Katie's Reviews > Arnold of Brescia

I'm starting to believe that books shouldn't be written about Arnold of Brescia: he's a blank canvas, for people to project upon him whatever they'd like. Arnold was a religious reformer active in the first half of the twelfth century. He studied under Peter Abelard, led a revolt against the bishop in his hometown of Brescia, and eventually arrived in Rome, where he preached against the curia and developed some kind of relationship with the newly re-formed Roman Senate. He was executed by Frederick Barbarossa in 1155, his ashes scattered into the Tiber. That's nearly all we know about him: he wrote nothing himself and those who wrote about him either hatred him immensely (Bernard of Clairvaux) or only met him fleetingly or not at all (John of Salisbury, Otto of Freising). Any entire book that claims to be about Arnold of Brescia is really about something else, and just decided to cast him as its protagonist. He's a religious reformer, political revolutionary, pre-cursor to democracy, all kinds of things.

Arnold of Brescia was probably really interesting - the bits we do know suggest that he was enmeshed in lots of the most interesting aspects of his day. But there's just not enough actual information about the guy to write a book about him. Greenaway, who wrote this book in 1931, did a better job of avoiding the more extreme partisanships of his predecessors. But there are still lots of broad statements like "In [Arnold] all ignoble or petty strains were purged away, all pursuit of personal or class ambitions was relinquished, and the cause for which he fought raised to a higher plane by the disinterestedness of his motives and the earnestness of his convictions" or "A restless passion for change and the firm conviction that nothing could be worse than present conditions engendered a regrettable turbulence of disposition.... so intent was he on reaching the goal of the endeavor, so acutely conscious of the purity of his ideal and the disinterestedness of his intention, so pathetically confident in the invincibility of his own example that he never paused to debate the consequences of a line of action or to count the cost either to himself or to his followers." There are also big historical generalizations along the lines of "It may be maintained that the failure of Arnold of Brescia's attempt made the Reformation a historical necessity."

Arnold of Brescia sits at the intersection of two big strands of development of the age - the communal movements and ecclesiastical reform. It would be great if he wrote, or if his writing survived, but I think it's probably best to be skeptical of any book that claims to know what he did or what he central motivations were, or who he really was.