Erlembald Cotta, Saint

ERLEMBALD COTTA, Saint. - A noble Milanese knight of the 11th century, a religious spirit and warrior, he placed all his work at the service of the pontiffs for the reform of the clergy, corrupted by simony and concubinage. On the death of his brother Landolfo, head of the Pataria, the deacon Arialdo (v.), who together with Landolfo preached reform in Milan, invited E. to take his place. The latter went to Rome in 1063 to ask counsel of Pope Alexander II, who commanded him to defend the reform with arms and created him standard-bearer of Holy Church. E. so strengthened the Patarine party that soon no one in Milan dared any longer to oppose it openly.

Yet in 1066, when he returned from Rome bringing the bulls of excommunication against the simoniac archbishop Guido, the latter succeeded in rousing the people against him, insinuating that E. aimed to subject the Milanese Church 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 the deposition of Guido and the election of a bishop acceptable to the Holy See, Guido, now old, renounced the see, and the emperor Henry appointed in his place Goffredo of Castiglione (1068), whom the Pope condemned as a simoniac. E. and his followers pressed him with a siege in his castle of Castiglione, but a very serious fire that broke out in Milan caused the enterprise to be suspended. Meanwhile Guido, having returned to Milan, died (1071), and E., with the consent of the pontifical legate, had Attone proclaimed bishop (1072). But the opposing party forced Attone to renounce, and neither he nor Goffredo ever succeeded in taking possession of the Milanese Church. Pope Gregory VII, elected in 1073, urged E. to continue the work of reform, while advising him to receive with kindness those who repented. But the Milanese nobles, relying once more on Henry, whose interference in the election of bishops the Pope had broken at the Council of Rome in 1073, conspired against E., and seizing the occasion of his refusal to let the chrism consecrated by the schismatic bishop be used, they prepared to attack him. On 28 June 1075 E. was killed, and his body, which remained several days without burial, was buried in secret by some of his followers near the monastery of S. Celso, where he was venerated as a martyr and saint. Urban II, finding himself in May 1095 at Milan, together with archbishop Arnolfo II, transferred his remains to the church of S. Dionigi. This fact, which at that time was equivalent to a canonization, was recorded by an inscription placed on his tomb and handed down to us by two independent sources: by an anonymous annotator of the 14th century of Landolfo seniore and by the Fiamma of the 16th century.

Claudia De Sanctis