Otfrid of Weissenburg

Assuming he followed the normal progression of monastic life, he will have entered Weissenburg as a novice at the age of seven, become sub-deacon by around 821, deacon around 826 and priest around 830.

Haubrichs has drawn attention to the recorded death of a presbyter Otfridus on 23 January 867, who may be the author of the Evangelienbuch,[7] but this identification is not universally accepted.

The poem opens: Lúdowig ther snéllo, \ thes wísduames fóllo, er óstarrichi ríhtit ál, \ so Fránkono kúning scal; Ubar Fránkono lant \ so gengit éllu sin giwalt, thaz ríhtit, so ih thir zéllu, \ thiu sin giwált ellu.

[17] McLintock suggests it "may have been read aloud in the refectory at meal-times in place of the Latin sermons more commonly used" [18] In any case, the dedications clearly imply an expected monastic audience of some sort.

There is ample evidence of an appetite for written literature among the Carolingian nobility,[19] and for the borrowing by the literate laity of suitable religious texts from local monasteries, including Weissenburg itself.

[28] Trithemius praises him as "a man greatly versed in holy scripture and extremely learned in secular literature, a philosopher, orator, astronomer, poet and theologian second to none in his age" and "everything the man wrote is remarkably worth reading, and he imposed rules on the Teutonic language and kept to numbered feet as in metrical verse.

[34] In 1821 Hoffmann von Fallersleben published the Bonn fragments of D.[35] Modern critical editions start with that of Graff in 1831, who drew on all three complete MSS.

[36] While the Evangelienbuch represents a significant technical achievement, modern critics have generally been dismissive of its literary merits and J.G.Robertson's faint praise is typical: While it is mainly to his adaptation of rhyme to German verse that Otfrid owes his position in German literature, it would be unjust to deny him altogether the possession of higher poetic powers.

Overladen as his work is with theological learning, and hampered, especially in the earlier part of the poem, by technical difficulties, there are here and there in his verse flashes of genuine lyric feeling which deserve to be lifted out of the dry religious didacticism in which they are imbedded.

[37] The beauties of Otfrid, a volume published privately in 1936 by two future professors of German, consists of a brief introduction and 136 blank pages.

[38][39] There is a relief on the side wall of the 14th century La Grange aux Dîmes, a building in the Place du Saumon in Wissembourg, which depicts Otfrid at his desk (see above).