Berengar of Tours

Berengar of Tours , c.1000-1088?, French theologian, also called Bérenger and Berengarius, b. Tours. He was archdeacon of Angers (c.1040-1060). After studying at Chartres, he returned to Tours to become head of its cathedral school. Berengar is said to have denied the Real Presence in the Eucharist . His defiance of authority angered his contemporaries, particularly Lanfranc . Berengar was defended by Pope Gregory VII and Peter Damian. He wrote a reply to Lanfranc, De Sacra Coena, which was condemned. He was declared a heretic, but became reconciled with the church before his death. Berengar's controversy with the church brought about a more explicit formulation of the doctrine of the Eucharist.

Bibliography: See A. J. Macdonald, Berengar and the Reform of Sacramental Doctrine (1930).

Berengar of Tours (c.1010–88), theologian. His family was connected with St Martin's, Tours, and by 1030 he was a canon there. He was archdeacon and treasurer of Angers cathedral, but he returned to Tours and from c.1070 he was ‘master of the schools’. Some time after 1080 he retired to a hermitage. He was much criticized for his Eucharistic teaching, against which tractates were written all over Europe. In his reply to that of Lanfranc (traditionally known as the De Sacra Coena, now as Rescriptum contra Lanfrannum), he maintains the fact of the Real Presence but denies that any material change in the elements is needed to explain it.