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Biography

Short Description

Saint Adalgott, whose name is also recorded as Adalgod, Adelgot, and Adelgott, was a twelfth-century monk and bishop associated with the diocese of Chur in the Alpine region of Raetia, in what is now eastern Switzerland. No reliable source preserves the year or place of his birth, and nothing certain is known of his family or early education. He belongs to the large number of medieval prelates whose biographies must be reconstructed from later liturgical calendars, episcopal catalogues, and brief notices rather than from a contemporary life or a substantial body of charters.

Two different traditions describe his monastic formation. Later Cistercian and general Catholic martyrologies present him as a monk of Clairvaux and a disciple of Bernard of Clairvaux, from whose community he was drawn to the episcopate. A local Swiss tradition instead identifies him as a monk of the Benedictine abbey of Disentis, an ancient house in the upper Rhine valley that had long-standing connections with the church of Chur. Surviving twelfth-century documents do not settle the question, and a careful historian must treat both identifications as unverified. What is clear is that he was a professed monk before becoming bishop and therefore lived under a vow of celibacy.

Adalgott was appointed Bishop of Chur in 1151. The see of Chur was one of the oldest bishoprics in the Alps, with a territory that in the twelfth century stretched across a linguistically mixed zone of Romance, German, and Rhaeto-Romance speakers. Episcopal lists assign him a pontificate of about nine years, ending in 1160. The principal act attributed to him is the foundation of a hospital in Chur for the poor and the sick, a work of charity in keeping with the pastoral ideals of the age. Few other episcopal acts can be documented; the political circumstances of his rule, including relations with the emperor, the papacy, and local magnates, remain largely obscure.

He died on 3 October, most probably in 1160, and almost certainly at or near Chur, though some hagiographical compilations give the year as 1165. The place of his burial is not securely recorded. Veneration of Adalgott as a saint arose locally and belongs to the pre-Congregation period; there was no formal papal canonization of the later medieval or modern type. His feast is kept on 3 October. No extensive or officially defined list of patronages is attached to his name in reliable sources. The historical evidence for his life is limited, and much that later legend may have added cannot be confirmed.

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