Burchard II (Bishop of Halberstadt)

Burchard of Veltheim (also Burckhardt, Bucco, or Buko; c. 1028 – 7 April 1088) was a German cleric and Bishop of Halberstadt (as Burchard II) from 1059 until his death.

A member of the Veltheim noble family, possibly of Swabian origin, Burchard was a maternal nephew of the archbishops Anno II of Cologne and Werner of Magdeburg. In 1057, he became provost of the Collegiate Church of St. Simon and St. Jude at the Imperial Palace of Goslar. In 1059, through the intervention of his uncle, Archbishop Anno, he succeeded Bishop Burchard I in the diocese of Halberstadt.

In October 1062, it was the decision of a German-Italian synod held at Augsburg to send Burchard, high in the favour of Empress dowager Agnes of Poitou, to Rome to mediate a disputed Papal election between the legitimate Pope Alexander II and the Antipope Honorius II. Although the German crown stood by Honorius, Burchard vowed to stand by Hildebrand, the great Papal reformer, and supported Alexander. In gratitude, Alexander bestowed on Burchard the coveted pallium.

In the dead of winter 1067–1068, Burchard, crossing frozen marshland, invaded the country of the Slavic Lutici tribes. His forces razed the pagan temple at Rethra (Radagoszcz), and the bishop returned to Saxony riding the sacred black horse.

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