Additionally a list exists of books held in their abbey library and its dependent cellae, these along with the few remains of the church that began construction while he was abbot can give us clues into the course of his abbacy.
[1] Baugulf was part of the royal aristocratic elite being a member of a noble family that owned property south of the Main in east Francia.
[3] The king also granted the monastery two important royal estates in the Middle Rhine valley and the region just to its north, one in Dienheim to the south of Mainz, and one in Echzell[3] Shortly after taking office as the Abbot Baugulf ordered the creation of a list of all monks living in Fulda and its dependent cellae beginning between November 781 and the beginning of January 782 and totaling 364 in all.
The Gesta abbatum, written in the early tenth century, recounts the order of events as follows: "With honour he [Baugulf] built a sanctuary in the east that admirably was constructed through the efforts of the very energetic man Ratger … Shortly after having accepted the position [of abbot] the third abbot, Ratger, the wise architect, has connected the western sanctuary with the other and has made one church [that was] of miraculous artistry and immense magnitude.
However recent studies have shown that the original church was not as large as first imagined and that the increased size of the community of Fulda (counting at least 364 members in the early 780s, as the Baugulf list shows) meant that, whilst the majority lived outside the mother convent residing instead in Fulda's dependent houses they would have visited the mother convent on special occasions.
This meant that the church was probably no longer big enough to accommodate the monks and visitors who came to Fulda to celebrate liturgical feasts or to honor the saints.
[10] It is widely believed that a short, seemingly insignificant record in the Annales Fuldenses in fact refers to a major conflict between Baugulf and the abbey community that in the end forced his withdraw from office.
Alcuin continued his plea for concord with a brief treatise on the relations between the senior members of the community and the young monks, and ended with a reference to the votive masses he had written for the monastic community[11] Alcuin's letters were generally very broad with careful selection of passages and teachings relevant to the recipient generally drawing heavily on scripture.
In his letter to the monks of Fulda he was uncharacteristically explicit and candied referring directly to a specific problem that troubled that particular community at that time: the sick Baugulf, who due to his illness did not necessarily live up to the rule of Benedict.