Lupus Servatus - Public Affairs

Public Affairs

In 844 Lupus was sent to Burgundy to carry out the monastic reforms decreed by the Synod of Germigny (843), and attended the Synod of Verneuil on the Oise, whose resulting canons had been written by him. He was also present at several other Church councils, notably that of Soissons in 853, and played an important part in the contemporary controversy regarding predestination. He believed in a twofold predestination, not indeed in the sense that God predestined some men to damnation, but that he foreknew the sins of men and foreordained consequent punishment. "Lupus not only took part in the most lively ecclesiastical controversy of his age, but also, by the method of his treatment, showed himself a skilled dialectician at the time when dialectics were still very imperfectly developed."

In 847 Lupus accompanied Charles the Bald to a conference at Meerssen, whereby the three brothers again swore peace with one other. He was sent on a mission to Pope Leo IV in 849. Following the invasion by Nominoe, the Governor of Brittany, Lupus composed the letter of censure. His last civic appearance was in 862 at the Synod of Pistes where he drew up a sentence against Robert, Archbishop of Mans.

The closing years of the life of Lupus were saddened by the threatened devastation of his monastery by the invading Normans. He occupies a prominent place in medieval literary history, being one of the most cultured and refined men of the ninth century.