WALAFRID STRABO.
Among the pupils of Rabanus Maurus was a boy afflicted with strabismus.
He was cross-eyed, or crooked-eyed in some manner, and this fixed upon
him the name of Strabo the “squinter.” Like many another monk in that
age, he has so sunk himself into his service as to have become a man
without a country and almost without parentage. Some therefore contend
that he was an Anglo-Saxon, once a monk in London and afterward educated
at St. Gall, Reichenau, and Fulda. An obscure tradition even makes him a
relative of the Venerable Bede. Another story assigns him to Haymo’s
family. Now, Haymo was a monk of Fulda about 850, a man of very liberal
opinions, learned, and truly catholic, especially in his denial of the
universal authority of the Pope and the doctrine of transubstantiation.
It is something of an honor to have been this man’s brother, and it is
no discredit to have been related to Bede. At any rate these guesses—for
they are little else—serve to show us the repute in which Walafrid
Strabo was held.
More accurate investigation reveals a sentence in the preface to the
life of St. Gall which seems conclusive. In it Walafrid speaks of “us
Germans or Suabians.” Suabia is thus designated as his birthplace, and
we find his name among the list of those scholars who did credit to
their teacher Rabanus.
His period is the middle of the ninth century, for in 842 he became
Abbot of Reichenau in the diocese of Constance, and he died in 849.
Dates like these are not hard to verify, for we have many chronicles and
records in which the Dark Ages laid the foundations of authentic
history. Here lie away in their narrow niches of brief reference many
illustrious people. And the work of the hymnologist consists often
enough in the same sort of research as secular history demands. Now and
then on the dead breast there is a little withered flower ready to
crumble into dust.
That curious, peering Trithemius—to whom we are indebted for such
laborious inquiries concerning the men of this time—maintains that
Walafrid was “rector” of the school in the monastery of Hirschfeld. If
this be so it only confirms what we note again and again, that Alcuin
and Rabanus were the real instigators of German scholarship. And the
work from which we shall presently quote becomes more interesting to us
for this reason.
Walafrid left a long catalogue of works behind him. He wrote a valuable
antiquarian treatise on the divine offices and usages of the Church.
Besides, he is accredited as the author of the lives of St. Gall, St.
Othmar, St. Blaithmac, St. Mamma, and St. Leudegaris. He also composed
various poems; a preface to the Life of Ludwig the Pious, and a
condensation of Rabanus Maurus’s Commentary on Leviticus. He compiled
the famous _Glossa Ordinaria_, which remained the standard commentary on
the Bible throughout the Middle Ages. He began the annals of Fulda,
which have since been continued by competent hands, notably those of
Christopher Brower. He has been called a “pretty good poet for his
age”—by which is meant that there was a scanty supply of poetry in the
ninth century—a fact which no one is competent to dispute.
It goes without saying that his life was the life of an ecclesiast,
restricted to a Chinese minuteness of ritual, and permitting only such
visits and journeys as religious business justified. His death occurred
on one of these infrequent expeditions. It was in France, whither he had
gone—as we are expressly told—in order to hasten some ecclesiastical
affair.
These are the meagre and unentertaining facts connected with the name of
Walafrid Strabo. He would not have deserved, nor would he have received
our notice if two of his hymns (the _Laudem beatae martyris_ and the
_Gloriam nato cecinere_) had not been preserved. These entitle him to
mention, and he promptly rises to genuine importance if we can agree
with Kellner (see _Bibliotheca Sacra_, January, 1883, p. 154), that a
recently discovered “diary” is from his pen. It is probable that,
whether it be authentic or not, it is strictly accurate in its relation
of the studies pursued in those schools. And if we assume it to be
credible we can revise our dates to correspond.
Thus his school life began in 816, and after its close he went to Fulda,
thence to return to his old monastery in 842 as its abbot. These dates
are afforded by the document itself, which was originally published in
1857, as a part of the educational report of the Benedictine school of
St. Maria of Einsiedeln in Switzerland. It appears to me that its tone
and composition are not such as to justify the value which Kellner sets
upon it. Walafrid’s name was a convenient one, and this is doubtless no
more nor less than a clever historical romance. But it has been composed
in the very neighborhood of the scenes it depicts, and the advantages of
all the ancient MSS. and traditions have been incalculably great.
The narrative is introduced by a modern preface which speaks of St.
Meinrad, the founder of Einsiedeln, as a contemporary of Walafrid. Then
we have a statement which tersely exhibits the plan and purpose of the
story:
“In the dark hour when the Roman imperial throne collapsed on which
Theodoric the Goth had just seated his teacher Avitus, Manlius Boethius
committed his spiritual wealth to the Goth Cassiodorus, who transmitted
it to the sons of St. Benedict,” etc.
“The seed of Christian instruction had been inherited by the sons of St.
Benedict from the age of martyrs and holy fathers. Great seminaries were
opened at Fulda, Weissenberg in the bishopric of Speyer, St. Alban in
Mainz, St. Gall, Reichenau in the bishopric of Constance, St. Maximin,
and St. Matthias in Trier, etc. To these establishments the sons of the
nobility resorted, while the Benedictines were their teachers and
fathers. Whoever saw one of these schools saw them all as to everything
essential. Accordingly, it is our purpose to describe one of
them—namely, the school of Reichenau, from which came the founder of
Einsiedeln, St. Meinrad, and Walafrid Strabo, who was his schoolmate in
Reichenau, and who, four years after him, assumed the Benedictine
dress.”
Then follows an assurance to the “intelligent reader” that this account
“is not mere poetry,” but is “sustained by authoritative documents,”
among which are named the writings of Walafrid himself, of Bede, Alcuin,
Rabanus, and the collections of Pez, Metzler, and others. It is plain,
then, that Kellner has been misled, and that Professor J. D. Butler, of
Madison, Wis., who has made this clever translation from the German, has
been likewise deceived. Yet the historical importance of the “diary”
remains, and the writings of Alcuin, Bede, and Rabanus, with those of
Walafrid, give the original particulars and can be cited in proof.
Professor Butler adds a few pleasant details about Reichenau. It was
founded in 724, earlier than any neighboring convent except St. Gall. It
is on an island in the Lake of Constance, whose lake-girt limits are
about two miles by three. It became so rich that it acquired many other
properties, and its abbot could journey to Rome and never sleep a night
outside of his own domain. The old tower, built by Henry the Black, is
still standing, and among the cherished relics of the abbey is a piece
of green glass weighing twenty-eight pounds given by Charlemagne, who
thought it to be an emerald. There is also a supposititious water-pot
from Cana of Galilee, which evidently came from Palestine and shows the
mediaeval intercourse with the Holy Land. The revenues of the abbey were
not sequestrated until the year 1799. Such is a brief sketch of this
religious house which we shall again encounter in the story of Hermannus
Contractus.
Walafrid’s narrative begins with the year 815. He saw the vast buildings
with surprise and was greeted by a throng of future schoolmates. His
teacher had several boys under his care to teach them to read. This he
did by the help of a wax tablet—the old Roman method. The letters were
scratched on the wax and erased by the blunt end of the pointed “style.”
Along with this elementary work came Latin, together with a German
primer—in both of which the boys were expected to read.
At harvest time there was a short vacation. The boys rambled through the
fields and picked fruit and enjoyed themselves generally.
The second year’s work was the learning of conversational Latin. This
was the language of daily intercourse and was employed to express all
wants. The grammar of Donatus was studied under a pupil-teacher, and the
cases and tenses were rigidly committed to memory. The rod was the
penalty for misbehavior. German phrases were translated into Latin and
some portion of biblical history was repeated to the scholars at night,
which they were obliged to tell again in the morning.
Then follows a description of the dedication of the minster and of the
solemn effect of the great High Mass, at which time Walafrid resolves to
become a monk.
The year 817 was occupied with grammar and orthography, and the use of
Latin was compulsory. Hitherto there had been a trifle of laxity and a
few lapses into German were forgiven. Now there was no exception to
scholars of this advancement. They wrote from dictation upon their
tablets, and the Psalter was in this manner transcribed and memorized.
The fourth year (818) was signalized by the planting of the first
grape-vine on the island. Doubtless the fact itself is authentic, and is
here introduced owing to its date. And in this year the scholars attack
prosody. They study Alcuin (who wrote many verses), and the distichs of
Cato, and Bede’s _De Arte Metrica_. The earlier Christian poets—Prosper
and Juvencus and Sedulius—are mentioned. It is strange that the author
does not name Prudentius, who was far more of a classic than any or all
of these three. But it is quite correct to mention Virgil as a permitted
book, and the exercises in poetry in which all were engaged.
In 819, the fifth year, the boys became pupil-teachers themselves. They
were further instructed in rhetoric, with illustrations from the Bible
to be paralleled from Statius and Lucan, whose works they were studying.
Other scholars again were set to work as scribes and copyists. The
amusements were the running of foot-races, quarter-staff playing, and
“dice,” by which we are probably to understand the very ancient game of
backgammon. And again, it is strange that no mention is made of the
games of ball, which were decidedly common in those days.
The year 820 is consumed with rhetoric—with Cicero, Quintilian, and the
histories of Bede, Eusebius, Jerome, and others. The classic authors
were Sallust and Livy, with Virgil and (at last) Prudentius and
Fortunatus.
In 821 comes Boethius, attended by more of Cassiodorus, and the pleasant
pastime of “dialectics,” or debating. In these debates the enthusiasm
was kindled for future controversies. And in other lines—as, for
example, in studies of the current legal codes, of the Salic and
Ripuarian Franks and Lombards—those who were to be rulers were
diligently trained. Here (for this is the exact account of that ancient
instruction) we see how the Church held sway over her former pupils, and
how the pupils became by and by the exponents of religious opinions and
subservient to ecclesiastical decrees.
With 822 we have mention of rhetoric and logic, with oral and written
exercises, and in 823 the scholars took up and pursued the studies of
geometry and geography according to the light of that period. Then came
music with the various instruments, as organ, harp, flute, or trombone.
Finally, Walafrid is supposed to record his initiation into the reading
of Greek. From the MS. of Homer the boys were instructed, and the
account closes abruptly with a reference to the study of astronomy.
Subsequent to this year, 825, Walafrid is believed to have passed
considerable time at Fulda with Rabanus Maurus.
These were the ideas and educational methods of that period. Outside of
the monasteries and abbeys there was nothing that went on in the way of
learning. It needed special establishments, with great wealth, the
protection of kings and nobles, and the indefinable terrors of religious
authority to perpetuate scholarship. We may despise, as some writers
freely do despise, the bigotry and intolerance which obliterated fine
manuscripts of the classics to make room for monkish trifles. But we
cannot fail to discover the germs of the new poetry of the Church in
these unpromising times. Fortunatus and Prudentius were no bad
preceptors after all. And even if Walafrid Strabo was not much of a
poet, he has served our occasion as a pupil when he might not have
gained notice as a writer of hymns.