- Hilduin
Hilduin (
775 -22 November 840 ) wasBishop of Paris , chaplain to Louis I, reforming Abbot of theAbbey of St. Denis , and a writer.He was from a prominent
Frankish family. He was educated in the school ofAlcuin , acquired much erudition, and corresponded withRabanus Maurus .Hincmar of Reims , his pupil, speaks of him with great respect.In 815 he obtained the
Abbey of St-Denis near Paris; to which were added later theAbbey of St-Germain des Prés ,Abbey of St-Médard inSoissons , andAbbey of St-Ouen .Louis the Pious appointed him hisarchchaplain in 819, or, more probably, not until 822.He accompanied Louis's son,
Lothair , on his expedition to Rome in 824, on which occasion the latter took part in the conflict over the election ofPope Eugene II . Hilduin brought back with him from Rome some relics ofSt. Sebastian and bestowed them on the Abbey of St-Médard.In the war between Emperor Louis and his sons (830) Hilduin took the side of the latter. Thereby he lost his abbeys and was banished, first to
Paderborn and then to theAbbey of Corvey (near Höxter on the Weser). AbbotWarin of that monastery received him kindly, in return for which Hilduin presented him with the relics ofSt. Vitus , which thereafter were profoundly venerated in Corvey.No later than 831, however, Hilduin regained Louis's favour. He was reinstated in the Abbey of St-Denis, whereupon he successfully undertook a reform of that monastery. A few years later (835) Emperor Louis commissioned him to write a biography of
St. Dionysius of Paris , the emperor's particular patron saint. Hilduin executed this commission, with the aid of thepseudo-Dionysius 's writings, a copy of which had been sent to the Frankish court by theByzantine Emperor Michael II , and of other authorities [Galenus , "Areopagitica", Cologne, 1653; "Patrologia Latina ", CIV, 1326-28; CVI, 23-50.] . In his "Vita" Hilduin identified Dionysius of Paris with theAreopagite Dionysius , a view not generally accepted at that time, but which Hilduin's biography popularized for several centuries, untilSismondi and others dispelled this error.Hilduin also helped to complete the Carlovingian "Reichsannalen", or imperial annals.
References
*Calmette, Les abbés Hilduin au IXe siècle (Nogent, 1905)
*Dümmler, Geschichte des ostfränkischen Reiches, 2nd ed., I (1887)
*Ebert, Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters, II (1890), 348 sq.
*Histoire littéraire de la France, IV, 607-13
*Monod, Hilduin et les Annales Einhardi (Paris, 1895)
*Foss, Ueber den Abt Hilduin von St. Denis und Dionysius Areopagita (Berlin, 1886)
*Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter, 7th ed., I (Berlin, 1904)
*Hugo von Hurter , Nomenclator.External links
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07354a.htm Source]
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