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[German Version] (483 – 577 or 583) founded several Irish monasteries and was abbot of Clonfert (County Galway). He is known to us from the legendary account of a seven-year voyage of Brendan and his companions to a paradisal island in the Atlantic ( Navigatio S. Brendani), written between the 7th and 10th centuries. The work relates more closely to the lives of the desert fathers and Old Irish seafaring literature than to Irish hagiography. It draws on classical …

[German Version] I. University 1. The University of Tübingen was founded in 1477 by count Eberhard the Bearded, during what is known as the “second foundation wave” of German universities. It was the university of the southern part of Württemberg, at that time divided into two. It received the papal privilege in 1476, and imperial confirmation in 1484. For the material support of the professorial chairs, the count devoted eight of the ten regular canonries, and two-thirds of the income of the Sindel…

[German Version] In German, especially in Protestantism, this term (from Lat. devotio) is still used today only in connection with the Roman ritual of devotio and the late medieval devotio moderna movement. In pre-Christian usage, devotio referred to the dedication of the will to the gods, humans, and laws. In Christian usage, its meaning was restricted to the dedication to God associated with obedience and humility. Thomas Aquinas treated devotion along with prayer as interior actus religionis, from which external actions proceed ( Summa Theologiae 2–2 q. 82). In modern usage,…

[German Version] (Giovanni Fidanza; c. 1217, Bagno-regio [south of Orvieto] – Jul 15, 1274, Lyon) I. Life – II. Work – III. Influence I. Life Most of the dates for Bonaventura's life prior to 1257 are uncertain. After studying in the Paris faculty of arts, the son of Giovanni and Ritella Fidanza joined the Franciscans around 1243, who gave him the name Bonaventura. He began studying under Alexander of Hales, earning his Baccalaureus biblicus in 1248 and lecturing on the Sentences in 1250–52. In 1253 he received the licentiate and began teachi…

[German Version] The German term Mentalität has been used since the 1970s in the scientific language of German historians. It is formed from the French mentalité, adopted in the 18th century from the English “mentality,” which was derived in 17th-century philosophical language from the adjective “mental.” In France, mentalité entered common language during the 19th century. It became popular around 1900 in political language (Dreyfus affair) and in the school of the sociologist E. Durkheim. Through the historians Lucien Febvre (1878–1956) and…

[German Version] The word legend (from Middle Lat. legenda [ sc. vita or acta]) originally denoted a text to be read during worship or within a monastic community, especially at mealtime, in walkways set aside for reading, or in the chapter house. The subject matter was the life and deeds of one or more saints (Saints/Veneration ¶ of the saints: II). For the most part, the legend was regularly read in whole or in part on the festival of the particular saint. In conjunction with the functionalization of the cult of the saints, which had already begun i…

[German Version] One of the central demands of the Wittenberg and Swiss Reformation was thorough theological education of all future clergy. In Lutheran territories, Reformed theological faculties in ¶ the existing universities served this function, but initially in Reformed territories such institutions were largely lacking. Only three existing comprehensive universities intermittently offered Reformed instruction: Heidelberg from 1559 to 1578 and from 1583 to 1662, Marburg between 1605 and 1624 and again after 1653, Frank…

[German Version] I. The Term – II. Assessment and Study – III. Definition – IV. Characteristics – V. Early, High, and Late Middle Ages I. The Term French moyen âge has been used for a historical period since 1572, English Middle Age(s) since 1611 and Middle Time(s) since 1612. The German word Mittelalter had already been used by the Swiss historian Aegidius Tschudi ( mittel alters) in 1538, but it did not reappear in this sense (in contrast to “middle age”) until 1786; at the beginning of the 19th century, it finally prevailed over the more common 18th-century expressions mittlere Zeit(e…

[German Version] (c. 1185, Hales, England – Aug 21, 1245, Paris). After studying the arts and theology, Alexander taught in the Parisian theological faculty from the early 1220s, but maintained close relations with home. In 1229, he moved with the striking Parisian professors and students to Angers and brought forward their demands to the Roman Curia in 1230/1231. When …

[German Version] (Valdez; died c. 1205/1218). The scanty tradition concerning Waldo permits only a few safe statements about him. A baptismal name ( Petrus) is first mentioned in the second half of the 14th century. A prosperous citizen of Lyon, around 1176/1177 he appears to have been converted to an apostolic life by the legend of Alexius or biblical texts translated into the vernacular. Whether he was attracted primarily by the ideal of poverty or a desire to preach is disputed. After making provision for his wife …

[German Version] Academic degrees came into existence in the context of medieval education. Even before universities were established, teachers were generally given the title Magister; while the usual title in the stronghold of legal studies at Bologna was Doctor, which also was often applied to the teachers of the Early Church ( Doctores ecclesiae ). At the universities, which arose c. 1200, the master's degree was the highest degree granted by all the faculties, with a distinction between someone who was merely qualified to teach and a Magister actu regens (a professor engaged in …

[German Version] The mendicant orders are religious communities in the West in which not only do the individual members live without personal possessions, but the community itself also forgoes ownership of property and regular income (Poverty). They sustain themselves on what they get from simple work, contributions, and begging. The mendicant orders originated in the early 13th century in conjunction with the religious poverty movement: the Dominicans, a clerical order of priests engaged in preac…

[German Version] (Éon d'Étoile; died after 1148), possibly of noble birth, was a charismatic hermit and itinerant preacher of little education. After several years of preaching in Brittany and Gascony, where he attracted many followers, he was arraigned before the Council of Reims in 1148 and condemned to seclusion in the monastery of St. Denis in Paris. It is unclear what led him to assert that he was God's son, the future judge of the living and dead. Ulrich Köpf Bibliography J.C. Cassard, “Eon d'Étoile, ermite et hérésiarque breton,” MSHAB 57, 1980, 171–198.

[German Version] (1129/1130 – Aug 6, 1195, Braunschweig), duke of Saxony and Bavaria, son of the Guelph Henry X the Proud, and Gertrud, daughter of Emperor Lothar III, cousin of Frederick Barbarossa. His second marriage was with Mathilde, daughter of King Henry II of England. Henry the Lion was a ruler with great self-confidence and a pronounced drive toward power and possessions. Conquests in the Slavic northeast, territorial expansion, and the founding of dioceses (Oldenburg/Lübeck, Ratzeburg, S…

[German Version] 1. Those who belong to a convent (Lat. conventus), i.e. all the full members of a religious community at a specific location. 2. In the context of a particular monastic way of life, and especially among the mendicant orders, “conventuals” refers to that group or tendency within the order which continues to follow the “old observance” (usually in a previously mitigated form) in the midst of internal disputes over the proper observance of the rule, and which accordingly …

[German Version] (Gottfried of Clairvaux; c. 1114/20, Auxerre – after 1188, Hautecombe). As a student of Abelard, attracted to the Cistercians in ¶ 1140 by the Paris sermon of Bernard of Clairvaux, De conversione. He was a monk in Clairvaux, Bernard's secretary until his death in 1153, abbot of Igny from 1156 and of Clairvaux from 1162 to 1165. After his forced resignation, he was a monk in Cîteaux, abbot of Fossanova near Rome beginning in 1170 and of Hautecombe (Savoie) from 1176 to 1188. Gottfried collected Bernard's letters and material for his Vita prima, which he initiated and book…

[German Version] The Ambrosians are a religious community first mentioned in 1375 in a bull of Gregory XI; they are traced to three nobles from Milan. The monasteries they established lived independently according to the Augustinian rule (Augustine, Rule of) and followed the Ambrosian rite in worship; they were united by Eugene IV with other groups as the Congregatio fratrum S. Ambrosii ad nemus Mediolanensis in 1441. After varying fortunes – especially in the schism of monasteries which adopted the Roman rite, which associated in 1496 with the Apostolic Brothers as the Congregatio S. …

[German Version] (Fratres Pontis). Brotherhoods for building and maintaining bridges over rivers and the hospitals, chapels and cemeteries associated with them. Active from the 12th on into the 15th cen-turies, especially in southern France (Rhône valley); supposedly founded here by St. Bénézet (1184/ 85), to whom the bridge of Avignon is attributed. Ulrich Köpf Bibliography P. Péano, “Pontieri,” DIP VII, 1983, 85–92 idem, “Benedetto di Hermillon,” DIP I, 1974, 1359f.

[German Version] (died c. 617 [?]) is said to have lived as a hermit in the hill country between the Hunsrück and the Palatine Forest in the time of Bishop Magnerich of Trier (died after 587). The 10th-century calendar of Stavelot Abbey is the earliest evidence of cultic veneration of his grave at the site later named Sankt Wendel; its late Gothic hall church (consecrated in 1360) was built to enshrine his relics. Wendelin has been venerated since the late Middle Ages as the patron saint of herdsmen and cattle. Ulrich Köpf Bibliography A. Selzer, St. Wendelin, 1936, 21962 (Ger.).

[German Version] (602, Tarsus – Sep 19, 690, Canterbury [?]). When Wighard, who had been appointed to succeed Archbishop Deusdedit of Canterbury, died in Rome in 667, Abbot Hadrian of Hiridanum Abbey near Naples suggested the learned Greek monk Theodore of Tarsus; Pope Vitalinus consecrated him as archbishop in 668. He was living at the time in a community of Cilician monks in the Roman abbey of St. Anastasius ad Aquas Salvias (later Tre Fontane) on the southern edge of the city. There is no relia…