HERIGER OF LOBBES. - Benedictine abbot and writer, b. in the first half of the 10th century, d. at Lobbes (Liège) in 1007. Having entered the abbey of Lobbes in 955, he soon became its scholasticus, and through his learning and his skill in governance he made the monastic school famous. A friend of the powerful Notker of Liège, he was his most valued counselor. Elected abbot in 990, he fully lived up to the monks' expectations.
His writings are predominantly historical: Gesta episcoporum Tungrenium, Traiectenium, Leodienium (MGH, Script., VII, 162-89; PL 139, 1001-1666), a work of scant critical judgment but of good literary taste, continued down to 1052 by Anselm of Liège; Vita s. Urmari, of which a fragment remains (PL 139, 1125-28); Vitae s. Landaoldi, s. Adelini, s. Remacli (PL 139, 1111-68), written perhaps in collaboration with Notker; Epistola ad quemdam Hugonem monachum (PL 139, 1129-1366) deals with chronological questions; the Regulae Herigeri in abacum (ed. N. Bubnov, Gerberti opera mathematica, Berlin 1899, pp. 205-25) show him to be a distinguished mathematician. Other works are lost. Sigebert of Gembloux attested that H. had collected many texts of the Fathers against Paschasius Radbertus. In 1655 Celiot published an anonymous De corpore et sanguine Domini which Mabillon immediately claimed for H. Pez, on the other hand, attributed it to Gerbert (Sylvester II), and under this name it is reprinted by Migne (PL 189, 179-88). According to Hauck every attribution is unfounded; in the judgment of Dümmler the authentic work of H. is found in ms. 909 of the University of Ghent under the title: Herigeris abbatia exaggeratio plurimorum auctorum de corpore et sanguine Domini, which is essentially a florilegium of texts on the real presence (Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, Bede, Paschasius Radbertus) to be set against Ratramnus, with an epilogue by the compiler. Amann shares this opinion. Heurtentvent, Morin, and Vernet, however, consider Mabillon's attribution correct. The author begins by recalling the divergences of Paschasius and Ratramnus concerning the Eucharist; he reproduces many texts for the one and the other tendency and concludes rather in favor of Paschasius, in whose doctrine the figure and the veritas are reconciled. To explain the identity of the eucharistic body with that born of the Virgin, he sets forth this principle: «credendum in ipsa immolationis hora... illud (corpus) angelorum ministerio in sublime deportari altare, quod est ipse Christus... contactque illius unum fieri» (col. 187). An obscure and unfortunate phrase, but not so fraught with errors (Christological-eucharistic dualism) as some have claimed.