Today the artist is best known for his prints. In ad-
dition to independent woodcuts, Wolgemut recognized
the potential of illustrating books. The artist, his step-
son, and his shop supplied 96 woodcuts for Stephan
Fridolin’s Schatzbehalter (1491) and 1,809 woodcuts
using 645 different blocks for Hartmann Schedel’s Liber
Chronicarum (Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493), both pub-
lished by Anton Koberger in Nuremberg. The latter with
its maps, city views, portraits, and elaborate illustrations
was the century’s most ambitious publishing project and
was marketed across Europe.
Wolgemut’s career spanned four decades. His last
major picture, the Epitaph of Anna Gross (Nuremberg,
Germanisches Nationalmuseum), dates around 1509. In
1516 Albrecht Dürer affectionately recorded his men-
tor’s likeness in a portrait (Nuremberg, Germanisches
Nationalmuseum). Wolgemut died on November 30,
1519, in Nuremberg.
Further Reading
Bellm, Richard. Wolgemuts Skizzenbuch im Berliner Kupfer-
stichkabinett. Studien zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte 322.
Baden-Baden: P. H. Heitz, 1959.
Fridolin, Stefan. Der Schatzbehalter: Ein Andachts- und Erbau-
ungsbuch aus dem Jahre 1491, ed. Richard Bellm. 2 vols.
Wiesbaden: G. Pressler, 1962.
Füssel, Stephan, ed. 500 Jahre Schedelsche Weltchronik. Pirck-
heimer Jahrbuch 9. Nuremberg: Carl, 1994.
Rücker, Elizabeth. Die Schedelsche Weltchronik: Das größte
Buchunternehmen der Dürer-Zeit, 33d rev. ed. Munich:
Prestel, 1988.
Scholz, Hartmut. Entwurf und Ausführung: Werkstattpraxis
in der Nürnberger Glasmalerei der Dürerzeit. Ph.d. diss.,
University of Stuttgart, 1988. Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für
Kunstwissenschaft, 1989.
Stadler, Franz Izra. Michael Wolgemut und der Nürnberger
Holzschnitt im letzten Drittel des XV. Jahrhunderts. 2 vols.
Studien zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte 161. Strasbourg: J.
H. E. Heitz, 1913.
Strieder, Peter. Tafelmalerei in Nürnberg, 1350 bis 1550. König-
stein im Taunus: K. Robert, 1993, pp. 65–85, 200–219.
Wilson, Adrian. The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle. Am-
sterdam: Nico Israel, 1976.
Jeffrey Chipps Smith
WULFSTAN OF YORK (d. 1023)
Bishop of London 996–1002, bishop of “Worcester
1002–16, and archbishop of York 1002–23, who served
two kings (Æthelred II and Cnut) as adviser and author
of legislation while addressing the pressing moral and
ecclesiastical issues of his time. One of two great styl-
ists in the history of OE prose (with Ælfric), Wulfstan
had a distinguished career as a homilist and statesman.
Although educated as a Benedictine, he was very much
a public fi gure who began signing himself “Lupus”
(“Wolf”) early in his career, as he developed a reputa-
tion for spoken and written eloquence and for moral
reform. The 12th-century Liber Eliensis (Book of Ely)
provides the only medieval information, much of riiat
questionable, about his life.
When he assumed the sees of Worcester and York in
plurality (holding both simultaneously) upon the death
in 1002 of Archbishop Eadulf, Wulfstan had experi-
enced the worst ravages of the Danes and the largely
ineffectual responses of Æthelred’s army. With its rich
library and scriptorium removed from the worst of the
fi ghting Worcester provided him an opportunity to study
important patristic and canonical texts and thus to de-
velop as a writer and reformer. Much of his work was
also done at York, where he performed the functions of
a leader of the church. Extant manuscripts from both
centers show Wulfstan’s hand in the annotations. In
addition several versions of his “commonplace book”
survive, containing collections of materials intended
for use in his own work. Either at Worcester or York he
wrote versifi ed entries for 957 and 975 in the D version
of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Wulfstan’s reputation grows from his sermons. These
include a series of eschatological works, impassioned
calls for repentance in response to signs of the coming of
Doomsday. Another series on the elements of Christian
faith treats the subjects of baptism, the Creed, the gifts
of the Holy Spirit, and the duties of a Christian. In both
series he draws on a variety of Latin sources largely from
the Carolingian period and shapes his work to specifi c
audiences. Only two of his sermons are proper to the
church year, and those address the matter of penance
during Lent. Wulfstan’s sermons are topical, hortative,
and utilitarian messages rather than explications of the
Gospels or hagiographic narratives.
The best-known sermon also seems to have been
the most popular in its time: Sermo Lupi ad Anglos
(The Sermon of Wolf to the English), so called from the
opening words of its rubric. Surviving in fi ve manuscript
versions, this work probably was composed in 1014, the
year in which Æthelred was exiled. The Sermo Lupi is
noteworthy for drawing on themes and materials that
engaged Wulfstan throughout his career, here brought
together and presented urgently when it seemed that God
was punishing the English at the hands of the Danes. In
particular Wulfstan uses phrases from his eschatological
sermons in depicting the present evils that presage the
end of the world. He ends with a typical exhortation to
return to the faith of baptism, where there is protection
from the fi res of hell.
As trusted counselor to Æthelred, and to his Danish
successor Cnut, Wulfstan wrote a variety of legislation
intended to reassert the laws of earlier Anglo-Saxon
kings and bring order to a country that had been un-
settled by war and the infl ux of Scandinavians. Although
he put into writing edicts that had been decreed by the
ruling witan, or council, Wulfstan echoed there theWULFSTAN OF YORK