Walafrid was a German cleric of the Carolingian
period known for his polished and elegant Latin
style. He was the author of SAINTS’ LIVES, religious
treatises, religious verse, introductions to historical
works, and theological commentaries.
Walafrid was born in Swabia about 809.He was
educated at Reichenau Abbey on Lake Constance.
At the age of 17, he moved to Fulda. He wrote of
feeling cold and homesick at Fulda, but received an
excellent education under Hrabanus Maurus. He
wrote his first major work at the age of 18, when he
put into verse an apocalyptic vision (the Visio Wettini)
of the realms of the afterlife as experienced
by Wetti, one of his former teachers at Reichenau.
He dedicates the poem to Wetti’s brother
Grimwald. In the vision, CHARLEMAGNE is pictured
being tormented in hell—an ironic detail since
Walafrid later wrote an introduction to EINHARD’s
biography of Charlemagne.
In 829,Walafrid went to the court of the king
Louis the Pious, where he was employed as tutor to
his son, the future king Charles the Bald. He remained
in this position until 838, when he returned
to Reichenau with an appointment as
abbot. However, when Louis died in 840,Walafrid
supported the king’s son Lothar as Louis’s successor.
But when Lothar was defeated by his brothers,
Louis the German and Charles the Bald,Walafrid
was forced to abandon Reichenau and go into exile
at Speyer (Spires).
Through the offices of his former colleague
Grimald, now chaplain to Louis the German,
Walafrid was pardoned and reinstated as abbot of
Reichenau in 842.He died while in France on a visit
to his former pupil Charles, on August 18, 849. His
teacher Hrabanus wrote his epitaph, praising him
for his contributions to the church and to letters.
Walafrid’s most influential work was a great
compilation of biblical commentary (mostly collected
from patristic sources) known as the Glosa
ordinaria, a text that remained for more than 500
years the most important collection of exegesis
in existence. It was still being printed as late as the
17th century.He also wrote a poetic life of St. Gall
and several other saints’ lives. Perhaps his bestknown
poem is the Hortulus, also dedicated to his
old patron Grimald. It describes a garden
Walafrid kept, and discusses the medicinal herbs
and other plants that the abbot tended with his
own hand.
Walafrid remains important because of his
highly influential Glosa, for the picture he gives us
of medieval horticulture, and for his early Visio
Wettini, seen by many as a forerunner to DANTE’s
DIVINE COMEDY.
Bibliography
Godman, Peter. Poets and Emperors: Frankish Politics
and Carolingian Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1986.
Raby, F. J. E. A History of Christian-Latin Poetry. 2nd
ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953.
Walahfrid Strabo’s Visio Wettini. Edited and translated
by David A. Traill. Bern, Switzerland: H. Lang,
1974.