ADRALDO (Arraldo, Ayraldo). — Bishop, originally from Vendôme, died at Chartres on 1 February 1075. In 1033 he became a monk of the Trinity at Vendôme and later of Cluny, where he was held in great esteem by Abbot Hugh. He assisted Odilo when he died at Souvigny while returning from Rome. He was later prior of Payerne in Switzerland, and finally became abbot of Breme, near Pavia. He was chosen as a traveling companion by St. Peter Damian when the latter, in 1063, was sent to Cluny as an apostolic legate. Around the middle of 1070 he was appointed bishop of Chartres, succeeding Robert of Tours, who had died the previous year. He devoted much attention to the schools of Chartres, introducing innovations suggested by his experiences at Cluny and during his travels. He was highly regarded, particularly for his eloquence, and was called upon several times to settle disputes that arose among monks. In 1072 he had to resolve a dispute between the monks of Vendôme and those of St. Albinus of Angers. The former accepted the settlement he proposed, but the monks of St. Albinus were dissatisfied and protested.
Pope Alexander II sent him a letter ordering him, under pain of excommunication, not to oppose the monks of Vendôme in regaining seven churches in his diocese that belonged to them. He received two other letters from Gregory VII; the first from Argenteuil on 27 November 1073, instructing him to restore Isambert to the abbacy of St-Laumer in Blois, whose place had been usurped by an intruder named Guido while the legitimate abbot was on pilgrimage to Jerusalem; the second from Tivoli on 10 September 1074, addressed jointly to several archbishops and all the other bishops of France, to encourage them to resist the king’s encroachments. A. is commemorated in the necrology of the monks of the Trinity at Vendôme, where an anniversary is also dedicated to him, and in that of Notre-Dame of Chartres.