Arnold of Brescia

From New World Encyclopedia
Arnold of Brescia burned at the stake in Rome after being hanged for treason.

Arnold of Brescia, (c. 1090–c.1155), also known as Arnaldus (Italian: Arnaldo da Brescia), was a monk from Italy who called on the Catholic church to renounce ownership of property, led the Commune of Rome's termporary overthrow of papal rule, and was later hanged by the Church for treason.

Born in Brescia, Arnold became an Augustinian monk and then prior of a monastery in Brescia, possibly studying as well with Peter Abelard in Paris. Witnessing the corrupting influence of wealth on the clergy, he became critical of the temporal powers of Catholic Church, calling on the local bishop to renounce property ownership and return his lands to the city government. He was condemned at the Second Lateran Council. He later stood trail with Abelard at Sens, where both men were sentenced with silence and exile as a result of the accusations of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.

Disregarding his sentence, Arnold continued to teach but eventually came to Rome to seek reconciliation with Pope Eugene III. There, he found the city in turmoil and joined the cause of the Commune of Rome. His leadership was key in forcing Eugene to leave the city and restoring Roman democracy for several years.

Although his political cause ultimately failed, Arnold's teachings on apostolic poverty continued to be influential after his death among the Waldensians and the Spiritual Franciscans. Catholics condemn him as a rebel and sometimes as a heretic, but Protestants rank him among the precursors of the Reformation.

Life

Born at Brescia toward the end of the eleventh century aspired to a perfect life from his youth. Before reaching adulthood, he entered a convent of canons regular in his native city, where he was ordained a priest and appointed provost of his community. Arnold reportedly completed his studies under the direction of Peter Abelard. If the report is accurate, he must have gone to Paris about 1115. Arnold did express admiration for the French pioneer of scholasticism later in life, and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Abelard's accuser, intimates that Abelard summoned Arnold to his side after the Lateran Council of 1139. In the judgment of some critics, however, there is insufficient evidence for this first sojourn of Arnold in France.

Peter Abelard, shown after his retirement from teaching with the Abbess Heloise, his former lover

Whether or not he studied with Abelard, it seems clear that Arnold was influenced by his philosophy and desire for reform. Even his detractors admit that he was qualified for for the high office of provost at Brecia by his detachment from earthly things, his love of religious discipline, and the clearness of his intellect. Arnold also possessed and originality and charm of expression that he brought to the service of a lofty ideal. Brescia yielded to his influence, and in the course of several years Arnold advanced to be the unrivaled head of the reform movement then stirring the city.

Brescia, like most other Lombard cities, was beginning to exercise its municipal rights. The government was in the hands of two consuls elected annually. Checking their authority was the local bishop, who was also as principal landowner. Inevitable conflicts arose between the rival forces, involving not only political issues, but also religious passions. These conditions grieved Arnold. He pointed out the evils which afflicted both the city the Catholic Church, concluding that the chief causes of these sins were the corrupting wealth of the clergy and the temporal power of the bishop. He suggested taking the immediate and drastic measure stripping the monasteries and bishoprics of their wealth, and transfering it to laity. This, he held, was the surest and quickest method of satisfying the civil authorities and of bringing back the clergy to the practice of the apostles.

To reduce this to a working theory, Arnold reportedly formulated the following propositions: "Clerics who own property, bishops who hold regalia [land tenures by royal grant], and monks who have possessions cannot possibly be saved. All these things belong to the [temporal] prince, who cannot dispose of them except in favor of laymen."

The higher clergy, of course, vehemently rejected Arnold's teachings, but elements in the growing middle class of merchants and artisans welcomed them. Brescia was apparently thrown into crisis, although its details are not clear due to the scarcity of documents. From the testimony such men as Otto of Freisingen, Saint Bernard, and John of Salisbury, some facts seem clear. First, a journey was made by the local bishop, Manfred, to Rome about 1138. An insurrection arose during his absence. Arnold allegedly attempt to seize the bishop's temporal power when he returned. Arnold sought to justify his revolt and appealed to Rome, but was condemned by Innocent II at the Lateran Council, in 1139. The pope command Arnold to keep silence and sent him into exile. He was forbidden to return to Brescia without the express permission of the pontiff.

The issue came before the Synod of Sens in 1140. There, we find Arnold by the side of the famous Abelard, who was about to make his final struggle in defense of his own views. Opposing them both was the equally famous Bernard of Clairvaux, whose intellect matched Abelard's and whose piety outshone even that of the ascetic Arnold. Accounts written by the victors portray the debate as a utter rout in favor of the conservative Bernard.

Both men were condemned to perpetual confinement in separate monasteries, a sentence that was confirmed by Innocent II in his bull dated July, 16 1140. Arnold's writings were also condemned to be burned as a further measure. None of his writings survive, and we know of his teachings only through the reports of his enemies.

Abelard publicly recanted his views and took refuge with Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny. The younger and more rebellious Arnold was less compliant. He retired temporarily to Mont Sainte-Geneviève at Paris, where he soon opened public courses of moral theology, continuing to preach his radical ideas concerning apostolic poverty.According to John of Salisbury, he attracted disciples mainly for the impoverished people of the city who were so needy that they had to beg their daily bread. This state of affairs, however, accorded very well with Arnold's teachings which sharply censured the luxury of bishops and the worldly possessions of monks. Wealth, Arnold insisted was the real virus that was infecting the Church. Arnold's attacks did not stop here, however. His condemnation was reportedly never far from his mind, and he engaged his harsh diatribes against those who had condemned Abelard and himself. Since Abelard himself had capitulated, however, Arnold stood virtually alone.

Arnold was particularly harsh in is criticism of the Abbot of Clairvaux as a man "puffed up with vainglory, and jealous of all those who have won fame in letters or religion, if they are not of his school." Bernard, on the other hand, denounced Arnold to Louis VII as "the incorrigible schismatic, the sower of discord, the disturber of the peace, the destroyer of unity." Bernard, having succeeding in forcing Arnold out of Italy took satisfaction in reporting to his readers that "The most Christian King drove (him) from the kingdom of France."

Thus compelled to flee, Arnold took refuge in Switzerland. The tireless Bernard continued active in pursuit of his foe, however. By 1143 Arnold had left for Bohemia where her begged protection from a papal legate named Guy, who was touched by his misfortunes and treated him with friendliness. This attitude vexed Saint Bernard, although it may be that Arnold had given his host pledges of submission to the pope's will.

Career and death in Rome

Arnold soon returned to Italy to make his peace in 1145 with Pope Eugene III. The pontiff, on reconciling him with the Church, imposed a form of penance then customary: fasts, vigils, and pilgrimages to the principal shrines of Rome.

Pope Eugene III

Rome itself, however, was now in the throes of its own secularizing reform. When Arnold arrived, he found that the followers of Giordano Pierleoni had asserted the ancient rights of the commune of Rome, taken control of the city from papal forces, and founded a republic, the Commune of Rome.

Arnold, no doubt seeing God's providence at work, sided with the commune and soon rose to its intellectual leadership, calling for liberty and democratic rights. Arnold reportedly went so far as to declare that clergy who owned property had no power to perform the Sacraments. The Curia became the chief object of his attacks; he depicted the cardinals as vile hypocrites and misers playing among Christians the role of Jews and Pharisees. He did not even spare the pope. He accused Eugenius III of being more concerned "with pampering his own body and filling his own purse than with imitating the zeal of the Apostles whose place he filled." Arnold especially reproached the pope for relying on physical force, and for "defending with homicide" his own power. His preaching and the support of the commune succeeded in driving Pope Eugene into exile in 1146. From 1146-49 Roman democracy triumphed under Arnold of Brescia.

For this, Arnold was excommunicated, on July 15, 1148. However, when Pope Eugene returned to the city later that year, Arnold continued to lead the blossoming republic, despite his excommunication. Meanwhile, Arnold's reform took on an increasingly secrularizing character. He demanded not only the abolition of the temporal power of the papacy but also the subordination of the church to the state.

File:Federico Barbarossa.png
Frederick Barbarosa

Exiled but not defeated, Eugenius III used his own powers of persuasion to win a key ally in the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. Moreover the senatorial elections of November, 1152 turned against him, marking the beginning of his fall.

After Eugene's death, Pope Adrian IV swiftly took steps to regain control of Rome, inviting the military aid Frederick Barbarossa, who took Rome by force in 1155 and forced Arnold again into exile. He was seized by imperial forces and was finally tried by the Roman Curia as a rebel, though not for heresy. As a result of his conviction for treason against the papal state, he was hanged and his body burnt.

At his trial and even facing his death, Arnold refused to recant any of his positions. As he remained a hero to large sections of the Roman people and the minor clergy, his ashes were cast into the Tiber to prevent his burial place becoming venerated as the shrine of a martyr.

Legacy

"Forger of heresies," "sower of schisms," "enemy of the Catholic Faith," "schismatic," "heretic"—such are the terms used by Arnold's contemporary opponents and other early critics. Others, such as the Waldensians and Spiritual Franciscans, adopted his teachings on the importance of apostolic poverty, though not always insisting on its application throughout the church.

In 1882, after the collapse of papal temporal powers, the city of Brescia erected a monument to its native son.

In summing up his life, Catholic writer Caesar Baronius called Arnold "the father of political heresies," while the Protestant view was expressed by Edward Gibbon, who found that "the trumpet of Roman liberty was first sounded by Arnold."

See also

  • Arnoldist
  • History of Rome in the Middle Ages

Notes

References
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  • Catholic Encyclopedia: "Arnold of Brescia"
  • (Bookrags) "Arnold of Brescia"
  • Romedio Schmitz-Esser, Arnold von Brescia im Spiegel von acht Jahrhunderten Rezeption. Ein Beispiel für Europas Umgang mit der mittelalterlichen Geschichte vom Humanismus bis heute, Vienna-Berlin-Münster 2007.
  • Romedio Schmitz-Esser, Arnold of Brescia in Exile: April 1139 to December 1143 – His Role as a Reformer, Reviewed, in: Exile in the Middle Ages. Selected Proceedings from the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 8-11 July 2002, ed. by Laura Napran and Elisabeth van Houts, Turnhout 2004, p. 213-231.
  • Grado Giovanni Merlo, La storia e la memoria di Arnaldo da Brescia, in: Studi Storici 32/4 (1991) p. 943-952.
  • Maurizio Pegrari (ed.), Arnaldo da Brescia e il suo tempo, Brescia 1991.
  • George William Greenaway, Arnold of Brescia, (Cambridge University Press) 1931. The first biography in English.
  • Pasquale Villari, Mediaeval Italy from Charlemagne to Henry VII, 1910.
  • Ferdinand A. Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages 6th ed. 1953-1957.

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