HINCMAR (c. 805–882) was an archbishop of Reims. He was born in northern France and sent as a boy to be educated at the Abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris under its famous abbot, Hilduin. Hincmar entered the monastic community at Saint-Denis and together with Hilduin spent some long periods at the court of Louis I (r. 814–840). In 845 he was chosen—no doubt with the approval of Charles II (r. 840–877), the son of Louis I—to fill the archepiscopal see of Reims, which had been vacant since the deposition of Ebbo (835). Claiming to have been unjustly deposed, Ebbo had reoccupied his see for a time and had performed ordinations during this period; he and his supporters introduced struggles and complications into Hincmar's career that persisted even after Ebbo's death (851), particularly with respect to the clerics Ebbo had ordained.

A man with a forceful personality and unbounded energy, Hincmar seemed to...