Hilduin was Bishop of Paris, chaplain to Louis I

Louis the Pious

Louis the Pious , also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was the King of Aquitaine from 781. He was also King of the Franks and co-Emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813...

, reforming Abbot of the Abbey of St. Denis and an author.

Background

Hilduin was from a prominent Frankish

Franks

The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

 family. He was educated in the school of Alcuin

Alcuin

Alcuin of York or Ealhwine, nicknamed Albinus or Flaccus was an English scholar, ecclesiastic, poet and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York...

, acquired much erudition, and corresponded with Rabanus Maurus

Rabanus Maurus

Rabanus Maurus Magnentius , also known as Hrabanus or Rhabanus, was a Frankish Benedictine monk, the archbishop of Mainz in Germany and a theologian. He was the author of the encyclopaedia De rerum naturis . He also wrote treatises on education and grammar and commentaries on the Bible...

. Hincmar of Reims, his pupil, speaks of him with great respect.

Career

In 815 Hilduin obtained the Abbey of St-Denis near Paris; to which were added later the Abbey of St-Germain des Prés, Abbey of St-Médard in Soissons

Soissons

Soissons is a commune in the Aisne department in Picardy in northern France, located on the Aisne River, about northeast of Paris. It is one of the most ancient towns of France, and is probably the ancient capital of the Suessiones...

, and Abbey of St-Ouen. Louis the Pious

Louis the Pious

Louis the Pious , also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was the King of Aquitaine from 781. He was also King of the Franks and co-Emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813...

 appointed him his archchaplain

Archchaplain

An Archchaplain is a cleric with a senior position in a royal court. The title was used in the Frankish kingdom in the Carolingian period....

 in 819

819

Year 819 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.- Asia :* The Abbasid capital is moved back to Baghdad .- Europe :...

, or, more probably, not until 822.

He accompanied Louis's son, Lothair

Lothair

Lothair is a Germanic given name, derived from the older form Clotaire .- People :It can refer to these people:*Lothair I , a King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor...

, on his expedition to Rome in 824, on which occasion the latter took part in the conflict over the election of Pope Eugene II

Pope Eugene II

Pope Eugene II, , pope was a native of Rome and was chosen to succeed Paschal I. Another candidate, Zinzinnus, was proposed by the plebeian faction, and the presence of Lothair I, son of the Frankish emperor Louis the Pious was necessary in order to maintain the authority of the new pope...

. Hilduin brought back with him from Rome some relics of St. Sebastian and bestowed them on the Abbey of St-Médard.

In the war between Emperor Louis and his sons (830

830

Year 830 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.-Africa:* Creation of the Ad-dimnah hospital in al-Qayrawan by the Aghlabid ruler Ziyadat Allah I.- Europe :...

) Hilduin took the side of the latter. Thereby he lost his abbeys and was banished, first to Paderborn

Paderborn

Paderborn is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pader, which originates in more than 200 springs near Paderborn Cathedral, where St. Liborius is buried.-History:...

 and then to the Abbey of Corvey (near Höxter on the Weser). Abbot Warin

Warin

Warin is a town in the Nordwestmecklenburg district, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It is situated 19 km southeast of Wismar....

 of that monastery received him kindly, in return for which Hilduin presented him with the relics of St. Vitus, which thereafter were profoundly venerated in Corvey. No later than 831

831

Year 831 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar.- Asia :* In this year, an Uyghur Turk sues the son of a Chinese Tang Dynasty grand general who had failed to repay a debt of 11 million government-issued copper coins...

, however, Hilduin regained Louis's favour. He was reinstated in the Abbey of St-Denis, whereupon he successfully undertook a reform of that monastery.

Works

In 835, Louis commissioned Hilduin to write a biography of St. Dionysius of Paris, the emperor's particular patron saint. Hilduin executed this commission, with the aid of the pseudo-Dionysius's writings, a copy of which had been sent to the Frankish court by the Byzantine Emperor Michael II, and of other authorities. In his "Vita" Hilduin identified Dionysius of Paris with the Areopagite Dionysius, a view not generally accepted at that time, but which Hilduin's biography popularized for several centuries, until Sismondi and others dispelled this error.

Hilduin also helped to complete the Carolingian "Reichsannalen

Reichsannalen

The Reichsannalen are a class of annals composed anonymously in the Carolingian Empire throughout the 9th century. They first appeared under Pepin the Short in 741 and became ubiquitous at monasteries throughout the empire in the following decades...

", or imperial annals.

In 1940, Max Buchner identified Hilduin as the author usually referred to as "The Astronomer," the author of the Vita Hludovici

Vita Hludovici

Vita Hludovici or Vita Hludovici Imperatoris is an anonymous biography of Louis the Pious, Holy Roman Emperor and King of the Franks from AD 814 to 840.-Author:...

, a biography of Louis. This theory has achieved some popularity amongst later scholars, notably Ernst Tremp in 1985.