MILONE, CRISPINO (MILO CRISPINUS)

MILONE, CRISPINO (Milo Crispinus). - Precentor of the abbey of Bec in Normandy and member of the distinguished Crispini family, of which he left a genealogy. He is said to have been born in the last years of the 11th century, since he states that he heard St. Anselmo (d. 1109) speak of Blessed Lanfranco (d. 1089). Nothing is known of M.’s life; he died around the middle of the 12th century.

He wrote the biography of Blessed Lanfranco, archbishop of Canterbury, which was published by Luca d'Achery with Lanfranco’s works (Paris 1646), and subsequently by J. Mabillon (Acta Sanctorum O. S. B., sec. VI, IX, II, Venice 1720, pp. 628-56), by the Bollandists (Acta SS. Mai, VI, Paris 1866), and by Migne (PL 150, 822-30). In the prologue M. states that he obtained all the particulars from Anselmo, or from

trustworthy witnesses, or from the biography of Erluino (Herluinus) composed by Gilberto (Gislebertus) Crispino, his relative. M. also wrote, though very briefly, the life of the abbots Guilelmus de Bellomonte and Boso, his superiors, published in the same collection by Luca d'Achery, who subsequently gives, without the author's name, the biographies of the abbots Theobaldus and Letardus, successors of the first two (PL 150, 713). If M. was the author, as is probable, of the prologue added to the life of Erluino after the death of Gilberto (1114), in which prologue Letardus is mentioned, he would have lived beyond 1149, the year of Letardus's death.