- Rodulfus Glaber
Rodulfus Glaber or Ralph Glaber (985–1047) was a
monk andchronicler of the years around 1000 and is one of the chief sources for the history ofFrance in that period.Life
His uncle, a monk at Saint-Léger-de-Champeaux, found him a place in the monastery when he was about twelve years old, [Rodulfus Glaber, "History" 5.3 (ed. France, p. 221).] but he was expelled for bad behaviour. Later he joined a monastery near
Dijon where he met reformingPiedmont ese clericWilliam of Volpiano in about 1010. He moved to theAbbey of Cluny , headed by AbbotOdilon de Mercœur and finally to theAbbey of Saint-Germain en Auxerre in 1039, where he remained until his death.Works
His works include a
hagiography ofWilliam of Volpiano , the "Vita Sancti Guillelmi Abbatis Divionensis", but it is for his history that he is best known. This, entitled the "Historiarum libri quinque ab anno incarnationis DCCCC usque ad annum MXLIV" (History in five books from 900 AD to 1044 AD), was begun at Cluny, probably around 1026 and no later than 1027. Rodulfus' histories deal principally with France, but occasionally range as far asScotland andSouthern Italy . Especially significant is his treatment of the end of the first millennium. He is the primary source for claims of widespread fear and divine omens (famines and eclipses) anticipating the end of the world. Nineteenth-century historians relying too heavily on this one monk of ill repute popularised the notion that the people of the late tenth century lived in superstitious fear of nonevents.Glaber is also the source for the phrase "white mantle of churches" describing the ubiquity of religious architecture in his age.
Notes
Further reading
* "Rodulfi Glabri Historiarum Libri Quinque; Rodulfus Glaber, The Five Books of the Histories" [cover title: "Rodulfus Glaber, Opera"] ed. J. France (Oxford, 1989)
External links
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06574b.htm Biography] from the
Catholic Encyclopedia
* [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc4.i.xiv.xl.html Biography] from theSchaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge , Volume IV
* [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/glaber-1000.html Ralph Glaber's "On the First Millennium"] at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook
* [http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/30_10_0985-1047-_Rodulfus_Glaber_Cluniacensis.html Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Latina with analytical indexes]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
