Baldwin

Who was Baldwin?

Baldwin was a Cistercian monk and later Archbishop of Pisa, a correspondent of Bernard of Clairvaux, and a reformer of the Republic of Pisa. Throughout his episcopate, he greatly expanded the authority of his diocese, making it the most powerful institution in Liguria and Sardinia, and notably increased its landholdings.

Pope Innocent II named Baldwin a cardinal-priest of Santa Maria in Trastevere no later than in 1137, when he appears for the first time in this dignity. Later that year, he was in the Mezzogiorno, probably in the trail of the Emperor Lothair II. According to Peter the Deacon, he and a son of Pier Leoni were at Montecassino to pacify a revolt when, in July, he participated in a debate over the rule of Cassinese monasticism in the presence of the emperor.

He was then elected to succeed Uberto as archbishop of his native city and, as the pope was then living there in exile, was consecrated by Innocent himself.

In a letter of 22 April 1138, Innocent conferred on Baldwin the apostolic legateship over Porto Torres, Populonia, Galtelli, and Civita on Sardinia. On 19 July 1139, at the exhortation of Bernard of Clarivaux and Otto of Freising, the emperor-elect Conrad III bestowed on him the countship of Pisa, making him the chief secular as well as ecclesiastical authority in the city and its countryside. The whole of that year, however, he spent in Logudoro arranging matters on the island.