His
Ad Gebehardum liber of 1085 was a comprehensive discussion of
kingship, original and much commented on, and clarifying some of the political arguments most centrally used by the papal supporters; it argued that kingship was an office from which the king could be deposed; his
functionalist analogy was with the position of
swineherd, held at the pleasure of the employer. This work, dedicated to
Gebhard, archbishop of Salzburg, was intended to refute a polemic letter of Wenrich on behalf of
Emperor Henry IV, written c.1080-1. A strong supporter of
Pope Gregory VII, and the
Gregorian revolutionary reforms, Manegold shared with others of his time the view in political thought that secular rulers held their power on the basis of some kind of pact with the ruled. Further, when the pact could be considered broken, the oath of allegiance could be considered null, a theory of resistance adapted to aristocratic arguments that had not long previously been topical in
Saxony; this theory had been documented in the 1082
Bellum Saxonicum of
Bruno of Merseburg. The argument that in the past bad kings had frequently been deposed, typically with papal involvement, derived from a papal letter of 1075 to
Hermann, bishop of Metz. Manegold's book also contained an account of the life of Gregory VII, reflecting the
Vita by
John the Deacon of
Gregory the Great; this shares details with chronicles of
Berthold of Reichenau and
Bernold of St Blasien, writing in the part of southern Germany in which Manegold had sheltered after having to leave Alsace. Manegold's sources included
St Paul,
Jerome,
Peter Damian and Bernold; also Pseudo-Chrysostom's
Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum, for the way the 'pact' theory was expressed. Along with others arguing from the same side, he used arguments from
Cyprian,
De unitate ecclesiae, in a version (of the fourth chapter) supporting
papal primacy. He opposed the uncritical acceptance by Christians of the views of pagan classical writers. He was a critic of
Macrobius, singling out for attack in geography the
spherical Earth theory of four isolated continents of
Crates of Mallus, on theological grounds.
List •
Ad Gebehardum liber •
Ad Wibaldum Abbatem •
De psalmorum libro exegesis •
Contra Wolfelmum Coloniensem ==See also==