Ratgar

Ratgar (also Ratger , Raitger, Latinized Ratgarius ); † 835 was the third abbot of the Fulda monastery from 802 to 817 .

Live and act

With him the Carolingian renaissance in Fulda reached its full potential. During his tenure, the Ratgar basilica, named after him but already begun under his predecessor Baugulf , was expanded to become the largest church north of the Alps by adding a huge transept with a western apse above the grave of St. Boniface . However, it was not consecrated until 819 after Ratger was deposed under his successor, Eigil . In 809 he replaced the wooden chapel on the Bischofsberg with a stone church, which later became the Frauenberg monastery .

Ratgar von Fulda also had a first church built on the site of the later Johannesberg Provost in 811 . He sent talented monks such as the later abbots Hrabanus Maurus and Hatto as well as Brun Candidus and Reccheo Modestus to the most outstanding teachers such as Alcuin , Einhart and the Irish grammarian Clemens .

In 806 there was a first crisis. An epidemic and the escape of younger monks were probably connected, but complaints have also been made about the severity of the teacher, which could mean counselor personally. In 809, on behalf of Charlemagne, a commission under the leadership of Archbishop of Mainz Richulf established a fragile peace. During this time, in the Treaty of Retzbach (March 27, 815), he succeeded in a settlement with the diocese of Würzburg in the dispute over the elevation of the church tithe in the Fulda possessions in the area of ​​the Würzburg diocese.

Already in 812 and again in 816 there was an open rebellion against the abbot, at the head of which his successor Eigil appears. A group of monks left the monastery in protest, but returned after a while. The complaint of the Fulda Convention against its own abbot, the so-called Supplex Libellus , has been preserved. It documents individual measures taken by the abbot such as interfering with the liturgy, relocating monks who are unable to work to the monastery's outposts, restricting studies, accepting new brothers based on economic criteria and reducing the monks' care, as well as the expenses for poor relief and hospitality, which are in favor of the ambitious building program were enforced and led to the overuse of the convention. Above all, however, it shows that Abbot Ratgar's uncompromising severity and lack of willingness to communicate played a role in the rebelion. Therefore in 817 he was deposed and banished by Emperor Ludwig the Pious, despite his appeal to the Aachen Reform Synod of 816, with which the monastery reform of Benedict von Aniane was to be implemented. The monastery was headed provisionally by two Missi (envoy) of Emperor Louis the Pious, the monks Aaron and Adalfrid from the circle of Benedict von Aniane. Ratgar was later pardoned on the initiative of his successor Eigil and returned to the Frauenberg, where he lived until 835 and, in recognition of his merits, which were perceived to be more evident from a certain period of time, was honored to be buried in the abbot's regalia, as reported on reports of the looting of the Grave emerges during the Peasant War . His vita, which is still listed in the Fulda manuscript indexes, was lost when the Fulda library was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War . The Fulda Gesta abbatum (around 900) attest to their overall positive tendency. Brun Candidus, on the other hand, paints a much more critical picture of Ratgar in the vita of his successor, Eigil, from around 840. Here Ratgar appears almost as the epitome of a bad abbot, as a warning horror in the deliberations about the choice of his successor and as an abbot in the form of a unicorn (illustration to book II c. 4), i.e. as the persecutor of the good shepherd Jesus (cf.Psalm 21 ), and thus as a perversion of what an abbot should be, namely a guardian of the flock entrusted to him.

literature

• Gereon Becht-Jördens:  Ratger (Raitger, Ratgar, Ratgarius). In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 170 ( digitized version ).
• Gereon Becht-Jördens: Text, image and architecture as carriers of an ecclesiological conception of monastery history. In: Gottfried Kerscher (Ed.): Hagiography and Art. The cult of saints in writing, image and architecture, Berlin 1993, pp. 75-106.
• Gereon Becht-Jördens: The Vita Aegil abbatis Fuldensis of Brun Candidus. An opus geminum from the age of the Anian reform in biblical-figural background style (Fuldaer Hochschulschriften 17), Frankfurt am Main 1992.
• Gereon Becht-Jördens: Vita Aegil abbatis Fuldensis a Candido ad Modestum edita prosa et versibus. An opus geminum of IX. Century. Introduction and critical edition. Self-published, Marburg 1994.
• Richard Corradini: The Viennese Manuscript Cvp 430 *. A contribution to the historiography of Fulda in the early 9th century. (Fuldaer Hochschulschriften 37) Josef Knecht, Frankfurt am Main 2000.
• Josef Leinweber: The Fulda abbots and bishops. Josef Knecht, Frankfurt am Main 1989, pp. 17-19.
• Werner Kathrein : Fulda, St. Salvator . In: Friedhelm Jürgensmeier, Franziskus Büll: The Benedictine monastery and nunnery in Hesse (Germania Benedictina 7), St. Ottilien 2004, p. 219f.
• Eva Krause: The councilor basilica in Fulda. An investigation into the history of research (sources and treatises on the history of the abbey and diocese of Fulda 27), Fulda 2002.
• Ulrich Hussong : The imperial abbey of Fulda in the early and high Middle Ages. With a view of the late Middle Ages. In: Walter Heinemeyer (ed.): Fulda in his story. Landscape, Reichsabtei, Stadt (publications of the Historical Commission Hesse 57), Fulda Marburg 1995, pp. 107–110.
• Mechthild Sandmann: Ratger (802-817) Ratgarius . In: Karl Schmid (ed.), The monastery community of Fulda in the early Middle Ages (Münstersche Mittelalterschriften 8, 1-2.1-3), Vol. 1, Munich 1978, p. 183.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Becht-Jördens: Die Vita Aegil (see below: Literature) pp. 42–44.
2. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from November 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 

predecessor	Office	successor
Baugulf	Abbot of Fulda 802-817	Eigil