Helinand of Froidmont

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Helinand of Froidmont^[1] (ca. 1160—after 1229 (probably 1237^[2])) was a medieval poet, chronicler, and ecclesiastical writer.

1 Life
2 Helinand's Chronicon
3 Lesser works
4 Notes
5 External links

[edit] Life

He was born of Flemish parents at Pronleroy in Oise in France c. 1150; his date of death is said to be 3 February 1223, or 1229, or 1237. His talents as a minstrel won the favor of King Philip Augustus, and for some time he freely indulged in the pleasures of the world, after which he became a Cistercian monk at the monastery of Froidmont in the Diocese of Beauvais about the year 1190. From being a self-indulgent man of the world he became a model of piety and mortification in the monastery. Whatever time was not consumed in monastic exercises he devoted to ecclesiastical studies and, after his ordination to the priesthood, to preaching and writing. The Church of Beauvais honors him as a saint and celebrates his feast on 3 February.

[edit] Helinand's Chronicon

Helinand is most remembered for his Chronicon, a world-chronicle in Latin containing forty-nine books (only of which less than half have survived), which he compiled from 1211 to 1223. Helinand incorporated several of his treatises and letters into his Chronicon. These include moral treatises such as De cognitione sui, and De bono regimine principis, twenty-eight sermons on various Church festivals; one epistle entitled De reparatione lapsi, in which he exhorts a renegade monk to return to his monastery. The Chronicon itself is largely a compilation of texts taken from a wide range of sources.

Vincent of Beauvais on his turn based his Speculum Historiale, which provided a history of the world down to his time, on the Chronicon of Helinand.

Surviving parts of the Chronicon include Books 1-18, covering the period from the Creation to the death of Alexander the Great; fragments from Books 19-44, surviving as copies in the Speculum Maius of Vincent of Beauvais; the text of books 45-49, which deal with the period from 634 to 1204. Books 45-49 of the Chronicon serve as a source for the chronicle by the Cistercian monk Aubri de Trois-Fontaines (Alberic of Trois-Fontaines) (ca. 1241).

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "his chronicle is not sufficiently critical to be of much historical value." The structure of the Chronicon is mainly chronological, although Helinand frequently digresses from his narrative to comment on Scripture; include a treatise against astrology; write about saints and their legends; examine the animal world; and incorporate material from Latin and vernacular literature. He is frequently quoted as a medieval authority on the meaning of the word "graal," i.e. the Holy Grail.[1] In this sense, the Chronicon's value is not based on its existence as a work on history. He is cited, for example, as a source of the description of the flight of Eilmer of Malmesbury.

[edit] Lesser works

Helinand wrote a work in the vernacular called Les Vers de la Mort ("Verses on Death"), a poem on death, in the French language, of which only four incomplete stanzas remain.

As a well-known preacher, he wrote more than sixty Latin sermons. His sermons, written in a neat Latin style, give evidence of a remarkable acquaintance with the pagan poets as well as with the Fathers of the Church.
He wrote some Latin poems
A Martyrium of Saints Gereon, Victor, Cassius, and Florentius, martyrs of the Theban Legion used to be attributed to Helinand, but it is unclear whether he is the true author.^[3]

Helinand of Froidmont is sometimes confused with the Cistercian Hélinand of Perseigne, the author of a commentary on the Apocalypse and glosses on the Book of Exodus, although there are no arguments for this identification.^[4]

[edit] Notes

^ French Hélinand (or Hélinant) de Froidmont, Latin Helinandus Frigidimontis, alternatively Elinandus, Elynandus, etc.
^ B.M. Kienzle, "Mary Speaks against Heresy. An Unedited Sermon of Hélinand for the Purification, Paris, B.N., ms. lat. 14591." In: Sacris Erudiri 32 (1991), pp. 291-308
^ See Voorbij (below). Smits (1983) states that the attribution is false on the ground that the text was already in circulation before the 12th century. See: E.R. Smits, "Helinand of Froidmont and the A-text of Seneca's Tragedies", Mnemosyne S. 4,), pp. 324-358 (p. 332).
^ See Voorbij (below)