DURANDO of TROARN. — Benedictine abbot and theologian, b. at the beginning of the 11th century, probably at Nantes, d. on 11 February 1088 at Troarn (Normandy). A monk from 1031 at St-Vandrille, and subsequently at Fécamp, he won the favor of William, duke of Normandy and king of England, on account of his gifts; in 1059 William appointed him abbot of S. Martino of Troarn (recently founded), where he governed wisely for 29 years, leaving a reputation as «ecclesiastici cantus et divini dogmatis doctor peritissimus, sibi durus carnifex aliisque mitis opifex» (Ordericus Vitalis [d. in 1143], Hist. eccl., part 3, bk. 8: PL 188, 577).
Between 1050 and 1058 he wrote the treatise De corpore et sanguine Domini (first published by D'Achery in Paris in 1688, in an appendix to the works of Lanfranco, and reproduced by Migne: PL 148, 1375–1424); it consists of 9 parts, which develop the entire Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, with parenthetical digressions and polemical thrusts against Berengario of Tours. Although occasioned by the latter’s heresy, the work as a whole retains an irenic tone: the a., avoiding details and subtle speculations (credendum potius quam discutiendum), prefers broad and synthetic visions of the truth, thus illuminating the idea of the panis vitae and showing its importance in the economy of salvation (Christus illocalis est vitae locus, in quo vivat Christianus). The work, composed of
biblical and patristic texts, was an indirect but effective refutation of Berengario’s nascent Eucharistic rationalism, and also provides us with the first doctrinal information about II.