Guitmund
The Norman Guitmund (died c. 1090–1095), Bishop of Aversa, was a Benedictine monk who was an opponent of the teachings of Berengar of Tours.
Life
Early life
In his youth Guitmund entered the monastery of La-Croix-Saint-Leufroy in the Diocese of Évreux.[1] By 1060 he was studying theology at the Abbey of Bec, where he had Lanfranc as teacher and Anselm as a fellow-student, each of them later Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1070 William the Conqueror called him to take up a diocese in England, but Guitmund rejected the offer after witnessing in England to William's brutality and oppression of the English people.[2] Guitmund answered William with his Oratio ad Guillelmum, denouncing the Norman Conquest.
In his native Normandy, Guitmund defended the doctrine of transubstantiation against Berengar of Tours. During the 1070s he wrote a treatise on the Holy Eucharist, entitled De corporis et sanguinis Jesu Christi veritate in Eucharistia ("On the body and blood of Jesus Christ truly in the Eucharist"), which takes the familiar literary form of a dialogue between himself and a fellow monk, Roger, to present the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He attributes the perceived decay of the reserved sacrament, not as an accident of its essential substance (the orthodox view), but merely as a deception of our senses. The first printed edition of Guitmund's De corporis et sanguinis was edited by Erasmus (Freiburg, 1530).
In Italy
Shortly after Guitmund had published his treatise against Berengar, he obtained permission from his abbot, Odilo, to make a pilgrimage to Rome, where he lived for a time in a Roman monastery under the pseudonym of Christianus, which afforded him obscurity. According to the Historiae Ecclesiasticae written by Ordericus Vitalis, he was made a cardinal by Pope Gregory VII. However, August Prévost, Ordericus' editor, states: "Guitmond n'a jamais été élevé au cardinalat."[3] Paul Fridolin Kehr, too, denies the cardinalate.[4]
It remains more certain that he was appointed by pope Gregory VII to a papal legation north of the Alps and that he remained in Rome after Gregory's death. Pope Urban II, formerly a monk at the Abbey of Cluny, appointed Guitmund as Bishop of Aversa at the Synod of Melfi in September 1089. Guitmund is thought to have died in Aversa around the year 1095.[2]
From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia
A Bishop of Aversa, a Benedictine monk, theologian, and opponent of Berengarius; born at an unknown place in Normandy during the first quarter of the eleventh century; died between 1090-95, at Aversa, near Naples. In his youth he entered the Benedictine monastery of La-Croix-St-Leufroy in the Diocese of Evreux, and about 1060 he was studying theology at the monastery of Bec, where he had Lanfranc as teacher and St. Anselm of Canterbury as fellow-student. In 1070 King William the Conqueror called him to England and, as an inducement to remain there, offered him a diocese. The humble monk, however, not only refused the offer, but fearlessly denounced the conquest of England by the Normans as an act of robbery ("Oratio ad Guillelmum I" in P. L., CXLIX, 1509). He then returned to Normandy and became a stanch defender of the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation against the heretical Berengarius of Tours. Some time between 1073-77 he wrote, at the instance of one of his fellow-monks by the name of Roger, his famous treatise on the Holy Eucharist, entitled "De corporis et sanguinis Jesu Christi veritate in Eucharistia". It is written in the form of a dialogue between himself and Roger and contains an exposition as well as a refutation of the doctrines of Berengarius concerning the Holy Eucharist. Guitmund ably defends Transubstantiation against Berengarius, but his notion of the manner of the Real Presence is obscure. Moreover, he does not well distinguish between substance and accident, and hence concludes that the corruptibility of the species is merely a deception of our senses. The work has often appeared in print. The first printed edition was brought out by Erasmus (Freiburg, 1530). Shortly after Guitmund had published his treatise against Berengarius, he obtained permission from his abbot, Odilo, to make a pilgrimage to Rome. Because the name Guitmund had become too well known to suit the humble monk, he exchanged it for that of Christianus and lived for some time in the obscurity of a Roman monastery. When Urban II, who had previously been a monk at Cluny, became pope, he appointed Guitmund Bishop of Aversa, near Naples, in 1088. A few historians hold that he afterwards became a cardinal, but there seems not to be sufficient evidence for this assumption. Besides the work mentioned above, Guitmund is the author of a short treatise on the Trinity and of an epistle to a certain Erfastus, which deals with the same subject. His works are published in "Bibl. Patr. Lugd.", XVIII, 440 sqq.; in Gallandi, "Bibl. veterum Patr.", XIV, 240 sqq., and Migne, "P. L.", CXLIX, 1427-1513.
Histoire littéraire de la France, VIII, 553-573; WERNER, Gerbert von Aurillac (Vienna, 1881), 178-182; SCHEEBEN in Kirchenlex, s. v.; HURTER, Nomenclator (Innsbruck, 1903), I, 1053-4; SCHNITZER, Berengar von Tours (Stuttgart, 1892), 350 sqq.; 406 sqq.
References
- Back to citation Vaillancourt 2009, p. 21.
- Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 Vaillancourt 2009, p. 22.
- Back to citation Ordericus Vitalis (1840). Historiæ ecclesiasticæ libri tredecim: ex veteris codicis uticensis collatione emendavit, et suas animadversiones adjecit Augustus Le Prevost... (in Latin and French). Paris: apud Julium Renouard et socios. p. 233.
- Back to citation Paul Fridolin Kehr (1925), Italia pontificia Vol. VIII (Berlin: Weidmann 1925), p. 282: "fabulose narrat Guimundum a Gregorio VII cardinalem s. Rom. ecclesiae creatum et ab Urbano II iam probatum in multis metropolitanum Adversis urbis sollemniter ordinatum esse." Marjorie Chibnall (ed.), The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis: Volume II: Books III & IV (Oxford: Clarendon 1990), p. 280, note 1: "Guitmund was never a cardinal. The confusion may have arisen because in 1077 he went to Germany with the legates of Gregory VII, Cardinal-deacon Bernard and Bernard, abbot of St. Victor, Marseille."
Bibliography
- Dell'Omo, M. (1993). "Per la storia dei monaci-vescovi nell'Italia normanna del secolo XI: ricerche biografiche su Guitmondo di La Croix-Saint-Leufroy, vescovo di Aversa", in: Benedictina 40 (1993), pp. 9–34. (in Italian)
- Kamp, Norbert (2000). "Le fonti per una biografia di Guitmondo d’Aversa," in: Guitmondo di Aversa, la cultura europea e la riforma gregoriana nel mezzogiorno..., vol. I, pp. 137 ff.
- Orabona, L. (ed.) (2000). Guitmondo di Aversa, la cultura europea e la riforma gregoriana nel mezzogiorno. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Cassino-Aversa, 13-14-15 novembre 1997. 2 vols. Napoli-Roma 2000. (in Italian)
- Shaughnessy, P. (1939). The Eucharistic Doctrine of Guitmund of Aversa. Roma 1939.
- Vaillancourt, Mark G. (2009). On the Body and Blood of the Lord; On the Truth of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. CUA Press. ISBN 978-0-8132-1678-2. Retrieved 11 September 2024.