Thegan

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Thegan (* before 800; † March 20 between 849 and 852; also Theganbert or Degan , Latinized Theganbertus ) was a Frankish clergyman and biographer of Ludwig the Pious .

Life

Thegan ( Old High German "Streiter") or Theganbert (Old High German "the famous Streiter") came from a noble Franconian family and probably received his training as a cleric in Lorsch . Then, not before 814, he was choir bishop in Trier and no later than 842 provost of the Cassius monastery in Bonn . Mentioned for the last time in 848, Rutgar appears as provost instead of Thegan in a document for the Bonn monastery from July 1, 853; from this one concludes that Thegan died between 849 and 852. The day of his death, March 20th, is recorded in the oldest necrology of the St. Maximin monastery near Trier .

plant

835/37 Thegan wrote a biography of Emperor Ludwig the Pious, the Gesta Hludowici ("The Deeds of Ludwig"). The depiction goes up to the summer of 835. An anonymous sequel, probably from the St. Kastor monastery in Koblenz , added the years 836 and 837.

Thegan hardly relied on written sources, but mainly on eyewitness reports from abbots who were friends (Adalung von Lorsch, Grimald von Weißenburg , Markward von Prüm ). In addition, Thegan knew Einhard's Vita Karoli and based his work on it, but could not achieve its literary quality.

Thegans Gesta Hludowici are consciously partial in parts. Thegan was deeply indignant about the dismissal of the emperor Louis the Pious appointed by God in his understanding. Therefore, the main motive of his work is to defend Ludwig - who was still ruling when the biography was written - against his critics. Thegan also sharply criticizes the clergy who were involved in the deposition of Ludwig, especially Archbishop Ebo of Reims . Although he had already been relieved of his office in the spring of 835, there was still the possibility of his return to the Archbishopric of Reims, and Thegan tried to prevent this by proving Ebo's unworthiness.

In the non-tendentious passages, the source value of Thegan's Ludwig biography is rated very highly. Thegans Gesta Hludowici have also strongly influenced the image of Ludwig the Pious to this day. The famous Reichenau abbot Walahfrid Strabo already divided Thegan's Gesta Hludowici into chapters in 840/49 and wrote a short foreword in which he distanced himself from Thegan's heated polemics and his inelegant Latin, but otherwise classified the work as valuable.

output

  • Ernst Tremp (ed.): Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi 64: Thegan, Die Taten Kaiser Ludwigs (Gesta Hludowici imperatoris). Astronomus, Das Leben Kaiser Ludwigs (Vita Hludowici imperatoris). Hanover 1995 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  • Reinhold Rau (translator): Thegan life of Kaiser Ludwig . In: Reinhold Rau (Hrsg.): Sources on the Carolingian history of the empire. First part (selected sources on German history in the Middle Ages 5) . Darmstadt 1974, pp. 216-253.

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personal data
SURNAME Thegan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Theganbert, Degan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Frankish clergyman; Biographer of Ludwig the Pious
DATE OF BIRTH before 800
DATE OF DEATH March 20 between 849 and 852