Ado

Who was Ado?

Ado, archbishop of Vienne in Lotharingia, belonged to a famous Frankish house, and spent much of his middle life in Italy. He held his archiepiscopal seat from 850 till his death on the 16 December 874. Several of his letters are extant and reveal their writer as an energetic man of wide sympathies and considerable influence. Ado's principal works are a Martyrologium, and a chronicle, Chronicon sive Breviarium chronicorum de sex mundi aetatibus de Adamo usque ad annum 869.

Ado's chronicle is based on that of Bede, with which he combines extracts from the ordinary sources, forming the whole into a consecutive narrative founded on the conception of the unity of the Roman Empire, which he traces in the succession of the emperors, Charlemagne and his heirs following immediately after Constantine VI and Irene. "It is," says Wattenbach, "history from the point of view of authority and preconceived opinion, which exclude any independent judgment of events."

Ado wrote also a book on the miracles of St. Bernard, archbishop of Vienne, published in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum; a life or Martyrium of St. Desiderius, bishop of Vienne; and a life of St. Theudericus, abbot of Vienne.