Rodulfus Glaber

Rodulfus Glaber , even Radulfus Glaber or Raoul Glaber , ( lat. Glaber "the Bald"; * to 985 in Burgundy ; † around 1047 in Saint-Germain d'Auxerre ) was a Burgundian Benedictines - monk , historian and hagiographer .

Life

At the age of twelve, Rodulfus was handed over to the monastery of Saint-Léger-de-Champeaux by his uncle, a monk who raised him, for disobedience , but was soon chased away because he did not submit to monastic life and was considered contentious. In the course of time, his changeable career led him to a number of Burgundian monasteries. However, it is not known when he lived in which monastery. There is evidence of its presence in the monasteries of Moutiers-Saint-Jean , Saint-Bénigne à Dijon , Cluny , Moutier and Saint-Germain d'Auxerre.

Around 1028 he traveled to Italy with William von Volpiano , the abbot of Saint-Bénigne. Inspired by Wilhelm, he began his main work, the "Historiae" , a historical work that covers the period from around 900 to around 1040. A special focus were the years around 1000 and around 1033, which he considered to be particularly significant. In this five-volume history, Rodulfus describes in particular strange or terrifying incidents, heresies , the work of the devil, miracles , visions and the decline of morals. He also reports famines and even cannibalism in Burgundy. He interpreted this as the eschatological omen of the impending end of the world . He dedicated this chronicle to Odilo von Cluny . Today a few manuscripts from the “Historiae” have survived, including an author's copy.

The second surviving work, Rodulfus wrote a vita of Wilhelm von Volpiano, which was probably written shortly after his death in 1031.

Rodulfus belonged to circles of supporters of the church reforms of the 11th century , which can be recognized by his very partisan representation of events and people. He particularly likes the rulers Heinrich II , Heinrich III , who are popular in reform circles . and Robert II of France . In the chronicle, however, Conrad II and anti-reform and immoral popes such as B. Benedict IX. The work is of limited value as a source of events due to its chronological and geographical inadequacy, but it is significant as a cultural-historical document of 11th century morality and manners.

Rodulfus wrote his works in Middle Latin , which is used without any literary claim. There is no evaluation of the events according to their importance, so that trivialities are mentioned as equal to important events.

Works

• Historiarum libri quinque ab anno incarnationis DCCCC usque ad annum MXLIV or Historiae (title not passed down from the contemporary)
  • Excerpts in: Georg Heinrich Pertz u. a. (Ed.): Scriptores (in Folio) 7: Chronica et gesta aevi Salici. Hanover 1846, pp. 48–72 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  • Latin-English edition in: Rodulfus Glaber: Historiarum libri quinque. Edited by John France ( Oxford Medieval Texts ). Clarendon Press, Oxford 1989.
• Wilhelmi abbatis gestorum liber

literature

• Neithard Bulst : Rodulfus Glabers Vita domni Willelmi abbatis . In: German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages , pp. 450–487.
• Kaspar Elm: Rodulfus Glaber and the heretics. About the fight against Satan and demons or about the relationship between clergy and lay people at the beginning of the 11th century . In: Eckart Conrad Lutz / Ernst Tremp (eds.): Priests and laypeople - a medieval antagonism? , Freiburg, Switzerland 1999, ISBN 3-7278-1130-7 , pp. 9–32.
• John France: Rodulfus Glaber and the Cluniacs . In: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 39 (1988), pp. 497-508.
• John France: War and Christendom in the thought of Rodulfus Glaber . In: Studia monastica 30 (1988), pp. 105-119.
• Michael Frassetto: Heretics and Jews in the early eleventh century. The writings of Rodulfus Glaber and Ademar of Chabannes . In the S. (Ed.): Christian attitudes toward the Jews in the middle ages. A casebook, New York 2007, pp. 43-59.
• Hermann von Lindheim: Rodulfus Glaber. His personality, his history and his relationship to the intellectual currents of his time . Diss. Phil. Leipzig 1942.
• Heinrich Kuypers: Studies on Rudolf the Bald: (Rodulfus Glaber) , Goch 1891.
• Richard Landes: Radulphus Glaber's Quinque libri historiarum , in: Speculum 68 (1993), pp. 247-249.
• Bengt Löfstedt: Linguistic Notes on Rodulfus Glaber . In: Aevum 64 (1990), pp. 199-201.
• Marco Mostert: De Vijf Boeken of the Historiën van Rodulfus Glaber . In: Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis 6 (1999), pp. 13-29.
• Jan Prelog: Rodulfus Glaber . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 7, LexMA-Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-7608-8907-7 , Sp. 933.
• Margarete Vogelgsang: The Cluniacensischen chronicler Rodulfus Glaber. A contribution to Cluniac historiography . In: Studies and communications on the history of the Benedictine order and its branches 71 (1960), pp. 151-185.
• Margarete Vogelsang: Rodulfus Glaber. Studies on the Problem of Cluniac Historiography . Munich 1952.

Web links

• Rodulfus Glaber in the repertory "Historical Sources of the German Middle Ages"
• Entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia , Robert Appleton Company, New York 1913.