Halitgar (Halitgarius, Halitcharius, Halitgaire, Aligerio) was a ninth-century bishop of Cambrai (in office 817–831). He is known also as an apostle to the Danes, and the writer of a widely known
penitential.
Life
In 822 he travelled to Denmark as a missionary with Ebbo of Rheims and Willeric of Bremen, though not to great immediate effect.
[Carole M. Cusack, Conversion among the Germanic Peoples (1998), p. 135.] In 823 he dedicated the church and relics of
St Ursmer at
Lobbes.
[http://users.skynet.be/bk342309/Lobbes/page7.html , in French.] In 825, with Amalarius of Metz, he carried the conclusions of a Paris synod on
iconoclasm to Louis the Pious.
[Rosamund McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians (1983), p. 133.] He went as ambassador to
Byzantium in 828.
[ New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. V: Goar - Innocent | Christian Classics Ethereal Library]
De Paenitentia
His
De Paenitentia laid down qualities Christians should aspire to in their lives.
[Philippe Ariès, Paul Veyne, Georges Duby, A History of Private Life (English translation 1987), p. 536.] He discussed a distinction between killing in warfare (a sin), and in self-defense in battle.
[Frederick H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (1975), p. 31.][Janet L. Nelson, The Frankish World, 750-900 (1996), p. 78.] Heavy penances for homosexual acts were imposed on older men.
[ Jody Madeira, Rebuilding the Closet: Bowers v. Hardwick, Lawrence v. Texas, and the Mismeasure of Homosexual Historiography(PDF), p. 10 ] The work is also a source for information about surviving
pagan practices.
[John T. McNeill, Folk-Paganism in the Penitentials, The Journal of Religion, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Oct., 1933), pp. 450-466.]
It was written in five volumes, at Ebbo's request.[ New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. II: Basilica - Chambers | Christian Classics Ethereal Library] Ebbo's intention was to have a normative penitential; Halitgar set aside tariffs of for exhortations.[Henry Charles Lea, A History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences in the Latin Church I (1896), p. 105.][Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon England (2003), p. 227.] This work and the two attributed to Hrabanus Maurus were considered to supersede those written before, and were very influential, particularly in pre-Norman England.[Thomas Pollock Oakley, English Penitential Discipline and Anglo-Saxon Law in Their Joint Influence (2003), p. 31.] At this point, "the books used by confessors began to consist more and more of instructions in the style of the later moral theology".
His sources have been much debated:
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material from Gregory the Great, Prosper of Aquitaine, the Collectio Acheriana
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the Canons of Elvira and other old collections
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Julianus Pomerius
[David Ganz, The Ideology of Sharing p. 26 in Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages (1995) edited by Wendy Davies, Paul Fouracre.]
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a source common to Halitgar, the Collectio quadripartita, and the penitential writings of Hrabanus Maurus.
[ Ghostly Recensions in Early Medieval Canon Law: The Problem of the Collectio Dacheriana and its Shades, The Legal History Review, Volume 68, Numbers 1-2, January, 2000]
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Die altenglische Version des Halitgar'schen Bussbuches : (sog. Poenitentiale pseudo-Ecgberti), Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964
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Raymund Kottje (1980), Die Bussbucher Halitgars von Cambrai und des Hrabanus Maurus: Ihre Uberlieferung und ihre Quellen
Notes
