Berengar and Controversy

After Berengar of Tours avoided what he assumed was a council to condemn him further (he had already been excommunicated for his denial of transubstantiation), he went to be shielded by some supporters, Count Geoffrey II of Anjou and a former student, Eusebius Bruno the Bishop of Angers.

Berengar was willing to accept that there was a spiritual change in the bread and wine, but the Church saw it as something more, an actual physical transformation. A regional synod in Tours in 1054 condemned him again. This concerned him so much that he wrote a letter recanting his earlier denial. He agreed that, during the Mass, the bread and wine became in some way the body and blood of Christ. The bishops who convened the Council of Tours in 1055 considered this sufficient and the matter settled.

He went to Rome in 1059, summoned once again to express his opinion. They wrote a statement for him to sign that was so far from his views:

...the bread and wine which are placed on the altar are after consecration not only a sacrament but also the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the senses not only sacramentally but in truth are taken and broken by the hands of the priests and crushed by the teeth of the faithful.

...that he refused to sign it. He requested an opportunity to speak before a group of prelates, but was denied.

Not long after, Geoffrey of Anjou died. Berengar returned home and reversed his earlier recantation from 1054; this obstinacy caused Eusebius to withdraw his support. Pope Alexander II offered him a lifeline, sending him a letter encouraging him to use silence as his shield and stop espousing radical views.

Berengar would not stop. In 1069 he wrote a treatise against Pope Nicholas II and the 1054 council that had condemned him. Lanfranc (in 1070 being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury) wrote a response, as did Bishop Hugo of Langres and Bishop Berengar of Venosa.

He was condemned again in 1076 at the Synod of Poitiers. Pope Gregory VII, who in 1054 was Cardinal Hildebrand, the papal legate who convened the Council of Tours at which Berengar originally agreed that transubstantiation occurred (although in a vague statement that was nonetheless enough to satisfy everyone), tried to save the situation by having Berengar sign (yet another) indefinite statement. Berengar's enemies were not satisfied and again called for a statement about real flesh and blood.

Berengar finally admitted the error of his ways, went home, and immediately wrote an account of the events in Rome and again reversed his position back to the original. This meant another synod to condemn him, this time at Bordeaux in 1080, at which he for the last time publicly renounced his earlier views. Tired no doubt of the controversy, and at this time probably a man at least in his 70s, he retired to an island near Tours, Saint-Cosme, where he died on 6 January 1088.

Berengar's situation thrust front and center the question of what happens to the bread and wine during the Mass. Theologians were forced to debate and determine the significance of the meal at the last Supper. Transubstantiation might not have taken hold had Berengar not raised the issue so stridently. But where did the idea of bread and wine becoming actual flesh and blood arise in the history of theology? Against whom was Berengar arguing? For that we are going to look back to a 9th century Carolingian abbot, the orphan Paschasius Radbertus...next time.

Berengar of Tours

A controversial figure who was widely respected by some and strongly denounced by others, Berengar was born in the early 11th century, probably in Tours. He was educated at the school of Chartres under Bishop Fulbert of Chartres. When Fulbert died in 1028, Berengar returned to Tours and became a canon at the cathedral there, becoming head of its school in 1040.

His simple lifestyle, erudition, and judgment enhanced his reputation to the point where he was asked to preside over a dispute between the bishop of Poitiers and his diocesan priests. Count (from 1040 - 1060) Geoffrey of Anjou was an admirer and supporter. To be frank, Geoffrey was described in the Gesta Normannorum Ducum as "a treacherous man in every respect, frequently inflicted assaults and intolerable pressure on his neighbors." Nevertheless, a good man to have on your side if you had controversial views.

He had two views that clashed with official Church thought. He preached the supremacy of Scripture (as opposed to many of the trappings and embellishments of the liturgy that had been added over the years). He might have been fine if that was all. His real downfall was his denial of transubstantiation, the idea that the bread and wine during the Mass was actually transformed in some way to the flesh and blood of Jesus.

To be fair to Berengar, not everyone believed in transubstantiation. A Carolingian theologian in the 9th century, Paschasius Radbertus, was one of the first to claim that the Eucharist was identical to flesh and blood because what Jesus said during the Last Supper must be true because God does not lie. This idea did not receive universal support. A Frankish monk named Ratramnus (died c.868) and Hrabanus Maurus (c.780 - 856) suggested the conversion was more spiritual than physical.

Berengar was accused of disregarding the presence of the divine in the Eucharist, when it is possible that he simply rejected the idea of a physical change in the bread and wine. Berengar wrote in 1050 to Lanfranc of Bec in Normandy (later archbishop of Canterbury), expressing his concern that Lanfranc supported the idea of transubstantiation and considered Ratramnus heretical. Lanfranc had been traveling to Rome, and the letter followed him there. Lanfranc shared the letter with others, with the result that Berengar was summoned to appear at a council in Vercelli in northern Italy. Berengar asked King Henry I of France for permission to go. For reasons unknown, Henry refused and kept Berengar captive. The Lanfranc letter was read in Vercelli and Berengar was declared excommunicated.

The king released him, but called his own council in Paris for October 1051, inviting Berengar. Berengar suspected this council was intended to do him more harm, so he went to stay with Count Geoffrey. The bishop of Angers, Eusebius of Angers, also supported Berengar, under whom he had studied at Tours.

The Church was not going to let him live out his excommunicated life in peace, however. I'll go into that tomorrow.