Early life Hincmar was born in 806 to a distinguished family of the West Franks. Destined to the monastic life, he was brought up at
Saint-Denis under the direction of the abbot
Hilduin (died 844), who, when appointed court chaplain in 822, brought him to the court of the emperor
Louis the Pious. There he became acquainted with the political as well as the ecclesiastical administration of the empire. When Hilduin was disgraced in 830 for having joined the party of
Lothair I, Hincmar accompanied him into exile at
Corvey in
Saxony. Hincmar used his influence with the emperor on behalf of the banished abbot, and not without success: for he stood in high favour with Louis the Pious, having always been a faithful and loyal adherent. He returned with Hilduin to Saint-Denis when the abbot was reconciled with the emperor and remained faithful to the Louis during his struggle with his sons.
840–877: reign of Charles the Bald After the death of Louis the Pious (840) Hincmar supported
Charles the Bald (see
Capitularies of Charles the Bald), and received from him the abbacies of Nôtre-Dame at
Compiègne and
Saint-Germer-de-Fly.
Archbishop of Reims (845) Archbishop Ebbo had been deposed in 835 at the
synod of Thionville (Diedenhofen) for having broken his oath of fidelity to the emperor Louis, whom he had deserted to join the party of Lothair. After the death of Louis, Ebbo succeeded in regaining possession of his see for some years (840-844), but in 844
Pope Sergius II confirmed his deposition. In 845 Hincmar obtained through the king's support the archbishopric of Reims, and this choice was confirmed at the Synod of Beauvais (April 845). He was consecrated archbishop on 3 May 845; in 847
Pope Leo IV sent him the
pallium. Hincmar took an active part in all the great political and religious affairs of his time, and was especially energetic in defending and extending the rights of the church and of the metropolitans in general, and of his own metropolitan of the church of Reims in particular. In the resulting conflicts, in which his personal interest was in question, he displayed great activity and a wide knowledge of
canon law, but was not so scrupulous that he would not resort to disingenuous interpretation of texts.
Gottschalk and predestinarianism His first encounter was with
Gottschalk, whose
predestinarian doctrines claimed to be modelled on those of
St Augustine. Hincmar placed himself at the head of the party that regarded Gottschalk's doctrines as heretical, and succeeded in procuring the arrest and imprisonment of his adversary (849). For a part at least of his doctrines Gottschalk found ardent defenders, such as
Lupus of Ferrières,
Prudentius of Troyes, the deacon
Florus, and
Amolo of Lyons. Through the energy and activity of Hincmar the theories of Gottschalk were condemned at the second
council of Quierzy (853) and
Valence (855), and the decisions of these two synods were confirmed at the synods of Langres and Savonnières, near Toul (859). To refute the predestinarian heresy, Hincmar composed his
De praedestinatione Dei et libero arbitrio, and against certain propositions advanced by Gottschalk on the Trinity he wrote a treatise called
De una et non trina deitate. Gottschalk died in prison in 868.
Lothar II of Lorraine The question of the divorce of
Lothair II, king of Lorraine (r. 855–869), who had repudiated his wife
Theutberga to marry his concubine Waldrada, engaged Hincmar's literary activities in another direction. At the request of a number of great personages in Lorraine he composed in 860 his
De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae, in which he vigorously attacked, both from the moral and the legal standpoints, the condemnation pronounced against the queen by the
Synod of Aix-la-Chapelle (February 860). Hincmar energetically supported the policy of
Charles the Bald in Lorraine, less perhaps from devotion to the king's interests than from a desire to see the whole of the
ecclesiastical province of Reims united under the authority of a single, sympathetic sovereign, and in 869 it was he who consecrated Charles at
Metz as king of Lorraine.
Episcopal conflicts In the middle of the ninth century there appeared in Gaul the collection of 'false decretals' commonly known as the
Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. The exact date and the circumstances of the composition of the collection are still an open question, but it is certain that Hincmar was one of the first to know of their existence, and apparently he was not aware that the documents were forged. The importance assigned by these decretals to the bishops and the
provincial councils, as well as to the direct intervention of the
Holy See, tended to curtail the rights of the metropolitans.
Rothad, bishop of Soissons, one of the most active members of the party in favour of the pseudo-Isidorian theories, immediately came into collision with his archbishop. Deposed in 863 at the council of Soissons that was presided over by Hincmar, Rothad appealed to Rome.
Pope Nicholas I, supported him zealously, and in 865, in spite of the protests of the archbishop of Reims,
Arsenius, bishop of Orte and
legate of the Holy See, was instructed to restore Rothad to his episcopal see. Hincmar experienced another check when he endeavoured to prevent Wulfad, one of the deposed clerics ordained by Ebbo, from obtaining the
archbishopric of Bourges with the support of
Charles the Bald. After a synod held at Soissons,
Pope Nicholas I pronounced himself in favour of the deposed clerics, and Hincmar was constrained to submit (866). He was more successful in his contest with his nephew
Hincmar, bishop of Laon, who was at first supported both by the king and by his uncle, the archbishop of Reims, but soon quarrelled with both. Hincmar of Laon refused to recognize the authority of his metropolitan, and entered into an open struggle with his uncle, who exposed his errors in a treatise called
Opusculum LV capitulorum, and procured his condemnation and deposition at the
Synod of Douzy (871). The bishop of Laon was sent into exile, probably to
Aquitaine, where his eyes were put out by order of
Count Boso.
Pope Adrian protested against his deposition, but it was confirmed in 876 by
Pope John VIII, and it was not until 878, at the council of Troyes, that the unfortunate prelate was reconciled with the Church. A serious conflict arose between archbishop Hincmar on the one side and Charles and the pope on the other in 876, when Pope John VIII, at the king's request, entrusted
Ansegisus, archbishop of Sens, with the primacy of the Gauls and of Germany, and created him
vicar apostolic. In Hincmar's eyes this was an encroachment on the jurisdiction of the archbishops, and it was against this primacy that he directed his treatise
De iure metropolitanorum. At the same time he wrote a life of
St Remigius, in which he endeavoured by audacious falsifications to prove the supremacy of the church of Reims over the other churches. Charles the Bald, however, upheld the rights of Ansegisus at the
synod of Ponthion.
877–882: reigns of Louis the Stammerer, Louis III and Carloman Although Hincmar had been very hostile to Charles' expedition into Italy, he figured among his testamentary executors and helped to secure the submission of the nobles to
Louis the Stammerer, whom he crowned at
Compiègne (December 8, 877). During the reign of Louis, Hincmar played an obscure part. He supported the accession of
Louis III and
Carloman, but had a dispute with Louis, who wished to install a candidate in the episcopal see of Beauvais without the archbishop's assent. To Carloman, on his accession in 882, Hincmar addressed his
De ordine palatii, partly based on a treatise (now lost) by
Adalard,
abbot of Corbie (c. 814), in which he set forth his system of government and his opinion of the duties of a sovereign, a subject he had already touched in his
De regis persona et regio ministerio, dedicated to Charles the Bald at an unknown date, and in his
Instructio ad Ludovicum regem, addressed to Louis the Stammerer on his accession in 877. In the autumn of 882 an irruption of the
Normans forced the old archbishop to take refuge at
Épernay, where he died on 21 December 882. ==Works==