Biography
Fulco of Pavia
About Fulco of Pavia
Fulco, known in Italian as Folco Scotti, entered the community of canons regular at Sant’Eufemia in Piacenza. He studied theology at Paris and became provost of Sant’Eufemia around 1194. François Menant’s scholarly biography describes his care for the church’s property and his insistence on common life among its canons.
His election at Piacenza did not immediately lead to episcopal consecration. The Italian bishops’ heritage portal, BeWeB, records that opposition prevented his consecration there and that he was transferred to Pavia. The distinction matters: being elected to govern a diocese and receiving episcopal consecration were separate stages in his ministry.
Menant identifies him as bishop-elect at Piacenza until his move to Pavia in 1216. There he negotiated a peace between the two cities early in 1217, but it proved short-lived. His work for reconciliation therefore belongs to a history of persistent conflict rather than a final settlement.
At Fulco’s request, Honorius III confirmed Pavia’s episcopal rights and privileges in May 1217, including use of the pallium at Mass.
In October 1217, Honorius III directed the bishop of Pavia and bishop-elect of Lodi to absolve Piacenza’s officials and people from excommunication after receiving an oath to obey papal commands. One representative could swear for the community, but those who had separately incurred excommunication by attacking Pavia’s territory were each to swear. The regest records conditions, not proof of compliance.
In January 1220, the pope commissioned the bishops of Pavia and Verona and the archpriest of Bergamo to enforce his order against Cremona’s proposed diversion of the River Po near Figarolo if the city failed to comply. The regest does not record the outcome.
Fulco also received authority from Frederick II. A royal instruction dated June 28, 1220, entrusted him with settling discord in Pavia and governing the city until the imperial chancellor reached Italy. A second instruction, issued a month later, renewed the charge to maintain peace. These documents survive here as summaries in a scholarly collection, which traces them through a later historian to a fifteenth-century notarial copy. They attest a temporary civic responsibility alongside his episcopal office, without proving that he ended Pavia’s divisions.
His public duties also brought difficulties. Menant records a dispute over taxation of the clergy that drove Fulco and some of his clergy into exile; they still needed assistance in 1225. In his diocesan work he attended to religious communities, including the reform of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro in 1221.
A November 1225 regest records Pavia’s obligation to repay Fulco and his clergy 13,500 lire for seized church revenues. Honorius authorized his chaplain Alatrino to proceed concerning repayment under Cardinal Guala’s arrangements. The entry documents the debt and instructions, not completed repayment.
Fulco died at Pavia in 1229. Menant dates his death to December 16; BeWeB gives October 26. The year is secure in these accounts, while the exact day remains disputed.
BeWeB remembers him at Pavia for patience, learning and charity toward poor people. These qualities form part of the Church’s remembrance of a ministry conducted amid opposition and political division.
Wondering how to weigh the stories and sources? Learn how to read a saint biography.