Benno, St

Benno, St.

descended from the counts of Woldenburgh in Saxony, was born at Hildesheim in 1010, and became, in 1060, bishop of Meissen. He eagerly exerted himself for the conversion of the pagan Sclavonians. In the struggle between the Emperor Henry IV and Gregory VII he was an unflinching adherent of the latter, and therefore expelled by the emperor from his see in 1085, but afterward reinstated. He died June 16, 1107. His canonization, in 1523, called forth the spicy pamphlet of Luther, Against the new Idol and old Devil who is to be set up in Meissen. His Life was written by Emser (Leipz. 1512). See also Seyffarth, Ossilegium Bennoms (Munich, 1765); Ranke, History of the Reformation, 1, 90.