Anno

ANNO: Archbishop of Cologne; b. probably 1010; d. at Cologne Dec. 4, 1075. He came of a noble Swabian family, received his education at Bamberg, and, through the favor of Emperor Henry III., attained the dignities of dean of Goslar and archbishop of Cologne (1056). After the death of Henry III. (1056) and the accession of his infant son, Henry IV., under the regency of his mother Agnes of Poitou, Anno exercised considerable influence at court, and took part in the contest which broke out between the empire and Rome. The lack of capacity for the duties of government revealed by the queen-regent led to the formation of a conspiracy in 1062, under the leadership of Anno, who in the same year made himself master of the young king’s person and thereby became virtual ruler of the empire. Desire for personal aggrandizement restrained him from making use of his power for the interests of Germany in the quarrel with the papacy, which now entered upon an acute phase. Upon the death of Pope Nicholas II. (1061) the party hostile to German influence, under the leadership of Hildebrand, had chosen as his successor Anselm of Lucca, who assumed the title of Alexander II. In opposition the imperial party had raised to the papal office Cadalus of Parma under the name of Honorius II. A synod at Augsburg, summoned in 1062 to decide on the conflicting claims of the two candidates, rendered a temporary decision in favor of Alexander II.; and two years later a second synod, at Mantua, made formal acknowledgment of Alexander’s rights. Anno, who was in complete control at Augsburg, was actuated in this course, so seemingly hostile to the welfare of the empire, by the desire to preserve in his hands the balance of power between the papal and imperial forces and thus to secure for himself the role of arbiter between the two. When the council of Mantua assembled, however, his influence had undergone serious diminution and he was unable to prevent the confirmation of the Italian pope. A strong rival for power now appeared in the person of Adalbert, archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen (see Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen), with whom Anno was compelled to share his authority over the young king (1063). Two years later the archbishop of Cologne found himself almost entirely superseded.

The fall of Adalbert in 1066 brought Anno once more to the front for a brief time, but he never again exercised the authority he had formerly possessed. The last years of his life were embittered by quarrels with Rome, by a rising of the citizens of Cologne which he suppressed with extreme severity, and by charges of treasonable correspondence with William I. of England, for which there seems to have been little foundation. There was not wanting in the worldly prelate a certain ascetic austerity which the misfortunes of his later years tended to accentuate, giving him a posthumous reputation of great holiness, and in 1183 he was canonized.

(Carl Mirbt).

Bibliography: Sources for biography are: Vita sancti Annonis, by a monk of Siegburg (c. 1100), in MGH, Script., xi. (1854) 465-514 and in MPL, cxliii.; Vita minor sancti Annonis by another monk (c. 1186), ed. F. W. E. Roth in NA, xii. (1887) 209-215; a poem by an unknown author ed. J. Kehrein, Frankfort, 1865. Consult T. Lindner, Anno II. der Heilige, Leipsic, 1869; E. Steindorff, Jahrbücher des deutschen Reichs unter Heinrich III., 2 vols., ib. 1874-81; W. von Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, vol. iii., ib.1890; G. Meyer von Knonau, Jahrbücher des deutschen Reichs unter Heinrich IV., 2 vols., ib. 1890-94; Wattenbach, DGQ, ii. 107-109, 137, 140, 146, 183; Hauck, KD, vol. iii.