Saint Benno

Benno (c. 1010 – 16 June 1106) was named Bishop of Meissen in 1066. Venerated since the 13th century, he was canonized in 1523. Benno did much for his diocese, both by ecclesiastical reforms on the Hildebrandine model and by material developments. He was venerated in his native Saxony throughout the Late Middle Ages. The first Vita was composed in 1460 by one Spedel, a Benedictine monk of St. Michael's monastery in Hildesheim. The second, by Jerome Emser, was published in 1512 as part of the efforts to have Benno canonized. In the last years of the fifteenth century and the first decades of the sixteenth century the canons of Meissen and George, Duke of Albertine Saxony, coordinated a campaign to achieve Benno's canonization. The canons sought the prestige of a canonized local bishop, and the duke sought a suitable model bishop for the reform of the church. Little is known of Benno's early life. Born in Hildesheim, it is reported that he was the scion of a Saxon noble family, such as the Woldenburgs; and may have been educated at the monastery of St. Michael in Hildesheim. However it is certain that Benno was a canon of the Goslar chapter. In 1066 he was nominated by King Henry IV to the episcopal see of Meissen. Benno appears as a supporter of the Saxon rebellion in 1073, though the chronicler Lambert of Hersfeld and other contemporary authorities attribute little weight to his share in it. Henry IV exiled Benno in 1075, but allowed him to return to his see the following year. During the fierce Investiture Controversy, Benno supported Pope Gregory, and allegedly took part in the election of antiking Rudolf of Rheinfelden in 1077. After Rudolf's death he turned to the new antiking Hermann of Salm and was accordingly excommunicated and deprived of his bishopric by the 1085 Synod of Mainz.