William of Hirsau
William of Hirsau (Wilhelm von Hirsau) (b. about 1030; d. 5 July 1091) was an abbot and monastic reformer. He was the father of the Hirsau Reforms and supported the papacy in the Investiture Controversy. He was also the author of learned works on music and astronomy. For Hirsau Abbey he created the Constitutiones Hirsaugienses, based on the uses of Cluny.
Life
William of Hirsau was born in Bavaria, possibly in about 1030. Nothing more is known of his origins. As a puer oblatus entrusted to the Benedictines he received his spiritual education as a monk in St. Emmeram's Monastery, a private church of the Bishop of Regensburg. Otloh of St. Emmeram (b. c1010; d. after 1079) was William's famous teacher.
Here, about the middle of the 11th century, William composed learned treatises on astronomy and music, disciplines that formed part of the quadrivium, the four subjects forming the more advanced section of the seven liberal arts (septem artes liberales). Wilhelm's famous stone astrolabe can still be seen today in Regensburg: more than 2.5 metres high, it is engraved on the front with an astrolabe sphere, while on the reverse side is the figure of a man gazing into the heavens, presumed to be the Greek astronomer and poet Aratos of Soloi (3rd century B.C.).
Abbacy
In 1069 William was elected abbot of Hirsau Abbey. In his first years of office he pursued the goal of making the abbey independent of secular powers, quite in keeping with the ecclesiastically revolutionary trend of the times, on the basis of the reforms of the monastery of Gorze in Lorraine and of Cluny, which had begun to take effect some time previously. Politically he was therefore now in opposition to the Counts of Calw, lay abbots of Hirsau.
A writ of Emperor Henry IV (1056-1106), probably drafted shortly after 1070, admittedly created the important link between the abbey and the monarchy, but nevertheless by and large confirmed the status of Hirsau as a comital private monastery. A privilege of Pope Gregory VII, drawn up between 1073 and 1075, put Hirsau under papal protection. The integra libertas coenobii (complete freedom of the monastery) conferred in the so-called Hirsauer Formular, a deed of Henry IV of 9 October 1075, included the freedom to elect the abbot and to elect or dismiss the Vogt (or lay steward), although it is true that the choice of candidates for the latter position was restricted to the kin of the founder.
William eventually prevailed against the resistance of Count Adalbert II of Calw, who renounced his lay lordship over the abbey. The King immediately took his place and put the monastic community under his protection, although it should be noted that Hirsau did not receive the status of a free monastery subject directly to the monarch (reichsunmittelbar). The Count received by royal grant the hereditary stewardship (Vogtei) of the abbey; the abbot was to be appointed and invested by the abbey itself.
The intensification of the Investiture Controversy may also have had some effect on internal conditions at Hirsau. In any event William is reported to have introduced there the reforms originating in the Burgundian abbey of Cluny, on which are based the Constitutiones Hirsaugienses (Hirsauer Customs), which became very widespread as a result of the Hirsau Reforms (see below). Discipline and obedience, tough punishments for infringements of the rules and continuous supervision of the monks were features of monastic life in Hirsau from no later than 1079.
Parallel with these developments it was necessary, in order to bring under some sort of control the great numbers of laymen flocking to Hirsau, to create the institution of the conversi or lay-brothers. Clearly, despite - or perhaps precisely because of - its monastic strictness and ascetic piety, Hirsau was attractive to many people. Due to this increase in the popularity of the monastery under William of Hirsau, the existing monastery (dedicated to Saint Aurelius) proved too small, and the community therefore re-settled to the other side of the River Nagold. There, sometime after 1083, was built the largest monastery complex in Germany of the time, with its great Romanesque church dedicated to Saint Peter.
Hirsauer Reforms
William's efforts were not limited to Hirsau. Many monasteries, both newly founded and long established, embraced the Hirsau Reforms. New abbeys, settled by monks from Hirsau, were Zwiefalten, Blaubeuren, St. Peter and St. George in Swabia, and Reinhardsbrunn in Thuringia. Already existing monasteries which accepted the reforms included Petershausen near Konstanz, Schaffhausen, Comburg, and St. Peter in Erfurt. Finally, there were the Hirsau priories of Reichenbach im Murgtal, Schönrain in Franconia and Fischbachau in Bavaria.
Support for the reforms came, then, primarily from Swabia and Franconia, with a lesser following in Central and East Germany. The spread of the Hirsau reforms was directly related to the reputation William had acquired through the ecclesio-political propaganda of the Investiture Controversy, as the main support of Pope Gregory's faction in Germany and in Swabia. He was on the side of the counter-kings Rudolf of Swabia (1077-1080) and Herman of Luxemburg, Count of Salm (1081-1088). Among other things, the tenacity of the Gregorian party in south-west Germany was due to him, quite apart from the reputation of Hirsau Abbey among ecclesiastical reformers. When William died on 5 July 1091, the reform party in Swabia and Germany lost an important champion.
His life is recorded in the Vita Willihelmi abbatis Hirsaugiensis.
References
Sources
- Vita Wilhelmi abbatis Hirsaugiensis, ed. Wilhelm Wattenbach, in: Mon. Germ. Hist. SS 12, pp. 209-225 (Online version 1) (Online version 2)
- Wilhelm von Hirsau, Praefatio in sua astronomica, in: Jacques Paul Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 150: B. Lanfranci Cantuariensis archiepiscopi opera omnia, Paris 1854 (cols. 1639-1642)
- Wilhelm von Hirsau, Musica, in: Jacques Paul Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 150, cols. 1147-1178
Secondary Literature
- Buhlmann, Michael, 2004. Benediktinisches Mönchtum im mittelalterlichen Schwarzwald. Ein Lexikon. Vortrag beim Schwarzwaldverein St. Georgen e.V. St. Georgen im Schwarzwald, 10. November 2004 (= Vertex Alemanniae, H.10), pp. 107ff. St. Georgen.
- Fischer, Max, 1910. Studien zur Entstehung der Hirsauer Konstitutionen. Stuttgart.
- Greiner, Karl, 1993. Hirsau. Seine Geschichte und seine Ruinen, revised S. Greiner, 14th edn. Pforzheim.
- Hirsau, ed. Klaus Schreiner, in: Die Benediktinerklöster in Baden-Württemberg, ed. Franz Quarthal (= Germania Benedictina, Bd.5), pp. 281-303. Ottobeuren 1976. ISBN 3-88096-605-2
- Irtenkauf, Wolgang, 1966. Hirsau. Geschichte und Kultur, 2nd ed. Konstanz.
- Jakobs, Hermann, 1961. Die Hirsauer. Ihre Ausbreitung und Rechtsstellung im Zeitalter des Investiturstreits (= Bonner Historische Abhandlungen, Bd.4) . Köln-Graz.
- Köhler, J. Abt Wilhelm von Hirsau 1069-1091. Heiliger, Reformer, Politiker, in: Der Landkreis Calw 1982/83, pp. 3-22
- Schreiner, Klaus (ed.), 1991. Hirsau. St. Peter und Paul, in two parts (= Forschungen und Berichte der Archäologie in Baden-Württemberg, Bd.10). Stuttgart. ISBN 3-8062-0902-2
- Wilhelm v. Hirsau, ed. Christian Berktold, in: Lexikon des Mittelalters, Band 9, Spalte 155f.
- Zimmermann, G., 1963. Wilhelm von Hirsau, in: Lebensbilder aus Schwaben und Franken, Band 9, ed. Max Miller and Robert Uhland, pp.1-17. Stuttgart.