Abbey of Savigny
In Normandy. In 1093 Vitalis of Mortain established a hermitage in the Forest of Savigny. Some of the hermits felt a call to follow the Rule of St Benedict in its primitive strictness, and the abbey ...
abbot
(Aram., Syr., abba, ‘father’).The head of a Christian monastic community, especially in the Benedictine or Cistercian traditions. The term is used in translation for the head of communities in ...
acts of bishops
Bishops' acts refer to the texts (charters, letters) issued by bishops whether or not through the intermediary of an episcopal chancery. The earliest acts are testaments, by which are designated ...
Adalard of Corbie
(751–826)A cousin of Charlemagne, Adalard was raised at court with his brother Wala. He retired to Corbie where, after a stay at Monte Cassino, he returned as abbot (780). ...
Adalbert of Prague
(956–97),bishop and missionary martyr. Born at Libice (Bohemia) of a princely family, he was educated by Adalbert of Magdeburg. On the latter's death he returned to Prague, the proud possessor of a ...
Adhemar de Monteil
(d. 1098), Bp. of Le Puy from some time between 1080 and 1087. In 1095 Urban II summoned the Council of Clermont from Le Puy and made Adhémar his representative on the First Crusade. Adhémar's death ...
Admont
(monastery) Oldest surviving monastery in Styria, Austria; founded 1074 by Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg with an endowment left by Countess Hemma of Friesach and Zeltschach; famed for its ...
advocate, advocacy
From the Merovingian period, rulers granted churches an Immunity that protected them from the management and intervention of royal agents. Following a formula soon stereotyped, the latter were ...
Alcobaça
A Cistercian monastery, founded in 1152 by monks from Clairvaux, at the confluence of the Alcoa and the Baça, 100 kilometres north of Lisbon. This foundation must be set in ...
Alcuin
(c. 735–804)English scholar and theologian. In 782 was employed by Emperor Charlemagne as head of his palace school at Aachen, where his pupils included many of the outstanding figures in the ...
architecture, Ecclesiastical
Ecclesiastical architecture responds, from a purely practical point of view, primarily to the requirements of worship and secondarily to the needs of those who dedicate themselves to the religious ...
Arras
Evangelized in the late 4th c. by St Diogenes, Arras owes its rise to the settlement in 658, in the marshes of the Crinchon, of a monastic community placed under ...
Augsburg
(city, bishopric) Attested since the 8th century on the site of Roman Augusta Vindelicorum. A document of 1156 confirms the bishop’s lordship, conditioned by the citizens’ community. An imperial city ...
Augustinians
[Ge]A monastic order of ordained canons; most Augustinian houses were founded in the mid to late 12th century.
bastide
A medieval fortified town built for the colonization or pacification of an area, particularly associated with the south of France; also in modern usage in Provence to describe a small country house.
Bec
(abbey) Founded in central Normandy in 1034 by the knight Herluin, Bec, despite its initial obscurity, soon gained a reputation for piety and learning, producing two notable ecclesiastics: Lanfranc ...
Bergen
Norwegian town. Bergen probably became a bishop’s seat and a legally confirmed urban community in the reign of King Olaf III Haraldsson (1067–93). The town grew into the all-important export ...
Bernard of Tiron
Founder and Abbot, 1046–1117.As with some other peripatetic founders, his biography is vague on dates and on the reasons for his changes of plan. Originally a monk of Saint-Cyprien (Poitiers), he ...
Besançon
In the eastern French Franche-Comté region, Besançon is strategically located, surrounded on three sides by the river Doubs and on the fourth by a mountain. Passing from Roman to Alamannic ...
Bobbio
A small town in the Apennines, once the seat of an abbey founded in 612 by St Columbanus. Its celebrated collection of early MSS included the ‘Bobbio Missal’ (now in Paris), an important collection ...
