Wessobrunner Gebet (u.a.)

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek

Description

The prayer written in Bavarian was added after 800 to a manuscript otherwise composed in Latin on fols. 65v-66r. It consists of two parts: the "Wessobrunner Schöpfungsmythos" ("Wessobrunn Creation Myth"), a short text of nine incomplete alliterated verses and of the prayer proper in freely rhythmed prose. The fragment of a creation myth is the oldest transmitted piece of Christian alliterated poetry. It places opposite the chaos before creation the omnipotent God surrounded by his angels. The work is descended under the title "De poeta" as the only larger German text in the collected Latin manuscript. Probably around 814 a monk in a monastery in the southern Diocesis of Augsburg gathered over 70 Latin texts of mostly theological but also of geographical and chronological content together and wrote them down in Carolingian minuscule. The first text is ornamented with 18 half-page pen drawings in rather restrained colouring. It is the oldest preserved or rather known image cycle on Emperor Constantine the Great and his mother Helena. Datum: 2016

Author

Peter Czoik

Rights Statement Description

CC0