HINCMAR (c. 806-882), archbishop of Rheims from 845 to 882, a prominent figure in most of the theological and ecclesiastical struggles of his day, and perhaps the most vigorous and influential prelate France has ever produced, belonged to a noble West Frankish family, and was born about the year 806. Other forms of the name are Ingumar, Ingmar, and Igmar. His early education was received at the abbey of St Denis under Hilduin∙ (the author of Areopagitica), whom he followed to Corvey, Westphalia, when banished by Louis the Pious in 830 for having joined the party of Lothair. Returning about two years afterwards along with his superior to St Denis, of which he had become a canon, he resided partly there and partly at court, where he rapidly rose high in the royal favour. He was with Louis at the “Field of Falsehood” (Campus mendacii) in Alsace, and was one of the few· who remained faithful when the majority of the prelates and nobles went over to the other side. After the death of Louis (840), he equally gained the confidence of Charles the Bald, through whose influence, after he had successively held the abbacies of St Mary’s, of Compiègne, and of St Germer, he was in 845 elected to succeed the deposed Ebbo or Ebo in the archiépiscopal see of Rheims. Having exacted from Charles a full restitution of all the church property which had belonged to the diocese, and a further promise that it should never again be alienated, he at once entered on the duties of his office, and took a leading part in the council of Meaux (C. Meldense), the reforming decrees of which so strongly roused the opposition of the king. Some attempt having been made to revive the claims of Ebo, Hincmar’s title to the archbishopric was confirmed by a synod of French bishops at Paris, and ...ultimately settled by Leo IV.’s transmission of the pallium in 847. Apart from the ordinary affairs of his diocese, which included the completion and adornment of the cathedral begun by his predecessor, he now became deeply involved in the discussions which arose out of the predestinarianism of Gottschalk (see Gottschalk), whom Hrabanus Maurus at the synod of Mainz (848) had caused to be relegated to Hincmar as his metropolitan. At a synod held at Quierzy on the Oise (Carisiacum), in the diocese of Soissons, in 849, Hincmar had united with Wenilo of Sens and other prelates in condemning the refractory monk to degradation, scourging, and imprisonment; but in a short refutation of the “predestinarian heresy,” which he himself shortly afterwards wrote and circulated, he so failed to do justice to the orthodox faith as to elicit the censure of Ratramnus of Corvey, who was afterwards supported by Prudentius of Troyes, Lupus of Ferrières, and a large Augustinian party (850). Hincmar now summoned the dialectic skill of John Scotus Erigena to his aid, and the controversy became general. Another synod held at Quierzy in 853 passed the four “Capitula Carisiaca,” which in substance taught that there is but one divine predestination; that free will, lost by the fall, is restored by the preventing and assisting grace of Christ; that God wills generally that all men should be saved; and that the blood of Christ was shed for all. These were answered by the six canons of the (Lotharingiah) synod of Valence, which elicited from Hincmar, two years afterwards, the De Praedestinatione Dei et Libero Arbitrio Libri tres, of which all that is now extant is the prefatory letter to the king. By the synod of Langres (S. Lingonensis, 859), however, the articles of Valence were confirmed,—a decision which was afterwards supported by the general synod held at Savona or Savon-nières, otherwise known ’ as the Concilium Tullense (859). Hincmar now published the Posterior de Praedestinatione Dei et Libero Arbitrio Dissertatio, but without influencing the voice of the church; nor was he more successful in his controversy with Gottschalk on the Trinity, his Collectio ex Sanctis Scripturis et Orthodoxorum Dictis against the phrase “Trina Deitas” having been totally disregarded; he had, however, the satisfaction of preventing the release of Gottschalk, who died in prison in 863. While these speculative controversies were doubtfully raging, Hincmar found scope for his greater practical talent in the events which followed the death of the emperor Lothair in 855, and which chiefly resulted in the strengthening of clerical ascendency. Having saved Charles from the hands of his own nobles and of the Germans, the great metropolitan was in a position at last to say, “If kings rule after God’s will, they are subject to none; if they be great sinners then is their judgment in the hands of the bishops.” In 860 began the divorce suit in which the interests of Thietberga, the oppressed queen of Lothair II., were involved; and here, undoubtedly, the whole weight of Hincmar ’ s influence was thrown into the scale of morality and right. His contribution to the discussion is still extant in the treatise De Divortio Lotarii et Teutbergαs Reginae (860). While this controversy still remained unsettled, Hincmar became involved in a struggle with the pope (Nicholas I.), which is of very considerable historical importance from the part which was played in it by the newly introduced “Isidorian” decretals, and from the effect which it had in limiting the rights of metropolitans. Rothad, bishop of Soissons, having been deposed for acts of insubordination and violations of duty at a synod of Soissons presided over by Hincmar in 863, had appealed to Rome; the appeal had been sustained; and ultimately in 865 orders were given that the judgment of Hincmar should be reversed, and that his suffragan should be restored to his office. The decision, which, though not without murmuring and contentions, was acquiesced in by Hincmar, was an important step in the development of the hierarchical monarchy of Rome. Hincmar was somewhat more successful when he found himself in opposition to the successor of Nicholas, Adrian II. This pope, who highly disapproved of the action of the archbishop in crowning Charles as the successor of King Lothair of Lorraine in 869, had fulminated threats of excommunication against all who had been concerned in that action; Hincmar replied that the Roman see had no right to interfere in such a matter, and that the impending ban would have no validity; and the actual result was that, notwithstanding alike the protest of the emperor and the prohibition of the pope, Charles the Bald and Louis the German quietly divided the dominions of their nephew. Again, when Hincmar of Laon, his nephew and suffragan, had defied his authority and appealed to the pope, a long controversy resulted in the appellant’s being imprisoned, degraded, and sentenced to the loss of his eyes (871). Of the remaining years of Hincmar’s life few incidents are recorded; in 882 he was compelled by Norman invasion to transfer his see to Epernay, where in the same year he died.
The works of Hincmar, which include, besides these already mentioned, a variety of capitula and other occasional pieces, were first edited by Sirmond in 2 vols. fol. (1645). They are reprinted in Migne’s Cursus Pair. Cοmρ. The Annales Bertiniani from 861 to 882 are also by Hincmar. See Gess, Merkwürdigkeiten aus dem Leben und Schriften Hincmars (1806); Prichard, The Life and Times of Hincmar (1849); and Noorden, Hincmar, Erzbischof von Rheims (1863).
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