Gerhoh of Reichersberg

1093-1169. Prominent Augustinian and a leading advocate of Gregorian reforms in Germany. Born in Bavaria, he was scholasticus of the cathedral school in Augsburg (1119), but came into conflict with his simoniacal bishop, Hermann, and was forced in 1121 to surrender his post. Later reconciled to his bishop, he advised him at the First Lateran Council (1123), summoned by Callistus II to confirm the Concordat of Worms. Gerhoh attempted unsuccessfully to persuade the council to adopt his program for the reform of the secular clergy through the introduction of communal life. He returned in 1124 to Germany and entered the cloister of the Augustinian Canons* Regular in Rottenbuch. He reformed the rule of the Canons and explained his ideas in Liber de aedificio Dei (1130). As provost of the Canons Regular (Reichersberg, 1132), he traveled widely and established friendly relations with Bernard of Clairvaux.* Always a champion of theological orthodoxy-though libeled by many opponents of his reforms as a heretic-he attacked the Christology of Peter Abelard and Gilbert de la Porrée. His views on the relation of imperial and papal power were summarized in his treatise, De Investigatione Antichristi (1161), an essay which did not endear him to Frederick I, whom he further alienated in 1166 because of his unwillingness to support an imperialist antipope.