lasting contribution to eremitical reform. Romuald died
at Val di Castro in 1027. By then, his other foundations
were already looking to Camaldoli for leadership, and
other monastic reformers were drawing inspiration
from it.
Romuald had not intended to establish an order
separate from the Benedictines. However, after his
death the thirty-odd monasteries he had founded drew
together around Camaldoli, in part to protect the pecu-
liar customs Romuald had established for them. By the
late eleventh century, the Gregorian popes were treating
them as an order. The most famous Camaldolese monk,
Petet Damian, drew many of his reforming ideals from
Romuald. Peter wrote a very infl uential biography of
Romuald in 1042.
See also Damian, Peter; Otto III
Further Reading
Edition
Tabacco, Giovanni, ed. Petri Damiani Vita beati Romualdi. Fonti
per la Storia d’Italia, 94. Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per
il Medio Evo, 1957.
Critical Studies
Belisle, Peter Damian. “Primitive Romauldian/Camaldolese
Spirituality.” Cistercian Studies Quarterly, 31, 1996, pp.
413–429.
Kurze, Wilhelm. “Campus Malduli: Die Frühgeschichte Camal-
dolis.” Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven
und Bibliotheken, 44, 1964, pp. 1–34.
Leclercq, Jean. “Saint Romuald et le monachisme missionaire.”
Revue Bénédictine, 77, 1962, pp. 307–322.
Phipps, Colin. “Romuald—Model Hermit: Eremitical Theory in
Saint Peter Damian’s Vita Beati Romualdi, Chapters 16–27.”
Studies in Church History, 22, 1985, pp. 65–77.
Schmidtmann, Christian. “Romuald von Camoldi: Modell einer
eremitischen Existenz in 10./11. Jahrhundert.” Studia Monas-
tica, 39, 1997, pp. 329–338.
Tabacco, Giovanni. Romualdo di Ravenna. Turin: Bottega
d’Erasmo, 1968.
Thomas Turley
RUDOLF VON EMS (ca. 1190–ca. 1255)
The presumably Swiss author from Hohenems wrote
fi ve surviving quasi-historical epics in verse for impor-
tant men close to the Staufer court (at fi rst, during the
reign of King Heinrich VII) and eventually for King
Konrad IV himself, whom he might have accompanied
on a campaign to Italy, where the king (and maybe the
poet) died in 1254.
The works (based on French and Latin sources) in
approximate chronological order are Der gute Gerhard
(Good Gerard), commissioned by Rudolf von Steinach
(ministerial of the bishop of Constance) circa 1220;
Barlaam und Josaphat, after a literary model of abbot
Wido von Cappel (near Zürich); Alexander, without a
known commissioner; Willehalm von Orlens, commis-
sioned by Konrad von Winterstetten at the Staufer court
in Swabia, before 1243; the French source was provided
by Johannes von Ravensburg’s Weltchronik, dedicated
to King Konrad IV Another theory is that Rudolf did
not go to Italy and continued the Weltchronik beyond
“Salomo,” after which he added still two later excursus
to Alexander. If Rudolf had also produced earlier courtly
works, which he claimed in Barlaam und Josaphat, that
is unproven. But an Eustachius-Legend, mentioned in
Alexander, is lost.
Der gute Gerhard, after an unknown source, demon-
strates courtly humanity toward a heathen (two manu-
scripts are extant). Barlaam und Josaphat describes
the Indian Legend of Buddha after a Latin source of
1220–1223. (Extant in 47 manuscripts; the only illus-
trated manuscript, of 1469, was done by Diebold Lauber,
with 138 drawings.) Alongside the Laubacher Barlaam
of the Freisinger Bishop Otto II, Rudolf’s is the second
German version. In Eustachius, a high Roman general
under Trajan converted to Christianity. Willehalm von
Orlens is neither an aventiure, or courtly chivalric
romance (Wolfram), nor a chanson de geste (heroic
ballad, like Guillaume), but rather basically a courtly
Fürstenspiegel, or guide for nobility. An ideal govern-
ment, Staufer knighthood, exists also in France and
England. (Of the twenty-nine extant manuscripts, seven
are illustrated, mostly by Diebold Lauber.) A shorter nar-
rative in rhymed couplets, Wilhalm von Orlens, was cre-
ated in the fi fteenth century, extant in four manuscripts
and one print of Anton Sorg (Augsburg, 1491). Hans
Sachs based his drama of 1559 on this print. In 1522,
an anonymous Swabian writer reworked Rudolf’s epic
as stropbic form in the Herzog-Ernst-Tone, a thirteen-
line pattern. The story is also recounted in pictures, on
a tapestry in Frankfurt of the fi rst quarter of the fi fteenth
century, in fi fteen scenes. The couple Wilhelm and
Amelie is also found as a fresco at Runkelstein castle
near Bozen. In Alexander, Rudolf wanted to portray
history, not a heroic or courtly romance. Ten volumes
were planned, which were stopped in the middle of the
sixth book, however (death of Darius and victory over
his followers). The two main sources were the Historia
de preliis and Curtius Rufus. Fairy-tale portions were
left out. (Of the three extant manuscripts, the Munich
State Library manuscript was illustrated by Diebold
Lauber.) The Weltchronik ends, after thirty-six thousand
verses, in the middle of the Jewish history of the kings.
(Over one hundred manuscripts are extant, as well as
reworkings and rhymed bibles.)Further Reading
Green, Dennis. “On the Primary Reception of the Works of
Rudolf von Ems.” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 115
(1986): 151–180.RUDOLF VON EMS