6 January 1088 A.D. Berengar of Tours Passes—Denies Cannabalism, Bone-Chewing and Blood-Swilling in Holy Communion; Gets the Usual Papal Handling
Editors. “Berengar of Tours.” Encyclopedia Britannica. N.d. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61597/Berengar-Of-Tours. Accessed 5 Aug 2014.
Berengar Of Tours, Latin Berengarius, French Bérenger De Tours (born c. 999, probably Tours, Touraine [now in France]—died Jan. 10, 1088, priory of Saint-Cosme,
near Tours), theologian principally remembered for his leadership of the
losing side in the crucial eucharistic controversy of the 11th century.
Having studied
under the celebrated Fulbert at Chartres, Berengar returned to Tours after 1029
and became canon of its cathedral and head of the School of Saint-Martin, which
rivaled Bec under Lanfranc, who was later to be his opponent. Berengar befriended Geoffrey, Count of
Anjou, and Eusebius Bruno, later bishop of Angers. About 1040 he was appointed archdeacon of Angers.
Shortly thereafter,
Berengar, who always exhibited great independence of thought, began to teach
ideas contrary to prevailing beliefs. Most notably, he rejected the
then-current view of transubstantiation credited to the 9th-century abbot
of Corbie, St. Paschasius Radbertus, who professed that the bread and wine,
after consecration in the mass, became the real body and blood of Christ.
Berengar favoured the interpretation formulated in De
corpore et sanguine Domini (“Concerning the Body and
Blood of the Lord”) by Ratramnus, a monk of Corbie, to whom the elements became the body and blood of
Christ in a symbolic sense. Berengar’s restatement of these views aroused
severe opposition. He boldly wrote (c. 1050) to Lanfranc against his condemning Ratramnus. The letter arrived in
Lanfranc’s absence and, after being read by several persons, finally reached
him at Rome. Pope Leo IX excommunicated Berengar at the Easter Synod of 1050
and ordered him to the Council of Vercelli (1050). Berengar reluctantly obeyed. He went to Paris to get permission
from the French king Henry I, his nominal abbot, to attend the synod. He was imprisoned by Henry and
condemned at Vercelli in absentia.
On his release from
prison, Berengar took refuge with his protector, Geoffrey, and Henry ordered a
synod at Paris to judge Berengar and his supporter Eusebius. The synod
condemned them both (1051). In 1054 the powerful papal legate Cardinal
Hildebrand came to France to preside at the Synod of Tours. To preserve peace, a compromise was
reached under which Berengar signed a vague eucharistic statement. In 1059 he
was summoned to Rome for another council, at which he was refused a hearing and
was asked to sign an extreme statement repugnant to his ideas. After this,
Geoffrey died, and Eusebius began to draw away from Berengar. Berengar
nevertheless published a treatise (c. 1069) against the Roman council of 1059, which was answered by Hugo of
Langres and by Lanfranc, with a rejoinder by Berengar.
Berengar’s position
was steadily worsening, and the rigorous pattern of examination, condemnation,
and recantation was repeated at the nearly violent Council of Poitiers (1076), the Roman synods of 1078 and 1079, and a trial at Bordeaux in
1080. Thereafter Berengar was silent. He retired to ascetic solitude in the
priory of Saint-Cosme.
Berengar’s
eucharistic doctrine is expressed in his De
sacra coena (“On the Holy Supper”), written in reply to Lanfranc.
More than any of his contemporaries, Berengar applied to theological
development the method of dialectic. He based his argument on belief that Paschasius’ view was contrary to the
Scriptures, the Church Fathers, and reason.
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