. 15, p. 500/23–31.


Abbot Rudolf in 1085. The parallel is almost exact because Bishop Richard took advantage of the events at Rome in 1111 (when Henry V took Pope Paschal II hostage, forcing him to accept the principle of royal investiture) to exile the recalcitrant monks of St-Vanne. Once again they found refuge in St-Bénigne, Dijon.112 The events in Verdun can be reconstructed from the apologia written in exile (c. 1112) by Abbot Laurent of St-Vanne.113 In this apologia Abbot Laurent made reference to his rival, installed by Bishop Richard. This man was ‘repudiated by the abbey of Flavigny’ (ab abbatia Flaviniacensi repudiatus) and a ‘fugitive from the church of Dijon, where, under the orders of his Abbot Rudolf, he had made his profession [as a monk]’ (ab ecclesia Divionensi, cui iubente suo domino abbate Rodulfo professionem fecit, fugitivus); moreover, he had been excommunicated by the abbot of St-Bénigne (ab abbate Divionensi excommunicatus). The suspicion that Laurent was referring to Hugh of Flavigny hardens into certainty when there is a direct allusion to what is probably the Chronicon: a ‘book fortified with authorities against those who resist the Roman Church’.114

Why had Hugh betrayed his former principles and undertaken the administration of St-Vanne under the aegis of Bishop Richard II of Verdun and Henry V? Hugh must have become disillusioned with the ‘Gregorian’ party in Burgundy and Lotharingia, especially in the context of Archbishop Hugh’s possibly corrupt support for Norgaudus of Autun. It is also clear that Hugh must have also fallen out with Jarento of Dijon: the apologia of Abbot Laurent of St-Vanne says that his replacement had been excommunicated by the ‘abbot of Dijon’. Hugh had a contentious temperament and it is not hard to imagine that he blamed all of his former mentors, including Jarento of Dijon, for his plight. Even before his deposition as abbot of Flavigny, Hugh had become disillusioned with the Roman Church. Commenting on a visit to Normandy with Abbot Jarento in 1095/1096, Hugh deplored ‘the insatiable whirlpool of Roman greed’.115

By 1114 Bishop Richard of Verdun had tired of the conflict. He decided to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and called on the exiled Abbot Laurent to accompany him. Laurent refused but did send one of his monks as a representative. Bishop Richard died en route at Montecassino116 and Abbot Laurent quickly took possession of St-Vanne, ousting the usurper Hugh of Flavigny and obtaining from

112 Ibid., c. 18, p. 502/6–29; cf. Dauphin, ‘L’abbaye Saint–Vanne’, 256 n. 50. 113 Epistola Apologetica Laurentii Abbatis Sancti Vitoni ad canonicos Virdunenses, ed.

J. Mabillon, Annales OSB, Vol. 5 (Lucca, 1740), p. 650, reproduced in RHGF, 15, 207; cf. Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 14 (1902), no. 69, p. 92.

114 RHGF, 15, 210: … qui ipse quoque contra eos qui Romanae ecclesiae resistunt, librum auctoritatibus munitum confecit; Abbot Laurent may have been referring to a now-lost polemic of Hugh rather than to the Chronicon. See also Chapter 4, note 44.

115 Hugh of Flavigny, 475/14: Sed quid inperturbatum relinquit inexplebilis gurges Romanae avaritiae?; see above note 47.

116 Laurent of Liège, c. 22, p. 504/31–3.

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Paschal II bulls exempting the abbey from any subordination to the canons at Verdun.117 Hugh’s fate after 1114 is uncertain. Almost exactly thirty years later a monk of St-Vanne, Laurent of Liège, began his continuation of the Gesta Episcoporum Virdunensium down to the year 1144. In the letter of dedication to Bishop Albero of Verdun (1131–56) that preceded his work, Laurent claimed that he was encouraged to update the Gesta by a vir venerabilis, an old monk of St-Vanne named Hugh.118 Perhaps more significantly, in his history-proper Laurent asserted that he had been admonished by the same Hugh to remind Bishop Albero to direct his patronage to the monastery of St-Vanne.119 Calmet first put forward the idea that the man mentioned here might be Hugh of Flavigny.120 It is certainly noticeable that the same concern to emphasise the status of St-Vanne within the diocese of Verdun is evident in Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon and may have been in need of repetition during Albero’s pontificate at Verdun. Albero was anxious to renew the spiritual life of his diocese and introduced a colony of Praemonstratensians in the old monastery of St-Paul in 1131, while also assisting the establishment of a Cistercian monastery in his diocese. These measures may have put the abbey of St-Vanne at a disadvantage, especially as it seems to have been superseded in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Verdun by the newly reformed house of St-Paul, whose ‘abbot’ now became the official vicar of the bishop.121 The admonition that Laurent should emphasise the dignity of St-Vanne was characteristic of Hugh of Flavigny, as was the interest in historical scholarship and composition that the old monk Hugh evidently displayed.122 If indeed Hugh had been permitted to remain at St-Vanne by the returning Abbot Laurent in 1114 he

117 Ibid., c. 23, p. 504/34–41; Paschal II, Epistola et Privilegia, no. 392, PL, 163, 355–6; cf. Bloch, Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 14 (1902), nos 70 and 71, pp. 92–4.

118 Laurent of Liège, 491/15–20: Ista quia Bertharius in pontificalibus gestis omiserat, ut hic unum breviter colligerem et pro commendatione transcriberem vobis, amantissimus vester venerabilis Hugo, monachus noster, nimia instantia me invitum compulit. Et quoniamquae abhinc sequuntur usque ad tempus pontificis a quodam digesta inveniuntur, praedictus commonitor noster, ut ab ipso Theoderico usque in praesens tempus omnia quae evenerant compilarem oppido, insistens exegit.

119 Ibid., 512/2–6: … domnus Hugo monachus noster, vir ferventissimi zeli, cuius hortatu et relatu hoc totum opusculum confecimus, apud omnes et super omnia institerit monuerit et rogaverit, et nunc domnum episcopum nostro scripto pie commonitum esse velit, ut ipsi loco specialiter prospiciat iuvet et ad summum perducat quia propria eius est elemosina ….

120 Dom. Calmet, Preuves de l’histoire de Lorraine, vol. 4 (Nancy, 1728), p. 209. 121 Laurent of Liège, 511/52–4 where is printed the letter of Bishop Albero to Pope

Innocent II explaining his reforms: Insuper accedit ad hoc, quod abbas loci illius (sc. Sancti Pauli) vicarius est episcopi. Quod officium magis convenit ordini clericorum quam monachorum …; cf. Joseph Van Der Straeten, Les manuscrits hagiographiques de Charleville, Verdun et Saint-Mihiel Avec plusieurs textes inedits (Subsidia Hagiographica,56: Brussels, 1974), p. 94.

122 Borgolte, ‘Fiktive Gräber’, pp. 232–3.


would have been at least 75 when Laurent of Liège began updating the Gesta Episcoporum Virdunensium c. 1144. However, it should be borne in mind that Laurent of Liège did not show any knowledge of Hugh’s Chronicon in the sources he enumerated for the history of Verdun. Such knowledge might be expected of him if he had indeed been exhorted to write his Gesta by Hugh of Flavigny.123

However, the Chronicon might have been unknown to the later historian for the simple reason that Hugh’s autograph manuscript remained in Flavigny until it was acquired by the Jesuit College de Clermont in the seventeenth century, a fact which might suggest that Hugh did not bring his work with him after his final exile from Flavigny.124

Hugh’s continuance at St-Vanne after the return of Abbot Laurent in 1114, perhaps extending to the 1140s, might be inferred by the influence he evidently had on the manuscript tradition of this abbey in the first quarter of the twelfth century. This influence was exerted through the expanded version of Bishop Berengar’s foundation charter for the abbey of St-Vanne which Hugh included in his Chronicon and for which he may have been personally responsible. In Hugh’s autograph manuscript the left margin of folio 69v contains some spurious additions to the foundation charter of 951 which actually derive from charters of Bishop Theoderic in favour of St-Vanne from 1046/52 and 1066: these additions relate to rights over the ban and over the river in the neighbourhood of the monastery.125 It is possible that Hugh prepared an expanded version of the foundation charter before the return of the exiles to St-Vanne in 1092 and it is likely that the expanded version in his autograph manuscript served as the prototype for the falsified version of the foundation charter that took its place in the house cartulary around the beginning of the twelfth century.126 His motive may have been to place relatively recent donations to the monastery on a more venerable and therefore more authoritative footing. Rights enumerated in a foundation charter would be easier to

123 Rudolf Köpke, ‘Die Quellen der Chronik des Hugo von Flavigny’, Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde, 9 (1847), 292. This objection is not fatal, however, because it is unlikely that Hugh had the autograph manuscript of his Chroniconwith him after 1102 when the narrative breaks off.

124 Dauphin, Bienheureux Richard, p. 18, makes the argument that because the autograph manuscript remained at Flavigny, it is more probable that Hugh retired to this house rather than St-Vanne after 1114. However, this assumes that Hugh and his Chroniconwere inseparable: an assumption of questionable strength as the chronicler evidently lost interest in, or contact with his work after 1102.

125 MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Phillipps 1870, f. 69v = Hugh of Flavigny, 363/15–19: ... cum banno ipsius villae ... publicae viae transitum; cf. Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 14 (1902), no. XLII, p. 50: … bannum in monte sancti Vitoni, and no. LV, p. 80: …cursum aque de Scantia ….

126 This falsified charter is contained in Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 10 (1898), no. XIb, esp. p. 393: … cum banno ipsius villule … publice vie transitum; for the possible dates of Hugh’s falsified version see Bloch, 356, and Borgolte, ‘Fiktive Gräber’, p. 229.

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vindicate than privileges granted by a bishop, Theoderic, who had sought to sequester abbey properties during the period 1085–92. During the period of exile the monastery of St-Vanne was administered by Abbot Fulcradus of St-Paul at Theoderic’s instigation and Fulcradus alienated many of the house properties and ornaments to the bishop.127 Thus, an expanded version of the foundation charter would help the St-Vanne recover from the depredations of the ‘rapacious wolves’ (lupi rapaces) who had misgoverned the abbey.128 Moreover, Hugh must have been an ideal person to execute the emendations as he was familiar with the house cartulary and could therefore incorporate the purport of Bishop Theoderic’s charters of the mid-eleventh century into the fabric of the foundation charter of 951.129 Nor would Hugh have had any scruple in fabricating and falsifying evidence in support of his home monastery: Borgolte has demonstrated that many of the chronicler’s assertions in relation to the status of St-Vanne as an episcopal Grabkircke were complete fictions and framed with a polemical intent.130

The falsified elements of the St-Vanne foundation charter recur in three forged papal bulls that were executed at the monastery in the first quarter of the twelfth century.131 These forgeries were compiled in an ambience where the abbey tried to recover privileges that had been lost during the two periods of exile from 1085 to 1092 and 1111to 1114. At least two of these three were compiled during the period 1122–25 and by the latter date Abbot Laurent of St-Vanne undoubtedly included them in the antiqua privilegia on which he relied in a letter to Archbishop Adalbert of Mainz.132 These two, which concern the freedom of St-Vanne’s fief at Baroncourt from the jurisdiction of the monastery’s advocate, can be compared with the near-contemporary forgeries that attempted to liberate the abbey of St-Laurent in Liège from the intervention of that house’s advocate. Purporting to emanate from Bishop Réginar of Liège on the occasion of the dedication of St-Laurent on 3 November 1034, these forgeries were actually compiled at the beginning of the twelfth century and sought to repair the damage done to St-Laurent under Abbot Wolboden and Bishop Otbert of Liège in the period 1071–95.133 In that period of misgovernment the possessions of St-Laurent had been denuded by rapacious advocates and the forged episcopal charters at St-Laurent, like the forged papal bulls at St-Vanne, sought to frame the possessions of their

127 Laurent of Liège, 496/19–22. 128 Hugh of Flavigny, 473/1. 129 For Hugh’s knowledge of the St-Vanne cartulary see Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’,

JGLGA, 10 (1898), p. 355 n. 1; Hugh of Flavigny, 344/51–2, explicitly acknowledged his dependence on the cartulary in the phrase: … alia perplura, ut ostendit chartarum notitia.

130 Cf. Borgolte, ‘Fiktive Gräber’, p. 229 n. 124. 131 Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden’, JGLGA, 14 (1902), no. XLV, p. 60, no. XLVI, p. 64,

no. XLVII, p. 71. 132 Ibid., no. LXXXI, pp. 105–7; cf. no. LXXIX (20 March 1125), p. 104: an authentic

papal bull of Honorius II, instructing Bishop Henry of Verdun to assist in the restoration of St-Vanne’s privileges and possessions.

133 Cf. Dauphin, Bienheureux Richard, pp. 214–16.


respective houses as they had stood before the disasters incurred during the Investiture Contest. The contemporary conflict of Church and State had created an environment – similar to that which obtained in England after 1066 – conducive to the proliferation of forged and falsified documents. And, just as in post-conquest England, the forgeries that responded to the Investiture Contest in Germany contained privileges that were genuinely felt to be authentic.134

Could Hugh of Flavigny have participated in the atelier that forged these spurious bulls at St-Vanne? If Hugh did indeed remain at the monastery after 1114, his participation must be deemed more probable than merely possible. Few of the monks at St-Vanne could have rivalled his palaeographical expertise. After all, Hugh was intimately aware of the cartulary into which the three forged papal bulls were inserted: he not only depended on this document in the composition of his Chronicon but borrowed from the cartulary of St-Vanne in the construction of a falsified version of the abbey’s foundation charter of 951. Moreover, Hugh had plenty of experience in drafting documents, both in his diplomatic service under Abbot Jarento of St-Bénigne and in the cartulary he compiled as abbot of Flavigny.135 Finally, the three forged bulls all contain the elements with which Hugh expanded the St-Vanne foundation charter of 951; in addition, one of the forgeries contains the same kind of dating error as that included in Hugh of Flavigny’s version of the Lateran synod of 1059.136 No less than his role in encouraging Laurent of Liège to take up the pen in defence of the status of St-Vanne in the 1140s, Hugh’s possible involvement in the three forgeries is consistent with the overall tenor of his life and career.

134 Cf. C.N.L. Brooke, ‘Approaches to Medieval Forgery’, Medieval Church and Society (London, 1971), pp. 114–5; M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (Oxford, 1993), p. 318.

135 See above notes 56–61, 69. 136 See Bloch’s prefatory remarks to no. XLV, p. 58; cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 408/12–13.

Chapter 4

The Manuscript of the Chronicon and its Transmission

The Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny is contained in an autograph manuscript in quarto: 142 of the Meerman manuscripts in the possession of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin = Phillipps 1870 (previously part of codex 686, male compactus, of the Jesuit library at the College de Clermont). It comprises 148 folios, divided into 16 quires, and augmented by 12 loose slips of parchment which have been dubbed Schaltzetteln by Valentin Rose.1 The Series Abbatum Flaviniacensis which follows the Chronicon in Pertz’s edition for the MGH is no longer extant but was present at the beginning of MS Phillipps 1870 when Labbé published his edition of the Chronicon in 1657.2 Folios 1–3 of the MS contain a calendar in twelve columns corresponding to the Necrologium in Pertz’s edition.3 The catalogue entry for the MS in the catalogue of the Jesuit library at Clermont indicated that after this calendar (calendarium vetus), there followed a second calendar – no longer extant – entitled ‘The History and Genealogy concerning the kings of Gaul and the order of popes and emperors’ (Varia fragmenta quorum titulus est Historia et Genealogia de Regibus Galliae et Ordo Paparum et Imperatorum et multa alia istorum).4

Folios 1 – 10, preceding the incipit of the Chronicon, were written in the same hand as the chronicle and seem to be the work of Hugh of Flavigny. On the outer margins of folio 1r the Greek alphabet is listed with the corresponding Latin equivalent. On folio 1v there are two versions of the Pater Noster, once in Greek Uncial script with a transcription in Latin, once more in Greek minuscule with Latin translation. These two prayers perhaps indicate a rudimentary knowledge of Greek on the part of the author, something not evident in the Chronicon proper, but also show Hugh’s knowledge of display scripts: a facility that Hugh probably also displayed when drafting documents at Bayeux in 1096.5 The author’s interest in

1 Valentin Rose, Die Handschriften Verzeichnisse der königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, vol. 12 (Verzeichnis der Lateinischen Handschriften, 1: Berlin, 1893), pp. 321–5.

2 MGH SS, 8, 502/19–503/47; P. Labbé, ed., Nova bibliotheca manuscriptorum librorum, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1657), pp. 791–3: Series abbatum Flaviniacensis monasterii ex schedis maximam parte vetustate detritis quae praemittuntur; cf. L. Delisle, ‘Anciens catalogues des évêques des églises de France’, Histoire Litteraire de la France, 29 (1885), 401.

3 MGH SS, 8, 285–7. 4 Rose, Handschriften Verzeichnisse, p. 321. 5 See Chapter 3 notes 56–7.


Greek is also witnessed on f. 6v where again the Greek alphabet is listed with Latin transcription and occasional comment.6

The opening pages of the MS contain a good deal of canon law material including excerpts from the papal decretals of Syricius, Gregory I and Leo I on folio 4v, and excerpts from the letters of Urban I and Pope Fabian of folio 9v.7 On the upper margin of folio 4r, a series of excerpts from the Capitula Angilramni isintroduced with the running head Adrianus Ingelranno Mediomatrice Episcopo c. 24;8 underneath, in the main text of folio 4r, there is an allusion to a council held at Carthage: Ex concilio karthaginensis c. 20, Si presbiteri vel diaconi fuerint accusati ….9 On folio 5r there is the letter of Gregory the Great concerning the protection of monasteries10 while on folio 6v there is an excerpt from Augustine In sermone super Iohannem c. 7. Folios 7v–9v are laid out in three columns and contain further excerpts from Church Councils and from the Fathers. Among these are ‘authorities’ from Gregorius Nazianzenus in Apologetico (f. 7v), Augustine super Iohannem in Sermone 81 (f. 8r), and from various writings of Cyprian (f. 8v – 9r). Finally the author provided a series of sententie ‘from the definitions of the dogmas of the Greek church’ (ex diffinitionibus dogmatum ecclesiasticorum grecorum).11 The excerpts continue in the margins of folio 10r, where the Chronicon proper begins. These various canon law auctoritates and sententie correspond to Hugh’s preoccupation with canon law and his use of it in defending the reform programme of Gregory VII in the relevant passages of the Chronicon.12 No less than the narrative of the Chronicon itself, these fragments reveal the intellectual approach of Hugh of Flavigny. The same can be said of the medical material that is included in the front matter of MS Phillipps 1870, corresponding to the author’s interest in herbal remedies that is displayed in the margins of 19v–23r.13 It is very possible that Hugh served as a medicus and/or herbalist in one of the monasteries to which he was attached (St-Vanne, Verdun; St-Bénigne, Dijon; St-Peter, Flavigny) and it would seem that the material inserted into the opening folios of the manuscript may have served Hugh as an aide-mémoire in the discharge of his medical duties. It may also be significant in this context that Hugh’s description of the central events of Investiture Contest is characterised by an unusually pronounced

6 See Chapter 3, note 11. 7 For the materials in relation to Pope Fabian, cf. Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae et

Capitula Angilramni, ed. P. Hinschius (Leipzig, 1863), pp. 165, 168. 8 Ibid., p. 763. 9 Cf. PL, 67, 190. 10 Cf. Gregorii I Papae Registrum Epistolarum, ep. 8.17, ed. P. Ewald and L.

Hartmann, MGH Epistolae, Vol. 2 (Berlin, 1899), p. 19: Quam sit necessarium monasteriorum quieti prospicere … .

11 Cf. PL, 58, 998. 12 See Chapter 5, notes 153–202. 13 See Chapter 3, note 13.

The Manuscript of the Chronicon 91

preference for medical allegories and metaphors. The actions of Pope Gregory VII against scismatici episcopi such as Bishop Otto of Constance was described as a ‘medicinal defence’ (medicinalis defensio).14 Moreover, Hugh of Flavigny considered the efforts of the pope to find peace with Henry IV as ‘medicine of reconciliation’ (medicamentum reconciliationis).15 By 1081, the possibility of reconciliation between the pope and king had dissipated, and accordingly Hugh changed his metaphor. Gregory’s second doctrinal letter to Bishop Hermann Metz was characterised as an ‘antidote’ against poison and madness (contra rabiem oblatrantium curationis expeteret antidotum),16 and Hugh’s depiction of the behaviour of the bishops at Worms in 1076, in terms borrowed from St Paul’s letter to the Romans (3:13), probably had a medico-theological significance of unique resonance for the author: ‘their mouths are like gaping tombs, the venom of asps is under their lips’ (sepulcrum patens est guttur eorum et venenum aspidum sub labiis eorum).17

It is likely that the Chronicon was written over a long period until the terminus ad quem, 1102, when the narrative breaks off. The script of the autograph manuscript is even, in a regular text block of 30 lines, until folio 69, that is, until the year 950 in the narrative of the Chronicon. From folio 69 the script becomes smaller and more irregular and a further decrease in size is discernible from folio 123v.18 It is possible that changes in the appearance of the script can be explained by different environments of composition (for example, the different monastic scriptoria at Dijon and Flavigny) and possibly by the declining eyesight of the author. Above all, the change in the neatness of the script and the regularity of the text block, discernible in the second half of the Chronicon, must be attributed to the author’s desire to assimilate new materials into the text which pertained to the Investiture Contest. In its manuscript form the Chronicon illustrates the author’s access to different materials at different times and elucidates Hugh of Flavigny’s desire to bolster his pro-Gregorian chronicle with favourable documents and auctoritates.19 At certain points in the Chronicon there are specific indicators about

14 Hugh of Flavigny, 429/10–12: Et certe nichil hic novi, non hec prima diaboli in sanctam aecclesiam temptatio, nec prima ejus haec est medicinalis defensio; cf. Chapter 5 note 150.

15 Hugh of Flavigny, 440/40–2: Scripsit et aliam epistolam, intuitu discretionis, pietatis et misericordiae dulcedine plenam, pro reconciliatione quorumdam; ut si qui ad Deum reverti voluissent, haberent paratum prae oculis medicamentum reconciliationis …; cf. Reg. 4.1, p. 289/20–292/20. For the phrase medicamentum reconciliationis see Augustine, DeBaptismo contra Donatistas, 1.11, PL, 43, 116; for Hugh’s medical imagery see I. S. Robinson, ‘Reform and the Church, 1073–1122’, New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 4.1 (Cambridge, 2004), p. 271 n. 11.

16 Hugh of Flavigny, 453/41–2; cf. Reg. 8.21, pp. 546/13–562/25. 17 Hugh of Flavigny, 434/38–9. 18 Corresponding to pages 362 and 451 respectively in Pertz’s edition of the Chronicon

for the MGH.19 See Chapter 9.


the date of composition. For example, on folio 92r Hugh reveals that he is writing while Bishop Hagano is still alive (superest adhuc domnus Eduensis episcopus), that is, some time before the death of Hagano on 25 June 1097.20 On f. 93v, Hugh indicated that he was writing after the death of Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne on 28 March 1099 (beatae memoriae pater Rodulfus … nunc felici beatus excessu).21

Consequently there seems to have been a pause of at least one and three-quarters of a year between the composition of folio 92r and folio 93v. On 27 September 1099, Hugh left Flavigny for the priory of Couches, depending on the advice of false friends.22 He described the consequences of this flight: ‘from that day I have never seen Flavigny’.23 At some time close to the feast of St Benignus (1 November) in that year, Hugh had a meeting with a delegation of his monks at Vézelay, seeking to be accepted as abbot by his congregation.24 These negotiations failed and Hugh related how he then returned to Dijon: ‘from then until now I remain at Dijon’.25

This long account of his tribulations in 1099, perhaps entered into the Chronicon separately and piecemeal, must have been written before Hugh’s brief reinstatement as abbot of Flavigny by the cardinal-legates John and Benedict at the council of Valence on 29 September 1100.26

Pertz thought that Hugh began to write c. 1090 and that the majority of the Chronicon was complete on Hugh’s election as abbot of Flavigny in 1096.27

However, 1090 is not convincing as a terminus a quo. The part of the Chronicon that deals with the history of Verdun was probably finished as early as 1092, as the exiled monks of St-Vanne were then able to return home, taking with them the archives and Gesta and Instrumenta that Hugh must have used to compose the part of his work that related to the history of this abbey.28 A related point is the date when Hugh integrated material from the Histories of Ralph Glaber into the Chronicon. Hugh possibly worked from the eleventh-century manuscript which is

20 Hugh of Flavigny, 403/44–5: Superest adhuc domnus Eduensis episcopus, vir vitae longaevitate grandaevus … ; cf. Chapter 3, note 72.

21 Hugh of Flavigny, 406/26–8; cf. 497/21f: Anno igitur praefato ab inc. Dom. 1099 domnus et pater noster Rodulphus abbas post multa peregrinationis et laborum pericula, cum ad eternae repausationis vocaretur gaudia repromissa, in quadragesima infirmari cepit; for Hugh’s concept of exile (peregrinatio) see chapter 3 notes 27–8.

22 See Chapter 3, note 90. 23 Hugh of Flavigny, 484/46–51: Dederunt enim mihi verba, non consilia, ut Colticas

irem … Feci, et hoc minus astute, et paratis quae necessaria erant, benedictione accepta, die 5 Kal. Octobr. pransum ivimus …; 485/5: Ab illo die neminem Flaviniacensium vidi ….

24 Hugh of Flavigny, 486/24–40. 25 Ibid., 487/12–13: ex tunc usque nunc Divioni maneo … non ut abbas, sed quasi unus

e fratribus …. 26 See chapter 3 note 92. 27 MGH SS, 8, 281 note 6. 28 Michael Borgolte, ‘Fiktive Graber in der Historiographie: Hugo von Flavigny und

die Sepultur der Bischofe von Verdun’, Fälschungen im Mittelalter, Vol. 1 (MGH Schriften,33: Hanover, 1988), p. 218 n. 68.


probably (in part at least) an autograph of Ralph Glaber.29 France had a ready explanation for Hugh’s access to the Histories. Glaber had been a monk of Saint-Germain-d’Auxerre at the beginning of his career in the 990s, and again at the end of his life, c. 1036/1037–c. 1046. During the abbatiate of Helderic (989–1010), Flavigny had been subject to Saint-Germain and thus the connection between the two houses was quite close. Accordingly, Hugh probably had access to a version of the Histories some time after 1096 when he became abbot of Flavigny. This plausible argument is unlikely however. Hugh first used the Histories on folio 72v of the Chronicon (p. 367/33), that is, less than halfway through, and before he wrote his Vita of Abbot Richard of St-Vanne (that is, while he still had access to materials in connection with St-Vanne, Verdun): it is highly probable that Hugh had access to a manuscript of the Histories before his connection with Flavigny in 1096. Moreover, a different hypothesis is possible. Ralph Glaber served as a monk at St-Bénigne certainly by 1024 (and perhaps as early 1016) until c. 1030 and it is possible that Hugh consulted a copy of the Histories in this Dijon ambience.30

There is some evidence that Hugh’s chronicle was supplemented by later additions. Hugh’s catalogue of the bishops of Lyons on folio 36r of the autograph manuscript was augmented by additions in a different hand, which continue until the episcopate of Archbishop Humbert (1147–53).31 Moreover, there is some internal evidence which might suggest that the final part of the chronicle is the work of an author other than Hugh of Flavigny. The main narrative of the Chronicon breaks off in 1102 with the failure of Hugh’s petition to Rome and the legatine mission of Milo of Palestrina which cemented the position of Bishop Norgaudus in the diocese of Autun.32 Thereafter the narrative becomes disorganised, leading Rudolph Köpke to suppose that the concluding part of the Chronicon was composed by a continuator.33 Köpke based this contention on a description of events in the latter part of the Chronicon according to which the author must have been in England in 1100. This passage relates to the accusation of sorcery made against Archbishop Gerard of York and thus could only relate to events after Archbishop Gerard received his office from Henry I, that is, some time after the death of William Rufus on 2 August 1100.34 Köpke thought that the author’s presence in England at this time precluded his participation at the council

29 Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale, MS Latin 10912 (formerly suppl. Lat. 1014). Rodulfi Glabri Historiarum Libri Quinque, ed. John France (Oxford, 1989), pp. xc–xci, demonstrates Hugh’s dependence on this manuscript by his incorporation of the compound name Iohannes Crescentius (Histories 1.4.12, p. 24–5) into Hugh of Flavigny, 367/33–4.

30 Rodulfi Glabri Historiarum Libri, pp. xxxii–xxxiii. 31 Hugh of Flavigny, 322/68–9: Parvus Josorrandus. Humbaldus, Vizeliacensis abbas.

Rainaldus. Falco. Petrus. Amedeus obiit in itinere Iherosolimitano. Hunbertus qui superest adhuc.

32 Ibid., 495/27–32; cf. Chapter 3, note 103. 33 Rudolf Köpke, ‘Die Quellen der Chronik des Hugo von Flavigny’, Archiv der

Gesellschaft für altere deutsche Geschichtskunde, 9 (1847), 288–92. 34 Hugh of Flavigny, 496/54–6; cf. Chapter 3, notes 104–7.


of Valence on 29 September 1100, a council where Hugh of Flavigny definitely participated.35 The final pages of the Chronicon relate to the death (28 March 1099) and burial (2 April) of Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne. From the tone of the account it seems that the author of this part of the chronicle was an eyewitness to the burial36 and he had evidently lived under the regime of Rudolf’s successor at the time when he wrote.37 The author of this passage in the Chronicon compared Abbot Rudolf to his saintly predecessor, Abbot Richard of St-Vanne and referred the reader to a Vita of Abbot Richard, perhaps the same one that was composed by Hugh of Flavigny.38 Thus, it is possible that Hugh’s Chronicon was supplemented by a monk of St-Vanne who was present at the death and burial of Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne: however, there is no palaeographical evidence which suggests that the conclusion of the Chronicon is anything other than the work of Hugh of Flavigny. If Köpke’s hypothesis is accurate, however, the anonymous monastic continuator presumably had access to the text of the Chronicon at Verdun during or after Hugh’s tenure as abbot of St-Vanne, 1111–14.39

It is certain that the materials preserved in MS Phillipps 1870 do not contain the complete oeuvre of Hugh of Flavigny. MS Phillipps 1814 (Berlin, Meerman Handschriften 143) had also been part of Codex 686, male compactus, of the Jesuit library of the College de Clermont in Paris.40 It is a quarto manuscript of 44 folios, arranged in five quires with four loose pages and three slips of parchment (Schaltzetteln). MS Phillipps 1814 has many characteristics in common with its former companion, MS Phillipps 1870. The script is a well-formed Caroline minuscule and the method of composition is consonant with Hugh of Flavigny’s Arbeitsweise: many additions and corrections were inserted in the margins of the MS, the main text has been scraped to make way for new material, and information is incorporated into the work in the form of free-standing slips of parchment. MS Phillipps 1814 survives as a single autograph manuscript and has never been transcribed or published. The subject matter of MS Phillipps 1814 is a work of poetry in six books (that is, a Hexameron) which has a Christological focus. Only the first two books have titles: the first book dealing with the incarnation of the Lord (incipit liber I in quo agitur de incarnatione domini), the second relating to the gift of free will to mankind (liber II in quo agitur de libero arbitrio per gratiam reparato). The author seems to have written in a venerable eschatological tradition: the six books

35 Koepke, ‘Die Quellen der Chronik des Hugo von Flavigny’, pp. 288–9. 36 Hugh of Flavigny, 500/47–51. 37 Ibid., 501/47–50. 38 Ibid., 501/51–4: Qui autem voluerit agnoscere quid de patre nostro Richardo huic

patri nostro Rodulfo ab angelo ostensum sit, ut ab eo fratribus relatum est, in vita praefati venerabilis viri Richardi querat, et inveniet. Cf. Hugh’s life of Abbot Richard, beginning on p. 368/38.

39 See Chapter 3, notes 112–14. 40 Rose, Hanschriften Verzeichnisse, p. 325.


each represent allegorically a day of the Creation, and thus an age of mankind, the seventh age representing the end of time and the temporal world.41 The presumed author, Hugh of Flavigny, wrote at the beginning of the sixth book: Sexta dies homini distinctos edidit artus. The poem then breaks off in the middle of the sixth book on page 44v with the words congrua psallam: however, although unfinished, it is likely that the work would have ended with the sixth book anyway.42 Hugh’s probable authorship of this poem is not only indicated by the provenance of the manuscript containing it and the palaeographical evidence of its composition – the internal evidence of the subject matter also tends to identify Hugh as the author of the Hexameron. Hugh’s devotion to Jesus Christ, so evident in the Hexameron, is also evident in the Chronicon. When describing events relating to his own situation, especially his ejection from the abbey of Flavigny, Hugh addressed himself to the Lord in the form of direct prayer.43 This form of devotion must have been a consolation to Hugh in times of distress, and it becomes an increasingly important device towards the end of the Chronicon. The Hexameron may have been composed by Hugh after 1114 at a time when the author no longer had any realistic ambitions for high monastic office and could thus contemplate the end of things with a certain resigned serenity. The first direct mention of Hugh’s Chronicon derives from events at Verdun in 1112, with the exile of Abbot Laurent and his monks from St-Vanne. Laurent had been driven out by Bishop Richard of Verdun and in his apologia (c. 1112) the exiled abbot alluded to his successor, who had written a book ‘fortified with authorities against those who sought to oppose the Roman church’. From the other evidence of Laurent’s apologia there can be little doubt that his replacement was Hugh of Flavigny and thus the book ‘fortified with authorities’ is most likely the Chronicon.44 It is likely also, that the Chronicon was known to the monastic author Hugh of Fleury who used it in his Tractatus, composed between 1102 and 1105.45

41 Cf. Beryl Smalley, Historians in the Middle Ages (London, 1974), pp. 29–30. 42 Rose, Hanschriften Verzeichnisse, p. 326. 43 Hugh of Flavigny, 468/46–8: Tuum est, Domine, regnum, tua virtus, tua potentia;

tibi soli cum Patre et Spiritu sancto honor debetur et gloria … tu me refugium …; 481/21–4:Verum consideranti mihi dispensationem admirandae et ineffabilis patientiae tuae et misericordiae, cujus non est numerus in me, libet inherere considerationi miserationis tuae, quamquam super me sint haec, Christe: quomodo raptum ab uberibus ditasti donis superhabundantis pietatis tuae, tradens me contubernio servorum tuorum …; 487/12–13:Has ipsas litteras apertas direxi capitulo, et extunc usque nunc Divioni maneo, tuum, Christe, praestolando auxilium, non ut abbas, sed quasi unus e fratribus, quod mihi est tutius.

44 Or a polemic, now lost, composed by Hugh. See Chapter 3, note 114. 45 Hugh of Fleury, Tractatus de Regia Potestate et Sacerdotali Dignitate, ed. E.

Sackur, MGH Libelli, 2, 465–94. For the relationship between the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny and the Tractatus of Hugh of Fleury see Ernst Sackur, ‘Zu den Streitschriften des Deusdedit und Hugo von Fleury’, NA, 16 (1891), 349–86, and I. S. Robinson, Authority and


The similarity of wording and evidence cited in the two works points to a direct borrowing by the monk of Fleury rather than a common source for the Chronicon and the Tractatus. Hugh of Fleury used the Chronicon as a source-book to support his own, radically different, conception of Church–State relations. He borrowed from Hugh of Flavigny’s versions of the Donation of Constantine46 and the papal election decree of Pope Nicholas II of 1059.47 Hugh of Fleury’s discussion of the excommunication of King Charibert by St Germanus in the sixth century is dependent on the Chronicon48 as are his historical exempla – deriving ultimately from the Liber Pontificalis – concerning Pope Sixtus and Pope Symmachus and the duty of kings to reconcile quarrelling bishops.49 His interest in the historical relationship between Church and State was further attested when he borrowed from the Chronicon the exampla of King David, who was publicly denounced by Nathan, and that of Theodosius, who was excommunicated by St Ambrose.50 The relationship between the two sources is confirmed by an error common to both: the Tractatus repeats Hugh of Flavigny’s garbled and nonsensical account of Pope John XII’s accession to the papacy and the events in Rome after Otto I’s imperial coronation in 962.51

It would seem that Hugh of Fleury used the Chronicon as a florilegium or anthology of sources: from it he acquired canon law sententie, patristic auctoritates, and historical exempla.52 However, he disagreed with the

Resistance in the Investiture Contest (Manchester, 1978), pp. 134–5, where the transmission of Isidorian ideas of kingship from the Chronicon to the Tractatus is discussed.

46 Hugh of Flavigny, 299/6–301/21; Tractatus 486/19–34. Cf. Constitutum Constantini, ed. Horst Fuhrmann (Fontes Iuris Germanici Antiqui in Usum Scholarum ex Monumentis Germaniae Historicis Separatim Editi, 10: Hanover, 1968). For the versions of the Constitutum Constantini used by Hugh of Flavigny and Hugh of Fleury see Horst Fuhrmann, ‘Konstantinische Schenkung und abenländisches Kaisertum’, DA, 23 (1966), 118 n. 157.

47 Hugh of Flavigny, 408/14–409/14; Tractatus, 491/40–492/44. Scheffer-Boichorst thought that Hugh of Flavigny and Hugh of Fleury took their versions of the papal election decree from a common source but Sackur demonstrated the dependence of Hugh of Fleury on his namesake by improving on Pertz’s edition of the Chronicon: Sackur ‘Streitschriften’, p. 379. Cf. Detlev Jasper, Das Papstwahldekret von 1059 (Beiträge zur Geschichte und Quellenkunde des Mittelalters, 12: Sigmaringen 1986).

48 Hugh of Flavigny, 438/43–5; Tractatus, 487/12–14. 49 Hugh of Flavigny, 303/55–7, 319/49–55; Tractatus, 489/25–33. 50 Hugh of Flavigny, 437/51–5; Tractatus, 484/19–20. 51 Hugh of Flavigny, 364/41–6; Tractatus, 489/33–490/4. 52 This usage is particularly evident in Hugh of Fleury’s borrowing of the letters of

Gregory VII contained in the Chronicon. From the letter of Pope Gregory VII to the people of Constance, Hugh of Fleury obtained the biblical prescription of Samuel: ‘Obedience is better then sacrifices’: melior est obedientia quam victimae = Hugh of Flavigny, 427/45–7; Tractatus, 487/22. In respect of canon law, Hugh of Fleury borrowed from the Chronicon the canon of the council of Nicea providing that no bishop could be consecrated without the consent of the relevant metropolitan: ut nulla ratione fiat episcopus qui nec a clericis est


interpretation of history contained in the Chronicon. While admitting the proper competence of Gregory VII to excommunicate Henry IV of Germany, Hugh of Fleury asserted that the pope exceeded his authority when attempting to depose the king and release the subjects of the monarch from their oaths of fealty to Henry IV. Moreover, Hugh of Fleury took over from the Chronicon Gregory VII’s idea (expressed in the second doctrinal letter to Hermann of Metz) that all secular power was of diabolical origin, only to ridicule this ‘frivolous sententia’.53 Thus, although the Tractatus depends heavily on the Chronicon for its source material, it represents a refutation of the ‘Gregorian’ pretensions contained in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny.54

Hugh of Fleury may have had access to the Chronicon (or a copy of it) in a Norman or English ambience. His Tractatus is dedicated to King Henry I of England (1100–35) and his other works are likewise dedicated to the English royal house: the monastery of Fleury had a pronounced tradition of contact with England.55 The possibility of contact between the Chronicon and the Tractatus is perhaps most likely at the city of Rouen in Normandy. Hugh of Fleury’s doctrine of passive resistance to the sublimiores potestates is similar to materials compiled by the ‘Norman Anonymous’, perhaps at Rouen at the beginning of the twelfth century.56 Hugh of Flavigny definitely pursued research at Rouen and reported in his Chronicon that he was aware of a life of St Symeon in an ‘archive’ (armarium)at Rouen.57 Moreover elements found in the ‘tractates’ of the ‘Norman Anonymous’ are also present in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny: these common elements relate to the Greek Father Gregory of Nazianzus.58 Thus it is possible that both Hugh of Flavigny and Hugh of Fleury pursued research at Rouen at roughly the same time: this argument is highly circumstantial and is extrapolated

electus, nec a plebibus expetitus, nec a provincialibus episcopis metropolitani iudicio consecratus = Hugh of Flavigny, 328/5–7; Tractatus, 489/14–15.

53 Tractatus, 467/25–30: Scio quosdam nostris temporibus qui reges autumant non a Deo … quorum sententia quam sit frivola liquet apostolico documento qui ait ‘Non est potestas nisi a Deo. Quae enim sunt a Deo ordinatae sunt’ (Rom. 13:1).

54 Sackur, ‘Streitschriften’, p. 384. 55 Ibid., p. 375. 56 Tractatus, 471; cf. K. Pellens, Die Texte des Normannischen Anonymus unter

Konsultation der Teilausgaben von H. Bohmer, H. Scherrinsky und G. H. Williams(Wiesbaden, 1966), J24, p. 145.

57 Hugh of Flavigny, 398/56–399/2: Igitur ad beatum Symeonem reflectentes articulum, quid apud Richardum Normaniae principem egerit, sicut in armario Rothomagensi continetur, licet libellus vitae ejus hoc sileat, paucis explicemus. On 369/40 Hugh also asserted that while staying at Rouen (hoc nos Rodomi positi), he consulted some ‘religious men’ about miracles performed by Richard, the great reforming abbot of St-Vanne.

58 Hugh of Flavigny, 436/3–4; Pellens, Normannischen Anonymus, J28, p. 223. Cf. Patrick Healy, ‘Hugh of Flavigny and Canon Law as Polemic in the Investiture Contest’, ZRG kan. Abt., 91 (2005), no. 37, p. 32.


from a common dependence on the ‘tractates’ of the ‘Norman Anonymous’. Nonetheless, it does seem certain that Hugh of Fleury depended on the Chronicon for many of the source materials in the Tractatus. If he encountered the Chronicon in Rouen then it is possible to conclude that Hugh of Flavigny brought his work with him on his travels, deliberately seeking to augment it with elements from different libraries and archives.

One other historical work of the twelfth century is likely to have borrowed material from Hugh’s Chronicon: the Chronicon Sancti Petri Vivi Senonensis.59

This work has been attributed to Clarius (†post 1124), a monk of St-Benoît-sur-Loire, Fleury, and later of St-Pierre-le-Vif at Sens. The dependence of this work on Hugh’s Chronicon is probable because the Chronicon acted as a prism between the Histories of Ralph Glaber and the Sens chronicle. Textual agreements between the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny and that of Clarius, in respect of material ultimately deriving from Ralph Glaber, demonstrate a relationship between the two works.60 This relationship in turn may shed light on the relationship between the work of Hugh of Flavigny and that of Hugh of Fleury. Like Hugh of Fleury, Clarius had been a monk at St-Benoît-sur-Loire, before moving on to Sens. The fact that Hugh’s Chronicon was used by two historians from the same monastery raises the possibility that a copy of the Chronicon was in the possession of that monastery. One implication of this hypothesis is that Clarius began his Chronicon at Fleury before completing it at Sens.61 Alternatively, he may have taken notes from the Chronicon of Hugh with the intention of integrating this material into his future work. Either way the relationship between the Chronicon of Hugh and the Chronicon Sancti Petri Vivi may reveal something of the work-method of Clarius.

We have no knowledge of the transmission of the Chronicon until the edition of it by the great Jesuit scholar Philip Labbé in 1657.62 The autograph manuscript had been acquired from Flavigny by the Jesuit College de Clermont in Paris in 1642.63

Labbé thought the Chronicon was an ‘incomparable treasury’ (historiae

59 Chronicon Sancti Petri Vivi Senonensis, ed. R.H. Bautier and M. Gilles (Paris, 1979).

60 Cf. Rodulfi Glabri Historiarum Libri Quinque 1.4.12–15, ed. John France (Oxford, 1989), p. 24 n. 2, on the election of Gerbert as Pope Silvester II; cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 367/33–5; Chronicon Sancti Petri Vivi, p. 102. Rodulfi Glabri Historiarum Libri Quinque 5.3.20, p. 244 n. 2, on a solar eclipse of 22 November 1044; cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 403/4–5; Chronicon Sancti Petri Vivi, pp. 119–20. The editors of the Sens chronicle, pp. xxxii–xxxv, posit the possibility of a common source for the Glaber material in the two chronicles. France, in his introduction to the Histories, p. ci n. 6, thinks this possibility to be unlikely.

61 He seems to have composed the part of the Chronicon Sancti Petri Vivi extending as far as 1127. The rest of the chronicle, reaching as far as 1187, was probably the work of a continuator: RHGF, 6, xiii–xiv; 7, 265; 9, xv; 10, xxxiii; 11, liv; 12, xvi–xvii.

62 Nova bibliotheca manuscriptorum librorum, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1657), pp. 75–269. 63 Cf. Hubert Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, Abbé de Saint-Vanne de Verdun

(Louvain and Paris, 1946), p. 19; F. Grignard, ‘L’abbaye bénédictine de Flavigny en Bourgogne, ses historiens et ses histoires’, Mémoires de la Société Eduenne, 14 (1885), 30.


ecclesiasticae undecimi praesertim saeculi thesaurum incomparabilem) and his edition was used in many subsequent compilations, especially that of Bouquet and his continuators.64 The contemporary division of the Chronicon into two books derives from his edition and Labbé made some other editorial alterations. In particular he excised any passages that were critical of the Roman Church. On two occasions Hugh of Flavigny made reference to the ‘insatiable whirlpool of Roman greed’ (inexplebilis gurges Romanae avaritiae): Labbé rendered the first reference ‘human greed’ instead of ‘Roman greed’ and the second reference is omitted altogether in Labbé’s edition.65

After the suppression of the Jesuits in 1762 the manuscripts of the College de Clermont were sold to the Dutch collector Gerard Meerman in 1765. On the death of his son Jean in 1824, Meerman’s library was sold to the famous English bibliophile Thomas Phillipps. It was at Phillipps’s residence in Middlehill in Worcestershire that G.H. Pertz worked on what would become the edition of Hugh’s Chronicon published by the Monumenta Germaniae Historica in 1848. After the death of Phillipps his library was sold and in 1891 the königliche Bibliothek at Berlin (now the Staatsbibliothek) acquired the Meerman manuscripts of his collection. Hugh’s autograph manuscript remains in Berlin to the present day. Pertz transcribed the bulk of his edition in 1844 during his stay at the Phillipps residence. Pressed for time, he was not able to transcribe the Chronicon fully: Phillipps himself transcribed folios 17–41 of the manuscript.66 Pertz’s edition has long been considered unsatisfactory. Hermann Bloch in 1898 identified the main problem: the MGH edition does not reflect Hugh’s method of composition, his Arbeitsweise, or the way in which new material was incorporated into the Chronicon.67

64 RHGF, 3, 353–5; 5, 372–4; 6, 231–2; 7, 246–8; 8, 286–97; 10, 205–10; 11, 142–7; 13, 617–28; 14, 797–804.

65 Hugh of Flavigny, 475/14: Sed quid inperturbatum relinquit inexplebilis gurges Romanae avaritiae?; 494/12: Agit hoc Romanae avariciae gurges inexplebilis, qui dum nequit expleri, novit resecanda tueri; cf. Ambrose, De Nabuthe Jezraelita, 6.28, PL, 14, 739A. See Chapter 3, note 47.

66 See the prefatory remarks of Pertz, MGH SS, 8, 284 n. 17. 67 Hermann Bloch, ‘Die älteren Urkunden des Klosters S. Vanne zu Verdun’, JGLGA,

10 (1898), p. 356 n. 1; cf. Borgolte, ‘Fiktive Graber, p. 217, who criticised the ‘unsatisfactory’ edition of Pertz.

Chapter 5

Sources of the Chronicon

Philip Labbé, who first edited the Chronicon in 1657, was so struck by the wealth of sources used by Hugh of Flavigny that he described the Chronicon as an ‘incomparable treasury’ for the ecclesiastical history of the eleventh century.1 This was an accurate summary of the Chronicon’s importance and in the mid-nineteenth century, Rudolf Köpke’s somewhat cursory survey of the sources of this work required over fifty pages of text.2 Hugh’s handling of his sources, however, has not won the favour of modern historians. Bouquet’s continuator in the Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France asserted that, for the material that precedes the year 919 in Hugh’s Chronicon ‘the number of mistakes is almost equal to the number of words’.3 Hugh’s modern editor, Pertz of the MGH, was scarcely less scathing and criticised the chronicler for his ‘negligent’ attitude to transcription.4

The rehabilitation of Hugh of Flavigny’s as a credible historian was begun by Grignard in 1885 and was completed by Augustine Fliche’s studies on Hugh’s transcription of the letters of Pope Gregory VII.5 Hugh’s probity as an historian was also emphasised by Hubert Dauphin in his study of Hugh’s Vita of Abbot Richard of St-Vanne.6

If we leave aside the incidents where Hugh falsified evidence in connection with the status of St-Vanne within the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Verdun, the chronicler’s bona fides as a faithful historian can be accepted.7 Hugh’s careful attitude to his sources is particularly evident for the parts of his narrative where he could not furnish documentary proof or where he had not witnessed events personally. In these cases – usually depending on oral evidence of eyewitnesses – the chronicler conscientiously admitted his dependence on the information of

1 See Chapter 4, note 62. 2 Rudolf Köpke, ‘Die Quellen der Chronik des Hugo von Flavigny’, Archiv der

Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde, 9 (1847), 240–92. 3 RHGF, 11, p. xxxviii. 4 MGH SS, 8, 283/19–20: ... sed textus negligenter saepe transcriptus plenam sibi

fidem haud conciliat. 5 F. Grignard, ‘L’abbaye bénédictine de Flavigny en Bourgogne, ses historiens et ses

histoires’, Mémoires de la Société Eduenne, 14 (1885), 29–35; Augustine Fliche, LaRéforme Grégorienne, Vol. 2 (Louvain, 1925), pp. 58–60, p. 423 n. 2; Fliche, ‘L’Election d’Urbain II’, Le Moyen Age, 19 (1915), 356–94.

6 Hubert Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, Abbé de Saint-Vanne de Verdun (Louvain and Paris, 1946), pp. 22–6.


Sources of the Chronicon 101

others and was concerned to ensure the reliability of these accounts for his readers.8

The first, and perhaps most important, source collection for the composition of the Chronicon was the abbey library of St-Vanne, Verdun, which must have accompanied the monks on their exile to St-Bénigne in 1085. This complex of materials included – among others – historical works, the house cartulary, local Vitae, patristic works and possibly one or more canon law collections. Hugh clearly depended on the house cartulary of St-Vanne when transcribing the foundation charter for the abbey in 951; elsewhere the chronicler explicitly acknowledged his dependence on the ‘knowledge of the charters’ (chartarum notitia).9 The influence of the Deeds of the Bishops of Verdun, composed in 916/17 by Berthar of St-Vanne, is everywhere evident in the Chronicon and Hugh borrowed from Berthar’s preface when characterising the intention of that author to rescue from oblivion the ‘sacrosanct memory’ of the holy fathers of the church of Verdun.10 The chronicler also relied on the hagiographical Vitae of St-Vanne and his tendentious interpretation of the lives of the bishops Sanctinus and Madelveus is particularly worthy of notice.11 As with any other contemporary monastery, the works of the Church Fathers would have been well represented in the library of St-Vanne. We have, for example, certain knowledge of Rothard, a scribe at St-Vanne in the abbatiate of Richard (†1046), who transcribed some of Ambrose’s theological and doctrinal treatises.12 It may have been due to the industry of this scribe that Hugh owed his knowledge of Ambrose’s Sermo contra Auxentium – to which he expressly alluded – and of such treatises as De Nabuthe Jezraelita, from which he took authorities for his polemical discussion of the Investiture Contest.13

It is likely that the abbey of St-Vanne also possessed one or several canon law collections. All contemporary ecclesiastical institutions would have required handbooks on canon law and we have notice of Bishop Heimo of Verdun’s commission for the transcription of a canon law collection in 1009. The scribe

8 For example, Hugh of Flavigny, 375/36: … de hac sermo extitit, et nos a senioribus audivimus; 377/17–18: … non autem visa, sed a senioribus audita referemus; cf. 394/17–24, where Hugh devoted a good deal of effort to establishing the trustwothiness of an eyewitness account of a miracle apparently performed by Abbot Richard of St-Vanne.

9 Hugh of Flavigny, 344/51–2: … alia perplura, ut ostendit chartarum notitia; cf. Chapter 3, note 129.

10 Hugh of Flavigny, 357/1–3. 11 See chapter 9 notes 54–62. 12 See chapter 2 note 114. 13 For the reference to the Sermo contra Auxentium see Chapter 1, note 26; for De

Nabuthe Jezraelita, which Rothard transcribed, see Hugh of Flavigny, 437/31–2: Et beatus Ambrosius ‘Misera’ ait ‘servitus est servire peccatis, et servile est omne peccatum, libera est innocentia’. For other examples of Hugh’s dependence on this patristic treatise see Chapter 3, note 47.


employed for this task may even have been Rothard of St-Vanne.14 It may be that the library of St-Vanne included a copy of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals which Hugh used in the composition of his Chronicon.15

It is difficult to say whether Hugh depended on the library of St-Vanne or that of St-Bénigne for the many works of universal, local and Christian history that inform the Chronicon, stretching from the works of Jerome and Gregory of Tours to the tenth century chronicles of Flodoard and Richer.16 Many of these – especially the works of universal history – would have been included in most contemporary monastic libraries of any stature. It is probable, however, that Hugh relied on the resources of St-Bénigne for his knowledge of the Chronicon S. Benigni Divionensis, a source which heavily informed his narrative for the later Merovingian and the Carolingian dynasties; the Histories of Ralf Glaber;17

Glaber’s Vita of Abbot William of St-Bénigne;18 the letter of William of St-Bénigne to Pope John XIX in 1024.19 In addition, by virtue of his close friendship with Abbot Jarento of St-Bénigne after 1085, Hugh was able to supplement the Chronicon with the papal letter that the abbot was entrusted with by Gregory VII in 1084.20 Also, Hugh’s account of the pope’s captivity at the Castel S. Angelo in 1084 clearly depended on the eyewitness account of Jarento.21

Hugh’s personal connection with another agent of Gregorian reform in Burgundy, Hugh of Die/Lyons, was Hugh’s probable source for the letters in the Chronicon concerning Hugh of Die’s legatine mission to reform the French episcopate between 1075 and 1080 and the letter concerning the election of Desiderius of Montecassino as Pope Victor III in 1086. In addition, it is possible that Hugh of Die was the ‘formal source’ (fons formalis) for the material that Hugh of Flavigny garnered from the Libellus contra Invasores of Cardinal Deusdedit.22

Hugh’s election as abbot of the monastery of St-Peter in Flavigny in 1096 gave him access to another library with which to shape the Chronicon. The later stages of the Chronicon indicate dependence on the cartulary of Flavigny, a document which Hugh may have compiled himself.23 It is also likely – at least on palaeographical grounds – that it was in an ambience connected with Flavigny that

14 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 101 n. 2; cf. E. Lesne, Histoire de la propriété ecclésiastique en France, vol. 4, Les livres, ‘scriptoria’ et bibliothèques (Lille, 1938), pp. 235–6.

15 See below note 174. 16 A full list is available in Köpke, ‘Die Quellen der Chronik des Hugo von Flavigny’,

268–9. 17 See Chapter 4, note 30. 18 Cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 368/10–11: … pater Willelmus, cuius gesta qui scire voluerit,

in libro vitae eius a Rodulfo monacho edito legere potest. 19 Hugh of Flavigny, 392/39–51. 20 See below note 127. 21 See Chapter 3, note 44. 22 See below notes 35–6. 23 See Chapter 3, note 69.


Hugh gained access to the complex of ninth-century materials, including a number of papal letters and possibly a canon law collection, on the proper role of the emperor in the election of bishops.24 This likelihood is suggested by the fact that this material was inserted into the Chronicon on a freestanding slip of parchment (folio 62b) in the company of material that definitely did have a Flavigny provenance, including – among other items of local interest – an account of the translation of the relics of St Regina to Flavigny in 864.25

Hugh’s unusually mobile career probably gave him access to more libraries and collections than those enumerated thus far. For example, the chronicler explicitly alluded to his researches in an ‘archive’ at Rouen.26 In addition, his journey to Normandy and England in the company of Abbot Jarento in 1096 may have allowed Hugh to consult many other sources of interest as well as permitting him to display his skill in drafting documents.27

Letters

Hugh inserted into the Chronicon 45 letters and decrees relating to the events of the Investiture Contest from 1073–87.28 Thirty five of these are letters or decrees – or fragments thereof – of Pope Gregory VII. The old hypothesis whereby Hugh of Flavigny had access to a copy of Gregory VII’s Register can, on the whole, be dispensed with; it is more likely that the chronicler relied on intermediate collections for his access to the letters of Gregory VII. At least four possible ‘formal sources’ can be identified for most of the Gregorian items in the Chronicon: the Libellus of Cardinal Deusdedit, the probable source of Hugh’s version of the papal prohibition of lay investiture which was promulgated in March 1080; Hugh, bishop of Die and archbishop of Lyons (1073–1106), Hugh of Flavigny’s mentor after 1085 and the probable source of six papal letters relating to reform and legatine power in France; Jarento, abbot of St-Bénigne in Dijon, another of Hugh’s mentors and the probable source of Gregory’s letter to the faithful of 1084, which he was entrusted to transmit to Portugal and France, and a ‘papalist’ (‘p’) letter collection, possibly of Lotharingian provenance, which possibly absorbed material from a letter collection assembled by Bernold of St-Blasien, and which was compiled in a propagandist spirit in support of Gregory VII.

24 Hugh of Flavigny, 354/18–53; see below, note 201. 25 Hugh of Flavigny, 355/10–29; for St Regina, the virgin martyr of Autun see Chapter

3, note 71. 26 See Chapter 4, note 57. 27 See Chapter 3, notes 56–61. 28 See Patrick Healy, ‘The Sources and Themes of the Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny:

Reform and the Investiture Contest in Lotharingia and Burgundy’ (University of Dublin Ph.D. Thesis, 2003), pp. 88–94.


Of the ten non-papal letters, three – including one from the pen of Archbishop Manasses of Rheims – are connected with Hugh of Die/Lyons and present no problem from a source point of view. Similarly straightforward is Archbishop Lanfranc’s letter to the exiled Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne in 1085; Hugh very probably took his copy of this letter from his fellow exile and abbot.29 The ‘p’ collection may have been Hugh’s source for two further items: the letter of Bishop Gebhard of Salzburg to Bishop Hermann of Metz in 1084, and a portion of Gregory VII’s ‘death-bed testament’, which is contained in a letter attributed to Pope Urban II.30 This leaves four items. The first, Henry IV’s ‘suppliant letter’ to Gregory VII of 1073 was inserted into the Chronicon as a free-standing slip of parchment (Schaltzettel) and the question of Hugh of Flavigny’s access to it must remain open. The next two are connected with the circle of Margravine Matilda of Tuscany. One is a letter of Bishop Anselm II of Lucca, Matilda’s spiritual adviser, to Abbot Pontius of Frassinoro in 1085–86. The other is Matilda’s letter to the faithful in 1084, probably composed by Anselm of Lucca, warning them that Henry IV had taken the papal seal. Hugh of Flavigny’s fons formalis for these last two items may have been Hugh of Die/Lyons, who was a close friend of the bishop of Lucca. Alternatively, these two letters were very similar in tone and intent to Gebhard’s letter to Hermann of Metz in 1084, which was composed to restore flagging morale among the supporters of Gregory VII. Perhaps, like Gebhard’s letter – which was contained in ‘p’ – these last two were incorporated in a pro-papal letter collection to which Hugh of Flavigny had access. This might also be the case with the final item: the letter of Empress Agnes to Bishop Altmann of Passau, informing him of Gregory VII’s excommunication of Henry IV at the Lent synod of 1076.

Letters Relating to Hugh, Bishop of Die 1073–1082, and Archbishop of Lyons 1082–1106

Hugh of Flavigny probably had access to the documents relating to Hugh of Die from his time in the entourage (famulitio) of the archbishop some time between 1085 and 1096, and he maintained close contact with his mentor after 1096 when he became abbot of Flavigny. Before his election as abbot of Flavigny, Hugh probably served as the archbishop’s amanuensis and the close friendship between them is illustrated in the letter of Hugh of Die to Bishop Hagano of Autun, in which he confirmed the election of his protégé as abbot of Flavigny.31

29 This letter falls outside the scope of the discussion below. For its authenticity see Patrick Healy, ‘A Supposed Letter of Archbishop Lanfranc: Concepts of the Universal Church in the Investiture Contest’, English Historical Review (forthcoming).

30 Erdmann did not include this second item in the ‘p’ collection but arguments for its inclusion in this collection – among others – are advanced in notes 96 and 117.

31 Hugh of Flavigny, 475/47–476/10.


From the palaeographical evidence of Hugh’s autograph manuscript, the Chronicon appears to have been in progress by the time Hugh entered into the service of the archbishop of Lyons. Documentary items illustrative of Hugh of Die’s reforming activity in France as papal legate from 1075 to 1080 were incorporated into the Chronicon using marginal additions and the insertion of new leaves into the body of the manuscript. On folio 97r the narrative describing the election of Bishop Hugh of Die in 1073 displays clear signs of augmentation with new material that was inserted into the Chronicon in darker ink.32 There is no doubt that this passage is a subsequent addition and not contemporaneous with the main text. Aside from the darker colour of the ink, this is indicated by the size of the text-block, which in the unamended main text has a uniform 30 lines of text per folio. However folio 97r contains 50 lines in a smaller, more compact script, in the same hand as the main text. This passage contains an account of Hugh of Die’s journey to Rome in late 1073 to receive episcopal consecration at the hands of Gregory VII and his meeting and firm friendship with another bishop-elect, Anselm II of Lucca. From the intimate nature of the narrative here, it seems probable that these events were related to Hugh of Flavigny by Hugh of Die. The rest of the passage concerns the investiture prohibition of Lent 1080, which Hugh assumed to have been promulgated during the time that Hugh of Die and Anselm of Lucca were at Rome. This investiture legislation is glossed with four canon law sententie in the Chronicon: canon 22 of the fourth council of Constantinople (the eighth ecumenical council); canon 3 of the second council of Nicea (757); canon 6 of the same council, and an untitled canon, purporting to come from a council held at Antioch.33 It has been assumed that Hugh derived his version of the 1080 investiture prohibition, and the supporting sententie, from the Libellus Contra Invasores et Symoniacos of Cardinal Deusdedit. The Libellus contains the same abridged excerpt from the Lenten synod of 1080 and also includes the canon law excerpts cited by Hugh of Flavigny.34 The similarity in the material cited in the Chronicon and the Libellus probably points to some relationship between the texts, but perhaps not the immediate one that Sackur supposed.35 The inclusion of this material in the Chronicon may indicate that Hugh of Flavigny took these texts from a ‘formal source’ (fons formalis) connected with Hugh of Die and that Deusdedit’s Libellus may only be the ‘material source’ (fons materialis) for these items in the Chronicon. The canon law material on folio 97r is inserted in the company of information which was probably derived directly from Hugh of Die. Thus, it is possible that Hugh of Die disseminated this material, which ultimately found its way into the Chronicon, from a study of the Libellus of Deusdedit on one

32 Corresponding to Hugh of Flavigny, 411/35–412/42: Sed nec illud silendum … in electione pontificis reservetur.

33 For precise references to these materials Chapter 9, notes 18–21. 34 Deusdedit Presbyteri Cardinalis Libellus Contra Invasores et Symoniacos et

Reliquos Scismaticos 1.6–7, 16, ed. E. Sackur, MGH Libelli 2, 305/6–306/5, 315/7–15. 35 Ibid., 294/5–10. The Chronicon is most similar to the A recension of the Libellus.


of his many journeys to Rome. It is also possible that Hugh of Die studied a collection that supplied Deusdedit with texts necessary for the composition of the Libellus: that is, the common material in the Chronicon and the Libellus on the theme of lay investiture may have a common source rather than a direct relationship. As a standing papal legate in the pontificate of Gregory VII (1073–85), Hugh of Die was charged with implementing papal legislation in northern and eastern France in local synods. Gregory VII’s letter to Hugh of Die in 1077 concerning the case of Bishop Gerard of Cambrai – who had accepted royal investiture from Henry IV – illustrates the legate’s responsibility in implementing investiture legislation promulgated at Rome. It is not unlikely therefore, that Bishop Hugh would have possessed a collection of texts on lay investiture corresponding to those found in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny.36

The derivation of the other materials relating to Hugh of Die in the Chronicon is more straightforward and is probably explained by the close relationship between Hugh of Die and Hugh of Flavigny. These items include six letters of Pope Gregory VII, which were either addressed to Hugh of Die or had some connection with his legatine responsibility, dating from 1075–79.37 Two other items are related to these papal letters: a letter of Bishop Hugh to Gregory VII in 1078 and a letter of Archbishop Manasses of Rheims to the pope, also in 1078.38

Finally, there is the letter of Archbishop Hugh of Lyons – as Hugh of Die had become since 1082 – to Margravine Matilda of Tuscany, condemning the election of Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino as Pope Victor III in 1086.39 All these items, with the possible exception of the last, were probably inserted into the Chronicon after the composition of this part of the main text. They have a thematic unity and allowed Hugh of Flavigny to augment his description of papal reform in Burgundy in the years 1075–80 with a detailed consideration of the activities of the papal legate, Hugh of Die. These documentary items were inserted after the composition of the main narrative: this is evident in the fact of their inclusion by virtue of marginal entries, darker ink, and a departure from the normal dimensions of the text-block in the Chronicon.40 They probably became available to Hugh of Flavigny at some time after 1085 when he served in the entourage of the archbishop of Lyons. However, an examination of the autograph manuscript of the Chronicon shows the miraculous election at Die in 1073 was probably known to Hugh of Flavigny before his contact with the bishop. The part of the Chronicon

36 For Hugh of Die’s local legislation against lay investiture see Hazel Goggin, ‘Hugh, Bishop of Die, and Archbishop of Lyons, 1082–1106: an agent of papal reform in France’(University of Dublin Ph.D. thesis, 1996), pp. 107–33.

37 Cf. EV no. 12, p. 28; Reg. 4.22, pp. 330/25–334/9; Reg. 4.19, pp. 325/15–326/6; Reg. 6.3, pp. 394/31–396/6; Reg. 6.2, pp. 391/23–5; EV no. 30, pp. 76–80.

38 Hugh of Flavigny, 418/18–419/20; 419/21–420/31; cf. Mansi, 20, 490–98. 39 Hugh of Flavigny, 466/37–468/3; see Chapter 1, note 97. 40 A palaeographical analysis of these items is contained in Healy, ‘The Sources and

Themes of the Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny’, pp. 96–8.


that deals with this event is part of the main text, in the routine text block, and written in clay-coloured ink. The insertions and additions in the Chronicon provide the narrative with more detail and documentary evidence on the career of Hugh of Die but the palaeographical evidence tends to the conclusion that the description of Hugh’s election at Die in 1073 was composed before any direct contact between the bishop and the chronicler. This in itself illustrates the importance of this divinely inspired election for the ‘Gregorian’ party, and the wide attention it received in Lotharingia and Burgundy. Hugh of Die’s election was also incorporated into the narrative of the pro-papal Swabian chronicler Berthold of Reichenau.41

There are two other documentary item in the Chronicon that were probably derived directly from Hugh of Die/Lyons. The first is the bishop’s letter to Margravine Matilda of Tuscany in 1087, criticising the recent election of Abbot Desiderius as Pope Victor III. In this letter, Hugh claimed that Desiderius had been excommunicated for over a year by Pope Gregory VII because of his contact with Henry IV. This was clearly a sore point for the archbishop of Lyons, who repeated his complaint in another letter, again to Matilda of Tuscany, in 1088.42 It seems that, as Pope Victor III, Desiderius did indeed adopt a conciliatory attitude to Henry IV,43 but the hostility of Archbishop Hugh to the new pope may be related to his disappointment at being passed over for elevation to the papacy. In his ‘death-bed testament’, Gregory mentioned Hugh of Lyons as a possible successor to the papacy, along with Cardinal-bishop Odo of Ostia and Bishop Anselm II of Lucca. An abridged version of this ‘death-bed testament’, contained in an unidentified and incomplete letter of Pope Urban II, was inserted into the Chronicon as a free-standing slip of parchment (Schaltzettel) at folio 130b of the autograph manuscript. This insertion by Hugh of Flavigny was a clear attempt to emphasise the prestige of Archbishop Hugh of Lyons, from whom it was possibly derived.44

Letters in Common with the Sélestat Codex 13

It is likely that the pro-papal author Bernold of St-Blasien (†1100) compiled a letter collection as an appendix to his Apologeticus (composed in 1075), some time in late 1075 or early 1076.45 This letter collection survives in fragmentary form in the codex Sélestat, MS 13, ff. 41r–42v, which is possibly an autograph of Bernold.

41 Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernolds von Konstanz 1054–1100, ed. I.S. Robinson, MGH SRG NS, 14 (Hanover, 2003), 315/12–316/19.

42 PL, 157, 514B–516A. 43 Cf. I.S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge,

1990), p. 414. 44 See Chapter 1, notes 92–4 and below notes 118–21. 45 I.S. Robinson, ‘Zur Arbeitsweise Bernolds von Konstanz und seines Kreises:

Untersuchungen zum Schlettstädter Codex 13’, DA, 34 (1978), 65ff.


The items preserved in this fragmentary letter collection are, in the following order: Gregory VII’s letter to Bishop Otto of Constance of late 1075; Gregory’s letter to the clergy and people of Constance, also of late 1075, and a fragment of Gregory’s letter of 11 January 1075 to the south German dukes. These three letters also occur in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny and in the same order as the Sélestat codex.46 In Pertz’s edition of the Chronicon for the MGH, however, a letter of Gregory VII to Count Robert of Flanders interrupts the sequence of these items.47 However, a study of the autograph manuscript of the Chronicon reveals that this letter to Robert of Flanders was a later addition to the text, copied into the left margin of folio 105v. Moreover, the connection between the Chronicon and the letter collection preserved in the Sélestat codex is further demonstrated by the words, written in display capitals, used by Hugh to introduce the third item, the letter to the south German dukes in early 1075: ‘likewise [a letter] to the laity for the carrying-out of the above decrees’ (item ad laicos pro exequendis superioribis statutis).48 This introduction is practically identical to Bernold’s rubric for the incipit of the version of this letter contained in the Sélestat codex. By ‘the above decrees’ (superiora statuta) Bernold meant the provisions of Gregory VII’s 1075 Lent synod against simony and clerical fornication, as contained in the papal letter of February/March 1075 to Bishop Otto of Constance (EV no. 8).49 Bernold’s Apologeticus, immediately preceding the letter collection now partially preserved in Sélestat codex 13, was in large measure intended as a commentary on this early letter to Bishop Otto, which constitutes the first chapter of this treatise. Bernold repeatedly referred to the reforming provisions contained in the letter as ‘decrees’ (statuta). In Hugh’s Chronicon, however, there is no trace of EV 8 or the statuta to which it refers. Hugh’s allusion to superiora statuta is, therefore, meaningless and indicates clearly the chronicler’s somewhat simple-minded dependence on some form of the letter collection that is preserved in the Sélestat codex.50

As in Hugh’s Chronicon, Chapter 39 of the Vita Gregorii Septimi of Paul of Bernried51 (composed c. 1128) introduces Gregory VII’s letter to the south German dukes with a rubric very similar to that found in the Sélestat codex: ‘[a letter] to the

46 Hugh of Flavigny, 426/18–427/7 = EV no. 9, pp. 18–22; Hugh of Flavigny, 427/12–53 = EV no. 10, pp. 22–6; Hugh of Flavigny, 428/11–47 = Reg. 2.45, pp. 182/32–185/4.

47 Hugh of Flavigny, 428/1–9 = Reg. 4.11, pp. 310/12–311/17. 48 Hugh of Flavigny, 428/10. 49 EV no. 8, pp. 16–18. 50 Cf. Robinson, ‘Schlettstädter Codex’, 70, 76–77. John France has commented on

Hugh’s ‘extremely simple-minded’ use of the Histories of Ralph Glaber: Rodulfi Glabri Historiarum Libri Quinque, ed. John France (Oxford, 1989), pp. xc–xci.

51 The editions of the Vita by Gretser (Commentarius Pauli Bernriedensis, Antiqui Scriptoris, de Vita Gregorii VII. Pontificis Maximi: Ingolstadt, 1610, pp. 19–254) and Watterich (Pontificum Romanorum Vitae, 1: Leipzig, 1862, pp. 474–546) are unsatisfactory, as they modify some of the letters of Gregory VII in the Vita, bringing them into line with the Register of Gregory VII. Accordingly, all citations of the Vita will refer to the twelfth- century manuscript of the text: Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 12.


laity for the carrying-out of the above decrees’ (ad laicos pro exequendis superioribus institutis).52 The similarity of the way in which this letter is introduced in the Chronicon and the Vita strongly suggests a common dependence on the letter collection that Bernold annexed to his Apologeticus.53 Moreover, both works omit the last paragraph of this letter as it appears in Gregory VII’s Register:this paragraph was exclusively concerned with Rudolf of Swabia.54 It seems clear however, that Hugh of Flavigny and Paul of Bernried knew of a further version of Gregory’s letter to the south German dukes. In Bernold’s letter collection – which is partially preserved in Sélestat 13 – this letter is addressed solely to Duke Welf of Bavaria, whereas in Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon and Paul of Bernried’s Vita the letter is addressed to all three south German dukes: ‘to the beloved sons in Christ, Dukes Berthold [of Carinthia], Rudolph [of Swabia and] Welf [of Bavaria]’(dilectis in Christo filiis Bethaldo, Rodulpho, Welfoni ducibus). The scholarly opinion on this discrepancy is that Hugh of Flavigny and Paul of Bernried had access to a copy of this letter that was addressed by Gregory VII solely to Duke Berthold of Carinthia. They then fused this version of the letter with the version preserved in the Sélestat collection, in the knowledge that a similar letter had been sent to Rudolf of Swabia. Thus, either or both Hugh and Paul created a composite address wherein Gregory’s letter of early 1075 was directed to all three south-German dukes.55

It is possible to reconstruct the Bernold’s original letter collection from the letters surrounding the three surviving items of this collection in Paul’s Vita and Hugh’s Chronicon. In the Vita Gregorii Septimi of Paul of Bernried, the three items also preserved in the Sélestat codex are preceded by Gregory VII’s letter to Bishop Otto of Constance of February/March 1075, where the pope explained the reforming decrees promulgated at the Lent synod of that year.56 This letter formed the core of Chapter 1 of Bernold’s Apologeticus, which itself preceding the three extant items of the Sélestat letter collection. It seems likely, therefore, that Paul of Bernried was aware of a more complete version of Bernold’s collection than that preserved in Sélestat MS 13, and that Paul’s version contained this papal letter to Bishop Otto of Constance of early 1075.

Bernold’s original letter collection clearly appended rubrics to the letters comprising it and these rubrics explained the purport of the papal message contained therein. As we have seen, in the Sélestat collection, Hugh’s Chronicon and Paul’s Vita the letter to the south German dukes contains the rubric: Item ad laicos pro exequendis superioribus statutis (institutis: Paul of Bernried). In the

52 Vita Gregorii Septimi, c. 39, Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 186r. 53 Cf. Robinson, ‘Schlettstädter Codex’, 76. 54 Reg. 2.45, p. 185/5ff: Quia vero te, Rodulfe dico, ducem et karissimum sancti Petri

filium ….55 Cf. Robinson, ‘Schlettstädter Codex’, 77. 56 Vita Gregorii Septimi, c. 36, Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 185r = EV no. 8,

pp. 16–18.


Vita, this item is immediately followed by another papal letter to a Count Adalbert (possibly of Calw) and his wife of 26 October 1074.57 In this letter, Pope Gregory warned the count and his wife against simoniacal and unchaste clergy: that is, the content of this missive is thematically related to the surviving items of the Sélestat collection. In Paul’s Vita this letter to Count Albert is again preceded by a rubric: ‘similarly [a letter] to laymen in support of the same decrees’ (item ad laicos pro iisdem institutis). The similarity of this rubric to the one previously discussed strongly suggests that the letter to Count Albert in Paul’s Vita formed part of Bernold’s original letter collection.

In the Vita, the immediately following item is another letter of Gregory VII of late 1075, urging the faithful in Germany to resist bishops who tolerate simony and clerical marriage.58 Again, this letter is similar in theme and intent to the elements of Bernold’s collection surviving in the Sélestat codex. It also possesses a rubric similar to the ones already considered: ‘that no one is to obey bishops who condemn or neglect the aforesaid statutes’ (ut nullus obediat episcopis praefata statuta contemnentibus vel negligentibus). This letter is also transcribed in Hugh’s Chronicon, where it immediately follows the letter to the south German dukes.59 In the Chronicon, it is introduced with the following passage in display capitals: ‘similarly [a letter] to all clerics and laymen situated in the kingdom of the Germans concerning the same matter’ (item ad omnes clericos et laicos in regno Theuthonicorum constitutos de eadem re). In both the Vita and the Chronicon,therefore, this letter is transcribed in close proximity to the surviving items of Bernold’s letter collection and in both works this letter is introduced in a manner redolent of the rubric preceding Gregory VII’s letter to the south German dukes in Bernold’s collection: ‘likewise to the laity for the carrying-out of the above statutes’. It is likely, therefore, that Gregory’s letter of late 1075 to the clergy and laity in Germany formed part of Bernold’s original letter collection. One other fact tends to the inclusion of the last three items in the original letter collection: their date. All three were composed before 1076, by which time the Apologeticus and the attached letter collection went into circulation. Thus, there were probably at least six items in Bernold’s original collection: the three items of the extant collection (EV nos 9 and 10, Reg. 2.45), and a further three items that occur in close proximity to the surviving letters of the collection in the Vita of Paul of Bernried and the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny (EV no. 8, Reg. 2.11, EV no. 11).60 Moreover the three further letters are similar in theme to the extant letters of the collection, and are introduced with rubrics and display capitals in a manner similar to the preamble preceding Gregory’s letter to the South German dukes in

57 Vita Gregorii Septimi, c. 40, Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, 186r–v = Reg. 2.11, p. 142/19–143/12.

58 Vita Gregorii Septimi, c. 41, Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 186v = EV no. 11, pp. 26–7.

59 Hugh of Flavigny, 428/49–429/7. 60 Cf. Robinson, ‘Schlettstädter Codex’, 80–81.


the Sélestat codex. Of these three further letters, one is found in Hugh’s Chronicon (EV no. 11), while all three are present in the Vita Gregorii Septimi of Paul of Bernried.

The ‘p’ Collection

Although Hugh of Flavigny and Paul of Bernried incorporated these items from the letter collection of Bernold into their work, it is possible that this collection was not their formal source or fons formalis. Their direct source for these items was more probably a collection which assimilated these Bernoldine items into a larger repository of papal materials. Carl Erdmann identified such a repository: the putative ‘p’ (standing for ‘papalist’) collection, compiled in a pro-papal ambience some time around 1084, and containing two letters of the extant Sélestat collection: the letter of late 1075 to Bishop Otto of Constance, rebuking him for not implementing reform in his diocese (EV no. 9); the letter of late 1075 to the clergy and people of the diocese of Constance, releasing them from their duty of obedience to Bishop Otto (EV no. 10).61 Erdmann wondered why these two letters, with their specific focus on reform in the diocese of Constance, should have been included in ‘p’, a more universal collection composed mainly of papal encyclicals. The answer is revealed in the surviving elements of Bernold’s letter collection, preserved in the Sélestat codex (to which he did not have access). As we have seen, the letters in Bernold’s collection were endowed with generalising rubrics, which emphasised the universal validity of papal reforming measures in 1074–75.62 In the form preserved in Sélestat codex 13, therefore, the letters in Bernold’s collection would have been apt for the compiler of a general collection such as ‘p’. It is in this context that we should return to the presentation of Gregory VII’s letter to the south German dukes (Reg. 2.45) in Hugh’s Chronicon and Paul’s Vita.In both works this letter is addressed to all three south German dukes, indicating that Hugh of Flavigny and Paul of Bernried knew of versions of this letter other then that contained in the Sélestat codex. It has been suggested (see above) that Hugh of Flavigny and Paul of Bernried must have arrived at their composite address to this letter by conflating the version of it preserved in the Sélestat collection with the other versions addressed to Berthold of Carinthia and Rudolf of Swabia. This seems unlikely for it assumes that two authors, working over thirty years apart, amended the Bernoldine letter collection, with precisely the same materials and in precisely the same way. Moreover there seems to have been no direct relationship between the Chronicon and the Vita: the later Vita (composed c. 1128) contains more material pertaining to Bernold’s original letter collection than the earlier Chronicon (composed c. 1085–1102). The simplest explanation would be that Hugh of Flavigny and Paul of Bernried had a common ‘formal source’ (fons

61 Carl Erdmann, ‘Die Bamberger Domschule im Investiturstreit’, ZBLG, 9 (1936), 29. 62 Robinson, ‘Schlettstädter Codex’, 69.


formalis), other than Bernold’s letter collection, for their versions of the papal letter to the south German dukes. The ‘p’ collection incorporated two items from Bernold’s collection (EV, nos 9 and 10) and thus may be the fons formalis used by Hugh of Flavigny and Paul of Bernried for their ‘composite’ version of Gregory’s letter to the dukes.63

Erdmann was able to infer the existence of the putative collection ‘p’ from the materials common to ‘Codex 1’ of the composite Hanover letter collection (Ha) and to MS Wolfenbüttel 1024, Helmstedt (G), the latter probably deriving from an ambience around Mainz.64 These items in common are now listed65 according to the sequence in ‘Codex 1’ of the composite Hanover collection (Ha): Gregory VII’s letter of mid-1076 to the faithful in Germany, reassuring those who doubted the justice of his measures against Henry IV (Ha 7);66 Gregory’s letter of December 1076 to the faithful in Germany, seeking support for his journey to Augsburg (Ha 8);67 Gregory’s letter of December 1076 concerning the same matter (Ha 8a);68 a letter of late January 1077 to all the princes in Germany, giving an account of events at Canossa and containing the oath sworn by Henry IV at Canossa (Ha 9);69 a letter of 31 May 1077, informing the faithful in Germany about the mission of papal legates there (Ha 10);70 a letter of 30 September 1077 to Archbishop Udo of Trier, explaining papal negotiations with Henry IV (Ha 11);71

the sentence of excommunication pronounced against Henry IV at the Lent synod of 1080 (Ha 13);72 an excerpt from the Lent synod held at Rome in 1078 on the

63 It is important to stress the direct relationship between the ‘p’ collection and Bernold’s collection. That is, they did not merely have items in common. It is the opinion of Robinson, ‘Schlettstädter Codex’, 81, that the compiler of Erdmann’s putative collection ‘p’ knew and used Bernold’s letter collection, now preserved in fragmentary form in Sélestat codex 13.

64 Erdmann, ‘Bamberger Domschule’, 10–11. 65 Ibid., 12–14, where Erdmann gave a more complete description concerning the

dissemination of these letters. There is a further description of the items comprising Ha in Briefsammlungen der Zeit Heinrichs IV. (MGH Briefe der Deutschen Kaiserzeit, 5: Weimar, 1950), ed. C. Erdmann and N. Fickermann, pp. 249–58.

66 EV no. 14, pp. 32–41; Hugh of Flavigny, 439/1–440/39; Vita Gregorii, cc. 77–8,Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, ff. 191r–192r.

67 EV no. 18, pp. 48–9; Hugh of Flavigny, 444/25–36; Vita Gregorii, c. 83,Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 192v.

68 EV no. 17, pp. 47–8; Vita Gregorii, c. 83, Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 192v.

69 Reg. 4.12, 4.12a, pp. 312/6–315/16; Hugh of Flavigny (both items), 445/4–445/51; Vita Gregorii, c. 84 (both items), Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, ff. 192v–193r.

70 Reg. 4.24, pp. 337–338/26; Hugh of Flavigny, 447/43–448/22. 71 Reg. 5.7, pp. 356/15–358/12. 72 Reg. 7.14a, pp. 483–487/20; Hugh of Flavigny, 451/42–453/3; Vita Gregorii, c. 107,

Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 196v.


penalties of contact with excommunicates (Ha 14);73 a letter of 1080 from Bishop Theoderic of Verdun to Egilbert of Trier, explaining Theoderic’s rejection of Pope Gregory VII at the the recent synod of Mainz (Ha 16);74 Gregory VII’s letter of late 1075 to Bishop Otto of Constance (Ha 17);75 Gregory’s letter, also of late 1075, to the clergy and laity in the diocese of Constance (Ha 18);76 a letter of Bishop Gebhard of Salzburg to Bishop Hermann of Metz concerning the election of the anti-pope Wibert of Ravenna in 1084 (Ha 19);77 Henry IV’s letter to the bishops and archbishops of Germany, inviting them to the synod of Worms on January 1076 (Ha 20);78 the letter of the German bishops at Worms renouncing Gregory VII (Ha 21),79 and Henry IV’s letter to the German princes concerning his ‘promise’ at Oppenheim (Ha 25).80

From the letters common to Ha and G, Erdmann was able to speculate about the characteristics of the putative collection ‘p’. The items range from the years 1075–84, and are, in the main, general statements in favour of the programme of reform in Germany in the pontificate of Gregory VII (1073–85). Moreover, the collection ‘p’ was compiled in Germany and only 4 of the 15 common items are also found in the Register of Gregory VII (Reg. 4.12; 4.24; 5.7; 7.14a) and all have variants in common with the versions preserved by the recipients (Empfängerüberlieferung)of these letters. Insofar as the recipients of these letters are precisely defined – with the exception of the two items relating to the diocese of Constance – we are led to Lotharingia, where Erdmann thinks the collection was compiled. In terms of the provenance of the collection it is significant that nine of these items are found in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny (seven are found in the Vita of Paul of Bernried).81 The 15 items common to Ha and G are probably not a complete statement of the contents of ‘p’. For example, the letter Ha 12, from the papal legate Bernard of Marseilles to Archbishop Udo of Trier and his suffragans (1077), is not found in G.82 However, Ha 12 is closely related in terms of content to the preceding items Ha 10 and Ha 11, which detail Gregory’s plans for his legates in Germany in 1077. Moreover Ha 12, like Ha 11, was addressed to Archbishop Udo of Trier. Ha 10 and Ha 11 are also found in G and therefore are included in the

73 Reg. 5.14a, pp. 372/8–373/13; Hugh of Flavigny, 442/51–443/14. 74 See Chapter 2, note 159. 75 EV no. 9, pp. 18–22; Hugh of Flavigny, 426/18–427/7; Vita Gregorii, c. 37,

Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 185r–v. 76 EV no. 10, pp. 22–6; Hugh of Flavigny, 427/12–53; Vita Gregorii, c. 38,

Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, ff. 185v–186r. 77 Hugh of Flavigny, 459/43–460/8. 78 Die Briefe Heinrichs IV., ed. Carl Erdmann, MGH DM, 1, no. 13, pp. 17–20. 79 Ibid., Appendix A, pp. 65–8. 80 Ibid., no. 14, pp. 20–21. 81 Erdmann, ‘Bamberger Domschule’, 29. 82 Briefsammlungen der Zeit Heinrichs IV., ed. C. Erdmann and N. Fickermann, (MGH

Briefe der deutschen Kaiserzeit, 5: Weimar, 1950), Hildesheimer Briefe no. 33, pp. 69–72.


collection ‘p’. In respect of its similarity to these two letters it is not unlikely that Ha 12 also formed part of the collection ‘p’.83

Erdmann’s hypothesis about the lost collection ‘p’ has received wide acclaim but is incomplete in one important respect.84 Erdmann constructed his putative collection from the items common to Ha and G. However, the ‘p’ collection should be augmented with the items common to Ha and the Codex Udalrici (compiled c.1125), which are not present in G: this is because the Codex Udalrici shares a common ancestor with G.85 This important conclusion, which has only been noticed en passant,86 allows us to supplement the ‘p’ collection with the following items: Gregory VII’s letter to Henry IV in 1075 concerning Bamberg (Ha 3);87

Gregory VII’s letter of 1075 to the clergy and people in the diocese of Bamberg (Reg. 3.1: Ha 4);88 Gregory’s letter of 1075 to Siegfried of Mainz concerning Bamberg (Reg. 3.2: Ha 5);89 the letter of Bishop Hermann of Bamberg to Gregory VII of 1075 (Ha 15);90 the decree of the synod of Brixen, 1080, deposing Gregory VII (Ha 22/3);91 the Promissio of Henry IV to Gregory VII in 1076 (Ha 26);92 the synodal encyclical of the anti-pope Wibert of Ravenna in 1089 (Ha 27/8);93 the Altercatio inter Urbanum et Clementem, a polemic of 1091 (Ha 31);94 the polemic of Pseudo-Udalrich of c. 1074–8 (Ha 37),95 and the ‘death-bed Testament’ of Gregory VII (Ha 38).96

The supplementary material must perforce change our understanding of collection ‘p’. Four of these extra items pertain to the case of Bishop Hermann of Bamberg. The case of Bishop Hermann of Bamberg was analogous to that of

83 Erdmann, ‘Bamberger Domschule’, 28 n. 69. 84 Cowdrey in his introduction to EV, p. xxiv, hails Erdmann’s ‘brilliant elucidation’ of

the relations between Ha, G, and the Codex Udalrici.85 Erdmann, ‘Bamberger Domschule’, 24–9, outlines the now lost ancestor of Ha = ha,

and the now lost ancestor of G and the Codex Udalrici = g. Both ha and g have a common parent in the papalist collection ‘p’. However, because G and the Codex Udalrici have a common ancestry, Erdmann should have included in the putative collection ‘p’ all the items common to Ha and the Codex Udalrici.

86 I.S. Robinson, ‘The Dissemination of the Letters of Pope Gregory VII during the Investiture Contest’, JEH, 34 (1983), 180 n. 22.

87 Reg. 3.3, pp. 246/13–247/31. 88 Reg. 3.1, pp. 242/19–244/6. 89 Reg. 3.2, p. 244/20–245/18. 90 Cf. Briefsammlungen der Zeit Heinrichs IV., p. 250, no. 15. 91 Die Briefe Heinrichs IV., Appendix C, pp. 69–73; for Hugh of Flavigny’s possible

knowledge of the accusations made against Gregory VII at Brixen see Chapter 1, note 13. 92 Ibid., Appendix B, p. 69. 93 MGH Libelli, 1, 622. 94 Ibid., 2, 169. 95 Ibid., 1, 255. 96 See below note 118–21. For the list of items common to Ha and the Codex Udalrici

see Erdmann, ‘Bamberger Domschule’, 12–14.


Bishop Otto of Constance and the incorporation of these Bamberg materials into ‘p’ is consonant with the probable desire of the anonymous compiler to provide a collection of materials on episcopal attitudes to ‘Gregorian’ reform in Germany. The supplementary material throws into doubt the ‘papalist’ orientation of ‘p’, which must have contained, among other things, the Brixen decree of 1080 deposing Gregory VII, and the synodal encyclical of the antipope Wibert of Ravenna in 1089. The collection ‘p’ must also have been compiled later than Erdmann supposed: the Altercatio inter Urbanum et Clementem dates from 1091, seven years after the last item of Erdmann’s ‘p’ collection. Finally, the extra material relating to Bamberg, when considered with the items in ‘p’ relating to Bishop Otto of Constance, dilutes Erdmann’s hypothesis of a Lotharingian provenance for ‘p’. Nevertheless, the now lost ‘p’ collection, or something very like it, may explain the origin of the letters of Gregory VII common to Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon and Paul of Bernried’s Vita. Moreover it appears that neither Hugh of Flavigny nor Paul of Bernried used a copy of Gregory VII’s Register.97 It will be argued that Hugh of Flavigny and Paul of Bernried used a common source for these items. Fourteen letters of Gregory VII between 1075 and 1080 are common to the Chronicon and the Vita, and these letters were integrated into the respective narratives in very similar ways. Erdmann’s ‘p’ collection remains the starting point but reference will also be made to the ‘primitive’ local collections that often contained similar materials, and which were probably compiled in the same ‘propagandist’ spirit. The first logical conclusion stemming from Erdmann’s hypothesis is that the compiler of ‘p’ assimilated Bernold’s letter collection, not merely the three surviving letters extant in Sélestat codex 13, but also the three further letters found in close proximity to these in the Chronicon of Hugh and in Paul of Bernried. Thus the collection ‘p’ may have been the fons formalis for the six items of Bernold’s letter collection in Paul of Bernried, and the four items of that collection in the Chronicon.

97 This is essentially the thesis of Horst Fuhrmann’s article, which examined the textual variants in the letters of Gregory VII common to the Vita and the Register: ‘Zur Benutzung des Registers Gregors VII. durch Paul Von Bernried’, SG, 5 (1956), 299–312. Hartmut Hoffmann, ‘Zum Register und zu den Briefen Papst Gregors VII.’, DA, 32 (1976), 115–17, adopted Fuhrmann’s analytical method in relation to the letters of Gregory VII found in the Chronicon. In the light of these two articles, there are no a priori grounds for assuming that either Hugh of Flavigny or Paul of Bernried had access to a copy of the Register of Gregory VII. In his introduction to Gregory VII’s Register, pp. xii–xiv, Caspar advanced the view that Hugh of Flavigny – at least in respect of some of the papal letters in the Chronicon – had access to a copy of the Register. He was responding to W.M. Peitz, who, in 1911, argued that Hugh was dependent on Empfängerüberlieferung for the letters of Gregory VII in the Chronicon: ‘Das Originalregister Gregors VII. im vatikanischen Archiv’, Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, philosophisch-historisch Klasse,165 (1911), 132.


One of the items contained in the ‘p’ collection is Gregory VII’s letter of mid-1076, reassuring the faithful in Germany about the justice of his excommunication of Henry IV.98 In the Chronicon, this letter is part of a series of papal letters explaining Gregory’s punishment of Henry IV to the faithful in Germany in 1076.99

Two of these letters are also found in Paul of Bernried,100 and in the case of these two items there is a strong presumption of a common source for the Chronicon and the Vita. The second of these items is the letter of Gregory VII to the faithful in late February 1076 (Reg. 3.6), where the pope concluded by referring to an attached document: his sentence of deposition, pronounced against Henry IV at the Lent synod of 1076 (Reg. 3.6a). However, neither Hugh of Flavigny nor Paul of Bernried cited the formal document of deposition. Paul of Bernried’s Vita now gives the text of EV 14, which contains a detailed justification by Gregory VII of his treatment of Henry IV; Hugh of Flavigny referred his reader to the same letter which he had previously transcribed into the Chronicon.101 Thus, in two authors who probably had access to the collection ‘p’, a letter which was definitely in that collection (EV 14) is closely related to another letter of similar scope and intent (Reg. 3.6). According to the logic of Erdmann’s hypothesis, this letter (Reg. 3.6) may also have been in the ‘p’ collection. We can go further and speculate that the two other letters in this series in Hugh’s Chronicon (Reg. 4.1; EV 15) may also have been contained in ‘p’. It is certainly noteworthy that these two papal letters also deal with the punishment of Henry IV, that they again date from 1076, and that they are general encyclicals to the faithful in the German empire, a supposed characteristic of the ‘p’ collection. Four items of the ‘p’ collection deal with events surrounding the meeting of Gregory VII and Henry IV at Canossa: the first two date from December 1076 and concern the pope’s planned journey to Augsburg,102 the third is a letter of Gregory VII of late January 1077, giving an account of events at Canossa and attaching a copy of the oath sworn there by Henry IV.103 Paul of Bernried gives three of these documents in full, the only exception being the papal summary of events at Canossa described in Reg. 4.12. Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon has all these documents except for the first (EV 17): the common dependence of Hugh and Paul

98 EV no. 14, pp. 32–41. 99 EV no. 14 = Hugh of Flavigny, 439/1–440/39; Reg. 4.1 = Hugh of Flavigny, 440/45–

441/45; EV no. 15 = Hugh of Flavigny, 442/12–24; Reg. 3.6 = Hugh of Flavigny, 442/31–49.

100 EV no. 14 and Reg. 3.6 = Vita Gregorii, cc. 77–8, Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, ff. 191r–192r.

101 It was Caspar’s opinion in his edition of Gregory VII’s Register, p. 255/41–3, that the allusion at the end of Reg. 3.6 referred to 3.6a: ‘Die Verbindung von 3.6 mit JL 4999 (that is, EV 14) ist aus sachlichen Gründen als willkürliche Kombination Hugos …’.

102 EV no. 17, pp. 46–8 = Vita Gregorii, c. 83, Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 192v; EV no. 18, pp. 48–9 = Hugh of Flavigny, 444/25–36; Vita Gregorii, c. 83.

103 Reg. 4.12 and 4.12a. Both items are contained in Hugh’s Chronicon and Paul’s Vita:see above note 69.


on the ‘p’ collection for these items is highly probable. Hugh attached another item to this series of letters dealing with the events at Canossa. Directly after the oath sworn by Henry IV, the Chronicon gives the text of another letter of Gregory VII, dated February–March 1077, where the pope described the events at Canossa and explaining his delay in coming to Germany.104 The similarity of this letter to Reg.4.12, which was contained in the ‘p’ collection, has been noticed.105 EV 19 was introduced by Hugh of Flavigny as a scornful commentary on Henry IV’s fidelity to his oath at Canossa: ‘how little the king attended to his oath is indicated by this letter’.106 If not part of the original ‘p’ collection, EV 19 was certainly transcribed into the Chronicon in the company of items that probably did derive from that collection. Again, the scope of the letter, addressed to all the faithful in Germany, is consonant with the characteristics of ‘p’. The two items of the ‘p’ collection relating to Gregory’s planned journey to Augsburg in early 1077 (EV 17 and 18) are found in a ‘primitive’ pro-papal collection, now preserved in a thirteenth century codex at Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek 201.107 This Leipzig collection is a good example of the way in which ‘primitive’ local collections may have fed into ‘p’, thus providing a common source for Hugh of Flavigny and Paul of Bernried. The Leipzig codex also contains the three papal letters of 1075 relating to the excommunication and deposition of Bishop Hermann of Bamberg (Reg. 3.3, 3.1, 3.2): these three letters are part of the supplementary material which Erdmann should have included in the ‘p’ collection. Codex 201 also contains an excerpt on contact with excommunicates from Reg. 5.14a describing the Lent synod at Rome in 1078. This last item is also found in Hugh’s Chronicon and was thought by Erdmann to be part of the ‘p’ collection.108 It should also be pointed out that the Vita Gregorii Septimi of Paul of Bernried contains Chapter 6 of the record of the same Lent synod of 1078, DeCausa Regis, which itself is very similar to Gregory’s letter to the faithful in Germany of late November 1078.109 Like ‘p’, the ‘primitive’ Leipzig collection contains material pertaining to the episcopal implementation of ‘Gregorian’ reform in Germany in 1075 (that is, the materials relating to Bamberg, which are themselves analogous to the items relating to the case of Bishop Otto of Constance), together with more general material (Rundschreiben) describing the conflict of Gregory VII and Henry IV in 1076–77. The Leipzig collection was certainly compiled in a fashion similar to the propagandist ‘p’ collection and it is

104 EV no. 19, pp. 50–54 = Hugh of Flavigny, 445/53–446/37. 105 See Cowdrey’s comments in EV, p. 50. 106 Hugh of Flavigny, 445/52: Quod sacramentum quam parum rex attenderit, hec

epistola notat .... 107 Cf. Robinson, ‘Dissemination’, 179–80. 108 Reg. 5.14a, pp. 372/8–373/13: Ordinationes vero illorum, qui ab excommunicatis

sunt ordinati …; Hugh of Flavigny, 442/51–443/14; Cf. Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernolds von Konstanz, 354/22–355/22.

109 EV no. 25, pp. 64–5.


possible that ‘p’ itself may have been the ultimate outcome of such ‘primitive’ collections.

Three items of the ‘p’ collection deal with the activities of Gregory’s legates in Germany in 1077. These are Gregory’s letter of 31 May 1077, informing the faithful in Germany about the mission of his legates (Reg. 4.24); Gregory’s letter to Archbishop Udo of Trier of 30 September 1077, which, among other matters, deals with the same matter (Reg. 5.7), and the letter of the papal legate Bernard of Marseilles to Archbishop Udo of Trier and his suffragans in 1077 (Ha 12). It is significant that documents of this kind – relating to papal legatine activity in Germany in the years 1077–79 – form a major part of the Chronicon and of the Vita. Hugh’s Chronicon contains the first item (Reg. 4.24) of this sequence as part of a series of seven letters pertaining to the same theme. Four letters of this series are also contained in the Vita of Paul of Bernried, in roughly the same sequence.110

In Hugh’s Chronicon the first letter on this theme is Gregory VII’s communication of 31 May 1077 to the papal legates in Germany, Cardinal-deacon Bernard and Abbot Bernard of Marseilles, instructing them to secure safe passage for Gregory’s planned journey to Germany (Reg. 4.23). It is a companion letter to an item issued on the same date to the faithful in Germany (Reg. 4.24), which is contained in the Chronicon and which formed part of the collection ‘p’. Reg. 4.23 is also found in the ‘Königsberg fragment’, part of a ‘Gregorian’ collection that was contemporary with Bernold’s letter collection. Moreover, in the ‘Königsberg fragment’ – as in the Chronicon – Reg. 4.23 is found in the company of an item that Erdmann thought was in ‘p’: Gregory’s letter of 1076 explaining to the faithful his reasons for excommunicating Henry IV (EV 14).111 It seems possible to suggest, therefore, that Reg. 4.23 formed part of ‘p’, or some similar collection, on the basis of its content and the material which surrounds this letter in Hugh’s Chronicon and the ‘Königsberg fragment’.

The third item in the Chronicon describing legatine activity in 1077–78 is the letter of Gregory VII to all the faithful in Germany, informing them of the decrees of the Lent synod of March 1078 (Reg. 5.15). In Hugh’s Chronicon and Paul of Bernried’s Vita, this letter precedes and explains Reg. 5.16, a letter of the same date from Gregory VII to Archbishop Udo of Trier, announcing his plans to settle affairs in Germany. These two items were companion letters and occur in the same sequence in the narratives of Hugh of Flavigny and Paul of Bernried.

The fifth item of the sequence in the Chronicon is a letter of late November 1078 to all in the German kingdom, announcing Gregory’s intention to promote

110 Reg. 4.23 = Hugh of Flavigny, p. 447/9–41; Reg. 4.24 = Hugh of Flavigny, 447/43–448/22; Reg. 5.15 = Hugh of Flavigny, 448/36–449/12 = Vita Gregorii c. 100; Reg. 5.16 = Hugh of Flavigny, 449/14–46 = Vita Gregorii c. 101; EV 25 = Hugh of Flavigny, 449/50–450/19 = Vita Gregorii c. 105; EV 31 = Hugh of Flavigny, 450/22–451/5 = Vita Gregorii c. 103; Reg. 7.3 = Hugh of Flavigny, 451/15–34.

111 EV no. 14, pp. 32–41 = Hugh of Flavigny, 439/1–440/39; cf. Robinson, ‘Dissemination’, 177–8.


peace in Germany through his legates (EV 25). This letter is also found in the pro-papal ‘propagandist’ collection, compiled in the eleventh century and preserved in codex 93 of the episcopal archives of Trier.112 It is followed in the Chronicon by Gregory VII’s letter of July–October 1079 to the legates Cardinal Peter of Albano and Bishop Udalric of Padua (EV 31), containing details of complaints against these legates. The order of these last two letters is inverted in Paul of Bernried’s Vita and Paul transcribed a truncated version of EV 31 which confuses Udalric of Padua with Altmann of Passau. However, Paul probably knew more of this letter than the limited portion offered in the Vita. He explicitly cites it as an excerpt: ‘[Pope Gregory VII], writing on this matter, said, among other things …’.113 The last item of this sequence in the Chronicon is a letter of Gregory to the faithful in Germany, explaining his policy and that of his legates (Reg. 7.3).

With the exception of Reg. 4.24 none of these letters, concerning papal legatine activity in Germany, has been identified by Erdmann as belonging in the ‘p’ collection. It should be borne in mind that all these letters are thematically similar to the three items in ‘p’ concerning legatine activity. Moreover, they were all issued at roughly the same time as the three relevant letters in ‘p’. Hugh of Flavigny and Paul of Bernried have four of these items in common, and in broadly the same sequence, which suggests a common source for the letters on legatine activity in Germany in the Chronicon and the Vita. That ‘p’ could be this common source is suggested by the identities of Archbishop Udo of Trier as the recipient of Reg. 5.16 (found in both the Chronicon and the Vita), and that of Bernard of Marseilles as the recipient of Reg. 4.23 (found in the Chronicon). These men feature in two of the three letters of ‘p’ dealing with legatine affairs in Germany in 1077. Their involvement in the letters Reg. 5.16 and 4.23 may indicate that these two letters – and by extension the other five letters in the sequence just enumerated – formed part of ‘p’. This argument is more compelling in the case of Reg. 5.16, addressed to Udo of Trier, if Erdmann’s hypothesis about a Lotharingian provenance for ‘p’ is correct.

In both the Chronicon and the Vita, the series of papal letters dealing with legatine activity in Germany, 1077–79, is followed by an excerpt from Gregory VII’s Lent synod of 1080, when the pope excommunicated Henry IV for a second time.114 Erdmann included this decree in the collection ‘p’, and the definitive breach it represents is presented in both narratives as the inevitable consequence of Henry IV’s sinful behaviour. Hugh of Flavigny and Paul of Bernried were at pains to point out that Gregory was always reluctant to pronounce his anathema against Henry IV, and that he only did so under the compulsion of ‘righteousness’ (iustitia): Paul says that Gregory pronounced the second excommunication with a

112 Cf. Robinson, ‘Dissemination’, 179. 113 Vita Gregorii, c.103, Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 195v: … de eodem

negotio scribens inter caetera dicit …. 114 Reg. 7.14a, p. 483–487/20 = Hugh of Flavigny, 451/42–453/3 = Vita Gregorii, c.

107, Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 196v.


‘deep groan’.115 In both narratives the letters of Gregory VII before the fateful Lent synod of 1080 are presented as a defence of papal policy in Germany in the period 1076–80. In this sense the letters of Gregory VII are presented polemically in the Chronicon and the Vita to justify the second papal excommunication of Henry IV, an action widely perceived as unjust.116

The final item common to the Chronicon and the Vita is the account of Gregory VII’s ‘death-bed testament’, an item that Erdmann should have included in ‘p’ on account of its occurrence in Ha and the Codex Udalrici.117 Neither version is complete when compared with the fullest account of Gregory’s last words, contained in letter 35 of the twelfth-century Hildesheim letter collection.118 There are discrepancies between the two accounts however. Hugh of Flavigny, who apparently took his account from an unidentified letter of Pope Urban II, indicated that the possible successors to Gregory VII were Bishop Anselm II of Lucca, Cardinal-bishop Odo of Ostia (the future Urban II) and Archbishop Hugh of Lyons. Erdmann thought that it was ‘impossible’ that Hugh of Flavigny obtained his version of Gregory’s final words in the form of a papal letter: he thought it more likely that this item was similar to the exhortatory letters circulating among the followers of Gregory VII, typified by the letter of Gebhard of Salzburg to Hermann of Metz.119 Paul of Bernried’s account omits Anselm II of Lucca in the list of possible candidates for the papal office in favour of Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino, who did actually succeed Gregory VII as Pope Victor III in 1086. Perhaps, writing in 1128, Paul of Bernried modified his account of Gregory’s last words in the knowledge that Anselm of Lucca was destined to die in 1086: the inclusion of Anselm as one of the three possible successors would have diminished Gregory VII’s prophetic gift, which was such an integral part of the Vita. Paul of Bernried may also have been influenced by a tradition that modified the ‘death-bed testament’ of Gregory VII in favour of Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino; this

115 Vita Gregorii, c.107, Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 196v: … gravicum dolore et gemitu parturivit et auscultante atque aspirante in concilio tandem in haec verba prorupit ‘Beate Petre princeps Apostolorum …’; cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 441/52, where the chronicler glossed one of Gregory’s letters with the statement that the pope was always careful not to act precipitately against the king: sollicitus etiam erat juxta beatum Ambrosium, ne quid temere aut incuriose ageret ….

116 Cf. Carl Mirbt, Die Publizistik im Zeitalter Gregors VII. (Leipzig, 1894), p. 147. 117 Hugh of Flavigny, 466/23–33; Vita Gregorii, cc. 109–10, Heiligenkreuz,

Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 197r. 118 Briefsammlungen der Zeit Heinrichs IV., Hildesheimer Briefe no. 35, pp. 75–6. 119 Carl Erdmann, Studien zur Briefliteratur Deutschlands im elften Jahrhundert (MGH

Schriften, 1: Stuttgart, 1938), p. 171; the letter of Gebhard of Salzburg to Hermann of Metz in 1084 is contained in Hugh of Flavigny, 459/43–460/8.


modification can be seen in the account of Gregory’s final words contained in the Montecassino chronicle.120

With the exception of the last item, which was inserted in the Chronicon in the form of a free-standing slip of parchment (Schaltzettel), the items common to the Chronicon and the Vita were transcribed into the Chronicon as part of the main text, in a uniform text block of 30 lines. That is to say, the palaeographical evidence arising from Hugh’s autograph manuscript permits the hypothesis that these items were integrated into the Chronicon from a single letter collection. That this collection might be the putative ‘p’ is suggested by the thematic similarity of these items to the letters that Erdmann thought were contained in ‘p’. If this were so, the collection ‘p’ must have been substantially larger than Erdmann thought, especially as Erdmann failed to take account of the items common to Ha and the Codex Udalrici in his hypothesis. Thus, irrespective of the merits of the ‘p’ hypothesis in relation to the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny, the collection ‘p’ must have comprised more than the 15 items advanced by Erdmann.

One further letter of Gregory VII is common to the Chronicon and the Vita: the letter of 23 April 1073, informing Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino of his election as pope.121 It used to be thought that the presence of this letter in the Chronicon indicated Hugh’s possession of a copy of Gregory VII’s Register.122

However, the presence of this item in the Vita of Paul of Bernried, in the company of a similar letter to Duke Godfrey IV of Lower Lorraine,123 suggests that Gregory’s letters describing his election as pope were transmitted in copies circulating outside the Register (Empfängerüberlieferung).

Five letters in the Chronicon remain for consideration. Two of these are letters of Gregory VII, which were transmitted by papal agents personally known to Hugh of Flavigny. The first is the famous second doctrinal letter to Bishop Hermann of Metz, which was brought from Rome to Lotharingia by Hugh’s first abbot, Rudolf of St-Vanne.124 Hugh’s presumably had access to a copy of this letter by virtue of his close connection with the agent of transmission, Rudolf, the abbot at St-Vanne.125 The second is Gregory’s letter of July–November 1084 to all the faithful,

120 Cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, ‘Death-bed Testaments’, Fälschungen im Mittelalter, Vol. 4(MGH Schriften, 33: Hanover, 1998), pp. 711–12; Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, 3.65, ed. H. Hoffmann, MGH SS, 34, 447/5–7.

121 Reg. 1.1, pp. 3/11–4/13 = Hugh of Flavigny, 422/34–423/2 = Vita Gregorii, c. 28,Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 184r.

122 The debate is summarised in Hoffmann, ‘Zum Register und zu den Briefen Gregors VII.’, 110ff.

123 Reg. 1.9, p. 14/3–15/16 = Vita Gregorii, c. 29, Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 184r.

124 Reg. 8.21, pp. 546/13–562/25 = Hugh of Flavigny, 453/57–458/2; See Chapter 2, note 168.

125 Cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 453/43–4: … hanc ei (sc. Hermann of Metz) ab urbe mitissimus doctor misit epistolam per Rodulfum abbatem Virdunensis Monasterii ….


explaining the plight of the Church.126 This letter was transmitted into France by Cardinal Peter of Albano and Prince Gisulf of Salerno, into Germany by Cardinal Odo of Ostia (the future Pope Urban II) and into Spain and Portugal by Hugh’s mentor, Abbot Jarento of St-Bénigne.127 Again, Hugh’s highly detailed account of the transmission of this letter128 is probably explained by his close relationship with Jarento after 1085 and Hugh’s description of its dissemination is paralleled by Bernold of St-Blasien’s account of Cardinal-bishop Odo of Ostia’s journey into Germany in 1084.129 The implementation of papal policy through the legatine dissemination of letters, described in the chronicles of Hugh of Flavigny and Bernold of St-Blasien, is corroborated in Bruno of Merseburg’s De Bello Saxonico.Bruno described how Gregory VII attempted to organise political affairs in Germany in 1077 through letters to Cardinal-deacon Bernard and Abbot Bernard of St-Victor.130

Two items in the Chronicon relate to Margravine Matilda of Tuscany. The first is an excerpt from Gregory’s letter to the margravine of 16 February 1074.131 A more complete copy of this letter than that preserved in Gregory VII’s Register is found in codex 676 of the monastic library of St-Gall, a manuscript that bears traces of the work of Bernold of St-Blasien.132 This more complete copy of the letter is surrounded in the St-Gall codex with canon law sententie – some, for example, from The 74 Titles – very similar to ‘authorities’ found in Hugh’s Chronicon.133 While not indicating a direct connection with the version found in the Chronicon, the St-Gall copy of Gregory’s letter to Margravine Matilda suggests that this item circulated outside of the Register in the company of polemical material. Reg. 1.47 was transcribed into the autograph manuscript of the Chronicon on folio 130r: the other item relating to Matilda of Tuscany (see below) was transcribed on 130v, suggesting perhaps that the two Matildine items were copied into the autograph manuscript at the same time and hence derive from the same source.

Hugh’s Chronicon also contains the only known extant letter of Margravine Matilda of Tuscany.134 This letter of 1084 was directed to all the faithful in the German kingdom, warning them that the papal seal had been stolen recently by the

126 EV no. 54, pp. 128–34 = Hugh of Flavigny, 464/6–465/16. 127 Cf. Robinson, ‘Dissemination’, 189 n. 70. 128 Cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 463/55–464/5. 129 Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernolds von Konstanz, 445/5–12. 130 Brunos Buch vom Sachsenkrieg, c. 104, ed. H.-E. Lohmann (MGH DM, 2: Leipzig,

1937), p. 93/16–18: [Gregorius VII.] per litteras mandavit, ut concilio facto rex uterque convocatus audiatur et, quem iustitia regnare permiserit, altero deposito tutus in regno confirmetur.

131 Reg. 1.47, pp. 71/23–72/12; Hugh of Flavigny, 462/26–39. 132 Cf. J. Autenrieth, ‘Der bisher unbekannte Schluss des Briefes Gregors VII. an

Mathilde von Tuscien von 16. Februar 1074 (Reg. 1.47)’, DA, 13 (1957), 534. 133 Ibid., 536.; for Hugh’s possible use of the 74 Titles, see below, notes 180–99. 134 Hugh of Flavigny, 463/5–12.


supporters of Henry IV. It may have been composed by Bishop Anselm II of Lucca: certain elements of this letter display similarities with some of the known work of Anselm, Matilda’s spiritual adviser. In the letter the anti-pope Wibert of Ravenna is referred to as ‘Barrabas the Thief’ (Barrabas Latro), with the clear implication that the deposed Gregory VII stood in the place of Christ. The same comparison was made by Bishop Anselm II of Lucca in his treatise on the Psalms, partially preserved in c. 112 of the Vita Gregorii Septimi of Paul of Bernried. In his treatise, Anselm explored the meaning of Psalm 2:2: ‘the kings of the earth stood by and the princes gathered together’. This passage was traditionally given a christological interpretation. ‘The kings’ were generally understood to signify Pontius Pilate, while ‘the princes’ of the Psalm were understood to signify the priests and Pharisees who delivered Christ to him.135 However, Anselm expanded upon this traditional interpretation. Christ signified ‘St Peter and his vicar Gregory’, Pilate signified Henry IV, while the priests and Pharisees were the Henrician bishops who supported the antipope Wibert. This expanded interpretation allowed Anselm to exclaim: ‘is not Barrabas chosen again and Christ given up to death by Pilate, when Wibert of Ravenna is elected and Pope Gregory rejected?’.136 The characterisation of Wibert as Barrabas here was thus a form of ‘political allegory’ occurring with precisely the same meaning as in the letter of Matilda of Tuscany. The hypothesis of Anselm’s authorship of Matilda’s sole surviving letter is corroborated by the margravine’s warning in the letter that anyone using the stolen seal of Gregory VII should be considered a ‘false witness’ (falsus testis).137 In Anselm’s exegesis on Psalm 2:2 he intoned: ‘Does it not seem to you that they are holding a council in the house of Pilate to deliver up Christ to death, when Henry has provided so many false witnesses against the supreme pontiff?’ The ‘false witnesses’ (falsi testi) here probably refer to the council of Brixen on 15 June 1080 when Henry IV and the bishops loyal to him set up Wibert of Ravenna as anti-pope Clement III.

In the autograph manuscript of Hugh’s Chronicon, Matilda’s letter to the faithful ends on line 23 of f. 130v (in an unusually large text block of 48 lines). After the concluding word Estote, there is the symbol Γ in the text, a signe-de-renvoi corresponding to the same symbol on the Schaltzettel f. 130b, which introduces Hugh’s version of Gregory VII’s ‘death-bed testament’ (Dixit Urbanus

135 Cf. Cassiodorus, Expositio in Psalmos, PL, 70, 36D–37A; I.S. Robinson, The Papal Reform of the Eleventh Century. Lives of Pope Leo IX and Pope Gregory VII (Manchester, 2004), pp. 355–6.

136 Heiligenkreuz, Stiftsbibliothek 12, f. 197v: Nonne tibi videntur principes sacerdotum in domo Pilati colligere concilium ut Christum morti tradant, cum tot falsos testes contra summum pontificem Henricus adornavit, cum omnes clamant ‘Reus estmortis’? Nonne iterum Barrabas eligitur, et Christus sub Pilato morti addicitur, cum Ravennas Guibertus eligitur et Papa Gregorius reprobatur?

137 Hugh of Flavigny, 463/9–10: … si igitur aliquid vobiscum vel contra vos per eum vult operari, eum falsum testem nolite dubitare ….


in quadam epistola sua …). However, in his edition of the Chronicon for the MGH, Pertz inserted this putative letter of Urban II after Hugh’s account of the death of Gregory VII (p. 466/23), when, based on manuscript evidence, it should have been inserted directly after Matilda’s letter to the faithful (p. 463/12). This point is significant because Cowdrey has noticed that Gregory’s ‘death-bed testament’ is preserved in the Hildesheim collection, which also includes items connected with Matilda of Tuscany and Bishop Anselm II of Lucca. The ‘death-bed testament’ may even have been directed to, or composed among, the circle of Matilda of Tuscany and Anselm of Lucca.138 Thus the ‘death-bed testament’ in Hugh’s Chronicon may have been part of a complex of materials – including the two Matildine items in the Chronicon – which ultimately found its way into the Hildesheim letter collection. A common denominator of all the Matildine items in the Chronicon is Hugh of Die/Lyons. He wrote two letters to Matilda, one of which is preserved in the Chronicon.139 Both of these letters deal with the succession to the papacy after the death of Gregory VII, as does the putative letter of Urban II in the Chronicon. Hugh of Die had become close friends with his fellow bishop-elect, Anselm of Lucca, when they were both in Rome to receive episcopal consecration in late 1073–early 1074 and Hugh of Flavigny recorded that they maintained a close connection until the death of Anselm of Lucca in 1086.140 Perhaps it was Hugh of Die’s friendship with Anselm, himself the spiritual adviser of Matilda of Tuscany, which may explain the incorporation of some or all of the Matildine items into the Chronicon.

The Letters of Gregory VII as Polemics in the Chronicon

Hugh of Flavigny and Paul of Bernried composed their respective historical works at some remove from the events they described and both historians relied on the letters of Gregory VII to provide detail for the events that occurred between 1073 and 1085. This is particularly the case in Hugh’s Chronicon, where papal letters are the sole source of information for long passages in the narrative. Hugh, however, transcribed these letters for their polemical as well as their historical value. It could hardly be otherwise when Hugh’s source for many of these papal letters – if Erdmann’s hypothesis is correct – was compiled in a propagandist spirit in support of Gregory VII. This polemical spirit was not confined simply to the compilers of letter collections but seems to have actuated the central protagonists

138 Cf. Hildesheimer Briefe, nos 1, 21, 43: Briefsammlungen der Zeit Heinrichs IV, pp. 15–17, 50–52, 86–7; Cowdrey, ‘Death-bed testaments’, p. 708 n. 22.

139 See Chapter 1, note 97. 140 Hugh of Flavigny, 411/39–44: Cum hoc itaque tanto familiaritatis et dilectionis

connexus est, et ita sibi, licet divisa haberent hospicia, in palatio Lateranensi individui adherebant, ut unum videri sine altero mirum videtur his qui eorum noverant unanimitatem.Adeo ut urbis praefectus quodam veritatis praesagio alterum horum diem, alterum vocaret lucem, quod dies non sit sine luce et lucem dies comitetur.


themselves. For example, Gregory VII’s famous second letter to Bishop Hermann of Metz of 1081 (Reg. 8.21) was crammed with patristic auctoritates, canon law sententie, and historical exempla, in order to meet the challenge of those who claimed that the pope’s programme of reform was without historical and legal foundation.141 The function of this letter as a polemic is elucidated by an interpolation in the version of it in a twelfth-century Lotharingian codex, now preserved in Brussels, and in the twelfth century Codex Udalrici. This interpolation enjoined those who held the office of preaching to announce the truth (that is, the programme of Gregorian reform), ‘having obtained these weapons of ratio’.142

Gregory would have been pleased by the efforts of his supporters in Germany, who did indeed extract from his letters the rationes necessary to refute the Henrician party. This polemical use of the pope’s letters is most clearly seen in Bernold’s letter collection – partially preserved in Sélestat MS 13 – where the letters of Gregory VII in relation to Constance were endowed with generalising rubrics which emphasised the universal validity of Gregory’s programme of reform.

Hugh of Flavigny’s polemical technique was different from that of Bernold but he also sought to stress the validity of Gregory’s intervention in the affairs of the diocese of Constance. After the series of letters which he probably took from Bernold’s letter collection, possibly via ‘p’, Hugh considered the case of those ‘schismatic bishops’ who should be forced from office by the secular power.143 He clearly has in mind Gregory’s prescription in his letter of early 1075 to the south German dukes (Reg. 2.45) that unreformed clergy were to be forced from office, with violence if necessary, by the secular powers. Hugh narrated that he had examined the ‘deeds of the fathers’ (scrutemur gesta patrum) and had found precedents for Gregory VII’s radical policies in the ‘divine scriptures’, a phrase that probably indicates a canon law collection.144 These precedents are three auctoritates of Pope Pelagius I (555–60). The first two concern the desire of Pelagius to punish the schismatic Patriarch Paul of Aquileia with the aid of the Emperor Justinian. Clearly, Hugh considered this desire to be analogous to the more contemporary situation at Constance, with Bishop Otto representing a modern version of Paul of Aquileia, and the south German dukes standing in the place of Justinian. The third excerpt is from a letter of Pelagius to John ‘the

141 For the view that this letter was a response to the Epistola of Wenrich of Trier, see Chapter 2, note 167.

142 Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale MS 11196–7, f. 10r; Codex Udalrici, 5, 156. Cf. Robinson, ‘Dissemination’, 176 n. 5

143 Hugh of Flavigny, 429/8–10: quatenus a secularibus potestatibus, ut ab officio cessent, vi coerceantur scismatici episcopi, et ut officium eorum non recipiatur.

144 Ibid., 429/10–13: scrutemur gesta patrum … si quid simile invenitur in serie scripturarum divinarum; for Hugh’s generally vague allusions to his canon law sources see below notes 201–2.


Defender’ (Iohannes defensor), the imperial agent in Rome.145 In this last authority Pelagius urged that the lower clergy under a certain Bishop Eleutherius should be forced to observe a daily vigil, as he had previously commanded. The implicit message of this auctoritas is obvious. If the bishop could not control his lower clergy then the secular power – acting on papal instructions – would do it for him.146 This auctoritas had an obvious contemporary relevance: Otto of Constance claimed that he could not promulgate Gregory VII’s decrees against simony and clerical incontinence because his lower clergy were overwhelmingly against it.147

These three excerpts illustrate that Hugh felt it necessary to supplement the auctoritas of Gregory VII’s letters with more venerable material: all the polemics composed in support of the pope had to meet the accusation of ‘novelty’ (novitas)that was made against the programme of Gregorian reform. These authorities also reveal Hugh’s scholarly preoccupation to ensure that his Chronicon also functioned as a Libellus de lite. There are many other examples where Hugh gave a polemical gloss to the letters of Gregory VII. Hugh described the papal letters concerning simoniacal and unchaste priests as a ‘medicinal defence’ (medicinalis defensio),148

and the medical motif was employed again in Hugh’s introduction to Gregory’s second doctrinal letter to Hermann of Metz. The chronicler described this letter as an ‘antidote’ (antidotum) against the madness of those who resisted reform.149

Thus, Hugh characterised the letters of Gregory VII as curative agents healing a sick society. This was a device in keeping with the concepts of Church reform since the middle of the eleventh century, where reforming ideas were often expressed polemically with a vocabulary of contagion and pollution.150

Hugh’s approach to the letters of Gregory VII was not that of a mere compiler. Aware of the polemical debate around the legacy of the pope, Hugh exploited the patristic and canon law material to which he had access in order to defend the legitimacy of Gregory’s reforming measures.151 In this concern, Hugh showed himself to be a true polemicist. It is clear that Gregory VII was not a systematic thinker: his letters were often expressions of general principles and his second letter to Hermann of Metz stands out as an exception to the rule that Gregory’s

145 For the significance of the term defensor see Gilchrist, The Collection in Seventy-Four Titles: A Canon Law Manual of the Gregorian Reform (Toronto, 1980), p. 87 n. 17

146 Hugh of Flavigny, 429/8–41. The auctoritates of Pelagius: JL 1012, JL 1018, JL 1003. For the view that Hugh obtained these materials from the Collectio Brittanica, see below, notes 175–9.

147 Cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085 (Oxford, 1998), p. 122. 148 Hugh of Flavigny, 429/11–12. 149 Ibid., 453/41–2. 150 Cf. Rudolf Schieffer, ‘Spirituales latrones: Zu den Hintergründen der

Simonieprozesse in Deutschland zwischen 1069 und 1075’, HJ, 92 (1972), 19–60. 151 For Hugh’s knowledge of the polemics of Wenrich of Trier, Gebhard of Salzburg,

Cardinal Deusdedit, Manegold of Lautenbach, see Chapter 9, notes 6–33.


letters did not contain auctoritates.152 The pope left it to the erudite intellectuals of his party to flesh out his ideas in detail and Hugh of Flavigny was one of those who actively sought to equip Gregory’s letters with the necessary ‘weapons of ratio’.

Canon Law Authorities

The Climate of Canon Law Research in the Late Eleventh Century

The ‘p’ letter collection was apparently compiled in a polemical spirit and circulated among pro-papal supporters, who were anxious to find the necessary auctoritates with which to defend Gregory VII’s programme of reform.153 The same characteristics define a number of canon law collections that were compiled in the second half of the eleventh century and, as in the case of the ‘p’ letter collection, some of these canon law collections were absorbed into Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon. These canon law collections emerged in an ambience of new research and inquiry that was still fluid in the late eleventh century. For example, Hugh of Flavigny reported that in early 1074 King Henry IV of Germany sent an embassy to the papal curia demanding that neither Bishop Hugh of Die nor Bishop Anselm II of Lucca be consecrated without the receipt of royal investiture. It is significant that Hugh of Flavigny represented Gregory VII as being unsure about the correct procedure. The pope consulted the cardinals for their opinion on the matter: they replied that lay investiture was ‘the custom of the Church, and to be considered legal’, although it could not be supported with any auctoritas.154

Gregory VII’s alleged desire to investigate the ambiguous canon law status of lay investiture in 1074 is one example of the desire for greater legal definition which characterised his pontificate. The most celebrated example of this new curiosity was the request of Gregory VII – then Archdeacon Hildebrand – in 1059, asking Peter Damian to unite in ‘one little volume’ (in parvi voluminis unionem) the canons relevant to the authority of the Holy See.155 Peter Damian did not accede to this request but it may be that two pro-papal collections were compiled in the pontificate of Gregory VII (1073–85) to satisfy the wish of the pope: the Collectio Canonum of Anselm of Lucca, and the anonymous Collection in 74 Titles

152 Cf. H.X. Arquillière, ‘La deuxième lettre de Grégoire VII à Hermann de Metz (1081): ses sources patristiques’, Recherches de Science Religieuse, 40 (1952), 231–42.

153 Cf. Carl Erdmann, ‘Die Anfänge der staatlichen Propaganda im Investiturstreit’, HZ,154 (1936), 509–10, where Erdmann pointed out that, in terms of content, the ‘p’ collection could be compared with a canonistic or homiletic Lesebuch.

154 See Chapter 7, note 6. 155 Peter Damian, De privilegio Romanae Ecclesiae ad Hildebrandum = letter 65, ed.

Reindel, Die Briefe des Petrus Damiani, vol. 2 (MGH Briefe der deutschen Kaiserzeit, 4.2:Munich, 1988), p. 229/14.


(hereafter 74T).156 It has been argued that the controversial Dictatus Papae,inserted in the Register of Gregory VII, contains an outline of the kind of canon law collection that Gregory wished to see compiled.157 The collections of Anselm and Cardinal Deusdedit were inspired by Gregory VII’s anxiety to provide the faithful with ‘authorities’ so that they might be reassured about the legitimacy of his programme of reform. This same desire explains the inclusion of canon law materials in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny. As we have seen, the chronicler alluded to his study of the ‘deeds of the Fathers’ – very likely an allusion to a collection of auctoritates – to claim that there were precedents for the secular coercion of dissident clerics that Gregory had demanded in 1075 in respect of the recalcitrant Bishop Otto of Constance.

New systematic collections, like that of Anselm of Lucca, have been shown to be the product of ‘intermediate collections’ which unearthed many previously unknown or uncirculated texts from original archives and registers. The Collectio Britannica, perhaps used by Hugh of Flavigny, is the best extant example of these ‘primitive’ unsystematic collections.158 The bulk of these new materials were papal decretals, which was a crucial factor in the reorientation of canon law towards Rome. In his Collectio, Anselm of Lucca favoured papal decretals as the most authoritative sources of canon law. He was particularly receptive to the letters of Gregory I and Pelagius I because they advocated the use of coercive action against dissenters to maintain the unity of the Church, something envisaged by the ‘new counsels’ (nova consilia) in Gregory VII’s letters to the south German dukes of early 1075.159 The Holy See was thus the main beneficiary in this new climate of legal research at the end of the eleventh century. The pro-papal pretensions of the

156 The Bb recension of Anselm’s Collectio contains an inscription describing the work as being expressly requested by Gregory VII, Anselm of Lucca, Collectio Canonum una cum Collectione Minore, ed. F. Thaner, (Innsbruck, 1906–15), p. 2: Incipit autentica et compendiosa collectio … facta tempore VII. Gregorii sanctissimi papae a beatissimo Anselmo Lucensi episcopo … cuius iussione et precepto desiderante consummavit hoc opus. The Cassino recension of the 74T may also have been compiled at the behest of the pope: I.S. Robinson, Authority and Resistance in the Investiture Contest: The Polemical Literature of the Late Eleventh Century (Manchester, 1978), p. 41.

157 Cf. J. Gilchrist, ‘Canon Law Aspects of the Eleventh-Century Gregorian Reform Programme’ JEH, 13 (1962), 22ff. compared the 27 headings of the Dictatus Papae with parallels in the 74T and in the writings of Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida. He came to the conclusion that Gregory VII always moved within the framework of canon law. For a contrary view of the Dictatus Papae see Horst Fuhrmann, ‘Das Reformpapsttum und die Rechtswissenschaft’ Investiturstreit und Reichsverfassung, ed. J. Fleckenstein (Vortrage und Forschungen, 17: Sigmaringen 1973), pp. 188–92.

158 Collectio Britannica = British Library, Additional MSS 8873; Cf. Paul Fournier and Gabriel le Bras, Histoire des collections canoniques en Occident depuis les Fausses Décrétales jusqu'au Décret de Gratien, Vol. 2 (Paris, 1932), p. 10.

159 Kathleen G. Cushing, Papacy and Law in the Gregorian Revolution: The Canonistic Work of Anselm of Lucca (Oxford, 1998), p. 86.


74T have already been considered, but the strictly judicial primacy of Rome contained in this collection was insufficient for the radical Gregorian party. Thus it was expanded by Bernold of St-Blasien, who annexed to it the ‘Swabian Appendix’, which contained a more complete conception of the doctrinal supremacy of Rome than that contained in the collection-proper.160

The movement towards Roman primacy was assisted by the compilation of new collections but also by the reinterpretation of old ones. The Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals had been compiled around the middle of the ninth century in an effort to defend suffragan bishops from the intrusion of metropolitan authority and the depredations of the laity.161 The compilers of this collection orientated all ecclesiastical disputes towards Rome: a device which protected them from local domination while also exempting them from the effective jurisdiction of a papacy that was too feeble to exercise the theoretical primacy advanced by Pseudo-Isidore. Although the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals ostensibly favoured the concept of Roman judicial primacy, they were in fact ‘a vast Babylonian garden of loopholes and snares against the operation of ecclesiastical law’.162 The establishment of a systematic canon law system in the period of ‘Gregorian’ reform had as its object the suppression of the episcopal independence espoused by Pseudo-Isidore, often with the same elements that comprised the mid-ninth century collection. For example, the 74T took 250 of its 315 chapters from Pseudo-Isidore and yet was compiled with a purpose completely inimical to that of its parent collection. ‘Inspired by a new spirit’ of canonical research – according to Fournier and le Bras – the 74T sought to ensure that the theoretical judicial primacy of Rome became a reality in the late eleventh century.163

Even before the pontificate of Gregory VII, Peter Damian deplored the judicial immunity of the episcopate which lay at the core of Pseudo-Isidore. In a letter to Pope Alexander II, written between 1065 and 1071, he cited the incongruity of two texts from Pseudo-Isidore which defended the immunity of the priesthood.164 Peter Damian wished for the ‘cunning subterfuge’ (versutum subterfugium) of immunity to be abolished, so that just grievances and complaints could be made to the relevant primate, a demand which anticipated sentence 24 of the Dictatus Papae:

160 J. Autenrieth, ‘Bernold von Konstanz und die erweiterte 74-Titelsammlung’, DA, 14 (1958), 375–94; Cushing, Papacy and Law, pp. 79–80, discusses Anselm of Lucca’s conception of the Roman primacy.

161 Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae et Capitula Angilramni, ed. P. Hinschius (Leipzig, 1863).

162 R. Knox, ‘Accusing higher up’, ZRG kan. Abt., 77 (1991), 7. 163 Fournier and le Bras, Histoire des collections canoniques, Vol. 2, pp. 17–18. See

also Horst Fuhrmann, Einfluss und Verbreitung der pseudoisidorischen Fälschungen: Von ihrem Auftauchen bis in die neuere Zeit, Vol. 2 (MGH Schriften, 24/2: Stuttgart, 1973), pp. 486–509, 615–16.

164 Die Briefe des Petrus Damiani, Vol. 4, no. 164, p. 170 n. 13, p. 171 n. 17. The relevant texts are Ps.-Fabian II c. 22 (JK †93) and Ps. Anacletus III c. 39 (JK †4). Cf. Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae, pp. 165, 85.


that by the pope’s command inferiors are allowed to bring accusations against their superiors.165 Gregory VII continued the attack and made particular use of his legate Hugh of Die in prosecuting his vision of the judicial primacy of Rome. For example, in 1077 Archbishop Manasses of Rheims defended himself from the accusations of his inferiors on the basis of Pseudo-Isidorian texts which condemned clerics who conspired against their bishop.166 Manasses’ conception of the privileges of his Church was answered by Gregory VII in terms which indicated a new ‘Gregorian’ ecclesiology: ‘privileges must not infringe the authority of the holy fathers but provide for the utility of holy Church’.167 The eventual deposition of Manasses in 1080 – at the instigation of Hugh of Die – indicated that the Pseudo-Isidorian concept of the Church was at an end, superseded by an active papal primacy claiming the right to overturn existing law in the service of ‘the utility of the Church’ (pro utilitate ecclesiae).168

Hugh of Flavigny noted Manasses’s demise with evident satisfaction, doubtless influenced by Hugh of Die, who had become the inveterate enemy of this alleged simonist.169 Moreover, the chronicler was careful to emphasise the legality of the punishment meted out to Manasses of Rheims and Otto of Constance: in doing so he was doubtless aware of accusations that the legislative and judicial primacy claimed by Gregory VII represented an illegal breach of the law of the Church.170

However, the main canon law preoccupation in Hugh’s Chronicon centered on the renunciation of obedience to Gregory VII that was proclaimed by the German bishops who assembled at Worms in 1076. The canonical validity of this renunciation was questioned by some of the participants – including Bishop Hermann of Metz – at the synod of Worms itself and this event evidently prompted the supporters of Gregory VII to assert the old canon law maxim that the Roman pontiff could be judged by no human agency.171 It was in defence of this principle that Hugh of Flavigny cited 18 auctoritates, which can be summarised in the

165 Cf. Reg. 2.55a, p. 207/8: Quod illius precepto et licentia subiectis liceat accusare; cf. I. S. Robinson, ‘Periculosus Homo: Pope Gregory VII and Episcopal Authority’, Viator, 9(1978), 119–20.

166 Briefsammlungen der Zeit Heinrichs IV., no. 107, p. 179; The Pseudo-Isidorian texts: Epistola Zephyrini c. 3.4 = Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae, p. 131; Epistola Fabiani,c. 21 = Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae, p. 165; Epistola Stephani c. 21 = Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae, p. 186.

167 Reg. 6.2, p. 393/7–9: Privilegia siquidem non debent sanctorum patrum auctoritatem infringere, sed utilitati sanctae ecclesiae prospicere.

168 Robinson, ‘Periculosus Homo’, 126–7. 169 Hugh of Flavigny, 421/49–422/8; for the contemporary phenomenon of smearing

opponents with the taint of simony, see Chapter 1, note 35. 170 For the complaint of Archbishop Udo of Trier in 1075 that Gregory VII’s reforms

were tantamount to arming prelates against bishops see Chapter 2, note 140. 171 For Bishop Hermann of Metz’s objections to the proceedings at Worms and for the

idea that he may have conveyed these legal arguments to Verdun see Chapter 2, note 143 and notes 161–2.


assertion of Pseudo-Symmachus that ‘God wanted to settle the cases of other men by men, but he unquestionably reserved to his own judgement the cases [involving] the pontiff of the apostolic see’.172 To these were added the three Pelagian authorities in support of the claim that ‘schismatic’ bishops – such as Otto of Constance – were to be forced from office by the secular powers, if necessary. Finally, Hugh adduced two catenae of authorities asserting, first, that there was to be no contact with excommunicates, and second, that bishops should not swear oaths.173 The first of these clearly related to the anathemas that had been pronounced against Henry IV and his party by the pope and sought to prevent any rapprochement with the excommunicate royalist party. The second series on clerical oaths was cited by Hugh of Flavigny in order to undermine the feudal aspect of the medieval bishop’s office – his oath of fealty to the king on receipt of his office by royal investiture – in an effort the exclude the intrusion of laymen into the affairs of the clericalis ordo.

Fontes Formales

Hugh of Flavigny’s preoccupation with canon law is evident throughout the course of his Chronicon. The autograph manuscript of this document reveals that the chronicler compiled and quoted canon law authorities in the folios that preceded the Chronicon-proper, in the narrative on the early history of the Church, in the context of his own troubles at the abbey of Flavigny after 1096 and in defence of the programme of reform that was promulgated by Pope Gregory VII. It is this last concern that will be considered here. However, a rigorous investigation into Hugh’s possible formal sources (fontes formales) is obstructed by the relative lack of critical modern editions of medieval canon law collections. The most recent edition of Burchard’s Decretum was published by Migne in the Patrologia Latina,as is the case for the Ivonian collections, the Decretum and the Panormia.Moreover, the 1863 edition of the Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae by Hinschius has been the object of much criticism and fails to provide a consistent variant-apparatus for the text of Pseudo-Isidore.174 Some conclusions about Hugh’s formal

172 Hugh of Flavigny, 431/30–3: aliorum hominum causas Deus voluit per homines terminare, sedis apostolicae pontificem suo sine questione reservavit arbitrio; cf. Libellus pro synodo, c. 93, CSEL, 6, 316/6–11.

173 Cf. Patrick Healy, ‘Hugh of Flavigny and Canon Law as Polemic in the Investiture Contest’, ZRG kan. Abt., 91 (2005), 52–7.

174 The fundamental study on Pseudo-Isidore is that of Horst Fuhrmann, Einfluss und Verbreitung der pseudoisidorischen Fälschungen: Von ihrem Auftauchen bis in die neuere Zeit (MGH Schriften, 24.1–3: Stuttgart, 1972–74). Most recently: Detlev Jasper and Horst Fuhrmann, Papal Letters in the Early Middle Ages (Washington, 2001), 135ff. Erwin Frauenknecht, Der Traktat ‘De ordinando pontifice’, MGH Studien und Texte, 5 (Hanover, 1992), pp. 58–63, offers some excellent observations on Hugh of Flavigny’s possible use of the so-called ‘Cluny version’ of Pseudo-Isidore on p. 321 of the Chronicon. For the ‘Cluny


sources for his canon law sententie can be drawn from the work by Ewald on the Collectio Britannica and Gilchrist’s edition of the Collection in Seventy Four Titles (74T).

The three Pelagian auctoritates in the Chronicon appear to have been taken from the Collectio Britannica, a collection compiled in the pontificate of Gregory VII and surviving today in one manuscript: British Library, additional MSS 8873. It is composed of two elements. The first is a series of papal letters, newly rediscovered in the late eleventh century in the papal archives. The second is a series – in two parts – of canon law sententie and patristic auctoritates which have been dubbed Varia by Ewald, who published an abridged edition of the Collectio Britannica in 1880.175 Both elements – the papal letters and the Varia – seem to have been compiled after the order of their parent collection and there is no methodical arrangement of the material on the basis of themes or issues. This unsystematic aspect of the Britannica has led Fournier to conclude that it is analogous to the ‘intermediate collections’ which provided newly unearthed materials to the compilers of systematic collections like Anselm II of Lucca, Cardinal Deusdedit, and Ivo of Chartres.176 Ewald thought that Hugh of Flavigny, like the later Master Gratian of Bologna, used a version of the Britannica that was larger than the extant version preserved in the British Library.177

It is likely that the Collectio Britannica must have been first compiled in Rome, close to the papal archives. Martin Brett, however, has suggested that the extant version of the collection, preserved in the British library, is probably a later revision of the original made in France. He based his argument on the fact that the Britannica seems to have influenced only French canonical collections, particularly those associated with Ivo of Chartres.178 This hypothesis is significant as Hugh of Flavigny consulted at least one archive in Normandy (Rouen), the area where Brett has discerned the extent of the Britannica’s influence.179

The 74T may have been compiled in response to Gregory VII’s request to unite in ‘one little volume’ the canons relevant to the prerogatives of the apostolic see,180

but the provenance and scope of this collection has been the cause of much

version’ of Pseudo-Isidore see K.-G. Schon, ‘Eine Redaktion der pseudoisidorischen Dekretalen aus der Zeit der Fälschung’, DA, 34 (1978), 500–11.

175 Paul Ewald, ‘Die Papstbriefe der Brittischen Sammlung’, NA, 5 (1880), 275–414, 505–96.

176 Fournier and le Bras, Histoire des collections canoniques, Vol. 2, pp. 4–14, 155–63. 177 Ewald, ‘Die Papstbriefe’, 549. 178 Martin Brett, ‘Urban II and the Collections attributed to Ivo of Chartres’,

Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, ed. S. Chodorow(Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Subsidia, 9: The Vatican, 1992), pp. 37–8; cf. R. Somerville with the collaboration of Stephen Kuttner, Pope Urban II, the Collectio Britannica and the Council of Melfi (1089) (Oxford, 1996).

179 Hugh of Flavigny, 399/1–2: sicut in armario Rothomagensi continetur, licet libellus vitae eius (sc. Sancti Symeoni) hoc sileat ….

180 See above note 156.


speculation. It is a ‘systematic’ collection, constructed around certain themes – for example the 20 capitula comprising title 1: De primatu Romane Ecclesie – and is to be distinguished from ‘chronological’ collections like the Dionysio-Hadrianaand the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. The main direct source, or fons formalis of the 74T was in fact the collection of Pseudo-Isidore, from which it took 250 capitula:146 from the false, the remainder from the genuine decretals.181

The 74T is dominated by letters of the popes: apart from capitula 136, 276–289, 306, and 312, the 315 chapters of the collection proper are composed of papal decretals (false and genuine) and the Church Fathers. The exclusion of material from Church councils may have been deliberate: in his Collectio, Anselm II of Lucca preferred papal decretals as the clearest and most authoritative sources of canon law.182 The inclusion of many of the authorities in the 74T seems to have been motivated by the desire to emphasise the Roman Church as mater ecclesiaand the collection has long been considered a canon law ‘manual’ for the Gregorian reform programme.183 Yet in spite of this apparent bias towards the papal primacy, Fuhrmann has doubted the status of the 74T as a papally inspired hand-book of reform and has spoken of the collection as a work composed in a ‘pre-Gregorian’ spirit.184 Fuhrmann is correct in so far as the 74T did not keep pace with Gregory VII’s expanding conception of the Roman primacy. The principle enshrined in sentence 2 of Gregory’s Dictatus Papae, ‘that the Roman pontiff alone is rightly called universal’, is contradicted by title 24 of the 74T, ‘that no one should be called universal’.185

The 74T survives in 19 manuscripts. With one exception these date from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, and can be divided into three recensions: ‘Cassino’, ‘Liège’, and Swabian’. The collection was most likely assembled in an ambience connected with Monte Cassino; the ‘Cassino’ recension appears in the earliest MSS of the collection and was the most widely disseminated version of the 74T. Moreover, the first known use of the collection is in the pontificate of Gregory VII and it seems to have had maximum impact on contemporary canon law c. 1083.186 There has been much debate about the dating and provenance of the ‘Swabian’ recension of the 74T, a version of the collection that contains an

181 Diversorum Patrum Sententie, p. xcix. cf. Fuhrmann, Einfluss und Verbreitung der pseudoisidorischen Fälschungen, Vol. 3 (Stuttgart, 1974), pp. 1029–30.

182 Cf. Cushing, Papacy and Law, p. 86. 183 Cf. Paul Fournier, ‘Le premier manuel canonique de la réforme du XIe siècle’,

Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’école française de Rome, 14 (1894); cf. Anton Michel, Die Sentenzen des Kardinals Humbert, das erste Rechtsbuch der papstlichen Reform (MGH Schriften, 7: Stuttgart, 1943).

184 Horst Fuhrmann, ‘Über den Reformgeist der 74-Titel-Sammlung’, Festschrift für Hermann Heimpel, vol. 2 (Göttingen, 1972), pp. 1101–20; cf. Robinson, Authority and Resistance, p. 40.

185 Reg. 2.55a, p. 202/8: Quod solus Romanus pontifex iure dicatur universalis; cf. Diversorum Patrum Sententie, Tit. 24, p. 114: Ne Universalis Quisquam Vocetur.

186 Diversorum Patrum Sententie, pp. cxxvi, lxxxiii–lxxxvii, xxii.


appendix of 15 capitula on the theme of excommunication. Much depends on the significance of the title common to the Swabian manuscripts: ‘here begin ecclesiastical rules plucked from the sentences of the holy fathers and brought by the legates of the apostolic see in Gallia for the settlement of ecclesiastical cases’. The balance of the scholarly argument around this phrase is that the ‘Swabian’ appendix was compiled by Bernold of St-Blasien, who, it seems, gained access to an exemplar of the 74T from the legatine mission of Cardinal-deacon Bernard and Abbot Bernard of St-Victor in Marseilles in Germany of February 1077, a mission which has been taken to correspond to the one mentioned in the titles of the Swabian manuscripts of the collection.187

The 74T had a profound effect on contemporary collections of canon law and was also widely used in the polemics of the Investiture Contest. Anselm of Lucca took 247 chapters of the 74T directly into his own Collectio (1083) and even used some of its title rubrics as his own. Two other reforming collections compiled around the end of Gregory VII’s pontificate also borrowed from the 74T: the Collection in Two Books, and the Collection in Four Books, both of which enlarged the collection with texts other than papal decretals. It is likely that in this amended form of the Collection in Four Books, the 74T was included in the Panormia of Ivo of Chartres (c. 1094–95), which has 104 chapters in common with the 74T. The influence of the 74T on subsequent jurisprudence was assured with the incorporation of over two-thirds of the collection in the definitive Decretum ofMaster Gratian in the middle of the twelfth century. Of perhaps more direct relevance to Hugh of Flavigny’s use of the 74T was its wide diffusion in contemporary polemics, particularly those associated with Bernold of St-Blasien, but also the Epistola ad Herimannum Mettensem Episcopum of Gebhard of Salzburg (1081), the Liber ad Gebehardum of Manegold of Lautenbach (1081–85), and the Liber de Misericordia et Justitia of Alger of Liège (1094–95).188

Hugh of Flavigny’s possible access to a copy of the 74T or – as seems more likely – to a collection that was very similar to the 74T has been suggested on the basis of the textual similarities of eight sententie that occur both in that collection and in Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon.189 Moreover, it is probable that Gregory VII was anxious that his followers in Lotharingia should have a copy of the 74T and it may be that Hugh of Flavigny gained access to an exemplar of the collection in a Lotharingian ‘friendship network’ sympathetic to the pope. For example, a copy of

187 The debate about the legatine mission mentioned in the titles of the Swabian MSS is summarised by Gilchrist, Diversorum Patrum Sententie, pp. xxvii–xxxi.; cf. Chapter 7, note 54.

188 Cf. J. Gilchrist, The Collection in Seventy-Four Titles: A Canon Law Manual of the Gregorian Reform (Toronto, 1980), pp. 29–48. For the 74T in the Liber de Misericordia et Justitia, see Robert Kretzschmar, Alger von Lüttichs Traktat De Misericordia et Iustitia: ein kanonistischer Konkordanzversuch aus der Zeit des Investiturstreits (Quellen und Forschungen zum Recht im Mittelalter, 2: Sigmaringen, 1985) pp. 78ff.

189 See Healy, ‘Hugh of Flavigny and Canon Law as Polemic’, 41–7.


the 74T of the ‘Cassino’ recension (Namur, Musée Archéologique MS 5) was in the possession of the reform-minded abbey of St-Hubert-en-Ardennes in the late eleventh century.190 It is even possible that Abbot Theoderic I of St-Hubert-en-Ardennes was provided with a copy of the collection by Pope Gregory himself, during his visit to Rome in 1074, when Theoderic sought to defend the privileges of his abbey against Bishop Theoduin of Liège and his archdeacon, Boso. During his stay at Rome, Theoderic was drawn into the Gregorian ‘friendship network’ in a manner later experienced by Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne, on his visit to the apostolic see in 1081.191 Abbot Theoderic had a close connection with the abbey of St-Vanne, Verdun, and before his election as abbot of St-Hubert-en-Ardennes in 1056 he had been professed as a monk at the abbey of Lobbes, a monastery reformed by Abbot Richard of St-Vanne.192

Four of Hugh’s canon law authorities show a strong resemblance to MS B of the Liège recension: Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale MS 9706–25 (Van den Gheyn 1360), probably transcribed at the Abbey of St-Laurent, Liège, at the beginning of the twelfth century.193 There were many connections between this abbey and the monastery of St-Vanne, Verdun: St-Laurent had been reformed by the Richard of St-Vanne (†1046) and the death of that great reformer was recorded in the necrology of St-Laurent.194 It seems clear that the monastery of St-Laurent in Liège was a reforming centre particularly interested in the 74T, as another manuscript of the collection, New Haven, Yale University Law Library MS 31 (of the ‘Cassino’ recension), emanated from this abbey at the turn of the eleventh/twelfth century.195

The relationship between this abbey in Liège, and the 74T, which is probably Italian in origin, may derive from Frederick of Lorraine, canon and later archdeacon of the cathedral church of St-Lambert in Liège – from which the abbey of St-Laurent received many of its recruits – who became abbot of Monte Cassino in 1056, and who was elected Pope Stephen IX in 1057. The connection with

190 Diversorum Patrum Sententie, p. xxxvi. 191 Cf. C. Dereine, ‘L’école canonique liégeoise et la réforme grégorienne’, Miscellanea

Tornacensia, Vol. 1 (Tournai, 1949), p. 90; cf. I.S. Robinson, ‘The Friendship Network of Gregory VII’, History, 63 (1978), 19–20.

192 Vita Theoderici Abbatis Andaginensis, MGH SS, 12, 41/20: abbas Richardus, vir quo illa aetate nihil habuit Gallia clarius … huic puer Theodericus regulari institutione nutriendus in monasterio Lobiensi a pia matre … est traditus, et cum fere decem essetannorum sancto Petro est oblatus. Cf. Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 197–200.

193 Cf. Healy, ‘Hugh of Flavigny and Canon Law as Polemic’, 46. 194 Maurice Coens, ‘Un calendrier-obituaire de Saint-Laurent de Liège’, Analecta

Bollandiana, 58 (1940), 67: XVIII kal. Iul. Ob. Domnus abbas Richardus; for Richard’s reform of St-Laurent see Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp. 201–11. The reforming credentials of the abbey of St-Laurent in the late eleventh century are confirmed by the commemoration in the house necrology of Bishop Hermann of Metz (†1090), the ardent supporter of Gregory VII in Upper Lotharingia, Coens, ‘Un calendrier-obituaire’, 65: IIII non. Mai. Ob. domnus episcopus Herimannus.

195 Diversorum Patrum Sententie, pp. xli–xliii, xxviii.


Frederick of Lorraine is further emphasised in that the the B manuscript of the Liège recension contains material relating to the dispute between Rome and Constantinople in 1054, in which Frederick participated as a papal legate.196

Frederick was also the brother of Duke Godfrey III, ‘The Bearded’ and was therefore part of the influential house of Verdun that had lavished such patronage on the abbey of St-Vanne over the course of the eleventh century; Dauphin thought that it was highly likely that Frederick of Lorraine would have met Richard of St-Vanne, either at Verdun or at Liège.197

The many connections between the abbey of St-Vanne and the followers of reform in the diocese of Liège were accentuated during the time of the Investiture Contest. Many Liègeois supporters of Gregory VII were forced to take refuge in the diocese of Verdun in order to escape royalist oppression in their own bishopric. Bishop Theoderic of Verdun expelled these Liègeois ‘Gregorians’ when he finally sided with Henry IV in 1084.198 The exile of the ‘Gregorian’ monks from St-Vanne by Bishop Theoderic in 1085 may, indeed, have strengthened these ties of friendship. Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne was present at Liège for the feast of St- Lambert in 1088 and was approached there by pious persons wishing to found the abbey of Affligem, demonstrating again that the various exiles endured in the cause of reform increased the potential for contact among the supporters of Gregory VII in Lotharingia.199 Through this Gregorian ‘friendship network’ in Lotharingia, therefore, Hugh may have gained access to a copy of the 74T similar to that preserved in the B manuscript of the Liège recension.

Two final points should be made about Hugh’s access to canon law material and the difficulties of identifying his fontes formales. First, it would seem that far more canon law material seems to have circulated during this period than has survived in formal collections of canon law. For example, the testimony of Hugh’s Chronicon reveals that Cardinal-bishop Gerald of Ostia carried some kind of reforming collection – one that was, in some respects, very similar to the 74T – on the theme of simony during his legation through France and Spain in 1073.200

However, no direct trace of this collection survives and it can only be partially reconstructed from the evidence in Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon. Thus, many of Hugh’s formal sources may never be identified because it is possible that they have not survived. Second, Hugh never alluded to the canon law collections on which he relied simply because it was the individual auctoritates that interested him, rather than the compilation of such authorities in a collectio. For example, he referred to the authorities that he took from the Collectio Britannica as the ‘deeds of the

196 Ibid., p. lxxv n. 24. 197 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, p. 250; see Chapter 2, notes 123–4. 198 See Chapter 2, note 171. 199 Chronicon Affligemense, cc. 6–7, 9, MGH SS, 9, 409–11; cf. Hubert Dauphin,

‘L’abbaye Saint-Vanne de Verdun et la querelle des investitures’, SG, 1 (1947), 247 n. 30, 249 n. 36.

200 See Chapter 7, note 56.


fathers’ (gesta patrum) and described the collectio in general terms as a ‘series of divine scriptures’ (series scripturarum divinarum). Similarly, Hugh alluded to the ‘decrees of the canons’ (scita canonum) on which the bishops of Gaul relied in a letter to Pope Adrian II in the ninthS century and which were contained in a ‘catalogue of sacred scriptures’.201 This vagueness, although irksome to the modern historian concerned with formal sources (fontes formales), is entirely in keeping with the doctrine of sources in the eleventh century. According to Kuttner, the very idea of a ‘canon law book’ was ‘outside the purview of all eleventh-century reflexion on the sources of law’: it was the ‘material source’ (fons materialis) that proccupied the contemporary reformers; the various collections into which auctoritates were compiled represented only vehicles of transmission and were not considered ‘sources’ in the modern sense of the term.202 Thus, it was characteristic that Hugh of Flavigny displayed no interest in the name of the formal collectio that Gerald of Ostia evidently possessed, but cited the individual authorities at some length, explaining their function and relevance in the cause of reform.

201 Hugh of Flavigny, 354/26–28: … venerabiles episcopi … se decreta sanctorum patrum fideliter observare velle et secundum scita canonum episcopos consecraturos, quarum textus in cathalogo sacrarum scripturarum habetur.

202 Stephan Kuttner, ‘Liber canonicus: a note on Dictatus Papae c. 17’, SG, 2 (1947), 398.

Chapter 6

Kingship and Tyranny in the Chronicon

Hugh of Flavigny’s attitude to kingship was coloured by his vehement hatred of King Henry IV of Germany (1056–1106) and by the papal depositions of the king in 1076 and 1080. The chronicler attempted to justify Gregory VII’s measures against Henry IV in both abstract and concrete terms. On the one hand Hugh’s theoretical excursus on the nature of kingship and tyranny – bolstered with auctoritates from Church Fathers such as Augustine and Isidore – sought to identify the criteria by which a king might exercise legitimate power. A number of conclusions emerge from this part of the narrative: the king was not a ‘sacral’ person but had to satisfy the conditions of his officium; furthermore, obedience to the king was not absolute and was superseded by the superior obedience owed to God. On the other hand Hugh examined the personal characteristics and deficiencies of Henry IV – in particular his undoubted simony and his alleged adultery – in order to conclude that Henry did not meet the standards required of a Christian king. It should be emphasised that these conclusions were not presented by Hugh of Flavigny in any systematic way: his treatment of the theme of kingship had more of the polemical flavour of a libellus de lite than the detachment of a speculum principis. Indeed, Hugh’s attitude to the theme of kingship was often contradictory; at one moment the chronicler adhered to the traditional pseudo-cyprianic formulation whereby the king was supposed to act as a defender of churches, widows and orphans; at another Hugh adopted a much more negative view and suggested – following Augustine – that secular kingdoms were little more than ‘robber bands’ (latrocinia). These contradictions are not so surprising when considered in the light of one of Hugh’s main sources for his analysis of Henry IV’s rule: the letters of Gregory VII. The pope’s attitude to the office of king oscillated wildly during his pontificate. Before 1080 Gregory VII had a fairly conventional attitude to kingship as his many statements on the ideal cooperation between the regnum and sacerdotium testify. After 1080, when Henry IV chose an anti-pope in the person of Archbishop Wibert of Ravenna (Clement III), Gregory’s attitude to the role of the king in Christian society changed radically, culminating in his famous second doctrinal letter to Bishop Hermann of Metz in 1081 where it was suggested that all secular government was diabolical in origin. The evolution – or contradiction – in Gregory’s political thought is therefore mirrored in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny, which depended so heavily on the pope’s letters for the detail of the narrative concerning the years 1073–85. This is not to say, however, that the political ideas in the Chronicon were either derivative or incoherent. Although not as systematic as some of his more famous near-contemporaries, such as Manegold of Lautenbach or Wenrich of Trier, Hugh

Kingship and Tyranny in the Chronicon 139

displayed some facility in explaining the themes and ideas that brought fame to these polemicists. In particular, Hugh’s treatment of the scriptural injunctions to obedience was both erudite and prophetic of the scholastic reconciliation of discordant ‘authorities’ that would characterise the ‘Twelfth Century Renaissance’. Certainly, Hugh’s arguments on the nature of kingship were significant enough to evoke a direct refutation in the Tractatus of Hugh of Fleury in the early twelfth century and should be considered in the context of the dialectic within political theory down to the Policraticus of John of Salisbury.

The High Middle Ages had a very broad conception of the tyrant. Tyrannus was a general synonym for ‘usurper’ or ‘oppressor’. There was, however, an older, classical idea of the tyrant. In the Christian tradition this older idea was best expressed by Pope Gregory the Great (590–604). According to Gregory, ‘strictly speaking any man who rules the community without the right to do so is a tyrant’.1

This definition put the focus on the respublica, and in the Middle Ages the respublica was theoretically entrusted to the king. In the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny the classical theory of the tyrant is maintained, in so far as the discussion of tyranny is almost exclusively framed towards King Henry IV of Germany (1056–1106).

Hugh’s definition of tyranny derived from the seventh-century encyclopaedist Isidore of Seville (†636). ‘A king is so called by acting rightly; if he rules piously justly and mercifully, he is deservedly called king; if he neglects these duties, he is not a king but a tyrant.’2 Isidore had taken the phrase rex a recte agendo from Augustine and this Isidorian/Augustinian concept of kingship dominated the political theory of the Middle Ages .3 The legitimacy of a king’s office was to be determined by the quality of his rule. According to Isidore, the act of ruling, regendum, derived from an etymological root of ‘acting rightly’ or recte agendum.He then identified the criteria of this ‘right action’ in the king as piety, justice and mercy. The legitimate king, therefore, ruled piously, justly, and mercifully; the tyrant did not fulfil these criteria. Moreover, the king should rule both himself – an especially important idea for Hugh – and his subjects and in so doing he pacified the community by his rule: rex igitur iure vocatur qui tam se ipsum quam et subjectos bene regere novit et regendo pacificare. Thus, in a Christian society the king had a corrective role (in Isidore: modificare/corrigere; in Hugh: pacificare): it

1 Gregory I, Moralia in Iob, 3.12.38, PL 75, 1006C: Proprie enim tyrannus dicitur qui in communi republica non jure principatur.

2 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/35–7: Ut enim ait Ysidorus in libro Sententiarum rex a recte agendo vocatus est. Si pie juste et misericorditer regit, merito rex appellatur. Si his caruerit non rex sed tyrannus est.

3 Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps. 44: 17, CCSL, 38, 505–6: Inde et rex a regendo dicitur. Non autem regit qui non corrigit. Ad hoc est rex noster rectorum rex. Quomodo et sacerdos a sanctificando nos, ita et rex a regendo nos?; cf. Josef Balogh, ‘Rex a Recte Regendo’, Speculum, 3 (1928), 580–82.


was only by his guiding hand that an orderly society could exist.4 Alluding again to Isidore – this time the Etymologiae – Hugh illustrated that the medieval conception of the tyrant was an evolving one. Tyrannus was originally a general term denoting all kings, but was gradually modified by the standards of justice and piety so that now the tyrant could be identified by his hallmarks of impiety and cruelty.5 In this passage Hugh was probably paraphrasing the Etymologiae of Isidore where the encyclopaedist claimed that in classical times there was no distinction between kings and tyrants. It was only gradually that the term tyrannus came to denote a bad and wicked king whose defining characteristic was the oppression of his people.6

A powerful stimulus to this developing conception of tyranny was the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine the Great in the early fourth century. From this point on the behaviour of a secular lord could be expected to accord with Christian values and be susceptible to Christian guidance. However, within the Christian attitude to the tyrant one can detect a certain contradiction, still not resolved in the eleventh century. On the one hand there was the view expressed by Augustine, taken from St Paul in the New Testament (Rom. 13). This was the idea that all secular power had a divine origin; thus tyrannical rulers were a punishment of God on a sinful people. St Paul’s letter to the Romans would become one of the key texts cited by those wishing to defend the ‘royalist’ position in the Investiture contest.7 On the other hand there was the view that when Christianity became the state religion, a bad ruler need no longer be endured as the divinely appointed agent of wrath upon a sinful people, but that

4 Isidorus Hispalensis Sententiae, 3.48.7, CCSL, 111, 298: Reges a recte agendo vocati sunt, ideoque recte faciendo regis nomen tenetur, peccando amittitur. Nam et viros sanctos proinde reges vocari in sacris eloquiis invenimus, eo quod recte agant, sensusque proprios bene regant, et motus resistentes sibi rationabili discretione componant. Recte enim illi reges vocantur, qui tam semetipsos, quam subjectos, bene regendo modificare noverunt. Cf. Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX, ed. W.M. Lindsay, 2 vols (Oxford, 1911), 9.3.4: Reges a regendo vocati, sicut enim sacerdos a sanctificando, ita et rex a regendo; non autem regit, qui non corrigit. Recte igitur faciendo regis nomen tenetur, peccando amittitur. Unde et apud veteres tale erat proverbium. ‘Rex eris si recte facies, si non facias, non eris’.

5 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/37–40: … idem scribit (sc. Isidore) in libro Ethimologiarum antiqui omnes reges vocabant; sed postea pie juste et misericorditer regendo regis sunt nomen adepti. Impie vero, iniuste et crudeliter principantibus non regis sed tyrannicum aptatum est nomen.

6 Isidore, Etymologiae, 9.3.19–20: Tyranni Graece dicuntur, iidem Latine et reges; nam apud veteres inter regem et tyrannum nulla discretio erat. Jam postea in usum accidit tyrannos vocari pessimos atque improbos reges, luxuriosae dominationis cupiditatem, et crudelissimam dominationem in populis exercentes.

7 Cf. Patrick Healy, ‘The Polemical Use of Scripture in the Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny’, Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales, 73 (2006), 1–36.


one had the duty and the right to resist heretical or tyrannical rulers.8 This potentially revolutionary doctrine was strengthened in the time of Henry IV’s reign (1056–1106) as accusations of tyranny against the king were combined with the charge of heresy. The potency of this charge was made plain in 1076 when King Henry IV expressly recognised that, if he were shown to be a heretic, he should be deposed.9 At the end of the eleventh century, therefore, even amongst the most ardent defenders of ‘sacral’ kingship, there was a growing recognition that kingship could not be unconditional.

The accusations of tyranny against Henry IV must be set against the assertion that, as a ‘sacral king’, Henry IV could not be judged. The ‘sacral king’ was more than a mere layman. He was both rex and sacerdos after the manner of the Old Testament priest-king Melchisedek (Genesis 14:18). In the medieval German kingdom this conception of the royal office survived relatively unchallenged into the reign of Henry III (1039–56).10 A major component of the German king’s role as rex and sacerdos derived from his right to install the bishops of his realm.11 One consequence of the polemical debate surrounding the Investiture Contest was the attempted ‘desacralisation’ of the royal office. We shall examine in detail Hugh of Flavigny’s method in this regard, but a measure of the significance of the polemical debate can be gauged by the statement, made by Honorius Augustodunensis at the start of the twelfth century, that ‘the king is either a layman or a clerk’.12 Honorius’s confident assertion that the defenders of ‘sacral kingship’ were ‘windbags’ (garruli) reflects a revolution in political theory.

The Isidorian idea of tyranny was of crucial importance to the ‘Gregorian’ party in Germany during the time of the Investiture Contest. Pope Gregory VII had excommunicated Henry IV at the Lenten synod of 1076 and had declared the king deposed, but in January 1077 the latter had intercepted the pope at Canossa and was famously restored to communion. Thereafter Henry IV conducted himself as if he had been restored to the kingship, although pope and king would later differ on

8 Cf. Fritz Kern, Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1948), p. 9. In contrast, Augustine in his De Civitate Dei, CCSL, 47–48, 155/39–40, thought that tyrannical rulers were a punishment from God. He was commenting on the Old Testament Book of Proverbs (8:15): Per me reges regnant.

9 Die Briefe Heinrichs IV., ed. Carl Erdmann, MGH DM, 1, no. 12, p. 16/21–4: Me quoque … quem sanctorum patrum traditio soli deo iudicandum docuit nec pro aliquo crimine, nisi a fide, quod absit, exorbitaverim deponendum asseruit.

10 Cf. Karl Morrison’s introduction to Imperial Lives and Letters of the Eleventh Century, ed. K. Morrison and T. Mommsen (New York, 2000), pp. 3–42.

11 The literature on this subject is enormous. A useful survey of political ideas in the time of the Investiture Contest is provided by Tilman Struve, ‘Die Stellung des Königtums in der politischen Theorie der Salierzeit’, Die Salier und Das Reich, ed. S. Weinfurter, Vol. 3 (Sigmaringen, 1991), pp. 217–44.

12 Honorius Augustodunensis, Summa Gloria, c. 4, MGH Libelli, 3, 72/12–14: Sed garruli fortasse tumido fastu contendunt regem non esse de numero laicorum, cum unctus sit oleo sacerdotum … aut enim rex est laicus aut clericus.


this point. In his annals for 1077, the pro-papal Berthold of Reichenau related that on Henry IV’s return to Germany after Canossa, many of the clergy maintained that no one could judge or condemn a king, however wicked and criminal he might be. Berthold refuted this view in Isidorian terms very similar to those employed by Hugh of Flavigny: … unde est hoc vetus elogium rex eris si recte facis, si non facis non eris.13 If one did not rule justly one was not a king. This conditional concept of kingship was of immense significance to the south German pro-papal party which tried to justify and explain Pope Gregory VII’s judgements against Henry IV in 1076 and 1080.

It was also critical to the Saxon party which had rebelled against the king in 1073 and whose opposition to Henry IV became linked for a time with the cause of the pope. The Saxons, who eventually participated in the election of Rudolf of Rheinfelden as anti-king in 1077, maintained that Henry IV had infringed their traditional rights and could thus be considered a tyrant. Lampert of Hersfeld and Bruno of Merseburg were the most important apologists for the Saxon position and they extended the Isidorian principle of ‘ruling rightly’ (recte agendum) to encompass respect for the traditional rights and liberties of the realm. In his account of the demands of the Saxons and Thuringians in 1073, Lampert of Hersfeld made the connection between just governance and the preservation of traditional rights. According to Lampert it was incumbent on the king to maintain inviolate the laws of the realm and this duty was also connected with the preservation of Church privileges.14 Bruno of Merseburg was even more stringent and exploited Isidore’s stricture of recte agendum to lay an axe at the root of feudal government. With Isidore in mind Bruno attributed to the Saxon leader Otto of Northeim the following argument: ‘after [Henry] ceased to be king there was no longer anyone to whom I must preserve fealty’.15 A tyrant was ipso facto no longer a king, but was a tyrannus or exrex and thus oaths of fealty sworn to him were instantly dissolved. According to the Saxons, the rule of the tyrant was void ab initio; the bad king deprived himself of the ability to rule without the need for any formal constitutive process. This was the idea of the tyrant quoad executionem,

13 Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernolds von Konstanz 1054–1100, ed. I.S. Robinson, MGH SRG NS, 14 (Hanover, 2003), 284/15–17; Isidore, Etymologiae, 9.3.4–6, 9.3.18–20; cf. Carlyle and Carlyle, Vol. 3, pp. 112–13, 132–33.

14 Lamperti Monachi Hersfeldensis Opera, s.a. 1073, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SRG,38 (Hanover, 1894), 152/13–18: Sacramento se ei fidem dixisse, sed si ad aedificationem, non ad destructionem aecclesiae Dei rex esse vellet, si iuste, si legitime, si more maiorum rebus modaretur, si suum cuique suam dignitatem, suas leges tutas inviolatasque manere pateretur; cf. Carlyle and Carlyle, Vol. 3, p. 113.

15 Brunos Buch vom Sachsenkrieg, c. 24, ed. H.-E. Lohmann, MGH DM, 2 (Leipzig, 1937), 29/26–8: Dum michi rex erat et ea, quae sunt regis faciebat, fidelitatem, quam ei iuravi, integram et impollutam servari, postquam vero rex esse desivit, cui fidem deberem servare, non fuit. Cf. I.S. Robinson, Authority and Resistance in the Investiture Contest: The Polemical Literature of the Late Eleventh Century (Manchester, 1978), p. 133 n. 94 and Karl Morrison, ‘Canossa: A Revision’, Traditio, 18 (1962), 123–4.


whose royal title may have been obtained legitimately but which was subsequently lost by misrule.16

Hugh of Flavigny agreed with the proposition that the tyrant had no legitimacy, although – characteristically – he relied on biblical rather than legal evidence. Bemoaning the sins of Henry IV and the supporters of the king, Hugh thought that the prophecy of Daniel (13:5) has been realised in his own day: ‘iniquity came [out from Babylon] from the ancient judges, that seemed to govern the people’.17 The key contention in this passage is that the elders and judges only ‘seemed to rule’; they did not have real legitimacy. In assessing the purport of this prophecy of Daniel in the Chronicon the commentary of Jerome is instructive. Jerome explained that those who have the name of rulers, yet who rule unjustly, do not rule in any real capacity and only seem to rule the people. Such men only have the ‘name of ruling’.18 Jerome was one of Hugh’s favourite patristic authors, and the sense of Jerome’s gloss on Daniel 13:5 may have been adapted by Hugh to contemporary Germany. It certainly contained a resonant theological gloss on the contemporary legal concept of the tyrant.

When Hugh of Flavigny was writing in the late eleventh century, however, the term tyrannus had not yet crystallized into such a systematic formulation, and was often used as a polemical smear. In the German royal chancery the dictatorGottschalk of Aachen described Pope Gregory VII as ‘raving like the tyrant Decius’, because Gottschalk considered the pope to have usurped Henry IV’s crown.19 Gregory VII himself never used the term tyrannus in its Isidorian sense but employed it as a general term of disapprobation for those who opposed the Roman Church. It was most frequently applied by him to bishops he had excommunicated, for example, Hermann of Bamberg in 1075, and later Henry IV’s anti-pope, Wibert of Ravenna (Clement III).20 Hugh of Flavigny also adopted this non-technical use of the term. The chronicler employed terms like tyrannus ortyrannis to denote any kind of misrule and not necessarily in the sphere of the res publica. For example, he referred to the rule of the simoniacal Stephen de Polignac, usurper of the see of Le Puy, as ‘tyranny’ (tyrannis),21 and Hugh

16 The other kind of tyrant is one quoad titulum, that is, by unlawful accession: Kern, Kingship and Law, p. 101.

17 Hugh of Flavigny, 436/51: quia egressa iniquitas a senioribus et judicibus, qui videbantur regere populum.

18 Jerome, Commentariora in Danielem Libri III, Dan. 13: 5, CCSL, 75A, 955–6: Pulchre de presbyteris peccatoribus non ait ‘Qui regebant populum’ sed ‘Qui videbantur regere’ qui enim bene praesunt populo regunt populum, qui autem tantum nomen habent iudicum et praesunt populo, regere magis videntur populum quam regunt.

19 Die Briefe Heinrichs IV., no. 13, p. 20/5: … eundem (sc. Gregorium VII.) cum Decio tyranno insanire ….

20 Robinson, Authority and Resistance, pp. 131–2. 21 Hugh of Flavigny, 417/8–20: Stephanus autem Podiensis invasor … donnus Hugo

(sc. Bishop Hugh of Die) quia omnes tyrannidem invasoris illius suspectam habebant (sic)… data in eum (sc. Stephanus) qui se absentaverat excommunicationis sententia si ulterius


castigated those royalist bishops who oppressed the faithful in their care instead of ‘ruling’ them justly – the verb regere was used here to denote the proper exercise of episcopal office.22 It is worth remembering that the bishop in medieval society had a dual role (persona mixta, gemina persona), straddling as he did the ecclesiastical and the secular spheres. He was both a prince of the Church and a vassal of the monarch. Also, by virtue of his office, the bishop shared some functions in common with the king. The polemicist known as the Norman Anonymous – sometimess also referred to as the Anonymous of York – writing not long after the composition of Hugh’s chronicle, claimed that both king and bishop were in spirit Christus et Deus and further asserted that in their offices they acted as antitypes and images of Christ.23 Moreover, those who aspired to the royal throne were expected to mimic the same reluctance for high office that was expected of suitable candidates for the episcopate.24 Thus, it is not incongruous that Hugh should characterise bishops as tyrants in the same way as kings, since bishops shared some of the functions and responsibilities of the monarch.

What were the duties and what was the nature of the royal office? As we have seen, Hugh took over from Isidore the idea that the king must rule piously, justly, and mercifully. Moreover, kingship was a ‘ministry of God’ (ministerium Dei) to rule the populace in justice and equity, to be a defender of the Church and to protect the weaker elements in society like widows, orphans, and paupers. Moreover, the righteous king, like Job (29:17), should ‘break the fangs of the wicked and snatch the victims from their teeth’.25 This idea of the role of the king derived from a seventh century Irish tract, incorrectly attributed to the Church Father Cyprian and was extremely influential in the composition of manuals on kingship in the Middle Ages.26 To defend the Church, to protect the poor and the

ecclesiae [Podiensis] incubare praesumeret. Cf. Hazel Goggin, ‘Hugh, Bishop of Die, and Archbishop of Lyons, 1082–1106: An Agent of Papal Reform in France’ (University of Dublin Ph.D. thesis, 1996), pp. 110–12.

22 Hugh of Flavigny, 430/42: Hii positi ad superintendendum fidelibus premunt eos potius quam regant quia sub nomine pastorum lucra de religione sectantur.

23 Tractatus Eboracenses, MGH Libelli, 3, 667/8–9; cf. Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957), pp. 43, 55.

24 Cf. Bjorn Weiler, ‘The Rex renitens and the Medieval Idea of Kingship, ca. 900–ca. 1250’, Viator, 31 (2000), 1–42.

25 Hugh of Flavigny, 436/4–8: Regale ergo est ministerium Dei populum gubernare et in iustitia et equitate regere; defensorem esse ecclesiarum, tutorem pupillorum et viduarum, liberare pauperem a potente et inopem cui non est adiutor; et cum beato Iob molas iniqui conterere, et dedentibus illius praedam auferre; patrem esse pauperum, oculum caecorum et pedem claudorum.

26 De Duodecim Abusivis Saeculi, ed. Siegmund Hellmann, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, 34, 1 (1909), pp. 1–60. For the influence of this treatise on Continental literature of the Early and High Middle Ages see Hans Hubert Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian: De Duodecim Abusivis Saeculi und sein Einfluss auf den Kontinent


widowed: these were long considered to be the attributes of a ‘sacral’ king. Such ideas were contained in tenth-century works such as the Collectio Canonum of Abbo of Fleury, the Praeloquiorum of Ratherius of Verona and were also found in the mid-eleventh-century Vita Chunradi of Wipo.27 When Hugh paraphrased from the book of Job (29:17) that it was the function of the king ‘to rescue the victims from the fangs of the wicked’, he was implicitly adhering to the traditional pseudo-cyprianic view of kingship as a ‘ministry of God’. Also implicit in this conception was the idea of the ‘sacral king’: the king as quasi-priest. For example, the sixth-century Moralia of Gregory the Great and the contemporary biblical commentary of Bruno of Segni interpreted the passage from Job 29: 17 to signify the mission of the Church to save sinful mankind from the wiles of the Devil.28 Thus, when Hugh ascribed this role to the king, he was – by claiming for the secular lord a role in Christ’s salvific mission – elevating him onto the plane of a priest.

In Hugh’s Chronicon the excerpts from Isidore and Pseudo-Cyprian on the theme of kingship had a concrete polemical function: they were manipulated as criteria to judge the behaviour of Henry IV. A higher than average moral standard was expected of the king. For example, Hugh cited Augustine to the effect that whereas an ordinary man serves God simply by living faithfully, a king serves God by promulgating just laws and by vigorously prohibiting evil.29 The idea that the king must live up to the responsibilities of office allowed Gregorians to make a pivotal distinction between the person of the king and the duty of his office. Thus, Manegold of Lautenbach was able to assert that rex was not a ‘category of nature’ (nomen naturae) but a ‘designation of office’ (vocabulum officii).30 If kingship was an officium or ministerium – the latter term was preferred by Gregory VII – then the holder of an office could be subject to removal if he failed to perform

insbesondere auf die karolingischen Fürstenspiegel’, Irland und Europa: die Kirche im Frühmittelalter (Stuttgart, 1984), pp. 568–617, especially 583–5.

27 Cf. Carlyle and Carlyle, Vol. 3, p. 108, p. 127. 28 Gregory I, Moralia in Job, 19.26.47, CCSL, 143A, 993/1–994/35; Bruno of Segni,

Expositio in Iob, c. 29, PL, 164, 645C. 29 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/48–50: Aliter enim juxta Augustinum servit quia homo est,

aliter quia rex est. Quia homo est, servit vivendo fideliter: quia rex est, servit leges justa praecipientes et contraria prohibentes convenienti vigori sanciendo. Cf. Augustine, Ep. 185 (De Correctione Donatistarum Liber) c. 5.19, CSEL, 57, 17/20–4. The level of common ground shared by the proponents and opponents of ‘sacral’ kingship is illustrated by the fact that the royalist Norman Anonymous also cited this auctoritas of Augustine: Tractatus Eboracenses, MGH Libelli, 3, 673/24. See also the most recent edition, often criticised, and edited by Karl Pellens, Die Texte des Normannischen Anonymus unter Konsultation der Teilausgaben von H. Boehmer, H. Scherrinsky und G.H. Williams (Wiesbaden, 1966), J 28, p. 224. Cf. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, p. 57.

30 Manegold of Lautenbach, Liber ad Gebehardum, c. 29, ed. Kuno Francke, MGH Libelli, 1, 365/1–3: … sicut episcopus presbiter et diaconus non sunt meritorum nomina, sed offitiorum, sic rex, comes et iudex non naturae vel meritorum, sed sunt vocabula offitiorum atque dignitatum.


satisfactorily in his office. The reforming distinction between man and office had been developed in the early 1050s by Peter Damian in an entirely different context. Peter Damian had wanted to refute the idea that sacraments administered by simoniac priests had no efficacy and he therefore distinguished between the officer (who might be sinful) and the office (which retained its power of mediating grace).31 It is piquant that this distinction, which was applied in the 1050s to defend and maintain the errant officer, should be employed in the 1080s and 1090s to demand his expulsion. And it is interesting to observe the penetration of the secular political sphere with ecclesiastical ideas. We will examine later the argument that Gregory VII was able to discipline King Henry IV in the same manner as if he were dealing with a priest.

There was one final standard against which Hugh judged Henry IV as king of Germany: the role of the king within the Christian community. As a Christian, the king/emperor should recognise that he was part of the ‘flock of the Lord’ (si igitur imperator aut cognoscit se ovem esse gregis dominici). Here, the focus was not on the positive duties of the king, but on the Henry’s passive duty to be guided by the spiritual power. The ideal king, therefore, was a servant of the Church, ‘who, above all, should remember [that he was] a son of the Holy Church’.32 Although the ‘cult of royal dignity’ (cultus regiae dignitatis) was a very great honour, on another level the king was simply a layman. Monarchs should remember that they were not set above the Church, but existed within it (meminerint se esse non supra aecclesiam sed intra aecclesiam).33 In a politico-religious sense the followers of Gregory VII such as Hugh of Flavigny wanted the best of both worlds. They demanded that the king fulfil all the responsibilities of ‘sacral’ kingship, but also attempted to reduce the king to the status of an ordinary layman vis-à-vis the Church. From this point of view, although it was incumbent on Henry IV to protect widows and orphans after the model of a sacral king, the king was not to be exempt from the power of ‘binding’ and ‘loosing’ which belonged to the pope, and which was the fundamental basis of Gregory VII’s pontificate (cf. Matthew 16:18–19).34

Pope Gregory VII first exploited the potential of this prerogative in 1075 when calling upon the people in Constance to disobey their bishop, Otto, who had been tardy in implementing papal reform policy and this biblical auctoritas was again

31 Robinson, Authority and Resistance, pp. 125–7; J.J. Ryan, Saint Peter Damian and his Canonical Sources (Toronto, 1956), p. 153; Carl Mirbt, Die Publizistik im Zeitalter Gregors VII. (Leipzig, 1894), p. 235.

32 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/44–5: … qui prae omnibus ita sanctae ecclesiae filium meminit ….

33 Hugh of Flavigny, 437/45. This auctoritas derived ultimately from Ambrose of Milan: Sermo Contra Auxentium, c. 36, PL, 16, 1018B: … imperator intra Ecclesiam, non supra Ecclesiam est; cf. H.-X. Arquillière, ‘La IIe lettre de Grégoire VII à Hermann de Metz (1081): ses sources patristiques’, Recherches de science religieuse, 40 (1952), 231–42.

34 Hugh of Flavigny, 437/42–4: sed et numquid reges excepti sunt, quando ipse Rex regum de disciplina aecclesiastica agens ait principi apostolorum ‘quodcumque ligaveris super terram erit ligatum et in coelis’ (Matt. 16: 19).


cited by Gregory in his second letter to Bishop Herman of Metz, where the pope explained how kings were subordinate to the pope.35

It was by virtue of the papal power of ‘binding’ and ‘loosing’ that Hugh emphasised the duty of the king to be a dutiful and obedient member of the ‘flock of the Lord’. Indeed, the key concept in Gregory’s vision of reform was obedience (oboedientia).36 According to the pope, oboedientia was the key criterion in judging whether or not a secular ruler (and especially a king) was ‘suitable’ (idoneus), and the obedience of the king would manifest itself in his piety and humble devotion to the Holy See.37 Thus, it was in the context of these Gregorian principles of obedience and suitability that Hugh of Flavigny exclaimed that the emperor would reign with Christ ‘if he remembers that he is one of the flock of the Lord, if, among the holy [items] of the altar he devotes himself with veneration to the hands of the priesthood …’.38 Hugh, it is clear, was not interested in any equality between the regnum and the sacerdotium but instead emphasised the subjection and obedience of the secular power to the priesthood.

If one limits the context of the Chronicon, Hugh of Flavigny would seem to have had a traditional and positive view of the royal office. However there are elements in his discussion of kingship that suggest a more negative conception of secular power. In the narrative, not long after the Isidorian material already considered, Hugh asserted the Augustinian idea that kingship without righteousness (iustitia) was merely a form of robbery.39 According to Augustine, secular power was derived from man’s sinful nature. After the expulsion from Eden, man became ambitious and was filled with a desire to coerce his fellows. These instincts were base and diabolical, being the result of the wiles of the serpent. If secular rule was to escape the taint of the Devil it must therefore be imbued with iustitia. This idea – crucial to the Gregorian critique of Henry IV’s

35 EV no. 10, pp. 22–6; Reg. 8.21, p. 548. 36 Cf. I.S. Robinson, ‘Periculosos Homo: Pope Gregory VII and Episcopal Authority’,

Viator, 9 (1978), 103–31. 37 I. S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge,

1990), pp. 410–11; cf. Reg. 9.3, pp. 575–6, where Gregory VII instructed Altmann of Passau and William of Hirsau to find a ‘suitable’ king who would be obedient, humbly devoted and ‘useful’ to the Holy Church. Gregory expected that the successful candidate should take an oath of fealty to St Peter.

38 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/52–4; Tilman Struve has perceived in the papal measures against Henry IV a tendency to treat the king as if he were an erring ecclesiastic: ‘Das Problem der Eideslösung in den Streitschriften des Investiturstreits’, ZRG kan. Abt., 75 (1989), 130.

39 Hugh of Flavigny, 437/32–4: Et beatus Augustinus in eodem libro past pauca ‘Remota justitia, quid sunt regna, nisi magna latrocinia, quia et latrocinia quid sunt nisi prava regna’; cf. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 4.4, CCSL, 47, 101. Arquillière, ‘La IIe lettre de Grégoire VII à Hermann de Metz’, 236, thought that Gregory VII’s famous denunciation of secular power in his second letter to Hermann of Metz was a paraphrase of this statement by Augustine.


royal office – was not confined to contemporary Germany. In his Historia Ecclesiastica, Orderic Vitalis related how the monk Guitmund was offered a bishopric by William I, but declined and informed the king that his conquest of England was nothing but an act of brigandage (rapina).40

How is one to reconcile the divergent elements in Hugh of Flavigny’s political theory? On the one hand kingship was a ministry of God (ministerium Dei); on the other, secular government was inherently inclined towards coercion and robbery.41

It is illuminating here to compare the same dichotomy in the consideration of the secular power in the letters of Pope Gregory VII. In a letter to King Olaf of Norway of 1078, the pope described the function of the royal office in terms very similar to those of Pseudo-Cyprian. Olaf was to help the oppressed, to defend the widow and to love and defend justice with all his might.42 Thus, in 1078, Gregory VII’s concept of kingship could be said to be a traditional one. It comes as a violent shock, then, to read the terms of the pope’s second doctrinal letter to Hermann of Metz in 1081: ‘who can deny that kings and dukes derive their power from those who, denying God, and with the help of the Devil, have with intolerable presumption and blind greed attempted to dominate their equals’.43 The transformation in Gregory’s political thinking between 1078 and 1081 was absolute. It is not hard to identify the principal cause of this development: the second papal deposition of Henry IV in 1080 and the king’s response in installing his own candidate, Wibert of Ravenna (Clement III) as anti-pope. These last events must have caused Gregory VII to despair of the secular power and prompted his very negative view of it. Like Augustine in his De Doctrina Christiana, Gregory now looked back to a primitive age where all men had a natural equality, with the implication that inequality – reflected in the institutions of secular government – represented a deterioration from the divinely ordained order.44 In their Medieval Political Theory in the West, R.W. Carlyle and A.J. Carlyle maintained that there was not necessarily any contradiction in the political thought of Gregory VII, as

40 Ordericus Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, 4.8, ed. M. Chibnall, Vol. 2 (Oxford, 1969), p. 272; cf. Robinson, Authority and Resistance, p. 132 n. 89.

41 Continuing his excursus on the theme broached by Augustine, Hugh of Flavigny, 437/34–42, explained how organised human socity has its origins in the subjugation of the populus by ambitious men who assumed the name of king.

42 Reg. 6.13, p. 417/30–2: Sit vestrae potentiae usus et exercitatio: subvenire oppressis, defendere viduas, iudicare pupillis, iustitiam non solo diligere, sed etiam tota virtute defendere.

43 Ibid., 8.21, p. 552/13–17: Quis nesciat reges et duces ab iis habuisse principatum, qui Deum ignorantes, superbia, rapinis, perfidia, homicidiis, postremo universis pene sceleribus mundi principe diabolo videlicet agitante, super pares scilicet homines dominari ceca cupidine et intolerabili presumptione affectaverunt.

44 Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, 1.23, CCSL, 32, 19: Cum vero etiam eis, qui sibi naturaliter pares sunt, hoc est hominibus, dominari affectat, intolerabilis omnino superbia est. Cf. Reg. 8.21, p. 556/2–5: De quibus beatus Augustinus in libro primo de doctrina Christiana ….


expressed in these two papal letters to King Olaf of Norway and Hermann of Metz. In the stoic and patristic tradition, the institutions of government, like those of property and slavery, were considered to be the result of sin and yet were necessary as a divine remedy for sin. Royal government, born of the Fall from Eden, was appointed by God to restrain the baser instincts of man which would reduce society to chaos.45 This observation perhaps failed to assess fully the ferocity of Gregory VII’s attack in his letter to Hermann of Metz. In this letter, the agency of the Devil was heavily emphasised without any mention of the concomitant benefits to mankind in terms of a structured and orderly society. Thus, the political thinking of Gregory VII, like that of Hugh of Flavigny, was developmental and unsystematic. This lack of system was not simply a response of changing attitudes to Henry IV and to the office of king specifically, but must also be seen as a response to an innovatory programme of reform that had to be articulated using traditional concepts and topoi. ‘Gregorian’ reform attempted to enforce a radically new vision of relations between the sacerdotal and the secular powers, but had to portray this reform in a context of tradition and continuity. Thus, it is hardly surprising that there are contradictory elements in the political thinking of Gregory VII and Hugh of Flavigny.

Hugh’s blend of innovation and tradition emerged clearly in the passage where he cited an auctoritas of Pope Leo I to the effect that nothing could exist in the world without the joint co-operation of the royal power and the sacerdotal power.46

This assertion seemed to enshrine the ‘Gelasian’ theory of political authority, whereby both the secular and priestly powers had their own separate and divinely inspired spheres of influence. In a letter of 494 to the Emperor Anastasius I, Pope Gelasius had asserted that there were two powers by which the world was ruled: the sacred authority of the priesthood and the royal power.47 Hugh of Flavigny’s apparent adherence to the Gelasian theory of political authority was seemingly

45 Carlyle and Carlyle, Vol. 3, p. 97; cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085(Oxford, 1998), pp. 608–15.

46 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/50–2: Omnes enim res, ait Leo papa scribens Pulcheriae augustae cap. X, aliter tutae esse non possunt, nisi ad divinam confessionem pertinent, et regia potestas et sacerdotalis defendat auctoritas; cf. Diversorum Patrum Sententiae, c. 226, ed. John Gilchrist (The Vatican, 1973), p. 141.

47 Gelasius I, ep. 12, Thiel, p. 350. Hugh must have been aware of this Gelasian text as a version of it is contained in Pope Gregory VII’s famous second letter to Hermann of Metz, Reg. 8.21, pp. 544–62, which is also contained in Hugh of Flavigny, 453/47–458/2. However, Gregory VII distorted the original sense of the Gelasian text. He omitted that part of the letter that described the emperor as ruling over the human race and another part which provided that the emperor was subject to the priesthood only in matters concerning the sacraments. Thus the implication of this tendentious version of Gelasius’s sententia was one of unlimited subjection to the priesthood on the part of the emperor. Moreover, it was Gregory VII’s abridged version of Gelasius which entered canon law; cf. Diversorum Patrum Sententiae c. 228, p. 142. Thus, Hugh of Flavigny received a distorted version of the famous text of Gelasius.


bolstered when the chronicler cited an auctoritas that he attributed to Pope Gelasius I concerning the proper competence of the secular power: the emperor had a legitimate right in the administration of the respublica (administrandis publicis rebus); however, he was not to arrogate to himself ‘any other right’ (non sibi vindicet imperator alienum ius).48 Thus far this authority would seem to enshrine the Gelasian theory of political authority, with two co-equal powers with separate spheres of influence. However, this ‘authority’ had opened with the statement that ‘if the emperor was a catholic … he was a son and and not the head of the Church’. The deference expected of the secular power was also emphasised in the last sentence of this authority of which Hugh had notice: ‘christian emperors should subordinate their powers to the leaders of the Church and not exert these powers over the Church’. From the apparently tranquil picture of concord enshrined in this [pseudo] Gelasian sententia, Hugh of Flavigny was able to introduce the idea that, in some matters at least, secular leaders were subordinate to their spiritual counterparts. Moreover, with this auctoritas Hugh imperceptibly moved his discussion of kingship on to the plane of the respublica.

The dual function of the German king to act as emperor entailed a whole new set of criteria against which to measure Henry IV, and again Hugh asserted that Henry IV had failed lamentably. The chronicler referred to the responsibilities of the German king, as emperor, to bear the secular sword and act as patricius and defensor of the Roman respublica: ‘it is not right that the King [Henry IV], the son of the Emperor [Henry III], who bears not the sword in vain and who should be the patricius, tutor and defender of the Roman public … [should instead] impugn the great majesty of the name of king’.49 As his inspiration here Hugh might have been alluding to the ‘suppliant’ letter of Henry IV to Pope Gregory VII of September 1073. In this letter, which Hugh reproduced in the Chronicon, the king alluded to his responsibility to wield the secular ‘sword of vengeance’ (vindex gladius),which he did not bear in vain.50 By citing the responsibility of the king to bear the secular sword, Hugh cleverly turned what Henry IV had understood to be a bulwark of the royal power into a criterion to judge the king. The phrase vindex gladius derives ultimately from the letter of St Paul to the Romans (13:4) and was closely related to the political theory of the ‘two swords’. As a medieval political theory, the ‘two swords’ was an elaboration of the New Testament passage in Luke (22:38) where the apostles produced two swords for the Lord, saying ‘behold, here are two swords’, to which he replied ‘it is enough’.51 It was the Church reformer Peter Damian in the 1060s who first imbued the ‘two swords’ in Luke with a political significance. He identified the ‘two swords’ as belonging to the secular

48 Hugh of Flavigny, 433/53–434/10; cf. Felix III, ep. 9, Thiel, p. 287 (JK 611). 49 Hugh of Flavigny, 458/8–12. 50 Die Briefe Heinrichs IV., ed. Carl Erdmann, MGH DM, 1, no. 5, pp. 8–9, esp. p.

8/22–3; Hugh of Flavigny, 425/17–42, especially line 25. 51 Cf. Hartmut Hoffmann, ‘Die Beiden Schwerter im hohen Mittelalter’, DA, 20

(1964), 78–114.


power and the spiritual power respectively: ‘It is fitting, indeed, if the sword of the kingdom is joined with that of the priesthood so that the sword of the priest should pacify the sword of the king and so that the sword of the king should sharpen that of the priest.’52 This theory was eminently amenable for use in defence of the venerable Gelasian scheme of two co-equal but autonomous powers and was so used in the political debate during the Investiture Contest. Henry IV – or, more precisely, his dictator Gottschalk of Aachen – was concerned in 1076 to reject the pretensions of Pope Gregory VII in terms that had been elaborated by Peter Damian: ‘… the pious ordinance of God, which especially commanded these two – namely the kingship and the priesthood – should remain, not as one entity, but as two. In his passion the Saviour Himself meant the figurative sufficiency of the two swords to be understood in this way … [when] he answered “it is enough”’.53

The theory of the ‘two swords’ seemed to complement the ‘Gelasian’ theory of two equal and independent powers, but the radical Gregorian party could not accept what they considered to be a demeaning equality. Typically, they did not discard the theory, but modified it to the advantage of the pope. Gregory VII, in his letters, referred both to the spiritual sword of anathema, and also to the ‘material sword’ (gladius materialis).54 Hoffmann thought it ‘logical’ to suppose that in his dealings with the kings of Europe, Gregory assumed that he alone possessed the gladius materialis directly; this would make Gregory VII the precursor for the famous assertion of Bernard of Clairvaux in his De Consideratione that both the material and the secular sword were in the hands of the papacy.55 Papal control of both swords had already been claimed in one pro-papal polemic of the Investiture Contest. John of Mantua asserted that the material sword, although in the possession of the secular power, could only be exercised with the consent of the Pope.56 Hoffmann therefore seems to be correct in the sense that the contemporary supporters of Pope Gregory VII thought that the pope was implicitly claiming jurisdiction over both the material and spiritual swords. However, it is not clear whether Gregory VII claimed as much: the language of his letters suggests that he assumed an expanded ambit for the spiritual sword, rather than possession of both the secular and the material sword.

52 Peter Damian, Sermo LXIX: In Dedicatione Ecclesiae, PL, 144, 900: Felix autem, si gladium regni cum gladio iungat sacerdotii, ut gladius sacerdotis mitiget gladium regis, et gladius regis gladium acuat sacerdotis.

53 Die Briefe Heinrichs IV., no. 13, p. 19/3–8. For the importance of Gottschalk as political theorist and for his knowledge of the ‘two swords’ theory: Carl Erdmann and D. von Gladiss, ‘Gotteschalk von Aachen im Dienste Heinrichs IV.’, DA, 3 (1939), 115–74.

54 Cf. Reg. 2.51, p. 194/9. 55 Hoffmann, ‘Die Beiden Schwerter’, 85; cf. I.S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1098:

Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 298–9. 56 John of Mantua, In Cantica Canticorum et de Sancta Maria Tractatus ad

Comitissam Matildam, ed. B. Bischoff and B. Taeger. (Spicilegium Friburgense, 19: Freiburg, 1973), p. 52.


It should be emphasised that there were many strands in the ‘Gregorian’ party, and not even extremists like John of Mantua disputed the necessity or divine origin of the secular sword. Glossators from the ‘Gregorian’ circle based around the cathedral school at Constance understood the function of the secular sword to mete out punishment to evildoers, an interpretation exactly similar to that offered by Henry IV : ‘the punishment of malefactors is a ministry of God on which account the sword for reproving the guilty was promised’.57 The eminent papal apologist Cardinal Deusdedit asserted in his polemic that the priest was to wield the sword of the ‘Word’ whereas the king wielded the material sword, a division consonant with ‘Gelasian’ equality.58 Hugh of Flavigny never referred explicitly to the ‘two swords’ in Luke, but was heavily influenced by this concept as a way to explain the relations between the spiritual and the secular power. As we have seen, he used the term vindex gladius in a sense comprehensible to the royalist party and Hugh also mentioned how the adultery of King Philip I of France (1060–1108) had brought dishonour on the regalis gladius.59

In terms of the spiritual sword, Hugh quoted the prophet Jeremiah (48:10): ‘cursed be he who keeps back his sword from blood’ (maledictus qui prohibet gladium suum a sanguine). Hugh explained that to keep back the sword from blood was to restrain the word of Christian preaching from attacking carnal sins. This interpretation of the function of the spiritual sword was also favoured by Pope Gregory VII and derives ultimately from the Regula Pastoralis of Gregory the Great.60 It is significant that Hugh cited this passage of Jeremiah in defence of the prohibition of lay investiture enacted at Gregory VII’s November synod of 1078.61

In Hugh’s mind the application of the ‘word of preaching’ (verbum praedicationis)has an elastic meaning. It signified, in general and biblical terms, the measures enacted by the pope so that the Church should remain ‘free, chaste and catholic’.62

As understood by Hugh the ‘spiritual sword’ in Jeremiah could be wielded by the

57 This marginal note was appended to folio 47v of MS, Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 191, by the so-called ‘Anonymous A’, a glossator who seems to have had a close connection with Bernold of St-Blasien (†1100), the ardent supporter of Gregorian reform: Johanne Autenrieth, Die Domschule von Konstanz zur Zeit des Investiturstreits (Stuttgart, 1956), p. 44; cf. Die Briefe Heinrichs IV., no. 13, p. 19/11–13: … regali vero gladio ad expellendos Christi inimicos exterius et ad obedientiam sacerdotii interius omnem hominem docens fore constringendum.

58 Deusdedit Presbyteri Cardinalis Libellus Contra Invasores, Prologus, MGH Libelli,2, 300/26–8: Pugnet sacerdos iuxta apostolum gladio verbi … pugnet rex gladio materiali, quoniam Domini minister est et vindex in iram his qui male agunt.

59 Hugh of Flavigny, 492/34: … et federa coniugii, quae ne dirimerentur regalis gladius ultor hactenus inhibuit ….

60 Ibid., 424/33–4: Gladium a sanguine prohibere est praedicationis verbum a carnalis vitae interfectione retinere; Reg. 4.1, p. 291/31–292/1; Gregory I, Regula Pastoralis, 3.25, PL, 77, 96D.

61 Reg. 6.5b, pp. 400–406; Hugh of Flavigny, 423/23–424/23. 62 Hugh of Flavigny, 424/34.


pope to eliminate lay investiture, a practice considered by many contemporaries to be a legal prerogative of the king, and thus lying outside the scope of the ‘spiritual sword’.63 Again, it is instructive to compare Hugh of Flavigny’s interpretation of the ‘spiritual sword’ with that of Gregory VII.

Gregory VII’s interpretation of the spiritual sword was ostensibly traditional, yet he found new applications for the sword of the ‘Word’ which itself was the ‘Word of correction’ (verbum correctionis). Gregory quoted from Jeremiah 41: 10 in an altogether more threatening context in a letter of 1073 to Duke Godfrey IV, ‘the Hunchback’ of Lower Lotharingia. Here, the pope claimed that he desired the wellbeing of King Henry IV but no respect of persons would withhold him from exercising justice.64 The Pope was not content to limit the operation of the spiritual sword to ‘the Word of preaching’ (verbum praedicationis), but sought to use it in the pursuit of ‘justice’ (iustitia), an altogether more dynamic concept.

Gregory VII also cited his favourite biblical passage in a letter to the bishops of France, reproving them for not censuring King Philip I of France. In this epistle of 1074, the sword of Jeremiah 41:10 has evolved into an ‘sword of apostolic punishment’ (apostolicae animadversionis gladium). Thus, the pope threatened that if the king did not repent he would not escape the apostolic sword; moreover, Gregory would do everything in his power to deprive Philip of his kingdom.65 In defence of iustitia the pope would wield the spiritual sword against the secular power, and thus in contravention of the ‘two swords theory’ as espoused by Peter Damian. The threat of deposition by the ‘apostolic sword’ made against Philip I in 1074 was a precursor to Gregory’s endorsement of the anti-king Rudolf of Rheinfelden in 1080 and the papal campaign to reject Henry IV: in respect of both Philip I and Henry IV the deposition of a monarch at the behest of the pope was contemplated. Gregory’s elastic and unconventional understanding of the prerogatives of the spiritual sword, leading in 1080 to civil war in Germany, was the cause of complaints that the pope was trying to wield the ‘material sword’. The pro-Henrician polemicist Sigebert of Gembloux, in a letter written in defence of the clergy of Liège, asserted that all the occupants of the Holy See since Gregory I (590–604) had used the spiritual sword alone until Hildebrand had armed himself

63 For contemporary objections to Gregory VII’s prohibition of lay investiture see Rudolf Schieffer, Die Entstehung des päpstlichen Investiturverbots für den deutschen König(MGH Schriften, 28: Stuttgart, 1981), pp. 177 ff.

64 Reg. 1.9, p. 15/7–11: Sin vero quod non optamus, nobis odium pro dilectione, omnipotenti autem Deo pro tanto honore sibi collato dissimulando iustitiam eius contentum non ex equo reddiderit, interminatio qua dicitur Maledictus homo, qui prohibet gladium suum a sanguine ….

65 Reg. 2.5, p. 132/29–41: Quodsi vos audire noluerit et abiecto timore Dei contra regium decus, contra suam et populi salutem in duritia cordis sui perstiterit, apostolice animadversionis gladium nequaquam eum diutius effugere posse quasi ex ore nostro sibi notificate … Quodsi nec huiusmodi districtione voluerit resipiscere, nulli clam aut dubium esse volumus, quin modis omnibus regnum Francie de eius occupatione adiuvante Deo temptemus eripere.


with the sword of war.66 It is probably accurate to say that Gregory VII, although aware of the terminology of the ‘two swords’ theory, was not unduly concerned with a systematic application of the concept. The traditional theory, with its ‘Gelasian’ separation of the sacerdotal and the secular spheres, was subordinated by the pope to his desire for iustitia.

Hugh of Flavigny made an obscure reference to the spiritual sword when discussing the followers of Henry IV who had been excommunicated by Gregory VII. By virtue of the papal anathema, a ‘sharp and unsheathed sword’ (gladius limatus et evaginatus) had thereby been plunged into the souls of the wrongdoers.67

The ‘sharp and unsheathed sword’ in this passage was probably an allusion to the Old Testament book of Ezekiel (21:10) and had previously been employed by Peter Damian to define the functions of the secular power in his De Officio Principis in Coercitione Improborum. According to Peter Damian the secular sword was to be contrasted with the episcopal staff because the tribunal of the judge was different to the seat of the priest.68 The judge bore the sword to punish the ungodly; the priest was content with the staff of innocence so that a gentle discipline was preserved.69 Peter Damian thought the ‘sharp and unsheathed sword’ was the preserve of the secular power; in Hugh of Flavigny’s account this sword of Ezekiel 21: 10 had acquired an enhanced significance in a time of schism and civil war: it was transformed into the ‘sword of anathema’ (gladius anathematis) to be wielded by the pope. Hugh’s use of this text from Ezekiel illustrates the radicalisation of reforming exegesis in the generation after the death of Peter Damian in 1072.70 The Ezekiel text also served two purposes in the Chronicon: it presented, in lurid and dramatic terms, the consequences of deviation from the pope – that is, damnation; it introduced a new motif in Hugh’s polemic against the secular power – the use of organic/corporeal analogies.

Hugh of Flavigny wrote of ‘the sharp and unsheathed sword’ being plunged into the body (corpus) of the evildoers. The polemics of the Investiture Contest gave a powerful stimulus to the representation of both the spiritual and the secular power – the sacerdotium and the regnum – as a living, corporeal, entity (corpus),with a directing head (caput), and subordinate limbs (membra). This conceptual framework developed alongside the more traditional ‘Carolingian’ scheme where

66 Sigebert of Gembloux, Leodicensium Epistola Adversus Paschalem Papam, c. 10, MGH Libelli, 2, 462/3–6: Hoc exemplo omnes a primo Gregorio contenti utebantur solo gladio spirituali usque ad ultimum Gregorium, id est ad Hildebrandum, qui primus se et suo exemplo alios pontifices contra imperatorem accinxit gladio belli.

67 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/3–6. 68 Peter Damian, De Principis Officio in Coercitione Improborum, PL, 145, 821B:

Distat plane tribunal iudicis a cathedra sacerdotis. Ille nimirum ad hoc gladium portat, ut eum in ultione iniuste viventium exerat, iste baculo tantum contentus est innocentiae, ut quietus et placidus teneat custodiam disciplinae.

69 Cf. Carlyle and Carlyle, Vol. 4, p. 48. 70 Cf. Healy, ‘The Polemical Use of Scripture’, p. 9, nn. 25–6.


both regnum and sacerdotium existed coequally within the ‘body of Christ’ (corpus Christi); the Carolingian corpus Christi itself represented an elaboration and evolution of the ‘Gelasian’ theory of political authority. For example, in the Relatio Episcoporum of 829, the bishops of the empire announced that the offices of the priest and the king were offices not in the world, as Gelasius had claimed, but were offices in the Universal Church, which was the body of Christ. Thus, the priest and the king did not have their own separate and autonomous spheres of influence, as Gelasius had claimed, and there was only one commonwealth: the Church of Christ.71

Moreover, the corpus Christi had long been considered to be synonymous with the Church (ecclesia) as a whole.72 However, papal reformers from the mid-eleventh century onwards were no longer satisfied with this idea. They wished to exclude lay intervention from the life of the Church, and hence tried to limit the composition of the ecclesia to the sacerdotal order alone. One can discern this attempt at exclusion in the last chapter of the ‘Swabian Appendix’ of the reforming canon law collection The 74 Titles (the ‘Swabian Appendix’ was possibly compiled in the pontificate of Gregory VII by the ardent papalist Bernold of St-Blasien).73 In Chapter 330 of this appendix it was laid down that kings were to lose their dignities and be excluded from participation in the Church (corpus Christi) if they presumed to condemn the commands of the apostolic see.74 In this auctoritaswe see the operation of two ideas: the definition of the king as a member of the ‘lay’ order, and the idea that lay participation in the corpus Christi was controlled by a superior ‘sacerdotal order’. Hugh of Flavigny also subscribed to the idea that the king formed part of the lay order. Although Hugh criticised the tyrannical behaviour of Henry IV, he claimed that he did not thereby condemn the royal power which ‘indeed, in its own order’ was a good thing.75 Thus, in Hugh’s Chronicon, as in the ‘Swabian Appendix’, there was a deliberate attempt to elevate the clericalis ordo above the laicalis ordo as a key component in the reform of the Church. In addition, striving to make the papacy an effective agent of reform, reformers elevated the pope to the position of caput within this newly re-defined

71 Episcoporum ad Hludowicum Imperatorem Relatio, cc. 2–3, ed. V. Krause (Hanover, 1897), MGH Capitularia Regum Francorum, 2, 29/7–31; cf. Carlyle and Carlyle, Vol. 4, p. 166.

72 Tilman Struve, Die Entwicklung der organologischen Staatsauffassung im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1978), pp. 99ff.

73 Cf. Johanne Autenrieth, ‘Bernold von Konstanz und die erweiterte 74-Titelsammlung’, DA, 14 (1958), 375–94.

74 Diversorum patrum sententie, c. 330, p. 196: Decernimus reges a suis dignitatibus cadere et participatione corporis et sanguinis Domini nostri Iesu Christi carere, si presumant apostolice sedis iussa contemnere.

75 Hugh of Flavigny, 436/11: Neque hoc dicentes impugnamus regiam potentiam, quae quidem ordine suo bona est ….


ecclesia.76 Royalist polemic in this regard was reactionary; the concept of the king as caput of an autonomous corpus developed in response to papal claims that the secular power should be subordinate to the spiritual power.77

Organic representations of both the king and the pope are widespread in Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon. The chronicler did not address these organic representations in any systematic way, however, and preferred to exploit them polemically to deny Henry IV any right of participation in the corpus Christi. Such an exclusion was not merely of theological significance: it had direct political consequences. We see this more fully in Henry IV’s letter of 1076 where the king admitted that he could be deposed if shown to be a heretic, that is, if he could be shown to be a stranger to the corpus Christi.78 Hugh asserted that, by virtue of his contact with his excommunicated counsellors, Henry IV was removed from communion with the body of Christ.79 Moreover, Hugh linked the formal excommunication of Henry IV at the Lent synod of 1076 with the deposition of the king. Gregory VII’s sentence of anathema had removed Henry IV both from the body of the Church and from the kingship.80 No longer part of the authentic body of Christ, the king was nurtured in iniquity and ‘grew’ in the body of the antichrist.81

Just as the pope was head of the Church, Henry IV was the head and cause (caput et causa mali) of the strife between Church and State.82 Although on one level Henry IV was to be considered the head and origin of the schism within Christianity, on another level he was merely an unhappy limb of the Devil. In

76 Cf. Ibid., 431/3–4, where Hugh described the Roman See as the ‘head of all the churches’: quae etiam caput est omnium aecclesiarum, a qua omnes sumpsere originem.

77 Struve, Organologischen Staatsauffassung, p. 115, asserted that the medieval state, now framed conceptually as a body or organism, no longer depended solely on the person of the ruler and thus became a ‘transpersonal’ entity. Part of this process must also be attributed to the debate concerning the validity of orders, that is the distinction between the officer and his officium.

78 See above note 9. 79 Hugh of Flavigny, 425/7–10: ad poenitentiam vocaret, venientes susciperet,

respuentes a communione corporis Christi et consortio fidelium separaret; ut vel sic eum ab eorum surreptione et maligno consilio segregaret, admonens eum ut eos excommunicatos a domo, a convivio, ab omni etiam familiaritate et communione sua expelleret.

80 Ibid., 436/47–8: Separato ergo Heinrico a communione corporis ecclesiae et regia dignitate privato, quod semper catholica aecclesia tenuit.

81 Ibid., 434/47–9. The language here is interesting. The king was nourished in iniquity: ad plenam iniquitatem enutritur. This motif of nutrition enlivens Hugh’s organic analogy and in this specific case may be a diabolical counterpoint to the Roman See which had nourished lesser Churches with the milk of faith: Jamnon tantum sorores, affines et parentes, sed et mater ecclesia quae eos parturivit et lacte fidei imbuens enutrivit, utinam non ad pabulum ignis aeterni, fetorem eorum sustinet. Hugh, 434/54–6, was referring here to the bishops in the German kingdom who remained loyal to Henry IV.

82 Ibid., 458/14.


attempting to depose the pope at Worms in January 1076, Henry IV not only showed himself to be a presumptuous tyrant, he voluntarily withdrew from the Church and became a limb of Satan.83 Hugh’s use of the organic analogy in this passage was apt for his polemical intentions.84 The king was ‘an unhappy limb of him who is king over all the sons of pride’. Pride was considered to be the cardinal sin in the Middle Ages; it was the sin of Lucifer who had refused to submit to the dominion of God, and superbia was considered to be the hallmark of the tyrant. Hugh’s depiction of Henry IV as a limb (membrum) of Satan gave dramatic force to the medieval commonplace of the proud king. The followers of the king were likewise described as membra diaboli.85 This phrase membra diaboli indicates the probable origin of Hugh’s organic terminology in this passage. Gregory VII excommunicated Henry IV in 1080 – as in 1076 – in the form of a prayer to St Peter. In this prayer to the apostle, also contained in Hugh’s Chronicon, Gregory explained how ‘the members of the Devil combined to attack me, and even presumed to raise their hands against me with bloody intent’.86

By his excommunication of Henry IV and the followers of the king, Gregory VII had ‘cut away the putrid and dead members from the unity of the body [of Christ].87 This surgical function of the pope was a logical development from the conceptual apparatus of the Church as an organic body, an idea widely accepted by intellectuals in the late eleventh century. For example, Ivo of Chartres thought that amputation might be necessary to restore health and unity to the corpus Christi.88

Hugh of Flavigny also employed medical imagery to characterise the reforming endeavours of Gregory VII, especially in respect of papal action against lay investiture and simony and this imagery reinforced the organic motifs in the Chronicon. Gregory’s call for violent action, if necessary, against recalcitrant

83 Ibid., 430/27: Sic igitur rex, non rex dicendus quia tyrannus, a Romana recessit aecclesia, factus infelix membrum illius qui est rex super omnes filios superbiae.

84 The distinction between the membra Christi and the membra diaboli was accentuated by the sacramental controversies of the Investiture Contest: Wilfried Hartmann, ‘Beziehungen des Normannischen Anonymous zu frühscholastischen Bildungszentren’, DA,31 (1975), 139ff.

85 Hugh of Flavigny, 424/41–6: Heinricus enim … menbra diaboli contra [Gregorium VII.] incitando, et omnes quos potuit minis, blandiciis, terroribus, muneribus contra eum armando, facta cum multis episcopis Lothariensibus et Transrhenensibus conspiratione ….

86 Reg. 7.14a, p. 483/21; cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 451/53–4: … menbra diaboli contra me coeperunt insurgere, et usque ad sanguinem praesumpserunt in me manus injicere …, Hugh of Flavigny must have been influenced by the language and concepts of Gregory VII as 35 of Gregory’s letters and conciliar decrees are contained in the Chronicon. See Chapter 5, notes 28–30.

87 Hugh of Flavigny, 438/53–4: Sed jam ipse domnus papa, qui menbra putrida et emortua praecidit ab unitate corporis ….

88 Ivo of Chartres, Epistola 214, PL, 162, 218B: Ad hanc unitatem resarciendam laborare debent membra Christi, quae medicinaliter ferro putredines istas resecarent … ; cf. Struve, Organologischen Staatsauffassung, p. 108.


bishops such as Otto of Constance was represented as a ‘medicinal defence’ (medicinalis defensio).89 The efforts of the pope to win back royalist bishops to the papal banner were full of ‘the medicine of reconciliation’ (medicamentum reconciliationis).90 Moreover, Hugh described the famous second letter of Gregory VII to Bishop Hermann of Metz as an antidotum.91 A near-contemporary pro-papal propagandist, Manegold of Lautenbach, described Gregory VII in similar terms as a bonus medicus, and Tilman Struve has seen in this usage a revival of the classical concept of the ‘doctor of the republic’ (medicus rei publicae).92

If Struve is correct, the concept of medicus rei publicae was revived by Wipo in the middle of the eleventh century, who had understood the concept in its traditional sense as applying to the secular lord. It was transferred by Manegold to the pope in the 1080s as a justification of the steps taken against Henry IV by Gregory VII. This thesis is attractive because it endows papal apologetics of the time with a coherent principle to explain the papal intrusion into the secular sphere which was undoubtedly taking place. However, in both studies undertaken by Struve, the revival of the concept of medicus rei publicae in the eleventh century is asserted rather than demonstrated. Certainly, in the case of Hugh of Flavigny, the use of organic analogies and medical vocabulary was directed towards the conceptualisation of relations between Church and State, and thus relate to the health of the respublica. It is possible, however, to explain this process in Hugh, and also perhaps in Manegold, with reference to the traditional theology of the corpus Christi – imbibed through the medium of the letters of Gregory VII – a theology articulated by Church Fathers such as Gregory the Great, who explained the action of sin in the world using medical language.93

In Manegold’s treatise the pope is indeed represented fulfilling the office of a good doctor (boni medici officium implebit), yet the idea of the bonus medicus had a long history in biblical exegesis.94 In his commentaries on the Psalms, Ambrose

89 Hugh of Flavigny, 429/11–12; for Hugh’s medical imagery see Chapter 4, note 15.90 Hugh of Flavigny, 440/42. This phrase had previously been employed by Augustine,

De Baptismo Contra Donatistas, 1.8.2, PL, 43, 116. 91 Hugh of Flavigny, 453/42: … et ille (sc. Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne who conveyed

this famous letter to Bishop Hermann) a sede apostolica contra rabiem oblatrantium curationis expeteret antidotum, ut erga eorum impetus scriptis apostolicis quasi clypeo defensionis muniretur ….

92 Manegold of Lautenbach, 395/17–26, 397/17–22; Struve, ‘Das Problem der Eideslösung’, 125; cf. Struve, Organologischen Staatsauffassung, p. 133, where he attributed the revival of the concept of medicus rei publicae to Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi II Imperatoris, Epistola Ad Regem Heinricum, Wiponis Opera, ed. H. Bresslau, MGH SRG, 61 (Hanover, 1915), 3/16–18: … alterum rem publicam, utpote Romanum imperium, salubriter incidisse, alterum eandem rationabiliter sanavisse ….

93 Cf. for example, Nancy G. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine(Chicago, 1990), p. 7, where the author discusses the ‘subordination to Christian exegetical purposes’ of medical knowledge by patristic authors.

94 Liber ad Gebehardum, c. 49, p. 395/18.


of Milan explained the concept of bonus medicus in terms of salvation as an agency counteracting the deleterious effects of sin, and this Ambrosian interpretation influenced later commentators such as Hincmar of Rheims.95 It is very possible that Manegold himself produced a commentary on the Psalms; if this were the case then his knowledge of Ambrose’s commentary is highly probable.96

The idea that bonus medicus is a theological rather than a classical term in the Liber ad Gebehardum is supported by Manegold’s description of Gregory VII as spiritualis medicus, another term which had a high theological significance.97

Finally, Manegold praised Gregory VII ‘in this [art of] medicine’ (in hoc nanque medicine) to be worthy of comparison to Gregory the Great in his Moralia.98 None of these points detract from the political significance of the term bonus medicusand the significance of its ascription by Manegold to Gregory VII. Although Struve’s hypothesis on the revival of the classical concept of the medicus rei publicae remains to be proven, Manegold’s theologically-influenced medical vocabulary is certainly relevant to his theory of politics. In the late eleventh century a purely secular view of politics was inconceivable; indeed political ideas were generally always articulated with a theological vocabulary.99

One must now turn from Hugh of Flavigny’s theoretical understanding of tyranny and the responsibilities of the king to Hugh’s depiction of the tyrant in action. In the Chronicon Henry IV’s most obvious exercise of tyranny was his practice of lay investiture, a practice which Hugh invariably associated with the heresy of simony. Lay investiture was contrary to the teachings of the Church Fathers and the decrees of canon law.100 By this pravus consuetudo Henry had destroyed the German Church by introducing ‘wolves’ instead of pastors to guide

95 Ambrose of Milan, Enarrationes in XII. Psalmos Davidicos, In Psalmum LXI Enarratio c. 4, PL, 14, 1167C; idem, In Psalmum David CXVIII Expositio, Sermo Tertius c. 22; Sermo Quartus c. 23, Sermo Octavus c. 26, PL, 15, 1231A, 1248C, 1305C. Cf. Hincmar of Rheims, De Praedestinatione, PL, 125, 401A; idem, De Regis Persona et Regio Ministerio c. 19, PL, 125, 846D.

96 Cf. Wilfried Hartmann, ‘Psalmenkommentare aus der Zeit der Reform und der Frühscholastik’, SG, 9 (1972), 319–27.

97 Liber ad Gebehardum, 395/22–3; cf. Augustine of Hippo, Sermo CCLXX, c. 1, PL,39, 2248.

98 Liber ad Gebehardum, 395/26: in hoc nanque medicine genere noster Gregorius equivoci sui imitator noscitur exstitisse, qui in suis Moralibus libro XXXIII huius modum medele monstratur expressisse; cf. Gregory I, Moralia, 32.20.36, PL, 76, 657C. In Hugh of Flavigny, 422/13, one also finds Gregory VII compared to Gregory the Great and in very similar terms to those employed by Manegold: His ergo interim sepositis, beati patris Gregorii VII Romanae pontificis, magni illius Gregorii cuius hodie flores eloquii in ecclesia redolent univoci et aequivoci …. The common usage of the term aequivoci stands out.

99 This is essentially the thesis of Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study In Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957).

100 Hugh of Flavigny, 424/41.


the faithful.101 King Henry had betrayed his duty of protecting the Church and the faith. In appointing such a peccant episcopate, he had made a ‘shipwreck’ of the faith (circa fidem christi naufragare fecit; cf. 1 Timothy 1: 19).102 On another occasion Hugh alluded to Henry IV as an archipyrata.103 Hugh’s use of the nautical metaphor here is perhaps significant, because, at least since the ninth century, the Church had been conceptualised as a navis, with the pope as gubernator.104 Hugh might have adapted these metaphors to his own day when he described Henry IV as an ‘arch-pirate’. Moreover, Henry’s piratical tyranny was directed almost exclusively against the Church; in Hugh’s Chronicon very little of Henry’s misrule impinged on the public sphere.

It is significant that Hugh couched the king’s ‘usurpation’ of the rights of the Church in sexual terms.105 Accusations of sexual lust and deviancy had always surrounded Henry IV and were a major factor in the depiction of him as a tyrant by Gregorian polemicists. Manegold of Lautenbach had claimed that bad kings were invariably pravi and iniusti, denoting domestic and public vices respectively. The rex pravus was in fact a tyrant because Isidore of Seville had described tyrants as ‘very wicked and shameless kings’.106 Not only political acts of a tyrannical nature, but also the private sins of a king had a bearing on his legitimacy. Thus, when contemporary polemicists considered the precedents for papal judgement on sinful kings, they could include the adulteries of King Charibert and Emperor Lothar.107

Rumours about the sexual depravity of Henry IV had first circulated in 1069 when the king attempted to procure a divorce from his wife Bertha of Turin, and such rumours were readily exploited by pro-papal polemicists from the 1070s onwards. The Saxon polemicists represented that the demands of the Saxons in 1073 included the requirement that Henry should abandon his concubines and return to his wife.108 Polemics written in the aftermath of Gregory VII’s death in 1085

101 Ibid., 448/23: … pastores ab aecclesia abigebat, lupos ad ovilia subintroducens. 102 Ibid., 430/10; see Chapter 1, note 41. 103 Hugh of Flavigny, 466/10. 104 Cf. I.S. Robinson ‘Church and Papacy’, CHMPT, pp. 255–9. In his Gesta Chuonradi

c. 7, ed. H. Bresslau, MGH SRG, 61 (Hanover, 1915), 30/16–18, Wipo asserted that if the king shpuld die the ship of state would still survive: Si rex periit, regnum remansit, sicut navis remanet cuius gubernator cadit.

105 Hugh of Flavigny, 423/17: … foedam libidinosae contagionis pollutionem contra ius fasque usurpatam et subintroductam.

106 Isidore, Etymologiae, 9.19; cf. Robinson Authority and Resistance, pp. 124–5 and I.S. Robinson, Henry IV of Germany 1056–1106 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 113.

107 Manegold of Lautenbach, c. 29, p. 362–4; cf. Robinson, Authority and Resistance,pp. 133–4.

108 Lampert of Hersfeld, Annales, 151/12–152/1: Preterea postulant (sc. principes Saxoniae) … ut abdicato grege concubinarum, quibus contra scita canonum attrito frontis rubore incubabat, reginam, quam sibi secundum ecclesiasticas traditiones thori sociam regnique consortem delegisset, coniugali loco haberet et diligeret …; cf. Carlyle and Carlyle, Vol. 3, p. 130.


reported even more graphically that Henry IV had fathered illegitimate children and was guilty of incest and pederasty.109 Even Gregory VII attested in a letter of 1076 that he had received ‘an evil and most shameful report of the king’s behaviour’.110

The taint of sexual depravity was fatal to the reputation of a king, not only for the sin per se, but also because of the role of the king to act as a model for the whole community. Lampert of Hersfeld described the king’s unsuccessful attempt to divorce as a pessima res which could not be allowed because of the example it would give to the Christian community.111 Hugh of Flavigny appears not to have had a great amount of detail with regard to the sexual crimes of Henry IV but he alluded to the sins of the king which were ‘horrendous to relate’, for which he was not only excommunicated but deprived of the kingship ‘without any hope of recuperation’.112 At a later point in the narrative Hugh became more explicit and again made the terrible sins of homicide, perjury, adultery and fornication a key component in the deposition of the king.113

According to Isidore ‘the name of king is lost by sinning’, and as we have seen, this dimension of peccandum was fully exploited by Hugh and other Gregorian polemicists in the context of the king’s alleged sexual depravity.114 However, Hugh augmented this account with references to Henry IV’s supposed intellectual decline. The king, according to Hugh, was a slave to sin and had lost control of his mental faculties. In terms of medieval metaphysics, the highest form of freedom was total subjection to God.115 Freedom and servitude were attributes of behaviour, not of birth. Thus, Henry IV’s exalted position within the German regnum had no influence on his status metaphysically. Although a king, he had sinned grievously and in terms of his salvation was no more than a slave. Hugh made this point by citing Augustine: ‘He is a good man if he serves, he is free; he is a bad man if he rules, he is a slave.’116 In Hugh’s hands, this sententia of Augustine became a tool

109 Cf. Manegold of Lautenbach, c. 29, pp. 362–3. 110 Reg. 4.1, p. 290/12–14. 111 Lampert, Annales, 109/27–110/1: … ne scilicet tam fedi exempli venenum ab rege

sumpto inicio totum commacularet populum christianum. 112 Hugh of Flavigny, 430/4–6: de sceleribus suis, dictu quidem horrendis … pro quibus

non solum excommunicari, sed absque spe recuperationis omni deberet regni honore destitui.

113 Ibid., 451/37–40: pro his inquam, et aliis innumerabilis malis, homicidiis, periuriis, adulteriis, fornicationibus … in Romana synodo anemathizatus est et dampnatus et a regno inrecuperabiliter depositus.

114 Isidore, Etymologiae, 9.3.4, 20; cf. Robinson, Authority and Resistance, pp. 133–4. 115 Gerd Tellenbach, Church, State and Christian Society at the time of the Investiture

Contest (Oxford, 1940), pp. 38–42. 116 Hugh of Flavigny, 437/30–31: Ait quippe beatus Augustinus in libro quarto de

civitate Dei ‘Bonus si serviat, liber est, malus etiam si regnet, servus est’. Hugh was referring here to Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, 4.3, CCSL 47, 101/45–7. This phrase was employed didactically by Hincmar of Rheims in the ninth century in an early speculum


in his attack on the concept of ‘sacral’ kingship. The emphasis on sin is maintained in a reference to Ambrose which immediately follows: ‘It is a wretched servitude to be a slave to sin.’117 This patristic fragment corresponded to the biblical gloss that Hugh gave to the rebellion of Henry IV and the bishops against the pope at Worms in 1076: ‘whoever commits sin is a slave to sin, always in snares, always in chains, never free from shackles because always [involved] in crime’ (cf. John 8:34).118 Subjection to sin not only led to damnation,119 it distorted the mental faculties. The perverse mind of the sinner rejoiced in his iniquity. Like the foolish men in the Old Testament book of Job (Job 30:7), the royalist bishops of Germany were so deluded that they metaphorically took shelter among thorns, believing such an abject condition to be luxury.120

Up to a point, Hugh’s discussion of the consequences of sin focused mainly on the position of Henry IV as a sinful Christian, not as a king. However, Hugh also addressed the action of sin on Henry IV’s capacity to rule wisely. The debilitating effects of sin were treated in the context of the classical opposition of desire and reason. The wise man did not act rashly or without care: if one’s rational capacity was subordinated to primeval desire, the ‘law of nature’ was subverted. Thus, according to Hugh of Flavigny, Henry IV had let slip the ‘reins of moderation’ and

principis: De Regis Persona et Regio Ministerio ad Carolum Calvum Regem, c. 6, PL, 125, 840B.

117 Hugh of Flavigny, 437/31–2: Et beatus Ambrosius ‘Misera’ ait ‘servitus est servire peccatis, et servile est omne peccatum’; cf. Ambrose of Milan, De Nabuthe Jezraelita, c. 6, PL, 14, 739B. It is no coincidence that, in this treatise, Ambrose linked servitude to sin with the lust for monetary gain. This connection was apt for Hugh’s purpose. Part of Hugh’s polemic against Henry IV was that the king was a greedy simoniac. In the course of a discussion as to why worldly riches are worthless in the next life, Ambrose exclaimed: ‘What are riches except an insatiable whirlpool, an unquenchable thirst for gold?’: Quid est enim dives, nisi quidam inexplebilis gurges divitiarum, inexplebilis auri fames ac sitis? It is interesting that Hugh should use this same phrase, ‘insatiable whirlpool’, to describe the greed of the Roman clergy in Normandy: see Chapter 3, notes 47 and 115.

118 Hugh of Flavigny, 430/36–8. 119 The late eleventh-century theologian and polemicist, Bruno of Segni, interpreted the

slave in John 8:34 to mean someone who had not been liberated by the word of Christ and who therefore would never see paradise, Commentaria in Joannem, Pars Secunda, PL, 165, 522A: Peccavit enim primus homo, et factus est servus peccati. Ejectus igitur de paradiso, ejectus de domo Domini, non mansit ibi in aeternum. Qui simul cum tota sua posteritate, nisi per Dei Filium, ab originali peccato liberari non potuit.

120 Hugh of Flavigny, 437/16–21: Perversae enim mentis est gaudere in inquitatibus quas flere debuerat. Nam bonae mentis est vulnus sentire peccati … Qui autem gaudent ad scelera trahunt quos valent ad perditionem suam, et sub peccatis esse vel culpis culpas addere, credunt se virtutum opulentia cumulare et quibus per prophetam dicitur, quod esse sub sentibus delicias deputant, quia inde perversam mentem ad gaudia sublevant, unde spinas peccatorum portant. This interpretation of Job 30:7 is heavily influenced by the Moralia of Gregory the Great, 4.20.15, PL, 76, 159B–160D.


had allowed his violent appetites to destroy his mind.121 This analysis was taken almost verbatim from De Officiis Ministrorum of Ambrose of Milan, which was itself a distillation of Cicero’s De Officiis.122 Ambrose had taken over from Cicero the Stoic idea that a life lived in accordance with reason constituted man’s supreme good.123 It is interesting to observe that Ambrose addressed his work to the clergy; Hugh’s application of these ideas to Henry IV unwittingly restored Cicero’s focus on public office. The king’s incapacitating mental malaise was linked by Hugh – as by Gregory the Great – to the most pernicious of sins: pride. In his Moralia, Gregory the Great made clear the association between superbia and tyrannis. Not only was the tyrant one who ruled the community without the right to do so, but every haughty or proud man was also a tyrant. This psychological dimension to tyranny was described in the Moralia of Gregory the Great in the sixth century, and would still be integral to the Policraticus of John of Salisbury in the twelfth century.124 In his vehement invective against Henry IV, Hugh made constant reference to the king’s proud nature, generally linking him with Satan, the king of vanity and pride. This pride was also characteristic of the king’s supporters, especially Wibert of Ravenna, who was installed on the papal throne as Henry IV’s nominee in 1084. Not only was such an action illegal (contra jus et fas), it was deserving of a quote from the Old Testament book of Isaiah (14:13–14): ‘I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north, I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High’.125 This vision of Isaiah had traditionally been understood to mean the arrogant pride of Lucifer, who had dared to challenge the authority of God, and was therefore cast

121 Hugh of Flavigny, 441/52–4: Sollicitus etiam erat (sc. Gregorius VII.), juxta beatum Ambrosium, ne quid temere aut incuriose ageret, ex quo probabilem non posset rationem reddere. Pretendebat animo ut bonus speculator, ut appetitus rationi lege naturae subditus, neque precurreret rationem neque desereret; ne praecurrendo perturbaret eam atque excluderet, et deserendo destitueret. Verum Heinrici perturbata mens effuso appetitu, tamquam efferato impetu frenos rationis non susciebat, nec sentiebat aurigae moderamina, ideoque flecti non poterat.

122 Ambrose of Milan, De Officiis Ministrorum, c. 47, PL, 16, 91B. 123 Cf. R.A.. Markus, ‘The Latin Fathers’, CHMPT, p. 97. 124 Gregory I, Moralia in Iob, 12.38.43, PL, 75, 1006C: Proprie enim tyrannus dicitur

qui in communi republica non jure principatur. Sed sciendum est quia omnis superbus juxta modum proprium tyrannidem exercet; cf. Ioannis Saresberiensis Episcopi Carnotensis Policratici, 8.17, ed. C.C.I. Webb, Vol. 2 (Oxford, 1909), p. 345/19–21: Et quidem non soli reges tirannidem exercent, privatorum plurimi tiranni sunt, dum id virium quod habent in vetitum efferunt.

125 Hugh of Flavigny, 460/36–8; see chapter 1 note 78. The characterisation of Henry IV as a proud king was vital to Hugh’s polemic. See also Hugh of Flavigny, 424/41–3: Heinricus enim … adversus Deum et matrem omnium catholicorum Romanam aecclesiam superbe tumidus, quia vita ejus prava sanctorum Patrum decretis et canonicis aversabatur institutis, adversus Deum et adversus Christum ejus insurrexit ….


‘headlong flaming’ from heaven. The identification of Henry IV’s party with Lucifer thus has two functions: to attack the legitimacy of the king on a theological level – far more important to Hugh than any legal argument – and to encourage the supporters of the pope by predicting the inevitable demise of the king and his antipope Wibert of Ravenna. One final hallmark of the tyrant was his cruel and warlike nature. Hugh constantly depicted Henry IV as an irrationally bellicose king. In his tyrannical pride, Henry was possessed with an ungovernable appetite for domination, a characteristic of the tyrant which had been identified by Isidore of Seville. Isidore had stated that a tyrant craves luxuriosa dominatio and one finds clear traces of this idea in Hugh’s chronicle. According to Hugh, in his destruction of the Church, Henry IV did not desist from ‘war, carnage, and murder’ (bella, cedes, homicidia).126

Hugh identified the principal cause of the king’s distorted perspective and hence of his tyrannical behaviour: Henry IV had given too much credence to a clique of ‘evil counsellors’. Perhaps here there is an echo of the demands of the Saxons in 1073. Lampert and Bruno reported that the Saxon princes demanded that the king dismiss those ‘low-born men’ who were his advisers and that he should restore the princes of the realm to their rightful status of ‘counsellors by birth’ (consiliarii nati). It was the business of these princes to advise the king on ‘affairs of the realm’ (negotium regni).127 In the same vein, Hugh made constant reference to the advisers of Henry IV as ignobiles.128 According to Hugh, the king placed too much faith in stupid counsellors.129 Such misplaced faith not only led to disastrous and heretical practices such as simony,130 it culminated in such a level of peccandum that the king forfeited his soul. This peril is explained by virtue of an allegorical interpretation of the Bible: ‘for it follows that he who eats of their eggs shall die just as he who receives their counsel shall extinguish the life in his soul’.131 The ‘eggs’ in this passage signified the eggs of the asp described in the Old Testament book of Isaiah (59:5) and they were used by Hugh in a figurative or

126 Hugh of Flavigny, 448/23–4: Interea Heinricus, quia affectatis iniquitatibus ejus subsequens favebat effectus, bella, cedes, homicidia per se suosque perpetrare non desistebat ….

127 Lampert, Annales, 151/12ff.: Preterea postulant (sc. principes Saxoniae) … ut principibus Saxoniae, quibus sine legittima discussione bona sua ademerat, secundum principum suorum iurisdictionem satisfaceret … ut vilissimos homines quorum consilio seque remque publicam precipitem dedisset de palacio eiceret et regni negocia principibus, quibus ea competerent, curanda atque administranda permittere ….

128 Hugh of Flavigny, 430/35–42: Stulti facti sunt consiliarii ejus et ignobiles … Stulti itaque sunt quia veram sapientiam non intelligunt, ignobiles facti sunt quia nulla spiritus libertate renovantur.

129 Ibid., 429/54. 130 For the influence of Henry IV’s counsellors on his simoniacal transactions see

Chapter 1, note 39. 131 Hugh of Flavigny, 434/39–46, esp. lines 45–6: nam sequitur qui comederit ab ovis

eorum morietur quia qui eorum consilia receperit vitam in se animae extingit.


allegorical sense to mean the counsel of evil men. Hugh’s interpretation of Isaiah, taken almost verbatim from the Moralia of Gregory the Great, completes the picture of a sinning, perverted and deluded tyrant, fawned upon by a cabal of sinister lackeys.132

We must now turn to the theory and practice of resistance against Henry IV. Here we will consider Hugh’s narrative in three contexts: his description of the actions of Pope Gregory VII against the king, Hugh’s arguments in support of such measures, and Hugh’s attitude to the independent actions of the princes who elected Rudolf of Rheinfelden as anti-king. When describing the papal measures of 1076 and 1080, Gregorians like Hugh were faced with a dilemma. What had the pope intended when he declared the king deposed at the Lenten synod of 1076?133

As Mirbt has noticed, the wording of the Lenten deposition gives no real clue. Gregory, in September 1076, spoke of Henry a regia dignitate depositus, but one cannot tell whether this deposition was meant to be definitive.134 Similarly, Hugh reported for the Lenten synod simply that the king had been deposed from his kingship (a regno) ‘for his iniquities’.135 Gregory’s second deposition of 7 March 1080 mentioned a ‘revival’ of the deposition of 1076.136 All one can say with any certainty is that Gregory VII and Henry IV came away from Canossa in January 1077 with different ideas about what had taken place. Henry assumed that he had been fully restored to the kingship, while Gregory may have felt this restoration to be conditional on the future conduct of the king. Thus, one might be led to the conclusion that the measure of 1076 was a ‘conditional’ deposition, whereas that of 1080 was definitive and absolute. However, there is nothing in the terms of the deposition of 1080 that makes this later decree any more permanent or definitive than its predecessor of 1076.137

There is no avoiding the inconsistency – and perhaps the ambivalence – of Gregory VII’s attitude towards his depositions of Henry IV. For example, the terms of the Lent decree of 1076 were explicit: Henry IV was deposed from office. However, shortly after the edict of deposition, Gregory wrote to the knight Wilfred of Milan stating his willingness to be reconciled to ‘the king of Germany’.138 It is because of this kind of inconsistency that contradictions in Hugh’s chronicle emerge in respect of Gregory VII’s behaviour at Canossa. Hugh reported that, by virtue of the second deposition, Henry was deposed without remedy.139 After the second and definitive deposition of 1080, Pope Gregory claimed that at Canossa in

132 Cf. Gregory I, Moralia 15.15.19, PL, 75, 1090B. 133 Reg. 3.10a, p. 270. 134 Reg. 4.3, pp. 297ff.; Mirbt, Publizistik, pp. 236–8. 135 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/10. 136 Reg. 7.14a, p. 486/15-17: Et iterum regnum Teutonicorum et Italiae … interdiciens

ei omnem potestatem et dignitatem illi regiam …. 137 Cf. Morrison, ‘Canossa’, 138. 138 Reg. 3.15, p. 277; Morrison, ‘Canossa’, 124–5. 139 Hugh of Flavigny, 451/40: … a regno inrecuperabiliter depositus.


January 1077 he had only restored Henry to communion: the pope claimed in 1080 that Henry was no true king after his first deposition in February 1076. Hugh uncritically imbibed this view, seemingly unaware of the contradictions it entails. He wrote thus of the status of of the king at Canossa: ‘[Henry IV] was only restored to the grace of communion, [but was] not however [restored] to the kingdom’.140 Like Gregory VII – on whose letters he depended for this part of his narrative – Hugh preferred to ignore the fact that if this were the case, the second deposition of 1080 would be unnecessary. These contradictions perhaps show that Gregory VII did not have a systematic legal understanding of his actions in 1076 and that his attitude to the kingship was an evolving one between 1076 and 1080. Pope Gregory maintained such a contradictory line because of the need to placate his Saxon allies who felt betrayed by his actions at Canossa. Hugh of Flavigny inherited the contradiction, because, writing in the 1090s when Gregory VII’s reputation was in eclipse, he wanted to present the pope as an uncompromising and unswerving opponent of the tyrannus Henry IV. Hugh was not the only pro-papal apologist who took this line of argument. Berthold of Reichenau also reported that Henry IV had been irrevocably deposed in 1076.141 Thus, after 1080 – in the ‘second round’ of the polemical debate – there was felt to be a propagandist need among Gregorian Publizisten to make Gregory VII’s actions appear more cogent and systematic than actually was the case. In order to understand fully the political theory of the Gregorian party, one should take notice of the type of argument to which they were responding. In his Liber Canonum, Bernard of Hildesheim alluded to the supporters of Henry IV, who had quoted St John Chrysostom to prove the impropriety of the papal deposition of Henry IV.142 This auctoritas of Pseudo-Chrysostom had circulated at least since the tenth century in the work of Atto of Vercelli and came to prominence again in the Investiture Contest.143 Pseudo-Chrysostom based himself on the lex regia of Justinian’s Institutes, by which the Roman people were said to have transferred their power to the monarch, a transfer that was held to be irrevocable. This idea surfaced around 1080 in the so-called Privilegium Maius, a forgery composed in the ambience of the anti-pope Wibert of Ravenna (Clement III).144 The doctrine of the lex regia, however, implied the idea of popular sovereignty and was exploited

140 Ibid., 446/39–40: Regi itaque praefato … sola est communionis gratia reddita, non tamen regno restitutus.

141 Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernolds von Konstanz, 239/2–5: synodalis sententia data est … regem Heinricum non solum excommunicari, sed absque spe recuperationis honore regni debere destitui.

142 Bernard of Hildesheim, Liber Canonum Contra Heinricum Quartum, ed. F. Thaner, MGH Libelli, 1, 491–2; cf. Pseudo-Chrysostom, Opus Imperfectum in Mattheum, Patrologia Graeca, 56, 835.

143 Carlyle and Carlyle, Vol. 3, pp. 121–2. 144 Privilegium Maius, MGH Libelli, 2, 422; cf. Robinson, Authority and Resistance, p.

130.


in this respect by Manegold of Lautenbach. Manegold claimed that this transfer was for a definite governmental purpose: if the king failed to fulfil this purpose why should the transfer be irrevocable? With great rhetorical skill Manegold converted the lex regia into a pactum or contract, a contract which he held to have been broken by Henry IV.145 Although not remotely as detailed as Manegold, in his discussion of kingship Hugh of Flavigny did refer to the pactum by which society is bound together. Characteristically, he expressed this contract in Augustinian terms, when discussing the ‘robber bands’ that kingdoms became in the absence of righteousness: ‘the robber band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the plunder is divided by the law agreed on’.146 While admitting the distasteful necessity of secular government, and the pactum on which it was based, Hugh preferred to concentrate on the requirements of ‘righteousness’ (iustitia) in secular rulers. It was in this context that he cited St John Chrysostom (in a manner far removed from the claims of Pseudo-Chrysostom in the Privilegium Maius). Hugh wrote: ‘if he assists the grace of God, I say with John Chrysostom that [the emperor] co-reigns with Christ and indeed disposes of human [affairs] in the kingdom of Christ’.147 Perhaps, as with his use of the Moralia of Gregory the Great, Hugh was concerned to reclaim the legacy of Church Fathers such as John Chrysostom who were cited by the imperialists to prove the impossibility of rebellion.148

Hugh of Flavigny was aware of the legal debate surrounding the deposition of Henry IV, but he was more comfortable when dealing with the theological and biblical arguments attending the issue. The royalist camp derived great strength from the argument that was based on St Paul’s letter to the Romans (13:1–2): ‘there is no power that is not of God’, so that he ‘who resists the secular power resists the ordination of God’ (non est potestas nisi a Deo … Qui resistit potestati,

145 Manegold of Lautenbach, Liber ad Gebehardum, cc. 30, 47, 48, pp. 365, 391–2. 146 Hugh of Flavigny, 437/34–5: Manus et ipsa hominum est, imperio principis regitur,

pacto societatis astringitur, placiti lege praeda dividitur. 147 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/52–436/4: si igitur imperator … Deo misericordiam fenerat,

dico cum Iohanne Chrisosthomo Christo conregnat, immo in Christi regno quae sunt humana dispensat. The Norman Anonymous correctly attributed this authority to Gregory Nazianzus, Tractatus Eboracenses, v, MGH Libelli, 3, 685/15–17: Rex enim conregnat sicut beatus Nazianzenus episcopus imperatori suo locutus est dicens ‘Christo conregnas, immo in Christi regno que sunt humana dispensas’; cf. CSEL, 46, 202/6–203/6.

148 The authority of the Church Fathers was essential for both royalist and papalist polemic. For example, in his Epistola, MGH Libelli, 1, 291/14, Wenrich of Trier showed correctly that Gregory the Great had a submissive attitude to the secular power. Manegold responded in his Liber ad Gebehardum, c. 45, pp. 388ff. that Gregory the Great’s apparent submission to the emperor was merely polite language; cf. Gregorii Magni Epistolae 3.65. See also Mirbt, Publizistik, p. 228. The royalist author of the Liber de Unitate Ecclesiae Conservanda pointed to the Regula Pastoralis of Gregory the Great, where Gregory cited the conduct of David as an example to all good subjects who have bad rulers. David would not take the opportunity to slay his persecutor Saul: MGH Libelli, 2, 212/13–27.


Dei ordinationi resistit). In the Chronicon Hugh consciously responded to the charge of those ‘who say there is no power except of God’.149 The chronicler invoked the authority of Augustine to answer the royalist argument based on Romans, Chapter 13. Augustine had discussed the possibility that there could be a conflict between one’s obedience to God and to one’s secular lord. In the event of a conflict of allegiance ‘the greater power [of God] is to be obeyed’ (Maior potestas audienda est).150 Augustine’s resolution of the possible conflict between spiritual and temporal allegiances was a profoundly conservative one, framed towards liberty of conscience. As applied in the late eleventh century, this excerpt from Augustine was used in support of the revolutionary proposition that Henry IV need no longer be obeyed and indeed could be deposed. Hugh’s innovative use of Augustine’s Sermo 62 is paralleled in two other pro-papal polemics: the Liber ad Gebehardum of Manegold of Lautenbach and the Liber de Honore Ecclesiae of Placidus of Nonantula.151

Another key biblical text in this respect was from the first letter of Peter, where the apostle counselled obedience to one’s lord in all things. Hugh deliberately addressed himself against those who ‘assume in defence of their errors what is placed in the letter of Peter: “servants be subject to your masters in all fear, not only to the good and gentle [lords] but also to the ill-tempered”’.152 This text of Peter (I Peter 2: 18) was absolutely crucial to the polemical debate concerning the deposition of Henry IV and was cited by imperialists like Wenrich of Trier to show that absolute veneration for the secular lord was demanded by Scripture.153 Like Hugh of Flavigny, Manegold of Lautenbach was also aware of the interpretative problems posed by Scripture to the arguments of the Gregorians. Manegold argued that the further Petrine stricture – also contained in the same letter (I Peter 2:17) – to ‘fear God and honour the king’ had been misunderstood. Properly interpreted, he claimed, it should mean ‘honour the office of the king’ because the title of a king denoted not a personal quality but an office. Manegold therefore took this Petrine

149 Hugh of Flavigny, 433/27: … qui si dixerint obediendum potestati quoniam non est potestas nisi a Deo.

150 Ibid., 433/29–36: idem Augustinus ad hec respondens dicat ‘Quid inquit, resistit potestati, Dei ordinationi resistit … Ergo si aliud imperator, et aliud Deus, quid judicatis? Major potestas audienda est …’; cf. Augustine, Sermo 62.8, PL, 38, 421.

151 Liber ad Gebehardum, c. 147, p. 393/7f; Liber de Honore Ecclesiae, c. 148, MGH Libelli, 2, 633/16f.

152 Hugh of Flavigny, 434/14–18: … contra eos qui dicunt obediendum regibus imperatoribus et dominis omnibus quibus iuratum est quidlibet faciat, quidlibet iubeat; ad hoc patrocinium sui erroris assumant, quod in Petri epistola positum est ‘servi subditi estote in omni timore dominis, non tantum bonis et modestis, sed etiam discolis’.

153 Wenrich of Trier, Epistola, c. 4, p. 290/12.


passage as a starting point for his abstract discussion on the division between man and office.154

Hugh of Flavigny’s approach to Peter’s exhortation was somewhat different and can be described as a scholastic approach, intended to reconcile discordant canons. With the apostle in mind, he agreed that obedience is required: ‘we do not deny proper subjection to ill-tempered lords’ (nos subiectionem competentem discolis non negamus). However, Hugh now cited another biblical auctoritas employed by his opponents: that of St Paul (Titus 3:1) who counselled the early Christians to be obedient to the secular authority: ‘admonish them to be subject to princes and powers, to obey at a word, to be ready to every good work’.155 These sacred texts could not be rejected per se, so Hugh developed the sophisticated idea that there was a hierarchy of obedience, with one’s duty to God taking precedence over one’s duty to man. Hugh invoked the unimpeachable authority of Jerome to show that one’s duty to an earthly lord, although valid and supported by Peter and Paul, could be qualified and limited. Hugh therefore responded with Jerome’s gloss on this Pauline letter that ‘if [the princes and powers] are evil and hold views that are contrary to God, respond to them from the Acts of the Apostles “one should obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29)’.156 This text from the Acts of the Apostles was potentially a potent refutation of the idea of a divinely instituted royal power, and its force was admitted even by the pro-Henrician author of the Liber de unitate ecclesiae conservanda.157 Evidently, Hugh of Flavigny wanted to augment this Hieronymian answer to the party of Henry IV, as he subsequently added another passage from Jerome’s commentary in the margin of folio 110r of the autograph manuscript of the Chronicon: ‘one must obey one’s spiritual lord rather than one’s carnal lord’ (magis obediat spiritus quam carnis domino). Thus, Hugh was able to conclude triumphantly that the servant should not listen to his ‘natural lord’ if the latter should command anything contrary to the precepts of God. Hugh’s method was ingenious. Under the aegis of Jerome he managed to evade the duty of obedience demanded by SS Peter and Paul. Moreover, Hugh accepted the assumptions of his royalist opponents and then distorted them. As the basis of his argument he cited with approval those Petrine and Pauline texts so dear to his opponents, even endorsing the title of Henry IV by referring to him indirectly as a

154 See above note 30; cf. Horst Fuhrmann, ‘Volkssouveränität und Herrschaftsvertrag bei Manegold von Lautenbach’, Festschrift für Herrmann Krause (Cologne/Vienna, 1975), p. 33; Mirbt, Publizistik, p. 228; Carlyle and Carlyle, Vol. 3, p. 161.

155 Hugh of Flavigny, 434/22–3. 156 Ibid., 434/23–31; cf. Jerome, Commentaria in Epistolam ad Titum, c. 3, PL, 26,

590C/D. 157 Liber de unitate ecclesiae conservanda, 1.3, MGH Libelli, 2, 187/4f: ‘Qui autem

resistit potestati, Dei’, inquit, ‘ordinationi resistit’. Non hic de illis potestatibus dicit, quae persecutiones inferunt fidei, quia ibi dicendum est ‘Deo obtemperare oportet magis quam hominibus’.


‘natural lord’ (naturalis dominus). Fritz Kern thought this kind of argumentation to be ‘sophistry’, but in fact it demonstrates a form of proto-scholasticism.158

The slave, therefore, need not obey the master in all cases and Hugh placed this principle in the context of Gregory VII’s dissolution of oaths sworn to Henry IV. Hugh wrote that: ‘all who had sworn or who would swear [oaths] to [Henry IV] were freed from the chains of their promises by the licence and authority of apostolic liberty’.159 Hugh then cited an auctoritas of Ambrose to support the proposition that not all oaths need be honoured (non semper solvenda sunt promissa omnia).160 This Ambrosian auctoritas was extremely popular with Gregorian polemicists. Manegold of Lautenbach, Gebhard of Salzburg, and Bernold of St-Blasien all incorporated it into their arguments when justifying the pope’s action in dissolving oaths of fealty sworn to Henry IV. Of particular interest in relation to Hugh of Flavigny is the presence of this auctoritas in Sélestat codex 13.161 When one considers that Hugh seems to have derived some letters of Pope Gregory VII from a collection closely connected to that preserved in this codex, it seems possible to suggest the Sélestat collection as a source from which Hugh took this Ambrosian excerpt.162 Hugh’s discussion of the dissolution of oaths must be set against the general interest of Gregorian polemicists in this theme. For example, according to Bernhard of Hildesheim, the fealty of vassals to their lord was not absolute. If the lord ordered them to act against their religion, their acquiescence would no longer be fidelitas but infidelitas and periurium. For Bernhard each oath must accord with the ‘catholic law’ (lex catholica), which he identified with the ‘laws of the Church’ (leges ecclesiasticae); naturally, Bernhard considered that any infringement of the leges ecclesiasticae was to be judged by the pope.163 A similar polemical technique is evident in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny. The chronicler discussed the Ambrosian idea that ‘not all oaths need be honoured’ in the same paragraph where he analysed the Pauline precept of obedience. Along with the New Testament texts already cited, Hugh quoted three further biblical admonitions (Ecclesiastes 15:1, Psalms 111:1, Psalms 110:10) to the effect that man must fear God: ‘he who fears God will do good’.164 The function of these Old Testament texts was to provide a context in which to place Ambrose’s auctoritas on oaths, which was potentially fatal for feudal kingship. Thus, like Bernhard,

158 Kern, Kingship and Law, pp. 102–3, alluded to the tension in Christian political thought between the Pauline precept of obedience to all authority and the developing right of resistance to a tyrant.

159 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/12–14. 160 Ambrose of Milan, De Officiis Ministrorum, PL, 16, 168A; cf. Struve, ‘Das Problem

der Eideslösung’, 113. 161 Cf. Chapter 5, notes 45–60. 162 Cf. I.S. Robinson, ‘Zur Arbeitsweise Bernolds von Konstanz’, 103ff. 163 Bernhard of Hildesheim, Liber Canonum, 507/5–16; cf. Mirbt, Publizistik, p. 230

and Struve, ‘Das Problem der Eideslösung’, 114. 164 Hugh of Flavigny, 434/19.


Hugh invoked a primordial lex catholica – in Hugh’s case corresponding to the fear of God – as a basis for dissolving oaths that had been sworn to Henry IV.

Hugh’s final technique in justifying the actions of Gregory VII vis-à-vis Henry IV was his argument from history. He adduced a series of historical exemplashowing that there were precedents for Gregory’s censure of Henry IV in 1076 and 1080: the papacy had frequently censured sinful kings in the past and – so it was claimed – had even deposed them on occasion. This kind of list originated in Gregory VII’s first doctrinal letter to Hermann of Metz and subsequently featured widely in the pro-papal polemics of the ‘South German Gregorian Circle’.165

Hugh’s list was fairly conventional for its genre but was augmented with a letter of Pope Gelasius I which contains further exempla.166 None of the exempla concern an actual deposition, one exception being the alleged deposition of the last Merovingian king, Childeric III, by Pope Zacharias in 752.167 This was a very popular exemplum among Gregorians as it contained prototypes of Gregory VII’s two most disputed measures: the deposition of the king and the absolution of subjects from their oaths of fealty to the king.168 As Goetz has shown, exempla ofthis kind were generally historically inaccurate and some of the imperialist propagandists realised this at the time, such as the anonymous author of the Liber de Unitate Ecclesiae Conservanda.169 Most exempla related to an ecclesiastical censure, principally excommunication, imposed on errant kings. However, as Mirbt has noticed, pro-papal polemics like that of Hugh of Flavigny tended to conflate the two different measures of excommunication and deposition. In a Christian society the latter penalty was implicit in the former. The injunction of Gregory VII, that no one should have any contact with the excommunicate Henry IV, undermined the ability of the king to rule, and this effect was intended by the pope. If the prohibition was fully implemented it would, ipso facto, constitute a deposition. Thus, it is no coincidence that Hugh interpolated into his discussion of kingship and tyranny the principle that ‘it is not permitted to communicate with excommunicates’ (non esse communicandum excommunicatis) and that this assertion is supported by a number of sententie from canon law.170

165 Reg. 4.2, p. 294; cf. Robinson, Authority and Resistance, p. 125. Hugh did not possess a copy of this letter, but he did have a copy Gregory’s second letter to Hermann, Reg. 8.21, where the pope compiled a similar list.

166 Hugh of Flavigny, 437/51–438/16; Gelasius I, Epistola 26, Thiel, pp. 392, 414. 167 Hugh of Flavigny, 438/34–37: Beatae memoriae Zacharias papa Hildericum

ultimum de stirpe merovingorum regem a regno deposuit … et Pippinum in honore regni sublimari constituit. Stephanus quoque Romanus pontifex … eumdem Pippinum in regno constituit et omnes Francigenas a juramento fidelitatis absolvit.

168 Manegold of Lautenbach, Liber ad Gebehardum, pp. 362–3. 169 H.-W. Goetz, ‘Geschichte als Argument: Historische Beweisführung und

Geschichtsbewußtsein in den Streitschriften des Investiturstreits’, HZ, 245 (1987), 47–8; Liber de Unitate Ecclesiae Conservanda, MGH Libelli, 2, 187/22ff.

170 Hugh of Flavigny, 437/4–6; cf. Patrick Healy, ‘Hugh of Flavigny and Canon Law as Polemic in the Investiture Contest’, ZRG kan. Abt., 91 (2005), 55–7.


On 15 March 1077 the rebel princes of Germany elected their own anti-king, Rudolf of Rheinfelden, in opposition to Henry IV.171 This action was in accordance with the traditional Germanic theory of resistance to a tyrant. As a tyrant, Henry IV had passed judgement on himself by his actions and there was no formal sentence of deposition: in these circumstances the election of a new king was the decisive step, and usually the only formal legal one.172 Hugh of Flavigny implicitly agreed with the first principle, that unjust government was void of itself. He described Henry IV at the synod of Worms in January 1076: ‘… the king, who ought not to be called king but tyrant (Sic igitur rex, non rex dicendus quia tyrannus)’; that is, the king was to be considered a tyrant and therefore unfit to rule even before the formal deposition by the pope at the Lenten synod of 1076. However, Hugh was rather tepid in his attitude to the princes at Forchheim, who elected Rodulf of Rhinefelden as king ‘without the counsel of the lord pope’.173 In Hugh’s narrative Rudolf is only referred to as rex after the second deposition of Henry IV in 1080, when Gregory definitively decided in the duke of Swabia’s favour. Hugh of Flavigny was anxious to disassociate the pope from the proceedings at Forchheim because they were not undertaken according to papal control; he was unwilling to grant to the princes any declaratory or constitutive function in deposing the king. These functions were to be arrogated instead to the pope. Kern has claimed that the papacy was better placed to make pronouncements of this kind because of its knowledge of a formal legal method: the feudal rebellion of the princes could not articulate such a coherent principle of judgement.174 Like Hugh, Manegold of Lautenbach was diffident concerning the independent action of the German princes. Although he did write of a pactum between king and people, the pope was to be the arbiter of what constituted a breach of the pactum.175 Thus one can perhaps perceive in the writings of Hugh and Manegold a movement towards greater legal sophistication and a demand that feudal law give way to canon law. Perhaps this is overstating the case: Manegold and Hugh tried primarily to divest the king of his charismatic attributes, to ‘desacralise’ the king.176 The development of a formal legal method to judge the king was a by-product of this process.

By virtue of the Chronicon, Hugh of Flavigny takes his place among the pro-papal propagandists active in Germany in the aftermath of the Investiture Contest. Both in terms of his method and his choice of sources, Hugh’s chronicle can be considered a polemic against the policies and the person of King Henry IV. Of

171 Cf. Walter Schlesinger, ‘Die Wahl Rudolfs von Schwaben zum Gegenkönig 1077 in Forchheim’, Investiturstreit und Reichsverfssung, ed. Josef Fleckenstein, (Vorträge und Forschungen, 17: Sigmaringen, 1973), pp. 61–87.

172 Kern, Kingship and Law, pp. 86–7. 173 Hugh of Flavigny, 446/45: … quasi de eo desperati absque domni papae consilio

elegerunt sibi Rodulfum ducem in regem; cf. Reg. 7.14a, p. 484/21–4. 174 Kern, Kingship and Law, p. 102. 175 Cf. Janet Nelson, ‘Kingship and Empire’, CHMPT, pp. 246–7. 176 Cf. Fuhrmann, ‘Volkssouveränität’, pp. 40–1.


course the chronicle is not a libellus in the strict sense; it lacks the coherent structure characteristic of that genre, and many of the arguments are not fleshed out fully. Auctoritates and sententie are rarely marshalled into a cogent argument, and Hugh’s level of analysis tends to be quite shallow. This is a consequence of the form of his narrative: the Chronicon was primarily a house chronicle for the monastery of St-Vanne, Verdun. Hugh’s work did, however, influence the course of the political debate in the Investiture Contest. The famous royalist Hugh of Fleury wrote his Tractatus in order to refute Hugh’s political doctrine, which was subversive of the royal power. It is characteristic of the ambiguities inherent in the Investiture Contest that Hugh of Fleury was able to import auctoritates from the Chronicon and draw quite different conclusions from them.177 Hugh of Fleury’s polemic itself produced a reaction in the form of the Policraticus of John of Salisbury. It seems likely that John of Salisbury knew the Tractatus at first hand and was stimulated in his own work to modify the exaggerated theory of royal power asserted by Hugh of Fleury.178 Thus, the concepts of kingship and tyranny in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny came to participate in a dialectical exchange of ideas which was to result in one of the most significant political treatises of the twelfth century.

The polemics of the Investiture Contest had a profound bearing on the subsequent concept of the tyrant. When John of Salisbury asserted that the tyrant was a ruler who oppressed the people by violence and was not satisfied until he made the law void, thus reducing the people to slavery, one is reminded of the complaints of the Saxons, as articulated by Bruno of Merseburg.179 Also in the Policraticus we find the organic representation of tyranny expressed in a manner that would have been comprehensible to Hugh of Flavigny. In the Policraticus the republic was compared to the human body; moreover, this organism was susceptible to the ‘disease’ of tyranny.180 More generally, the tyrannus became firmly associated with royal enmity to the Church. In 1130 Bernard of Clairvaux

177 Hugh of Fleury, Tractatus de Regia Potestate et Sacerdotali Dignitate, ed. E. Sackur, MGH Libelli, 2, 465–94. For the relationship between the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny and the Tractatus of Hugh of Fleury see Ernst Sackur, ‘Zu den Streitschriften des Deusdedit und Hugo von Fleury’, NA, 16 (1891), 349–86, and I.S. Robinson, Authority and Resistance, p. 138. See also Chapter 4, notes 45–54.

178 Cf. Hans Liebeschutz, Medieval Humanism in the Life and Writings of John of Salisbury (London, 1950), p. 42.

179 Ioannis Saresberiensis Episcopi Carnotensis Policratici, 8.17, Vol. 2, p. 345/19–21: Princeps pugnat pro legibus et populi libertate, tirannus nil actum putat nisi leges evacuet et populum devocet in servitutem. Cf. Brunos Buch vom Sachsenkrieg, p. 29/28: (again the complaint is delivered through a fictional speech attributed to the leader of the Saxon princes, Otto of Northeim) Itaque non contra regem, sed contra iniustiam meae libertatis ereptorem, non contra patriam, sed pro patria et pro libertate mea … arma capio et, ut vos ea mecum capiatis, expostulo.

180 John of Salisbury, Policraticus, 5.2, Vol. 1, p. 282ff.; cf. D.E. Luscombe and G.R. Evans, ‘The Twelfth Century Renaissance’, CHMPT, p. 326.


attacked King Roger II of Sicily as tyrannus Siciliae because the king had supported Anacletus II in the papal schism of that year. Bernard used the classical Isidorian terminology, rex a recte agendo, as part of a propaganda battle to discredit the king.181 As in the ‘Investiture Contest’, the concept of tyranny was elucidated and clarified by a polemical debate, and by polemical smears: Bernard was keen to emphasise the support Roger II gave to the ‘heretic’ Anacletus II.182

The analogy with the ‘Investiture Contest’ is almost exact: the tyrant was a royal oppressor of the Church, and a follower of heresy. He had to be denounced in the eyes of the world, that is, he had to be denounced by a propaganda campaign. Thus, the polemics of the 1080s and 1090s, including the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny, had made a powerful contribution to political debate in the High Middle Ages.

181 Bernard of Clairvaux, Epistolae 130, 139, PL, 182, 285–94. 182 Cf. Helen Wieruszowski, ‘Roger II of Sicily: Rex Tyrannus in Twelfth-century

Political Thought’, Speculum, 38 (1963), 53–9.

Chapter 7

Lay Investiture and Simony: Auctoritasand Consuetudo

In the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny the crucial passage relating to lay investiture occurs in the context of the election of Hugh, bishop of Die. After his divinely inspired election, the bishop-elect Hugh went to Rome to be ordained and consecrated in December 1073. There, Hugh of Die met Anselm, the bishop-elect of Lucca who was at Rome for the same reason (pro simili expectatione).1 Before they could be consecrated, envoys of King Henry IV came to Rome, demanding that the pope should not consecrate any bishop who had not received investiture from the king.2 In 1073 at least, the practice of royal investiture was well established: the envoys of the king demanded that Gregory not break the custom (mos) of his predecessors by consecrating bishops who had not received royal investiture. According to Hugh of Flavigny, Gregory VII then referred the matter to an assembly of cardinals.3 On matters of law or theology Gregory was not an authoritarian pope and liked to engage in consultation before taking any decisive action.4 In this instance – at least according to Hugh of Flavigny – the college of cardinals played the role of a ‘spiritual senate’ that had been envisaged for it by Peter Damian.5 The cardinals apparently found that lay investiture was the custom of the Church and was to be considered legal, but they could not show any ‘authority’ (auctoritas) to support the practice.6 The pope then partially acceded to the royal envoys and allowed Anselm of Lucca to receive royal investiture.7

1 Hugh of Flavigny, 411/37–8. 2 Ibid., 411/50–53: venerunt nuncii regis Heinrici Romam, rogantes ne contra morem

praedecessorum suorum domnus papa eos consecrare vellet, qui episcopatus aelectionem solam, non autem donum per regiam acceperant investituram.

3 Ibid., 411/53–4: At ipse convocatis cardinalibus legationem regis aperuit, et quid sibi ad hoc respondendum, quid esset faciendum, ammonuit.

4 This consultative approach was confirmed in the papal councils of Gregory VII’s pontificate, cf. I.S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 123–4.

5 Cf. Peter Damian, Epistola, 1.20, PL, 144, 238D; idem, Opusculum 31, c. 7, PL,145, 540B.

6 Hugh of Flavigny, 411/54–412/1: … quibus respondentibus usum aecclesiae hunc esse, hunc haberi pro lege, cum auctoritas eis nulla ad hoc suffragaretur.

7 Anselm’s receipt of royal investiture is confirmed in Chapter 4 of the anonymous Vita Anselmi, MGH SS, 12, 14/23-5: … illud vero ante omnia metuens, quod post catholicam electionem de manu regis annulum suscepit et pastoralem baculum.


Gregory VII had previously forbidden Anselm to receive investiture from Henry IV but his opposition stemmed not from any hostility to lay investiture per se, but was generated by the king’s contact with his excommunicated counsellors.8 In the case of Hugh of Die, however, Gregory refused his consent.9

Clearly, Gregory VII was not hostile to lay investiture at the beginning of his pontificate. Moreover, he seems to have been unsure about the legality of the custom. In Hugh’s narrative, this episode with Hugh of Die and Anselm of Lucca was the key event which stimulated Gregory to form a coherent attitude to lay investiture, an interpretation corroborated by the Vita Anselmi. According to this latter source, after Anselm’s receipt of royal investiture – that is, some time after the restoration of Henry IV to communion in Easter 1074 – the bishop of Lucca became worried about the legality of lay investiture after consulting various written authorities (perscrutatis diversarum auctoritatum libris). Anselm then fled to Rome and surrendered into the pope’s hands whatever he had received from the king.10 According to the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny, Gregory VII promulgated a decree against lay investiture in that year (eodem anno11), seeing that lay investiture was contrary to the decrees of the Holy Fathers. Hugh asserted that because of the practice of lay investiture the nature of episcopal election ‘is very often changed, or rather, of no effect’.12 The idea that lay investiture should make an episcopal election ‘void’ or ‘useless’ (irritus) was derived from a provision of the seventh ecumenical council, which demanded that a bishop so invested should be deposed. In the later eleventh century the voiding effect of lay investiture was far more radical, especially when lay investiture came to be regarded as a form of simony. In this sense and in a ‘rigorist’ tradition stretching back to Cyprian via Humbert in the 1050s, the lay-invested bishop could be considered to have no right

8 Reg. 1.21 (1 September 1073), pp. 34–5. 9 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/1–4: in Lucensi tamen electo eis adquievit, ut

consecrationem ejus differret, donec investituram episcopatus ex regio dono accepisset. In Diensi vero adquiescere noluit, sed eum prima quadragesimae ebdomada, sabbato inpresbiterum, et Dominica consecravit in episcopum.

10 Vita Anselmi, 14; H.E.J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085 (Oxford, 1998), p. 547, thinks it a reasonable conjecture that these written authorities may have included canon 22 of the fourth council of Constantinople. See below notes 16–23.

11 The phrase eodem anno relates to the episcopal consecration of Hugh of Die on 16 March 1074. No other source mentions an investiture decree of 1074, and thus the decree referred to by Hugh is considered to relate to 1075. The decree cited by Hugh in connection with the phrase eodem anno is actually Gregory VII’s investiture decree of Lent 1080. Cf. Rudolf Schieffer, Die Entstehung des päpstlichen Investiturverbots für den deutschen König (Stuttgart, 1981), pp. 121 n. 63, 189. Schieffer notes that Hugh’s incorrect attribution of the 1080 decree to 1074 gives the impression in the Chronicon that Gregory had formulated a comprehensive and complete attitude to lay investiture at the start of his pontificate.

12 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/5–6: vidit hoc sanctorum Patrum adversari decretis, ut in canonica electione episcopi praevaleret donum regis, immo multoties ipsam aelectionem inmutaret vel potius irritam faceret.

Lay Investiture and Simony 177

to administer the sacraments at all. This was a principle too severe even for Gregory VII, but it may have been approved by radical ‘Gregorians’ like Hugh of Flavigny. In a different passage Hugh referred to simoniacal bishops who, because of ‘lust for honours’, administered merely ‘the exterior offices’ of their dignity (quorum per honoris concupiscentiam officia exterius administrant): that is, he seems to deny that they had the ability to mediate sacramental grace.13

The decree allegedly promulgated by Gregory VII eodem anno was actually an excerpt from that pope’s decree of the Lent synod of 1080.14 This decree prohibited any cleric from accepting lay investiture of a bishopric or abbey; the lower ecclesiastical dignities were also included in the prohibition. Transgressors were in no way to be considered bishops or abbots (nullatenus inter episcopos vel abbates habeatur). Moreover, for the first time, the lay power which had participated in the investiture was to be similarly penalised. Beulertz notes that the pope did not corroborate his investiture decrees with any patristic auctoritates or canon law sententiae, and this omission was remedied in pro-papal polemic, including the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny.15 The most important auctoritas cited by Hugh in support of the 1080 decree derives ultimately from canon 22 of the fourth council of Constantinople – the eighth ecumenical council – held in the pontificate of Adrian II (867–72), and incorrectly attributed by Hugh of Flavigny to Pope Nicholas I.16 This canon prohibited, under pain of anathema, the participation of any lay power attempting to intervene in the election or promotion of bishops. Canon 22 was ideally suited to support Gregory’s prohibition of 1080. This decree was Gregory VII’s most comprehensive censure against lay investiture: it condemned the lay donor of ecclesiastical office with the same ferocity as the recipient. Both parties were liable for the same penalty. Gregory VII had put canon 22 at the heart of his programme against lay investiture three years before the decree of 1080, in a letter to Hugh of Die of 12 May 1077.17 In this letter Hugh of

13 Hugh of Flavigny, 430/39–40. John Gilchrist, ‘Simoniaca haeresis and the problem of orders from Leo IX to Gratian’, Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law (Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Subsidia, 1: The Vatican, 1965), pp. 223–5, argued that ordinationes irritae meant something other than ‘invalid’.

14 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/9–17: Si quis deinceps … se astrictum sciat. Cf. Reg. 7.14a, p. 480/17–30.

15 Stefan Beulertz, Das Verbot der Laieninvestitur im Investiturstreit (MGH Studien und Texte, 2, Hanover 1991), p. 65. Gregory VII preferred theological to canonistic formulations: Schieffer, Die Entstehung des päpstlichen Investiturverbots, p. 161.

16 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/22–33: Item in octava universali synodo habita sub Nicholao I. Pontifice, cap … Promotiones vel consecrationes … obediat et consentiat. Cf. Mansi, 16, 167.

17 Reg. 4.22, p. 330ff. Hugh of Flavigny, 414/4–415/18, also possessed a copy of this letter through his close association with Hugh of Die. Characteristic is Hugh’s oversight of Gregory’s use of canon 22 in this letter. For instance, Chronicon 415/11–12: … quam beatus Adrianus papa in octava synodo de huiusmodi praesumptoribus et sacrae auctoritatis


Die was enjoined to hold a reforming council in order to promulgate canon 22 in a local decree against lay investiture.18 Also in the letter, Gregory VII instructed Hugh of Die to prohibit any metropolitan or other bishop to participate in the consecration of a lay-invested cleric, upon pain of forfeit of their own office;19 one of Hugh’s sententiae in support of Gregory’s 1080 decree likewise makes a provision against the consecrator of a lay-invested ecclesiastic.20 Schieffer thought that Gregory’s letter to Hugh of Die was a manifestation of the ‘new laws’ (novae leges) anticipated in the Dictatus Papae, while Cowdrey pointed to Gregory’s letter to Henry IV of 8 December 1075.21 Here, the pope referred to a decree attempting to recover the ‘first and only rule of Church discipline’: Cowdrey thought canon 22 was the basis for this decree of 1075, and thus the basis for the instructions to Hugh of Die in 1077.22

Aside from canon 22, the three other sententie cited by Hugh in support of Gregory’s 1080 decree all focused exclusively on the penalties that an ecclesiastic might incur by receiving an irregularly invested office. Canon 3 of the second council of Nicea (757) stipulated that an ecclesiastical election procured by the intervention of the lay power was to be considered ‘void’ (irritus); the offending ecclesiastic was to be deposed and ostracised (deponatur et segregetur).23 Canon 6 of the council of Nicea provided that the consent of the metropolitan was necessary in any valid episcopal consecration,24 while an untitled canon, purporting to come from a council held at Antioch, condemned the receipt of Church office per

corruptoribus statuit …. If Hugh had payed closer attention to Gregory VII’s letter he would have corrected his earlier ascription of the eighth ecumenical council to Pope Nicholas I.

18 Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII, pp. 104–6. That Hugh of Die put Gregory VII’s instructions into effect can be inferred from a letter of Archbishop Manasses of Reims to the Pope of June/July 1078; this letter is preserved solely in Hugh of Flavigny, 419/21–420/31. In it, Manasses complained that although his suffragan bishops of Laon and Soissons had been present at the Council of Autun where Hugh of Die had promulgated the investiture decree, they had yet consecrated the provost of Amiens as bishop of that see, thus contravening the decree: Notum etiam facio vobis quod duo suffraganei mei episcopi, Laudunensis et Suessonensis, tertium Ambianensem in archiepiscopatu meo, me nesciente ut pote Romae posito, episcopum consecraverunt, primum contra decretum vestrum, quostatueratis ne quis saltem archiepiscoporum eum consecraret episcopum qui a laica persona accepisset episcopii donum, maxime cum idem ipsi interfuissent apud Augustudunense concilium, ubi domnus H. Diensis episcopus promulgavit et statuit coram omnibus hocvestrum aecclesiasticum decretum.

19 Hugh of Flavigny, 415/7–10. 20 See below, note 25. 21 Schieffer, Die Entstehung des päpstlichen Investiturverbots, p. 162; Cowdrey, Pope

Gregory VII, pp. 104–5. 22 Reg. 3.10, p. 266/6–8: sed primam et unicam ecclesiasticae disciplinae regulam …

repetendam et sectandam censuimus …. 23 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/19–22. Cf. Mansi, 13, 420f. 24 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/33–6.


secularem dignitatem. Both the recipient and the ordaining ecclesiastic were to be anathematised just as Simon Magus was by Peter.25

Thus, Hugh supported the legality of, and the historical basis for the 1080 decree with four canon law sententie. Their function was to demonstrate that the decree of 1080 against lay investiture had restored the ‘truth’ concerning ecclesiastical elections. This decree, allegedly prompted by the circumstances of Hugh of Die’s consecration, had revived a ‘truth’ had been obscured for many years: ‘in the election, therefore, and consecration of the lord [bishop] of Die were shown the workings of God because on this occasion, in the pontificate of Lord Gregory, the truth [concerning] ecclesiastical elections, which had been obscured for many years, shone forth’.26 Veritas in the Middle Ages meant ‘authenticity’ as well as ‘truth’ and was the standard against which ‘custom’ (consuetudo) was judged by reformers in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Seen from this perspective, the pope was guilty of no innovation; he had merely restored ancient canonical practice. However, lay investiture was unquestionably an accepted custom. As we have seen, the cardinals of the Roman Church were allegedly of the opinion in 1074 that lay investiture was the custom of the Church and was to be considered legal (haberi pro lege). The cardinals did, however, qualify their response, and this caveat was crucial for the interpretative method of the ‘Gregorian’ party. Although legal, lay investiture could not be supported by any ‘authority’ (cum auctoritas eis nulla ad hoc suffragaretur). Isidore of Seville might have been the source for the cardinals’ opinion in this respect. In his Etymologies,Isidore gave a very similar definition of consuetudo which contains the common phrase pro lege: ‘custom is any right instituted by usage and is to be considered legal (pro lege suscipitur) although law is lacking’.27 It may be wondered whether Hugh was not simply imputing to the cardinals his own attitude to lay investiture based on his knowledge of Isidore.28 Hugh certainly adopted Isidore’s idea of usage hardening into legal custom, and used this process to explain the origins of lay investiture. For example, in the midst of the catenae of authorities which he adduced in support of Gregory VII’s investiture decree of 1080, Hugh admitted that over the course of many years the ‘damnable practice’ of lay investiture had

25 Ibid., 412/36–8; cf. Canones Apostolorum no. 30, Mansi, 1, 54; cf. Pseudo-Isidore, p. 29.

26 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/38–41: In electione igitur et consecratione domni Diensis evidenter ostenditur operata divinitas, quia per hanc occasionem sanctae Dei aecclesiae sub papatu domni Gregorii multis retro annis obnubilata aelectionis aecclesiasticae splenduitveritas.

27 Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, 2.10.1–3, 5.3.1–4, ed. W.M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911): Consuetudo autem est ius quoddam moribus institutum, quod pro lege suscipitur, cum deficit lex. The significance of this phrase was noticed by H.E.J. Cowdrey in Speculum,53 (1978), 578.

28 For Hugh’s knowledge of the Isidorian concepts of kingship and tyranny in the Etymologiae and the Sententiae see 435/35–40; cf. Chapter 6, notes 2–6.


grown into a custom.29 Hugh’s theory of lay investiture ‘converted into custom’ (in usum conversa) is essentially identical to Isidore’s conception of custom established by usage (consuetudo … moribus institutum). In a later passage, where Henry IV is portrayed as deluded and mentally unstable, it is the ‘evil custom’ of lay investiture which buried the king’s mental faculties under a heap and gave him over to a ‘reprobate sense’ (cf. Rom. 1: 28).30

There is a pleasing symmetry in Hugh’s metaphor here. Until the decree of 1080 (1075 according to Hugh) the ‘truth’ or correct fashion of ecclesiastical promotion had been clouded or ‘obscured’ (obnubilata). It had been the consuetudo of lay investiture which had concealed the truth. The primacy of ‘authority’ (auctoritas)over ‘custom’ (consuetudo) was thus an essential defence of the reform party against the complaint of the royalists that Gregory VII was guilty of innovation. The contrast between truth and custom in Hugh’s Chronicle is redolent of the same contrast possibly made by Gregory VII in an epistola vagans of doubtful authenticity: ‘… the Lord said “I am the truth and the life”. He did not say “I am the custom”, but “the truth”.’31 Gregory, perhaps on the basis of this distinction, had claimed for the papacy the right to promulgate new laws to meet the urgent needs of the time. Here, the principle of necessitas provided the fig leaf required to cover an essentially innovatory papal power.32 Like Hugh of Flavigny, however, most papal apologists perceived that the investiture decrees of Gregory VII could not stand alone. Aware of the perceived ‘novelty’ (novitas rei) of the investiture prohibitions, polemicists such as Cardinal Deusdedit and Manegold of Lautenbach

29 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/17–18: Sequutus est autem in hoc Patrum exempla, licet jam per multa annorum curricula dampnabilis haec consuetudo inolevisset, et in usum conversa esset.

30 Ibid., 448/26–8: … quia enim vitae viam deserens in peccatorum se tenebras dejecerat, voragine iniquitatis demersus, et mole pravae consuetudinis obrutus, reprobo sensui est traditus ….

31 EV, p. 151 (JL 5277). Cf. Robinson, The Papacy, p. 205; Cowdrey, Speculum, 53(1978), 578, thought that Gregory’s alleged dictum was a development of Isidore’s definition in the Etymologiae (2.10.1–3 and 5.3.1–4) that both lex and consuetudo have a rational validity when they promote religion, discipline and salvation: Porro si ratione lex constat, lex erit omne jam quod ratione constiterit, dumtaxat quod religioni congruat, quod disciplinae conveniat, quod saluti proficiat. Vocata autem consuetudo, quia in communi estusu. This conception may have influenced Reg. 2.67, p. 224, where Gregory claimed the papal right to promulgate new laws in accordance with reason and authority against new transgressions. However, in Gregory’s comparison of truth and custom (JL 5277), more emphasis is placed on the precedence of truth over custom, rather than their common rational basis: quaelibet consuetudo, quantumvis vetusta, quantumvis vulgata, veritati est omnino postponenda et usus qui veritati est contrarius abolendus. This opposition of the two, and the deprecation of custom, was also the context for Hugh of Flavigny’s understanding of consuetudo.

32 Quod illi soli licet pro temporis necessitate novas leges condere: sententia 7 of the so-called Dictatus Papae, Reg. 2.55a, p. 203.


inserted canon law sententie into their treatises in order to support Gregory VII’s measures in a manner similar to Hugh of Flavigny.33

Like contemporary pro-papal polemics, Hugh attacked the dampnabilis consuetudo34 and the mala consuetudo35 of lay investiture with authorities from canon law. Thus on one level, the relevant parts of the Chronicon dealing with the issue can be considered as a libellus de lite. On another level Hugh’s incarnation chronicle gave him a better perspective, both to consider the historical enslavement of the Church, and to find precedents for Gregory VII’s programme of liberation. The enormous scope of the Chronicon allowed Hugh to place the papal rejection of lay investiture in context. When considering the Arian heresy of the fourth century, Hugh referred to the Sermo Contra Auxentium of Ambrose of Milan, where Ambrose preached against the control of churches by the lay power. Hugh noted that the sermon ‘is appropriate for our times’, clearly an allusion to the contemporary control of Churches through lay investiture.36

The temporal range of the Chronicon allowed Hugh to perceive that the subordination of the Church to the secular power in the eleventh century was not a new phenomenon: on occasion this subordination had even been achieved with papal compliance. After Pope Adrian II succeeded to Pope Nicholas I in 867, Hugh reported that the new pope sent letters to the bishops of Gaul, demanding that they not ordain any new bishops without the consent of the emperor.37 According to Hugh, a triumvirate of bishops demurred. These were Bishop Adventius of Metz, Bishop Hatto of Verdun, and Bishop Remigius of Lyon. Realising that Pope Adrian had acted contrary to the decrees of the Holy Fathers, they wrote a letter to the pope, containing excerpts from a previous letter of Pope Nicholas I, where Nicholas had expounded on holy orders (de ordinibus sacris). Moreover, in these excerpts Nicholas ridiculed a situation where a certain presbyter should have been chosen for office by the local Count Gerard.38 The bishops then chided Adrian II by imagining the reaction of Nicholas to the connivance of the papacy with a situation where the bishops were to be chosen by the lay counts (layci comites).Having transcribed this letter, Hugh of Flavigny concluded laconically: Tales tunc

33 Cf. Schieffer, Die Entstehung des päpstlichen Investiturverbots, p. 184. 34 Cf. Deusdedit, Libellus contra Invasores et Symoniacos, c. 14, MGH Libelli, 2,

313/5. 35 Cf. Manegold of Lautenbach, Liber ad Gebehardum, c. 66, MGH Libelli, 1, 417/31. 36 Hugh of Flavigny, 302/40–42; cf. Ambrose of Milan, Sermo Contra Auxentium de

Basilicis Tradendis, PL, 16, 1007B–1018C. 37 Hugh of Flavigny, 354/23–5: Defuncto autem beato Nicholao cum imperante

Ludovico successisset Adrianus, et litteras misisset Galliarum episcopis, ut non alios ordinarent episcopos nisi quibus praefatus imperator episcopatum concederet, et ordinarimandaret.

38 Ibid., 354/36–8: Illud autem, frater karissime, ridiculosum sonuit, quod apicum tuorum gerulum nobis commendans, hunc presbyterum esse Gerardi illustris comitis perhibuisti; cf. Nicolai I. Papae Epistolae, no. 39, MGH Epistolae, 6 (Munich, 1995), 313/27–8.


in Gallia erant episcopi.39 With this letter, Hugh was able to show that historically it was lay investiture, and not its prohibition, which represented the departure from custom: it was ‘outside ecclesiastical custom’ (extra usum aecclesiasticum). Also, Hugh would have perceived the significance of the format of the bishops’ letter to Pope Adrian II. They supported their objections with an auctoritas of Nicholas I, that is, in a manner not dissimilar to the polemics of the Investiture Contest. In Hugh’s chronicle it was the Roman pontiff that had traditionally maintained the liberty of the Church against lay control. Hugh made reference to the heretic emperors Zeno and Anastasius, who, contrary to apostolic tradition, imposed their own favourites in bishoprics. Although previous heretical emperors had attempted to interfere in episcopal elections, none had gone so far as to set aside a canonically elected bishop.40 This was a particularly insidious form of lay investiture (although the term investitura is nowhere mentioned in this passage) as the bishoprics were received from heretics, resulting in the exile of canonically elected or ‘catholic’ bishops (catholicos episcopos exilio religarent). However, Hugh asserted that these bishops, imposed contrary to apostolic tradition, were not to be considered bishops in any real sense. Instead he considered them to be ‘pseudo-bishops’ (pseudoepiscopi), an assertion possibly deriving from his conviction that lay invested bishops did not possess the grace of the Holy Spirit and hence could not administer the sacraments. The successors to Zeno and Anastasius then attempted to impose this nomination system at Rome, even promulgating a papal election decree with the consent of the pliant clergy and senate at Rome.41 Again, however, Hugh of Flavigny considered that this imperial intrusion represented an innovation. Although the imperial power had often participated in papal elections, it had never sought to change the outcome of a papal election.42 This decree was clearly against the divine ordinance (hoc tamen quia Domino erat contrarium) and was soon rejected by subsequent emperors, the full freedom of the clergy and people of Rome in papal elections being confirmed in a decree of Emperor Constantine II in the pontificate of Pope Benedict IV.43

39 Hugh of Flavigny, 354/47–53. The last comment of Hugh may be an implied criticism of the episcopate of his own day, who failed to emulate the high standards of Adventius, Hatto and Remigius. In a much later passage, 412/43–5, deploring the condition of the French episcopate of 1073 he asserted: … in Gallia, ubi plurimum symoniae serpebat pestis iniqua; quia perrari illic erant, qui non essent aut symoniaci, aut a symoniacis ordinati, aut per manum laicam investiti.

40 Ibid., 319/65–320/3: Zenon et Anastasius imperatores Euthichianistae …. 41 Ibid., 320/19–22: Sequentes autem horum hereticorum exempla quidam Grecorum

imperatores regni sui urbibus suos episcopos imponentes, Romanae vero urbi hoc pepercerunt. Decretum enim electionis a clero et senatu susceptum sibi mitti statuerunt,priusquam futurus pontifex consecretur.

42 Ibid., 320/22–3: Quod cum legatur sepius directum fuisse, nusquam tamen legitur eos Romanorum electionem mutasse aut reprobasse.

43 Ibid., 320/23–8.


The decree attempting to subject the Roman pontiff to the imperial power lapsed because – as Hugh of Flavigny explained – it was against the will of God: formal human laws could have no effect unless they were in conformity with the divine will as expressed in ‘apostolic tradition’. In any case the attempted imperial subordination was unprecedented. Both in the general context of imperial pseudoepiscopi, and in the specific example of the Roman See, Hugh of Flavigny claimed ‘it is nowhere read’ (nusquam legitur) that the imperial power should interfere in a canonical election.44 Clearly in these passages Hugh had in mind the contemporary status of lay investiture as a custom. Hugh’s examination of the Church in the fifth century purported to show that lay investiture was in fact an unprecedented innovation. Moreover, the principal enemy of libertas ecclesiae was identified as early as the fifth century: the imperial/royal power. As in the previous example from the pontificate of Adrian II, in this passage the heretic Greek Emperors Zeno and Anastasius personify the evil of lay investiture in the Church, and were depicted in the Chronicon as precursors for the worst excesses of the imperial power in the person of Henry IV. In the Chronicon, the resistance of the Church to intrusion in the form of lay investiture is best represented in the liberty of the Roman See. It is probably for this reason that Hugh included a copy of the papal election decree of 1059 in his narrative.45 Hugh might have been forgiven for excluding this document as its provisions were ignored in the tumultuous election of Gregory VII in 1073.46 The value of the 1059 decree for Hugh was that it enshrined the principle, first articulated by Pope Leo I in the fifth century that ‘no reason allows that there should be among the bishops those who have neither been elected by the clergy nor sought by the people nor consecrated by the provincial bishops with the consent of the metropolitan’.47 Pope Leo I’s elucidation on the correct manner of episcopal promotion had previously been cited by Hugh in the context of the correct role to be played by the lay power in this process.48 Moreover, although Hugh allowed a role in the Church for the secular prince, the latter should with ‘bowed neck’ (devotus colla) submit to the priesthood in matters concerning his own salvation, knowing that he should follow rather than precede the religious order.49 This is the

44 Ibid., 320/2–3, 320/23. 45 Das Papstwahldekret von 1059, ed. Detlev Jasper (Beiträge zur Geschichte und

Quellenkunde des Mittelalters, 12: Sigmaringen 1986); Hugh of Flavigny, 408/14–409/14. 46 Cf Chapter 1, notes 6–14. For the polemical debate surrounding the election of

Gregory VII see Carl Mirbt, Die Publizistik im Zeitalter Gregors VII (Leipzig, 1894), pp. 580–82.

47 Das Papstwahldekret von 1059, pp. 103/67–104/73: … etiam illa beati Leonis sententia recolatur. ‘Nulla’ inquit, ‘ratio sinit ut inter episcopos habeantur, qui nec a clericis sunt aelecti, nec a plebibus expetiti, nec a comprovincialibus episcopis metropolitani judicio consecrati’. Cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 408/28–31.

48 Ibid., 328/4–7; cf. Leo I, ep. 167.1, PL, 54, 1203AB. 49 Ibid., 328/7–11: Noverat etiam quoniam, licet praesideret seculari dignitate, rerum

tamen praesulibus divinarum, ut scribit beatus Gelasius papa, devotus deberet colla


significance of the papal election decree of 1059 in Hugh’s Chronicon: it represented an ideal of freedom from lay intervention in all episcopal elections. Hugh glossed the leonine auctoritas in his Chronicon to prove the limited and subordinate position of the lay power in the election of bishops. The recurrence of this authority in the 1059 decree demonstrates that, for some reformers in the eleventh century, election to the Roman see was to be the model whereby lay investiture was eliminated from the Church.

Rome was the natural agent in the freedom of the Church from lay investiture. Hugh devoted a significant part of his chronicle to the degradation and enslavement of the Church in the time of Charles Martel (†741), who did not shrink from giving churches to laymen, so that many bishoprics were possessed by laymen or invested by a lay hand.50 This evil lasted even into the reign of Charlemagne and it fell to Pope Adrian I ‘in the restoration of the churches’ (in restauratione aecclesiarum) to write a letter to Bishop Berthar of Vienne, restoring the privileges of their sees. In this passage, Hugh represented the pope responding to the ‘clamour of the churches’ who looked to Rome for justice.51 Adrian was helped in his task of correction by Charlemagne who had come on pilgrimage to Rome,52 and in his letter the pope dealt with the long standing problem where bishoprics were held by laymen (de civitatibus quae laicis hominibus traditae erant). Charlemagne had sworn an oath before the body of Peter to help in this task of ‘emendation’.53 The language here, both in the letter and in Hugh’s gloss on it, indicated a papally-inspired reformation. The revival of Church liberty and the elimination of lay investiture was to be a restauratio or emendatio. All the evils were to be ‘corrected’ by Pope Adrian: lay investiture was a temporary anomaly. Hugh of Flavigny’s use of this letter was apt for his polemical purposes in demonstrating the illegality of lay investiture and the papal initiative in ridding the Church of this abuse. All the churches apparently looked to Rome for justice in the time of Pope Adrian I: thus, the legalising centralism or papal primacy of Gregory VII’s pontificate was no innovation. Moreover, it was the papacy that led the fight against lay investiture in the eighth century, but this time with the proper compliance of the lay power, as represented by Charlemagne. In this historical context, the fight against lay investiture was a canvas for reformers like Hugh of Flavigny wherein the proper relationship between the ‘sacred authority of the

submittere atque ab eis causas suae salutis expetere inque submittendis celestibus sacramentis eisque ut competit disponendis subdi se debere cognoscebat religionis ordine magis quam praesse.

50 Ibid., 342/32–3: et multos alios episcopatus per terras diversas, ut hystoriae referunt, possiderent laici, et per manum laicam investiti.

51 Ibid., 344/11–12: cum clamores aecclesiarum ad sedem referrentur apostolicam, et ab ea requirerent justitiam.

52 Ibid., 344/12–13: Adrianus pontifex Karolum Magnum ante corpus beati Petri conveniens, ut omnia corrigerentur, optinuit.

53 Ibid., 344/15–21.


priesthood’ (auctoritas sacrata pontificum) and the ‘royal power’ (regalis potestas)could be framed. The humble subordination of Charlemagne to Pope Adrian I was a standard against which to compare the unregenerate Henry IV.

We now turn from Hugh of Flavigny’s historical interpretation of the evils of simony and lay investiture to the contemporary canon law collections that were assembled for the purpose of eliminating these abuses. In this respect the Chronicon is an oblique but significant witness to the circulation of reforming canon law collections in France and Germany. In the south German recension of The Collection in 74 Titles, this canon law collection is introduced with an inscription claiming that it had been conveyed by the legates of the apostolic see into Germany for the settlement of ecclesiastical cases.54 Is it possible that a canon law collection entered France in the same way? Hugh of Flavigny reported that in 1073, the papal legate, Gerald of Ostia was returning to Rome after presiding at a synod at Chalon-sur-Saône.55 On his way to Rome, Gerald stopped at Die, where the local bishop was the simoniac Lancelinus. The legate then consulted with the townspeople who were opposed to their simoniacal bishop; Gerald then produced a series of auctoritates which condemned the sale of Church office: ‘saying, like Ambrose, that it was an inexpiable sin to sell [ecclesiastical] ministries and [saying] like the decrees of the holy fathers Leo, Gregory, Nicholas and others [that] simoniacs were not to be tolerated in the dignity of service’.56 The variety of patristic authors mentioned here may indicate Gerald’s possession of a canon law collection, or at least a thematic catena, concerning the heresy of simony. Gerald’s use of such auctoritates perhaps reveals a legate-based policy of disseminating ideas of reform, in the shape of canon law collections, even before the pontificate of Gregory VII.

If such a policy existed, it was possibly developed in the person of Hugh of Die, the successor to Lancelinus.57 The key text in this regard is Gregory’s letter to Hugh of Die in 1077, where the pope instructed Hugh of Die to hold a reforming council, prohibiting the donation or receipt of lay invested Church offices. Moreover, no metropolitan nor any other bishop was to consecrate a lay-invested

54 Diversorum patrum sententie sive Collectio in LXXIV titulos digesta ed. J. Gilchrist (Vatican City, 1973) pp. xxvii–xxviii: Incipiunt ecclesiastice regule sententiis sanctorum patrum deflorate a legatis ipsius sedis apostolice in Gallias pro ecclesiasticarum dispositione causarum deportate.

55 Mansi, 20, 47 (2 March); cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 410/6–9: Alexander papa Gyraldum Ostiensem episcopum, qui Petro successerat, ad Gallias destinavit, et vices suas ei per Franciam et Burgundiam commisit. At ille ex praecepto papae concilium apud Cabiloneminstituit, cui praeerat Roclenus episcopus, litteris adprime eruditus et in lectione divinorum voluminum studiosissimus.

56 Hugh of Flavigny, 410/16–18: … dicens, juxta Ambrosium, inexpiabilem esse culpam venditi ministerii; et juxta decreta sanctorum patrum, Leonis, Gregorii, Nicholai et ceterorum, erga Symoniacos nullam misericordiam habendam in servanda dignitate.

57 For Hugh of Die’s role as legate of the apostolic see, see H.E.J. Cowdrey Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085 (Oxford, 1998), pp. 358–60.


cleric. As the basis for such a decree, Bishop Hugh was enjoined to invoke canon 22 of the fourth council of Constantinople: ‘if [any should presume to intrude himself in the giving or receiving of ecclesiastical office] he should know that he will be tied and bound by the same sentence and censure of punishment that the blessed Adrian [II] in the eighth synod has decreed and confirmed regarding presumptuous persons of this kind and violators of sacred authority’.58 It should be noticed that Gregory only alluded to canon 22, he did not quote its provisions. This is unusual, because on the rare occasions that Gregory composed polemical letters, relying on patristic auctoritates or conciliar sententiae, he tended to quote his source in full rather than simply alluding to it.59 Thus it may be inferred that Hugh of Die was already familiar with the text of canon 22 before he received Gregory’s letter of 12 May 1077. Where, then, did Hugh of Die obtain access to this canon and why was the pope so confident of his familiarity with it?

The answer may lie in Hugh of Die’s journey to Rome in December 1073 to receive episcopal consecration at the hands of the pope.60 As has been mentioned above, Gregory VII consulted his cardinals at this time, learning from them that lay investiture was ‘the custom of the Church’ although they admitted that no auctoritas could be found to support the practice. It may have been in this climate of canonical research that Gregory furnished Hugh of Die with canon 22, the canon to which he would later allude in May 1077 as the basis for Hugh’s legatine programme against lay investiture. Hugh of Flavigny reports that after his consecration in Rome, Hugh of Die was ‘imbued with divine dogma and strengthened in the sanctions of the Church’ (affatim imbutus divinis dogmatibus, et ubertim roboratus aecclesiasticis sanctionibus ): perhaps canon 22 was among the ecclesiastical sanctions imbibed by Hugh at Rome.61 Moreover, having been appointed papal legate in Gallia by Gregory VII, Hugh of Die’s role was to be one of correction, but also one of instruction: he was appointed so that ‘he would teach holy and honest [things]’.62 Hugh of Die was clearly no mere mouthpiece of the pope: he seems to have enjoyed the confidence of Gregory VII for his learning as well as his zeal. The pope had postponed the consecration of Anselm until the bishop-elect of Lucca should receive royal investiture. In the case of Hugh of Die there was to be no compromise and Hugh was consecrated bishop of Die at Rome on 16 March 1074.

58 Reg. 4.22: Quod qui praesumpserit, eadem sententia et animadversionis censura, quam beatus Adrianus papa in octava synodo de huiusmodi praesumptoribus et sacrae auctoritatis corruptoribus statuit atque firmavit, se astrictum ac ligatum fore cognoscat.

59 Cf. H.X. Arquillière, ‘La deuxieme lettre de Grégoire VII à Hermann de Metz: ses sources patristiques’, Recherches de Science Religieuse, 40 (1952), 231–42.

60 See above notes 1–2. 61 Hugh of Flavigny, 411/31–4. 62 Ibid., 412/43–6: Commisit (sc. Gregorius VII.) autem ei vices suas in Gallia …

plurimum illi inculcans, potestate data non abuti, quo minus depravata corrigeret, dampnanda recideret, sancta et honesta doceret, et docenda faceret.


The different treatment of Anselm and Hugh leads to a new hypothesis. Why is it that the pope permitted Anselm to receive royal investiture but refused his acquiescence in the case of Hugh of Die? The Vita Anselmi alleges that shortly after being invested with his office by Henry IV, Anselm developed grave doubts about the legality of the ceremony. After studying ‘various written authorities’, Anselm resigned into Gregory’s hands whatever he had received from the king. Cowdrey thinks it likely that one of these auctoritates was canon 22 of the fourth council of Constantinople, and thus Gregory’s reference to canon 22 in his later letter to Hugh of Die derived ultimately from the research of Anselm.63 In early 1074, at least, the pope had no dogmatic objection to lay investiture. Gregory’s refusal to allow Hugh of Die to receive royal investiture may have stemmed, not from his own scruples, but from those of Hugh of Die. It would appear that the bishop-elect of Die had a coherent attitude to lay investiture before he came to Rome in late 1073, and very possibly had canon 22 in mind as the basis for his refusal to accept royal investiture. According to this view it could have been Hugh of Die who first alerted Anselm of Lucca to the ramifications of canon 22 apropos of the custom of lay investiture. Hugh of Flavigny reported that while at Rome in late 1073 and early 1074, Hugh of Die and Anselm of Lucca were inseparable; thus Hugh of Die would have had the opportunity to educate his brother bishop of the potential of canon 22.64 Nor does this hypothesis disturb the account in the Vita Anselmi. Anselm’s perusal of ‘various written authorities’ may have been stimulated by the exhortations of Hugh of Die.

When Gregory wrote to Hugh of Die in 1077, he may have been endorsing a campaign against lay investiture first inspired by Hugh of Die himself. Moreover, until 1078, Hugh of Die showed far more conviction than the pope in the campaign against lay investiture. Gregory may have authorised Hugh, in his role as papal legate, to prohibit lay investiture in France according to Hugh’s own conceptions. That is to say, Gregory may have given Hugh ‘a free hand’, and may have looked at France as a test case while still debating the merits of a universal prohibition of lay investiture. Hugh of Die’s first two investiture prohibitions certainly mirror Gregory’s own prohibitions of 1078 and 1080. At Autun in September 1077 Hugh of Die promulgated a decree directed against lay-invested prelates.65 This decree is redolent of Gregory VII’s decree of autumn 1078 where the focus was on the receiving prelate and the complicit consecrator. Hugh of Die’s next decree, promulgated at the Poitiers synod of January 1078 was more complete and more radical. The lay-invested cleric was condemned but so too was the investing layman. Moreover, a Church granted by lay investiture was subject to an

63 H.E.J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085 (Oxford, 1998), p. 547; see above note 17.

64 Hugh of Flavigny, 411/41–2: … in palatio Lateranensi individui adherebant, ut unum videri sine altero mirum videretur his qui eorum noverant unanimitatem.

65 From the account of Archbishop Manasses of Rheims in a letter to Gregory VII of June/July 1078; see above note 18.


interdict.66 This decree could be seen to anticipate Gregory’s decree of Lent 1080 where the penalty for participating in lay investiture was extended to the laity.67

The 1080 decree did not envisage an interdict however: Hugh of Die was always more radical than the pope. Anxious to put canon 22 to the test in 1077 and 1078, the legate embarked on a campaign against lay investiture which was implemented under the aegis of Gregory VII, but which may have owed much to the firmer convictions and canonistic knowledge of Hugh of Die.

It may be objected that Hugh of Die was no canonist, and that Anselm of Lucca would have been far more likely to have first discovered the worth and implications of canon 22. However a passage in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny may meet this objection. In the immediate aftermath of his election in 1073, Bishop Hugh of Die promulgated a decree forbidding the lay possession of churches and the lay sequestration of Church income in his diocese: ‘… [Bishop Hugh] established a decree so that no lay person should obtain a Church or accept a share in the revenues of churches’.68 Moreover, Hugh of Flavigny was absolutely clear that Hugh of Die promulgated what was in effect a decree against lay investiture before his journey to Rome for consecration: ‘… and this was done, with the help of divine clemency … so that before his ordination the Church [of Die] received the first increments of the improvement wrought by him’.69 If Hugh of Flavigny’s account is trustworthy it would appear that Hugh of Die had fixed ideas about the impropriety of lay investiture before his journey to Rome, and thus had conceived of his objections to lay investiture before encountering Gregory VII and Anselm of Lucca in late 1073/early 1074. Referring to Hugh of Die’s investiture prohibition at Poitiers in January 1078, Schieffer noted its radical character and identified it as an investiture prohibition with affiliations to the extreme strictures of Humbert of Silva Candida.70 Hugh of Die may have been part of a tradition of canonistic scholarship in Burgundy which preceded the pontificate

66 Mansi, 20, 498B: Decrevit sancta synodus, ut nullus episcopus, abbas, presbyter vel quaelibet persona de clero accipiat de manu regis vel comitis vel cuiuslibet laicae personae donum episcopatus vel abbatiae vel ecclesiae vel ecclesiasticarum rerum, sed episcopus asuo metropolitano, abbas, presbyter et ceterae inferiores personae a proprio episcopo. Si vero laici decretis canonicis resistentes ecclesias violenter tenere praesumpserint, ipsi excommunicentur; in ecclesiis vero illis nullum divinum offficium fiat. Nullus ibi oret, lumen non ponatur, mortuus non sepeliatur, tantum baptismi gratia ibi negetur, infirmis remedio poenitentiae et communionis subveniatur.

67 Reg. 7.14a, p. 480/17–30. 68 Hugh of Flavigny, 411/15–16: Nec diu passus est suo in tempore tantam videre

contritionem et conculcationem ecclesiae, quin potius statuit decretum, ut nullus laicus optineret aecclesiam, aut partem acciperet in reditibus aecclesiarum.

69 Ibid., 411/16–18: Et factum est, divina cooperante clementia, ut omnes gratanter jussionem ejus susciperent, et obedirent, ita ut ante ejus ordinationem haec suae meliorationis incrementa sibi commissa per eum susceperit ecclesia.

70 Schieffer, Die Entstehung des päpstlichen Investiturverbots, p. 166: ‘… zweifellos ein Investiturverbot im Sinne Humberts von Silva Candida …’.


of Gregory VII, which concerned itself with the issue of lay investiture, and which took its inspiration from the works of Humbert, perhaps especially from the Libri Tres adversus Simoniacos.71 An example of this tradition may be seen in the person of Bishop Roclin of Chalon-sur-Saône, who presided over a council in Chalon-sur-Saône – in collaboration with the papal legate, Gerald of Ostia – immediately prior to the episcopal election at Die in 1073. Hugh of Flavigny described Roclin as an erudite man of letters, most learned in the reading of divine volumes.72 Even if he were no more than an exegete, skilled in lectio divina, the participation of such a learned man cooperating with the reforms of the papal legate indicates the high calibre of the Burgundian episcopate at this time. Thus, Hugh of Die, who was schooled in this ambience – which may also have unearthed canon 22 independently of research at Rome – developed a precocious detestation for lay investiture and enacted measures against the practice before coming under the direct influence of Gregory VII. It should finally be remembered that as bishop of Die (1073–82) and Lyons (1082–1106), Hugh was considered something of an authority on lay investiture by his contemporaries. Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury looked to Archbishop Hugh of Lyons for guidance in respect of the practice of lay investiture,73 and it is surely significant that Ivo of Chartres’ politic distinction between the spiritualia and the temporalia of churches was outlined to Hugh of Lyons. When Ivo wrote his letter in 1097, Hugh must have personified the hardline ‘Gregorian’ attitude to lay investiture.74

The development of Hugh of Die’s attitude to lay investiture – and by extension the attitude of the Gregorian reforming circle in Burgundy – must be set against the context of the canon law collections that evidently circulated in contemporary France and Germany. The probable dissemination of the 74 Titles is a good case study in the local reception of reforming ‘authorities’. There has been much debate about how the 74 Titles entered into Germany. The crucial passage in this regard is an inscription in the manuscripts of the ‘Swabian recension’ of the collection: ‘here begin Church laws culled from the sentences of the Holy Fathers and brought by the legates of the Holy See into Germany for the settlement of ecclesiastical cases’.75 Anton Michel thought that the legates in question were Cardinal-deacon

71 Like Humbert, Hugh of Die was an uncompromising ‘rigorist’ in respect of the sacraments. When elected bishop of Die, he had still not been ordained a priest. As Hugh of Flavigny asserted, 411/26, Hugh of Die ‘hated simoniacal orders’ (detestabatur enim symoniacorum ordinationes). As camerarius of Lyon, Hugh of Die evidently feared contamination if he were ordained by Archbishop Humbert of Lyons, who was subsequently deposed for his simoniacal behaviour.

72 Hugh of Flavigny, 410/8–9: Roclenus episcopus, litteris adprime eruditus et in lectione divinorum voluminum studiosissimus.

73 See Chapter 8, note 51. 74 Ivo of Chartres, Epistola ad Hugonem Archiepiscopum Lugdunensem, ed. E. Sackur,

MGH Libelli, 2, 644–6. 75 See above note 54.


Bernard and Abbot Bernard of St-Victor in Marseilles.76 According to this hypothesis the legatine mission that disseminated the 74 Titles into Germany occurred in 1077 with the embassy of the papal legates who were present at the election in Forchheim of the anti-king Rudolf of Swabia (15 March 1077), and who later went to Mainz for the coronation of the anti-king. The two legates later attended a reforming synod (Klerustag) at Constance in April/May of that year.77

As corroboration for this hypothesis, Michel examined the reforming activity of these legates in Germany in 1077 and the extent to which this activity might correspond to the embassy that allegedly arrived in Germany ‘for the settlement of ecclesiastical cases’ (pro ecclesiasticarum dispositione causarum). Michel concentrated particularly on the influence of this papal legation on the reform of Swabian monastic life. For example, Abbot Bernard of Marseilles concluded a confraternity between his monastery and that of St-Blasien (6 October 1077) and he stayed almost a year with William of Hirsau, the leading figure in the south German ‘Gregorian’ reform movement.78 Bernard also participated in the compilation of the latter’s Consuetudines Hirsaugienses,79 and the death of Abbot Bernard is commemorated in the Swabian chronicles many times.80

Michel clinched his hypothesis with the observation that in the last chapter of the ‘Swabian Appendix’ to the 74 Titles there is an excerpt verbatim from the parallel letters of Pope Gregory VII to his legates (that is, the two Bernards) and to the faithful of 31 May 1077.81 Michel supposed that the author of the ‘Swabian Appendix’ was Bernold of St-Blasien, an assumption confirmed by Johanne Autenrieth,82 and concluded that Gregory VII’s letter to his legates of 31 May 1077 was Bernold’s fons formalis for c. 330 of the Appendix. He concluded that the probable legatine transmission of this papal letter to Bernold of St-Blasien indicated that the 74 Titles itself was transported by the legatine mission of the two

76 Anton Michel, Die Sentenzen des Kardinals Humbert, das erste Rechtsbuch der papstlichen Reform (MGH Schriften, 7: Stuttgart. 1943), pp. 136–41.

77 Ibid., 140 n. 1; cf. Gerold Meyer von Knonau, Jahrbücher, Vol. 3, p. 227. 78 Cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform (Oxford, 1970), p.

203. 79 PL, 150, 927f. 80 Michel, Die Sentenzen des Kardinals Humbert, p. 140 nn. 2–3; cf. Die Chroniken

Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernolds von Konstanz 1054–1100, ed. I.S. Robinson, MGH SRG NS, 14 (Hanover, 2003), 373/7–20, 423/15–16.

81 Diversorum patrum sententie, p. 196, c. 330: Ex Decretis Sancti Gregorii Pape Primi, ‘Decernimus reges a suis dignitatibus cadere et participatione corporis et sanguinis Domini nostri Iesu Christi carere, si praesumant apostolica sedis iussa contemnere’. Cf. Reg. 4.23, 4.24, p. 336/6–8, p. 338/10–14. The passage in the parallel letters of Gregory VII was itself based on a passage in a letter of Pope Gregory I, ep. 13.11, MGH Epistolae, 2, p. 378/9–11.

82 Johanne Autenrieth, ‘Bernold von Konstanz und die erweiterte 74-Titelsammlung’, DA, 14 (1958), 375–94.


Bernards in 1077.83 However, Gilchrist has emphasised the distinction between the ‘Swabian recension’ of the collection and the ‘Swabian Appendix’ to the collection. Although Bernold was the probable compiler of both, they were not necessarily executed at the same time. The final version of the ‘Swabian recension’ with the Appendix does not seem to have been used before 1086 and therefore the possible transmission of Gregory VII’s letter of May 1077 via Bernard of Marseilles and its use in the Appendix does not a priori bear on the process whereby the 74 Titles were ‘brought into Germany by the legates of the Holy See’.84 Moreover, Bernold seems to have used the 74 Titles in some work that he completed before the legatine mission of 1077, such as in his De damnatione scismaticorum and Apologeticus.85 Haller argued for a different legatine mission by which the 74 Titles made its way into Germany. He thought that the envoys in question were Altmann of Passau and Sigehard of Aquileia who, with the help of the 74 Titles, convinced the great majority of the German episcopate to abandon the cause of King Henry IV at Tribur/Oppenheim in October 1076.86 Haller’s further idea – that the 74 Titles made its way into Germany already equipped with the Appendix – has been effectively refuted by Autenrieth.

Neither Michel nor Haller considered the possible transmission of the 74 Titles with the legatine mission of Gerald of Ostia and Hubert of Palestrina in 1074. These legates went to Germany in the aftermath of Gregory VII’s Lent synod of 1074, 9–15 March,87 where the pope planned a reforming council in Germany under the direction of papal legates.88 In a subsequent letter of December 1074 Gregory described the purpose of this legatine mission as one of holding a council which would ‘correct what ought to be corrected and add whatever needed to be added to religion’.89 Gregory’s Lent synod of 1074 had dealt with the evils of simony and clerical marriage and his policy in this respect was probably a deliberate continuation of that of Pope Alexander II. Thus, the programme envisaged for the putative German council would have concerned itself with

83 Michel, Die Sentenzen des Kardinals Humbert, pp. 140–41. 84 Diversorum patrum sententie, p. xxx n. 87: … a legatis ipsius sedis apostolice in

Gallias … deportate. 85 Bernold of St-Blasien, Apologeticus, MGH Libelli, 2, 58–88; idem, De Damnatione

Scismaticorum, MGH Libelli, 2, 26–58; For the dating of the Apologeticus see I. S. Robinson, ‘Zur Arbeitsweise Bernolds von Konstanz und seines Kreises. Untersuchungen zum Schlettstädter Codex’, DA, 34 (1978), 51–122, especially 69–73.

86 J. Haller, ‘Pseudoisidors erstes Auftreten im deutschen Investiturstreit’, SG, 2(1947), 91–6.

87 Reg. 1.42, pp. 64–5. 88 Cf. Carl Erdmann, Studien zur Briefliteratur Deutschlands im elften Jahrhundert

(MGH Schriften, 1: Stuttgart, 1938), p. 227.89 Reg. 2.28, p. 161/6f: Legatis quippe nostris Alberto Prenestinensi et Giraldo Ostiensi

episcopis quos ad partes illas ad id destinavimus, ut in unum archiepiscopis episcopis abbatibus religiosisque convocatis vice et auctoritate nostra fulti que corrigenda essent corrigerent, que religioni addenda adderent.


implementing the decrees of the preceding Roman synod.90 On this limited evidence the legatine mission of Gerald of Ostia and Hubert of Palestrina corresponds more readily with the embassy described in the Swabian MSS – which came into Germany ‘for the settlement of ecclesiastical cases’ – than either the mission of Sigehard of Aquileia and Altmann of Passau in 1076, or that of the two Bernards in 1077. Both of these later legations could more accurately be described as diplomatic rather than reforming missions.

Erdmann saw that this planned, but ultimately abortive, council of 1074 would have been an unprecedented extension of Roman Church reform north of the Alps.91 Moreover, in the demands of Gerald of Ostia and Hubert of Palestrina that Archbishop Liemar of Bremen either obey their will by calling a reforming synod or go to Rome to give an account of himself, ‘Archbishop Liemar accurately perceived a startling intrusion upon the traditional authority of a metropolitan’, indicating the emergence of a ‘distinctive “Gregorian” ecclesiology’.92 Michel thought that the legates in 1077 took with them a copy of the 74 Titles which they intended to use as a guide on difficult matters.93 How much more appropriate would the 74 Titles have been as a guide for the legatine mission in 1074, dealing with the matters of simony, clerical marriage and papal primacy: that is, precisely the issues that lay at the heart of the 74 Titles. Perhaps, indeed, Gerald of Ostia and Hubert of Palestrina were so confident in their assertion of a radically new ‘Gregorian’ ecclesiology in Germany – so disturbing to Liemar of Bremen – because they were supported by a copy of the 74 Titles.

One of the key criteria in Michel’s argument in favour of the legatine mission of 1077 was the close connection between the legates – in particular Abbot Bernard of St-Victor in Marseilles – and Abbot William of Hirsau, one of the most important figures in the south German ‘Gregorian’ circle. It is suggested that Abbot Bernard brought with him a copy of the 74 Titles on his mission in 1077, and that the collection was disseminated from Hirsau, where Bernard spent a great deal of time with Abbot William in that year. Thus, it is contended, Bernold probably obtained access to a copy of the collection at Hirsau, which became the basis of his later recension of, and Appendix to the 74 Titles.94 This criterion of close friendship with Hirsau is one that also applies to one of the members of the 1074 legation: Gerald of Ostia. Like Abbot William, Gerald originally came from

90 Erdmann, Briefliteratur, p. 228 n. 1; cf. Gerold Meyer von Knonau, Jahrbücher,Vol. 2, p. 348.

91 Erdmann, Briefliteratur, p. 228 describes the planned reforming council of 1074 in the following terms: ‘… denn Konzilien unter der Leitung päpstlicher Legaten hatte man nördlich der Alpen noch nicht gekannt’.

92 I.S. Robinson, ‘Periculosus Homo: Pope Gregory VII and Episcopal Authority’, Viator, 9 (1978), 110.

93 Cf. Diversorum patrum sententie, p. xxviii n. 72. 94 Michel, Die Sentenzen des Kardinals Humbert, p. 140 nn. 1–2; cf. Cowdrey, The

Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform, p. 203 n. 2.


Regensburg, and the connection between Regensburg, Cluny and the dissemination of ‘Gregorian’ reform is deserving of closer scrutiny.

In 1069 Count Adalbert of Calw petitioned William, then a monk at St-Emmeram in Regensburg, to become abbot of Hirsau.95 The crucial time in his abbatiate was in the winter of 1075–76 when, during the course of a stay in Rome, William became a convinced supporter of Gregory VII: ‘upon his return to Germany, Hirsau quickly became the nerve-centre of the cause of St Peter’.96

Later, c. 1078, the Cluniac monk Ulrich, Abbot William’s friend from Regensburg, came to Hirsau, and responding to the abbot’s request, wrote down the customs of Cluny to help guide William in his reform of Hirsau. Subsequently, Abbot William often sent pairs of his own monks to Cluny to observe the Cluniac way of life at first hand.97 Like William of Hirsau, Ulrich was intimately involved in the establishment of Cluniac customs in German-speaking lands. He came temporarily to Rümlingen in the diocese of Lausanne to help establish the priory there founded by Count Lütold of Rümlingen.98 Moreover, by virtue of his position at the Cluniac priory at Zell, Ulrich won renown, not just for the propagation of Cluniac ideas in Germany, but also for his role in the dissemination of ‘Gregorian’ reforming ideas. He was named by Paul of Bernried, together with Altmann of Passau and the Abbots William of Hirsau and Siegfried of Schaffhausen, as one of the four pre-eminent ‘Gregorians’ in Germany.99

The nexus of Regensburg, Cluny and ‘Gregorian’ reform is continued in the career of Gerald of Ostia. Gerald had been the scholasticus at the cathedral school in Regensburg and was evidently closely connected with the monastery of St-Emmeram. In the Vita Prior and the Vita Posterior of Ulrich of Zell, Gerald and Ulrich are depicted leaving together to join the monastery of Cluny.100 Gerald later became grand-prior at Cluny and continued to assist the expansion and immunity of Cluniac houses when he became cardinal-bishop of Ostia on the death of Peter

95 Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform, p. 197. 96 Ibid., p. 203. 97 Ibid., p. 204 n. 3; for the customs of Cluny: PL, 149, 643–778, esp. 643–4, 731. 98 Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform, p. 194 n. 4; Vita Udalrici: Vita

posterior, c. 21, MGH SS, 12, 258–9. 99 Paul of Bernried, Vita Gregorii Septimi Pontificis, c. 118, ed. E. Watterich,

Pontificum Romanorum Vitae, Vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1862), p. 543; Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform, p. 195 n. 7.

100 Vita S. Udalrici Prioris Cellensis: Ex Vita Posteriore, c. 11, MGH SS, 12, 257/6 f: Quapropter eiusdem civitatis scholasticum, nomine Geraldum, adiit, suam ei voluntatem pandit, et ut mundi incerta secum pariter relinqueret, monuit, suasit et obtinuit. Venerabiles ergo viri, Sancti Spiritus gratia cooperante, in una eademque voluntati coadunati, coenobitarum quidem vitae sociari quam maxime eligebant; sed quo in loco suave iugum Christi, et onus eius leve suis humeris securius imponere possent anxie interse conferebant. Salubri tandem consilio invento, in Cluniacensi coenobio, cuius religionem longe latequepraedicari audierant, sanctae conversationis schema suscipere decernebant.


Damian in 1072.101 For example, in 1073 on a legatine mission to Spain, Gerald issued a charter for the Cluniac priory of St-Mont in the archdiocese of Auch. St-Mont was placed under the tuitio of St Peter as fully as Cluny itself.102 Gerald also helped to reform the monastery of St-Sauveur et Notre Dame, Figeac (in the diocese of Cahors) as a Cluniac priory, and the cardinal-bishop of Ostia played a crucial role in the propagation of Cluniac reform in Spain under King Alphonso VI.103

Like William of Hirsau and Ulrich of Zell, Gerald of Ostia combined a devotion to the customs and liberties of Cluny with an unswerving adherence to the cause of Pope Gregory VII. All three men came from Regensburg. That there was a close relationship between William and Ulrich is revealed by the help requested by the former in the matter of the customs of Cluny. Ulrich and Gerald were also close companions as can be seen in their joint decision to join the abbey of Cluny; moreover, it is not insignificant that in a spurious diploma of Henry IV for the fledgling Cluniac priory of Rümlingen, presided over for a short time by Ulrich, it is said that Gerald of Ostia was involved in its foundation and had issued a privilege for it.104 There is no evidence of a direct relationship between William of Hirsau and Gerald of Ostia, but such a relationship must be considered probable rather than possible in the light of their common homeland, and their common devotion to Cluny and the cause of Gregory VII. Therefore it is not inconceivable that on his legatine mission to Germany in 1074, if he had a copy of the 74 Titles in his possession, that Gerald could have disseminated a copy of the collection in south German ‘Gregorian’ circles exactly in the manner that Michel has supposed in the case of Abbot Bernard of Marseilles – that is via Hirsau, or indeed via another centre of Cluniac/Gregorian influence like Zell.

Moreover, this explanation would meet some of the temporal problems raised by the Michel thesis. Michel supposed that, in his writings completed c. 1076, Bernold of St-Blasien had used the ‘Roman’ or ‘Cassino’ recension of the 74 Titles(that is, the original recension). He thought that the crucial date for the changeover – that is, the date when Bernold began using the ‘Swabian’ recension – was 1077, corresponding to the legatine mission of the two Bernards in that year. However, there are definitely elements of the ‘Swabian’ recension in some of his polemics completed before this date. Thus, if Bernold was the author of the ‘Swabian’ recension, and this has been demonstrated by Autenrieth, he must have begun to alter the texts of the original (that is, ‘Cassino’) version of the 74 Titles before the

101 For the significance of the office of grand-prior of Cluny in the Gregorian reform of the later eleventh century see I.S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge, 1990), p. 213.

102 Cartulaire du prieure de Saint Mont, ed. J. de Jaurgain, Archives historiques de la Gascogne (Paris and Auch, 1904), no. 6, pp. 12–14; cf. Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform, p. 80 nn. 1–3.

103 Ibid., pp. 102–3, 223. 104 Ibid., p. 194 n. 4.


legatine mission of 1077.105 The hypothesis that the collection was first brought to Germany in 1074 by Gerald of Ostia and Hubert of Palestrina provides a realistic temporal framework wherein Bernold could have digested the importance of this canon law collection, before beginning work on his own version of it.

One of Michel’s criteria in establishing the relationship between Abbot Bernard of Marseilles and the south German ‘Gregorian’ reform was the commemoration of the death of Abbot Bernard in the Swabian chronicles.106 However, it could be argued that Gerald of Ostia had an equally high profile in these works. Both the Annales of Berthold of Reichenau and the Chronicon of Bernold of St-Blasien made reference, in virtually identical terms to the great learning of Gerald. They described how, on the death of Peter Damian in 1072, Gerald, ‘not unequal in Holy learning to his predecessor’, succeeded as cardinal bishop of Ostia.107 Moreover, Bernold twice made reference to the death of Gerald of Ostia, once in his Chronicon, but perhaps more significantly, also in the Necrologium that precedes the Chronicon.108 Bernold’s reference to the erudition of Gerald of Ostia was no idle encomium. Bernold was greatly influenced by the canonistic learning of Peter Damian and sought to imitate him in terms of sources and method: a comparison with Peter Damian was high praise indeed.109 Clearly Gerald of Ostia, the former scholasticus of Regensburg, was skilled in the ‘science of scripture’ (scientia scripturarum) – a description denoting more than mere exegesis – and may have been a suitable agent for the transmission of a collection like the 74 Titles. It remains now to examine his legatine career in the context of his canonistic learning and the propagation of the reforming ideas contained in the 74 Titles.

The legatine activity of Gerald of Ostia in the pontificate of Alexander II is described in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny. Hugh narrated how Gerald held a council at Chalon-sur-Saône on 2 March 1073110 (inaccurately dated 1074 by Hugh) and returned to Rome via Die in the archdiocese of Vienne. At Die, he was approached by some of the townspeople opposed to their simoniacal bishop Lancelin. Gerald replied to them following Ambrose (iuxta Ambrosium) that

105 Diversorum patrum sententie, p. xxx. 106 See above note 80. 107 Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernolds von Konstanz 1054–1100,

214/4–8: Petrus Damiani … migravit ad Dominum. Cui domnus Geraldus Cluniacensis monachus, scientia scripturarum insignis et moribus praedecessori suo non inpar, in episcopatum succesit; cf. ibid., 400/9–12.

108 Ibid., 418/1–3: Geraldus venerabilis Ostiensis episcopus de quo supra commemoravimus, iam dudum Deo vivus, mundo crucifixus, de huius vitae ergastulo liberatus est, 8. Idus Decembris; cf. Rolf Kuithan and Joachim Wollasch, ‘Der Kalender des Chronisten Bernold’, DA, 40 (1984), 521.

109 Cf. J.J. Ryan, Saint Peter Damiani and his Canonical Sources (Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Studies and Texts, 2: Toronto, 1956), pp. 144–8.

110 Theodor Schieffer, Die päpstlichen Legaten in Frankreich vom Vertrage von Meersen (870) bis zum Schisma von 1130 (Berlin, 1934), p. 81 n. 3, placed this council in 1072.


simony was an inexpiable sin and cited other decrees of the Holy Fathers to show that simoniacs were heretics, and that those who tolerated simoniacs were just as guilty as those who bought or sold Church office.111 In its scope and range, Hugh’s account of the canon law auctoritates possessed by Gerald of Ostia, with explicit references to ‘authorities’ of Ambrose, Pope Leo I, Pope Gregory I, Pope Nicholas I and others, might indicate that the legate was in possession of a reforming collection as early as 1072/1073. Of course there is the real possibility that Hugh of Flavigny was merely ascribing to Gerald his own (that is, Hugh’s) knowledge of canon law when composing the Chronicon in the period c. 1085–1102. This possibility is small, however, when one considers the context of Hugh’s account of the legatine activities of Gerald of Ostia in Burgundy. Gerald’s legatine mission in the Chronicon forms part of the narrative leading up to the account of the miraculous election of Hugh, bishop of Die, in 1073. Hugh of Flavigny’s narrative in this passage must have been dependent for the most part on the version of events that was relayed to him by his mentor, Bishop Hugh of Die (later archbishop of Lyons 1082–1106).112 That is to say, Hugh of Flavigny was unlikely to have inserted anything of his own invention into this part of the Chronicon.

According to the chronicler, the first auctoritas employed by Gerald in the town of Die was one from Ambrose of Milan. The selling of Church office was an ‘inexpiable sin’. This principle, so important to the idea of reform from the mid-eleventh century, was believed to have been formulated by Ambrose of Milan (a derivation accepted in the Patrologia Latina) but derives instead from Pseudo-Ambrosius. The common version of this auctoritas provides that it was ‘an inexpiable sin to sell the [sacred] mysteries, and thus transmit the staff of heavenly grace to posterity’.113 In Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon, Gerald of Ostia apparently cited the pseudo-Ambrosian prohibition of simony in the context of Church offices

111 Hugh of Flavigny, 410/10–21: Anno igitur ab incarnatione Domini 1074, praesidente Romanae ecclesiae papa Alexandro, Giraldus Ostiensis episcopus, Romanae sedis legatus in Galliis, concilio Cabiloni habito Romam rediens, et apud Diensem urbemhospitatus, cum clericis in aecclesia de utilitate ecclesiae loquebatur. Erat enim in eadem urbe Lancelinus Symoniacus dictus episcopus, qui vocatus ad audientiam cum venire renueret, et se in domo episcopali manu militari defenderet, et episcopatum retineretemptaret, tractabat legatus cum civibus, canonicis scilicet et plebis majoribus, quid de episcopo agerent, dicens, juxta Ambrosium, inexpiabilem esse culpam venditi ministerii; etjuxta decreta sanctorum patrum, Leonis, Gregorii, Nicholai et ceterorum, erga Symoniacos nullam misericordiam habendam in servanda dignitate, et quia quisquis per pecuniam ordinatur, ad hoc ut fiat hereticus promovetur, et omnes qui ei consentiunt, et qui emendarepossunt et non emendant, et omnes qui contra illos non sunt, sed favent eis, cum eo habeant partem qui prius commisit hoc peculiare flagitium.

112 See Chapter 3, note 63. 113 [Pseudo] Ambrosius Mediolanensis, Expositio Evangelii Secundum Lucam Libris X

Comprehensa, Liber Quartus, PL, 15, 1628C: Inexpiabilis est enim venditi culpa mysterii, et gratiae vindicta coelestis transit ad posteros; cf. Landulfi Historia Mediolanensis, Liber Secundus, ed. G.H. Pertz, MGH SS, 8, 36.


or ministerii, rather than the conventional sacramental context of ‘sacred offices’ or mysterii. This change in emphasis was no mere semantic difference, nor can it be attributed to a scribal error. The Libri Tres Adversus Simoniacos also conflated the terms ministerium and mysterium and thus must be considered a possible source for Gerald of Ostia’s use of this auctoritas (or at least Hugh of Flavigny’s ascription of it to Gerald). Humbert used the term in the context of a recapitulatio of the ideas of (pseudo-) Ambrose: this is all the more significant because Humbert had accurately quoted (pseudo-) Ambrose in the immediately preceding chapter of his polemic.114

That is to say, Humbert did not misread his source in the recapitulatio. Rather he deliberately modified it in the light of his own ‘rigorist’ approach to the contaminating effect of simony on Church office. Humbert viewed the physical accoutrements and benefits of Church office as indivisible from the sacramental aspects of the sacerdotal officium/ministerium and hence his bald equation of simony with lay investiture.115 In using this pseudo-Ambrosian auctoritas in the version modified by Humbert, Gerald of Ostia (or Hugh of Flavigny) adhered to a similarly rigorous attitude to the effects of simony on Church office.

The next element in the catena of authorities attributed to Gerald of Ostia was the principle that simoniacs should not be tolerated in the exercise of the sacerdotal dignity (symoniacos nullam misericordiam habendam in servanda dignitate). This auctoritas derives from the encyclical Vigilantia Universalis of Pope Alexander II, promulgated in 1063, which was itself a reissue of a previous encyclical of Pope Nicholas II in 1059116 and it entered the canon law collections of Ivo of Chartres and Master Gratian of Bologna.117 Gerald of Ostia’s dissemination of this Alexandrine auctoritas indicates the continuity of papal reform in the early years of the pontificate of Gregory VII and anticipates Gregory’s renewal of the reforming efforts of Alexander II at his Lent synod of 1074.

The idea that simony was a heresy had become a venerable one by the late eleventh century and had been defined in these terms by Pope Gregory the Great at

114 Humbert of Silva Candida, Libri Tres Adversus Simoniacos, 1.16, MGH Libelli, 1,128/27–8: Sententia sancti Ambrosii de ordinationibus Simoniacorum ‘Inexpiabilis est venditi culpa mysterii, et coelestis gratiae vindicta transit ad posteros’; ibid., 1.17, MGH Libelli, 1, 130/4–7: In qua utique fide vel ministerio non est hereticis pars nec sors, quia nec ministri Christi, sed satanae pretio efficiuntur, nec ipsorum oratione aut invocatione Spiritus Sanctus datur, quia ministerium eorum, etiamsi rectae conversationis videantur, a Deo non recognoscitur.

115 See R.L. Benson, The Bishop-Elect: A Study in Medieval Ecclesiastical Office (Princeton, 1968), p. 213 n. 34: ‘Discussing simony, Humbert had argued that the simonist inevitably purchases the consecration as well as the ecclesiastical properties, and that office and property are invariably joined…’. In Humbert’s conception, secular princes practiced simony under ‘the false name of investiture’, see Chapter 1, note 38.

116 Mansi, 19, 1023; for a modern edition see Schieffer Die Entstehung des päpstlichen Investiturverbots, pp. 208–25.

117 Ivo of Chartres, Decretum 5.79, PL, 161, 352A; Decretum Magistri Gratiani, ed. E. Friedberg, Corpus Iuris Canonici, Pars Prior (Leipzig, 1879), C.1 q.1 c.110, col. 401.


the end of the sixth century.118 Simoniacs were not to be tolerated in any exercise of the sacerdotal office because whoever was ordained through money was promoted to the status of a heretic (quisquis per pecuniam ordinatur, ad hoc ut fiat hereticus promovetur). Not only was the simoniac himself made a heretic by his simony but also those who tolerated or consented to the simoniac, having it in their power to ‘amend’ this crime. This text, deriving ultimately from a letter of Pope Gregory I,119 was to be one of the key principles of Church reform from the middle of the eleventh century, occurring in the polemic of Humbert and in the so-called Epistola Widonis. It was also incorporated in the 74 Titles and in the canon law collections of Anselm of Lucca, Ivo of Chartres, and Gratian of Bologna.120

Gregory VII incorporated this auctoritas in a letter of 1083 to the bishops and leading laymen of Flanders but, perhaps more significantly, Bernold of St-Blasien asserted that this authority was at the core of Gregory VII’s legislation against simony and clerical incontinence in his Lent synod of 1074.121

Two aspects of Bernold’s account demand attention. First, Bernold cited this auctoritas of Gregory I to support Gregory VII’s planned reforms of 1074. It is not insignificant that the very same authority was apparently employed at Die in 1073 by Gerald of Ostia. That is to say, as papal legate in 1073, Gerald had anticipated the kind of auctoritates that papal polemicists would use to justify the reforming plans of Gregory VII at the start of his pontificate. Moreover, Gerald was one of the legates sent into Germany to enforce the decrees of the Lent synod of 1074. If one accepts the Apologeticus of Bernold as an accurate account of that synod – or at least as an accurate account of the contemporary auctoritates cited in support of this synod – then Gerald must have been an obvious choice as legate for the papal campaign against simony and clerical marriage in Germany. He seemingly had prior expertise in the areas of discipline that the papacy was determined to reform, and was familiar with the authorities on which these reforms were to be based. The evidence of Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon shows that Gerald had previous experience in interpreting and enforcing the reforming principles that Gregory VII

118 See Chapter 8, note 9. 119 Gregory I, ep. 12.9, MGH Epistolae, 2, 357/3–5. 120 Humbert, Adversus Simoniacos, 1.14, pp. 121/43–122/2; Epistola Widonis, MGH

Libelli, 1, 5/10–13; Diversorum patrum sententie, c. 132, p. 89; Anselm II of Lucca, Collectio Canonum una cum Collectione Minore, 6.73, ed. F. Thaner (Innsbruck, 1906–15), p. 305; Ivo of Chartres, Decretum, 2.84, PL, 161, 179D; ibid., 5.112, PL, 161, 363A; Decretum Gratiani, C.1 q.1 c.5, c.13, pp. 358 and 361. On the Epistola Widonis see John Gilchrist, ‘The Epistola Widonis, Ecclesiastical Reform and Canonistic Enterprise 1049–1141’, Authority and Power: Studies on Medieval Law and Government Presented to Walter Ullmann on His Seventieth Birthday, eds B. Tierney and P. Linehan (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 49–58.

121 Reg. 9.35, p. 624/31–6. Bernold of St-Blasien, Apologeticus, c. 6, MGH Libelli, 2, 66/17f: Nempe scriptum est in decretis suis capitulo 131 … cur non perpenditur quia benedictio illi in maledictionem convertitur qui ad hoc, ut fiat haereticus promovetur?; cf. Manegold of Lautenbach, Liber ad Gebehardum, c.20, MGH Libelli, 1, 343/29f.


wished to see implemented in 1074. Moreover, Hugh of Flavigny’s account of the auctoritates cited by Gerald at Die in 1073 seems to fit with the general tenor of Gerald’s legatine mission in 1072–73. This mission was characterised by the implementation of reform and the prohibition of simony: Gerald’s possession of some kind of reforming Collectio, perhaps indicated in Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon, is not unlikely in the overall context of Gerald’s legatine responsibilities at this time.122

Secondly, Bernold seems to have used a canon law collection as his ‘formal source’ (fons formalis) for the relevant ‘authority’ of Gregory I, as the inscriptio reads: nempe scriptum est in decretis suis capitulo 131, a chapter number which obviously does not correspond to the original form of Gregory I’s letter. The same authority is numbered Chapter 132 of the 74 Titles, a similarity in numbering which creates a strong presumption that the 74 Titles was Bernold’s formal source for this text. This point is important because the evidence of Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon would suggest that Gerald of Ostia possessed the same authority as part of a canon law collection that was used at Die in 1073. When taken with the evidence of Gerald’s connections with the south German Gregorian ‘friendship network’, and the nature of his legatine mission to Germany after the Lent synod of 1074, Gerald of Ostia’s possession and dissemination of canon law materials at Die in 1073 appears highly significant. There is no a priori reason why his legatine mission in 1074 should not have been the one to carry the 74 Titles ‘into Gaul’ (in Gallias), a nebulous geographical description that perhaps corresponds to Burgundy – where Gerald promoted reform at Die and Chalon-sur-Saône – more readily than to the region of Swabia in Germany.123 This hypothesis would also explain Bernold’s use of this collection before the mission to Germany of Abbot Bernard of St-Victor and Cardinal-deacon Bernard in 1077. If nothing else, the account of Gerald of Ostia’s presence at Die in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny provides an important insight into the circulation and maturity of canon law collections at the inception of the ‘Gregorian’ reform programme.

Both in its description of Gerald’s legation in 1073 and of the fluid state of canon law research at Rome in 1074 – when the pope allegedly consulted with his cardinals on the legality of lay investiture – the Chronicon reflects the new reforming vigour that characterised the beginning of Gregory VII’s pontificate. Writing in the decade or so after the pope’s death in 1085, Hugh of Flavigny thought that this reforming crusade included an attack on the practice of lay investiture, which, in the tradition of the most radical reformers, he considered to be synonymous with the heresy of simony. In pursuance of this interpretation, Hugh dated Gregory’s 1080 investiture legislation to 1074 in an attempt to endow

122 T. Schieffer, Die päpstlichen Legaten in Frankreich, pp. 81–8; Erdmann, Studien zur Briefliteratur, pp. 227–30; Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085, pp. 98, 112, 473.

123 For Gallia as a description of contemporary Lotharingia see Matthias Werner, ‘Der Herzog von Lothringen in salischer Zeit’, Die Salier und das Reich 1, Salier, Adel und Reichsverfassung, ed. S. Weinfurter (Sigmaringen, 1991), p. 374 n. 40.


greater coherence to papal policy on the issue of lay control over ecclesiastical offices. In fact, however, the custom of lay investiture only gradually became a cause of strife between Gregory VII and Henry IV and the pope’s first definite investiture prohibition was promulgated in 1078. Despite its chronological mistakes, Hugh’s Chronicon has much to tell – albeit obliquely – on the development of reforming hostility to the ‘damnable custom’ of lay investiture. In particular, it would seem that Hugh of Die/Lyons played a much more important role in this process than has previously been considered. It is possible that Hugh of Die was one of the first reformers in the 1070s to recognise the reforming potential of canon 22 of the fourth council of Constantinople and it is surely significant that Gregory VII instructed the bishop of Die to publish this canon in an early reforming synod of 1077. This legislation, although the first part of a revolutionary campaign against lay investiture, was seen by Hugh of Flavigny as the ‘uncovering’ of a ‘truth’ that had been long concealed. Aware of the need to portray this most controversial of papal reforms in terms of continuity and tradition, Hugh exploited the temporal scope of his world chronicle to characterise libertas in ecclesiastical elections as the historical norm and to depict the practice of lay investiture as the real novelty.

Chapter 8

Reforming Attitudes to Ecclesiastical Promotion

When a person shamelessly hastens to take a position of influence for the sake of empty glory, he is the more unworthy because he seeks office. For just as the person who refuses when invited or who, when sought after, takes flight, deserves to be promoted to the sacred altar, so the man who lusts after position or who worms his way in when he is unsought deserves to be repulsed without any hesitation …1.

These sentiments of Pope Gregory I (590–604) evoked a ready response from Church reformers in the later eleventh century, who frowned upon those who might ambitiously strive for Church office. Especially among the followers of Pope Gregory VII in the ‘Investiture Contest’ of the late eleventh century, it was a convention that truly worthy candidates would instinctively reject any opportunity for advancement. Indeed the reforming canonist and friend of Gregory VII, Bishop Anselm II of Lucca, incorporated Gregory I’s text into his Collectio canonum and it is also found in the near-contemporary Collection in 74 Titles (Diversorum Patrum Sententie).2 The inclusion of Gregory I’s sententia in these canon law collections shows the determination of reformers in the second half of the eleventh century to exclude ambitious men from the sacerdotal order.

Reluctance for ecclesiastical office was not simply part of the legal framework of the Church by the late eleventh century but had become a widely accepted convention or topos. This convention was already venerable by the year 395 when St Augustine was reluctantly elevated to the bishopric of Hippo.3 As understood in the late eleventh century, the topos of reluctance was associated primarily with the events surrounding the election of Pope Gregory I in 590. The most popular version of these events was that conveyed in the ninth-century Vita of Gregory I composed by John the Deacon.4 Gregory had established a monastery dedicated to

1 Gregorii I Papae Registrum Epistolarum, 9.218, ed. P. Ewald and L. Hartmann, MGH Epistolae, 2, 206/11–14: … improbe ad inanem gloriam locum festinat utilitatis arripere, eo ipse magis quod honorem querit indignus est. Sicut autem is qui invitatus renuit, quesitus refugit, sacris est altaribus est admovendus, sic qui ultro ambit vel importunum se ingerit est procul dubio repellendus ….

2 Bishop Anselm II of Lucca, Collectio Canonum una cum Collectione Minore, 6.69, ed. F. Thaner (Innsbruck, 1906–15), pp. 302–3; Diversorum Patrum Sententie Siue Collectio in LXXIV Titulos Digesta = 74 Titles, c. 127, ed. J. Gilchrist (Vatican City, 1973), pp. 84–5.

3 Cf. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (London, 2000), pp. 131–3. 4 John the Deacon, Sancti Gregorii Magni Vita, PL, 75, 59–242, at cols 79B–81C.


St Andrew on the Caelian hill in Rome and was dragged reluctantly to the papal throne. Gregory I’s monastic rejection of ecclesiastical office was the model held up for emulation by the ‘Gregorian’ party in the late eleventh century. Their admiration for this principle of humility was informed by their sensitivity to the heresy of simony. The heretical purchase of Church office was a direct product of ‘ambition’ (ambitio) and ‘striving after honours’ (ambitus), terms which were used interchangeably by reforming canonists.5 The reforming conflation of ambition with simoniacal heresy is evident in contemporary canon law collections, where texts condemning the sins of simony and ambition were grouped together in the same books and under the same rubrics.6 Ambition was all the more to be condemned because it facilitated the penetration of laymen, greedy for ecclesiastical honours and revenues, into the fabric of the Church. Once again the reformers looked for support to the letters of Pope Gregory I, and found once again the necessary ‘authority’ to condemn the intrusion of the ‘lay order’ (laicalis ordo)into the ‘clerical order’ (clericalis ordo), an intrusion that was a central concern of reform ideology during the Investiture Contest: ‘the sacerdotal office in your country has become, so we learned, such an object of ambition that priests are suddenly promoted from the laity, which is a very serious matter …’.7 The detection and eradication of ambition was a matter of paramount importance for reformers who were preoccupied with sacerdotal purity, and one could be sure that a cleric reluctant for promotion was free of the suspicion of simony.8 Thus the example of Gregory the Great was particularly worthy of emulation, for he had defined the concept of simony as a heresy (simoniaca haeresis),9 and had shown a reluctance for advancement that defined the eleventh-century concept of ‘suitability’ (idoneitas) for Church office. Moreover, in the late eleventh century, the pontificate of Gregory the Great was perceived as the end of the ‘golden age’ of the Church, a period that was considered to have begun with the conversion of Constantine the Great in 312. This ‘golden age’ was supposed to have been

5 For example, the variant apparatus of Chapter 6.66 of Anselm of Lucca’s collection shows that ambitio and ambitus were considered to be synonymous. Anselm of Lucca, Collectio, p. 299: Ut nullus per ambitum/ambitionem accedat ad episcopatum.

6 See the texts condemning the sin of ambition in title 15 of the 74 Titles, pp. 74–5: De Prelatis Imperitis Indignis Symoniacis Neophitis.

7 Gregorii I Papae Registrum, 9.213, p. 198/15–16: Quorum officium in tanta illic, sicut didicimus, ambitione perductum est, ut sacerdotes subito, quod grave nimis est, ex laicis ordinentur. Cf. Anselm of Lucca, Collectio, 6.67, p. 300; 74 Titles, c. 125, pp. 81–2. On the reforming desire to separate the clericalis from the laicalis ordo see I.S. Robinson, ‘Church and Papacy’, CHMPT, pp. 264–5.

8 On the theme of sacerdotal purity see Johannes Laudage, Priesterbild und Reformpapsttum im 11. Jahrhundert (Cologne, 1984), and Louis Saltet, Les Réordinations. Étude Sur Le Sacrement De L’Ordre (Paris, 1907), pp. 205–55.

9 Epp. 5.58, 5.63, 6.7, 11.50, 11.51: Gregorii I Papae Registrum Epistolarum, ed. P. Ewald and L. Hartmann, MGH Epistolae 1, 369/23, 379/18, 386/31; MGH Epistolae 2, 323/7, 324/14.

Reforming Attitudes to Ecclesiastical Promotion 203

characterised by the ‘freedom of the Church’ (libertas ecclesiae), an ideal standard that was most conveniently defined by its canonical attitude to ecclesiastical elections. The restoration of the ideals which supposedly flowered in this period was the central aim of papal reform from the middle of the eleventh century. The contemporary John of Fécamp wrote therefore of ‘that golden age in which [Pope] Leo [I] and [Pope] Gregory [I], the lights of spiritual doctrine, shone more brightly than glass’.10

The reforming convention of humility is maintained in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny. In the pro-papal polemics this convention had been revived by the turbulent election of Gregory VII on 22 April 1073, and, particularly in his account of the Burgundian episcopate, Hugh reflected the expectation that suitable candidates for Church office were precisely those who modestly refused preferment.11 The ideal of reluctance for Church office in Hugh’s Chronicon is most clearly illustrated in the account of the election of Bishop Hugh of Die in 1073 (inaccurately dated by Hugh to 1074).12 The chain of events began with the arrival in Die of the papal legate, Gerald of Ostia, who had previously held a reforming council at Chalons-sur-Saône. At Die Gerald conferred with the local clergy ‘on the needs of the Church’ (de utilitate ecclesiae), because the local bishop, Lancelin, was a simoniac. The papal legate produced a number of patristic auctoritates showing that simoniacs were not to be tolerated under any circumstances.13 Accordingly, the people and clergy of Die asked that Gerald provide them with a ‘suitable’ bishop (episcopus querebatur idoneus), and while these discussions were underway news came of the arrival of Hugh, chamberlain (camerarius) of Lyons, who was on his way to Rome. Berthold of Reichenau, who also provided an account of these events, asserted that Hugh of Lyons was greeted with great joy by Gerald of Ostia, and claimed that they were already very friendly.14 The faithful at Die, claimed Hugh of Flavigny, were instantly illuminated by the Holy Spirit, and in a tumultuous assembly, redolent of Gregory VII’s election, the camerarius Hugh was taken forcibly and acclaimed bishop of Die in the presence of Gerald of Ostia. The word sequence in this part of the Chronicon, ‘he is found, taken, held … acclaimed’ (invenitur, rapitur, tenetur … acclamatur), is similar to the sequence describing the analogous passage in the

10 John of Fécamp, letter to Pope Leo IX, PL, 143, 797BC: Denique quis pastor in Romana Ecclesia post aurea illa saecula in quibus Leo, Gregorius claruerunt, vitro puriora spiritalis doctrinae lumina ….

11 For the election of Gregory VII see chapter 1 notes 6–14. 12 Hugh of Flavigny, 410/10–411/34. 13 See chapter 7 note 56. 14 Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernold von Konstanz 1054–1100, ed.

I. S. Robinson, MGH SRG NS, 14 (Hannover, 2003), 316/2–3: … non parum de adventu illius gavisus est; namque ipsi notus et amicissimus fuerat. For the view that Hugh’s supposedly fortuitous arrival at Die may have been contrived by Gerald of Ostia see Hazel Goggin, Hugh, Bishop of Die, and Archbishop of Lyons, 1082–1106: An Agent of Papal Reform in France (University of Dublin Ph.D. thesis, 1996), p. 7.


Vita Gregorii Magni of John the Deacon on which it was probably based, ‘he is recognised, captured, taken … consecrated’ (agnoscitur, capitur, trahitur … consecratur).15

Like Gregory the Great (in the Vita of John the Deacon), the camerarius Hugh wished to resist the will of the people.16 His reluctance to submit to their wishes was given an especially contemporary gloss by Hugh of Flavigny: he did not want to ‘corrupt the chastity of the Church with the pollution of schism while the legitimate spouse [of the see of Die] still lived’.17 That is, he did not want to become bishop until Lancelin had been canonically punished and deposed. This quality of the bishop as the ‘bridegroom’ of his see assumed a heightened importance in the time of ‘Gregorian’ reform,18 and Hugh of Flavigny, in a later passage, referred to the related concept of the pope as ‘friend of the groom’ (amicus sponsi).19 Simoniacs were considered to be ‘fornicators’ and ‘adulterers’. In general terms, the programme of Gregory VII had as its aim the desire to keep the Church ‘free, chaste, and catholic’, and Hugh of Die’s concern for the ‘chastity’ of his new see was a laudable ‘Gregorian’ elaboration of the original ideal exemplified in the election of Gregory I.20 The ideal of humble reluctance for ecclesiastical office was central to the polemic of the ‘Gregorian’ party against simony, and in the specific example of Hugh of Die, this ideal was updated to suit the conditions of the late eleventh century. Hugh’s stubborn refusal to accept the bishopric of Die was finally eroded by a miracle. Although the day was overcast, the sun suddenly broke through and shone for a number of hours on the façade of the cathedral Church. This miraculous sign of divine approbation was clearly

15 Hugh of Flavigny, 410/28–30; cf. John the Deacon, Sancti Gregorii Magni Vita, PL,75, 81B.

16 Hugh of Flavigny, 410/30–31: … reclamabat ille et votis populi parabat obsistere; cf. Sancti Gregorii Magni Vita, PL, 75, 79B: … imperatori Mauricio … litteras destinavit, adjurans, et multa prece deposcens, ne unquam assensum populis praeberet ut se hujus gloria sublimaret.

17 Hugh of Flavigny, 410/31–32: … non posset nec deberet sponso legitimo vivente castitatem aecclesiae foeda scissione corrumpere.

18 Cf. Gerd Tellenbach, Church, State and Christian Society in the Time of the Investiture Contest (Oxford, 1940), pp. 127–31.

19 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/3: videamus iam quid amicus sponsi egerit …; cf. I.S. Robinson, ‘Church and Papacy’, CHMPT, pp. 257–9. In Carolingian times – based on commentaries on the Song of Songs – the bishop of a see was considered to be the ‘friend of the bridegroom’ (amicus sponsi), the bridegroom being Christ himself. In the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux, however, the amicus sponsi was the pope. Cf. Bernard’s letter to Pope Innocent II, ep. 191.2, PL, 182, 358B: Tibi commissa est sponsa Christi, amice sponsi …. Thus, Bernard’s usage, and the ecclesiological development it reflects, would seem to have been anticipated by Hugh of Flavigny.

20 Hugh of Flavigny claimed that the Investiture contest had its origins in those who rejected Gregory VII’s desire for the Church to be ‘free, chaste, and catholic’: cf. Chapter 1 notes 20–21.


analogous to the account of John the Deacon, on which it was probably modelled, where Gregory the Great, having hidden from the people of Rome, was revealed by a ‘glowing column shining down from heaven’.21

Divine approbation for Hugh’s election at Die was also revealed by another ‘wonderful sign of divine piety’. Not only did the papal legate Gerald of Ostia confirm Hugh’s election, which had clearly taken place ‘by inspiration’ (perinspirationem), he was able to prophesy that the Lord had destined Hugh for ‘greater things’ (sed maiora praedestinavit Altissimus). Gerald’s alleged prophecy clearly anticipated Hugh’s promotion to the archiepiscopal see of Lyons in 1082, and was another way in which the election at Die in 1073 was marked by divine intervention. In his narrative, however, Hugh of Flavigny was careful to supplement the ‘heavenly approval’ (iudicium caeleste) of God with the approval of the clergy and people according to canon law.22 The legitimacy of the new bishop was also augmented by an account of the simoniacal Lancelin, who had invaded the bishopric through simony (ipse qui aecclesiam per symoniam invaserat). Perceiving the popular enthusiasm for the new bishop, he fled the episcopal palace at Die; this act of desertion presumably resolved any scruples Hugh might have had about taking the place of the ‘groom’ (sponsus) of the Church of Die.23 This last point is important as the sequence of the narrative in Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon reveals that Hugh of Die was elected and acclaimed bishop before Lancelin had been canonically punished and deposed. However, as in the event of Gregory VII’s election, the operation of the Holy Spirit took precedence over the formal rules of canon law, and the topos of reluctance helped to gloss over the imperfections of an irregular election.

The miraculous election of Bishop Hugh of Die was an event of immense importance to the ‘Gregorian’ party in France and Germany. Hugh of Flavigny incorporated it into his Chronicon even before he served as the secretary of Hugh of Die (now archbishop of Lyons) in the 1090s: that is, it was an event celebrated outside the bishop’s immediate circle.24 Berthold of Reichenau, whose chronicle breaks off in 1080, also described how Hugh became bishop of Die ‘not by human but by divine election’.25 Berthold’s account, even more so than that of Hugh of Flavigny, is characterised by a fidelity to the model of Gregory the Great’s election as described by John the Deacon. Interestingly, as in the Chronicon of Hugh of

21 Hugh of Flavigny, 410/33–4: Nam cum esset nubilus dies, lux in modum sperae per aliquas horas in gremio et facie splenduit ecclesiae …; cf. Sancti Gregorii Magni Vita, PL,75, 81B: in quibus dum ab omnibus summa sollicitudine quaereretur, indicio columnae fulgidae, super se jugiter a coelo dependentis, agnoscitur, capitur, trahitur….

22 Hugh of Flavigny, 410/45: … confirmata est super eum electio cleri et populi. 23 Ibid., 410/48: … [Lancelinus] domum episcopalem deseruit et recessit. 24 See Chapter 3, note 63.25 Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernold von Konstanz, 315/12–13: …

qui non humana sed divina electione episcopus factus est; Berthold inaccurately dated this event to 1078.


Flavigny, Berthold described the mission of Gerald of Ostia in Die in terms of the ‘utility’ of the Church there.26 It is surely significant that both the pro-papal chroniclers Hugh of Flavigny and Berthold of Reichenau empasised Hugh of Die’s election as bishop in terms of the utilitas of the Church of Die. Utilitas, after all, was the key concept and justification which allowed Gregory VII to pursue an essentially innovatory programme of reform.27 In the specific context of the diocese of Die in 1073, Hugh of Flavigny and Berthold of Reichenau invoked the concept of utilitas to legitimate an episcopal election which, if not innovatory or ‘novel’, was at least formally irregular. According to Berthold, the legate Gerald again had a prophetic role, albeit a different one. When he saw the camerarius of Lyons he instantly knew that Hugh would become bishop of the ‘destitute’ (destitutus) and ‘bereaved’ (orbatus) Church of Die. Hugh tried to postpone making a decision to accept office, before taking flight in the middle of the night. As in the case of Gregory the Great, his hiding place was revealed by a light shining down from heaven.28 Overall, the story of Hugh’s miraculous election at Die had a didactic function in pro-papal compositions: it illustrated the correct attitude to be adopted when confronted with the opportunity for promotion. It also had a more strictly polemical function in encouraging the supporters of Gregory VII to believe that God was on their side. Hugh of Flavigny exploited his account of Hugh’s election at Die to expatiate on the evils of simony and the pastoral duties of a bishop to his flock. Similarly, Hugh’s election takes its place in Berthold’s chronicle after an account of the trial by fire of Peter ‘Igneus’, later cardinal-bishop of Albano. By this test, Peter ‘Igneus’ proved that Bishop Peter ‘Mezzabarba’ of Florence was guilty of the heresy of simony.29 For Berthold, the miracles attaching to Peter ‘Igneus’ and Hugh of Die showed the calibre of the reformers who attended the synods of Gregory VII at Rome, possessed as they were of such ‘authority’ (auctoritas) and ‘reverence’ (reverentia).30

The election at Die in 1073 set the tone for the reform party in Burgundy. At the synod of Autun in September 1077 – inaccurately dated by Hugh of Flavigny to 1076 – two elections apparently took place after the model of Gregory the Great.31

The first was to the archiepiscopal see of Lyons, left vacant by the simoniacal

26 Ibid., 316/1–2: … concilium pro utilitate et necessitate ecclesiae collegit. 27 Cf. I.S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge,

1990), pp. 312–14. 28 Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernold von Konstanz, 316/4–19: Bene

venisti, quia Deo auctorante huius ecclesiae, episcopo suo orbate et destitute, te pro illo episcopum et provisorem habituri sumus … indutias respondendi acquisivit … lux celitusemissa super eum resplendens electum Dei prodidit. Cf. John the Deacon, Sancti Gregorii Magni Vita, PL, 75, 81B.

29 Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernold von Konstanz, 315/5–11. 30 Ibid., 316/22–5: Tales semper tanteque auctoritatis et reverentie viros secum semper

habere solebat, in quorum consilio effectum sue sollicitudinis et diffinitionis, fidelis et prudens misteriorum Dei dispensator, sollertissime ponebat.

31 Cf. Mansi, 20, 483.


Humbert who retired as a monk in locis Iurensibus. In his place the whole council acclaimed Gebuin, the archdeacon of Langres. Like Gregory the Great, he tried to escape but was taken from the altar where he had taken refuge (raptus igitur ab altari quo confugerat). Although he was unwilling to accept promotion, ‘the harmonious judgement of the council prevailed, which had been ordained in the eyes of the Lord’.32 This was an election per inspirationem in which the participants at the council of Autun acted as executors of the will of God. Hugh of Flavigny described the same process in greater detail in respect of the election of his mentor, Jarento, as abbot of St-Bénigne in Dijon. Jarento had attended the council of Autun in his capacity as prior of the monastery of Chaise-Dieu,33 and was designated abbot of St-Bénigne by Hugo-Rainardus, bishop of Langres: Hugo-Rainardus had perceived in Jarento ‘the power of the Almighty’. The monks of Chaise-Dieu were loath to surrender their prior, and in the ensuing struggle Jarento prepared to flee in the manner of Gregory the Great: he was overcome, and taken in tears back to the council (elaberetur, capitur, tenetur, et flens multumque dolens … in concilium reducitur). The monks of Chaise-Dieu had tried to resist the election but their efforts were in vain because the choice of the council was the will of God.34

According to Hugh of Flavigny the central business of the council of Autun had been to select a new abbot for St-Bénigne.35 This great monastery had fallen from the ‘pristine rigour’ it had exhibited under Abbot William of Volpiano and with the death of Abbot Adalbero those of ‘sounder mind’ from the abbey had come to the council of Autun to seek a ‘suitable’ pastor (ab his quorum erat mens sanior pastor querebatur idoneus).36 In the reluctance displayed by Jarento of Chaise-Dieu, the attending monks of St-Bénigne could be confident in his suitability for the vacant office. It is perhaps significant that Hugh indicated that only those from St-Bénigne of ‘sounder mind’ (mens sanior) attended the council. This phrase seems to be similar to the idea of ‘the sounder part’ (sanior pars) in the rule of St Benedict, which prescribed that if there could not be unanimity in the election of a new pastor, the abbot should be elected by the part of the congregation, albeit small,

32 Hugh of Flavigny, 415/49–416/6: … praevaluit concors sententia concilii, quia sic erat praefinitum et placitum in oculis Domini; cf. 4 Kings 22: 2.

33 Cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, ‘Pope Gregory VII and la Chaise-Dieu’, Maisons de Dieu et homines d'église: florilege en l'honneur de Pierre-Roger Gaussin (Saint-Etienne, 1992), pp. 25–35.

34 Hugh of Flavigny, 415/37, 416/26–7: congratulabatur ei, divinam collaudans potentiam … temptabant etiam qui cum priore a Casa Dei venerant, modis quibus poterant electioni contradicere; sed quia voluntas fuit Domini, in cuius manu corda sunt regum, utpetitis annueretur auctoritas et laus promulgavit concilii.

35 For Bishop Hugh of Die’s disciplinary measures at this council against bishops suspected of simony and receipt of lay investiture, see his letter to Gregory VII reporting on the transactions of the council: PL, 148, 744 (8). See also Chapter 7, note 65.

36 Hugh of Flavigny, 415/31–2; for the reforming tradition of St-Bénigne see Chapter 3, note 30.


with ‘sounder counsel’.37 It is therefore possible that Jarento’s election at Autun did not reflect the wishes of all the monks of St-Bénigne. In alluding to the idea of the mens sanior, Hugh of Flavigny may be defending the legitimacy of the abbatial election of his mentor at the council of Autun by invoking the unimpeachable authority of the rule of St Benedict. In that case, Jarento’s reluctance for promotion, after the manner of Gregory the Great, must have had special significance in placating the monks of St-Bénigne who did not participate in his election.

In the Chronicon, Hugh of Die, Gebuin of Lyons, and Jarento of St-Bénigne displayed their ‘suitability’ (idoneitas) for election by rejecting preferment and trying to escape after the model of Gregory the Great. They only submitted to their inevitable fate when God revealed his will through direct intervention. Their modesty can be compared with unreformed bishops like Stephen de Polignac, the simoniacal invader of the bishopric of Le Puy, ‘who deserted his own see (Clermont) because of evil ambition’.38 Moreover, ambition was not simply a disqualification for office in itself, it connoted a greater evil: the heresy of simony. The legatine councils of Bishop Hugh of Die in France, 1075–80, were concerned with eliminating ambitious usurpers like Stephen de Polignac and replacing them with ‘orthodox’ prelates.39 In the ‘High Gregorian’ circle around Bishop Hugh of Die, reluctance for promotion was not only a criterion of ‘suitability’ but also of ‘orthodoxy’ (orthodoxia). The topos of reluctance may also have discharged a function in legitimising Hugh of Die’s peremptory reform of what he saw as a peccant Burgundian episcopate. Bishop Hugh was acutely aware of the heresy of simony, and, in his role as papal legate, he sought to cleanse the local episcopate of this vice. It is clear, however, that Hugh was over-zealous in this regard: his suspension of five archbishops and one bishop at the synod of Autun in 1077, on the basis of various allegations of simony and lay investiture, was reversed by Gregory VII, who also had cause to rebuke his legate for lack of moderation.40 The bishop of Die’s inequitable lack of clemency undermined, or at least slowed down his attempted reforms in the dioceses of Burgundy.41 These reforms may have stood in need of support, which was supplied in Hugh of Flavigny’s Chronicon where the narrative contrasts the expelled and convicted simonists with their

37 Benedicti Regula, c. 64.1, CSEL, 75, 163: In abbatis ordinatione illa semper consideretur ratio, ut hic constituatur, quem sibe omnis concors congregatio secundum timorem dei, sibe etiam pars quamvis parva congregationis saniore consilio elegerit; cf. I. S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198, p. 76.

38 Hugh of Flavigny, 413/42: … pro ambitione male sedem suam deserverat; on Stephen see Chapter 6, note 21.

39 Ibid., 413/46–7: Persequebatur symoniacos, adversus quos ei iugis pugna, conflictus fuit perpetuus, quos etiam prout potuit ab aecclesia eliminavit, et orthodoxos substituit.

40 Reg. 5.17, p. 378/25–30.41 For contemporary ideas such as ‘evangelical charity’ and ‘canonical equity’, which

mitigated the rigours of canon law, see Charles Munier, Les sources patristiques du droit de l’église du viiie au xiiie siècle (Strasbourg, 1957), pp. 73–4.


replacements, who demonstrated their ‘suitability’ by only reluctantly and forcibly accepting promotion. The idoneitas of these candidates allowed partisans like Hugh of Flavigny to bolster the legitimacy of Bishop Hugh’s radical reforms, and once again, subordinate the inconvenient details of canon law to the miraculous intervention of the Holy Spirit.

The convention of reluctance for office was refined in a Burgundian reforming ambience and seems to have influenced at least one other account of episcopal promotion. In his Historia Novorum, Eadmer narrated a version of Anselm’s elevation to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury in 1093 which parallels the election of Hugh of Die twenty years earlier.42 In Eadmer’s account and also in the letters of Anselm from that year, Anselm expressed a profound distaste for promotion and protested his unworthiness for episcopal office. When acclaimed by King William Rufus, the magnates and the bishops of the realm on 6 March 1093, Anselm pleaded to be left in peace and not become embroiled in the ‘business’ (negotium) of the see of Canterbury.43 In a letter of 1093, Anselm elaborated on his modesty: he preferred to live in ‘monkish poverty’ and to obey and serve; he certainly had no desire to reign in the world ‘in a secular fashion’ (saeculariter).44

Eadmer’s Vita Anselmi also relates that when he was acclaimed by the king and princes, Anselm ‘wore himself almost to death in his objections’ and had to be forcibly seized when he resisted ‘the united body of the Church of God’.45 The unanimous acclaim of the king and princes seems to be on the model of an election ‘by inspiration’ and the violent seizure of the reluctant Anselm was redolent of the elections of Gregory the Great, Gregory VII, and Hugh of Die. Anselm only finally submitted to be enthroned six months later because he realised that his acclamation was indeed per inspirationem and expressed the will of God.46

42 Eadmeri Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. M. Rule (Rolls Series, 1884), pp. 32–7; cf. Norman F. Cantor, Church, Kingship and Lay Investiture in England 1089–1135 (Princeton Studies in History, 10: New York, 1969), pp. 52–62 and Sally N. Vaughn, Anselm of Bec and Robert of Meulan: The Innocence of the Dove and the Wisdom of the Serpent (Berkeley, 1987), pp. 46–52, 116–19, 130–31.

43 Historia Novorum, p. 33: Quare sinite me pacem habere, et negotio quod numquam amavi, ne non expediat, implicare nolite.

44 Anselm of Canterbury, ep. 160, ed. F.S. Schmitt, Sancti Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, 6 vols, (Edinburgh, 1946–61), Vol. 4, p. 31/50–52: Potius et libentius eligerem sub abbate et sub regulari disciplina in monachica pauperte et humilitate esse et oboedire et servire, quam regnare in hoc mundo saeculariter ….

45 Eadmeri Monachi Cantuariensis Vita Sancti Anselmi Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis,2.2, ed. R.W. Southern (London, 1962), p. 65: Audit haec ille, et fere usque ad exanimationem sui contradicit, reluctatur et obstat. Praevalet tamen aecclesiae Dei conventus. Rapitur ergo, et violenter in vicinam aecclesiam cum ymnis et laudibus portaturmagis quam ducitur.

46 Anselm of Canterbury, ep. 148, Sancti Anselmi Opera Omnia, Vol. 4, p. 5/59–60: Ad hoc enim res ista indubitabiliter iudicio Deo perducitur.


Clearly, both Anselm and his biographer attempted to portray his election in terms derived from the Vita Gregorii Magni of John the Deacon, perhaps mediated by the example of Hugh of Die’s election in 1073. In the Historia Novorum Anselm made an extraordinary speech to the bishops of the realm before his election, in which he foretold his future disputes with William Rufus.47 This speech is probably a device by which Eadmer exculpated his mentor from any blame arising from the future conflict of Anselm with the king, but it is noticeable that the prophetic role of Gerald of Ostia was also central to the narratives of Hugh of Flavigny and Berthold of Reichenau in respect of the election at Die in 1073. Moreover, Eadmer almost apologetically described that, after his election, Anselm accepted royal investiture and became the king’s man ‘according to the custom of the land’ (pro usu terrae homo regis factus est).48 This terminology may be significant. Hugh of Flavigny claimed that when Henry IV claimed the right to invest the bishops-elect Hugh of Die and Anselm of Lucca in 1074, the cardinals of the Roman Church replied that although lay investiture was the ‘custom of the Church’ (usus ecclesiae), and to be considered legal, yet it had no ‘authority’.49

Thus, in both Hugh’s and Eadmer’s accounts lay investiture is described as a ‘custom’ (usus), a relatively pejorative term in reforming circles, and in both narratives the usus of lay investiture is implicitly contrasted with the authentic ‘judgement of God’ (iudicium Dei), which expressed itself in the miraculous elections of Hugh of Die and Anselm of Canterbury.

In light of all these parallels, it is worth enquiring into the connections between Hugh of Die and Anselm of Canterbury on a personal, and not merely ideological level. Even before he became archbishop of Canterbury in 1093, Anselm maintained a close connection with Archbishop Hugh of Lyons and after his election he took refuge at Lyons when exiled by the king of England in 1098 and 1103.50 As late as 1105, under the influence of Archbishop Hugh of Lyons, Anselm still wanted King Henry I of England to cede the right of homage from ecclesiastics as well as the right of investiture. Anselm maintained that, in the matter of lay investiture, he would rather follow the advice of the uncompromising archbishop of Lyons ‘than that of any other man I have known’.51 Given his own trenchant attitude to libertas ecclesiae, and his close dependence on the advice of Archbishop Hugh, it is not surprising that Anselm wished to portray his election in terms that would have been approved by the most radical circle of the ‘Gregorian’ party. Anselm’s – and Eadmer’s – adherence to the conventions of John the

47 Historia Novorum, pp. 36–7. 48 Ibid., p. 41. 49 See Chapter 7, note 6. 50 Historia Novorum, pp. 90–91; Anselm of Canterbury, ep. 208, Sancti Anselmi Opera

Omnia, Vol. 4, p. 103/17–20. 51 Anselm of Canterbury, ep. 389, Sancti Anselmi Opera Omnia, Vol. 5, p. 333/7–8:

Quoniam autem in omnibus meis actionibus vestro vellem, si fieri posset, super omnes homines quos novi uti consilio ….


Deacon’s Vita of Gregory the Great is all the more comprehensible in light of evidence suggesting that Anselm was neither surprised by his election nor hostile to it.52 The topos of aversion to ecclesiastical promotion was a device by which Anselm diminished his own responsibility for the conflict of Church and State in England after 1093.

The radical ‘Gregorian’ circle around Bishop Hugh of Die was extremely sensitive to the heresy of simony. Hugh of Flavigny says that, when Hugh of Die received legatine powers from Gregory VII in 1075,53 ‘there were few [clerics] who were not simoniacs, or ordained by simoniacs, or invested by a lay hand’.54

The problem was perceived to be endemic, and the safest way of assessing the worthiness and ‘suitability’ (idoneitas) of a particular cleric was in respect of his attitude to promotion. The reforming equation of idoneitas with reluctance, on the model of Gregory the Great, emerges clearly from Hugh’s account of the succession to Rudolf (†1099), abbot of the fiercely Gregorian abbey of St-Vanne.55

After the burial of Rudolf, the fratres of St-Vanne were reminded of their duty of electing a ‘suitable successor’ (ad eligendum successorem qui esset idoneus commonerentur). The election was supervised by the prior of St-Vanne, Laurent, who proclaimed that he would assent to the choice of the brothers, as long as he knew the candidate to be ‘suitable’.56 Before they had decided on a candidate, the will of God supervened in the form of a miracle. A certain unnamed monk had been keeping a vigil by the graveside of Abbot Rudolf, who then appeared to him, and instructed that Prior Laurent be elected as his successor. This miraculous instruction was accepted by all except the nominee, who protested his unsuitability based on his age and on the principle of canon law that it was not licit for the superior of a Church to determine the succession to him.57 Of course, Prior Laurent’s protestations of his unsuitability only reaffirmed his idoneitas in the eyes of the congregation.

Although his election had been ‘acclaimed by all with one voice’ (una voce omnibus acclamantibus), expressing the medieval ideal of unanimity in elections, Laurent remained obdurate. Although physically coerced in the manner of Gregory the Great, he refused to accept the pastoral staff and ‘was seized … made to appear

52 Cantor, Church, Kingship and Lay Investiture in England, p. 53 n. 57, p. 54 n. 61, p. 56 nn. 70–71.

53 For the date of Hugh’s receipt of legatine powers from the pope see H.E.J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085 (Oxford, 1998), pp. 356–8.

54 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/43–5. 55 Ibid., 501/1–38; for the allegiance of St-Vanne to the cause of Gregory VII see

Chapter 2, notes 159–62. 56 Hugh of Flavigny, 501/9–10: … a priore ammoniti essent, ut quem idoneum

iudicarent eligerent, se si idoneum nosset electum, paratum electioni assentire. 57 Ibid., 501/18–22: ‘Ego dixeram, si idonea persona eligeretur, me consensurum

electioni; nunc, quia video vos infirmum et hebetem elegisse … non assentio, maxime cum et electio vestra canonum repugnet institutis, et ob infirma sit, quod non licet praelatumecclesiae successorem sibi eligere.’


in the presence of the bishop and was admonished to accept the pastoral staff [but] was not convinced’.58 Laurent’s implacable opposition to his destiny was finally broken down by another miracle: as the bishop and others were pleading with him, they heard the opening strains of the antiphon Confirma hoc Deus coming from the abbey Church. Faced with another indication of divine approbation, Laurent consented to become abbot of St-Vanne. Hugh of Flavigny’s story of Laurent’s election conforms to the model of John the Deacon’s Vita, without becoming a stereotype: Laurent’s adherence to the procedures of canon law imbues the account with a certain authenticity and realism. This passage in the Chronicon, together with the account of the election at Die in 1073, demonstrates how the traditional account in John the Deacon’s Vita had been adapted to the environment of ‘Gregorian’ reform and equipped with the contemporary vocabulary of idoneitas.

The ‘Gregorian’ concept of ‘suitability’ had its most dramatic effect in the political sphere, apropos of the relations between the papacy and the German monarchy. In his second doctrinal letter to Bishop Hermann of Metz in 1081, Gregory VII defended his deposition and excommunication of King Henry IV of Germany in 1080. He pointed out that in 752 Pope Zacharias had helped to depose the last Merovingian king, Childeric III, raising up in his place Pippin III. Childeric had been deposed, not for any iniquity, but because he was not ‘useful’ (utilis).59 In his letters relating to political matters, Gregory did not distinguish between ‘useful’ (utilis) and ‘suitable’ (idoneus). When counselling his supporters in Germany about the election of a new anti-king in 1081 – after the death of Rudolf of Swabia in 1080 – he urged them to proceed slowly so that ‘a suitable king should be provided according to God’s will to the honour of the holy Church’. Unless the candidate was ‘obedient’, ‘humbly devoted’, and ‘useful’ to the Church, as befitted a Christian king, the Church would oppose him.60

Gregory VII did not limit himself to the definition of suitability in the political sphere: he attempted to lay down similar criteria in respect of the election of bishops, criteria which again permitted the intrusion of papal power in the event of their non-observance. In Chapter Six of the Lent synod of 1080, De Electione Pontificum, it was laid down that the election of a new bishop by the clergy and people of a diocese should be overseen be a ‘visiting bishop’ (visitator episcopus),

58 Ibid., 501/32–4: arripitur, et cum sederet … praesentiae episcopi sistitur, et ut baculum pastoralem suscipiat, ammonetur, cogitur, nec vincitur. The word sequence arripitur … sistitur … ammonetur, cogitur … vincitur has the same rhetorical cadence and effect as the analogous sequences describing the elections of Gregory the Great and Hugh of Die.

59 Reg. 8.21, p. 554/3ff: Romanus pontifex regem Francorum non tam pro suis iniquitatibus quam pro eo, quod tantae potestati non erat utilis, a regno deposuit; cf. I.S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198, p. 312.

60 Reg. 9.3, p. 575/4ff: ut aliqua mora secundum Deum ad honorem sanctae ecclesiae rex provideatur idoneus … nisi enim ita obediens et sanctae ecclesiae humiliter devotus ac utilis, quemadmodum christianum regem oportet, procul dubio ei non modo sancta ecclesianon favebit, sed etiam contradicet.


representing the apostolic see or the metropolitan. They should then elect a pastor according to God’s will, but if ‘corrupted by some fault’ (corruptus aliquo vitio)they should presume to act otherwise, they should lose all benefit of the election incorrectly performed and should forfeit all further participation in the election. All further power of election should rest with the apostolic see or the metropolitan.61

The principle enunciated at the Lent synod of 1080 was that it ultimately lay with the pope to decide on the suitability of a particular candidate for the episcopate. The mechanism of papal intrusion was the elective process, and the common denominator of the various applications of idoneitas, be it in respect of kings or clerics, was the process of election. Gregory was able to intervene in the selection of bishops and kings because in both contexts there was a certain area of ambiguity about what constituted a legitimate election. In the late eleventh century the right of electing bishops was contested by the clergy and people of the diocese, the king of the realm, and to a more limited extent, the pope and the local metropolitan. It was only by the mid-twelfth century that the cathedral clergy of a diocese managed to arrogate to themselves the sole right of electing the bishop.62

In the case of the German kingdom, the right of hereditary succession in the Salian line was being vigorously contested in the 1070s and 1080s and one of the most profound consequences of the conflict of Church and State in Germany was the development of theories of ‘popular’ – in this case aristocratic – sovereignty and ‘contractual’ kingship.63 In both contexts there was ample room for the pope to intervene and define the criteria for ‘suitable’ candidates.

The conceptual and procedural ambiguities of the late eleventh century preoccupied radical reformers like Hugh of Die and Hugh of Flavigny. When Hugh of Flavigny wrote his Chronicon in the 1080s and 1090s, the eventual resolution to the Investiture Contest in France and Germany was inconceivable. Hugh equated lay investiture with the heresy of simony, a heresy he felt to be ubiquitous in Gallia. He was aware that lay investiture had been accepted as a ‘use’ (usus) and a ‘custom’ (consuetudo) but refused to grant it any ‘authority’ (auctoritas). In a radical reforming ambience that was extremely sensitive to the evils of ambition, the most obvious way to establish the legitimacy of an ecclesiastical election was to portray it in adherence to the conventions of reluctance as expressed in the Vita Gregorii Magni of John the Deacon. Such enactments were dramatisations of the papal theory of idoneitas: concrete and public expressions of an abstract legal and moral principle. These spontaneous and miraculous events were all the more necessary in the event of an irregular election, as was the case with Gregory VII

61 Reg. 7.14a, p. 482/20ff: ... electionis perperam factae omni fructu carebit et de caetero nullam electionis potestatem habebit … electionis vero potestas omnis in deliberatione sedis apostolicae sive metropolitani sui consistat.

62 Cf. Robert L. Benson, The Bishop-Elect: A Study in Medieval Ecclesiastical Office (Princeton, 1968), p. 35.

63 Horst Fuhrmann, ‘Volkssouveränität und Herrschaftsvertrag bei Manegold von Lautenbach’, Festschrift für Herrmann Krause (Cologne/Vienna, 1975), pp. 21–42.


and Hugh of Die, or in the event of a disputed election, as may have been the case with Abbot Jarento of St-Bénigne. The convention of reluctance was even attributed to secular princes by their apologists in the Middle Ages, in an attempt to consolidate their legitimacy. In a biography of Gregory VII, written more than forty years after the pope’s death in 1085, Paul of Bernried claimed that the anti-king Rudolf of Swabia was reluctant to be elected king of Germany in opposition to Henry IV. According to Paul, this reluctance sprang from his ‘humility’, a characteristic that made him ‘suitable’ for the royal honour in the eyes of the opposition party that had gathered at Forchheim in March 1077.64 Paul of Bernried wrote his biography of Gregory VII in order to rehabilitate the reputation of that pope and his party. Although Gregory endorsed Rudolf’s candidacy for the German throne in 1080, the anti-king was soon killed in battle, and his name became a byword for treason in circles that remained loyal to King Henry IV. Thus, Paul of Bernried’s account was an attempt to absolve Rudolf of the charges of ambition and perfidy. A similar motive of rehabilitation explains Hugh of Flavigny’s use of the topos of reluctance in his narrative. In the context of Hugh’s Chronicon, written after 1085 when the reputations of men like Gregory VII and Hugh of Die had gone into eclipse, stories of the miraculous election of reluctant clerics attempted to demonstrate to the radical ‘Gregorian’ party that God was on their side.

64 Paul of Bernried, Vita Gregorii VII Papae, c. 95, ed. J.M. Watterich, Pontificum Romanorum Vitae, Vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1862), p. 530: ut liberi homines (sc. the electors at Forchheim) Rudolphum Ducem Suevorum frustra multum renitentem frustraque vel unius horae inducias ad consulendem petentem, regia dignitate sublimaverunt, virum sane inhumilitate praecipuum, regio honori aetate et moribus idoneum …. On the topos of reluctance in relation to secular rulers generally see Björn Weiler, ‘The Rex Renitens and the Medieval Ideal of Kingship, ca. 900–ca. 1250’, Viator, 31 (2000), 1–42.

Chapter 9

The Chronicon as Polemic

In form, the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny is an ‘incarnation’ chronicle: ostensibly a history of the world – or more precisely, a history of the Church – from the birth of Christ.1 Despite this formal structure, the Chronicon soon narrows down into a Lotharingian ‘diocesan chronicle’, narrating events in the three dioceses of Verdun, Metz, and Toul, and in so far as it concerns the author’s own experiences as abbot of Flavigny, events in the diocese of Autun. It is for this reason that Manitius preferred Labbé’s designation of this work as a Chronicon Virdunense or Chronicon Flaviniacense.2 The second half of the Chronicon isessentially a propagandist defence of the reforming programme of Gregory VII, and that of his supporters in Lotharingia and Burgundy. Clearly partisan and heavily influenced by the author’s own tumultuous career, the Chronicon has been criticised for its ‘Gregorian’ sympathies: unquestionably and in spite of its formal structure, Hugh’s chronicle does not represent a work of ‘universal historiography’.3 The polemical aspects of Hugh’s work have long been recognised, both in his vituperative attack on Henry IV as an ‘archpirate’ (archipyrata)4 and the manner in which the Chronicon incorporated material and ideas from other Streitschriften.5

It appears that Hugh of Flavigny knew and used at least three libelli of the Investiture Contest: the Epistola of Wenrich, the scholasticus of Trier, the Epistola ad Herimannum of Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg and the Libellus contra Invasores of Cardinal Deusdedit. It is also possible that Hugh was familiar with the Liber ad Gebehardum of Manegold of Lautenbach. Although the Epistola of

1 Timothy Reuter, ‘Past, Present, and no Future in the Twelfth Century Regnum Teutonicum’, The Perception of the Past in Twelfth Century Europe, ed. Paul Magdalino (London, 1992), p. 33 n. 82, noted that, in its temporal scope, Hugh’s Chronicon is characteristic of many so-called ‘universal chronicles’ from the twelfth-century Regnum Teutonicum.

2 Cf. Max Manitius, ‘Die Chronik Hugos von Flavigny’, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, Vol. 3 (Munich, 1931), pp. 513–15.

3 Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken, Studien zur lateinischen Weltchronistik bis in das Zeitalter Ottos von Freising (Düsseldorf, 1957), pp. 160–61; cf. Wilhelm Wattenbach and Robert Holtzmann, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter, 1.4 (Tübingen, 1948), pp. 623–5.

4 Hugh of Flavigny, 466/11; cf. Carl Mirbt, Die Publizistik im Zeitalter Gregors VII. (Leipzig, 1894), p. 616 n. 7.

5 Cf. I. S. Robinson, Authority and Resistance in the Investiture Contest: The Polemical Literature of the late Eleventh Century (Manchester, 1978), pp. 133–4.


Wenrich was essentially hostile to Pope Gregory VII, Hugh’s use of it is not so surprising: it disguised its criticism of the pope under a specious request for guidance and reassurance.6 Hugh of Flavigny borrowed from Wenrich the glowing account of Hildebrand’s childhood and adolescence.7 Moreover, Wenrich’s account of Hildebrand’s election as Gregory VII described a reluctance for office that was emphasised by pro-papal authors, keen to dismiss the taint of irregularity in Gregory’s elevation to the apostolic see.8 The Epistola of Wenrich was composed as an apologia for Bishop Theoderic of Verdun, and its circulation in a Verdunois ambience may have given Hugh access to a copy of this letter: Fliche supposed that this letter was entrusted by Bishop Theoderic of Verdun to Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne on the occasion of the latter’s journey to Rome in late 1080.9

The Epistola ad Herimannum of Gebhard of Salzburg provided Hugh with a suitably glossed ‘Gregorian’ context for the events surrounding the synod of Worms in January 1076.10 According to this letter, concord had prevailed between Henry IV and Gregory VII right up to the feast of St Andrew (30 November) 1075. At Worms, the bishops had turned on the pope without warrant, shaking off ‘the yoke of discipline’ (abiecerunt a se iugum disciplinae). Gebhard composed this polemic to show that the actions of the German bishops at Worms were unjustified: in January 1076 the pope had as yet issued no sentence of excommunication or deposition.11 Hugh incorporated this interpretation of events as a gloss on the canon law auctoritaes and sententie with which he attempted to demonstrate the judicial immunity of the pope as ‘head’ (caput), ‘judge’ (iudex) and ‘master’ (magister) of the Church.12 Hugh’s possible access to Gebhard’s letter is a matter of conjecture. The first theme in the Epistola ad Herimannum was the strict injunction not to hold communion with excommunicate persons. This theme was a popular one among the ‘Gregorian’ party and Hugh of Flavigny included in the Chronicon a number of auctoritates which asserted the principle that ‘there is to be no contact with excommunicated persons (non esse communicandum excommunicatis).13 Thus, Hugh may have gained access to some fragments of Gebhard’s letter in a reforming compilation on the theme of excommunication. It is

6 Cf. Mirbt, Publizistik, p. 23; see Chapter 2, note 166. 7 Hugh of Flavigny, 422/18–25; cf. Wenrici Scolastici Trevirensis Epistola sub

Theoderici Episcopi Virdunensis nomine composita, c. 1, ed. K. Francke, MGH Libelli, 1, 285/24ff.

8 See Chapter 8, notes 1–11. 9 See Chapter 2, note 167; cf. Franz-Reiner Erkens, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz im

Investiturstreit (Passauer Historische Forschungen, 4: Cologne/Vienna, 1987), p. 68 n. 360. 10 Hugh of Flavigny, 431/7–23; cf. Gebehardi Salisburgensis Archiepiscopi Epistola

ad Herimannum Mettensem Episcopum Data, c. 34–35, ed. K. Francke, MGH Libelli 1, 279/7ff. See Chapter 1, note 46.

11 Cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085 (Oxford, 1998), pp. 215–16. 12 Cf. Patrick Healy, ‘Hugh of Flavigny and Canon Law as Polemic in the Investiture

Contest’, ZRG kan. Abt., 91 (2005), 47–52. 13 Ibid., 55.

The Chronicon as Polemic 217

also possible that Hugh of Flavigny gained access to this polemic through an ambience connected with the recipient, Bishop Hermann of Metz. Hugh’s Chronicon contains two other letters addressed to Hermann of Metz: the second doctrinal letter of Pope Gregory VII to the bishop in 1081, and another letter of Gebhard in 1084, where the archbishop of Salzburg urged his brother-bishop to resist the anti-pope Wibert of Ravenna (Clement III).14 Hugh of Flavigny may have gained access to some or all of these materials through Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne, who was deputed by Gregory VII to bring the pope’s second doctrinal letter to Hermann of Metz: Hugh’s detailed account of the sufferings endured by Bishop Hermann for his ‘Gregorian’ allegiance indicates some connection of this kind.15

Hugh’s dependence on the Libellus contra Invasores of Deusdedit would seem to be established by his knowledge of Gregory VII’s prohibition of lay investiture of Lent 1080, and also by the auctoritates he cited in support of this measure: the libellus of Deusdedit is the only polemic to contain the investiture prohibition of 1080.16 The Chronicon contains a fragment of this decree almost identical to that contained in the polemic of Deusdedit.17 Hugh cited four sententie in support of this legislation and all four are contained in the Libellus contra Invasores: canon 22 of the fourth council of Constantinople,18 canon 3 of the second council of Nicea (757),19 canon 6 of the second council of Nicea (757),20 and an untitled canon, purporting to come from a council held at Antioch but actually c. 30 of the Canones Apostolorum.21 Hugh may have borrowed more from Deusdedit than simply the proof texts relating to the 1080 decree. According to Hugh, Gregory VII consulted his cardinals before promulgating the investiture prohibition of 1080,22

an interpretation that might have been influenced by Deusdedit’s collegiate concept of the Roman Church.23 Although the palaeographical evidence of Hugh’s autograph manuscript suggests that these materials on lay investiture might have come into Hugh’s hands via Hugh of Die as his formal source, his ultimate dependence on the Libellus of Deusdedit cannot be doubted .24 Hugh’s account of the fifth-century monophysite emperors Zeno and Anastasius was taken almost

14 See Chapter 5, note 30. 15 See Chapter 2, note 162. 16 Rudolf Schieffer, Die Entstehung des päpstlichen Investiturverbots für den

deutschen König (Stuttgart, 1981), pp. 180–1. 17 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/9–17; cf. Deusdedit, Libellus contra Invasores et

Symoniacos, ed. E. Sackur, MGH Libelli, 2, 315/7–15. 18 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/22–33: cf. Deusdedit, Libellus, 305/16–306/2. 19 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/18–22; cf. Deusdedit, Libellus, 305/12–16. 20 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/33–6; cf. Cf. Deusdedit, 305/6–11. 21 Hugh of Flavigny, 412/36–8; cf. Cf. Deusdedit, 306/2–5. See Chapter 7, note 16. 22 Hugh of Flavigny, 411/53–4. 23 See, for example, c. 2.108 of Deusdedit’s Collectio: ‘De Ordine Romano’: Die

Kanonessammlung des Kardinals Deusdedit, ed. Victor Wolf Von Glanvell (Paderborn, 1905), pp. 230–33; cf. Robinson, Authority and Resistance, p. 48.

24 See Chapter 5, note 22.


verbatim from Deusdedit’s polemic; moreover, this part of Hugh’s narrative was inserted in the margin of folio 35r, perhaps indicating Hugh’s desire to augment his history of the early Church with an excerpt from the Libellus contra Invasores.25

Hugh’s discussion of kingship was heavily influenced by the definitions of Isidore of Seville26 and these Isidorian concepts may have been transmitted to him through a polemic of the south German Gregorian ‘friendship network’.27 In Chapter 30 of the Liber ad Gebehardum of Manegold of Lautenbach, ‘that king is not a category of nature but a designation of office’ (quod rex non sit nomen naturae, sed vocabulum officii) there is a vision of the nature of the royal office which appears very similar to the political theory in the Chronicon. Manegold conceived of the function of royal government in Isidorian terms of ‘improvement’ (correctio). The king’s duty was to ‘coerce the wicked and defend the honest’ and it was to fulfil this responsibility that he was ‘elected’.28 If the king failed in this responsibility, that is, to eliminate tyranny, the ‘contract’ (pactum) between him and the people would be at an end. Manegold clinched this analysis with his infamous analogy in vilibus rebus, whereby the royal office was compared to that of a swineherd (porcarius).29 A similar conception of the royal office is contained in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny. Hugh asserted that ‘if the king rules piously, justly and mercifully, he is deservedly called king’: this sentiment is analogous to that of Manegold who claimed that the king should exceed others in his wisdom, justice and piety.30 Moreover, Hugh’s analysis seems to have been influenced by the Isidorian idea of royal government as a correctio: he asserted that the king must ‘pacify his subjects by his rule’.31 Finally, Hugh seems to have imbibed some kind of contract theory of the royal office: he claimed that if the king was in dereliction of his duties of piety, justice, and mercy, he would not be a king but a tyrant (si his caruerit non rex sed tyrannus est). This was essentially a variant of the contractual theory of government which, deriving ultimately from Isidore (rex a recte agendo vocatus est), became such a potent threat to the legitimacy of Henry IV’s position in Germany.32 Hugh’s possible access to the work of Manegold or to the work of other authors in the south German Gregorian

25 Hugh of Flavigny, 319/65–320/28: Zenon et Anastasius imperatores Euthichianistae...; cf. Deusdedit, Libellus, 302/11ff.

26 See Chapter 6 notes 2–6. 27 Robinson, Authority and Resistance, pp. 133–5. 28 Manegold of Lautenbach, Liber ad Gebehardum, c. 30, MGH Libelli, 1, 365/12–13:

… atqui, cum ille, qui pro coercendis pravis, probis defendendis eligitur. 29 Ibid., 365/21ff; Horst Fuhrmann, ‘Volkssouveränität und Herrschaftsvertrag bei

Manegold von Lautenbach’, Festschrift für Herrmann Krause (Cologne/Vienna, 1975), pp. 21–42.

30 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/36: … si pie, iuste et misericorditer regit, merito rex appellatur; cf. Manegold of Lautenbach, 365/7: ceteros sapientia, iusticia superet et pietate ….

31 Hugh of Flavigny, 435/40–41: … subiectos bene regere novit et regendo pacificare. 32 Ibid., 435/36–7.


circle may be explained by the process whereby the letters of Pope Gregory VII were incorporated into the Chronicon. Hugh probably gained access to some of these letters – dealing with Bishop Otto of Constance and the south German dukes – via a letter collection annexed to the Apologeticus of Bernold of St-Blasien.33

The Chronicon did not simply incorporate material from the polemics of the Investiture Contest. It seems to have actively participated in the debate and was considered a libellus in its own right. Hugh of Fleury used the Chronicon as a source-book for the composition of his Tractatus de Regia Potestate et Sacerdotali Dignitate but also wrote his polemic as a conscious refutation of the Gregorian theory of political authority contained therein.34 Hugh of Fleury’s use of the Chronicon in this way perhaps indicates the dissemination of a now-lost copy of it in an ambience around Fleury or perhaps Rouen. The Chronicon was conceived in deliberate imitation of the libelli of the Investiture Contest; perhaps it also circulated in the manner of contemporary Streitschriften. Hugh of Flavigny’s polemical intentions are elucidated by the rhetorical way in which he addressed himself to the ‘nonsense’ (ineptia) of the royalist party. In what is essentially an argument ad hominem, Hugh concluded a long catena of canon law auctoritaes with a rhetorical question: ‘Do these many testimonies suffice, or do we have to recite still more to refute the stupidity of [Henry IV’s] party?’35 This method of refuting the arguments of one’s adversaries had first been employed in the pseudo-Augustinian Sermon against Jews, Pagans and Arians of Bishop Quodvultdeus of Carthage.36 Quodvultdeus introduced a dramatic device of calling witnesses (testes) in his polemic against the Pagans, Jews, and Arians, for example: ‘speak your testimony to Christ, Moses, legislator [and] leader of the people of Israel’. Having proved his ‘case’, Quodvultdeus then addressed himself directly to his adversaries: ‘do these suffice for you, O Jews, or do we have to introduce yet more witnesses from your law and nation for your confusion?’37

Hugh of Flavigny’s imitation of this method and phrasing illustrates a polemical desire to confront the party of Henry IV but also a desire to marshal his canon law ‘authorities’ as testimonia in the court of ‘public opinion’. The rhetorical method and vocabulary of Quodvultdeus also influenced the anonymous mid-eleventh century polemic, De Ordinando Pontifice, which

33 See Chapter 5, notes 45–60. 34 See Chapter 4, notes 45–54. 35 Hugh of Flavigny, 433/4–5: Sufficiunt ista an adhuc ad confutandam adversae partis

ineptiam pluriora de scripturis querimus testimonia? 36 Sermo contra Judaeos, Paganos, et Arrianos, PL, 42, 1115–30; see also the edition

of René Braun, Opera Quodvultdeo Tributa, CCSL, 60, 227–58. 37 Sermo contra Judaeos, Paganos, et Arrianos, c. 13, PL, 42, 1124–5: dic et tu,

Moyses legislator, dux populi Israel, testimonium Christo … sufficiunt vobis ista, o Iudaei, an adhuc ad vestram confusionem ex lege et ex gente vestra alios introducemus testes …?


likewise summoned ‘witnesses’ to shape a polemical argument.38 Like Quodvultdeus, the anonymous author of this polemic questioned rhetorically whether the authority of his testes was sufficient to refute his adversaries.39 The treatise De Ordinando Pontifice is considered to have a Lotharingian provenance, and was possibly composed in the circle around Wazo of Liège or around that of Humbert of Moyenmoutier.40 Thus, Hugh’s use of the Sermo of Quodvultdeus, perhaps in his home monastery of St-Vanne, Verdun – which had many connections with Liège – may indicate that the Sermo had a relatively wide currency among Lotharingian reformers.41 The Sermo may have been adapted by Hugh of Flavigny and the anonymous author of De Ordinando Pontifice because it represented a model of adversarial debate that was considered particularly apposite in the Investiture Contest. Wido of Ferrara also addressed his authorities personally – ‘speak, Father Augustine, what you know’ – and summoned forth the testimonia of his witnesses in an iambic meter.42 Quodvultdeus’ method of addressing authorities such as Augustine and Ambrose directly and summoning them forth as ‘witnesses’ was particularly resonant in the libelli de lite, where the same patristic auctoritates were cited by opposing parties.43 Precisely because they susceptible to different interpretations, the ‘authorities’ of the Church Fathers were the object of the most detailed debate: the rhetorical method of Quodvultdeus allowed the presentation of this patristic material with the necessary amount of drama and persuasion, and for this reason was adopted with relish by Hugh of Flavigny. Although a prolix and rhetorical prose style was ostensibly eschewed by pro-papal authors in the presentation of their arguments, these polemics were heavily influenced by ‘rhetorical colours’ (colores rhetorici): the desire to bolster arguments (rationes) with an appeal to the stylistic sensibilities of their audience. Indeed, many polemics of the Investiture Contest survive in letter collections such as the Codex Udalrici only because they were esteemed as models of epistolary style.44 A good example is Manegold of Lautenbach, who attacked Wenrich of

38 De Ordinando Pontifice, MGH Libelli, 1, 8–14; cf. Horst Fuhrmann, ‘Beobachtungen zur Schrift De Ordinando Pontifice’, Aus Archiven und Bibliotheken. Festschrift für Raymund Kottje zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. H. Mordek (Frankfurt, 1992), pp. 223–38.

39 De Ordinando Pontifice, 12/38–9: quodsi ex ordine et conditione sua introducti testes non suffitiant, veniant alii ….

40 Cf. Fuhrmann, ‘Beobachtungen’, pp. 223–4. 41 For the connections between St-Vanne and Liège see Chapter 2, note 171, and

Chapter 5, notes 192–202. 42 Wido of Ferrara, De Scismate Hildebrandi, MGH Libelli, 1, 541/19: Dic, pater

Augustine, quod sentis; 537/15f: Hinc agat Ambrosius, astipuletur Gelasius, loquatur Pascasius, Felix quoque Romanus episcopus testimonium dicat …; cf. Fuhrmann, ‘Beobachtungen’, pp. 226 n. 14, 229 n. 24.

43 See Chapter 6, note 148. 44 Codex Udalrici Babenbergensis, ed. P. Jaffé, Monumenta Bambergensia,

Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum, 5 (Berlin, 1869), pp. 17–469.


Trier for writing ‘in the manner of the rhetoricians of the schools’ (more scolarium rethorum), while writing himself in a prose style influenced by Sallust, Lucan, Horace and Boethius.45 It is clear that the ‘art of composition’ (ars dictandi) was a weapon in the arsenal of many contemporary polemicist. The literary conventions of German cathedral schools in the eleventh century, and hence of the polemics of German origin in the late eleventh century, may be gauged by the Colores rhetorici, a treatise written by Onulf, master at the cathedral school at Speyer c. 1070.46 Onulf’s schoolbook is a treatise on 26 of the most important rhetorical figures and seems to have been composed for instructing boys at cathedral schools in the arts of the trivium.47 Many of these figures recur in polemics of the Investiture Contest. Letters 159 and 158 of the Codex Udalrici are polemical compositions, written by Bishop Theoderic of Verdun in 1080.48 The first displays a rhetorical figure, dubbed exclamatio by Onulf, where the author intoned rhetorically against Pope Gregory VII: ‘O the unheard of arrogance of this man … O heresy unheard of in our times.’49 The second letter was addressed to Theoderic’s metropolitan Egilbert, archbishop-elect of Trier. In it the bishop of Verdun claimed that he had been coerced into rejecting Pope Gregory VII at the recent synod of Mainz and he conveyed this alleged coercion using a figure called similiter cadens by Onulf, where word endings have a rhythmic cadence, in this case: terribiliter astrictus, multipliciter coactus.50 These same two rhetorical figures formed a significant part of Hugh of Flavigny’s polemic against the supporters of Henry IV. For example, those who refused to accept Gregory VII’s reforming decrees were denounced in the Chronicon using the device of exclamatio: ‘O insane mind! O filthy wickedness and wicked filth!51 The figure of similiter cadens was employed by Hugh of Flavigny to characterise the depravity of the bishops at Worms: ‘Bishops, I say, if indeed they ought to be called bishops who are not willing (nolentes) to live a blameless life, and fleeing (refugientes) although rebuked by their superiors,

45 Manegold of Lautenbach, Liber contra Wolfelmum, c. 24, ed. W. Hartmann (MGH Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte, 8: Weimar, 1972), 107; cf. I.S. Robinson, ‘The colores rhetorici in the Investiture Contest, Traditio, 32 (1976), 222.

46 Onulf of Speyer, Colores Rhetorici, ed. W. Wattenbach, Sitzungsberichten der deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, philosophisch-historische Klasse, 20 (1894), 361–80; cf. Leonid Arbusow, Colores Rhetorici (Göttingen, 1963), pp. 36–62.

47 Robinson, ‘The colores rhetorici’, 233. 48 Codex Udalrici, no. 159 = Jaffé, Monumenta Bambergensia, no. 62, pp. 129–30;

Codex Udalrici, no. 158 = Jaffé, Monumenta Bambergensia, no. 63, p. 132. Cf. Chapter 2, notes 158–161.

49 O inaudita arrogantia hominis … O temporibus nostris nunquam audita heresis; on exclamatio see Onulf of Speyer, Colores Rhetorici, 1.6, p. 371.

50 Ibid., 1.12, pp. 373–4. 51 Hugh of Flavigny, 424/29–30: O mentem amentem! O spurcam nequitiam et

nequissimam spurcitiam!


defiling (temerantes) the canonical institutions …’.52 It is perhaps significant that Hugh of Flavigny used some of the same colores rhetorici employed by his original diocesan, Bishop Theoderic of Verdun. This rhetorical similarity may indicate that a schoolbook similar to that of Onulf of Speyer was used for didactic purposes at the cathedral and monastic schools in Verdun. At the very least, Hugh and Theoderic display a common knowledge of the more rhetorical aspects of the ‘art of composition’ (ars dictandi). Hugh’s comment that in his youth he adhered to the ‘vanity of the world’ (vanitas saeculi) under the pretence of study (sub specie discendi), perhaps indicates a knowledge of classical Latin texts and rhetoric gleaned at the cathedral or the monastic school in Verdun.53 Moreover, like Manegold – who attacked his pro-Henrician opponents for employing school-rhetoric – Hugh of Flavigny disparaged classical learning, while simultaneously employing it rhetorically and polemically, a characteristic of pro-papal authors in the late eleventh century. Much of the Chronicon is devoted to the important events in Hugh’s life and career and has the character of a personal apologia in the narrative dealing with the exile of the pro-papal monks from St-Vanne in 1085 and his own exile from Flavigny in the years after 1099. In so far as the Chronicon was a house polemic for the abbey of St-Vanne, however, Hugh built upon a venerable historiographical tradition which asserted that the monastery had an ancient function as an episcopal ‘seat of rest’ (sedes requietionis). Hugh’s amplification of this tradition was a necessary polemical response to the efforts of Bishop Theoderic to erode the status of St-Vanne in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Verdun. The chronicler sought to defend what he considered to be the prerogatives of his home monastery by reinterpreting and augmenting the legends surrounding the foundation of the first Christian Church in Verdun by Bishop Sanctinus. In particular, Hugh adapted the legend whereby Sanctinus was one of the 72 Disciples of Christ at the end of the first century AD.54 According to Hugh’s elaboration of this legend, Sanctinus founded both the suburban Church of St-Peter and the cathedral of St-Mary: the chronicler dated the consecration of St-Peter’s to the year 98, that of the cathedral to 104 AD.55 Moreover, Sanctinus apparently accorded to St-Peter’s in Verdun – the later abbey of St-Vanne – a special responsibility as an episcopal cemetery ‘where that lord, together with his holy successors, should have a seat of rest’, excepting those who had founded or restored other churches.56 The alleged

52 Ibid., 430/49–51: Episcopi, inquam, si tamen episcopi dicendi sunt qui inreprehensibiliter vivere nolentes et reprehendi a suis primoribus refugientes, instituta canonica temerantes, et canonica invectione notari nolentes ….

53 See Chapter 3, notes 7–10. 54 See Chapter 2, note 1. 55 Hugh of Flavigny, 292/34–7, 294/46–8. 56 Ibid., 292/38–41: ... cimiterium Virdunensis aecclesiae esse constituit, ubi ipse

domnus cum successoribus suis praesulibus sanctis, exceptis his, qui sibi dicatas ecclesias


function of the Church of St-Peter as an episcopal ‘seat of rest’ (sedes requietionis)contained an implict claim to a share in the cathedral functions of the diocese of Verdun, in conjunction with the Church of St-Mary which Hugh characterised as an ‘episcopal seat’ (sedes episcopalis).57 This alleged double foundation of two churches by Sanctinus, and the attribution of separate functions to each, is undoubtedly a fiction invented by Hugh of Flavigny to defend the privileges of St-Vanne in a time of crisis after 1085.58

Hugh’s claim for the special status of his monastery as the local episcopal cemetery was reiterated in a later passage in the Chronicon that contains a Vita of the eighth century bishop of Verdun, Madalveus. This Vita was composed at St-Vanne no later than the beginning of the eleventh century and Hugh depended on it for his account of Madalveus’s pontificate.59 However, this Vita contained no material relevant to the special status of St-Vanne as an episcopal Grabkirche so Hugh, therefore, augmented his source with a long interpolation concerning Madalveus’s death and burial at St-Vanne in terms that relied on the fictional status of St-Vanne as a sedes requietionis.60 Hugh’s deliberate modification of the Vita of Madalveus was not limited to this bishop’s place of burial and the chronicler sought to amplify any connections between the bishop and the monastery. For example, the tenth-century historian of Verdun, Berthar, had claimed that Bishop Madalveus had come from the ‘servants’ (familia) of St-Vanne.61 Hugh of Flavigny went further and interpolated into the Vita of Madalveus the unsubstantiated assertion that, before his accession as bishop of Verdun, Madalveus had been ‘rector and abbot’ of the monastery of St-Vanne.62 Thus, no less than in his invented account of Sanctinus’s double foundation of two churches in Verdun, Hugh of Flavigny did not shrink from falsifying his hagiographical sources in order to uphold the status and privileges of St-Vanne. These hagiographical fictions and interpolations may be seen as the counterpart to the diplomatic falsifications whereby Hugh altered the foundation charter of St-Vanne for the same purposes. Almost all of the narrative in the Chronicon surrounding the

corporali illustrant praesentia, vel qui eas aedificaverunt, aut aedificatas quondam et suistemporibus dirutas reparaverunt, sedem habet requietionis.

57 Ibid., 294/48. 58 Cf. Michael Borgolte, ‘Fiktive Gräber in der Historiographie: Hugo von Flavigny

und die Sepultur der Bischöfe von Verdun’, Fälschungen im Mittelalter, Vol. 1 (MGH Schriften, 33: Hanover, 1988), p. 220.

59 Cf. Joseph Van Der Straeten, Les manuscrits hagiographiques de Charleville, Verdun et Saint-Mihiel avec plusieurs textes inedits (Subsidia Hagiographica, 56: Brussels, 1974), pp. 190–91.

60 Hugh of Flavigny, 347/35–348/53, esp. 347/41–6; cf. Straeten, Les manuscrits hagiographiques, p. 199 n. 3.

61 Berthar of St-Vanne, Gesta Episcoporum Virdunensium, c. 12, MGH SS, 4, 43. 62 Hugh of Flavigny, 341/4–5, 344/45–6; cf. Straeten, Les manuscrits

hagiographiques, p. 193 n. 1.


history of the abbey has to be considered in the light of the dispute with the bishop of Verdun and the exile of the monks of St-Vanne in 1085. Moreover, Theoderic’s intimidation and expulsion of the pro-papal monks from St-Vanne in 1085 elicited another polemical response in the Chronicon: the promise of future salvation for the ‘martyrs’ who suffered under episcopal persecution at Verdun. In 1085, the monks who chose to stay behind at St-Vanne were commanded by Theoderic to swear an oath recognising the Henrician anti-pope, Wibert of Ravenna.63 Whoever refused this oath, as did a certain Rufus, was beaten and chased naked through the streets of Verdun. Rufus escaped ultimately to the refuge of St-Bénigne in Dijon, bearing on his body the wounds he suffered for his fidelity. In this passage of the Chronicon, Rufus is clearly portrayed as a martyr and Hugh explicitly compared his suffering to that of Christ on the cross.64

The very public sufferings of Rufus conformed to the definition of the martyr by Isidore of Seville. One could be a martyr by ‘secret virtue of the soul’ (in occulta animi virtute) or by public torment (in aperta passione). Moreover, Isidore had asserted that martyrs were witnesses (testes), who bore sufferings on account of Christ’s passion on the cross; they would suffer for the truth even unto death.65 The main elements of this definition are present in Hugh’s narrative. Rufus was a witness in a very literal sense: he was ordered effectively to perjure himself by swearing on the Gospels that he accepted the antipope Wibert of Ravenna. The Gospels themselves described the passion of Christ which Rufus would partially emulate. Finally, Rufus was a martyr because he bore his sufferings for the truth (pro veritate), that is, for the true and legitimate Pope Gregory VII. Rufus was therefore described by Hugh of Flavigny as ‘a hidden pearl of God among stones’ (latens inter lapides margarita Dei), a probable allusion to the ‘pearl of great price’ in Matthew (13:45–6).66

When describing the sufferings endured by the martyr monk Rufus, Hugh may have been writing under the influence of Abbot Jarento of St-Bénigne, who wrote to the community of St-Theoderic-en-Ardennes in the early 1090s, extolling the virtues of righteous martyrdom for the cause of the reform papacy.67 It was because

63 See Chapter 2, note 174. 64 Hugh of Flavigny, 469/26–31: Noverat pietas tua, Domine Deus, servum tuum illum

Rufum, latentem inter lapides margaritam Dei, qui spoliatus, cesus, fustigatus, quia jurare noluit, per medium urbis fugatus, ignominiam crucis tuae, Christe, in corpore portare non erubuit. Nudus ergo in sola staminia esset, tandem venit Divionem.

65 Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum Libri XX, ed. W.M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911), 7.11.1–4: Testes autem ideo vocati sunt, quia propter testimonium Christi passiones sustinuerunt, et usque ad mortem pro veritate certaverunt; cf. H.E.J. Cowdrey, ‘Martyrdom and the First Crusade’, in Crusade and Settlement, ed. P.W. Edbury (Cardiff, 1985), p. 49.

66 For Hugh’s use of biblically inspired stone symbolism see Healy, ‘The Polemical Use of Scripture’, Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales, 73 (2006), pp. 30–32

67 Chronicon S. Huberti Andaginensis, c. 71, ed. L.C. Bethmann and W. Wattenbach, MGH SS, 8, 605/46–9. Like the monks of St-Vanne in 1085, the brothers of St-Theoderic-en-Ardennes were being oppressed by a royalist diocesan, Bishop Otbert of Liège (1091–


of martyrs like Rufus, who refused to abjure Pope Gregory VII, that Hugh of Flavigny wrote ‘they did not defile their garments; they shall walk clothed in white, for they are worthy’.68 This was an allusion to the Book of Revelation (3: 4), but one that departed quite radically from traditional exegesis. Bede, for example, had interpreted the ‘white robes’ of the apocalypse allegorically as the ‘silken robes of baptism’ but from the context of Hugh’s account it seems that a future heavenly reward was assured for the partisans of Gregory VII.69 When Hugh wrote of the steadfast monks of St-Vanne, ‘they shall walk clothed in white’, he must have had in mind the ‘white robed army of martyrs’, the martyrum candidatus exercitus, which had a particular resonance for ‘Gregorian’ apologists. For example, the contemporary pro-papal author Bonizo of Sutri (c. 1045–c. 1089) wrote his Liber ad Amicum to answer his friend’s question: why did a righteous God seem deaf to the cries of a persecuted Church? The persecution here was understood to be that of King Henry IV and God’s apparent indifference manifested itself in Pope Gregory VII’s lamentable death at Salerno in 1085. Bonizo answered that Christ had been mocked, scourged and crucified but yet rose again. Thus Christians ‘must die with Christ to rise and reign with him’. Bonizo concluded by asserting that foremost among those who would reign with Christ, after the apostles, would be the martyrum candidatus exercitus.70 Like Bonizo, Hugh of Flavigny used the concept of the martyr to promise future glory for the apparently defeated ‘Gregorian’ party: the Christ-like suffering endured by Rufus in Verdun was an example of this characteristic ‘Gregorian’ theology. Also, the polemics of the Investiture Contest were composed not so much to convince or convert the intellectuals in the opposing party but were written to maintain and restore morale in one’s own party. The letters of Pope Gregory VII and Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg to Bishop Hermann of Metz in 1081 and 1084 attempted to reassure Hermann of the scriptural legitimacy and patristic basis for the

1117). Jarento’s letter contains a remarkable combination of exhortation and consolation. The monks of St-Hubert-en-Ardennes were addressed as ‘fighting for God’ (Deo militanti).They were ‘armed with the faith’ (armati fide) and ‘strengthened in the hope of celestial glory’ (spe coelestis gloriae corroborati). They were encouraged, like martyrs, to suffer the depredations of their enemies joyfully (rapina bonorum vestrorum cum gaudio suscipite). They were also reassured that, if would suffer a little for the truth, God would not impose on them more than they could bear. Jarento’s exhortation to the monks of St-Hubert-en-Ardennes, in its promise of future heavenly glory as a reward for sufferings endured pro veritate, is very similar to Hugh of Flavigny’s account of the ‘Gregorian’ martyrs at Verdun in 1085.

68 Hugh of Flavigny, 462/5-6: Beati qui in hac sanctae Dei ecclesiae conculcatione non inquinaverunt vestimenta sua; ambulabunt in albis, quia digni sunt.

69 Bede, Explanatio Apocalypsis, PL, 93, 140D: Qui vicerit, sic vestietur vestimentis albis. Omnes ad illorum provocat habitum qui holosericam baptismi inviolatam servaverunt.

70 Bonizo of Sutri, Liber ad Amicum, MGH Libelli, 1, 572/31: Sic et nos, si filii summi patris sumus, per mundanas passiones debemus commori secum, ut conresurgentes simul conregnare possimus.


programme of ‘Gregorian’ reform.71 Thus, Bonizo’s answer to his friend’s question was an attempt to soothe fears about the correctness of Gregory VII’s programme and within this answer the concept of the martyr played an important part in transmuting obvious failure into future success. The role of the martyr in the Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny also promised future glory in heaven and was directed at the ‘Gregorian’ party in Lotharingia and Burgundy, which was in some disarray after the death of Gregory VII in 1085 and the fall from power of Hugh of Lyons in the pontificate of Pope Victor III (1086–87). In the Chronicon, Hugh also attempted to answer his critics in the abbey of Flavigny, from which he was finally expelled in 1101. He had been accused by his monks of planning to subordinate the monastery of St-Peter, Flavigny, to that of St-Bénigne, Dijon, and of other crimes which he was loath to describe.72 Moreover, it seems that the hostile monks of Flavigny composed a polemic of their own against Abbot Hugh, presumably describing his unsuitability for the abbatiate.73 It is interesting that Hugh describes this polemic as a ‘pamphlet of repudiation’ (libellus repudii), a term he borrowed from the Epistola ad Herimannum of Gebhard of Salzburg to describe the ‘deposition letter’ of the German bishops at Worms to Gregory VII.74 In many ways Hugh identified his tribulations with those of the pope and in his exile from Flavigny Hugh probably saw a parallel with the exile and death of Gregory VII at Salerno. As in his defence of Gregory VII, Hugh supported his own position with auctoritates in a learned rebuke to his opponents at Flavigny.75 Thus, the final pages of the Chronicon are a personal apologia against the calumnies of the party of Bishop Norgaudus of Autun and those who were in league with the bishop in the abbey of Flavigny. This polemical and personal response was characteristic of the age. The breakdown of monastic order, which was one consequence of the Investiture Contest, seems to have acted as a stimulus for local polemics. For example, we only know of Hugh’s tenure as the imperialist candidate for the abbatiate of St-Vanne (1111–14) from the Epistola Apologetica of the exiled abbot, Laurent – a polemic which outlined the allegiance of the exiles to the pope.76 Hugh’s Chronicon is as much a local monastic polemic against bishops such as Theoderic of Verdun and Norgaudus of Autun, as it is a ‘Gregorian’ polemic against the party of Henry IV.

71 See above notes 14 and 15. 72 See Chapter 3, note 84. 73 Cf. Hugh of Flavigny, 485/46–8: … in conciliabulo illo fratres et filii nostri sanctae

obedientiae libellum repudii conscripserunt, domno episcopo filiationem per legatos eius offerentes, ei villam servari promittentes, et in omnibus mihi abrenunciantes.

74 Ibid., 431/12. 75 Ibid. 490/2–5, Hugh wrote, in respect of his enemies at Flavigny: non intelligentes

quid sanctus Leo dicat in epistola sua: quod si quis contra canonum instituta venire temptaverit, et prohibita admittere ausus fuerit, a suo se noverit officio submovendum, neccommunionis nostrae futurum esse consortem, qui socius esse noluit disciplinae. Cf. Leo I, ep. 4.5, PL, 54, 614A.



When describing the excommunication of the adulterous King Philip I of France by the papal legates John of St-Anastasia, and Benedict of St-Peter-in-chains, Hugh wrote that it was not ‘off the point’ (non ab re videtur nobis) to mention and commend these ‘men of virtuous memory’.77 Of course, Hugh was profoundly indebted to these legates, who had restored him – albeit briefly – as abbot of Flavigny in 110078 but in a sense the Chronicon as a whole was written to commend and honour the key figures of the Gregorian party in Lotharingia and Burgundy at the time of the Investiture Contest: Abbot Rudolf of St-Vanne, Abbot Jarento of St-Bénigne, Bishop Hugh of Die – later archbishop of Lyons – and Bishop Hermann of Metz. When Hugh of Flavigny composed his Chronicon in the decade or so after 1085 the reputation of the radical wing of the ‘Gregorian’ party had gone into eclipse, as had the reputation of Gregory VII himself. The urgent need for a polemic in defence of this reforming party is illustrated in the derisive way in which Ivo of Chartres dismissed the position of Archbishop Hugh of Lyons on lay investiture in 1097: ‘you strain at a gnat and swallow a camel …’.79 The Chronicon of Hugh of Flavigny was conceived – at least in part – to revive the fortunes of the radical reform party. Hugh was an obvious person to compose an apologia of this kind given his close personal relationships with the most important figures of the reform movement in Lotharingia and Burgundy, and he addressed himself quite deliberately and polemically to the issues of lay investiture, simony, papal primacy, and the position of the king in Christian society. Hugh clearly intended that the Chronicon would influence his contemporaries: his prodigious accumulation of evidence in the form of papal letters, patristic auctoritates, and canon law sententie all betray his desire to participate in the course of the polemical debate. The palaeographical evidence of Hugh’s autograph manuscript brings out this aspect of Hugh’s motives very clearly – he constantly tried to augment his evidence with new insertions and marginal additions, presumably garnered from the various libraries to which he had access (Verdun, Dijon, perhaps Lyons, Flavigny). Few polemicists of the Investiture Contest were as obsessed with auctoritas as Hugh of Flavigny. He subordinated all aspects of his formidable erudition to the recent conflict of empire and papacy. For example, Hugh’s extensive medical knowledge, indicated in the opening folios of his autograph manuscript, is transmuted in the Chronicon proper to serve as the basis for maternal and organic metaphors of the Roman primacy. Moreover, his early facility with the classics of antiquity was dismissed in a convention common to many pro-papal propagandists. Finally, the tribulations of his own career gave Hugh an appropriate sense of injured merit and righteous suffering with which to portray the calamities that befell Gregory VII in the last years of his pontificate.

77 Hugh of Flavigny, 492/21–2: … viros virtutuis memoriae commendare gratissimum omnibus et utile arbitramur.

78 See Chapter 3, note 92. 79 Ivo of Chartres, Epistola ad Hugonem Archiepiscopum Lugdunensem, MGH Libelli,

2, 646/15: culicem colantes et camelum glutientes ….


Hugh’s tacit comparison of his own fate with that of Gregory VII was not at all fanciful: aside from the vast array of documents provided, the Chronicon stands alone among the narrative sources of the Investiture Contest in its description of the personal and psychological consequences of the conflict of Church and State in the last quarter of the eleventh century.

Appendix 1

Letters and Decrees Relating to the Investiture Contest

Letters and Decrees of Pope Gregory VII∗

1. A fragment of the investiture prohibition of Gregory’s Lent synod of 7 March 1080, incorrectly dated by Hugh to 1075: Si quis deinceps episcopatum … se astrictum sciat (Hugh of Flavigny, 412/9–17, f. 97r.; cf. Reg. 7.14a, pp. 480/17–30). 2. Gregory’s unregistered letter, some time in 1075, to the abbots and religious superiors in France concerning the census owed to Rome: G. e. s. s. D. omnibus abbatibus et praelatis tam monachorum quam et canonicorum per Gallias constitutis … de retentis satisfacere iubemus (Hugh of Flavigny, 412/48–413/11, f. 96v.; cf. EV no. 12, p.28). 3. A registered letter of 12 May 1077 to Bishop Hugh of Die, concerning the election of Bishop Gerard of Cambrai: G. e. s. s. D. dilecto in Christo fratri Hugoni, venerabili Diensi episcopo, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … commoneas atque praecipias (Hugh of Flavigny, 414/4–415/18, f. 97v.; cf. Reg.4.22, pp. 330/25–334/9). 4. A registered letter of 23 March 1077 to all the bishops and clerics of France, announcing the excommunication of Bishop Stephen of Le Puy: G. e. s. s. D. universis Galliarum episcopis et cunctis ordinibus sub eis constitutis, quae pro meritis debetur, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … apostolica auctoritate praecipimus (Hugh of Flavigny, 417/22–38, f. 99v.; cf. Reg. 4.19, pp. 325/15–326/6). 5. A registered letter of 22 August 1078 to Bishop Hugh of Die and Abbot Hugh of Cluny, commanding them to investigate the complaints of Manasses of Rheims: G. e. s. s. D. dilectis in Christo fratribus Hugoni Diensi episcopo, et Hugoni Cluniacensi abbati salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … sanctorum patrum pervenire faciat (Hugh of Flavigny, 420/32–421/5, f. 100r–v.; cf. Reg. 6.3,pp. 394/31–396/6). 6. A fragment of Gregory’s registered letter, also of 22 August 1078 to Manasses of Rheims: G. e. s. s. D. dilecto in Christo fratri M. Remensi archiepiscopo salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Cum vos ea a sede apostolica

∗ Gregory’s standard intitulation, ‘Gregorius episcopus servus servorum Dei’, will be abbreviated as G. e. s. s. D.


flagitatis. At this point Hugh merely added: ‘Requiro’ (Hugh of Flavigny, 421/6–8, f. 100v.; cf. Reg. 6.2, p. 391/23–5). 7. An unregistered letter of April–May 1079 to Bishop Hugh of Die on various matters in relation to the French Church: G. e. s. s. D. dilecto in Christo fratri Hugoni Diensi episcopo salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … pure deinceps administrentur (Hugh of Flavigny, 421/11–48, f. 101r.; cf. EV no. 30, pp. 76–80). 8. A registered letter, of 23 April 1073 to Abbot Desiderius of Monte Cassino announcing his election as pope: Gregorius in Romanum pontificem electus, D. abbati monasterii sancti Benedicti Montis Cassini, salutem in Christo Iesu … vice fideliter obsecra (Hugh of Flavigny, 422/34–423/2, f. 102v.; cf. Reg. 1.1, pp. 3/10–4/12). 9. Canons prohibiting lay investiture, promulgated at Gregory’s autumn synod, 19 November 1078, incorrectly dated by Hugh to 1074: Quicumque militum, vel cuiuscumque ordinis …ex usu sanctorum patrum debeant (Hugh of Flavigny, 423/23–424/23, f. 102v–103v.; cf. Reg. 6.5b, pp.402/34–403/5). 10. Unregistered letter to Bishop Otto of Constance, late 1075, rebuking him for not implementing reforming decrees in his diocese: G. e. s. s. D. Ottoni Constantiensi episcopo salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … canonice responsurus (Hugh of Flavigny, 426/18–427/7, ff. 104v–105r; cf. EV no. 9, pp.18–22). 11. Unregistered letter to the clergy and laity of the diocese of Constance, also late 1075, releasing them from their obedience to Bishop Otto: G. e. s. s. D. clericis et laicis, maioribis et minoribus in Constantiensi episcopatu consistentibus, christianam legem diligentibus, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … fidelis esse videatur (Hugh of Flavigny, 427/12–53, f. 105r–v.; cf. EV no. 10, pp.22–26). 12. Excerpts from a registered letter of 10 November 1076 to Count Robert of Flanders warning of simoniacal bishops: G. e. s. s. D. R. Flandrensium comiti salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … scelus est idolatriae incurrere (Hugh of Flavigny, 428/1–9, f. 105v.; cf. Reg. 4.11, pp. 310/12–311/17). 13. Registered letter to the south German dukes of 11 January 1075 exhorting them to act against simoniacal and unchaste clerics: G. e. s. s. D. dilectis in Christo filiis, Berthaldo, Rodulpho, Welfoni ducibus, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … nobiscum veniant disputare (Hugh of Flavigny, 428/11–47, ff. 105v–106r.; cf. Reg. 2.45, pp. 182/32–185/4). 14. Unregistered letter to the clergy and laity of Germany in late 1075, urging them to reject bishops unwilling to embrace reform: G. e. s. s. D. omnibus clericis et laicis in regno Theuthonicorum constitutis salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … perducat vos regnaturos. Amen (Hugh of Flavigny, 428/49–429/7, f. 106r–v.; cf. EV no. 11, pp. 26–7). 15. Unregistered letter of mid-1076 to the faithful in Germany, reassuring those who doubt the justice of his actions against Henry IV: G. e. s. s. D. omnibus episcopis, ducibus, comitibus, ceterisque fidelibus in regno Theuthonicorum christianam fidem diligentibus salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … paratos

Appendix 1 231

inveniet (Hugh of Flavigny, 439/1–440/39, ff. 113v–115r.; cf. EV no. 14, pp. 32–41). 16. Registered letter of 25 July 1076 to the faithful in the Roman Empire, urging them to assist him in bringing Henry IV to repentance: G. e. s. s. D. omnibus in Christo fratribus, episcopis, abbatibus, sacerdotibus, ducibus et principibus atque militibus, omnibusque christianam fidem et beati Petri honorem revera diligentibus in Romano imperio habitantibus salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … absoluti pervenire. Amen (Hugh of Flavigny, 440/45–441/45, f. 115r–v.; cf. Reg. 4.1, pp. 289/20–292/20). 17. Unregistered letter of 29 August 1076 to the faithful in the Roman Empire. Gregory refers to an earlier letter (Reg. 4.1 of 25 July 1076) and warns the faithful against the lies of Henry IV: G. e. s. s. D. eisdem omnibus salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … absolutionis medicinam impendere. Data Triburis 4. Kal. Septembris (Hugh of Flavigny, 442/12–24, f. 116r.; cf. EV no. 15, pp. 42–3). 18. Registered letter to the faithful of St Peter, late February 1076, defending himself against the followers of Henry IV. He concludes by referring to his sentence of deposition against Henry IV, Lent 1076 (Reg. 3.6a, pp. 252–4, February 1076), which was originally circulated with this letter. Hugh thought Gregory was referring to his letter of mid-summer 1076 (EV no. 14, pp. 32–41), a fair assumption because in that letter the pope gave a detailed justification for his excommunication of Henry IV: G. e. s. s. D. omnibus qui cupiunt annumerari inter oves Christi, quas beato Petro commisit, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … Qualiter aut pro quibus causis beatus Petrus anathematis vinculo alligaverit praefatum regem Heinricum, in sequentibus litteris cogniscere potestis. Hugh now continues with: ‘G. e. s. s. D. Audivimus quosdam inter vos’ ut supra (Hugh of Flavigny, 442/31–49, f. 116v.; cf. Reg. 3.6, pp. 254/28–255/21). 19. Excerpt from the Lent synod of 3 March 1078, on the penalties of contact with excommunicates: Ordinationes illorum, qui ab excommunicatis sunt ordinati … actum in aecclesia domini Salvatoris, quae apellatur Constantiana, 5 Non. Marcii (Hugh of Flavigny, 442/51–443/14, ff. 116v–117r.; cf. Reg. 5.14a, pp. 372/8–373/13). 20. Excerpt from the Lent synod of February 1079, recording the oath of Berengar of Tours: Ego Berengarius … haec sacrosancta evangelia (Hugh of Flavigny, 443/24–32, f. 116v.; cf. Reg. 6.17a, pp. 426/15–427/9). 21. An unregistered letter of December 1076 to all the faithful in Germany, seeking support for his journey to Augsburg: G. e. s. s. D. omnibus archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbatibus, ducibus, marchionibus, comitibus omnibusque christianam et beati Petri fidem et doctrinam defendentibus et observantibus, in omni regno Theuthonicorum habitantibus, salutem et per beatorum Petri et Pauli benedictionem omnium peccatorum absolutionem … solutum erit in coelis (Hugh of Flavigny, 444/25–36, f. 117v.; cf. EV no. 18, pp. 48–9). 22. A registered letter, late January 1077, to the princes in Germany, giving an account of the events at Canossa: G. e. s. s. D. omnibus archiepiscopis, episcopis, ducibus, comitibus, ceterisque principibus regni Theuthonicorum christianam


fidem defendentibus, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … periculo adiuvare possimus (Hugh of Flavigny, 445/4–40, f. 118r–v.; cf. Reg. 4.12, pp. 312/6–314/4). 23. A related item, the oath sworn by Henry IV at Canossa on 28 January 1077 following immediately after the preceding letter, and introduced by Hugh as: Hec est autem iuratoria promissio regis: Ego Heinricus rex … adiuvabo illum (Hugh of Flavigny, 445/41–51, f. 118v.; cf. Reg. 4.12a, pp. 314/23–315/16). 24. An unregistered letter to all the faithful in Germany, February–March 1077, explaining his delay in coming to Germany: G. e. s. s. D. Gregorius episcopus, servus servorum Dei, dilectissimis in Christo fratribus et filiis, archiepiscopis, episcopis, ducibus, comitibus, caeterisque principibus, cum omni populo regni Teutonicorum Christianam fidem et religionem defendentibus, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … cor nostrum habet, posuimus. Amen (Hugh of Flavigny, 445/53–446/37, f. 118v–119r.; cf. EV no. 19, pp. 50–4). 25. A registered letter of 31 May 1077 to the papal legates Cardinal–deacon Bernard and Abbot Bernard of St-Victor in Marseilles, instructing them to secure safe passage for his forthcoming journey to Germany: G. e. s. s. D. Bernardo sanctae Romanae ecclesiae diacono et Bernardo Massiliensi abbati salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … ex parte Dei omnipotentis praecipite (Hugh of Flavigny, 447/9–41, f. 119v–120r.; cf. Reg. 4.23, pp. 334/28–336/17). 26. A registered letter, related to the previous one and of the same date, informing the faithful in Germany about the mission of the legates: G. e. s. s. D. archiepiscopis, episcopis, ducibus, comitibus et universis Christi fidelibus in regno Theuthonicorum consistentibus, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … Deo miserante tendamus (Hugh of Flavigny, 447/43–448/22, f. 120r–v.; cf. Reg. 4.24, pp. 337–338/26). 27. A registered letter of 9 March 1078 to all the faithful in Germany, informing of the decrees of the Lent synod of 1078: G. e. s. s. D. archiepiscopis, ducibus, principibus, marchionibus, omnibusque majoribus atque minoribus in Theuthonico regno constitutis, exceptis his qui canonica excommunicatione tenentur, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … vobiscum valeant perficere. Amen (Hugh of Flavigny, 448/36–449/12, f. 121r.; cf. Reg. 5.15, pp. 375–376/17). 28. A registered letter of 9 March 1078 to Archbishop Udo of Trier, concerning Gregory’s settlement of affairs in Germany: G. e. s. s. D. Udoni Trevirensi episcopo salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … secure ad nos redire valeant (Hugh of Flavigny, 449/14–46, ff. 121v–122r.; cf. Reg. 5.16, pp. 376/33–378/8). 29. An unregistered letter of late November 1078 to all in the German kingdom, announcing his intention to send legates into Germany to promote peace: G. e. s. s. D. omnibus archiepiscopis, episcopis, in Theuthonico [other versions of this letter have in addition atque Saxonico] regno commorantibus, si obedire voluerint, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … duplici contritione conterantur (Hugh of Flavigny, 449/50–450/19, f. 122r.; cf. EV no. 25, pp. 64–6). 30. An unregistered letter of July–October 1079 to Cardinal Peter of Albano and Bishop Udalric of Padua, concerning complaints about their conduct: G. e. s. s. D. dilectis in Christo fratribus et coepiscopis, Petro Albanensi et Odelrico

Appendix 1 233

Pataviensi, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … memoris vestri apud Deum (Hugh of Flavigny, 450/22–451/5, ff. 122r–123r.; cf. EV no. 31, pp. 80–4). 31. A registered letter of 1 October 1079 to the faithful in Germany, explaining his policy and the actions of his legates: G. e. s. s. D. omnibus fidelibus sancti Petri in Theuthonico regno commorantibus salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … veraciter indicabimus (Hugh of Flavigny, 451/15–34, f. 123r.; cf. Reg. 7.3, pp. 462/21–463/19). 32. Excerpt from the Lent synod of 7 March 1080 where Gregory excommunicates Henry IV for a second time in the form of a prayer to St. Peter: Beate Petre princeps apostolorum … ut spiritus salvus sit in die Domini. Data Romae Non. Martii (Hugh of Flavigny, 451/42–453/3, ff. 123v–124r.; cf. Reg. 7.14a, pp. 483–487/20). 33. Registered letter. Gregory’s second doctrinal letter to Bishop Hermann of Metz, 15 March 1081: G. e. s. s. D. dilecto in Christo fratri Mettensi episcopo salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … libertatis et aeternitatis transibunt (Hugh of Flavigny, 453/57–458/2, ff. 125r–127v.; cf. Reg. 8.21, pp. 546/13–562/25). 34. Excerpt from a registered letter to Matilda of Tuscany, 16 February 1074, on frequent communion: G. e. s. s. D. dilectae in Christo filiae Mathildi salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … Item in libro 5. de sacramentis (Hugh of Flavigny, 462/26–39, f. 130r.; cf. Reg. 1.47, pp. 71/23–72/12). 35. An unregistered letter of July–November 1084 to all the faithful explaining the plight of the Church: G. e. s. s. D. omnibus in Christo fidelibus, apostolicam sedem revera diligentibus, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem … sine verecundia pervenire. Amen (Hugh of Flavigny, 464/6–465/16, f. 131r–v.; cf. EV no. 54, pp. 128–34).

Other Letters Relating to the Investiture Contest

36. A letter of Bishop Hugh of Die to Gregory VII, 1078, informing the pope of events at the recently held synod of Poitiers (January 1078): Domino ac meritis beato papae Gregorio, Hugo humilis presbiter Diensium, in domino Deo salutem … servo sanctitatis vestrae (Hugh of Flavigny, 418/18–419/20, f. 100v.). 37. A letter of Archbishop Manasses of Rheims to Gregory VII, 1078, informing the pope of the proceedings at Hugh of Die’s legatine synod of Autun (September 1077): Domno Gregorio summo pontifici, patri et domino suo, M. Dei gratia Remorum archiepiscopus, fidelem servitutis et obedientiae subiectionem et orationis devotionem … pater reverentissime (Hugh of Flavigny, 419/21–420/31, f. 100r). 38. Henry IV’s ‘suppliant letter’ to Gregory VII of August/September 1073: Vigilantissimo et desiderantissimo domno papae Gregorio apostolica dignitate caelitus insignito, Heinricus Dei gratia Romanorum rex debiti famulatus fidelissimam exibitionem … plenius audietis (Hugh of Flavigny, 425/17–42, f. 103b; cf. Reg. 1.29a, pp. 48–9).


39. Letter of Empress Agnes to Bishop Altmann of Passau, informing him of the excommunication and deposition of Henry IV by Gregory VII at the Lent synod, 1076: Agnes Dei gratia quidquid est, Altmanno Pataviensi episcopo salutem et carissimam dilectionem … iuramento absolvit. Valete (Hugh of Flavigny, 435/16–29, f. 110v). 40. Letter of Bishop Anselm of Lucca to Abbot Pontius of Frassinoro, 1085–6, incorrectly dated by Hugh to 1078, where Anselm exhorts the abbot to resist the threats of Henry IV: P. dilectissimo in Christo confratri, A. omnium episcoporum minimus, salutem in Christo … in omnibus auxiliari studuerit (Hugh of Flavigny, 443/44–444/20, f. 117r.). 41. Letter of Bishop Gebhard of Salzburg to Bishop Hermann of Metz in 1084, condemning the antipope Wibert of Ravenna: G. Salzeburgensis episcopus H. Mettensi episcopo salutem … dampnationem ibit cum ipsis. Amen (Hugh of Flavigny, 459/43–460/8, f. 129v). 42. Letter of Matilda of Tuscany in the aftermath of Henry IV’s entry into Rome in 1084, warning the faithful in Germany that Gregory VII’s seal has fallen into the hands of the imperialists: Mathildis Dei gratia si quid est, omnibus in Theuthonicorum regno commorantibus, salutem … cauti estote (Hugh of Flavigny, 463/5–12, f. 130v). 43. Fragment of a letter of Pope Urban II recounting Gregory VII’s wishes for the succession to the Apostolic See: Dominus noster papa Gregorius … credunt indubitanter (Hugh of Flavigny, 466/23–33, f. 130b). 44. A letter of Archbishop Hugh of Lyons to Matilda of Tuscany, criticising the election of Abbot Desiderius of Monte Cassino as Pope Victor III in 1086: Hugo sanctae Lugdunensis aecclesiae servus, dilectissimae in Christo sorori Mathildi divinae consolationis uberrimam gratiam … inutile iudicavimus scribere (Hugh of Flavigny, 466/37–468/3, ff. 132v–133r). 45. A letter of Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury to Abbot Rudolph of St- Vanne, reassuring him about the legitimacy of a second monastic profession at his exile in the monastery of St-Bénigne, Dijon: L. Cantuariae archiepiscopus Rodulfo abbati salutem … ut stabilitatem firmet suaderi (Hugh of Flavigny, 469/41–54, f. 134r–v).

Appendix 2

The House of Verdun (Ardennes)

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Index

Abbo of Fleury 42, 145 Adalbero I, bishop of Metz 26–8, 29 Adalbero II, bishop of Verdun 30, 34 Adrian I, pope 184–5 Adrian II, pope 177, 181–2, 186 Agnes, dowager-empress 11, 104 Albero of Chiny, bishop of Verdun 85 Alexander II, pope 3, 9, 129, 191, 195, 197 Altmann, bishop of Passau 11, 104, 119,

191, 192, 193 Ambrose, bishop of Milan and Church

Father 7, 12, 48, 96, 101, 158–9, 162, 163, 170, 181, 185, 195–6, 220

Anastasius, emperor 182, 183, 217 Anselm II, bishop of Lucca 19, 107, 120,

127–8 and canon law 127–8, 132, 133, 134,

176, 187–8, 198, 201 and Gregorian ‘friendship network’

104, 105, 124, 187 and lay investiture 57–8, 127, 175–6,

186–7, 188, 210 and Matilda of Tuscany 17, 122–3, 124 Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury 189,

209–11; see also idoneitas Apologeticus 107, 108, 109, 110, 191, 198,

219; see also Bernold of St-Blasien Augustine, Church Father 68, 90, 138, 139–

40, 145, 147, 148, 161, 167, 168, 201, 220

Baldwin IV, count of Flanders 41, 44, 46 Benedict, cardinal-priest of St-Peter-in-

chains 77, 79–80, 81, 92, 227 Beno, cardinal 4 Berengar of Tours 4, 68 Berengar, bishop of Verdun 22, 28–30, 46,

61, 86 Berhard, bishop of Verdun 25, 29 Bernard of Clairvaux 151, 174 Bernard, abbot of St-Victor, Marseilles

113, 118, 119, 122, 133–4, 189–192, 194–5, 199

Bernard, cardinal-deacon 118, 122, 133–4, 189–192, 194–5, 199

Bernhard of Hildesheim, canonist 64, 170–71

Bernold of St-Blasien (Constance), chronicler, polemicist and canonist 103, 107–12, 115, 118, 122, 125, 128, 133, 134, 155, 170, 190–91, 194, 195, 198, 199, 219

Berthar of St-Vanne, historian 22–3, 24, 25, 101, 223

Berthold of Reichenau, chronicler 14, 107, 142, 166, 195, 203, 205–6, 210

Bonizo of Sutri, polemicist and canonist1, 225–6

Brixen, council of (1080) 4, 15–16, 115, 123

Bruno of Merseburg, historian 14, 122, 142, 164, 173

Bruno of Segni, exegete and polemicist 145

Canossa, meeting of Henry IV and Gregory VII at (1077) 13, 14, 112, 116, 117, 141–2, 165–6

Castel S. Angelo 16, 61, 102 Charlemagne, emperor 184–5 Childeric III, king of the Franks 171, 212Cluny, monastery 41, 49, 64, 67, 69, 70, 79,

82, 193–4 Codex Udalrici 114, 120, 121, 125, 220–21 Collectio Britannica 128, 131–2, 136


colores rhetorici 221–2 Conrad II, emperor 30, 36, 63 Cyprian, Church Father 90, 176

Dado, bishop of Verdun 25–6, 29, 46 De Bello Saxonico; see Bruno of

Merseburg De Duodecim Abusivis Saeculi; see Pseudo-

Cyprian De Ordinando Pontifice 20, 219–20 ‘death-bed’ testament of Gregory VII 18–

19, 20, 104, 107, 114, 120, 123, 124 Deeds of the Bishops of Verdun 22, 24, 101 Deusdedit, cardinal-priest of St-Peter-in-

chains, canonist and polemicist102, 103, 105–6, 128, 132, 152, 180, 215, 217–18

Dictatus Papae 68, 127–8, 129, 133, 178

Egilbert, archbishop of Trier 55, 56, 57–9, 113, 221

election ‘by inspiration’ (per inspirationem) 3, 205, 207, 210; see also idoneitas

Epistola Widonis 198

Fingen, abbot of St-Vanne 30–31 Frederick I ‘Barbarossa’, emperor 36 Frederick, count of Verdun, monk of St-

Vanne 34–5, 36, 39, 40, 42, 46 Fulcradus, abbot of St-Paul 69, 87

Gargilius Martialis, herbalist 65–6; see also Medicinae ex holeribus et pomis

Gauzlin, bishop of Toul 26–8, 45 Gebhard, archbishop of Salzburg 10–11,

15, 16, 104, 113, 120, 134, 170, 215, 216–17, 225–6

Gebuin, archbishop of Lyons 207, 208; see also idoneitas

‘Gelasian’ theory of political authority149–50, 151–2, 154, 155; see also ‘two swords’

Gelasius I, pope 149–50, 155, 171 Gerald, cardinal-bishop of Ostia 136, 137,

185, 189, 191–2, 193–9, 203–6, 210; see also Seventy-Four Titles

Gerard I, bishop of Cambrai 41, 43, 44, 46 Gerard, archbishop of York 82, 93 Gisulf, prince of Salerno 18, 122 Godfrey II, duke of Lower Lotharingia 35–

6, 45, 46 Godfrey III ‘the Bearded’, duke of Lower

Lotharingia 35, 36, 37–8, 45, 50, 56, 135

Godfrey IV ‘the Hunchback’, duke of Lower Lotharingia 55–6, 121, 153

Godfrey ‘the captive’, count of Verdun 30, 34, 36, 40

Godfrey, count of Bouillon 55–6 Gottschalk of Aachen, dictator at the court

of Henry IV 143, 151 Gozelo I, duke of Upper and Lower

Lotharingia 36, 37, 38, 40 Gratian of Bologna 132, 134, 197, 198 Gregorian party friendship network of 55, 57, 58, 59,

70, 105, 136, 193–4, 218–19 in Lotharingia 56, 58, 104, 134, 136 in Verdun 22, 36, 58, 59, 60, 68, 136,

224–5 Gregory I ‘the Great’, pope 48, 90, 139,

145, 152, 158, 159, 163, 165, 167, 197, 198, 201

election of 3, 202–6, 207–8, 210–11, 212; see also idoneitas

Gregory VII, pope; see also Hildebrand and bishops 10, 11, 12, 33–4, 53–4, 56,

58–9, 61, 81, 91, 108–9, 125, 129–30, 213

death in exile 2, 3, 6, 16, 18, 19, 160–1, 225, 226

‘death-bed testament’ of 19–20, 104, 107, 114, 120–1, 123–4

election of 2, 3, 4–5, 8–9, 121, 183, 203–6, 216

Index 259

and Henry IV 6, 9, 10–13, 15, 53, 97, 104, 119–120, 138, 141,

146, 150, 156–7, 165–6, 170, 171, 200, 212, 216

and kingship 15, 138–74, 212 and ‘two swords’ 150–154 legates of 2, 13–14, 21, 59–60, 72, 80,

81, 103, 106, 113, 119, 122, 129, 186, 190–1, 209, 211

letters of 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 33, 54, 59, 61, 91, 97, 100, 102, 103–26, 138, 147, 148, 149, 161, 166, 170, 177–8, 180, 185–6, 190–1, 198, 212, 217, 219, 225–6, 229–34

and Matilda of Tuscany 17, 104, 122 as medicus 126, 157–9 and papal authority 127–8, 129–30,

132–3, 146–7, 184 and prohibition of lay investiture 5, 6,

7–8, 127, 175–80, 185–8, 199, 200, 217

reform programme of 1, 7, 9, 21, 90, 108–10, 113, 125–6, 127, 128, 131, 147, 191, 197–8, 215, 226

refuge at the Castel S. Angelo 16–17, 61, 102

Grimold, abbot of St-Vanne 32–3, 53

Hagano, bishop of Autun 69, 74, 75, 78, 92, 104

Hatto, bishop of Verdun 25, 46, 181 Heimo, bishop of Verdun 30–31, 34–5, 36,

55, 101 Henry I, king of England 93, 97, 210–11 Henry II, emperor 30, 35, 43 Henry III, emperor 33, 37, 141, 150 Henry IV, emperor 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 13, 19, 20,

53, 56, 67, 83, 91, 106, 107, 178, 191, 194, 214, 225

as ‘arch-pirate’ 160, 215 and Canossa 13, 116–17, 141–2, 165

excommunication of (1076) 11, 15, 104, 116, 131, 141, 156, 157, 165

excommunication of (1080) 6, 13, 15, 56, 119–20, 131, 157, 165, 172, 212

German opposition to 142, 164, 165–73, 218

imperial coronation of (1084) 16 and lay investiture 127, 159–60, 175–6,

187, 200, 210 alleged mental decline of 12, 13, 161–

3, 180 and Rome, conquest of (1084) 15, 16,

17, 61, 70, 122–3 sexual deviancy of 160–61 and simony 9, 14–15, 138 ‘suppliant letter’ to Gregory VII (1073)

104, 150 and Theoderic of Verdun 22, 54–61,

136 tyranny of 10, 138–74 and Worms, synod of (1076) 54, 157,

162, 172, 216 Henry V, emperor 83–4 Hermann, bishop of Metz 10, 11, 54, 55,

57, 130 and Gregorian ‘friendship network’ 12,

15, 16, 56, 58, 59, 104, 113, 120, 217, 225–6, 227

and the letters of Gregory VII 15, 59, 91, 97, 121, 124–5, 126, 138, 149, 171, 212, 217, 225–6

Hermann, bishop of Bamberg 114–15, 117, 143

Hermann, count of Eename 35–6, 43, 46 Hildebrand 3–4, 57, 127, 153–4, 216; see

also Pope Gregory VII Horace 64, 221 Hubert, cardinal-bishop of Palestrina 191–

2, 195 Hugh, bishop of Die (1073–82), archbishop

of Lyons (1082–1106) 77, 83, 213, 217, 227


election as bishop of Die (1073) 51, 77, 105, 107, 196, 203–6, 208, 209–10, 214

and Gregorian ‘friendship network’ 2, 104, 124, 187

and Hugh of Flavigny 19, 69, 74–5, 78, 79, 80, 81, 104, 205

and lay investiture 105–6, 127, 175–6, 177–9, 185–9, 200, 210

as papal legate 8, 21, 80–1, 102, 104–5, 106, 129–30, 208, 211

and Pope Victor III (Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino) 19–21, 106, 107

Hugh of Flavigny as abbot of Flavigny 2, 42, 69, 74, 75–

82, 86, 92, 102, 226 as abbot of St-Vanne 83–5, 94, 95, 226 autograph manuscript of 89–99, 105,

106–7, 121, 123–4, 131, 169, 217–18, 227

and canon law 11, 90, 102, 103, 122, 125–6, 127–37, 185–200, 205, 227

education of 64–6, 221–2 and ecclesiastical elections 203–9,

211–12; see also idoneitas family of 63 and Gregorian ‘friendship network’ 2,

59, 70, 74, 75, 104, 134, 136, 187, 217, 218–19, 227

and Gregory VII 1, 2–5, 12, 16, 17, 18–19, 21, 102, 127, 226, 228

and Henry IV 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 146, 150, 156–7, 159–173

historical persepective of 1, 2, 7, 10, 124, 181–5, 199–200, 215

and Hugh of Die/Lyons 2, 19, 21, 71–2, 74, 77, 78, 79, 80–1, 84, 102, 103–7, 124, 130

and Hugh of Fleury 96–8, 139, 173, 219

and Isidorian concept of tyranny 139–40, 142, 144, 145

and Jarento of St-Bénigne 16–17, 18, 69–70, 71–3, 79, 84, 102, 103, 122, 224

and kingship 11, 138–74, 218 and lay investiture 5, 6, 7–8, 9, 10, 103,

105–6, 127, 152, 175–200, 210, 217 and martyrdom 224–6 medical knowledge of 65–6, 90–91,

126, 157–8, 227 and papal letters 2, 3, 6, 12, 13, 15, 18,

59, 91, 102, 103–26, 138, 217 as poet 94–5 as polemicist 1, 2, 12, 13, 14–15, 16,

19–20, 91, 95, 124–6, 159–74, 181, 214, 215–28

and reforming exegesis 2, 16, 91, 143, 145, 162, 164–5, 167–9, 170, 180, 224, 225

rhetorical style of 221–2 and Rudolf of St-Vanne 53, 58, 104,

121, 217 and St-Bénigne 68–70, 102 and St-Vanne 2, 24, 25, 28, 32, 38, 39–

40, 58, 63–4, 69, 78–9, 85–8, 100–101, 211–12, 222–4

and simony 8, 9, 10, 71, 81, 159, 191, 211, 214

sources of 10, 11, 15, 16, 18–19, 51–2, 70, 86, 92–3, 96, 100–137, 138, 170, 215–19, 223

and Verdun (Ardennes), comital house of 37–8

Hugh, abbot of Cluny 64, 67, 70 Humbert, cardinal-bishop of Silva Candida

7, 9, 77, 176, 188, 189, 197, 198, 220

idoneitas (‘suitability’) 147, 203, 208–9, 211–12, 213, 214

Isidore of Seville, Church Father 138, 139–40, 142, 144, 145, 160, 161, 164, 179, 218, 224

Index 261

Ivo, bishop of Chartres 81, 131, 132, 134, 157, 189, 197, 198, 227

Jarento, abbot of St-Bénigne, Dijon 67, 70, 75, 84, 88, 102, 224, 227

and Cluny 68–9, 70 early career 64 election of (1077) 207–8, 214 and Gregorian ‘friendship network’ 2,

61, 70, 79, 122 and Gregory VII 16–17, 18, 61, 102,

103, 122 legatine mission to England (1096) 70–

72, 84, 103 and monastic reform 72–4, 79 Jerome, Church Father 102, 143, 169 John Chrysostom, Church Father 166–7 John of Mantua, exegete 151, 152 John of Salisbury 139, 163, 173 John the Deacon, biographer of Gregory I

202, 204–6, 210, 211, 212, 214 John XII, pope 29–30, 50, 96 John XIX, pope 50, 102 John, cardinal-priest of St-Anastasia 77,

79–80, 81, 92, 227

Lampert of Hersfeld, historian 55, 142, 164 Lancelinus, bishop of Die 185, 195, 203–5 Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury 67–8,

104Laurent of Liège, historian 33, 53, 85–6, 88 Laurent, abbot of St-Vanne 78, 83, 84, 86,

87, 95, 211–12, 226 lay investiture 57–8, 81, 83, 84, 127, 131,

175–6, 180–84, 199, 200, 210–11, 227

and Hugh of Die/Lyons 177–8, 185–9, 209

papal prohibitions of 5, 6–7, 8, 10, 103, 105–6, 152–3, 176–7, 179, 180, 199, 200, 217

as a form of simony 7, 9, 159, 197, 199, 214

Leo I, pope 90, 149, 183, 196, 203 Leo IX, pope (Bruno of Toul) 8, 9, 26, 32,

33, 37, 50 Libellus contra Invasores; see Deusdedit Liber ad Gebehardum; see Manegold of

Lautenbach Liber de unitate ecclesiae conservanda

169, 171 Liber Gratissimus 8; see also Peter Damian Liber Pontificalis 18, 96 Libri III Adversus Simoniacos 7, 189, 197;

see also Humbert of Silva Candida Liemar, archbishop of Bremen 192 Louis of Chiny, count of Verdun 37, 40

Madalveus, bishop of Verdun 24–5, 46, 101, 223

Manasses, archbishop of Rheims 81, 104, 106, 129–30

Manegold of Lautenbach 134, 138, 145, 158–9, 160, 167, 168, 170, 172, 180, 215, 218, 220, 222

Matilda, margravine of Tuscany 55, 57 and Gregorian ‘friendship network’ 17,

19–20, 35, 36, 38, 104, 106, 107 122–4

and Pope Gregory VII 17, 122 Medicina Plinii 65–6 Medicinae ex holeribus et pomis 65; see

also Gargilius Martialis Milo, cardinal-bishop of Palestrina 82, 93 Moralia in Iob 145, 159, 163, 165, 167; see

also Pope Gregory I

Nicholas I, pope 177, 181–2, 196 Nicholas II, pope 32, 50, 51–3, 74, 96, 197 nicolaitism (clerical marriage) 5, 7, 71 Norgaudus, bishop of Autun 75–82, 84, 93,

226, 227 ‘Norman Anonymous’ (‘Anonymous of

York’) 97–8, 144

Odilo, abbot of Cluny 41, 49


Odo, cardinal-bishop of Ostia 18, 19, 20, 21, 107, 120, 122; see also Urban II, pope

Onulf of Speyer 221 Otbert, bishop of Liège 61, 87 Otto I, emperor 28, 29, 96 Otto II, emperor 30 Otto III, emperor 36, 37, 63 Otto, bishop of Constance 9, 91, 108, 109,

111, 113, 115, 117, 125–6, 128, 130, 146, 158, 219

Papal Election Decree (1059) 2, 4, 51–2, 96, 183–4

Paschal II, pope 21, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85 Paul of Bernried, biographer of Gregory

VII 108–12, 113, 115–21, 123, 124, 193, 214

Pelagius I, pope 125–6, 128, 130, 131 Peter Damian 1, 7, 8, 45, 127, 129, 146,

150–53, 154, 175, 194, 195; see also ‘two swords’

Peter (Igneus), cardinal-bishop of Albano 13–14, 18, 71, 119, 122, 206

Philip I, king of France 79, 152, 153, 227 Pibo, bishop of Toul 11–12, 53, 54 Policraticus; see John of Salisbury Poppo, abbot of Stablo 42–3, 50, 52 Pseudo-Ambrose 197 Pseudo-Cyprian 138, 144–5, 148 Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals 102, 129–30,

131, 132

Quodvultdeus, bishop of Carthage 219–20

Ralph Glaber, historian 92–3, 98, 102 Rambert, bishop of Verdun 30, 37, 55 Richard II, bishop of Verdun 83–4 Richard, abbot of St-Vanne 22, 25, 31, 35–

6, 101, 136 and monastic reform 35, 39–51, 52, 75,

78, 135 and Verdun (Ardennes), comital house

of 34–6, 39 vitae of 93, 94, 100

Richer, bishop of Verdun 70, 83 Robert Guiscard 17, 61 Robert II (Curthose), duke of Normandy

70–72, 73 ‘royal road’ (via regia) 1, 5, 7, 21 Rudolf of Rheinfelden (of Swabia), anti-

king of Germany 13, 14, 109, 142, 153, 165, 172, 214

Rudolf, abbot of St-Vanne, Verdun 12, 58, 63, 70, 83, 84, 92, 94, 136, 211

and Gregorian ‘friendship network’ 2, 54–5, 57, 59–60, 61, 66, 121, 135

and monastic stability 67–9, 104 and Theoderic of Verdun 34, 53, 59,

60, 216 Rufus, Gregorian martyr 224–5 Rule of St Benedict (Regula Benedicti) 26–

7, 28, 29, 34, 41–2, 43, 44, 45, 66–7, 208

St-Emmeram, Regensburg, monastery 193 St-Evre, Toul, monastery 26–9, 30, 45, 49,

50St-Hubert-en-Ardennes, monastery 55, 61,

134–5 St-Laurent, Liège, monastery 50, 87, 135 St-Mihiel, diocese of Verdun, monastery

27, 33, 53, 57–8, 60 St-Paul, Verdun, monastery 30, 31, 69, 85,

87St-Vanne, Verdun, monastery 2, 12, 22–62,

63–4, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 78, 83, 90, 100, 102, 135, 136, 173, 211, 220

abbatial election at 211–12 and aristocratic patronage 34–39, 40,

48, 135 and the bishops of Verdun 29–31, 83 and first exile at Dijon (1085–92) 61–2,

66–9, 70, 83, 86, 87, 92, 101, 104, 136

second exile at Dijon (1111–1114) 84–

Index 263

5, 88, 94, 95, 226 foundation of 28–9, 86, 87, 88 as episcopal Grabkirche 46–7, 69, 87,

222–3 devotion to Gregory VII 53–62, 211,

224–5 and lay conversi 40–41 necrology of 39–40 connections with Rome 50–53 and Theoderic of Verdun 31–34, 53,

57–8, 60–62, 69 St-Waast, diocese of Cambrai, monastery

35, 41–5, 46, 48, 50, 51 Salerno, Gregory VII’s death at 2, 16, 18,

225, 226 Sanctinus, bishop of Verdun 22–3, 47, 101,

222–3 Sehon, biblical figure 1, 7 Seneca 64 Sermo contra Auxentium 7, 101, 181; see

also Ambrose of Milan Seventy-Four Titles (74 Titles, Diversorum

Patrum Sententie) 122, 127, 155, 185, 189–92, 194, 195, 198, 199, 201

Siegfried, abbot of St-Mihiel 57–8, 60 Sigebert of Gembloux, historian 41, 153 simony 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 14, 33, 56, 71, 77, 80,

83, 108, 110, 126, 136, 138, 157, 159, 164, 175, 176, 185, 191, 192, 196–8, 199, 202, 204, 205, 206, 208, 209, 211, 214, 227

Stephen de Polignac, bishop of Clermont 143, 208

Stephen IX, pope (Frederick of Lorraine) 50, 135–6

Theoderic I, abbot of St-Hubert-en-Ardennes 55, 134–5

Theoderic II, abbot of St-Hubert-en-Ardennes 61

Theoderic, bishop of Verdun 37, 60, 67, 227

and colores rhetorici 221–2 and Gregory VII 54–5, 7, 59 and Henry IV 12, 54–7, 60, 136 and the monastery of St-Vanne 2, 22,

31–4, 53, 57–8, 60–2, 69, 70, 83, 86, 87, 136, 222, 224

as reformer 33 and Wenrich of Trier 59, 216 ‘two swords’ theory of political authority

150–52, 153, 154

Udalric, bishop of Padua 13–15, 71, 119 Udo, archbishop of Trier 12, 33, 34, 53, 54,

55, 112, 113, 118, 119 Ulrich of Zell 193–4 Urban II, pope 18, 21, 61, 70–71, 72, 80,

104, 107, 120, 122, 124; see alsoOdo of Ostia

Utrecht, council of (1076) 11–12, 54

Vanne (Vitonus), bishop of Verdun 24–5 Verdun (Ardennes), comital house of 30,

34, 35–6, 37–8, 40, 45, 46, 50, 55–6, 121, 135, 153, 235–6

Victor III, pope (Desiderius, abbot of Montecassino) 3, 5, 19–21, 80, 102, 106, 107, 120, 121, 226

Vigilantia universalis 52, 197 Vita Gregorii Septimi; see Paul of Bernried

Waleran, abbot of St-Vanne 51–3 Wenrich, scholasticus of Trier 59, 138,

168, 215–16, 220–21 Wibert of Ravenna, antipope (‘Clement

III’) 2, 19, 70, 138 as ‘Barrabas the Thief’ 123 designation at Brixen (1080) 15–16,

123, 143, 148, 163, 164, 166, 217, 224

and imperial coronation of Henry IV 16

Wido of Ferrara 220 William II (Rufus), king of England 70–72,


82, 93, 209–10 William, abbot of Hirsau 55, 190, 192–4 William, bishop of Utrecht 12, 54–55 William of Volpiano, abbot of St-Bénigne

41, 50, 69, 72, 102, 207 Wipo, historian 145, 158

Worms, council of (1076) 10–11, 12, 17, 54, 58, 91, 113, 130, 157, 162, 172, 216, 221, 226

Zacharias, pope 171, 212 Zeno, emperor 182, 183, 217

The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny: Reform and the Investiture Contest in the Late Eleventh Century...

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