Hincmar

Saint Hincmar
Archbishop of Reims
Representation of Hincmar on a stained glass window in the Saint-Remi basilica of Reims.
Archdiocese	Reims
In office	845-882
Predecessor	Ebbo
Successor	Fulk the Venerable
Orders
Ordination	845 by Council of Beauvais
Personal details
Born	806
Died	21 December 882
Buried	Basilica of Saint-Remi
Sainthood
Feast day	21 December 5 March
Venerated in	Catholic Church (Benedictines)
Title as Saint	Archbishop, Monk

For Hincmar's nephew and namesake, seeHincmar of Laon.

Hincmar(/ˈhɪŋkmɑːr/;French:[ɛ̃kmaʁ];Latin:Hincmarus;806 – 21 December 882),archbishop of Reims,was a Frankish jurist and theologian, as well as the friend, advisor and propagandistofCharles the Bald.He belonged to a noble family of northernFrancia.

Biography

Early life

Hincmar was born in 806 to a distinguished family of the West Franks. Destined to the monastic life, he was brought up atSaint-Denisunder the direction of the abbotHilduin(died 844), who, when appointed court chaplain in 822, brought him to the court of the emperorLouis the Pious.There he became acquainted with the political as well as the ecclesiastical administration of the empire. When Hilduin was disgraced in 830 for having joined the party ofLothair I,Hincmar accompanied him into exile atCorveyinSaxony.Hincmar used his influence with the emperor on behalf of the banished abbot, and not without success: for he stood in high favour with Louis the Pious, having always been a faithful and loyal adherent. He returned with Hilduin to Saint-Denis when the abbot was reconciled with the emperor and remained faithful to the Louis during his struggle with his sons.

840–877: reign of Charles the Bald

After the death of Louis the Pious (840) Hincmar supportedCharles the Bald(seeCapitularies of Charles the Bald), and received from him the abbacies of Nôtre-Dame atCompiègneandSaint-Germer-de-Fly.

Archbishop of Reims (845)

Archbishop Ebbohad been deposed in 835 at thesynod of Thionville(Diedenhofen) for having broken his oath of fidelity to the emperor Louis, whom he had deserted to join the party of Lothair. After the death of Louis, Ebbo succeeded in regaining possession of his see for some years (840-844), but in 844Pope Sergius IIconfirmed his deposition. In 845 Hincmar obtained through the king's support the archbishopric of Reims, and this choice was confirmed at the Synod of Beauvais (April 845). He was consecrated archbishop on 3 May 845; in 847Pope Leo IVsent him thepallium.

One of the first cares of the new prelate was the restitution to his metropolitan see of the domains that had been alienated under Ebbo and given asbeneficesto laymen. From the beginning of his episcopate Hincmar was in constant conflict with the clerks who had been ordained by Ebbo during his reappearance. These clerks, whose ordination was regarded as invalid by Hincmar and his adherents, were condemned in 853 at theCouncil of Soissons,and the decisions of that council were confirmed in 855 byPope Benedict III.

This conflict, however, bred an antagonism of which Hincmar was later to feel the effects. During the next thirty years the archbishop of Reims played a very prominent part in church and state. His authoritative and energetic will inspired, and in great measure directed, the policy of theWest Frankish kingdomuntil his death.

As a participant in government and court ceremony and an aggressive advocate ofecclesiastical privilege,Hincmar took an active part in all the great political and religious affairs of his time, and was especially energetic in defending and extending the rights of the church and of the metropolitans in general, and of his own metropolitan of the church of Reims in particular. In the resulting conflicts, in which his personal interest was in question, he displayed great activity and a wide knowledge ofcanon law,but was not so scrupulous that he would not resort to disingenuous interpretation of texts.

Gottschalk and predestinarianism

His first encounter was withGottschalk,whosepredestinariandoctrines claimed to be modelled on those ofSt Augustine.Hincmar placed himself at the head of the party that regarded Gottschalk's doctrines as heretical, and succeeded in procuring the arrest and imprisonment of his adversary (849). For a part at least of his doctrines Gottschalk found ardent defenders, such asLupus of Ferrières,Prudentius of Troyes,the deaconFlorus,andAmolo of Lyons.Through the energy and activity of Hincmar the theories of Gottschalk were condemned at the secondcouncil of Quierzy(853) andValence(855), and the decisions of these two synods were confirmed at the synods of Langres and Savonnières, near Toul (859).

To refute the predestinarian heresy, Hincmar composed hisDe praedestinatione Dei et libero arbitrio,and against certain propositions advanced by Gottschalk on the Trinity he wrote a treatise calledDe una et non trina deitate.Gottschalk died in prison in 868.

Lothar II of Lorraine

The question of the divorce ofLothair II,king of Lorraine (r. 855–869), who had repudiated his wifeTheutbergato marry his concubine Waldrada, engaged Hincmar's literary activities in another direction. At the request of a number of great personages in Lorraine he composed in 860 hisDe divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae,in which he vigorously attacked, both from the moral and the legal standpoints, the condemnation pronounced against the queen by theSynod of Aix-la-Chapelle(February 860).

Hincmar energetically supported the policy ofCharles the Baldin Lorraine, less perhaps from devotion to the king's interests than from a desire to see the whole of theecclesiastical provinceof Reims united under the authority of a single, sympathetic sovereign, and in 869 it was he who consecrated Charles atMetzas king of Lorraine.

Episcopal conflicts

In the middle of the ninth century there appeared in Gaul the collection of 'false decretals' commonly known as thePseudo-Isidorian Decretals.The exact date and the circumstances of the composition of the collection are still an open question, but it is certain that Hincmar was one of the first to know of their existence, and apparently he was not aware that the documents were forged. The importance assigned by these decretals to the bishops and theprovincial councils,as well as to the direct intervention of theHoly See,tended to curtail the rights of the metropolitans.

Rothad, bishop of Soissons,one of the most active members of the party in favour of the pseudo-Isidorian theories, immediately came into collision with his archbishop. Deposed in 863 at the council of Soissons that was presided over by Hincmar, Rothad appealed to Rome.Pope Nicholas I,supported him zealously, and in 865, in spite of the protests of the archbishop of Reims,Arsenius, bishop of Orteandlegate of the Holy See,was instructed to restore Rothad to his episcopal see.

Hincmar experienced another check when he endeavoured to prevent Wulfad, one of the deposed clerics ordained by Ebbo, from obtaining thearchbishopric of Bourgeswith the support ofCharles the Bald.After a synod held at Soissons,Pope Nicholas Ipronounced himself in favour of the deposed clerics, and Hincmar was constrained to submit (866).

He was more successful in his contest with his nephewHincmar, bishop of Laon,who was at first supported both by the king and by his uncle, the archbishop of Reims, but soon quarrelled with both. Hincmar of Laon refused to recognize the authority of his metropolitan, and entered into an open struggle with his uncle, who exposed his errors in a treatise calledOpusculum LV capitulorum,and procured his condemnation and deposition at theSynod of Douzy(871). The bishop of Laon was sent into exile, probably toAquitaine,where his eyes were put out by order ofCount Boso.Pope Adrianprotested against his deposition, but it was confirmed in 876 byPope John VIII,and it was not until 878, at the council of Troyes, that the unfortunate prelate was reconciled with the Church.

A serious conflict arose between archbishop Hincmar on the one side and Charles and the pope on the other in 876, when Pope John VIII, at the king's request, entrustedAnsegisus, archbishop of Sens,with the primacy of the Gauls and of Germany, and created himvicar apostolic.In Hincmar's eyes this was an encroachment on the jurisdiction of the archbishops, and it was against this primacy that he directed his treatiseDe iure metropolitanorum.At the same time he wrote a life ofSt Remigius,in which he endeavoured by audacious falsifications to prove the supremacy of the church of Reims over the other churches. Charles the Bald, however, upheld the rights of Ansegisus at thesynod of Ponthion.

877–882: reigns of Louis the Stammerer, Louis III and Carloman

Relief from Hincmar's tomb, destroyed in 1793.

Although Hincmar had been very hostile to Charles' expedition into Italy, he figured among his testamentary executors and helped to secure the submission of the nobles toLouis the Stammerer,whom he crowned atCompiègne(December 8, 877). During the reign of Louis, Hincmar played an obscure part. He supported the accession ofLouis IIIandCarloman,but had a dispute with Louis, who wished to install a candidate in the episcopal see of Beauvais without the archbishop's assent.

To Carloman, on his accession in 882, Hincmar addressed hisDe ordine palatii,partly based on a treatise (now lost) byAdalard,abbot of Corbie(c. 814), in which he set forth his system of government and his opinion of the duties of a sovereign, a subject he had already touched in hisDe regis persona et regio ministerio,dedicated to Charles the Bald at an unknown date, and in hisInstructio ad Ludovicum regem,addressed to Louis the Stammerer on his accession in 877. In the autumn of 882 an irruption of theNormansforced the old archbishop to take refuge atÉpernay,where he died on 21 December 882.

Works

Hincmar was a prolific writer. Besides the works already mentioned, he was the author of several theological tracts; of theDe villa Noviliaco,concerning the claiming of a domain of his church; and he continued from 861 theAnnales Bertiniani,of which the first part was written byPrudentius, bishop of Troyes,the best source for the history of Charles the Bald. He also wrote a great number of letters, some of which are extant, and others embodied in the chronicles ofFlodoard.

Hincmar's works, which are the principal source for the history of his life, were collected byJacques Sirmond(Paris, 1645), and reprinted byMigne,Patrol. Latina,vol. cxxv and cxxvi. See alsoCarl von Noorden,Hinkmar, Erzbischof von Reims(Bonn, 1863), and, especially,Heinrich Schrörs',Hinkmar, Erzbischof von Reims(Freiburg im Breisgau, 1884). For Hincmar's political and ecclesiastical theories see preface toMaurice Prou's edition of theDe ordine palatii(Paris, 1885), and the abbéÉmile Lesne,La hiérarchie épiscopale en Gaule et en Germanie(Paris, 1905).

Hincmar may be the author of the anonymousGesta Dagoberti,a biography ofDagobert Iwritten in the early 830s.

In one of his letters Hincmar recommended that a copy ofGregory the Great's work calledPastoral Careshould be given together with theBook of Canonsinto the hands of bishops before thealtarat theirconsecration(Schaff).

Veneration

Hincmar is venerated inCatholic Church:

• 21 December – main date, (death anniversary),
• 5 March – commemoration inBenedictine Ordercalendar.

Bibliography

• De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae

Translations

• Rachel Stone and Charles West, tr.,The Divorce of King Lothar and Queen Theutberga: Hincmar of Rheims's De Divortio(Manchester, 2016)
• Throop, Priscilla, trans.,Hincmar of Rheims: On Kingship, Divorce, Virtues and Vices(Charlotte, VT: MedievalMS, 2014) an English translation ofDe regis persona et regio ministerio, ad Carolum Calvum regem;De cavendis vitiis et virtutibus exercendis, ad Carolum Calvum regem;De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae;Ad proceres regni, pro institutione Carlomanni regis, et de ordine palatii.

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911). "Hincmar".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 477–478.
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Hincmar (1)".Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.

Further reading

• Rachel Stone and Charles West, ed.,Hincmar of Rheims: Life and Work(Manchester, 2015)
• Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. 2020.The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty,Chapter 6. Penguin Randomhouse.

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia
• Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Latina with analytical indexes
• Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz (1990). "Hinkmar, Erzbischof von Reims". In Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm (ed.).Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL)(in German). Vol. 2. Hamm: Bautz. cols. 882–885.ISBN3-88309-032-8.
• THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HINCMAR (806-882) AD ARCHBISHOP OF RHEIMS BY REV. JAMES C. PRICHARD (btm format)