Hilduin of Saint-Denis

Hilduin (c. 785[1] – c. 855)[2] was Bishop of Paris,[3] chaplain to Louis I,[3] reforming Abbot of the Abbey of Saint-Denis,[3] and author.

Waldo of Reichenau died in March 814, and Hilduin, although a secular cleric and not a monk, succeeded him as abbot of Saint-Denis.

Hincmar of Reims, who speaks of Hilduin with great respect, was one his students at the school of Saint-Denis.

He was instrumental in the appointment of Walafrid Strabo of Reichenau as tutor to Louis's son Charles the Bald.

Abbot Warin of that monastery received him kindly, in return for which Hilduin presented him with the relics of St. Vitus, which thereafter were profoundly venerated in Corvey.

By 832 he was reinstated in the Abbey of Saint-Denis, whereupon he apparently withdrew from politics and successfully undertook a reform of that monastery according to the Benedictine rule.

In 835, Louis commissioned Hilduin to write a biography of St. Dionysius of Paris, the emperor's patron saint.

Hilduin executed this commission, with the aid of the pseudo-Dionysius's writings, a copy of which had been sent to the Frankish court by the Byzantine Emperor Michael II, and of other authorities.