Corbinian

Saint Corbinian (Latin Corbinianus; German Korbinian) was a Frankish missionary bishop of the early eighth century, remembered as the founder of the church of Freising and as an apostle of Bavaria. The principal narrative source is the Vita Corbiniani, composed by Arbeo, Bishop of Freising, in the later eighth century, within living memory of its subject. According to that account, Corbinian was born at Châtres, near Melun in the Frankish heartland (the settlement later known as Arpajon). After his father’s death he took up an austere eremitical life at his birthplace, remaining there for many years and gathering disciples. His reputation for holiness prompted a pilgrimage to Rome, where Pope Gregory II consecrated him a bishop and directed him toward missionary work among the Bavarians.

Corbinian entered the Agilolfing duchy of Bavaria and established himself on the hill at Freising, founding a monastery and a church in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary that became the nucleus of the later diocese. His ministry brought him into open conflict with Duke Grimoald, whom he reproved for an uncanonical marriage to Pilitrud (Biltrudis), widow of Grimoald’s brother. The quarrel forced the bishop into exile in the Adige valley, at Kuens (Caines) near Merano, until Grimoald’s death made a return to Freising possible. Although Saint Boniface formally organized the Bavarian dioceses only in 739, after Corbinian’s death, later tradition regards Corbinian as the first bishop of Freising; Erembert, sometimes described as his brother or close kinsman, is named among the early occupants of the see.

The best-known episode attached to him, also related by Arbeo, belongs to a journey to Rome: a bear killed Corbinian’s pack-horse, after which the saint commanded the animal to take up the load and carry it onward. The saddled bear became the heraldic emblem of Freising and, many centuries later, was included in the coat of arms of Joseph Ratzinger as Archbishop of Munich and Freising and as Pope Benedict XVI. Corbinian died at Freising, according to long-standing tradition on 8 September 730, and was buried there. His relics are enshrined in Freising Cathedral.

His cult is ancient and local in origin, not the result of a later papal canonization in the modern sense. The principal feast is kept on 8 September. He is patron of Freising and of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. No contemporary source supplies a precise year of birth; modern notices offer only an approximate date in the later seventh century, and the year of death, though traditionally given as 730, is itself a received figure rather than a documentarily fixed one. What can be said with reasonable confidence is that a Frankish hermit-bishop named Corbinian worked in Bavaria in the first third of the eighth century, clashed with the Agilolfing court over marriage discipline, and left a foundation at Freising whose memory Arbeo recorded within a generation.