Agobard

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Agobard of Lyon , also Agobardus, Agobert, Agobald and Agabo (* around 769 in Spain ; † June 6, 840 in the Saintonge ), was one of the most learned prelates of his time and Archbishop of Lyon from 816 to 840.

Agobard was one of the most important churchmen during the reign of Louis the Pious and participated in all important questions of the state and the church of his time. As the author of theological, philosophical and political writings, he was an important representative of the Carolingian Renaissance and one of the most decisive opponents of Judaism in the 9th century.

Agobard of Lyon , Archbishop of Lyon.

Life

Although Agobard is often mentioned in the source scriptures of his time, the knowledge about his life and work comes primarily from his own writings. Little is known about his family and youth, but the name of Agobard could have been of Franconian or Burgundian origin. According to the most frequent statements, he was born either in the year 769 or 779 in September or Spain . He came to France at a young age, where he is said to have lived in Narbonne for a while until he went to Lyon around 800 .

Church career

He was ordained a priest in Lyons around 804 and became choir bishop in 813 . After the death of Archbishop Leidrad von Lyon , he succeeded him in 816. As archbishop, Agobard continued the ecclesiastical reform policy begun by his predecessor in the spirit of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious and renewed scientific life in Lyon. He also took an active part in political and ecclesiastical issues of his time outside his diocese. In his writings, Agobard preached resolutely against the superstition in sorcery and the conjuring of the weather and against the judgments of God through fire and water. In addition, he rejected the synod of Frankfurt according to adoptianism and the worship of icons , but also the worship of saints and angels. As far as the relationship between state and church was concerned, he vehemently supported the position of his class and demanded the primacy of spiritual over secular violence, according to the principle: Whoever acts against the church sins against God. For Agobard, the Pope was only an authority in the church insofar as he was in harmony with the Frankish imperial church and this served as an organ. Agobard expressed these views both in his writings and in his speeches, such as B. at the Synod of Attigny in 822, at which Louis the Pious performed a public act of penance at the request of the clergy.

Anti-Jewish attitude

Agobard was one of the most decisive enemies of Judaism of his time and wrote several anti-Jewish writings between the years 822 and 830 . In it he denounced above all the pro-Jews policy prevailing at the court of Louis the Pious. As important commercial agents in the Carolingian Empire, the Jews received numerous privileges, including the right to domestic slave trade . They also had their own official, the so-called “Judenmeister” ( magister Judœorum ), who dealt solely with the concerns of the Jews. In addition, a Jewish-friendly party had come together at Ludwig's court under Empress Judith . a. the Jewish master Eberard and Rabanus Maurus counted. Agobard took decisive action against them and spoke out openly in favor of the enforcement of canonical laws. According to these, as under Merovingian rule, the Jews would have been restricted in their freedoms, whereby they would again have assumed a low social and legal position. This demand corresponded to the then common church doctrine and the opinion of a majority of the clergy of this time, who saw a danger for Christianity in the preferential treatment of the Jews.

In 827, the dispute over the favoring of the Jews reached its climax when Agobard baptized the escaped slave of a Lyons Jew and refused to extradite her. The Jews of the city then turned to the Jew master Eberard, while Agobard sought support from the ecclesiastical party at court, whose most prominent representatives were Wala , Abbot of Corvey , and Hilduin , Abbot of Saint-Denis . Finally the case was presented to the emperor, who as a result granted letters of protection (indiculi) to the Jews of Lyons, while Agobard was ordered under threat of punishment to stop his anti-Jewish sermons. This ignored this order, whereupon Eberard had to send two commissioners to Lyon. Agobard then sent letters to the bishops of the empire in which he asked them to stand up before the emperor against the Jews. Finally, in 829, he even held a council in Lyon, as a result of which a synodal letter (“De judaïcis superstitionibus”) was sent to the emperor to convince him of the sinfulness and dangerousness of favoring the Jews. Ultimately, however, all of his efforts in this matter proved unsuccessful.

Political activity

Like many of the clergymen of his time, Agobard was also a representative of the religiously charged idea of ​​imperial unity, which was based on the idea that there was only one God, only one faith, only one church, i.e. only one empire and one head of the empire. Accordingly, he stood up for the ordinatio imperii of 817, according to which Ludwig's firstborn son Lothar I was the sole successor of his father. When Judith, Ludwig's second wife, succeeded in changing this hereditary rule according to old Franconian laws in favor of her own son Karl , Agobard sided with the Reich Unity Party and thus on the side of Lothar and against Ludwig the Pious.

It is not known whether he was already involved in the 830 uprising. It is certain, however, that during Ludwig's disempowerment in 833, along with Archbishop Ebo of Reims, he played a major role in Ludwig's exile to the Saint-Médard monastery in Soissons . When Ludwig came back to power in 834, Agobard had to flee to Italy together with Lothar and was officially removed from office in 835 at the Council of Thionville . Amalarius held this position for two years until he was charged with heresy . In the meantime, Agobard had reconciled with the emperor and received his bishop's seat back in 837. Agobard accompanied Louis the Pious, probably in 839, on his procession to Aquitaine and after the emperor's departure remained in the suite of Charles the Bald, where he died in the Saintonge on June 6, 840.

Agobard's aftermath and honor

“The aftereffect of his work in the MA was small; the 19th century saw him as a representative of religious rationalism (see Theological Rationalism ), but also made him a forerunner of the reformers of the 14th-16th centuries . Century (see Reformation ). His attitude towards the Jews has remained highly controversial up to the present day. "

- Egon Boshof

In Lyon, Agobard is venerated as a saint . His life story was published by the Bollandists (see Acta Sanctorum ), although his canonization is controversial. St. Agobard's feast day is June 6th .

Agobard was the first owner of the Codex Agobardinus , therefore named after him , a collection of Tertullian's works from the 9th century . Agobard donated it to Saint Stephen's Cathedral in Lyon, where it remained until the mid-16th century.

Agobard's writings (excerpt)

Agobard's writings were believed lost until Papirius Masson accidentally rediscovered a manuscript of his writings at a bookseller in Lyon. The manuscript was published by him in 1605 and after his death became the property of the library of the French king. Since Masson's edition contained some errors, Étienne Baluze published a corrected edition in 1666 based on the original manuscript, to which he also added his own notes.

Agobard's typefaces stand out due to their clear, content-based arrangement, their clear and lively expression and their correct Latin, thus identifying Agobard as one of the best stylists of his time. They also testify to his convictions, his varied education and his well-readiness in the scriptures and the church law of the time. His complete work, which consists of a number of occasional writings with various contents, is in the service of Christianity and its standardization and defense. In this sense, his anti-Jewish as well as his theological, enlightenment and political work can be understood.

Writings against superstition and theological content

  • De modo regiminis ecclesiastici (Pastoral Letter, published at the beginning of his work as Archbishop of Lyon)
  • De dispensatione rerum ecclesiasticarum, de iure et privilegio sacerdotii (Scripture to defend the claims of the clergy)
  • "On Hail and Thunder" (English translation of a text against weather incantation by WJ Lewis)
  • "On the Deception of Certain Signs" (English translation of a text against the superstition in obsession by WJ Lewis)

Anti-jewish writings

  • Epistola ad proceres Palatii Walam et Hilduin (missive to the abbot Wala and Hilduin, probably after 826)
  • Consultatio ad Adalhardem, Walam et Helisachar (writing to Adalhard, Wala and Helisachar, probably after 826; English translation "On the Baptism of Slaves Belonging to Jews" by WL North)
  • Ad Nibridium (letter to Bishop Nibridius of Narbonne, probably before 829)
  • De Insolentia Judœorum ("From the presumption of the Jews", to Ludwig the Pious, probably 829; English translation "On the Insolence of the Jews" by WL North)
  • De judaïcis superstitionibus ("On the superstition of the Jews", written by Agobard, Bishop Bernhard von Brienne and Bishop Eaof von Châlons; Synodal letter from 829)

Political Writings

  • Liber adversus legem Gundobadi (text to repeal the Burgundian people's law in favor of a uniform imperial law)
  • Epistola flebilis (writing from 833 to Louis the Pious regarding the retention of the ordinatio imperii )
  • De comparatione utriusque regiminis
  • Liber apologeticus (pamphlet in defense of his actions against Louis the pious)

swell

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Theodor Sickel:  Agobard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 140.
  2. ^ A b c Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz:  Agobard, Archbishop of Lyon. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 1, Bautz, Hamm 1975. 2nd, unchanged edition Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-013-1 , Sp. 56-57.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  3. ↑ a b Agobard . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 1 : A-Androphagi . London 1910, p. 380 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  4. ↑ sources-chretiennes.mom.fr
  5. ↑ a b c d Theodor Sickel:  Agobard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 141.
  6. ↑ Jan Dhondt: The early Middle Ages . In: Fischer Weltgeschichte , Volume 10. Frankfurt a. M. / Hamburg 1968, p. 307.
  7. ↑ Charles Verlinden : Was Medieval Slavery a Significant Demographic Factor? In: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 66. Heft 2 (1979), pp. 153–173, here p. 161.
  8. ^ Heinrich Graetz: History of the Jews from the oldest times to the present , Volume 5, Leipzig 1909, pp. 231-240 .
  9. ^ Theodor Sickel:  Agobard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 141 f.
  10. ^ Egon Boshof: Agobard v. Lyon . In: LEMA , Volume 1. Artemis, Munich / Zurich 1980, p. 216.
  11. ↑ According to Alexander Chalmers [Ed.]: The General Biographical Dictionary , Volume 1. London 1812, p. 228 the first publication date was 1603 and not 1605 as in the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1911.
  12. ^ Egon Boshof: Agobard v. Lyon . In: LEMA , Volume 1. Artemis, Munich / Zurich 1980, p. 216. Theodor Sickel:  Agobard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 140.
  13. ↑ For the chronological sequence of anti-Jewish writings see footnote 21. In: Heinrich Graetz: History of the Jews from the oldest times to the present , Volume 5, Leipzig 1909, p. 235.
  14. ^ Theodor Sickel:  Agobard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 142.
predecessor Office successor
Leidrad Archbishop of Lyon
816–840 		Amolone
personal data
SURNAME Agobard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Agobardus; Agobert; Agobald; Agabo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Archbishop of Lyon
DATE OF BIRTH at 769
PLACE OF BIRTH Septimania or Spain
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 840
Place of death Saintonge , Frankish Empire