ARNULF OF MILAN

Historian of the archbishops of Milan; d. 1077. He was the great-grandson of the brother of an earlier archbishop of Milan, Arnulf I (d. 974), but very little is known of his life; what is known about him is derived from his writings. He was a member of the aristocratic class of the Capitani and was a notable person in his day. He was probably a cleric and perhaps even a subdeacon, for his writings contain many Biblical allusions and his style is Biblical. In the struggle for supremacy, in spite of his aristocratic background, he remained faithful to the discipline of the Church and to Pope gregory vii, although he frequently spoke out sharply against other ecclesiastics for their fraud and deceit, and he even resisted the appointment of Abp. atto of milan. After the submission of henry iv at Canossa (see investiture struggle), Arnulf submitted to Atto and was a member of the diplomatic mission sent by the Milanese to promise loyalty to the archbishop. Arnulf is famed for his authorship of the Gesta archiepiscoporum Mediolanensium. In his history he related the events in which he participated, or based his account on the testimony of those whom he considered credible. The chronicle begins with King Hugo of Italy (d. 947) in 925 and concludes with the election of Rudolf of Rheinfelden (d. 1080) as king through the year 1077, though without a formal conclusion. The work is a source of first rank, and it is of great value for the study of the period.

Bibliography: Patrologia Latina, ed. j. p. migne, 217 v. (Paris 1878–90) 147:279–332. Monumenta Germaniae Scriptores (Berlin 1825–) 8:1–13. l. boehm, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 1:900–901. m. manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, 3 v. (Munich 1911–31) 3:507–509. a. fliche, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart (Paris 1912–) 4:599; La Réforme grégorienne, 3 v. (Louvain 1924–37) v.2, passim.

[v. a. schaefer]