R

RABANUS MAURUS

(HRABANUS, RHABANUS, ALSO

KNOWN AS MAGNENTIUS; ca. 780–856).
Born in Mainz of a noble family, Rabanus (which means
“raven” in Old High German) received the best educa-
tion available in his day. A favorite pupil of Alcuin, he
was called “Maurus” after a disciple of St. Benedict.
Rabanus moved in the highest circles of power of the
Carolingian world. He became abbot of Fulda in 822
and solicited the patronage of Lothair I to make this
one of the outstanding monastic foundations of the
age. Rabanus supported Louis the Pious in the political
turmoil of the 830s and 840s, and Lothair I on Louis’s
death. The victory of Louis the German in 840 forced
him into exile for about a year; upon his return to Ger-
man lands, he retired to the abbey of Petersburg until
named archbishop of Mainz in 847.
Rabanus was a prolifi c author and the teacher of some
of the most outstanding of the Carolingian scholars,
among them Walafrid Strabo. Many of his works have
a pedagogical intent. De institutione clericorum (before
819) covers ecclesiastical grades, liturgy, liturgical vest-
ments, catechetical instruction, and the Liberal Arts. De
rerum naturis (after 840; also known as De universo) is
an encyclopedic work in the style of Isidore of Seville
but with an allegorical level of interpretation. His ex-
tensive corpus of poetry includes a number of carmina
fi gurata, in which the words of poems are arranged in
designs to illustrate them. However, it is for his bibli-
cal interpretation that Rabanus was most famous in the
Middle Ages and early-modern period, even though
this material has not been widely studied by modern
scholars.
Rabanus wrote commentaries on most books of the
Bible: all of the historical books of the Old Testament,
many of the books of wisdom literature (signifi cantly,

not the Song of Songs), the Major Prophets, Maccabees,

the Gospel of Matthew, the Acts of the Apostles, and

the Pauline epistles. These are composites of patristic

sources, but the extracts from the various patristic

works are carefully arranged so as to present allegori-

cal interpretations, mostly having to do with Christ and

the church, in a coherent and easily accessible form.

These interpretations were widely read before the

modern period; they survive in many manuscripts and

in printed versions through the 16th century. For his

role as a Christian educator, Rabanus earned the title

praeceptor Germaniae.

See also Alcuin; Isidore of Seville, Saint;

Lothair I, Louis the Pious

Further Reading

Rabanus Maurus. Omnia opera. PL 107–12.

——. Liber de laudibus sanctae crucis. In Vollständige Faksimile-

Ausgabe im Original-format des Codex Vindobonensis 652

der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, commentary by Kurt

Holter. 2 vols. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt,

1972–73.

——. The Life of Saint Mary Magdalene and of Her Sister Saint

Martha: A Twelfth-Century Biography, trans. David Mycoff.

Kalamazoo: Cistercian, 1989.

——. Martyrologium, ed. John McCulloh, and Liber de com-

puto, ed. Wesley M. Stevens. CCCM 44. Turnhout: Brepols,

1979.

——. Poems. MGH Poetae 2.154–258.

Kottje, Raymund, and Harald Zimmermann. Hrabanus Maurus:

Lehrer, Abt und Bischof. Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften

und der Literatur, 1982.

Laistner, Max Ludwig Wolfram. Thought and Letters in Western

Europe, A.D. 500 to 900. London: Methuen, 1957.

Müller, Hans-Georg. Hrabanus Maurus: De laudibus sancta

crucis. Studien zur Überlieferung und Geistesgeschichte

mit dem Faksimile-Textabdruck aus Codex Reg. Lat 124 der

vatikanischen Bibliothek. Ratingen: Henn, 1973.