John Canaparius

It had been long assumed that in the year 999 he wrote the first Vita sancti Adalberti episcopi Pragensis, or "Life of St. Adalbert of Prague", another member of that monastery, just two years after Adalbert's death.

Adalbert was sent by Pope Gregory V to convert the pagan Old Prussians to Christianity and had come to Prussia, apparently taking the route along the Vistula River to reach the Baltic Sea at „urbem Gyddanyzc“.,[1] which is identified with the later Gdańsk (Danzig).

[2] Notger of Liège, a hagiographer himself, apparently had knowledge of the earlier handwritten Vita from Aachen.

The imperial court at Aachen had in 997 assembled immediately upon receiving word of Adalbert's death and had thereupon planned the upcoming events.

Nikolaus von Jeroschin, a priest of the Teutonic Order, translated the Vita Sancti Adalberti into Middle High German in the 14th century.