Saint Saint Bruno, Priest

Bruno di Segni (c. 1045 – 18 July 1123) was an Italian Roman Catholic prelate and professed member from the Order of Saint Benedict who served as Bishop of Segni and Abbot of Montecassino. He studied under the Benedictines in Bologna before being appointed a canon of the cathedral chapter of Siena. He was invited to Rome, where he became a bishop and counseled four consecutive popes. He served as Abbot of Montecassino but when he criticised Pope Paschal II regarding the Concordat of Ponte Mammolo in 1111 the pope relieved him of his duties as abbot and ordered Bruno to return to his diocese, where he died just over a decade later. Bruno's canonization was celebrated on 5 September 1181 under Pope Lucius III, who presided over the celebration in the late bishop's diocese. Bruno was born circa 1045 in Solero either to nobles or parents of modest means named Andrea and Guglielmina. He spent his theological education in the Benedictine house of Santa Perpetua near his town in Asti and at the University of Bologna where he also studied humanities and the liberal arts. It was around this time that he wrote one of his earliest works, Expositio in psalterium Gallicanum, dedicated to his bishop, Ingo of Asti (1072-1079). Bruno became a canon in Siena in 1073, and recollects his life among the canons; perhaps his ordination to the priesthood is to be located in the same period, and around that time was assigned as a pastor there. This happened after he decided to enter the Abbey of Montecassino to be a monk, but during the trip, he fell ill in Siena, where he remained subject to the needs of Bishop Rudolfus (1073–1083), who named Bruno as a canon of the cathedral Chapter. Bruno became noted for his defending orthodoxy and for his extensive knowledge of Sacred Scripture and great piety. He was in Rome in 1079, and participated in the Sixth Roman Synod of Pope Gregory VII in February 1079.