Adalberon, Bishop of Laon
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Not be confused with Adalberon, archbishop of Rheims (d. 988 or 989).

Adalberon, or Ascelin (d. 1030 or 1031) was a French bishop and poet. He was a son of Reginar of Bastogne, and a nephew of Adalberon, Archbishop of Reims.

Life

He studied at Reims and was in the chapter of Metz Cathedral¹. He became bishop of Laon in 977.

The chronicler Richer of Rheims reports an accusation of 977 against him of adultery, with Queen Emma of Italy². Emma's son Louis V of France removed him from Laon in 981³.

When Laon was taken by Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine, in 988, he was put into prison, whence he escaped and sought the protection of Hugh Capet, king of France. Winning the confidence of Charles of Lorraine and of Arnulf, archbishop of Reims, he was restored to his see; but in 991 he gave Laon, together with Charles and Arnulf, into the hands of Hugh Capet⁴.

Subsequently he took an active part in ecclesiastical affairs, and died on July 19, 1030/1031.

Works

Adalberon wrote a satirical poem in the form of a dialogue dedicated to Robert II of France, in which he argued against contemporary episcopal and monastic reform. He showed his dislike of Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, and his followers, and his objection to persons of humble birth being made bishops.

• Carozzi, Claude (ed. and trans.). Adalberon de Laon. Poème au roi Robert. Les classiques de l'histoire de France au moyen âge 32. Paris, 1979.
• Migne, J.P. (ed.). Patrologia Latina, vol. 141. Paris, 1844. Transcription available from Documenta Catholica Omnia
• Valois, H. (ed.). Carmen panegyricum in laudem Berengarii. Paris, 1663. First (modern) publication of the poem.

He seems to be famous in French history because of a poem in which he made mention of (the) three orders in society : "oratores, bellatores, laboratores" : the clergy ("praying Church"), nobles and chivalry ("the fighting church"), and, third, the labouring people ("church of toiling"), the last one supporting the others, and all supporting the whole edifice of mankind. This idea was incorporated into the "three social orders" of the Ancien Régime in France.

Secondary Sources

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Histoire de la France, ed. George Duby, Larousse 1988, vol I, p. 301;
• Franco Gardini, in The Medieval World, ed. Jacques le Goff, 1987, Eng. transl. 1990, Collins & Brown, p. 75. Not in the more pragmatic (?) English literature. -

Notes

1. ^ Heinrich Fichtenau, Patrick J. Geary, Living in the Tenth Century: Mentalities and Social Orders (1991), p. 187.
2. ^ Jason Glenn, Politics and History in the Tenth Century: The Work and World of Richer of Reims (2004), p. 147.
3. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia: Soissons
4. ^ Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (1994), p. 151.