Saint Arialdo

The Catholic Encyclopedia's history of the see of Milan does not soften what Arialdo was facing. One archbishop, Landolfo, had obtained the see by simony in 980; Guido, who became archbishop in 1045, was "also a simoniac." ² "At this time the morals of the clergy were deplorable," it says: "simony and concubinage were common." ² Simony is the buying and selling of church offices, and in Milan it reached the top.

Out of those conditions, the same article says, came the Pataria, "a popular movement for social and ecclesiastical reform", headed by the priest Anselmo da Baggio, later Bishop of Lucca, and by the cleric Arialdo. ² Its judgment of the two is blunt: both "used force to compel the clergy to observe continence, and to drive its members from benefices obtained by simony." ²

His birthplace is given three ways. The 1907 article says he was of noble family and born at Cutiacum, near Milan; the New Catholic Encyclopedia says Cantù, about the year 1000; Catholic.net says Cucciago, near Como, into a family of middle-class landowners. ¹³⁵ The 1907 article sends him to study at Laon and Paris before he became a canon of the cathedral; Catholic.net says he studied at Varese, was ordained deacon in Milan and traveled in Europe, where he met the reforming ideas then spreading. ¹⁵

He never went further in orders than the diaconate. ³ Even so, the New Catholic Encyclopedia says, Henry III chose him to lead the reform of the Milanese clergy, a movement it says was assisted by "the Milanese Cardinal Anselm II of Lucca" and by the clerical historian Landulph Cotta. ³

According to Catholic.net he preached at Varese in 1056 and 1057 against the corruption of the clergy, and had great success with the people and met great hostility from the local priests. ⁵ He went on preaching in Milan, where in 1057 he joined the Pataria, and preached against the marriage and concubinage of clerics and against simony, which won him many defenders and many enemies. ⁵ He asked the people to refuse the sacraments from simoniac priests, and Catholic.net says the higher clergy of Milan took their anger out on his family's property. ⁵

Soon after he began preaching at Varese, the New Catholic Encyclopedia says, a provincial synod over which Guido presided excommunicated Arialdo and Landulph, and both appealed to Rome. ³ Two Roman legates came to Milan, Anselm of Baggio and Hildebrand, who would become Popes Alexander II and Gregory VII, and encouraged them to go on. ³ The 1907 article tells it more simply: Guido excommunicated him, and Pope Stephen at once reinstated him and told him to continue the work. ¹

The Milan article dates the best-known Roman mission to 1059, when Nicholas II sent Saint Peter Damian and Anselmo to the city. ² The people murmured, it says, demanding that the church of Milan not be made subject to Rome. ² Guido promised amendment and accepted the conditions imposed on him, but soon relapsed. ² Catholic.net also names Peter Damian, sent to make the Milanese clergy renounce simony. ⁵

When Landulph died, the New Catholic Encyclopedia says, his brother Erlembald took up the cause. ³ The Milan article calls him "the noble warrior Erlembaldo", and says that with him Arialdo began to stir up the people again. ² The 1907 article says he succeeded in having the archbishop excommunicated for his repeated relapses, and that a riot followed in which Arialdo was seriously injured. ¹ There had already been an attempt on his life with a poisoned sword. ¹ Catholic.net says the excommunication of Guido set off a popular revolt in which Arialdo himself was excommunicated. ⁵

The sources tell his death differently. The 1907 article says he was set upon by Guido's emissaries while on his way to Rome and killed, and dates it to 1065. ¹ The New Catholic Encyclopedia says that the bull of excommunication against Guido prompted the archbishop's associates to capture Arialdo and hold him on an island in Lake Maggiore, where he was murdered by two priests on June 27, 1066. ³ The Milan article gives the same day and year and calls it a brutal assassination. ²

The Roman Martyrology says he was killed by two clerics "tra atroci sofferenze", amid terrible sufferings, for his zeal for the house of God. ⁴ Catholic.net places his martyrdom on an island in Lake Maggiore, at the hands of followers of the archbishop who would not accept Rome's interference. ⁵

Ten months later, according to the 1907 article, his body was found in Lake Maggiore "in a perfect state of preservation, and emitting a sweet odour." ¹ It was carried with great ceremony to Milan and shown in the church of Saint Ambrose from the Ascension to Pentecost, then buried in the church of Saint Celsus. ¹ The New Catholic Encyclopedia says it was Erlembald who brought the body to Milan. ³

Pope Alexander II, the Anselm who had come to Milan as legate, declared him a martyr, in 1067 according to the 1907 article and in 1068 according to the New Catholic Encyclopedia. ¹³ Pius X confirmed his ancient cult in 1904, on July 12, Catholic.net says. ³⁵

Erlembaldo carried on. The Milan article says he gave the Pataria a military organization and drove the excommunicated Guido from the city, and that Guido then sold the archbishopric to his secretary. ² There were rival claimants to the see until 1085, and Erlembaldo was killed in one of the riots in 1074. ² The New Catholic Encyclopedia says Erlembald shares Arialdo's feast. ³

The Milan article closes the story without sentiment. "Unfortunately," it says, the Pataria had left an anticlerical feeling among the people, and the Cathars of Italy were later commonly called Patari. ²

None of the sources consulted for this page names a patronage for Saint Arialdo, so none is given here. ¹³⁴⁵ The Martyrology remembers him as a deacon and martyr who fought hard against the corrupt habits of a simoniac and depraved clergy. ⁴

Saint Arialdo's feast day is June 27, the day he was killed. ²³ The Roman Martyrology, as the Italian bishops print it, enters him that day at Milan as a deacon and martyr, and Catholic.net heads its life of him with the same date. ⁴⁵

He was a deacon who took on an archbishop. ²³ The sources agree on what he opposed, and the encyclopedia of 1911 is clear that the clergy of Milan in his day were in a bad way. ²

They do not make him gentle. The same article says he used force, and that the movement he led left a bitterness that outlived him. ² The Church declared him a martyr anyway, and it was a pope who had seen the situation in Milan for himself who did it. ¹³

He was killed by clerics, not by pagans or princes. ³⁴ The Martyrology does not hide that, and names the cause as zeal for the house of God. ⁴