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[German Version] In the canon law collections of the High Middle Ages, but also already in the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, a forgery from the middle of the 9th century, the text of an extensive document is transmitted in which Emperor Constantine gives Pope Silvester I the primacy over all churches as well as a number of imperial rights and possessions. It was above all dominion over Rome and the western half of the Roman Empire, but also imperial …

[German Version] (real name: Wynfrith; c. 672/675, near Exeter [on the border between Anglo-Saxon and ¶ British England – Jun 5, 754, Dokkum, Friesland). Educated at Exeter and Nursling monasteries, where he was teacher at the monastery school, he decided at the age of 40 to go to the continent as a missionary. The first mission to the Frisians in 716 was unsuccessful owing to uncertain political …

[German Version] (Bruno von Egisheim, born 1002; pope Feb 12, 1049 – Apr 19, 1054). Court chaplain to Conrad II, then bishop of Toul (1026–1051), Leo was appointed pope in December of 1048 by Henry III. After election by the clergy and people of Rome, he was enthroned on Feb 12, 1049. In numerous synods, Leo urged the need for reforming the church (elimination of simony and concubinage). On his journeys in Italy, France, and Germany, he presided over many dedications of churches and translations o…

[German Version] (Dec 3, 741 – Mar 15, 752) made an alliance with the Franks, but also sought an accommodation with the Lombards and Byzantium (Constantinople). A Roman council in 743 dealt with disciplinary questions and matrimonial law; a synod in 745 condemned the heretics Aldebert and Clement. In 747 Zacharias wrote to Pippin, the mayor of the palace, regarding the Christian life of clergy and laity (M. Tangl, ed., MGH.Ep 1, 1916, 479–487); he gave Boniface advice on church discipline. Scholar…

[German Version] Some textual traditions of the Historia Hierosolymitanae expeditionis (probably contemporary with the events it describes) name an otherwise unknown canonicus Albertus Aquensis ecclesiae as its author. Books 1–6 describe the First Crusade, including the preliminary People's Crusade; books 7–11 recount the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem down to 1111. Book 12 briefly sketches events from 1…

[German Version] (714, Chasseneuil-du-Poitou near Poitiers – Jun 20, 840, near Ingelheim am Rhein). The third son of Charlemagne, Louis was appointed king of Aquitaine in 781 and coemperor in 813; he became sole emperor in 814. Initially he ruled energetically and decisively (Capitularies, reform of the rules for canons and monks with Benedict of Aniane). The ordinatio of 817 governing succession was intended to assure the unity of the empire: the younger sons were made subordinate to Lothar, the eldest. In 829, when Louis awarded a separate kingdom w…

[German Version] I. History – II. Carolingian Reforms (Church and Educational Reform) – III. Carolingian Art I. History This family, named, since the 12th century, after its most important representative, Charlemagne, stems from the Maas-Mosel region. The first known Carolingian was bishop Arnulf of Metz (died 640), venerated as a saint. His contemporary was Pippin the Elder (died 640), the majordomo of the king of Austrasia in 624/625. His daughter Begga married Arnulf's son, Ansegisel. The …

[German Version] (c. 1000 – Mar 16, 1072) was a member of the family of the count of Goseck. From 1032 on, he was cathedral provost in Halberstadt and was elevated to archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen in 1043 by Henry III (Hamburg, Bremen). He was responsible for the expansion of sovereign rule in his diocese. From 1062 to 1066, he was influential on imperial polic…

[German Version] Salomo III, abbot of Saint Gall Abbey and bishop of Constance (c. 860–919). Of noble descent, Salomo was placed in the abbey of Saint Gall as a child; there he and his brother Waldo (bishop of Freising from 883 to 906) were students of Notker Balbulus. In 890 King Arnulf of Carinthia made him bishop of Constance, an office previously held by his great-uncle Salomo I from 838/839 to 871 and his uncle Salomo II from 875 to 889. He had already been active in royal affairs under Charl…

[English Version] Salomo III., Abt in St. Gallen und Bf. von Konstanz (um 860–919), aus hochadeligem Geschlecht, wurde als Kind ins Kloster Sankt Gallen gegeben, wo er zus. mit seinem Bruder Waldo (883–906 Bf. von Freising) Schüler Notkers Balbulus war. 890 erhob ihn König Arnulf von Kärnten zum Bf. von Konstanz; dieses Amt hatten auch schon sein Großonkel Salomo I. von 838/39–871 und sein Onkel Salomo II. (875–889) bekleidet. Tätigkeiten in der Nähe des Königs übte er schon unter Karl III. seit 884 und …

[English Version] Zacharias, letzter griech. Papst 3.12.741 – 15.3.752, schloß einen Bund mit den Franken, suchte aber auch mit den Langobarden und mit Byzanz (Konstantinopel/Byzanz) einen Ausgleich. Das röm. Konzil 743 regelte disziplinäre Fragen und das Eherecht, auf der röm. Synode von 745 wurden die Häretiker Aldebert und Clemens verurteilt. 747 schrieb Z. an den Hausmeier Pippin über das christl. Leben von Klerus und Laien (M. Tangl [Hg.], MGH. Ep 1, 1916, 479–487), Bonifatius gab er Ratschläge …

[English Version] (1006/07 Ravenna – 22./23.2.1072 Faenza), als junger Mann Lehrer der freien Künste in Ravenna, um 1035 nach der Priesterweihe Mitglied und später (1043) Prior der Eremitengemeinschaft des hl. Romuald in Fonte Avellana (Umbrien). Er schrieb neben der Vita Romualdi (1041/42) und weiteren Heiligenviten sowie Regeln für seine Mönche v.a. zahlreiche Briefe (180 haben sich erhalten; sie waren im MA weit verbreitet) und Gelegenheitsschriften, 54 Predigten und zahlreiche Gedichte. Darin …

[German Version] (801 – Feb 3, 865). Educated in the monastery of Corbie, in 823 Ansgar came to Corvey in Saxony, where he directed the monastic school. From 825 to 831, he served as a missionary in Denmark and Sweden; in 831 he became a missionary bishop with his see at Hamburg (I). In 832 at Rome, along with Ebbo of Reims, he was named papal legate to the …

[German Version] ( Chlodwig; 466 – Nov 27, 511, Paris), Frankish king and the son of Childeric of Tournai. In 481 or 482, he succeeded his father as ruler of one of the Frankish kingdoms; in 486/487, he defeated the Roman “king” Syagrius, who ruled northern Gaul. The victory over the Alemanni (probably 496/497) is associated with the moment of Clovis's baptism: It is highly significant that Clovis was baptized as a Catholic by Bishop Remigius of Reims (probably at…

[German Version] in the Trebbia valley (Province of Piacenza), founded in 612 by the Irishman Columbanus the Younger in association with the royal house of Lombardy. Whether Bobbio was indeed, in 628, already exempt from answering to the bishops of Tortona and Piacenza and placed under the direct authority of the pope, is uncertain. From 643 onward, the Benedictine Rule (Benedict, Rule of Saint) played a role ¶ alongside Columbanus's way of life. The golden age of the monastery was in the 8th and 9th centuries; Abbot Wala (834–836) finally established the Regula Benedicti in Bobbio and …

[German Version] The migrant monk, first attested in 11th and 12th century sources (Vita of Otloh of St. Emmeram, c. 1070; Historia Welforum), is supposed to have established a cell (later named after him) in Altomünster (upper Bavaria) c. 740. Wilfried Hartmann Bibliography M. Huber, “Der heilige Alto und seine Klosterstiftung Altomünster,” in: Wissenschaftliche Festgabe zum 1200-jährigen Jubiläum des heiligen Korbinian, 1924, 209–244.

[German Version] (c. 1010 – Dec 4, 1075). Scion of an influential Swabian family, Anno was educated in the cathedral school at Bamberg, where he later taught; in 1046 he became court chaplain to the emperor Henry III, who made him archbishop of Cologne (1056–1075). After Henry's death, he sought to influence the policies of the regent, the empress Agnes. In 10…

[German Version] (925 – Oct 6, 965) was the youngest son of King Henry I. Reared by bishop Balderich of Utrecht, Bruno became chancellor at the court of his brother Otto the Great in 940 and archchaplain in 951. Election and consecration as archbishop of Cologne followed in 953; simultaneously, Otto I named him dux in the region of Lotharingia. His biographer …

[German Version] The so-called Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, forged letters of the popes from Clement I to Melchiades (311–314), constitute the most significant portion of the Pseudo-Isidorian corpus, “the most influential forgery of the Middle Ages” (Fuhrmann); the corpus also includes the false capitularies of Benedictus Levita, a falsifying version of the Collectio Hispana (the so-called Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis, found in Codex Vaticanus latinus 1341, from Autun [9th cent.]), and supposed capitularies of Bishop Angilram of Metz (died 791). The cre…

[German Version] (Nov 11, 1050, Goslar? – Aug 7, 1106, Liège). Henry was elected king as early as November 1053 and crowned in July 1054, but his mother Agnes first reigned on his behalf after the death of his father Henry III (Oct 5, 1056), and then, from 1062/1063, archbishops Anno II of Cologne and Adalbert of Bremen. Having come of age in 1065, Henry soon found himself in serious conflict with important princes. The attempt to regain royal holdings in Saxony and to secure them with castles adm…