Bernold of Constance (c. 1054–

Schaffhausen Schaffhausen (; ; ; ; ), historically known in English as Shaffhouse, is a list of towns in Switzerland, town with historic roots, a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in northern Switzerland, and the capital of the canton of Schaffh ...

, September 16, 1100) was a chronicler and writer of tracts, and a defender of the Church reforms of

Pope Gregory VII Pope Gregory VII (; 1015 – 25 May 1085), born Hildebrand of Sovana (), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 22 April 1073 to his death in 1085. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church. One of the great ...

Life

He was educated at

Constance Constance may refer to: Places * Constance, Kentucky, United States, an unincorporated community * Constance, Minnesota, United States, an unincorporated community * Mount Constance, Washington State, United States * Lake Constance (disambiguat ...

under the renowned teacher

Bernard of Constance Bernard (''Bernhard'') is a French and West Germanic masculine given name. It has West Germanic origin and is also a surname. The name is attested from at least the 9th century. West Germanic ''Bernhard'' is composed from the two elements ''bern ...

. He attended the Lenten Synod of Rome, in 1079, at which Berengarius of Tours retracted his errors. Remaining in Italy till 1084, he likely attended the Council of Piacenza, on the proceedings of which he is the main authority. From his writings comes the well known statement that ambassadors of the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I appeared at Piacenza to drum support for the military campaigns against the Seljuq Turks. This possibly led to the

First Crusade The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the Middle Ages. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Muslim conquest ...

, the matter however remains unclear. Once more at Constance, he attended the ordination of bishop Gebhard and was ordained priest himself by the papal legate. In 1086 he went with Bishop Gebhard as counsellors to Herman, contender for the Imperial crown, at the Battle of Pleichfeld. About the same time, he entered first the Benedictine Abbey of St Blasien in the

Black Forest The Black Forest ( ) is a large forested mountain range in the States of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is th ...

and then, in 1091, the Abbey of All Saints nearby in Schaffhausen, where he died.

Works

He wrote seventeen surviving tracts which are mostly

apologetics Apologetics (from Greek ) is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their beliefs against critics and recommended their f ...

for the pope's policy, defences of papal supremacy or vindications of men who advocated or enforced it in Germany. Chief among these are: ''De prohibendâ sacerdotum incontinentiâ'' (against married clergy); ''De damnatione schismaticorum'' and ''Apologeticus super excommunicationem Gregorii VII'' (justifying

excommunication Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to deprive, suspend, or limit membership in a religious community or to restrict certain rights within it, in particular those of being in Koinonia, communion with other members o ...

of schismatics and of

Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV (; 11 November 1050 – 7 August 1106) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1084 to 1105, King of Germany from 1054 to 1105, King of Italy and List of kings of Burgundy, Burgundy from 1056 to 1105, and Duke of Bavaria from 1052 to 1054. He was t ...

and his partisans). Of broader interest is Bernold's chronicle, ''Chronicon,'' the latter part of which is a terse record of contemporary events by a knowing and intelligent observer in the extreme Papal camp. The chronicle covers the years AD 1054-1000, with the earlier years being composed of brief summaries until the AD 1070’s, the remaining yearly annals are much longer and expansive. The chronicle mostly focuses on Papal court politics and the rivalry with the German clergy/nobility. Important current events like warfare, famines and deaths of public figures are also briefly recounted. Bernold was the author of ''Micrologus de ecclesiasticis observationibus'' (c. 1085), a lengthy commentary on the papal liturgy that became an important medieval liturgical treatise. Thanks to him, the German church was provided with a fairly common

sacramentary In the Western Christianity, Western Church of the Early Middle Ages, Early and High Middle Ages, a sacramentary was a book used for Christian liturgy, liturgical services and the Mass (liturgy), mass by a bishop or Priest#Christianity, priest. Sa ...

throughout the Empire. The form of the mass given in ''Micrologus'' was established for

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

, too, about 1100, by order of the local bishops.

References

Sources

External links

''Catholic Encyclopedia'':
Bernold of Constance {{DEFAULTSORT:Bernold of Constance 1050s births 1100 deaths Chroniclers from the Holy Roman Empire 11th-century German historians 11th-century Roman Catholic priests German Benedictines 11th-century Christian monks 11th-century writers in Latin People from Schaffhausen