Rodulf (archbishop of Bourges)

File:Solignac - Eglise abbatiale - Choeur et bras Sud du transept.JPG

The monastery of Solignac, where Rodulf began his ecclesiastical career.

Rodulf (Template:Langx;Template:Efn died 21 June 866) was the archbishop of Bourges from 840 until his death. He is remembered as a skillful diplomat and a proponent of ecclesiastical reform. As a saint, his feast has been celebrated on 21 June.

Aquitainian nobleman and monk

Rodulf's family was prominent in the region of AngoumoisTemplate:Sfn and he himself possessed lands in the Limousin.Template:Sfn He was named after his father, the count of Turenne (died 844), and he had four brothers and two sisters as well as an unnamed sibling.Template:Sfn He entered the monastery of Solignac as a novice in 823.Template:Sfn

During the conflict between King Pippin II of Aquitaine and King Charles of West Francia over the inheritance of the Aquitanian kingdom, Rodulf maintained good relations with both claimants,Template:Sfn although it is probable that his father fought in the war and is possible that Rodulf himself did as well.Template:Sfn Contemporary documents describe him as a "faithful follower" (fidelis) of King Pippin.Template:Sfn In late 840 Rodulf was elected as archbishop of Bourges,Template:Sfn Since Pippin led an expedition north against Charles' forces in Poitou in September, it generally thought that he was the driving force behind the election of Rodulf and that he successfully extended his authority into the Berri (the region around Bourges), which was as far north as it would ever go.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn One of Pippin's two surviving royal charters is a confirmation to the new archbishop.Template:Sfn Yet if the appointment of Rodulf was political on the one hand, the capitulation (capitula) which he signed upon his election "shows that [he] was in the vanguard of the Carolingian reform movement."Template:Sfn Shortly after becoming archbishop, Rodulf bought a large piece of land from a certain Boso for 1,500 solidi.Template:Sfn

West Frankish diplomat

By early May 844, Rodulf had recognised Charles as king in Aquitaine. In that month he visited Charles while the latter was besieging Toulouse and received a charter from him at Charles's headquarters in the monastery of Saint-Sernin.Template:Sfn Rodulf attended the council of Ver in December that year.Template:Sfn According to the Translatio sancti Germani, Rodulf and Bishop Ebroin of Poitiers played the leading rôles in the negotiations to reconcile Charles and Pippin in the winter of 844–45.Template:Sfn Rodulf hosted a conference at the monastery of Fleury in June 845, where Pippin swore fealty to Charles and Charles gave Pippin lordship over most of Aquitaine (the regions of Poitou, Saintonge and Aunis excepted).Template:Sfn Later that same month, Rodulf attended the great synod at Meaux with archbishops Wenilo of Sens and Hincmar of Reims.Template:Sfn As a reward for his work, Charles granted Rodulf control over Fleury's resources in October 846.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

In August or September 849, after Pippin had rebelled against Charles, Rodulf, "with the greatest enthusiasm",Template:Efn hosted a royal assembly before the king moved south to besiege Toulouse a second time.Template:Sfn According to the Annales Fontanellenses, Charles then spent Christmas in Bourges and stayed into January 850.Template:Sfn Rodulf may have served as guardian (bajulus) to Charles's son, Charles the Child, when the latter was made king of Aquitaine in 855.Template:Sfn Late in 860, Hincmar of Reims wrote a letter to Rodulf and Archbishop Frothar of Bordeaux—who may have been a kinsman of Rodulf'sTemplate:Sfn—outlining the difficulties of Count Stephen, son of Count Hugh of Tours, who was trying to repudiate his wife, the daughter of Count Raymond I of Toulouse.Template:Sfn Rodulf and Frothar were successful in negotiating a settlement.Template:Sfn The scale of the disorders may be gauged by two charters of Rodulf's from 859 and 860, in which he laments "the presence of evil men" (infestorum malorum hominum) in his diocese, an indication of violence and civil strife.Template:Sfn In 860 Rodulf drew up a will and had it confirmed by Raymond of Toulouse.Template:Sfn

Church reformer

With Bishop Stodilo of Limoges, Rodulf helped found the monastery of Beaulieu.Template:Sfn His family provided the land for the foundation, and he himself consecrated the new community under the Benedictine rule in 860.Template:Sfn He granted the monks the right of free election of their abbot, and pronounced excommunication on any governing authority who molested them in the future.Template:Sfn He even procured royal protection (mundeburdium) for them.Template:Sfn Rodulf's brother Gottfried, the count of Turenne, along with Raymond of Toulouse and Aldo, abbot of Saint Martial's, were witnesses to this act of consecration.Template:Sfn In 859, Stodilo granted a church to Rodulf and Abbot Garnulf of Beaulieu as a precarium in return for an annual rent of seven solidi.Template:Sfn Rodulf also helped found the convent at Cahors where his sister Immena was installed as the first abbess.Template:Sfn

The earliest reference to the archbishop of Bourges as primate of Aquitaine dates from the episcopate of Rodulf.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn In 864, when Archbishop Sigebod of Narbonne complained to Pope Nicholas I that Rodulf had called some clergy of Narbonne before him "as if by patriarchal right" (quasi jure patriarchatus), the pope confirmed the right of clergy to appeal to Bourges if all avenues in Narbonne had been exhausted and of the suffragans of Narbonne to appeal to Bourges "as if to their patriarch" (quasi ad patriarchum suum).Template:SfnTemplate:Efn In his acts Rodulf sometimes titled himself "primate" (primas) and "bishop of the primatial see" (primae sedis episcopus).Template:Sfn

Rofuld died at Bourges on 21 June 866 and was buried in the basilica of Saint Ursinus.Template:Sfn He was succeeded by a cleric from the royal palace of Charles the Bald named Wulfad.Template:Sfn Into the twelfth century, the community of Beaulieu commemorated Rodulf as "our master of holy memory".Template:Sfn A rather standard hagiography of Rodulf, the Vita sancti Rodulfi, survives.Template:Sfn

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