Fulbert of Chartres

Fulbert of Chartres was a bishop, teacher, and writer of the early eleventh century whose career is closely bound to the cathedral city of Chartres in northern France. The exact year and place of his birth are not known from contemporary evidence; later tradition has placed his origins in Picardy or, less often, in Italy, but modern historians treat these claims as unverified. He was educated at the cathedral school of Reims, where he studied under Gerbert of Aurillac, later Pope Sylvester II. That training gave him a command of the liberal arts unusual for his generation and prepared him for a life of teaching and episcopal administration.

By the closing years of the tenth century Fulbert was established at Chartres as a master of the cathedral school. Under his direction the school attracted students from a wide area and became one of the principal centers of learning in West Francia. He taught the traditional curriculum of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, and his surviving writings show familiarity with classical authors as well as with Scripture and the Fathers. In 1006 he was chosen bishop of Chartres. As bishop he remained a teacher and correspondent while taking on the pastoral and political duties of a major see in the Capetian kingdom. He maintained relations with King Robert II of France and with other prelates, and he addressed questions of clerical discipline, the peace of God, and the proper conduct of vassals toward their lords.

A defining episode of his episcopate was the destruction of Chartres Cathedral by fire in 1020. Fulbert organized the reconstruction of the church on a larger scale, raising funds and overseeing work that produced a substantial Romanesque cathedral (later replaced in large part by the Gothic building famous today). The project was tied to the cult of the Virgin Mary and to the relic of her veil, the Sancta Camisia, which Chartres claimed. Fulbert composed hymns and sermons in honor of Mary and helped to deepen Marian devotion in northern France. Among works attributed to him is the Easter hymn Chorus novae Ierusalem. His letters, of which more than a hundred survive, are a major source for the history of early eleventh-century France; one of the best known, written to Duke William V of Aquitaine, discusses the mutual obligations of lord and vassal and has often been cited in studies of feudal custom.

Fulbert died on 10 April 1028 and was buried at Chartres. He was venerated as a saint in his own church and in some later calendars; his feast is kept on 10 April. He was not the object of a formal papal canonization of the kind that developed in later centuries. His reputation rests on his role as a teacher, on the rebuilding of Chartres Cathedral, on his Marian piety, and on the corpus of letters that illuminate both his personality and the public life of his time.