Otfrid

Otfrid (flourished 9th century) was a monk of Weissenburg in Alsace and the first German poet known by name. Otfrid was trained in the monastery school of Fulda under Rabanus Maurus, who directed the school from 802 to 824. Otfrid’s fame rests on his Evangelienbuch (c. 870; “Book of the Gospels”), a poem of 7,416 lines, which is extant in three good contemporary manuscripts (at Vienna, Heidelberg, and Munich). It is an exceptionally valuable document,...