Baring-Gould’s sources: Venerated at Mainz. Authority A life by a contemporary.] Bardo was born at Wetterau, in Germany, of noble parents. One of his relations gave him, when a child, a helmet, a lamb, and a psalter; and these gifts were supposed to symbolize his future heroism, gentleness, and piety. He was sent to an old dame to learn his letters out of the psalter given to him; and she taught the child to read all David's Psalms sitting on her lap. When Bardo was a bishop, he did not forget the aged crone, but carefully provided for her comforts in her declining years. He was educated afterwards at Fulda. Being one day found studying the treatise of S. Gregory on the duties of a Hone to.

…pastor, some of the monks laughed at him, and asked him what was the use of his reading that book. “Who knows but some wiseacre of a king will appoint me to rule, one of these days?” was his answer. On the death of the Emperor Henry II., Conrad of Franconia ascended the imperial throne. The Empress was a relative of Bardo, and therefore now his advancement was sure. He almost immediately was given the abbey of Kaiserswerth, and also that of Hersfield. One day he was at the Court, when the Archbishop of Mainz was also present The archbishop looked at his staff, which was richly wrought “Hey, abbot I” said he; “methinks that staff would become my hand better than thine.” “ If thou thinkest so, it will not be hard for thee to get it,” answered Bardo. But when he returned to his room he gave the staff, and a stamping iron for eucharistic wafers to one of his attendants, and bade him take them as a present to Archbishop Heribert On the return of the attendant, Bardo said, “Well, how did he receive the things?” “Middling well,” was the answer. “ Only middling well,” said the abbot; “ heaven knows, perhaps ere long they will be mine again.” What he had prophesied fell out, for the archbishopric of Mainz fell vacant in the year 1030, and the emperor gave it to the kinsman of his wife. After the appointment and consecration, Bardo sang mass on Christmas Day, at Goslar, and the emperor was present After the Gospel he preached, but whether from nervousness or want of preparation, the sermon was a very poor affair, and the emperor was exceedingly annoyed, thinking he had promoted an ignorant monk to the most influential see of Germany [a bishop’s “see” is his diocese, named from his seat (Latin sedes)]. Next day the Bishop of Treves [Trier in Germany] said mass and preached with great ease, and with no little display of erudition. The emperor was tormented by reproaches which came from all quarters. “What a man is that Bardo for an archbishop 1” “He B. Bardo.

is a stick, he can't preach 1” “Why did your majesty appoint a boorish monk?" Conrad sat at table swallowing down his disgust and vexation, looking as black as a thunder-cloud. The friends of Bardo implored him not to preach on the morrow, when it was his turn to sing mass, but the archbishop replied, “To every man his own burden," and he preached so admirable, and so lengthy a sermon, that Conrad was delighted. “ Come," said he, when he sat down to table that day, “the archbishop has restored to me my appetite. It is Christmas Day to me now."

In his diocese Bardo was the model of a prelate. He remained a monk, never eating meat, and living plainly. He was liberal to the poor, diligent in inspecting his diocese; he completed the building of the cathedral which had been begun by S. Willigis. His leisure was spent with a number of rare birds which he had collected about him and tamed, and which he fed out of a plate. He was gentle and forgiving to such as injured him, and he mitigated the sufferings of the poor from the tyranny of magistrates who judged them harshly and often wrongfully. One day, at dinner, Bardo talked about the vice of drinking more than is sufficient, and the grossness of the sin of drunkenness. A young man began to titter and make fun of the archbishop in a whisper. Bardo stopped, fixing his eye on the pert youth, who turned pale when he found he was detected. The archbishop handed him a gold dish piled up with cooked meat, and said, “ Pay your attention to this dish instead of me, and stop your mouth with its contents."

He died deeply regretted by the diocese on June ioth,