Widukind of Corvey

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Widukind of Corvey (c. 925 – after 973;

Res gestae Saxonicae sive annalium libri tres is an important chronicle of 10th-century Germany (Germania) during the rule of the Ottonian dynasty
.

Life

Corvey Abbey Church, westwork

In view of his name, he possibly was a descendant of the Saxon leader and national hero

Otto the Great
.

Otto's rise as undisputed ruler of a German kingdom against the reluctant

William of Mainz one year later, the abbess remained the only important member of the Ottonian dynasty in the Saxon lands under regent Hermann Billung; therefore, Widukind may have begun the writing – or started all over again – to create a kind of mirror for princes
.

The annals were continued until Otto's death on 7 May 973. Widukind probably died thereafter at Corvey Abbey.

Work

Main article: The Deeds of the Saxons

The Res gestae Saxonicae are significant historical accounts of the times of Otto the Great and Henry the Fowler, modelled on the works of the Roman historian Sallust and the deuterocanonical Books of the Maccabees. Widukind wrote as a Saxon, proud of his people and history, beginning his narration not with the Roman Empire but with a brief synopsis derived from the orally-transmitted history of the Saxons and their struggles with the Franks, with a terseness that makes his work difficult to interpret.

Widukind of Corvey starts with the wars between

Theuderich I, King of Austrasia, and the Thuringii, in which the Saxons played a large part. An allusion to the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity under Charlemagne brings him to the early Saxon dukes and details of the reign of Henry the Fowler, whose campaigns are referred to in some detail.[1] He omitted Italian events in tracing the career of Henry, nor does he ever mention a pope, but one of the three surviving manuscripts of his Gesta was transcribed in Benevento, the Lombard duchy south of Rome.[2] The second book opens with the election of Otto the Great as German king, treats of the risings against his authority, again omitting events in Italy, and concludes with the death of his first wife Edith of England in 946. In the third book the historian deals with Otto's expedition into France, his troubles with his son Liudolf and his son-in-law, Conrad, Duke of Lorraine, and the various wars in Germany.[1]

A manuscript of Res gestae Saxonicae sive annalium libri tres was first published in Basel in 1532 and is today in the British Library. There are two other surviving manuscripts. The best edition was published in 1935 by Paul Hirsch and Hans-Eberhard Lohmann in the series Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum editi. A German translation appears in the Quellen zur Geschichte der sächsischen Kaiserzeit published by Albert Bauer and Reinhold Rau in 1971. An English translation is found in an unprinted doctoral dissertation: Raymond F. Wood, The three books of the deeds of the Saxons, by Widukind of Corvey, translated with introduction, notes, and bibliography (University of California, Los Angeles, 1949).[3]

Widukind is also credited with vitae of St Paul and St Thecla doubtless based on the 2nd century Acts of Paul and Thecla, but no traces of them now remain.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Holland, Arthur William (1911). "Widukind". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 620–621.
  2. ^ Evellum Archived 2004-05-26 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ Raymund F. Wood, The three books of the Deeds of the Saxons, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1949, available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
  4. ^ Holland 1911.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Widukind_of_Corvey&oldid=1181106531"