ABBO OF FLEURY (Abbo or Abbo Floriacensis), Saint. - Born in the territory of Orléans, between 945 and 950. By his pious parents he was offered as a child (oblatus) to the monastery of St. Benedict at Fleury-sur-Loire, where, having completed his studies, he became a teacher while still very young. To perfect his education he went to Paris, to Reims and, for music, to Orléans. He then resumed teaching, and fought those who announced the end of the world for the year one thousand (cf. Apologeticus, at the end: PL 139, 471).
In 985, at the request of St. Oswald, archbishop of York and formerly a monk at Fleury, an ardent restorer (together with St. Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury) of monastic life in England, he was sent to the island to direct the abbey school of Ramsey. He remained there two years, winning the esteem of the episcopate and of King Ethelred; by St. Oswald he was ordained priest. Recalled to Fleury, in 988 he was elected its abbot. His government marks a reflowering of the celebrated abbey, whose school became one of the most famous and most frequented in France.
He sustained a long struggle with the episcopate in defense of the rights of monks, especially those of his own monastery, threatened by Arnulf, bishop of Orléans. He thus had a great part in the synod of Saint-Denis, held in 992 or 993 (cf. Hefele-Leclercq, IV, 1403-1406), after which he addressed to King Hugh Capet and to his son Robert his Apologeticus.
He labored much to restore monastic discipline in various monasteries according to the Cluniac reform. Having gone to Gascony to reorganize the priory of La Réole (dependent on Fleury), there, having rushed to make peace between Gascons and French in conflict, he was gravely wounded by a lance and died on 13 Nov. 1004. He was venerated as a martyr, and, from 1031, had public cult in various localities of France (feast on 13 Nov.). His life was written by the disciple Aimoin, his companion in the last mission to La Réole.
Writings. - A complete and critical edition of his works is lacking, some of which are still in manuscript; the least incomplete is the one found in PL 139, 375-578. Berlière (in DHG, I, col. 50 ff.) gives precise indications of 15 authentic works.
Besides the already cited Apologeticus, we note: the Epistolary (important is the long letter XIV, which Pierre Pithou placed at the end of the ancient Code of the Canons of the Roman Church, and letter VIII to Abbot Odilo of Cluny on the «canons» or principles for a harmony of the Gospels); the Life of St. Edmund, the martyr king of England (855-70); the Epitome of the lives of 91 Roman Pontiffs; the Liber de computo (manuscript); some grammatical and astronomical writings; the Poems (almost all in manuscript), among which an acrostic poem to the emperor Otto III.
But the work on which A.'s fame principally rests is the Collectio Canonum, known in the history of canon law under the name of Collectio Abbonis Floriacensis. It contains, in forty-two chapters, texts of Holy Scripture, of councils, of decretals, of capitularies, of sources of Roman or Romano-barbarian law and of the Fathers; and, notwithstanding the era in which it was compiled (around 993), it does not feel the influence of the pseudo-Isidorian decretals. Many texts of this collection passed into Gratian's Decretum (Aem. Friedberg, Corpus Iuris Can., I, p. xxxviii, lists 20 of them; and A. Amanieu, in DDC, I, 74, adds another 32).
On the whole, it may be said that A. was one of the most learned and most influential men of his time (cf. the judgment of his abbot: Vita, 6: PL 139, 393): defender of pontifical authority, assertor of the independence of monasteries and promoter of the reform of the secular and regular clergy. He went twice to Rome on commission of the king of France; on his return, he induced Hugh Capet (in 996) to restore to Reims the deposed archbishop Arnulf, and two years later he convinced King Robert to submit to the pontiff Gregory V, who had imposed an interdict on him for his incestuous marriage with his cousin Bertha.
In his spirituality, Jesus Christ occupies a central place. He loves to designate himself «amatorum Christi amator Abbo» (cf. Epist.: PL 139, 423. 433. 438. 440), and he wishes for monks to come to «taste how sweet the Lord is and his Christ, in whom we have life, being and movement» (Epist.: PL 139, 429).
He defines monastic life as a «laboriosum spiritualis philosophiae ottum» (Apol., init.: PL 139, 461), and considers it as wholly devoted to contemplation (cf. Epist. 8: Apol. toward the middle; Coll. Can., 23: PL 139, 430. 464. 489). He recommends fraternal charity and the «assiduous struggle» against the passions, pointing out to this end the high ascetic value of study: «multum prodesse censebat litterarum studia, maximeque dictandi exercitia» (Vita, 8: PL 139, 393).
Bibliography10 works
Igino Cecchetti