William Of Hirsau

William Of Hirsau (born, Bavaria—died July 2, 1091, Württemberg, Duchy of Swabia) was a German cleric, Benedictine abbot, and monastic reformer, the principal German advocate of Pope Gregory VII’s clerical reforms, which sought to eliminate clerical corruption and free ecclesiastical offices from secular control. William was sent as a child to the monastic school of Sankt Emmeram in Regensburg. In 1069 he was appointed abbot of the monastery of Hirsau in Württemberg, following the deposition...