Rabanus Maurus
Encyclopedia
Rabanus Maurus Magnentius (c. 780 – 4 February 856), also known as Hrabanus or Rhabanus, was a Frankish
Benedictine
monk, the archbishop of Mainz in Germany
and a theologian
. He was the author of the encyclopaedia
De rerum naturis (On the Nature of Things). He also wrote treatises on education and grammar and commentaries on the Bible. He was one of the most prominent teachers and writers of the Carolingian
age, and was called "Praeceptor Germaniae," or "the teacher of Germany." On the Roman calendar (Martyrologium Romanum, 2001, pp. 126f.), he is celebrated on 4 February and listed as 'sanctus,' though the online version of the Catholic Encyclopedia
of nearly a century earlier lists him as 'beatus.'
in Hesse
, where he had been sent to school. In the following year, at the insistence of Ratgar
, his abbot, he went together with Haimon (later of Halberstadt) to complete his studies at Tours
. He studied there under Alcuin
, who in recognition of his diligence and purity gave him the surname of Maurus, after the favourite disciple of Benedict
, Saint Maurus
. Returning to Fulda two years later, he was entrusted with the principal charge of the school, which under his direction became one of the most preeminent centers of scholarship and book production in Europe, and sent forth such pupils as Walafrid Strabo
, Servatus Lupus of Ferrières, and Otfrid of Weissenburg
. At this period he probably compiled his excerpt from the grammar of Priscian
, a popular text book during the Middle Ages.
In 814 Rabanus was ordained a priest. Shortly afterwards, apparently on account of disagreement with Ratgar, he was compelled to withdraw for a time from Fulda. This banishment has long been understood to have occasioned a pilgrimage to Palestine
, based on an allusion in his commentary on Joshua
. The passage in question is taken from Origen's Homily xiv In Librum Jesu Nave. It is Origen, not Rabanus, who was in Palestine. He returned to Fulda on the election of a new abbot (Eigil
) in 817, upon whose death in 822 he himself became abbot. He was efficient and successful in this role until 842, when, in order to secure greater leisure for literature and for devotion, he resigned and retired to the neighbouring cloister of St Petersberg.
In 847, Rabanus was again constrained to enter public life by his election to succeed Otgar in the archbishopric of Mainz
. He died at Winkel
on the Rhine in 856.
, Ruth
, Kings
, Chronicles, Judith, Esther
, Canticles, Proverbs
, Wisdom
, Sirach, Jeremiah
, Lamentations
, Ezekiel
, Maccabees
, Matthew, the Epistles of St Paul, including Hebrews
); and various treatises relating to doctrinal and practical subjects, including more than one series of Homilies. In De institutione clericorum he brought into prominence the views of Augustine and Gregory the Great as to the training which was requisite for a right discharge of the clerical function. One of his most popular and enduring works is a spectacular collection of poems centered around the cross, called De laudibus sanctae crucis, a set of highly sophisticated poems that present the cross (and, in the last poem, Rabanus himself kneeling before it) in word and image, even in numbers.
Among the others may be mentioned the De universo libri xxii., sive etymologiarum opus, a kind of dictionary or encyclopedia, heavily dependent upon Isidore of Seville
's Etymologies, designed as a help towards the typological
, historical and mystical interpretation of Scripture, the De sacris ordinibus, the De disciplina ecclesiastica and the Martyrologium. All of them are characterized by erudition (he knew even some Greek
and Hebrew
) and includes "Veni Creator Spiritus
," a hymn to the Holy Spirit, often sung at Pentecost
and at ordinations. (Centuries later "Veni Creator Spiritus
" would be used by Gustav Mahler as the first choral of his epic eighth symphony.)
In the annals of German philology a special interest attaches to the Glossaria Latino-Theodisca. A commentary, Super Porphyrium, printed by Cousin
in 1836 among the Ouvrages inédits d'Abélard, and assigned both by that editor and by Haurau to Hrabantis Maurus, is now generally believed to have been the work of a disciple.
In 2006, the 1150th anniversary of his death was celebrated in Germany, especially in Mainz and Fulda. One of the highlights of the celebrations was the display of Codex Vaticanus Reginensis latinus 124, an extremely rare loan by the Vatican to Mainz of a spectacular manuscript containing De laudibus sanctae crucis. The anniversary also saw the publication of no fewer than three book-length studies of Maurus and his work.
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
monk, the archbishop of Mainz in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and a theologian
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
. He was the author of the encyclopaedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
De rerum naturis (On the Nature of Things). He also wrote treatises on education and grammar and commentaries on the Bible. He was one of the most prominent teachers and writers of the Carolingian
Carolingian
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the...
age, and was called "Praeceptor Germaniae," or "the teacher of Germany." On the Roman calendar (Martyrologium Romanum, 2001, pp. 126f.), he is celebrated on 4 February and listed as 'sanctus,' though the online version of the Catholic Encyclopedia
Catholic Encyclopedia
The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...
of nearly a century earlier lists him as 'beatus.'
Life
Rabanus was born of noble parents in Mainz. The date of his birth is uncertain, but in 801 he received a deacon's order at FuldaFulda
Fulda is a city in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district .- Early Middle Ages :...
in Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
, where he had been sent to school. In the following year, at the insistence of Ratgar
Ratgar
Ratgar was a controversial abbot at the famous Benedictine monastery of Fulda during the early ninth century.-Life:Ratgar was abbot of the monastery of Fulda from 802 until 817. He was from a noble family in Germania, and was sent by his parents to Fulda, whose monastery school was already...
, his abbot, he went together with Haimon (later of Halberstadt) to complete his studies at Tours
Tours
Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...
. He studied there under Alcuin
Alcuin
Alcuin of York or Ealhwine, nicknamed Albinus or Flaccus was an English scholar, ecclesiastic, poet and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York...
, who in recognition of his diligence and purity gave him the surname of Maurus, after the favourite disciple of Benedict
Benedict of Nursia
Saint Benedict of Nursia is a Christian saint, honored by the Roman Catholic Church as the patron saint of Europe and students.Benedict founded twelve communities for monks at Subiaco, about to the east of Rome, before moving to Monte Cassino in the mountains of southern Italy. There is no...
, Saint Maurus
Saint Maurus
Saint Maurus was the first disciple of St. Benedict of Nursia . He is mentioned in St. Gregory the Great's biography of the latter as the first oblate; offered to the monastery by his noble Roman parents as a young boy to be brought up in the monastic life. Four stories involving Maurus recounted...
. Returning to Fulda two years later, he was entrusted with the principal charge of the school, which under his direction became one of the most preeminent centers of scholarship and book production in Europe, and sent forth such pupils as Walafrid Strabo
Walafrid Strabo
Walafrid, alternatively spelt Walahfrid, surnamed Strabo , was a Frankish monk and theological writer.-Theological works:...
, Servatus Lupus of Ferrières, and Otfrid of Weissenburg
Otfrid of Weissenburg
Otfrid of Weissenburg was a monk at the abbey of Weissenburg and the author of a gospel harmony in rhyming couplets now called the Evangelienbuch. It is written in the South Rhine Franconian dialect of Old High German. The poem is thought to have been completed between 863 and 871...
. At this period he probably compiled his excerpt from the grammar of Priscian
Priscian
Priscianus Caesariensis , commonly known as Priscian, was a Latin grammarian. He wrote the Institutiones grammaticae on the subject...
, a popular text book during the Middle Ages.
In 814 Rabanus was ordained a priest. Shortly afterwards, apparently on account of disagreement with Ratgar, he was compelled to withdraw for a time from Fulda. This banishment has long been understood to have occasioned a pilgrimage to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
, based on an allusion in his commentary on Joshua
Joshua
Joshua , is a minor figure in the Torah, being one of the spies for Israel and in few passages as Moses's assistant. He turns to be the central character in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua...
. The passage in question is taken from Origen's Homily xiv In Librum Jesu Nave. It is Origen, not Rabanus, who was in Palestine. He returned to Fulda on the election of a new abbot (Eigil
Eigil of Fulda
Eigil was the fourth abbot of Fulda. He was the nephew and biographer of the abbey's founder and first abbot Saint Sturm...
) in 817, upon whose death in 822 he himself became abbot. He was efficient and successful in this role until 842, when, in order to secure greater leisure for literature and for devotion, he resigned and retired to the neighbouring cloister of St Petersberg.
In 847, Rabanus was again constrained to enter public life by his election to succeed Otgar in the archbishopric of Mainz
Archbishopric of Mainz
The Archbishopric of Mainz or Electorate of Mainz was an influential ecclesiastic and secular prince-bishopric in the Holy Roman Empire between 780–82 and 1802. In the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, the Archbishop of Mainz was the primas Germaniae, the substitute of the Pope north of the Alps...
. He died at Winkel
Oestrich-Winkel
Oestrich-Winkel is a town in the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany.- Location :This is a young town with roughly 12,000 inhabitants, having come into being in 1972 through the merger of the self-governing communities of Mittelheim, Oestrich and Winkel;...
on the Rhine in 856.
Works
Rabanus' works, many of which remain unpublished, comprise Scriptural commentaries (Genesis to JudgesBook of Judges
The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its title describes its contents: it contains the history of Biblical judges, divinely inspired prophets whose direct knowledge of Yahweh allows them to act as decision-makers for the Israelites, as...
, Ruth
Book of Ruth
The Book of Ruth is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament. In the Jewish canon the Book of Ruth is included in the third division, or the Writings . In the Christian canon the Book of Ruth is placed between Judges and 1 Samuel...
, Kings
Books of Kings
The Book of Kings presents a narrative history of ancient Israel and Judah from the death of David to the release of his successor Jehoiachin from imprisonment in Babylon, a period of some 400 years...
, Chronicles, Judith, Esther
Book of Esther
The Book of Esther is a book in the Ketuvim , the third section of the Jewish Tanakh and is part of the Christian Old Testament. The Book of Esther or the Megillah is the basis for the Jewish celebration of Purim...
, Canticles, Proverbs
Book of Proverbs
The Book of Proverbs , commonly referred to simply as Proverbs, is a book of the Hebrew Bible.The original Hebrew title of the book of Proverbs is "Míshlê Shlomoh" . When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different forms. In the Greek Septuagint the title became "paroimai paroimiae"...
, Wisdom
Book of Wisdom
The Book of Wisdom, often referred to simply as Wisdom or the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, is one of the deuterocanonical books of the Bible. It is one of the seven Sapiential or wisdom books of the Septuagint Old Testament, which includes Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon ,...
, Sirach, Jeremiah
Book of Jeremiah
The Book of Jeremiah is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the book of Isaiah and preceding Ezekiel and the Book of the Twelve....
, Lamentations
Book of Lamentations
The Book of Lamentations ) is a poetic book of the Hebrew Bible composed by the Jewish prophet Jeremiah. It mourns the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple in the 6th Century BCE....
, Ezekiel
Book of Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah and preceding the Book of the Twelve....
, Maccabees
Maccabees
The Maccabees were a Jewish rebel army who took control of Judea, which had been a client state of the Seleucid Empire. They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE, reasserting the Jewish religion, expanding the boundaries of the Land of Israel and reducing the influence...
, Matthew, the Epistles of St Paul, including Hebrews
Epistle to the Hebrews
The Epistle to the Hebrews is one of the books in the New Testament. Its author is not known.The primary purpose of the Letter to the Hebrews is to exhort Christians to persevere in the face of persecution. The central thought of the entire Epistle is the doctrine of the Person of Christ and his...
); and various treatises relating to doctrinal and practical subjects, including more than one series of Homilies. In De institutione clericorum he brought into prominence the views of Augustine and Gregory the Great as to the training which was requisite for a right discharge of the clerical function. One of his most popular and enduring works is a spectacular collection of poems centered around the cross, called De laudibus sanctae crucis, a set of highly sophisticated poems that present the cross (and, in the last poem, Rabanus himself kneeling before it) in word and image, even in numbers.
Among the others may be mentioned the De universo libri xxii., sive etymologiarum opus, a kind of dictionary or encyclopedia, heavily dependent upon Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville
Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...
's Etymologies, designed as a help towards the typological
Typology (theology)
Typology in Christian theology and Biblical exegesis is a doctrine or theory concerning the relationship between the Old and New Testaments...
, historical and mystical interpretation of Scripture, the De sacris ordinibus, the De disciplina ecclesiastica and the Martyrologium. All of them are characterized by erudition (he knew even some Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
) and includes "Veni Creator Spiritus
Veni Creator Spiritus
Veni Creator Spiritus is a hymn believed to have been written by Rabanus Maurus in the 9th century. It is normally sung in Gregorian Chant and often associated with the Roman Catholic Church, where it is performed during the liturgical celebration of the feast of Pentecost...
," a hymn to the Holy Spirit, often sung at Pentecost
Pentecost
Pentecost is a prominent feast in the calendar of Ancient Israel celebrating the giving of the Law on Sinai, and also later in the Christian liturgical year commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Christ after the Resurrection of Jesus...
and at ordinations. (Centuries later "Veni Creator Spiritus
Veni Creator Spiritus
Veni Creator Spiritus is a hymn believed to have been written by Rabanus Maurus in the 9th century. It is normally sung in Gregorian Chant and often associated with the Roman Catholic Church, where it is performed during the liturgical celebration of the feast of Pentecost...
" would be used by Gustav Mahler as the first choral of his epic eighth symphony.)
In the annals of German philology a special interest attaches to the Glossaria Latino-Theodisca. A commentary, Super Porphyrium, printed by Cousin
Victor Cousin
Victor Cousin was a French philosopher. He was a proponent of Scottish Common Sense Realism and had an important influence on French educational policy.-Early life:...
in 1836 among the Ouvrages inédits d'Abélard, and assigned both by that editor and by Haurau to Hrabantis Maurus, is now generally believed to have been the work of a disciple.
In 2006, the 1150th anniversary of his death was celebrated in Germany, especially in Mainz and Fulda. One of the highlights of the celebrations was the display of Codex Vaticanus Reginensis latinus 124, an extremely rare loan by the Vatican to Mainz of a spectacular manuscript containing De laudibus sanctae crucis. The anniversary also saw the publication of no fewer than three book-length studies of Maurus and his work.