ERMANNO di SCHILDISCHE. – Augustinian theologian and canonist of the fourteenth century, who died on 8 July 1357. He was the first of the German Hermits to be awarded a doctoral degree. In 1320 he was a student in Paris, where he remained as a teacher in 1326–27. In 1328–30 he was studying at the convent of Herford; in 1332 he was made bachelor, and finally, in 1337, master and superior of his Saxon-Thuringian religious province. In 1338 he was sent by the German bishops on a mission to Avignon to re-
concile Ludovico il Bavaro with Benedetto XII. Among his contemporaries he enjoyed a reputation for extensive learning and great holiness. The historians of his Order honor him with the title of “blessed.”
He worked extensively for the education of the young and carried out, through his writings and oral teaching, an intense apostolate among the
ERMANNO GIUSEPPE DI STEINFELD, blessed – Blessed R. Detail of the altarpiece, now destroyed, for the altar of the Blessed in the abbey church of Steinfeld (1468) – Berlin, Kaiser Friedrich-Museum.
of his birth and death. Having fallen ill after a decade of government, he resigned his office into the hands of Simone, bishop of Tournai. Some historians report that, after leaving office, he went to Rome and Jerusalem, where he is said to have fallen into the hands of the infidels and died a martyr.
Works: Narratio restaurationis abbattiae S. Martini Torranensis (PL 180, 39–131); De miraculis B. Marius Laudunensis (ibid., 156, 961 ff.); De Incornatione Iesu Christi Domini Nostri (ibid., 180, 10–17); this Christological work reflects Anselmian thought and contains valuable Mariological insights.