ADRALDO (ARRALDO, AYRALDO). - Bishop, a native of Vendôme, died at Chartres on 1 February 1075. In 1033 he became a monk of the Trinity of Vendôme and later of Cluny, where he was held in great esteem by Abbot Hugh. He was present with Odilo when the latter died at Souvigny while returning from Rome. He was then 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 apostolic legate. Toward the middle of 1070 he was made bishop of Chartres, succeeding Robert of Tours, who had died the year before. He devoted much attention to the schools of Chartres, introducing there as well innovations suggested to him by the experience he had acquired at Cluny and during his travels. He was highly esteemed, particularly for his eloquence, and was called several times to settle disputes that had arisen among monks. In 1072 he had to resolve a question that had arisen between the monks of Vendôme and those of St. Albino of Angers. The former accepted the settlement he proposed, but the monks of St. Albino were dissatisfied with it and protested.
Pope Alexander II sent him a letter enjoining him, under penalty of excommunication, not to oppose the monks of Vendôme in recovering seven churches of his diocese that belonged to them. He received two other letters from Gregory VII; the first from Argentea, on 27 November 1073, charging him to restore to the abbatial seat of St-Laumer of Blois Isambert, whose place had been usurped by an intruder named Guido, while the legitimate abbot was making his pilgrimage to Jerusalem; the second from Tivoli, on 10 September 1074, addressed jointly to certain archbishops and to all the other bishops of France, to encourage them to resist the abuses of the king. A. is commemorated in the necrology of the monks of the Trinity of Vendôme, where an anniversary is also dedicated to him, and in that of Notre-Dame of Chartres.
Bibliography8 works
Emma Santovito