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Notker the Stammerer (c. 840 – 6 April 912), Notker Balbulus, or simply Notker,[n 1] was a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of Saint Gall active as a poet, scholar and (probably) composer who made significant contributions to both the music and literature of his time. Notker is usually credited with two major works of the Carolingian period: the Liber Hymnorum, which includes an important collection of early sequences, and the earliest biography of Charlemagne, Gesta Caroli Magni. His other works include a biography of Saint Gall, the Vita Sancti Galli, and a martyrology.[4]

Notker the Stammerer
Notker in a 11th century manuscript, probably from Saint Gall[1]
Born	c. 840 Near the Abbey of Saint Gall
Died	6 April 912 Abbey of Saint Gall
Venerated in	Abbey of Saint Gall
Canonized	1512–1513 by Leo X
Feast	6 April
Major works	Liber Hymnorum Gesta Caroli Magni

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A leading literary scholar of the Early Middle Ages,[5] he was contemporary with the fellow monks Tuotilo and Ratpert.[6][7][8] Among his students was Solomon III, the bishop of Constance.[9]

Life and career

Notker was born around 840, to a distinguished family. He would seem to have been born at Jonschwil on the River Thur, south of Wil, in what would become much later (in 1803) the canton of Saint Gall in Switzerland; some sources claim Elgg to be his place of birth. He studied with Tuotilo at Saint Gall's monastic school, and was taught by Iso of St. Gallen [de], and the Irishman, Moengall. He became a monk there and is mentioned as librarian in 890 and as master of guests in 892–4. He was chiefly active as a teacher, and displayed refinement of taste as poet and author.[10]

Ekkehard IV, the biographer of the monks of Saint Gall, lauds him as "delicate of body but not of mind, stuttering of tongue but not of intellect, pushing boldly forward in things Divine, a vessel of the Holy Spirit without equal in his time".[10] He died in 912 in Saint Gall

Musical works

His Liber Hymnorum, created between 881 and 887, is an early collection of Sequences, which he called "hymns", mnemonic poems for remembering the series of pitches sung during a melisma in plainchant, especially in the Alleluia. It is unknown how many or which of the works contained in the collection are his. The hymn Media Vita was erroneously attributed to him late in the Middle Ages.^{[citation needed]} In the preface to his Liber Hymnorum, Notker claimed his musical work was inspired by an antiphoner that was brought to Gall from the Jumièges Abbey, soon after its destruction in 851.[11][n 2]

Ekkehard IV wrote of fifty sequences composed by Notker. He was formerly considered to have been the inventor of the sequence, a new species of religious lyric, but this is now considered doubtful, though he did introduce the genre into Germany. It had been the custom to prolong the Alleluia in the Mass before the Gospel, modulating through a skillfully harmonized series of tones. Notker learned how to fit the separate syllables of a Latin text to the tones of this jubilation; this poem was called the sequence (q.v.), formerly called the "jubilation". (The reason for this name is uncertain.) From 881–7 Notker dedicated a collection of such verses to Bishop Liutward of Vercelli, but it is not known which or how many are his.

Literary works

He completed Erchanbert's chronicle, arranged a martyrology, composed a metrical biography of Saint Gall, and authored other works.[10]

Gesta Caroli Magni

The "Monk of Saint Gall" (Latin: Monachus Sangallensis; the name is not contemporary, being given by modern scholars), the ninth-century writer of a volume of didactic eulogistic anecdotes regarding the Emperor Charlemagne, is now commonly believed to be Notker the Stammerer.[13] This monk is known from his work to have been a native German-speaker, deriving from the Thurgau, only a few miles from the Abbey of Saint Gall; the region is also close to where Notker is believed to have derived from. The monk himself relates that he was raised by Adalbert, a former soldier who had fought against the Saxons, the Avars ("Huns" in his text) and the Slavs under the command of Kerold, brother of Hildegard, Charlemagne's second wife; he was also a friend of Adalbert's son, Werinbert, another monk at Saint Gall, who died as the book was in progress.[14] His teacher was Grimald von Weißenburg, the Abbot of Saint Gall from 841 to 872, who was, the monk claims, himself a pupil of Alcuin.

The monk's untitled work, referred to by modern scholars as De Carolo Magno ("Concerning Charles the Great") or Gesta Caroli Magni ("The Deeds of Charles the Great"), is not a biography but consists instead of two books of anecdotes relating chiefly to the Emperor Charlemagne and his family, whose virtues are insistently invoked. It was written for Charles the Fat,[15] great-grandson of Charlemagne, who visited Saint Gall in 883.[16] It has been scorned by traditional historians, who refer to the Monk as one who "took pleasure in amusing anecdotes and witty tales, but who was ill-informed about the true march of historical events", and describe the work itself as a "mass of legend, saga, invention and reckless blundering": historical figures are claimed as living when in fact dead; claims are attributed to false sources (in one instance,[17] the Monk claims that "to this King Pepin [the Short] the learned Bede has devoted almost an entire book of his Ecclesiastical History"; no such account exists in Bede's history – unsurprisingly, given that Bede died in 735 during the reign of Charlemagne's grandfather Charles Martel); and Saint Gall is frequently referenced as a location in anecdotes,[18] regardless of historical verisimilitude (Pepin the Hunchback, for example, is supposed to have been sent to Saint Gall as punishment for his rebellion, and – in a trope owed to Livy's tale of Tarquin and the poppies – earns a promotion to rich Prüm Abbey after advising Charlemagne through an implicit parable of hoeing thistles to execute another group of rebels). The Monk also mocks and criticizes bishops and the prideful, high-born incompetent, showy in dress and fastidious and lazy in habits, whilst lauding the wise and skillful government of the Emperor with nods to the deserving poor. Several of the Monk's tales, such as that of the nine rings of the Avar stronghold, have been used in modern biographies of Charlemagne.^{[citation needed]}

Martyrology

In his martyrology, Notker appeared to corroborate one of St Columba's miracles. St Columba, being an important father of Irish monasticism, was also important to St Gall and thus to Notker's own monastery. Adomnan of Iona had written that at one point Columba had through clairvoyance seen a city in Italy near Rome being destroyed by fiery sulphur as a divine punishment and that three thousand people had perished. And shortly after Columba saw this, sailors from Gaul arrived to tell the news of it. Notker claimed in his martyrology that this event happened and that an earthquake had destroyed a city which was called 'new'. It is unclear what this city was that Notker was claiming, although some thought it may have been Naples (previously called 'Neapolis' – new city). However Naples was destroyed by a volcano in 512 before Columba was born, and not during Columba's lifetime.[19]

Legacy

On Notker's canonization status, the English cleric John Donne noted that "he is a private Saint, for a few Parishes".[20] According to the 16th century historian Henricus Canisius, Notker' Sainthood was granted by Leo X in 1512 for Saint Gall and nearby churches, and in 1513 for the Diocese of Constance.[20][9] In Saint Gall and other churches he is commemorated annually on 6 April.[9]

In the mid-19th century the Swiss music scholar Anselm Schubiger was the first to transcribe almost all of Notker's extant melodies into modern notation. Many of his transcriptions are still in use, though older manuscript sources are available now that Schubiger did not have access to, meaning that "a more comprehensive approach to the sources will produce readings that are closer to Notker's own use, and better musically".[21]

Scholars vary on evaluating Notker's main legacy; the priest Alban Butler asserted that his sequences were his most important acheivemnt,[22] while the historian Rosamond McKitterick states that he is best remembered for the Gesta Caroli Magni.[23] Notker and Solomon II were the most important writers educated at Saint Gall,[23] and Notker was among the both leading literary scribes and scholars of his time.[24]

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

Further reading

• Crocker, Richard (1977). The Early Medieval Sequence. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-02847-0.
• Haug, Andreas (2008). "Re-reading Notker's Preface". In Cannata, David Butler; Currie, Gabriela Ilnitchi; Mueller, Rena Charnin; Nadas, John Luis (eds.). Quomodo cantabimus canticum? Studies in Honor of Edward H. Roesner. Middleton: American Institute of Musicology. pp. 65–80.
• Heinzer, Felix (2005). "Sequenzen auf Wanderschaft: Transferszenarien am Beispiel von Rex regum dei agne und Sancti merita Benedicti" [Wandering Sequences: Transfer Scenarios Using the Example of Rex regum dei agne and Sancti merita Benedicti]. Die Musikforschung (in German). 58 (H. 3): 252259. JSTOR 41125777.
• Rankin, Susan (1991). "The Earliest Sources of Notker's Sequences: St Gallen, Vadiana 317, and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 10587". Early Music History. 10: 201–233. JSTOR 942454.

External links

• Free scores by Notker Balbulus at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• Notker's commentary on The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius from e-codices.com
• Catholic Encyclopedia, accessed on 25 April 2006
• Works by Notker the Stammerer at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Notker the Stammerer at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

На других языках

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- [en] Notker the Stammerer

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[es] Notkero Bálbulo

Notkerus Balbulus, Notker Balbulus o también Notker de San Gall (ca. 840 - 912) fue un monje de la Abadía de San Galo, poeta y compositor de música. Su nombre Balbulus es un apodo que significa "el Tartamudo".

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[fr] Notker le Bègue

Notker le Bègue (en latin Notker Balbulus), ou Notker de Saint-Gall, né vers 840, mort le 6 avril 912, est un moine de l'abbaye bénédictine de Saint-Gall, musicien, écrivain, poète, surtout connu pour ses travaux musicaux, et également considéré comme l'auteur des Gesta Karoli Magni, recueil d'anecdotes sur la vie de Charlemagne dont certaines bénéficient encore d'une assez grande notoriété.

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[ru] Ноткер Заика

Но́ткер Заика (лат. Notker Balbulus, около 840 — 6 апреля 912), также Ноткер I Санкт-Галленский — монах-бенедиктинец Санкт-Галленского монастыря, поэт, музыкант, хронист и богослов. Причислен Католической церковью к лику блаженных в 1512 году. Память — 7 апреля.

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