Hildebert of Lavardin ( * 1056 - † 1133 ) Archbishop of Tours

 

Hildebert of Lavardin ( * 1056 - † 1133 )

 

Archbishop of Tours

 

Hildebertus Cenomannensis, Hildebertus de Lavertino, Hildebert of Lavardin. Hildebert, one of the most distinguished Latin poets of the entire Middle Ages, saw the light of the world at the castle of Lavardin near Montoire-sur-Loire. His father, also called Hildebert, was the servant of Solomon of Lavardin, and his mother bore the name of Beresindis. Hildebert was made a student of Berengar of Tours, to whom he composed an epitaph; Unfortunately nothing is reported to us about Hildebert's literary career. He appears first (after 1085) as a scholar of the cathedral school of Le Mans; In 1091, he was promoted to Archidiakonus by Bishop Hoël, and after his death (July 1096), he was elected by the bishops of Le Mans in an ambivalent election. The lord of Le Mans, Élie de la Flèche, agreed, the feudal lord, William the Red of England, rejected them; It was not until Christmas that the consecration could take place. When, three years later, the king came to Le Mans after the second feud against Élie de la Flèche, he led Hildebert to England in a kind of captivity, because the bishop refused to settle the towers of his cathedral The king claimed that his troops had been shot. The death of William (August 2, 1100) gave Hildebert freedom. He used it for a trip to Rome, asked for his removal from Paschal II, but returned home with rich resources for the expansion of his cathedral (Pentecost, 1101).

 

Kupferstich des 18. Jh.

 

A fictitious representation of the frontispiece of issue 1708

In 1112 Hildebert was imprisoned in Nogent-le-Rotrou by Hubert, Truchess of Count Rotrou du Perche, and held in custody until March 1113. In 1116, in Le Mans, just as Hildebert took his second trip to Rome, Henry of Lausanne, asked for permission to preach in the diocese, and took the opportunity to stir it up against the absent bishop. When Hildebert returned for Pentecost, the fanatical sectarian escaped from the city to Saint-Calais and soon from the Sprengel, but the prelate had long to do until the waves which had excited him had softened.

 

On 25 April 1120, Hildebert experienced the pleasure of conjoining the essentially completed cathedral; In 1123 he traveled a third time to Rome to Calixt II, and in all likelihood lived according to the Laterankonzile of this year. Certainly his presence at the Council of Chartres in 1124. After the death of Gislebert of Tours, he was unanimously elected successor by the clergy and the people of the Archbishopric. For a long time he hesitated whether he should accept the election; An order of the pope and the recognition of the King of France put an end to his wavering. Even these last years of Hildebert were not without disturbances; They brought him into conflict with the king, who claimed the right to forgive the dignities of the parish; With the bishop of Dol, who raised claims on the Metropolitan dignity over the Breteno dioceses. In the Roman schism of 1130, Hildebert assumed a position to be awaited; In February he consecrated a chapel of the convent of Redon; On the eighteenth of December, he went to Tours, seventy-seven years old. See Hildebert's life Dieudonné, Hildebert de Lavardin, évèque du Mans, archévèque de Tours (1056 to 1133). Sa vie, ses lettres. Paris 1898.

 

From Hildebert's poetic works, we have only one complete (unfortunately, complete) edition, which was published by Beaugendre (1708), which was re-edited by Bourassé in 1854 (Migne EP, p. 171); Both editors have given Hildebert things which the author has never written without justification and proof, and often without the attempt of such a man. This led Hauréau to his exemplary investigations: Les Mélanges Poëtiques d'Hildebert de Lavardin, Paris, 1882. Only a few disappearing under Hildebert's lyric poems can be counted among the hymns (in a broad sense). This little is found in Anal. Hymn L, 408-422. If we have little in Hymns from Hildebert, then only a few whole books of hymns and poems will weigh up this. If he had only had the Oratio ad ss. Trinitatem, a poem with its theological depth in the first part and the depth of feeling in the last sections would suffice to count him forever to the best hymnos of all tongues. A German translation can be found in my book: The Church of the Latins in their Songs, Kempten, 1908, p. 86.

 

(Guido Maria Dreves, Clemens Blume, A Thousand Thousand Latin Hymn-poetry, Part One,