Milone, Crispino (Milo Crispinus)

MILONE, CRISPINO (Milo Crispinus). - Cantor of the abbey of Bec in Normandy and member of the illustrious Crispini family, whose genealogy he left. He would have been born in the last years of the 11th century, since he says he heard St. Anselm (d. 1109) speak of the blessed Lanfranc (d. 1089). Nothing is known of M.'s life; he died around the middle of the 12th century.

He wrote the biography of the blessed Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, which was published by Luc d'Achery with the works of Lanfranc (Paris 1646), and then by J. Mabillon (Acta Sanctorum O. S. B., saec. VI, IX, II, Venice 1720, pp. 628-56), and by the Bollandists (Acta SS. Mai, VI, Paris 1866) and by Migne (PL 150, 822-30). In the prologue M. asserts that he holds all the particulars from Anselm, or from witnesses worthy of faith, or else from the biography of Herluin (Herluinus) compiled by Gilbert (Gislebertus) Crispinus, his relative. M. also wrote, but very briefly, the life of the abbots Guilelmus de Bellomonte and Boso, his superiors, published in the same collection by Luc d'Achery, who gives afterward, without the author's name, the biography of the abbots Theobaldus and Letardus, successors of the first two (PL 150, 713). If M. were the author, which is probable, of the prologue added to the life of Herluin after the death of Gilbert (1114), in which prologue mention is made of Letardus, he would have lived beyond 1149, the year of Letardus's death.