BRUNO IL GRANDE, saint. — Archbishop of Cologne, born in the spring of 925, died at Reims on 11 October 965. The youngest son of Enrico I of Germany and brother of Ottone I, educated at the cathedral school of Utrecht by Bishop Balderico, B. was soon summoned to his brother’s court and, while still very young, appointed chancellor in 940. Shortly thereafter, however, having been ordained a deacon, he introduced the Benedictine Rule into the monastery of Lorsch and others. Imperial archchaplain in 951, he was appointed archbishop of Cologne and regent for Lorraine in 953. He held the two offices with energy and severity: in the region entrusted to him he restored royal authority, which had been greatly shaken; he represented the king in numerous diplomatic missions, above all as arbiter in France; he caused Cologne to flourish again, and from his government the city dated its new life. When Ottone I went down to Italy, the regency and guardianship of the young Ottone II were entrusted to him, together with Archbishop Guglielmo of Mainz. After the emperor’s return, he went to France to settle a dynastic dispute, and died on the journey back. Buried in the monastery of S. Pantaleone, which he had founded in Cologne, he soon received veneration on the same day, 11 October.
In B. the political character predominates. Although he was a zealous supporter of asceticism and a resolute propagator of ecclesiastical reform in Lorraine, he failed to see the danger of an episcopate enfeoffed to the empire and wholly absorbed in administrative and political affairs. Yet he knew how to make the imperial chancery a school for the ever better education of the episcopate.