Flodoard

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Flodoard (894–966) was a French chronicler.

He was born at Épernay, and educated at Reims in the cathedral school which had been established by Archbishop Fulcon (822-900).

As canon of Reims, and favourite of the archbishops Herivaeus (d. 922) and Seulfus (d. 925), he occupied while still young an important position at the archiepiscopal court, but was twice deprived of his benefices by Heribert, count of Vermandois, on account of his steady opposition to the election of the count's infant son to the archbishopric. Upon the final triumph of Archbishop Artold in 947, Flodoard became for a time his chief adviser, but withdrew to a monastery in 952, and spent the remaining years of his life in literary and devotional work.

His history of the cathedral church at Reims (Historia Remensis Ecclesiae) is one of the most remarkable productions of the 10th century. Flodoard had been given charge of the episcopal archives, and constructed his history out of the original texts, which he generally reproduces in full; the documents for the period of Hincmar being especially valuable. The Annales which Flodoard wrote year by year from 919 to 966 are doubly important, by reason of the authors honesty and the central position of Reims in European affairs in his time.

Flodoard's poetical works are of hardly less historical interest. The long poem celebrating the triumph of Christ and His saints was called forth by the favour shown him by Pope Leo VII, during whose pontificate he visited Rome, and he devotes fourteen books to the history of the popes.

Flodoard's works were published in full by JP Migne (Patrologia Latina, vol. 135); a modern edition of the Annales is the one edited by Philippe Lauer (Paris, 1906). For bibliography see Auguste Molinier, Sources de l'histoire de France (No. 932).