Rainald of Dassel

Rainald of Dassel (c. 1120 – 14 August 1167) was Archbishop of Cologne and Archchancellor of Italy from 1159 until his death. A close advisor to the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa, he had an important influence on Imperial politics, mainly in the Italian conflict of Guelphs and Ghibellines. Life Rainald was a scion of the Counts of Dassel, who had inherited large estates in the Suilbergau of Saxony upon the extinction of the ducal Billung dynasty in 1106. A younger son of the affluent count Reinold I of Dassel, he was destined as such to be an ecclesiastic, while his elder brother Ludolf succeeded in the Dassel county. Ecclesiastical career Rainald's father sent him to the Hildesheim Cathedral school and at a later date he probably went to Paris in France, where he studied with Adam of Balsham. As early as 1130 he is said to have had a high reputation for classical learning, and to have been a member of the Hildesheim cathedral chapter. He started working as a subdeacon under Bishop Bernard about 1146 and accompanied Abbot Wibald of Stavelot to the Roman Curia. According to documentary evidence he was appointed provost in 1148. Rainald became one of the most important dignitaries in Hildesheim, where he had the first stone bridge built above the Innerste river. He represented the diocese at the 1148 Council of Reims, presided over by Pope Eugene III, openly opposing a canon concerned with clerical dress. Particular attention was paid to his statements by John of Salisbury, who mentioned him in his Historia Pontificalis. In 1153 Rainald received the provostship of the St Maurice monastery in Hildesheim and St Peter's Abbey in Goslar. Soon after, he was also appointed provost of the Münster Cathedral chapter (in 1154), of the Maastricht Basilica of Saint Servatius (1156), and of Xanten Cathedral. However, when a new Bishop of Hildesheim was elected in 1153, he declined the see.