HINCMAR was born in France in 806. Ho was of a noble family, and nearly related to Bernard, count of Toulouse. At a very early age he was placed under the care of Hilduin, abbot of St. Denis, in which monastery he soon acquired a high reputation for learning and strict observation of monastic discipline. His talents and high birth brought him under the notice of the Emperor Lewis the Meek, at whose court he became a frequent attendant. It was there that, con jointly with the emperor and Hilduin, he formed a plan, which was sanctioned by the council of Paris in 829, of reforming the rules of the monastery of St. Denis, into which many abuses had been gradually introduced. Hilduin, having fallen under the displeasure of his royal master, was banished from the court, and retired to Saxony, whither he was accompanied by Hincmar. On the death of his successor an illegitimate grandson of Charlemagne, again Introduced him to the court of the emperor, who presented him with the government of the abbeys of Notro•Darne at Couipi&gne and St-Germer. On this occasion he evinced his respect for the observance of the canon law, which at that period was often set aside, in request ing the sanction of the bishop of the diocese, and that of his own abbot, previous to accepting that preferment In the year 845 was assembled the first council of Beauvais,.consisting of ten bishops of the provinces of Melillo and Sens. In that council the deposition of Ebbonins, archbishop of Rheims, was confirmed, and Hincmar was elected by the clergy and people to succeed him. During the session of the council of Beauvais, eight articles of convention between the emperor and Hincmar were drawn up, defining the extent of their separate jurisdictions in matters spiritual and temporal. During the same year a council was likewise held at Meaux, presided over by Ilinemar and the primates of Sens and Bourges, in which the powers of the metropolitan bishops were more clearly defined and extended.
About this period Godeschalcus, a native of Germany, and monk of Orbais in France, attracted popular notice by a new exposition of the doctrines of St. Augustine on predestination ; his peculiar views on this abstruse subject were prominently brought forward during a pilgrimage which he made to Rome, and drew upon him the dis pleasure of the principal theologians of the day. A council was convened at Mayence by Ratan Maurus, archbishop of that city, in which the opinions of Godeschalcus were combated and condemned, the arguments against him being chiefly deduced from the writings of St. Augustine himself. It was there resolved to transmit his case,
and to leave the judgment to be pronounced upon him to Hincmar, in whose province was situated the monastery of Orbais. Tho peculiar opinions of Orbais, magnified by the hostile interpretation of them which Behan sent to Bina:nu, brought upon him a severe chastise ment from one who had already begun to rule the Church with an iron hand. Hincmar caused him to be accused before thirteen bishops at the council of Quiercy, where be was declared an incorrigible heretic, and deposed from the order of priesthood, into which it appears he had been irregularly admitted. This punishment however was not sufficient to appease the rancour of his judges ; the bold enunciation of his tenets was construed into contumacy, and, as such, punishable, according to the rule of St. Benedict, by corporal chas tisement : he was condemned to a public flagellation, and to commit his writings to the flames, which sentence was executed with all the cruelty so characteristic of that barbarous period ; he was afterwards confined in the monastery of Hautvilliers, where, twenty years after wards, he ended his miserable existence.
In the year 852 Hincmar embellished and enlarged the church of St. Remy at Rheims, and caused a magnificent vault to be constructed, in which he deposited the relics of its patron saint. The following year ho assisted at the council of Soiasons, in which all the ministerial acts of his predecessor Ebbonius were declared to be void, the adminis tration of baptism alone excepted. In 857 he composed his first great work on Predestination, the preface of which is the only part extant ; in his zeal to combat in it the doctrine of Godeschalcus, he is accused of having fallen into the opposite error of Semi-Pelagianism. About this time also he wrote several letters to Charles the Bald, in which he complains of the frequent pillage of the churches and monasteries, and appears to intimate that the depredators were emboldened, if not by the countenance of the king, at least by the knowledge that the offence would go unpunished. These letters pre sent a singularly interesting picture of the lawless manners of the age. A few years after he wrote a second treatise on the subject of Predestination, which has been preserved. The arguments in it are chiefly directed against the opinions of the learned John Scotus Erigena, whom he accuses of error respecting the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, and the real presence in the eucharist.