ACARDUS (ACHARDUS), Blessed. – Abbot of Saint-Victor, later Bishop of Avranches. Descended from a noble Norman family that had settled in England following William the Conqueror’s expedition of 1066, he was born in the first half of the 12th century, according to some in England, according to others in Normandy near Domfront (Orne). He died on 29 March 1171.
Having received his early education among the Augustinian canons of Bridlington (diocese of York), he went to Paris to further his studies. There he embraced the religious life in the newly founded abbey of Saint-Victor, where the example of the renowned Hugh spurred him on to study and virtue. Upon the death of Abbot Gilduin (1155), he succeeded him as the second abbot of Saint-Victor. In 1157 he was elected Bishop of Seez, but King Henry II of England opposed his consecration, as St Thomas Becket reports, because Pope Adrian IV had favored his election. In 1161 he was appointed Bishop of Avranches. Pious and beneficent, through his friendship with the English monarch he obtained many favors for his diocese and for the entire region of Normandy. He was buried in the church of the Premonstratensian abbey of La Lucerne, of which he had been the principal benefactor and whose first stone he had blessed in 1164.
In the sources he bears the title of master (magister Achardus), and his epitaph calls him the famous teacher Achardus (PL 196, 1779). Yet his writings, not yet fully examined, remain unpublished.
The abbey of Maredsous has undertaken the task of editing the princeps edition and has been collecting the necessary materials since 1899. On this basis Morin discerns his subtle yet lucid genius, his dry analysis of the mysteries of the human soul combined with Victorine mysticism, in a lively style, sometimes eloquent, far more effective than the later scholastic style, and recognizes him as the author of the treatise *De discretione animae, spiritus et mentis*, long falsely attributed to Adam of Saint-Victor. In 1935 he published it according to Paris, Mazur. 1002 (942), a 13th-century manuscript from Saint-Victor. Important is his treatise or sermon *De abnegatione sui ipsius*, also inaccurately called *De tentatione Domini in deserto* because it takes as its subject Matt. 4:1. The author’s aim is to lead the soul to perfection through the seven degrees of evangelical abnegation, which introduce it as it were into seven deserts. By stripping itself thus of self and all things, the soul is united intimately with God. The opuscule is directed to all, but especially to religious.
In Migne only two brief *Epistolae* of A. are found (PL 196, 1381-82). Some of his works are lost, such as the *De Trinitate*, of which some passages are quoted in the *Elogium ad Alexandrum III* by John of Cornwall (PL 199, 1054 seqq.), and the *Quaestiones de peccato*, cited in the *Allegorica in Novum Testamentum* attributed to Hugh of Saint-Victor (but later).
A profound theologian and champion of traditional doctrine, he upholds the realism of the union of the two natures in Christ against nominalists of every stripe.
Vossius erroneously attributed to him the *Vita B. Geszelini* or *Schetzelonis*, edited by Raisse (Donauwörth 1626) (cf. *Acta SS. Augusti*, I, Venice 1741, pp. 172-73, 175-80): it is probably the work of his namesake and contemporary Acardus of Clairvaux.