ARNOLD OF BRESCIA

Radical Church reformer; b. Brescia, Italy, c. 1100; d. Rome, 1155. Arnold studied at Paris under peter abelard and later joined the canons regular of st. augustine, becoming prior of the monastery in Brescia. There he advocated a radical reform of the Church, emphasizing the necessity of absolute clerical poverty and the abandonment of wealth and temporal power by the Church. In 1139, when his reform proposals were condemned by the second lateran council, Arnold was banished from Italy. He took refuge in France and helped his former master, Abelard, defend himself at the Council of Sens in 1141. They were unsuccessful, for by a decree of July 16, 1141, innocent ii upheld the Council's condemnation of Arnold and Abelard and ordered them to be confined in separate monasteries. Soon after this, however, Arnold was teaching in the schools of Mont Sainte-Geneviève in Paris. When bernard of clairvaux persuaded the French king to expel him from France, Arnold took refuge in Zurich and later in Bohemia. In 1145 he was reconciled with Pope eugene iii, but the reconciliation was short-lived. Arnold soon broke with the pope and allied himself with a rebel political party in Rome that sought to abolish the pope's temporal power. Arnold was excommunicated once more on July 15, 1148. Pope adrian iv continued the struggle against Arnold and his allies. In 1155 Arnold was finally expelled from Rome and fell into the hands of the Emperor frederick i barbarossa, who committed him to the prefect of Rome for trial as a rebel. The prefect condemned Arnold to be hanged, his body to be burned, and his ashes to be thrown into the Tiber. Arnold was executed in 1155.

The Arnoldist movement, which survived Arnold's death and which became overtly heretical, stressed apostolic poverty for the clergy, as did other heretical movements of the 12th century. The Arnoldists went further, however, and repudiated the power of the hierarchy entirely, denied the jurisdictional powers of the Church, and held as invalid the Sacraments administered by clerics possessed of any worldly goods. They were condemned by the Council of Verona in 1184.

Bibliography: otto of freising, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, ed. and tr. c. c. mierow and r. emery (New York 1953). john of salisbury, Memoirs of the Papal Court, ed. and tr. m. chibnall (New York 1956). a. frugoni, Arnaldo da Brescia nelle fonti del secolo XII. (Rome 1954). a. fliche, Catholicisme 1: 849–850.

[j. a. brundage]