Ebo of Reims

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Ebo von Reims (also Ebbo ; * probably 778; † March 20, 851 in Hildesheim ) was Archbishop of Reims from 816 to 835 and from 840 to 841 and Bishop of Hildesheim from 845 to 851 .

Life

Origin and early career

According to the content of a diatribe, Ebo was the only son of a Saxon serf farmer working on a crown estate and milk brother of the future Emperor Ludwig the Pious . His mother's name was Himiltrudis. Ebo received his freedom from Charlemagne and was educated at the imperial court school in the Aachen royal palace as a classmate of Ludwig the Pious for a career in the church. Since he had been raised to a free ("liber"), but not to a noble one ("nobilis"), the biographer Ludwig the Pious, choir bishop Thegan of Trier , later mocked him by calling him a lowly peasant and slave, his ancestors Were goatherds.

Gifted, ambitious and energetic, Ebo rose quickly. He is said to have been abbot as early as 814 . He was sent to Louis the Pious in Aquitaine to assist him in the administration of his partial kingdom. Ludwig made him his librarian. As early as the autumn of 816, the now Emperor Louis the Pious appointed him Archbishop of Reims, as Wulfar's successor . This made him the only non-aristocratic bishop on both sides of the Rhine until the turn of the millennium.

Archbishop of Reims

Image of the Evangelist Matthew from the Carolingian Ebo Gospel (Reims, around 825).

In Reims, Ebo purposefully preserved and expanded the property, rights and privileges of his district , whereby the trust and friendship of the emperor served him. A number of churches and estates in the vicinity of Reims, which had previously been alienated from the monastery, came back into the possession of the archbishopric on imperial orders. To rebuild the crumbling cathedral, a predecessor of the famous Reims Cathedral , Ebo was given the city walls and gates of Reims and the usual work of his church for the Palatinate in Aachen was waived.

In 827 Ebo redesigned the Abbey of Montier-en-Der in the sense of the reform begun by Benedict von Aniane from a monastery of canons back into a Benedictine monastery . In order to ward off abuses, he wrote a compilation of the official duties of provosts , archdeacons , choir bishops and bishops , in which he specified and sharply delimited their position, rights and duties. After the Paris Synod of 829, which had spoken out against the confusion of the various books of penance in use , he commissioned his suffragan Bishop Halitgar of Cambrai to work out a new book of penance to put an end to the prevailing confusion. In 832 he established order in the monastery of St. Denis on behalf of Ludwig .

Ebo was vain and obsessive, and as a powerful ecclesiastical and imperial prince, he had no shortage of real and false followers and admirers. He was flattered by the homage to Archbishop Agobard of Lyon, who dedicated a theological treatise to him, and by the verses of Walahfrid Strabo , as was the praise poem in the gospel book from the Hautvillers monastery near Épernay , the so-called " Ebo Gospel Book ".

Nordic Mission

Ebo and Archbishop Agobard von Lyon were among the leaders of the religiously charged Reich Unity Party (one God, one church, one empire) and among those who persuaded Louis the Pious to revive the Christian mission north of the imperial borders. The time seemed right. The Danish Viking king Gudfred , a powerful opponent of Charlemagne , was murdered in 810, his nephew and successor Hemming had died in 812, and bitter wars of succession were waged over his successor. The conversion of the Danes to Christianity was of interest to the Franconian Empire , as it was hoped that Harald Klak, who had been fighting for supremacy in Denmark with the sons of Gudfred since 812, would secure his rule there and strengthen his vassal relationship to Ludwig. In order to receive the support of Emperor Ludwig, Harald Klak had already become his liege in Friesland in 814. Ebo's commitment to the Nordic mission was based less on zeal for faith than on ambition and full agreement with Ludwig's imperial policy.

After receiving the missionary mandate from the emperor and the approval of the Reichstag in Attigny in 822, on which Ludwig had carried out his public penance, Ebo traveled to Rome, where he received the missionary mandate for the north in 822 or 823 with a papal bull from Pope Paschalis I , without that the mission area was described in more detail. Ebo thus became mission vicar and mission legate of the Pope, following the example of Boniface . The Pope also urged Ebo to consult him on all questions of doubt, as had already been the case with Boniface.

In the summer of 823 Ebo undertook his first missionary trip to Denmark, accompanied by the bishops Halitgar von Cambrai and Willerich von Bremen . As a base and spiritual training center for the Danish mission, he founded a small prayer house, the " Cella Welana " (or Cella Wellana, also Cella Welanao ) in today's Münsterdorf in Holstein on the banks of the Stör in the protection of the Esseveldoburg castle (in or near Itzehoe ) ).

In the course of the next three years, albeit with long interruptions (e.g. his presence at the Reichstag in Compiègne in November 823), Ebo dedicated himself, whose appointment as legate was renewed by Pope Eugene II (824-827) was during long summer missions in Denmark. But he won neither Harald Klak nor any of the Danish greats for Christianity, and the bitter hereditary war between Harald Klak and the sons of Gudfred finally forced him to give up his missionary work.

The position of Harald Klaks, who had ruled in an uncertain co-reign with Gudred's son Horik I in Denmark since 821 , had become increasingly weaker. Ebo had brokered a new agreement between Harald and Horik in 825, but this was short-lived in view of the deep-seated enmity of the antagonists . The obvious partisanship of the Franks for Harald was not enough to appease the suspicions of Horik and the people who are mostly hostile to Christianity. In 826, at the invitation of Emperor Ludwig, Harald traveled to Ingelheim , where he was received with great pomp at an imperial assembly in the local imperial palace . On June 24th, he was baptized with his wife and son Gottfried in their entourage in St. Alban's Abbey near Mainz . Ludwig himself became Harald's godfather and enfeoffed him with the county of Rüstringen in northeast Friesland. On his return trip in 827, Harald accompanied the previous head of the Corvey monastery school , Ansgar , who was supposed to continue the Nordic mission there. Harald was expelled from Denmark for good in the same year; in fact, it is not even certain whether he ever set foot on Danish soil again. His baptism had neither ensured the spread of Christianity nor served the mission itself. He had to be content with sovereign rights in Friesland, where he made a name for himself through raids in the North Sea area.

The Danish mission was only resumed after 831 by Ansgar. Presumably in November 831 Ebo was present at the consecration of Ansgar as Archbishop of Hamburg . Ansgar became the new legate of Rome for the Nordic mission, and Ebo agreed with him that missionary work in Sweden should remain under his supervision and be directed by his nephew Gauzbert , while Ansgar took over the Danish mission.

Deposition of Louis the Pious

The years 831–833 brought a decisive turning point in Ebo's life: the friend and confidante of Emperor Ludwig became a bitter enemy who played a central and unworthy role in the emperor's disempowerment by his sons.

Ludwig had already arranged the succession among his three sons with the Ordinatio imperii in 817 . In order to preserve the unity of the empire, each should receive a partial kingdom, but nevertheless within a single large empire under the future emperor Lothar , the eldest of the sons. However, in 829 he overturned this regulation, which was almost unanimously supported by the greats of the empire, in favor of his son Charles the Bald, who was born in 823 from his second marriage . Soon after the birth of her son Karl (on June 13, 823), Empress Judith had sent a ring to Ebo in Denmark and asked him never to forget the youngest emperor's son in prayer. Ebo's position and influence, and his resolute advocacy of imperial unity, made them fear that he would oppose their plans to give Charles a territorial endowment and thus change the Ordinatio imperii of 817.

In fact, at the Paris Synod of 829, Ebo and other church princes spoke out against Ludwig's new inheritance plans. Nevertheless, Ebo did not yet support the first outrage of the three older emperor's sons in 830. It was not until 831 that he became part of Lothar and his brothers in their fight against their father.

The interference of Pope Gregory IV (827-844) in the inheritance dispute in favor of Lothar certainly played a role, as did Ebo's fears that the imperial unity, which was the basis of the Ordinatio imperii of 817 and its maintenance, was being demanded by the rebels at the same time his own influence on imperial politics would be in danger. As a representative of the ecclesiastical claims to rule, which had just developed thanks to Ludwig's government maxims, Ebo switched to the camp of the imperial opponents. His ousting from the imperial council, which was later attributed to serious crimes, may have given him additional motivation. Just a promise by Lothar to give him the Abbey of Saint-Vaast near Arras should not have been enough to let him leave Ludwig's side.

With merciless harshness and passionate spite, Ebo led the ecclesiastical assembly that brought the ecclesiastical sanctioning of the deposition judgment on November 13, 833 in the monastery of Saint-Médard near (today in) Soissons and imposed the humiliating public penalty on his former benefactor. As delegates to the imperial assembly held by Lothar in Compiègne in October , Ebo and Archbishop Agobard of Lyons accused the emperor of his alleged offenses, presented him with a "register of sins" and forced him to read out a previously drawn up confession of guilt, to put down his arms and to wear a penitential garment to renounce the world and declare oneself unworthy of the throne. The Empress Judith was banished to Tortona in Italy, her son Karl the Bald was transferred to the Prüm Monastery in strict custody . As a reward, Ebo received the rich Abbey of Saint-Vaast from Lothar.

Deposition and imprisonment

The battle of the sons for the empire that began after the emperor was overthrown brought about another turnaround. Louis the German and Pippin of Aquitaine allied against their brother Lothar and forced the release of their father, who was reinstated as emperor on March 1, 834 in St. Denis.

Ebo was not among those in St. Denis who asked forgiveness for their apostasy. It was hard to gout suffering, in the monastery of Saint-Basle fled in Reims, from there by ship on the Marne fled to Paris and had there in the hermitage hidden a monk. Emperor Ludwig had him captured by the bishops Rothad (Rothard) II of Soissons and Erchanrad of Paris and taken into custody in the Fulda monastery .

Ebo made another U-turn. At the Reichstag in Diedenhofen on February 2, 835, in the presence of the emperor and 43 bishops, he solemnly proclaimed the illegality of the events of 833. On February 28, 835, he participated in the renewed coronation of Ludwig in the cathedral of Metz and publicly and from the pulpit accused himself of error.

But just four days later, on March 4, 835, Ludwig appeared before the synod in Diedenhofen, chaired by Archbishop Drogo von Metz , as Ebo's prosecutor. Ebo accused him of crimes which he never admitted to, let alone committed; because of them he ousted him from the throne and excluded him from the ecclesiastical community; and he admitted in Metz himself that his conduct contradicted Soisson's ecclesiastical law. Ebo's self-defense - he pointed to the other bishops who were just as guilty as he - was both undignified and unsuccessful. In Diedenhofen and Metz, in order to avoid Ludwig's vengeance, he had gone too far in his self-accusation. When he saw that he could not save himself, the punishment should also apply to others. At his request, the congregation merely agreed that only clergy should judge him. Based on the decision of three judges chosen by him, Archbishop Aiulf (Saint Août) of Bourges and Bishops Modoin of Autun and Badurad of Paderborn , Ebo declared himself unworthy of his office in a document signed by him and agreed to the choice of his successor . After verbally repeating this declaration before Archbishop Nothon (Noto) of Arles and the Bishops Theoderich (Dietrich) of Cambrai and Fichard of Tournai and Noyon , the synod unanimously proclaimed Ebo's removal. The administration of the Archbishopric of Reims was entrusted to the Abbot Fulko of St. Rémi in Reims.

Ebo was handed over to the Fulda monastery for strict detention. In vain, through the mediation of Abbot Markward von Prüm , Abbot Hraban von Fulda turned to Karl the Kahlen, to Empress Judith and to Ludwig's half-brother, Archbishop Drogo von Metz . Only after Ludwig's death on June 20, 840 did Ebo regain freedom.

Return and renewed withdrawal

Ebo immediately made himself available to Lothar I, who was rushing from Italy and with whom he met in Worms . (Some sources say that he fled secretly from the Fulda monastery immediately after the old emperor's death, others that he traveled to Worms with Abbot Boso von Fleury .) He was rewarded with the restoration of the archbishopric dignity, the one meeting proclaimed bishops devoted to Lothar in Ingelheim at the end of August 840. On December 6, 840, Ebo entered Reims in the presence of Lothar. With the ordination of several clergymen , he emphasized that he only regarded his restitution, but not his removal from 835, as an act valid under canon law . Three suffragan bishops consecrated during his absence subsequently asked him for their confirmation.

But he could hardly hold his own for a year in Reims. Soon after Lothar's defeat at the Battle of Fontenoy on June 25, 841, Charles the Bald drove him from Reims. The administration of the archbishopric was transferred again to the abbot Fulko of St. Rémi and then to Bishop Nothon of Arles. When the brothers concluded peace in the Treaty of Verdun in 843, Ebo received no noteworthy support from Lothar and had to be content with the Stablo abbeys in Belgium and Bobbio in Italy, which Lothar provided him with.

Ebo's ambition remained unbroken. In agreement with Emperor Lothar, who related him to several embassies and to whom the renewed transfer of the Reims Archbishopric to a follower like Ebo had to appear advantageous, he demanded reconciliation from Pope Sergius II (844-847) in Rome in June 844 and as their outward sign is the pallium . Sergius refused and only granted him lay communion .

On April 18, 845, Hinkmar , a partisan and close advisor to Charles the Bald, was appointed Archbishop of Reims at the Synod of Beauvais , and the archbishopric's vacancy was thus over.

Diocese of Hildesheim

Shortly afterwards Ebo also fell out of favor with Lothar because he refused, with reference to his age, to go to Constantinople as the imperial envoy . He lost both of his abbeys and a property he had bought in Italy. This time he found refuge with King Ludwig the German . In 844 or 845 he was appointed Bishop of Hildesheim , perhaps on the intercession of Ansgar of Bremen and Hraban of Fulda, and probably with the tacit consent of the Pope.

Ebo, always looking for connections where there was a prospect of personal gain, never gave up hope of returning to Reims one more time. In agreement with Ludwig the German, Lothar, despite the previous quarrel, resumed Ebo's claims in order to embarrass Karl the Bald. Ebo had long been just a kind of pawn in the game of brotherly rivals. Pope Sergius II approved the convening of a synod in Trier in the summer of 846, which was to investigate the legitimacy of the election of Hinkmar as Archbishop of Reims. It remained without result, because Ebo did not want to submit to the court, which was under West Franconian influence, and the request to appear in person or to send authorized representatives. He also refused to appear at the synod in Paris towards the end of 846, which forbade him to enter the Reimser Sprengels and any contact with its relatives until he had legally presented himself and received his final judgment. Subsequent requests to the Pope were no longer heard, and a trip to western France was in vain.

Writing activity

Ebo's literary activity served the justification and self-glorification, as the two editions of his defense, the so-called Apologeticum Ebonis , show. Both sought to present his deposition in 835 as illegal and the restitution of 840 as lawful. He only made his confession of guilt by Diedenhofen in order to escape external pressure, not to secure his own rescue. No offense is expressly mentioned in it, for the sake of which he should have been deposed. The second edition, probably published in 842 or 843, combines the tone of hurt innocence with that of humble surrender to an allegedly undeserved fate. Ebo was also not afraid to spread obvious fakes. In Lothar's certificate of reinstatement of 840, he switched on his own ingredients, and the document that is supposed to express the joy of the Reims suffragan bishops at his return was his work. The same applies to an alleged document by Gregory IV, which declares the deposition of 835 inadequate and fully restores Ebo's archbishopric dignity, but on the other hand also wants to testify that Pope Ebo's return to Reims is desirable, but currently dangerous hold and therefore allow his work in another district. There is no doubt that this was intended to justify Ebo's transfer to Hildesheim.

However, Ebo is probably not, as has long been suspected, the author of the pseudoisidoric decretals . Albert Werminghoff doubted this as early as 1904 . Current research results by the Cologne medievalist Klaus Zechiel-Eckes suggest that the pseudoisidor forger was in the Abbey of Corbie or in the vicinity of its abbot Paschasius Radbertus .

death

Ebo died on March 20, 851. His successor in Hildesheim, Altfrid , who was later canonized , canceled the orders given by Ebo as invalid. In Reims his enemy Hinkmar asserted himself in a protracted dispute, which was only finally settled in 867, about the legality of the ordinations carried out by Ebo in 840 and 841.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ebo Gospels  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Helene Wieruszowski : The composition of the Gallic and Frankish episcopate up to the Treaty of Verdun (843) with special consideration of nationality and class. in: Bonner Jahrbücher Vol. 127 (1922) pp. 1–83, here p. 79 Note 1.
  2. ↑ This did not last very long, but later the Welna Minster emerged there and the Munsterdorf Consistory finally emerged from the Kaland there .
  3. ↑ In the secondary literature it says z. T., he was later handed over to Bishop Fréculf of Lisieux and finally to Abbot Boso of Fleury, with more stringent prison conditions.
  4. ^ New archive of the Society for Older German History XXV, 1900, p. 364 ff.
  5. ^ MGH Epistolae V, 1899, p. 82 ff.
  6. ↑ “ Your homeland is in all probability the district of Reims; Whether Ebo prepared it or only suggested its elaboration or finally whether it emerged from the circle of his followers, the clergy consecrated by him and opposed by Hinkmar, can hardly be decided with any certainty excluding any other possibility. "So A. Werminghoff in the article" Ebo "from page 242: Albert Werminghoff:  Ebbo . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 48, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, pp. 242-248.
  7. ↑ Klaus Zechiel-Eckes: On Pseudoisidor's Track. Or: An attempt to lift a thick veil , in: Wilfried Hartmann - Gerhard Schmitz (Ed.): Progress through forgeries? Origin, shape and effects of the pseudoisidoric forgeries (MGH Studies and Texts 31) Hannover 2002, pp. 1–28
predecessor Office successor
Wulfar / Wulfaire Archbishop of Reims
816–835 		Hinkmar
Rembert Bishop of Hildesheim
845–851 		Altfrid
personal data
SURNAME Ebo of Reims
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ebbo from Reims
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Archbishop of Reims
DATE OF BIRTH at 778
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 851
Place of death Hildesheim