The death of Bede of Jarrow did not put a halt on the coming Carolingian Renaissance, nor did it stop the effort to synthesize and systematize the previous studies on the Sacred Scripture. Instead, with Alcuin, a native of York, part of the Kingdom of Northumbria at that time and the most accomplished student of one of the pupils of Bede, being invited by Charles the Great to Aachen, the political and cultural center of Europe in the 9th century, the literary achievements of Bede became the most potent fuel for the Carolingian Renaissance. Among the pupils of Alcuin in Germany and other parts of Europe, the most achieved and influential was Saint Hraban of Germany (Rabanus Magnentius / Ράμπανους Μαγκεντίος), Archbishop, Abbot and Father of the Church.
The German Saint was born around 780 in Mainz, with different sources pointing his year of birth to 776, 783, or 784, although no one could give an account of the date on which he was born. Little detail of the early life of the Eastern Frank was known, except the common belief that he was born of a noble family, until when he took the vow at a very young age in the Benedictine Monastery of Fulda, an important Benedictine Monastery founded in 744 by Saint Sturm, a disciple of Saint Boniface. In 801, the talented German was ordained Deacon, presumably by Baugulf, Abbot of the Monastery of Fulda at that time. Baugulf was succeeded by Ratgar in 802, a man of noble background who took extraordinary care for the education of the young Monks in his Monastery. Under the ardent recommendation of the Abbot, Hraban, together with Haimo, was sent to study under the most celebrated scholar at that time Alcuin of York in Tours, a city which would become the center of the Carolingian Renaissance in Gaul.
Although the Mainz native only remained in Tours for one year, his uncommon diligence, judgement, and talent were soon recognized by Alcuin, who bestowed him the surname Maurus in memory of Saint Maurus, the favorite disciple of Saint Benedict. Returning to Fulda in 803, the accomplished student was offered a position as a teacher in the Monastic School of Fulda, where he soon became the headmaster. Under his direction, although the excessive obsession of Ratgar in erecting new Ecclesiastical buildings somewhat hindered the development of the School of Fulda, the School still managed to successfully and rapidly expand and became one the leading centers of scholarship and literary production and saw many great students who would be instrumental for the Carolingian Renaissance, such as Walafrid of Swabia, Loup of Ferrieres, and Otfrid of Weissenburg. During his tenure as the headmaster, Hraban was ordained Priest in 814.
In 818, Eigil replaced Ratgar and became the fourth Abbot of the Monastery of Fulda. The newly elected Abbot granted significantly more freedom and flexibility for Hraban, and the Monastic School of Fulda soon gained even more privilege in terms of literary achievements. In 822, the student of Alcuin was elected as the fifth Abbot of the Monastery of Fulda and remained in the position for twenty years. During his reign, the Monastery reached unsurpassed prosperity, not only materially but also spiritually. The Abbot erected numerous buildings, sent many Priests for population living in remote towns and villages, enriched Ecclesiastical properties with ornaments, and established libraries for higher learnings for both sacred and profane arts and sciences, and the skilled master at Fulda successfully achieved excellent accomplishments on education, art, science, exegesis, dogma, moral, and chronicle. For these reasons, the School of Fulda became the most praised model among the Carolingian Schools. Although the reign of the great teacher was generally peaceful, the Abbot was involved in the political tumults by siding with Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, and later his first son Lothair I, who was later defeated by his younger
brother Louis the German. Consequently, the humanist scholar was forced to flee in 840 and to resign from Fulda in 842, only reconciling with the newly enthroned Emperor in 845.
Soon after his reconciliation with the Emperor, the reputed Benedictine Monk regained favor within the Empire and was consecrated Bishop on June 26, 847 to succeed Odgar as the Archbishop of Mainz. The newly appointed Archbishop, as the Primate of Germany, brought his policies into the Mainz, expediting the propagation of Christian Humanism in the Frankish territories. In the same year during which the Saint began his archiepiscopate, he convoked the First Synod of Mainz, enacting thirty-one canons regulating Ecclesiastical disciplines, mostly pertaining to the administration of the Sacraments and the regulation of Clergies and Monks, and these disciplinary acts of the Synod became the guiding principles of German clergies in later centuries. The Second Synod of Mainz was soon convoked one year later in 848, refuting and condemning the doctrine of Gottschalk, a Benedictine Monk who developed a doctrine of double complete predestination, in which God does not wish all to be saved. The previously enacted Ecclesiastical rules would soon see their reaffirmations in the Third Synod of Mainz in 852, occasionally claimed to be convened in 851. The same synod also confirmed various privileges of the Catholic Church. Through his archiepiscopate, the Carolingian Monk remained generous and compassionate to his flock, especially to those who were poor. During the famine of 850, the beloved Archbishop fed hundreds of people each day.
The First Synod of Mainz can be viewed as the event in which the literary and disciplinary labors of the German prodigy, with the Papal and Imperial privilege of the Archbishop of Mainz as the Primate of Germany, began to become the standard in the German lands. The canons and decrees of the Synods participated by Saint Hraban, supplemented by their notes and analyses, were presented by the French Jesuits Labbe and Cossart (columns 1035-1048, 1048-1052, and 1084-1088 in <<Sacrosancta Concilia>>, Venice, 1729) and the Italian Archbishop Mansi (columns 899-913, 914-917, and 970-973 of Volume XIV in <<Sacra Concilia>>, Florence, 1769). On February 4, 856, the 10th year of his archiepiscopate, the virtuous Monk attained the reward for his service in the world, exemplifying a model Christian servant and teacher to his students and flocks.
Hraban, the central figure of the Carolingian Renaissance of European culture in the Frankish lands, was by necessity an outstanding grammarian. The only grammatical work by the educator was <<Excerptio De Arte Grammatica Prisciani>>, a selected excerpt of the famed <<Institutiones Grammaticae>> by the 6th- century grammarian Priscian of Caesarea. The concise grammar manual was not merely a summary by the German Archbishop, but a compilation of a range of selected topics from the original work which the reformer deemed most useful for the students.
The most famous work of the humanist was <<De Universo>>, also known as <<De Rerum Naturis>>, an encyclopedic work divided into twenty-two books. The encyclopedia was inspired by <<Etymologiae>> of Saint Isidore, but unlike the classic by the celebrated Archbishop of Seville, it was not organized based on human arts and sciences, but on Divine and Ecclesiastical matters. This is because the learned Monk wrote began writing his work on 842 and finished it 846, after learning Haimo, a fellow German student under Alcuin and lifelong friend, was promoted to the rank of Bishop of Halberstadt, an office which he would remain in for thirteen years, and dedicated his work to aid in the Episcopal duties of his greatest friend, including the education of his clergies and flocks. For the Monk who served as the Headmaster in Fulda, it is possible to explore and understand the world through the Sacred Scripture, as the world is a mirror or reflection of the Divine teaching and Heaven.
For this reason, instead of starting with the seven liberal arts and sciences, the encyclopedia dealt with Divine matters in its first books. The first book closely adopted the structure of Saint John of Damascus in understanding God as One God according to Nature and Triune God according to Person. The same book incorporated a concise discussion on the Angels, followed by two books dedicated to the splendid creation of mankind. The fourth book outlined the origin, order, and structure of the Catholic Church as the Heir of Israel according to the New Testament, in contrast to the Synagogue, advancing the idea of Ecclesia et Synagoga, as well as the sects of Heretics and Schismatics, whereas the fifth book defended the Canon of the Bible, enumerated its comparison with and influence on secular literature, and provided a Biblical basis of various duties performed in and by the Church. It should be noted, however, that the German Prelate adopted the Canon used by Saint Isidore of Seville, which significantly differed from the official Canon of the Council of Trent, especially for the Old Testament. Examples of differences include classifying <<Four Books of Kings>> in prophetic books, numbering <<Twelve Minor Prophets>>, and classifying <<Prophecy According to Daniel>> in hagiographical books. The sixth and seventh books delved into the origin, life and death of human beings, concluding all discussions of topics related to the mankind.
The eighth book was the first book treating in the encyclopedia on natural things, and was centered on earthly animals. The ninth book turned its attention to celestial elements, such as the stars observed by humans, followed by the tenth book that connected celestial things to the human society by offering an exposition on human reckoning of time, largely extracted from the works of Saint Bede of Jarrow. The learned man then devoted from the eleventh to the fourteenth books to geographical matters, giving an adequate examination on virtually all types of geographical phenomena. The last eight books covered a wide variety of issues pertaining to human arts, sciences, and societies, starting with the philosophies, beliefs, and literary activities of Gentiles, followed by a succinct overview of human civil and agricultural systems, and ended with an introduction of various human professions and their productions. It is truly noteworthy that this work is an early work to call for an increased attention to medical sciences.
Compared with the similar-themed works by Isidore and Bede, the encyclopedia by Bede is arguably less groundbreaking or eponymous and less diffuse, as it covered roughly the same topics covered by these two earlier humanist Fathers. This can be evidenced by the lower numbers of manuscripts produced and survived throughout the Middle Ages, since the encyclopedia composed by Saint Hraban was primarily used for supplemental purposes. However, it can be certain that this encyclopedic work received no less applause than works like <<Bibliotheca Mundi>> did.
Another famous work of the loyal son of Saint Benedict was <<De Laudibus Sanctae Crucis>>, dedicated to Louis the Pious. The diligent teacher from Mainz learned of the literary form of figure poem or picture poem under his master Alcuin in Tours and developed the form to its peak during his years teaching his young students, completing such massive collection in 810. The centerpieces of this collection were the twenty-eight calligrams, each containing one abstraction of the Holy Cross representing and illustrating different elements of the history of Salvation, unfolding the entire aspects of Christology and Soteriology and corresponding to the text in respective calligrams. The number twenty-eight was quite deliberately chosen as it is both the sum of all its divisors and the multiple of four and seven, indicating a mystical connection to perfection.
The work was divided into two books, with the twenty-eight calligrams appearing in the first book. Each calligram was followed by a plain-text version of the poem without the figure of the Holy Cross that may hinder the reading and a commentary that served the purpose of assisting the readers in understanding
the spiritual senses of the poem. The technique employed by authors during the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages allowed the combination of image and word in such a way that letters could be excluded as hidden intext from the basic text and be used to show the cosmological order of God and the structure of His creation. The second book was a condensed version of the first book, offering only a paraphrasing for the poems in the calligrams.
The bulk of works of the German Primate, however, were on the Sacred Scripture, which were classified into three classes, namely commentaries, homilies, and questions, largely prepared during the teaching life of the Abbot in Fulda, though many were published later. The commentary category accounted for at least three quarters of all works on Scripture by the Saint, encompassing lengthy commentaries on <<Five Books of Moses>>, <<Book of Judge>>, <<Book of Ruth>>, <<Four Books of Kings>>, <<Two Books of Chronicles>>, <<Book of Judith>>, <<Book of Esther>>, <<Book of Proverbs>>, <<Book of Canticles>>, <<Book of Wisdom>>, <<Book of Sirach>>, <<Prophecy according Jeremiah>>, <<Prophecy according to Daniel>> and <<Two Books of Machabees>>, as well as on <<Gospel according to Saint Matthew>> and <<Fourteen Pauline Epistles>>. The homily category was comprised of two longer series organized based liturgical seasons, the first centered upon Epistles and Gospels from the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ to the Vigil of Easter and the second centered upon Epistles and Gospels from the Vigil of Easter to the fifteenth Sunday after the Pentecost, and two shorter lectures, the first on the genealogy of Jesus Christ and the second on the seven signs of the Nativity of Our Lord. The question category entailed a series of lectures on the allegorical languages used in the Sacred Scripture, advocating for a better understanding of the spiritual senses of Written Word of God.
The Scriptural works of the Abbot were largely based on the commentaries and homilies of the Fathers of the Church in previous centuries. Similar in both literary style and structure to the works of the earlier English Benedictine Monk and teacher Bede, the works of the German Benedictine headmaster at Fulda sought to not only systematize the works of previous Western and Eastern Fathers of the Church, giving coherent, multifarious meanings to each passage in the Sacred Scripture, but also to synthesize the two opposing exegetical schools, the School of Antioch and the School of Alexandria. The most distinguishing feature in the work of the Frankish Archbishop, however, was his use of the life of Monastic Fathers and Desert Fathers, such as Saint Anthony the Great, Saint John the Ascetic, and Saint Moses the Black, who may or may not had written extensively on Scripture, as examples of an ideal life for Monks in particular and Christians in general, according to the Word of God.
As a pedagogist who had been appointed to the office of both the Abbot of the Monastery of Fulda and the Archbishop of Mainz, Hraban wrote multiple important didactic works helping fellow clergies across different regions. The most widely circulated of them was <<De Clericorum Institutione>>, dedicated to Haistulph, Archbishop of Mainz, in 819. The work was comprised of three books, with the first focusing on the sacramental and liturgical duties of Clergies, the second focusing on clerical life and regulations and pastoral duties, and the third offering instructions on the formation of Clergies, in which the author adamantly admonished that despite the crucial, or even fundamental, role of liberal arts and sciences, they must serve be used for the fulfilling of the highest purpose, the preaching of the Word of God, and, therefore, must be subordinate to Scripture and Tradition.
Other clerical instructions of the holy Archbishop were given through a similar form, dedicated to other clergies, many of whom were Catholic and Imperial dignitaries, such as <<De Disciplina Ecclesiastica>>, <<De Quaestionibus Canonum Poenitentialium>>, and <<De Anima Et Virtutibus>>, generally focusing
more on specific questions rather than systematic instructions. Beside the treatises with an instructional nature, two linguistic manuals used for references, <<Glossae>> and <<De Inventione Linguarum>>, and a commentary on the Rule of Saint Benedict, <<Commentaria In Regulam Sancti Benedicti>>, were also produced.
Only one edition of <<Opera Omnia>> of Hraban was ever published between 1626 and 1627 in Cologne in six folio tomes, only to be collected again in Volumes CVII-CXII of <<Patrologia Latina>> by Migne. The three works largest works not directly related to Scripture, <<Excerptio De Arte Grammatica Prisciani>>, <<De Universo>>, and <<De Laudibus Sanctae Crucis>>, were included in Tome I, whereas the works on Scripture by the Benedictine from Mainz accounted for Tome II, Tome III, Tome IV, Tome V, and a large portion of Tome VI, with the remaining portion accounted by the rest of his works.
The only printed edition of <<De Universo>> was issued in Strasbourg in 1467, proving that although the encyclopedia of Hraban remained popular throughout the Middle Ages, as many illustrated manuscripts had been produced, it was certainly not as popular as the works by Isidore and Bede, since it used more as a supplemental rather than primary textbook. The encyclopedia was recently translated into English in 2009 in two volumes, under the unchanged title <<De Universo>>. A three-volume Italian edition was offered in 1994, under the alternative title <<De Rerum Naturis>>, containing not only the original text and translation but also commentaries. One similarly popular work was <<De Laudibus Sanctae Crucis>>, largely due to its unique format of picture poem. The poem collection was preserved through at least 80 manuscripts, still preserved within various European libraries as a witness to early European manuscript traditions. Its first printed edition was issued in Pforzheim in 1503, followed by a second edition in 1605 in Augsburg. A modern Latin edition was incorporated, under the title <<In Honorem Sanctae Crucis>>, in Volume 100 and Volume 100A of <<Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis>>, the Medieval continuation of <<Corpus Christianorum Series Latina>> and <<Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca>>. A German translation was published in 2006, titled <<Auf Den Spuren Eines Karolingischen Gelehrten>>, containing 77 colored and 8 black-and-white illustrations, including the 28 calligrams, and their commentaries, as well as their transcriptions and translations. A French translation, not containing the original beautiful illustrations but with a decent amount of notes, was published under the title <<Louanges De La Sainte Croix>> in 1988.
While the Scriptural works of the holy Abbot were quoted widely and extensively by later Exegetes, they were not reprinted until Migne started his monumental Patristic collection, as the <<Opera Omnia>> in 1626 was satisfying enough for modern Catholic scholars. The only modern reprint was <<Commentarius In Matthaeum>> as Volume 174 and Volume 174A of the great <<Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis>>. Their prefatory epistles, however, were all collected in Volume V of <<Epistolae>>, the third of the five series of <<Monumenta Germaniae Historica>>, a scholarly collection of carefully and comprehensively selected and edited primary texts dedicated for the study of history of Germany and, to a less extent, Northwestern and Central Europe, from the destruction of the Western Roman Empire to the eve of the Protestant Revolt.
A modern reprinted and critical edition of <<De Clericorum Institutione>> was published under the title <<De Institutione Clericorum>> in 1996, followed by a second edition with German translation under the title in 2006. An Italian translation was published in 2002, titled <<La Formazione Dei Chierici>>. Like the prefatory epistles of the Scriptural works by the Primate, various prefatory epistles of the non-Scriptural works of the Saint were collected in the same Volume V of <<Epistolae>>.
Hraban was undoubtedly the most accomplished teacher of the Carolingian era, as his students went to continue reinvigorating the European culture and civilization in a way no one else could achieve or even imagine. Among his achieved pupils, the most distinguished were Walafrid of Swabia, Loup of Ferrieres, Otfrid of Weissenburg, and Rudolf of Fulda. Because of the German Primate and his students who took his mantel during his life and after his death, the Holy Roman Empire truly expelled Barbarian influence and revived its Roman heritage, and various German metropolitan cities like Mainz and Fulda gradually emerged as eminent centers of learning and missionary works in Europe. Thus, although the greatest Archbishop of Mainz was never recognized as a Doctor of the Church, he was revered and hailed by not only the German Clergies but also the common German people as Praeceptor Germaniae, or Teacher of Germany.
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