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Hrabanus Maurus' Martyrology The Method of Composition by J. McCULLOH
Hrabanus Maurus' Martyrology The Method of Composition by J. McCULLOH
II, 2 (Brussels, 1931). Hrabanus' text also has some significant paral-
lels to the group of abbreviated versions of MH related to the Mar-
tyrologium Gellonense, see G. B. De Rossi in Acta sanctorum, Nou. II,
1 (Brussels, 1898), p. [xxx).
5 L. Duchesne, Le Liber pontificalis, 4 vol. (Paris, 1884-1957).
27
418 J. McCULLOH (2)
the text as it now stands with the MH material first and the
Bede notice second.
This simple reversal of the sources at the time they were
copied may well explain the other cases in which non-Bede
materials are placed at the beginning of the entry. This would
certainly seem to be true of Barnabas (11 June) who, as an
apostle whose notice comes from Bede, would normally ap-
pear in first position, but, in fact, he follows a notice for Pope
Anacletus. These two notices form the entire entry for the
day, and they are probably simply reversed. The same could
be true of Bede's historical notice for Anastasius (22 Jan.),
which follows a historical notice for Valerius and Vincentius
in Hrabanus' text, and of Bede's historical notice for Calepo-
dius (10 May), which Hrabanus gives after the brief notice
notice for Faltonius et al.
In the entries we have considered so far Hrabanus deviated
from his normal order of compilation, but he maintained the
integrity of his units of composition. All of the material taken
from Bede appears together in a block. In some cases, how-
ever, Bede notices are separated from one another by notices
drawn from other sources. In that portion of Bede's text
contained in Sangall. 451 there are only four days on which
Hrabanus broke up the Bede material in this way. On 1
January he placed the circumcisio between octabas dominicae
natalis and the notice for Almachius. On 25 March he inserted
the crucifixio and a notice for Jacobus /rater Domini between
the adnuntiatio and the notice for Dula. In both instances
the interpolate d notices are related to the ones which precede
them, and they conform to Hrabanus' common practice of
placing more important commemorations before less impor-
tant ones. Another entry seems to have acquired its unusual
form as a result of confusion in copying from several sources.
On 17 January Bede has two notices, a brief one for the monk
Antonius and a historical notice for Speusippus et al. Hra-
banus gives a historical notice for Antonius and a brief no-
notice for Sulpitius Severus followed by the Speusippus notice
at the end. Besides the historical addition, Hrabanus' notice
for Antonius also contains the geographical notation Thebaida
which does not appear in Bede but is included in MH. Pre-
sumably Hrabanus began with the notice for Antonius be-
422 J, MCCULLOH (6)
cause it was the first notice in Bede, but he also employed the
text of MH which provided additional information. He then
added the historical portion of the notice from other sources 14
At this point he would normally have returned to the text
of Bede to add the notice for Speusippus, but instead he -
or his copyist - went back to MH and copied the Sulpitius
notice, relegating Speusippus et al. to the end of the entry.
The last case in which Hrabanus' text presents a notice inter-
polated into the block of Bede materials occurs on 21 July.
In this entry a notice for Praxedis appears between Bede's no-
tices for Daniel and Symphorosa, but Hrabanus may have
inserted the material on Praxedis after completing his original
text 15
In general the daily entries in Hrabanus' Martyrology are
the product of a simple, mechanical stringing together of no-
tices drawn from various sources. It is this process which
created the sort of entries in which Bede is followed by Cambr.,
which is followed by MH, and so on. Likewise, an under-
standing of the general pattern allows us to see how the
necessity of moving from one source to another could have
resulted in variations from the normal scheme. In looking
over a large number of Hrabanus' entries one receives the
impression that the author's personal contribution to this
aspect of his work consisted of determining in advance which
portions of the various sources should be included and which
should be omitted. The actual writing was probably left to
a scribe who sat surrounded by books, copying from each one
in turn according to the instructions he had received. This
method of composition could easily account for both the
standardized quality of the entries and the occasional varia-
used this ms., and he also notes (p. 412) the presence of corrections
in Notker's hand.
18 Ep. 23, MGHEpp., V, 429.
424 J. MCCULLOH (8)
2 For exceptions see the notices for Marcellus (16 Jan. ; Mart.
hist., p. 85), Lucas (18 Oct. ; p. 97), Marcellinus (26 Apr. ; pp. 103f) and
the notices from MH (pp. 110f.).
21 These characteristics do appear in the notices for Iuliana (16
Feb. ; Mart. hist., p. 77), Triphonia (18 Oct. ; p. 80), Marcellinus and
Petrus (2 Jun. ; p. 82), Marcus (25 Apr. ; p. 86) and perhaps the short
historical notices (pp. 107f).
22 Mart. hist., p. 118.
426 J, MCCULLOH (10)
tues 31 and conversions to the religious life 32, and even the
deaths of their persecutors 33 Still other such verbal bor-
rowings escape any general classification 34 In some instances
Hrabanus clearly sacrificed brevity for the opportunity to
quote at length from a Passio or Vita 35 , but in general he
transcribed passages which convey some particular aspect
of a saint's life or passion in a relatively succinct manner.
Hrabanus' willingness to copy at length from various texts
represents one extreme of his approach to his sources. At the
other end of the spectrum he often related the information
available to him in words which contain no echoes of the
source text. The story of Venantius (23 Oct.) offers a striking
example of the union of these two extremes in a single notice.
Most of this text is devoted to an account, transcribed ver-
batim from Gregory of Tours's Liber uitae patrum, of two
occasions on which the saint miraculously heard voices.
However, the short passage at the beginning of the notice
relating his choosing the monastic life and serving as abbot
and the similarly brief statement at the end regarding his
6 Jul., ll. 37-42; Longinus, 22 Nov., 11. 262-267; cf. Iulianus and
Basilissa (preceding note).
33 Symphorosa, 21 Jul., 11. 201-205 ; Victor, 21 Jul., ll. 225-231 ;
36 Other similar notices are those for Germanus, 27 May, II. 270f;
and Victorinus, 24 Jul., II. 271f.
37 E.g. Genouefa, 3 Jan.; Lucianus, 4 Jan.; Blasius, 3 Feb.; Boni-
directly from his source : Vitalis, 28 Apr., post nima tormenta ...
post nimia tormenta ... ; Maurus, 21 Nov., diuersis suppliciis ma-
ceratus ... diuersis generibns tormentorum affecti. ...
28
434 J. MCCULLOH (18)
the general and the specific, but they also relegate the more
detailed narration to a subordinate role. The addition of
these words implies that the individual torments are of less
significance than the totality of the saint's sufferings 50
This verbal subordination of the specific to the general in
the case of tortures intensifies an impression created by Hra-
banus' summary and introductory statements as a group. He
seems to have believed that a broad assertion of the saint's
holy qualities was at least as effective as the citation of
detailed evidence, and perhaps more so. The conclusion that
these statements were intended to have a function above and
beyond simple abbreviation is difficult to avoid. They convey
to the audience that the sanctity of the subject was not limited
to individual manifestations but that it was an all-pervading
quality of his life and passion.
Hrabanus' summary and introductory comments seem de-
signed for effect as well as brevity, but there are other state-
ments whose sole and obvious purpose is emphasis. Before
considering these, however, it is instructive to look again
at Bede's work. Bede normally began his notices for martyrs
with a brief statement of the saint's name and the place
and time of martyrdom. He then proceeded immediately to a
description of the tortures which culminate in the martyr's
death. The effect is powerful. Stripped of unnecessary ver-
biage Bede's notices pull the reader along from torment to
torment inexorably toward the death, the climax of the
martyr's earthly existence.
Hrabanus' notices do not possess the same dramatic focus.
His verbatim copying often lengthens his text, and his gen-
Basilissa (13 Jan.), Primum ... post haec ... dehinc ... exin ... ,
and Eleutherius and Antia (18 Apr.), Primum ... deinde .. .
postea ... dehinc .... 52 This characteristic, like all those we
have considered so far, occurs in Bede's Martyrology as well.
But unlike the others, concern for temporal sequence is even
more typical of Bede's work than of Hrabanus' 53 Hrabanus
used a similar method to prepare his audience for a martyr's
death. After summarizing or enumerating the sufferings of
the saint, he very frequently prefaced the actual martyrdom
with ad extremum , nouissime , or ad ultimum 54 Bede
used such expressions as well, but much less frequently 55
the notices for Hieronymus (30 Sep.) and Martinus (11 Nov.).
442 J, MCCULLOH (26)
84 In addition to
those mentioned in the text and the preceding
note, the following notices appear to be Hrabanus' own : Honoratus,
16 Jan.; Fructuosus, 21 Jan.; Paula, 26 Jan.; Benedictus, 16 Mar.;
Patricius, 17 Mar. ; Cuthbertus, 20 Mar. ; Hilarius, 5 May ; Au-
reus and Justina, 16 Jun. ; Kilianus, 8 Jul. ; Leoba, 28 Sep. ;
Willibrordus, 6 Nov.; Rufus, 7 Nov.; Briccius, 13 Nov. The notice
for Georgius (23 Apr.) is a general account in which the author notes
that he has read the saint's passion. The stories of Marianus and Jaco-
bus (6 May) and Domninus (9 Oct.) are similarly generalized although
Hrabanus almost certainly possessed their hagiographies, and in the
notice for Afra (5 Aug.) he described the texts at hand rather than
using them, McCulloh, The 'Passio Mauri Afri' , pp. 405, 407, 406.
The very brief additions to Bede's notice for Ephrem (9 Jul.) and
MH's for Prosperus (29 Jul.) may also be Hrabanus' work, but they
are hardly compositions .
(27) HRABANUS MAURUS' MARTYROLOGY 443
mentaire gregorien, ses principales formes d'apres les plus anciens ma-
nuscrits (Fribourg, Sw., 1971), pp. 219, 640 and 243.
78 V. Leroquais, Les sacramentaires et les missels manuscrits des
references to the saint's translation (XII Kal. Jul. and XII Kal. Aug.)
are errors based on the Verona date of XII Kal. Jun., see L. Delisle,
Memoire sur d'anciens sacramentaires (Paris, 1886), p. 196, and G.
Philippart, La fHe de S. Zenon de Verone le 8 decembre, & Analecta
Bollandiana, XCII (1974), 347f.
79 Fausta and Euilasius : Hrabanus copied Bede's notice for the
same saints on 20 Sep. Pantaleon : Cod. Turic. dates his passion on 28
Jul. Venantius: Hrabanus transcribed a brief notice from MH on
11 Oct. His notice for Lucianus of Beauvais (4 Jan~) also departs
from the traditional date (8 Jan.), but nothing indicates that Hraba-
nus would have been aware of the fact.
so H. Delehaye, AASS, Nou. II, 2, pp. XVIlf.
s1 Benedictus: Bede 21 Mar., MH 11 Jul.; Cyria,cus: Bede 16 Mar.,
MH 8 Aug. ; Ferreolus and Ferrutio : Bede 16 Jun., MH 5 Sep. ;
Germanus: Bede 31 Jul., MH 1 Oct.; Thecla: Bede 23 Sep., MH
22 Feb. and 20 Dec. It should be noted that in some of these cases
MH has a notice corresponding to Bede's date as well.
448 J. MCCULLOH (32)
(VII Kai. Iun.) is based on the Liber pontificalis' date of VII Kai.
Mai. Fausta and Euilasius : Bede 20 Sep. Another historical notice
appears on 7 Jan., but the source of this date is unknown. Christo-
phorus : the brief notice for him (28 Apr.) in Bede mss. of the 2nd class
may have appeared in Hrabanus' text of Bede, Quentin, Mart. hist.,
p. 50. The date of his historical notice on 25 Jul. comes from Cod. Turic.
83 lacobus, 25 Mar. and 1 May; Longinus, 15 Mar., 24 Oct. and
Mar.) and the Gregorian Sacramentary (13 May), but neither of these
actually commemorates Hrabanus' saint. See also the multiple no-
tices for Zeno and Venantius discussed above.
85 E.g. Iacobus: original 1 May, paraphrase 25 Mar. ; Longinus: orig.
indicated by the sources may help to account for the fact that in
spite of his vast knowledge of the Bible and the Fathers he made little
use of these writings in his Martyrology. Hrabanus also sometimes
omitted geographical information from his notices, McCulloh, The
'Passio Mauri Afri ', , pp. 400-403. Could this represent, at least
on some occasions, a refusal to commit himself to a decision regarding
which of several locations had the better claim to a saint?
(33) HRABANUS MAURUS' MARTYROLOGY 449
29
450 J, MCCULLOH (34)
Sep.). Hrabanus states that she was laid to rest at Fulda iuxta de-
cretum sancti Bonifacii . In fact, Boniface had specified that they
both be buried in the same tomb, but this request was not carried
out, Rudolf of Fulda, Vita Leobae (BHL 4845), c. 2, MGH Scriptores,
XV, 1, p. 130. Hrabanus probably wrote this notice from his own
knowledge without direct use of any literary source, but the omission
remains significant. M. Coens, La vie de S. Front de Perigueux ,
Analecta Bollandiana, XLVIII (1930), 335, suggested that Hrabanus
intentionally omitted reference to the apostolic origin of the church
of Perigueux in his notice for Frontus (1 Oct.). This text does contain
a sentence beginning with sicque which introduces an apparent non
sequitur similar to that in the Goar notice. Nevertheless, there is at
least one clear example of an unintentional omission in Hrabanus'
work, the names of Marcus and Marcellianus missing from the notices
for Tiburtius (11 Aug.), and the method of composition he employed
could well have produced others.
452 J. McCULLOH (36)
11 Mar.
90 See the prefaces to his Computus (ep. 4; MGH Epp., V, 387),
9 s Delehaye, Les passions des martyrs, 2nd edn, pp. 171-182, 221,
III. EVALUATION
1o9 Lehmann, esp. pp. 203-205, 210-212, and Muller, pp. 158-164,
offer the most recent discussions of Hrabanus' marginal source cita-
tions in his commentaries, but the comments of A. E. Schonbach,
Ober einige Evangelienkommentare des Mittelalters , Sitzungs-
berichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Cl.,
CXLVI (Vienna, 1903), 4, pp. 85-89, are still valuable. Kottje, p. 214
emphasizes the general reliability of the citations within the text of the
penitentials. On the other hand, Rissel's investigations, pp. 73, 117,
295, offer additional evidence of Hrabanus' practice, characteristic
of his Martyrology, of referring by name to those authors who were
cited in his source but omitting reference to the works he actually
used. Her explanation for this (pp. 118f) echoes Lehmann's sugges-
tion (loc. cit.) that less well known sources demanded citation while
better known, more accessible authorities did not.
110 Heyse, pp. 63f; Kottje, pp. 236-269; Wenger, p. 274; Risse!,
esp. pp. 324-329. Even Hablitzel speaks highly of Hrabanus' original
contributions, while bemoaning their rarity, Hrabanus ... und Clau-
dius, pp. 79f, and Der Jeremias-Kommentar , p. 151. Saltman,
pp. 46-51, attacks the often ignored problem of explaining Hrabanus'
reasons for adapting a source through omission and occasional al-
teration. Risse! pursues this theme throughout her book ; see esp.
her introduction, p. 1v, and conclusions, pp. 329, 342. Additional
evidence that Hrabanus was capable of originality appears in more
specialized studies: F. G. Cremer, Das Fastenstreitgesprach bei
Beda Venerabilis und Hrabanus Maurus, Revue Benedictine, LXXVII
(1967), 171 ; B. Blumenkranz, Raban Maur et Saint Augustine :
compilation ou adaption? A propos du latin biblique , Revue du
moyen dge latin, VII (1951), 97-110; J. Huhn, Das Marienbild in den
Schriften des Hrabanus Maurus, Scholastik XXXI (1956), 532 ;
Holtkemper, Kompilation und Originalitat , pp. 62-66.
460 J. MCCULLOH (44)
11l Rissel goes well beyond earlier authors in her attention to this
aspect of Hrabanus' work.
112 On simplification in other works, see Rissel, pp. 71, 346. Hra-
banus' predilection for presenting facts from his sources while omit-
ting their arguments and intellectually stimulating problems re-
presents another form of simplification, ibid., pp. 69, 126f, 292f.
(45) HRABANUS MAURUS' MARTYROLOGY 461