Wilbert of Cologne

Saint Willibert (Wilbert) was Archbishop of Cologne from 870 to 889, a hierarch of the pre-⁠Schism West, chosen in troubled times when the Frankish kings contested his see. The Church commemorates him on 11 September as one of the shepherds who strengthened church life on the lower Rhine after the age of Charlemagne.

Election

Willibert came from a noble family, but nothing survives of his early years. The first notices of him date from 865 or 866, when he was a canon of Cologne cathedral. The author of the Annals of Xanten, a contemporary, said that he was not proud, nor greedy, nor a hypocrite, nor a hireling, but weighed down by hard need, though learned in all spiritual sciences.

After Archbishop Gunther was excommunicated and deposed, two kings sought to place their own man at Cologne: Charles the Bald, king of West Francia, the abbot Hilduin, a relative of Gunther, while Louis the German, king of East Francia, sent Archbishop Liutbert of Mainz to summon the clergy and townspeople to Deutz and tell them that, if they did not choose an archbishop themselves within three days, the king would name the head of the diocese. On 7 January 870 Willibert was elected, for his gift of preaching and his steadiness in church discipline. He accepted the office reluctantly, only at the urging of the king and the archbishop, and was consecrated the same day by Liutbert, assisted by Bishop Adalbold of Utrecht. The haste was intended to prevent Charles from placing his man at the head of the metropolis in territories contested by both kings. Hilduin was also consecrated, by Bishop Franco of Liège, but no bishop of the East recognized the ordination.

Difficulties with Rome

Pope Hadrian II, at Charles's request, contested the election and sent to Cologne, through Bishop Wibod of Parma, letters declaring it unlawful, and not even Willibert's letters, the request of the clergy of Cologne or the plea of the Empress Angilberga changed his mind. The clergy of West Francia condemned in 871 the bishop of Cologne and his supporters. Only after some years did Willibert manage to convince the new pope, John VIII, of the lawfulness of the election, writing that he had not sought the see and promising loyalty. The pope required Gunther to renounce his rank, which he did, and commanded the bishops of the East not to let him regain it and to elect, after Willibert, another archbishop. Gunther died in 873, and in 874 or 875 the pope sent the archbishop the pallium. Charles, in turn, managed to put his man, Bertulf, in the see of Trier.

For the reception of the pallium a council was held at Cologne on 26 September, with King Louis the German, Archbishops Willibert and Liutbert, and Bishops Adalbold of Utrecht, Bernard of Verden, Hildegrim and others. They discussed property disputes between the metropolis and its bishops, the founding of the convent of Essen and other matters. The next day the new cathedral, begun in the time of Hildebold and finished under Gunther, which Gunther had defiled, was solemnly consecrated, now to Saint Peter. In 875 Willibert, with Bishop Hildegrim of Halberstadt, consecrated the church of Saint Stephen in the abbey of Werden.

Service to the king and the time of the Vikings

After the Treaty of Meerssen in 870, when the whole diocese of Cologne passed to East Francia, Willibert became one of the closest to Louis the German. In 876, at the king's command, he went with Counts Adalard and Meingaud to Charles the Bald, newly made emperor, and on 4 July, at Ponthion, they asked him for a share of the inheritance of Louis II of Italy. A synod of the western clergy rejected the eastern king's claims, and Pope John VIII, who supported Charles, made the eastern envoys swear loyalty to Ansegis, the emperor's close associate, made papal legate north of the Alps.

Willibert was still at Charles's court when news came of Louis the German's death on 28 August 876. Charles set out to seize Lotharingia, and Willibert had to accompany him. Remaining loyal to the dead king's son, Louis the Younger, he secretly warned him of Charles's plans, so that the king could prepare his defence in time; in the king's name the archbishop accused the emperor of breaking his oath. Louis the Younger then held, as the custom of the time was, a judgment of God, and at Andernach won the battle. In 878 the pope invited him to the synod of Troyes, but Willibert did not go.

In 881 or 882 Cologne was pillaged and burned by the Vikings of the Great Heathen Army. Many buildings, including the diocesan archive, were burned, and the archbishop barely escaped, fleeing to Mainz. With the help of Liutbert of Mainz he rebuilt much of what was destroyed. Perhaps under the impression of this sack, he ordered the compilation of the first known list of the archbishops of Cologne, preserved in a manuscript of the late tenth century, and the lives of Saint Evergislus and Saint Cunibert were written in his time. In June 885, with Duke Henry of Franconia, he met on the island of Herespich the Viking chieftain Godfrid, by then in the service of Charles the Fat, and at this meeting Godfrid was killed by Henry on the king's secret order. Willibert was not present, for he had cleverly taken Godfrid's wife Gisela, a Carolingian princess, off the island and was escorting her to safety.

Synods and foundations

On 1 October 887 Willibert held at Cologne the first provincial synod of his metropolis, at the request of Bishop Franco of Liège, who complained of laymen who had seized lands; the synod issued canons against such encroachments and several decisions on the moral life of clergy and laity. Willibert is regarded as founder of the monasteries of Saint Cecilia and Saint Matthew. In June 888 he took part in the synod of Mainz, the first under King Arnulf of Carinthia, which confirmed the privileges of the monasteries of Corvey and Herford, and he was named president of a court of nine bishops that rejected the complaints of Bishop Egilmar of Osnabrück. He was also present at the assembly of the realm on 6 July 889.

Repose

He reposed on 11 September 889, the first archbishop of Cologne buried in the cathedral of that time, today the church of Hildebold. Regino of Prüm praised him as a man very holy and very wise in divine and human matters. Hermann I succeeded him in the see. He is venerated as a saint, and his day of commemoration is 11 September.