HINCMAR (c. 805-882), archbishop of Reims, was born of noble parents and received his education at St. Denis under the direction of abbot Hilduin who brought him in 822 to the court of the emperor Louis the Pious. When Hilduin was disgraced in 830 for supporting Lothair, Hincmar accompanied him into exile at Corvey, but returned with him when the abbot was reconciled with the emperor. Through the influence of Charles the Bald, he re ceived the abbacies of Notre-Dame at Compiegne and St. Germer de Fly, and in 845, the archbishopric of Reims. Archbishop Ebbo had been deposed in 835 at the synod of Thionville (Dieden hofen) for having broken his oath of fidelity to the emperor Louis, but on the death of Louis, he regained possession of his see for some years (840-844), until in 844 Pope Sergius II. con firmed his deposition.
From the beginning of his episcopate Hincmar was in conflict with the clerks who had been ordained by Ebbo during his re appearance. His view that their ordination was invalid was con firmed in 853 at the council of Soissons, and in 855 by Pope Bene dict III. This conflict, however, bred an antagonism of which Hincmar was later to feel the effects. During the next 3o years the archbishop of Reims played a very prominent part in political and religious affairs. In the latter sphere, his first encounter was with Gottschalk (q.v.), whose predestinarian doctrines were claimed to be drawn from St. Augustine. Hincmar secured the condemnation of these doctrines at Quierzy (8S3) and Valence (8J5), and the decisions of these two synods were confirmed at the synods of Langres and Savonnieres, near Toul (8S9). To re fute the predestinarian heresy he composed his De praedestina tione Dei et libero arbitrio, and against certain propositions ad vanced by Gottschalk on the Trinity he wrote his De una et non trina deitate. The question of the divorce of Lothair II., king of Lorraine, who had repudiated his wife Theutberga to marry his concubine Waldrada, engaged Hincmar's literary activities in another direction.
In the middle of the 9th century there appeared in Gaul the collection of false decretals known as the Pseudo-Isidorian De cretals. Rothad, bishop of Soissons, one of those who favoured the pseudo-Isidorian theories, came into collision with his arch bishop. Deposed in 863 at the council of Soissons, presided over by Hincmar, Rothad appealed to Rome. Pope Nicholas I. sup ported him, and in 865, in spite of the protests of the archbishop of Reims, Arsenius, bishop of Orta and legate of the Holy See, was instructed to restore Rothad to his episcopal see. Hincmar experienced another check when he endeavoured to prevent Wul fad, one of the clerks deposed with Ebbo, from obtaining the archbishopric of Bourges. Nicholas I. pronounced in favour of the deposed clerks, and Hincmar had to submit. He was more successful in his contest with his nephew Hincmar, bishop of Laon, who refused to recognize the authority of his metropolitan. Hincmar exposed his errors in a treatise Opusculum LV. capitu lorum, and procured his deposition at the synod of Douzy (871). A more serious conflict arose between Hincmar on the one side and Charles and the pope on the other in 876, when Pope John VIII., at the king's request, entrusted Ansegisus, archbishop of Sens, with the primacy of the Gauls and of Germany, and created him vicar apostolic. Hincmar regarded this as an encroachment on the jurisdiction of the archbishops, and published his De jure metropolitanorum. At the same time he wrote a life of St. Remi gius to prove the supremacy of the church of Reims over the other churches. Charles the Bald, however, upheld the rights of Ansegisus at the synod of Ponthion. On Charles's death, he helped to secure the submission of the nobles to Louis the Stammerer, whom he crowned at Compiegne (Dec. 8, 877).
To Carloman, on his accession in 882, Hincmar addressed his De ordine palatii, partly based on a treatise (now lost) by Ada lard, abbot of Corbie (c. 814), in which he set forth his system of government and his opinion of the duties of a sovereign, a subject he had already touched in his De regis persona et regio ministerio, and in his Instructio ad Ludovicum regem. In 882 an irruption of the Normans forced him to take refuge at Epernay, where he died on Dec. 2I, 882.
Hincmar's works, which besides the above include many theological tracts and a continuation from 861 of the Annales Bertiniani, written by Prudentius, bishop of Troyes, were printed in Paris (1645) and in Migne, Patrol. Latina, vol. cxxv. and cxxvi. See J. C. Prichard, Life of Hincmar (1849) ; C. von Noorden, Hinkmar, Erzbischof von Reims (Bonn, 1863) ; H. Schrors, Hinkmar, Erzbischof von Reims (Freiburg i-B., 1884) ; Abbe Lesne, La Hierarchic episcopale en Gaule et en Germanie (1905) ; Hefele, Konziliengeschichte IV. (Freiburg-i-B., 1879)•