HILDUIN OF SAINT-DENIS

Translator of the works of pseudo-dionysius; b. c. 775; d. Prüm, Nov. 22, between 855 and 859. Hilduin's father was the Count Udalrich; his aunt, St. Hildegard of Kempten, was the mother of Emperor Louis I the Pious, whence Hilduin's influence at court. He was a student of alcuin; he taught hincmar of reims, and walafrid strabo. Early in 815, he was made abbot of saintdenis-en-france.

As archchaplain of Louis, 819 to 822, he was involved in all the ecclesiastical questions of the empire. At the Council of Paris (825) he favored the Eastern legates. He was involved in the revolt of the sons of Louis against their father. When they failed in 830, he was exiled to Paderborn, then on Feb. 2, 831, was stripped of his monasteries and banished to the Abbey of corvey; but Hincmar obtained his recall. Hilduin then devoted himself to reforming the abbey of Saint-Denis and to study.

At the request of Louis, he wrote a life of St. denis of paris that contributed to the identification of this bishop of Paris with Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Between 831 and 834, Hilduin translated into Latin the Dionysian Corpus from the MS (Paris Bib. Nat. Gr. 437) sent by the Byzantine Emperor Michael II to Louis in 827. This rather mediocre translation was taken up and improved c. 860 by john scotus erigena. Hilduin became archchancellor of Louis's son, Emperor lothair i (late 843–855), and accompanied him to Rome. As archbishop designate (never consecrated) he ruled Cologne from 842 to 850.

Bibliography: Patrologia Latina, ed. j. p. migne (Paris 1878–90) 106:9–50. Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Berlin 1826–) division: Epistolae. 5.1:325–337. dionysius the areopagite, Dionysiaca, 2 v. (Bruges 1937). g. thÉry, Études dionysiennes, 2 v. (Études de philosophie médiévale 16, 19; Paris 1932–37). l. levillain, "Études sur l'Abbaye de Saint-Denis," Bibliothèque de l'École Chartes 82 (1921) 5–116; "Wandalbert de Prüm et la date de la mort d'Hilduin de Saint-Denis," ibid., 108 (1949–50) 5–35. r. j. loenertz, "La Légende Parisienne de S. Denys l'Aréopagite," Analecta Bollandiana 69 (1951) 217–237. p. viard, Catholicisme 5:744–745. j. fleckenstein, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (Freiberg 1957–65) 5:346.

[p. glorieux]