Froumund von Tegernsee, collection of letters and songs

The collection of letters and poems comes from Froumund (c. 960-1008), a monk, teacher and chancery scribe at the St. Quirin monastery in Tegernsee. It was arranged by him and his pupils in chronological order; 77 of the 93 letters are edited by Froumund.

The poems preserved in the collection are mainly occasional poems, greetings, epitaphs, inscriptions, invocation poems, festival poems and school poems. In vivid, sometimes dark, complex language, Froumund gives a cultural-historical insight into the intellectual, political and economic aspects of monastic life at that time, while also showing humour.

The collection had an effect well into the 12th century at the Tegernsee monastery - a second Tegernsee letter codex, Clm 19411, dates from the 12th century. Froumund himself followed with his collection of the existing tradition of the Epistulae formatae and general letter collections, which was expressed in Notker's collection and Solomon's formula book in the 9th century (Christine E. Ineichen-Eder).

To the digitised copy