HILDESHEIM, BISHOPRIC OF: The bishopric for the Eastphalian districts in the northwestern regions of the Harz Mountains. It was probably created early in the reign of Louis the Pious (814-840), as the Hildesheim catalogue of the bishops names two bishops before Ebo (q.v.) and the latter received the bishopric shortly before the Synod of Mainz in 847, in which he took part as bishop of Hildesheim. The most prominent among the Hildesheim bishops were Altfrid, founder of the cathedral of Hildesheim, Bernward, and Godehard. The most important monastery in the diocese was Gandersheim, founded 852 at Brunshausen and removed to Gandersheim in 856.

(A. Hauck.)

The bishops acquired great temporal power under the Hohenstaufen emperors, and had been so much distracted by the consequent cares and struggles that there was great need of reform when it was undertaken by Bishop Magnus of SaxonyLauenburg (1424-52) supported by Nicholas of Cusa (see Cusa, Nicholas of) who had been sent to North Germany for this purpose, and by Jan Busch (q.v.) and the Windesheim congregation, as well as by the Benedictine congregation later called of Bursfelde (q.v.), which originated within the diocese about this time. Worldliness, however, made fresh inroads, and under John IV. of Saxony-Lauenburg (1504--27) all was ripe for both political and religious innovations. A large part of the diocese became Protestant and the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Brunswick-Wolfenbiittei took the power. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) confirmed the existing status and prevented any attempts at restoring Roman Catholicism. In 1803 the remaining territory of the diocese was secularized and annexed as a principality to Prussia; but the Concordat of 1824 between Hanover and Rome established new and much larger boundaries for the spiritual jurisdiction of the bishops, including a Roman Catholic population of 55,000.

Bibliography: H. A. Lantzel, Geschichte der Dabaeee and Stadt Hildesheim, 2 vols., Hildeshelm, 1857-58; A. Bertram, Die Biechbfe von Hildesheim, ib. 1896; idem, Geschichte des Bisthums Hildesheim, ib. 1899; Rettberg, KD, ii. 465; Hauck, KD, ii. 620.

HILDUIN, fl"du"an': Abbot of St. Denis; d. Nov. 22, 840. He came of a noble Frankish family, was a pupil of Alcuin, and became a man of great learning, admired by Rabanus Maurus, Walafried

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Strabo, and the famous Hincmar of Reims, his pu pil. At the end of 814 or beginning of 815 he became abbot of St. Denis, though he was not yet a monk. In 819 or 822 he was made archicapel lanus to Louis the Pious, and his subsequent career was of more political than ecclesiastical impor tance. In 827 an embassy from the Eastern em peror, Michael Balbus, brought the works of Dio nysius the Areopagite as a present to Louis the Pious, who placed them in charge of Hilduin as abbot of St. Denis, having a special devotion to the saint, whom he regarded as identical with the Areopagite, and in 835 charged him to write the life of St. Denis. This biography is of importance as taking the same view of the identity-the view which, although all his contemporaries did not share it, prevailed finally and dominated the Middle Ages. Involved in the struggle of Louis the Pious with his sons, he lost his position at court and was impris oned for a time in the abbey of Corvey. He was soon pardoned by Louis, and some of his abbeys were restored to him; but he took no further part in political conflicts, and devoted himself to the reformation of St. Denis, probably taking the mo nastic vows in this period.

(Foss†.)

Bibliography: Sources are to be found in: MPL, cvi. 109-110; MGH, Epist., v (1898-99), 325 sqq.; Ermol due Nigellus, III., v. 270-271, IV., v. 412 in MPL, cv. Consult: A. Ebert, Allgemeine Geschichte der literatur des Mittelalters, ii. 147, 248, 348, Leipsic, 1880; H. Fose, Ueber den Abt Hilduin, Berlin, 1888; Histoire littéraire de la France, iv. 607-613; KL, v. 2089-90.