Reinold

For the surname, see Reinold (surname).

Saint Reinold
Martyr
Died	ca. 960
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church, Lutheran Church
Feast	7 January
Attributes	body armor, holding a shield
Patronage	stonemasons

Reinold (also known as Reinoldus, Reinhold of Cologne or in German Reinhold von Köln) was a Benedictine monk who lived in the 10th century. Supposedly a direct descendant of Charlemagne, and the fourth son mentioned in the romantic poem Duke Aymon, by William Caxton. The poem is Caxton's translation of the long French Chanson de Geste, Les Quatre Fils Aymon (The Four Sons of Aymon), where Renaud de Montauban dies in an almost identical manner.

Reinold began his religious life by entering the Benedictine monastery of Pantaleon in Cologne, where he was appointed head of a building project occurring in the abbey. He often joined the stonemasons in their work, at times surpassing them. This led to the unsavoury event of his murder at the hands of the same stonemasons he worked with. Reinold was beaten to death with hammers and his body deposited into a pool near the Rhine. His body was later found through divine means, leading to the attribution of Reinold as the patron saint of stonemasons.

St. Reinold's Church, Dortmund is dedicated to him; he is the patron saint of the city.

The Legend

"It should be relatively rare that one has to look for traces of the patron saint of a church and a city outside of historical tradition in legend and poetry alone," lamented the former superintendent of the Reinoldi Church, Hans Lindemann, in his outline of the Reinold legend in the 1950s. And so, for Dortmund, the strange fusion of two traditions - both that of a hero and that of an epic saint - can be recognized as an impressive fusion in the veneration of the patron saint.

The legend of Reinold is supplemented by a Chanson de Geste. According to this legend, Reinoldus was born as one of four sons of Duc Aymon and his wife Aya and as a nephew of Charlemagne. According to the heroic epic, Reinold and his brothers, collectively known as the four Sons of Aymon, escaped from a military conflict with Charlemagne on his miracle horse Bayard. Reinold built the impregnable fortress of Montauban, which was besieged by Charlemagne for many years, but could not be conquered by him. The ruler finally granted the request of Aya, who was a sister of Charles, to spare her sons, but demanded a high price: after Reinold and his brothers had withstood seven years of persecution and siege, they finally surrendered. However, the horse Bayard was drowned and Reinoldus set off on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, mourning the loss of his beloved animal. There he made a name for himself in the conquest of Jerusalem.

According to legend, Reinold then returned to Europe and initially became a monk at St Pantaleon's Monastery in Cologne. He hired himself out as a stone carrier for the construction of the Hildebold Cathedral. As he worked for too little pay, he incurred the wrath and envy of the other laborers, who killed him with a hammer and threw him in a sack into a body of water near the Rhine. A paralyzed woman was called to the scene of the bloody deed in a dream. She found the body, which she miraculously recovered. She was then healed of her infirmity. At the same time, all the bells in the episcopal city of Cologne miraculously began to ring.

Legend and heroic epic and the German prose version "Die Haimonskinder", which is based on "Les quatre Fils Aymon",tell us that the clergy in Cologne were unable to bury the dead man in a church. The cart set off on its own and rolled along a different route with the deceased, stopping only in Dortmund. The citizens of Dortmund built the Reinoldi Church on this spot in honor of the saint. From then on, he was the patron saint of the city.

Whether the legendary Reinold of Montauban and the holy martyr from Cologne, who was never canonized but nevertheless became a stone witness in the north portal of Cologne Cathedral as "St. Peter's Workman", are one and the same person is not historically verifiable and is considered impossible by many historians. However, throughout the centuries, the people of Dortmund have honored "their" patron saint as a strong hero who also stood by them in war and adversity.

They attributed their victory in the Great Feud in the late 14th century to their patron saint. According to legend, Reinoldus himself was seen on the city walls, catching the stone balls from the enemy catapults and throwing them back at the enemy. The depiction of its patron saint in the main church of St Reinoldi, which shows him as a young knight armed with a shield and sword and dates from between 1300 and 1350, is likely to have reinforced the firm belief that the venerated saint could have saved the town. There was also a statue of Reinoldus at the entrance gate to the town. Emperor Charles IV also rode through the east gate when he visited Dortmund in 1377.

The historical sources about St Reinhold are full of time problems. The Encyclopedia of Saints states that he lived in the 9th or 10th century and was a Benedictine monk in the monastery of St Pantaleon in Cologne. According to radiocarbon dating of the saint's relics, he may have lived in the 6th or 7th century. In the legends derived from the Chansons de Geste, the ancient epic poems that form the core of the legends of Charlemagne, Renaud lived in the 8th century. More than 80 such chansons, most of which comprise several thousand lines, have survived in manuscript. They have been translated into many languages and often heavily modified.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, the chansons de geste were rewritten as prose romances. They were the most popular chivalric romances in France in the late 15th century and early 16th century. They spread internationally, with foreign texts and versions in Holland, England, Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, Flanders, Portugal and Germany, even into the Renaissance and well into the 19th century. In Germany, "Die Sage von den vier Haimonskindern" originated as a heroic song in the 15th century.

The world of Reinoldus C.E. 800.

There are even a few comic versions from the 20th century, the last one in 2022, and the historical fiction novel "Reinoldus" since 2024. The latter takes the reader on an adventurous journey through the world of Reinoldus: Carolingian Empire, Abbasid Empire, Holy Land, Constantinople and Venice.