§ 181. Rodulfus Glaber. Adam of Bremen

I. Rodulfus Glaber (Cluniacnesis monachus): Opera, in Migne, Tom. CXLII. col. 611-720. The Historia sui temporis or Historia Francorum is also printed in part, with textual emendations by G. Waitz, in the Monum. Germ. Script., ed. by Pertz, Tom. VII. 48-72, and the Vita Willelmi abbatis in Tom. IV. 655-658. Comp. Ceillier: XIII. 143-147. Wattenbach: Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen. Potthast: Biblioth. Hist. medii aevi, p. 521.

II. Adamus Bremensis: Gesta Hammaburgenais ecclesiae Pontificum, seu Historia ecclesiastica. Libri IV. Best. ed. by Lappenberg in Pertz, Mon. Germ. Scriptores, Tom. VII. 267-389. German translation by Laurent, with introduction by Lappenberg, Berlin, 1850 (in "Geschichtschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit;" XI. Jahrh. B. VII.). In Migne, Tom. CXLVI. col. 433-566 (reprinted from Pertz).—Comp. Giesebrecht: Wendische Geschichte, III. 316 sqq.; Wattenbach: Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen (first ed. p. 252 sqq.); Koppmann: Die mittelalterlichen Geschichtsquellen in Bezug auf Hamburg (1868); Potthast, l.c p. 100; C. Bertheau in Herzog2 I. 140 sqq. Of older notices see Ceillier, XIV. 201-206.

Among the historical writers of the eleventh century, Rodulfus Glaber, and Adam of Bremen deserve special mention, the one for France, the other for the North of Europe.

Rodulfus Glaber¹⁵¹⁹ was a native of Burgundy, sent to a convent in early youth by his uncle, and expelled for bad conduct; but he reformed and joined the strict Benedictine school of Cluny. He lived a while in the monastery of St. Benignus, at Dijon, then at Cluny, and died about 1050.

His chief work is a history of his own time, from 1000-1045, in five books. Though written in barbarous Latin and full of inaccuracies, chronological blunders, and legendary miracles, it is an interesting and indispensable source of information, and gives vivid pictures of the corrupt morals of that period.¹⁵²⁰ He wrote also a biography of St. William, abbot of Dijon, who died 1031.¹⁵²¹

Adam of Bremen, a Saxon by birth, educated (probably) at Magdeburg, teacher and canon of the chapter at Bremen (1068), composed, between 1072 and 1076, a history of the Bishops of Hamburg-Bremen.¹⁵²² This is the chief source for the oldest church history of North Germany and Scandinavia, from 788 to the death of Adalbert, who was archbishop of Bremen from 1045-1072. Adam drew from the written sources in the rich library, of the church at Bremen, and from oral traditions.¹⁵²³ He went to the Danish King Sven Estrithson, who "preserved the whole history of the barbarians in his memory as in a book." He is impartial and reliable, but neglects the chronology, . He may almost be called the Herodotus of the North except for his want of simplicity. He was familiar with Virgil, Horace, Lucian, and formed his style chiefly after Sallust; hence his artificial brevity and sententiousness.¹⁵²⁴ He ranks with the first historians of the middle ages.¹⁵²⁵