Gaudentius of Gniezno

The brothers Adalbert and Radim on pilgrimage; Monument in Libice

Radim , later Gaudentius (Czech Svatý Radim ; Polish Radzim Gaudenty ; * around 970 , † after 1000) was the first Archbishop of Gniezno . He came from the Bohemian family of the Slavnikids .

Life

Radim, whose year of birth is unknown, was an illegitimate son of Prince Slavník and half-brother of Adalbert , who later became the Bishop of Prague . In 989 he entered the Benedictine monastery of Santi Bonifacio e Alessio on the Aventine in Rome and took the name Gaudentius here . In 997 he accompanied Adalbert on his missionary trip to the pagan Pruzzen in the southern Baltic States . There he witnessed Adalbert's martyrdom and the translation to Gniezno . After his return to Rome, his report promoted the canonization of Adalbert; he was the most important source for the Adalbert vita of Johannes Canaparius .

Gaudentius joined a delegation from the Polish Duke Bolesław I Chrobry , who successfully tried to establish a metropolitan church for all of Poland with the Pope and Emperor . It is possible that he was listed as archiepiscopus S. Adalberti in a document issued in Rome in December 999, before the Archdiocese of Gniezno was formed .

The news remains vague that Gaudentius later excommunicated Bolesław I. Chrobry . According to Dušan Třeštík , the authorship of Adalbert's praise poem "Quatuor immensi" (O. Kralík) ascribed to him has no basis whatsoever.

The year of his death is unknown. Jan Długosz named the year 1006, but not until the 15th century. Thietmar von Merseburg did not mention his death, so Polish historians suspected a date of death after 1018.

swell

• Brun von Querfurt : Vita Sancti Adalberti (around 1008),
  • German: Lorenz Weinrich , Heiligenleben on German-Slavic history: Adalbert von Prag - Otto von Bamberg , 2005, pp. 70–117

literature

• Donald Attwater: Slovník svatých. Papyrus, Vimperk 1993, ISBN 80-85776-06-5 .
• Donald Attwater, Catherine Rachel John: The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth et al. 1993, ISBN 0-14-051312-4 .
• Jaroslav Kadlec (Red.): Bohemia Sancta. Životopisy českých světců a přátel Božích. 2nd Edition. Zvon, Praha 1989, ISBN 80-7113-032-X .
• Michal Lutovský, Zdeněk Petráň: Slavníkovci. Mýtus českého dějepisectví. 2nd Edition. Libri, Prague 2005, ISBN 80-7277-291-0 .
• Jaroslav V. Polc (Ed.): Svatý Vojtěch. Sborník k mileniu. Zvon, Prague 1997, ISBN 80-7113-193-8 .

Web links

• Publications about Gaudentius at Litdok East Central Europe / Herder Institute (Marburg)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bibliography

predecessor	Office	successor
---	Bishop of Gniezno 999 – approx. 1006 or 1020	Hippolytus