Robert von Arbrissel

Robert von Arbrissel (French: Robert d'Arbrissel) (* around 1045 in Arbrissel in the diocese of Rennes ( Brittany ); † February 25, 1116 in the priory of Orsan im Berry ) was the founder of the Order of Fontevraud . He was also known as the "Apostle of Brittany".

Life

He was the son of a priest in Arbrissel. After his childhood he led the life of a wandering hermit until he took over his father's parish after his father's death.

In 1076 he supported the Bishop of Rennes , Sylvester de la Guerche, who came to his office through purchase of office . When he was deposed by Pope Gregory VII in 1078 , he had to flee to Paris , where he studied. In becoming aware of his origins as the son of a priest, he experienced a first conversion: repented of his practices of buying and selling ministry.

Then he was brought back to Rennes by the New Year's Eve reinstated in his office around 1088/89 , made archpriest and, in the spirit of the so-called Gregorian reforms, took a position against conjugal and marriage-like connections of priests ( Nicolaitism ) and the buying and selling of clergy Offices and ordinations ( simony ).

Having made numerous enemies as a result, he fled again after the bishop's death (1093). He studied in Angers at the local cathedral school, which was directed by the eminent Magister Marbod . He now led a life of strict asceticism .

In 1095 he was converted again and led a hermit existence in the Craon forest near his home. At the place of his establishment, La Roë (near Laval ), numerous visitors soon came to see him. He is said to have exerted a special attraction on women. Many of the seekers, including peasants who had become dispossessed and priests without benefices, stayed with him to share his life along the lines of the early church. He entrusted the women to his pupil Solomon.

Pope Urban II , who was stopping at Angers on his way back from the Synod of Clermont in February 1096 , had him come to. He gave him a preaching assignment (officium praedicationis) and appointed him official superior of the community of La Roë, to whom he gave the Augustinian rule. The movement initiated by Robert von Arbrissel was intended to be incorporated into the prevailing canonical system. But Robert refused to accept the office of abbot . In 1098 he obtained permission from the Bishop of Angers to leave his community. He now went through the country as an itinerant preacher. His old teacher Marbod, who had become Bishop of Rennes by buying offices in 1096 , tried to put an end to Robert von Arbrissel's unstable existence. Robert was invited to a council that met in November 1100 in Poitiers , in the presence of two envoys from Pope Paschal II .

Robert was forced to settle down firmly with his followers. The Bishop Peter II of Poitiers gave him a piece of land in a thorny scrub called Fons Evraldi ( Fontevraud ). There he founded a mixed double monastery at the beginning of 1101.

After two years, he resumed his life as an itinerant preacher. He entrusted the management of the community of Fontevraud to the noble lady Hersendis of Champagne , who was assisted by the also noble Petronilla (Pétronille de Chemillé) as procurator (economist). On October 18, 1115 he appointed the latter abbess.

The unusual fact that the male members of the order, called "fratres", were also subordinate to a woman's regiment, was a cause for complaints during Robert von Arbrissel's lifetime. Quite a few brothers left the community of Fontevraud and entered other monasteries. In the last few years of his life, Robert continued to preach through central and southwestern France. On February 20, 1116, he was brought sick to Orsan Priory , where he died five days later at the age of about 70. Against his will to be buried in the cemetery in the midst of the brothers, the abbess Petronilla had him buried in the choir of the abbey church, to which only the nuns, but neither the brothers nor the people, had access. His (empty) sarcophagus is still visible there today.

aftermath

In terms of his impact on contemporaries and posterity, Robert von Arbrissel is perhaps the most important of the numerous wandering hermits who preached through the country like Christ and the apostles at the turn of the 11th century. Barefoot and without a stick or bag, he wanted to "follow the naked Christ as a naked man" (nudum Christum nudus sequi) and preach the Gospel. However, the church met this hustle and bustle with the greatest mistrust and sought to tie the poverty movements to fixed locations and to integrate them as normal orders into the legal and regulatory system of the Roman church.

Although there are numerous traits in Robert von Arbrissel and his movement that are reminiscent of Francis of Assisi and early Franciscanism , a designation as “the forerunner of St. Francis of Assisi ”, according to general opinion, is wrong.

One of his most important and energetic students was the founder of the monastery, Géraud de Salles .

Fonts

• Monika Prams-Rauner (Ed.): Robert von Arbrissel. Letter to Ermengarde, Countess of Brittany. Latin text with German translation and introduction. Augsburg 2015. ISBN 978-3-936905-54-0 .

literature

• Jacques Dalarun (ed.): Robert d'Arbrissel et la vie religieuse dans l'Ouest de la France. Actes du colloque de Fontrevraud, December 13-16, 2001. Turnhout 2004
• Jacques Dalarun et al .: Les deux vies de Robert d'Arbrissel, Fondateur de Fontevraud, Turnhout 2006.
• Helmut Feld:  Robert von Arbrissel. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 8, Bautz, Herzberg 1994, ISBN 3-88309-053-0 , Sp. 440-443.
• Bruce L. Venarde: Robert of Arbrissel - a Medieval Religious Life Catholic University of America Press, Washington DC 2003, ISBN 0-813213533 .
• Bernhard Vogel: Between adoration and contempt: The example of Roberts von Arbrissel. In: Klaus Herbers / Larissa Düchting (ed.): Sacrality and Deviance. Constructions-Standards-Practice. Franz-Steiner-Verlag, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-515-10921-5 (Articles on Hagiography, Volume 16), pp. 233-251.