Erlembald Cotta, Saint

ERLEMBALDO COTTA, saint. — A noble Milanese knight of the eleventh century, a religious and warlike spirit, he placed all his activity at the service of the pontiffs for the reform of the clergy, corrupted by simony and concubinage. At the death of his brother Landolfo, leader of the Pataria, Arialdo (v.), who together with Landolfo preached reform in Milan, invited E. to take his place. He went to Rome in 1663 to seek the counsel of Pope Alessandro II, who commanded him to defend the reform by force of arms and created him standard-bearer of the Holy Church. E. strengthened the Patarine party to such an extent that before long no one in Milan dared openly oppose II.
Yet in 1666, when he returned from Rome carrying the bulls of excommunication against the simoniacal archbishop Guido, the latter succeeded in turning the people against him by insinuating that E. intended to subject the Church of Milan to the Church of Rome. But the Patarine party recovered, and the struggle against Guido and the corrupt clergy continued. While E. was working for Guido’s deposition and the election of a bishop acceptable to the Holy See, Guido, by then advanced in age, resigned the see, and the emperor Enrico appointed Goffredo di Castiglione in his place (1668), whom the Pope condemned as a simoniac. E. and his followers besieged him in his castle at Castiglione, but a very serious fire that broke out in Milan caused the undertaking to be suspended. Meanwhile Guido, having returned to Milan, died (1671), and E., with the consent of the papal legate, had Attone proclaimed bishop (1672). But the opposing party forced Attone to resign, and neither he nor Goffredo ever managed to take possession of the Milanese Church. Pope Gregorio VII, elected in 1673, urged E. to continue his work of reform, while advising him to receive kindly those who repented. But the Milanese nobles, once again relying on Enrico, whose interference in the election of bishops the Pope had curtailed at the Council of Rome in 1673, conspired against E.; taking advantage of his refusal to allow the chrism consecrated by the schismatic bishop to be used, they prepared to attack him. On 28 June 1675 E. was killed, and his body, which remained unburied for several days, was secretly buried by some of his followers near the monastery of S. Celso, where he was venerated as a martyr and a saint. Urban II, while in Milan in May 1695, together with the archbishop Arnolfo II, transferred his remains to the church of S. Dionigi. This act, which at that time was equivalent to a canonization, was commemorated by an inscription placed on his tomb and transmitted to us by two independent sources: an anonymous fourteenth-century annotator of Landolfo seniore and Fiamma of the sixteenth century.