Hériman of Tournai

Who was Hériman of Tournai?

Herman of Tournai or Herman of Laon, the third abbot of Saint Martin of Tournai, was a chronicler of his abbey and, in many anecdotal accounts connected with the abbey, a social historian of the world seen from its perspective. Forced from his abbacy in 1136 by a contingent within the monastic community that asserted he had been lax in his enforcement of the Benedictine rule, he had the leisure while at Rome to write his book, Restauratio sancti Martini Tornacensis, written in Latin about fifty years after a local plague of 1090. He was a pupil of Odoardus, later Bishop of Cambrai, whose example as a teacher he delineates at the start of his work, and who was the driving force behind the refounding of a neglected and undistinguished church dedicated to St Martin of Tours near Tournai. Hériman's Restauratio has been edited and translated for the first time into English by Lynn Harry Nelson, who provided extended explanatory notes.

Following his expulsion from Tournai, Hériman spent some time at Laon, where he joined the circle of Bishop Bartholomew de Jur.