Berenga'rius

Berenga'rius OF TOURS, a distinguished scholastic theologian, was born at Tours, in France, 998 A.D. In 1031 he was appointed preceptor of the school of St Martin in Tours, and, about 1040, archdeacon of Angers. Here he first drew upon himself the charge of heresy in reference to the doctrine of transubstantiation. He held that the bread and wine in the sacrament of the eucharist remained bread and wine, and that the faith of the believer who recognised their symbolic meaning only transformed them subjectively into the body and blood of Christ. This interpretation was condemned by Pope Leo IX. (1049-50). In 1054 Berengarius retracted his opinion before the Council of Tours, but immediately returned to his conviction, and commenced to advocate it anew. For this he was finally, in 1078, cited to appear at Rome, where he repeatedly abjured his 'error,' but never seems to have really abandoned it. Hildebrand, now Pope Gregory VII., treated him with great moderation; and at last conceived it best to let him alone. Harassed and weakened by the attacks of the orthodox party, headed by Lanfranc of Canterbury, he finally retired to a cell at St Côme, on an island in the Loire (now a ruin on the south bank), near Tours, where he spent the last years of his life in devotional exercises. He died in 1088. The greater number of his works are lost; such as are extant have been collected and published by A. F. & F. T. Vischer (Berlin, 1834).