BURCHARD II - Bishop of Halberstadt (1059-1088), of noble Swabian family, nephew of Archbishop Anno of Cologne, was provost at Goslar when Empress Agnes appointed him bishop of Halberstadt at Christmas 1059. At the Council of Augsburg in October 1062, B. sided with Pope Alexander II against the antipope Honorius II. In the first decade of his episcopate he was a friend of the young King Henry IV, but in 1073 he became his relentless adversary because of the king’s policy against the Saxons. Alongside the rebels and rivals Rudolf of Swabia and Hermann of Salm, B. continued the struggle against Henry IV until, after receiving a serious wound at Goslar, he died in his beloved monastery of Flensburg on 7 April 1088 at the age of sixty. His name is especially associated with loyalty to Pope Gregory VII and to the reform programme. His reforming activity is documented by the foundation of monasteries and collegiate churches in the diocese of Halberstadt and by the grand and artistic reconstruction of the cathedral (burnt down in the last war).
BURCARDO II
BIBL.: Gesta episcoporum Halberstadensium, in MGH, Scriptores, XXIII, pp. 96, 101; Annalista Saxo, ibid., II, pp. 722-26; G. Schmidt, Urkundenbuch des Hochstifts Halberstadt, I, Leipzig 1883, pp. 58-77; R. Leers, B. II, Bischof von Halberstadt, Eisenach 1892 and 1894; G. Sellin, Bischof B. II V. Halberstadt, Leipzig 1914; G. Allemang, s. V. in DHG, X, cols. 1232-34; A. Hert, s. V. in LThK, II, col. 638. Lucchesio Spätling