Haito
(HATTO).
Bishop of Basle; b. in 763, of a noble family of
Swabia; d. 17 March, 836, in the Abbey of Reichenau, on an island in
the Lake of Constance. At the age of five he entered that monastery.
Abbot Waldo (786-806) made him head of the monastic school, and in
this capacity he did much for the instruction and classical training
of the monks, as well as for the growth of the library. When Waldo
was transferred to the Abbey of St. Denis, near Paris, in 806, Haito
was made Abbot of Reichenau, and about the same time Bishop of
Basle. He enjoyed the confidence of Charlemagne and in 811 was sent
with others to Constantinople on a diplomatic mission,
which he fulfilled to the satisfaction of his master. The interests
of his diocese and abbey were not neglected. He rebuilt the
cathedral of Basle and the abbey church of Reichenau, and issued
appropriate instructions for the guidance of clergy and people in
the ways of religion. In 823 he resigned both positions, owing to
serious infirmities, and spent the remainder of his life as a simple
monk in the monastery of Reichenau.
Haito was the author of several works. He wrote an account of his
journey to Constantinople, the
"Hodoeporicon", of which, however, no trace has been found so far.
In 824 he wrote the "Visio Wettini" (P.L., CV, 771 sqq.; Mon.
Germ. Hist.: Poetae Lat. Aev. Car., II, 267 sqq.), in which he
relates the spiritual experiences of Wettin, president of the
monastic school of Reicheneau.
The day before his death (4 November, 824) Wettin saw in a vision
bad and good spirits; an angel took him through hell, purgatory, and
heaven, and showed him the torments of the
sinners and the joys of the saints. The book, which bears some
resemblance to Dante's "Divina Commedia", was soon afterwards put
into verse by Walafrid Strabo (Mon. Germ. Hist., loc. cit.). White
Bishop of Basle, he issued a number of regulations in twenty-five
chapters, known as the "Capitulare Haitonis" (P.L., CV, 763 sqq.,
Melon. Germ. Leg., Sect. II, Capitular. Reg. Franc., I, 363 sqq.,
Mansi, XIV, 393 sqq.), in which he legislated on matters of diocesan
discipline. The statutes were probably published in a synod.
VAUTREY, Histoire des eveques de Bale. I (Einsiedeln. 1884); WATTENBACH, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen (Berlin, 1904), I; HAUCK, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands (Leipzig, 1890), II; BUCHI in Kirchliches Handlexikon, I; SCHRODL in Kirchenlex., V; WIEGAND in Realencyklopadie, VII.
FRANCIS J. SCHAEFER
Transcribed by Joseph P. Thomas
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII
Copyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York