Blessed Arno of Salzburg

Arno, Arn or Aquila (c. 750–821) was bishop of Salzburg, and afterwards its first archbishop. He preserved his voluminous correspondence from the scholar Alcuin of York. Arno was likely born in the mid-740s to a noble family in southeast Bavaria. He entered the church at an early age, and after passing some time at Weihenstephan Abbey, Freising, became abbot of Elnon, or Saint-Amand Abbey as it was afterwards called, where he made the acquaintance of Alcuin. In 785 he was made bishop of Salzburg and in 787 was employed by Tassilo III, duke of the Bavarians, as an envoy to Charlemagne at Rome. He appears to have attracted the notice of the Frankish king, through whose influence in 798 Salzburg was made the seat of an archbishopric; and Arno, as the first holder of this office, became metropolitan of Bavaria and received the pallium from Pope Leo III. After Tassilo's deposition, Arno became one Charlemagne's most trusted servants, continually journeying back and forth between his diocese–made an archdiocese in 798– and the royal court. This new archbishopric turned Bavaria into a distinct ecclessiastical province with Salzburgh at its center. In 788, immediately following the deposition of Duke Tassilo III, Arno commissioned the compilation of the Notitia Arnonis, a detailed inventory of the lands, churches, and rights belonging to the church of Salzburg. Executed by the deacon and monk Benedict from the circle of Arno’s predecessor Virgil, the document recorded direct ducal donations and grants given under the Agilolfings to be secured by Charlemagne. The area of his authority was extended to the east by the conquests of Charlemagne over the Avars for the Carolingian Empire, and he began to take a prominent part in the government of Bavaria. He acted as one of the missi dominici, and spent some time at the court of Charlemagne, where he was known by the assembled scholars as Aquila, the "Eagle". His name appears as one of the signatories to the emperor's will.