Arialdus of Milan

Arialdus of Milan was a deacon at Milan, killed on 27 June 1066 at Lago Maggiore for his struggle against simony. He is honored as a saint and martyr in the Roman Catholic Church.

He was born around 1010 or 1000, to a noble family in Cucciago, near Como. After studies at Laon and Paris, he was made a canon of the cathedral of Milan. According to Andrea da Parma, abbot of San Fedele di Strumi, who wrote his Life, the church of Milan was rife with immoral clerics, who lived in debauchery, lent money at interest and sold indulgences. Together with the bishop of Lucca, Anselmo da Baggio (the future Pope Alexander II), Arialdus headed the pataria, the movement that sought to reform the simoniac Milanese clergy. For this he was excommunicated by the archbishop of Milan, Guido da Velate. Pope Stephen IX lifted the excommunication, and Arialdus returned to Milan to continue his work. The matter became less one of the conduct of clerics and more one of the authority of Rome over Milan. In the end his efforts led to the excommunication of Archbishop Guido. On his way to Rome he was ambushed by emissaries of Guido and killed.

Ten months after the murder, his body was found in Lago Maggiore, it is said in a perfect state of preservation and giving off a sweet fragrance. It was carried to Milan and exposed in the church of Saint Ambrose from Ascension to Pentecost, then buried in the church of Saint Celsus. The next year, 1067, Pope Alexander II declared him a martyr.

He died in 1066, after the separation of East and West of 1054; he is a saint of the West, with no Orthodox synodal canonization.