Otloh of St Emmeram (c. 1010 – c. 1072) was a Benedictine

Benedictine

Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...

 monk of St Emmeram's

St. Emmeram's Abbey

St. Emmeram's Abbey , now known as Schloss Thurn und Taxis, Schloss St. Emmeram, and St...

 in Regensburg

Regensburg

Regensburg is a city in Bavaria, Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate...

, known as a scholar and educator.

Life

Otloh was born around 1010 in the bishopric of Freising. After studying at Tegernsee

Tegernsee Abbey

Tegernsee Abbey or the Imperial Abbey of Tegernsee is a former Benedictine monastery in the town and district of Tegernsee in Bavaria. Both the abbey and the town that grew up around are named after the Tegernsee, the lake on the shores of which they are located...

 and Hersfeld

Hersfeld Abbey

Hersfeld Abbey was an important Benedictine imperial abbey in the town of Bad Hersfeld in Hesse , Germany, at the confluence of the rivers Geisa, Haune and Fulda.-History:...

, he was called to Würzburg

Bishopric of Würzburg

The Bishopric of Würzburg was a prince-bishopric in the Holy Roman Empire, located in Lower Franconia, around the city of Würzburg, Germany. Würzburg was a diocese from 743. In the 18th century, its bishop was often also Bishop of Bamberg...

 by Bishop Meinhard (due, Otloh tells us in his Book of Visions, to his skill as a scribe). Otloh served as a secular cleric in the diocese of Freising before pursuing a monastic career against the wishes of his father; he eventually took monastic vows in 1032 at St. Emmeram's, Regensburg. Appointed dean in 1055, he also was magister scholae (head of the monastic school), and numbered among his students the reforming abbot William of Hirsau

William of Hirsau

William of Hirsau was a Benedictine abbot and monastic reformer. He was abbot of Hirsau Abbey, for whom he created the Constitutiones Hirsaugienses, based on the uses of Cluny, and was the father of the Hirsau Reforms, which influenced many Benedictine monasteries in Germany...

 (†1091). Otloh was among the authors who elaborated the story of the transfer of the relics of Saint Denis the Areopagite

Dionysius the Areopagite

Dionysius the Areopagite was a judge of the Areopagus who, as related in the Acts of the Apostles, , was converted to Christianity by the preaching of the Apostle Paul during the Areopagus sermon...

 to Regensburg, and long was believed to have forged letters of exemption for his monastery, a charge which recently has begun to be reconsidered. Conflicts with his abbot and bishop led Otloh to leave St. Emmeram's in 1062 for Fulda

Fulda

Fulda is a city in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district .- Early Middle Ages :...

, where he remained until 1067. After a short stay at the Franconian monastery of Amorbach

Amorbach Abbey

Amorbach Abbey was a Benedictine monastery located at Amorbach in the district of Miltenberg in Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany.- History :...

, he returned to Regensburg and spent the rest of his days on literary work, most notably a quasi-autobiographical account of the temptations he had overcome during his life (the Liber de tentationibus suis) and a collection of visionary tales, including his own (the Liber visionum).

Works

Otloh's works are collected in volume 146 of Migne

Jacques Paul Migne

Jacques Paul Migne was a French priest who published inexpensive and widely-distributed editions of theological works, encyclopedias and the texts of the Church Fathers, with the goal of providing a universal library for the Catholic priesthood.He was born at Saint-Flour, Cantal and studied...

, Patrologia Latina

Patrologia Latina

The Patrologia Latina is an enormous collection of the writings of the Church Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers published by Jacques-Paul Migne between 1844 and 1855, with indices published between 1862 and 1865....

, columns 27-434, including:

Dialogus de suis tentationibus, varia fortuna et scriptis

Life of Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg

Wolfgang of Regensburg

Saint Wolfgang was bishop of Regensburg in Bavaria from Christmas 972 until his death. He is a saint of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches...

Life of Saint Boniface

Life of Saint Alto

Alto of Altomünster

Saint Alto was the eponymous founder of Altomünster Abbey in about 750, a monastery in Bavaria around which a market town grew up, also called Altomünster....

Life of Saint Magnus

Magnus of Füssen

Saint Magnus of Füssen, otherwise Magnoald or Mang, was a missionary saint in southern Germany, also known as the Apostle of the Allgäu. He is believed to have been a contemporary either of Saint Gall or of Saint Boniface and is venerated as the founder of St. Mang's Abbey, Füssen.-Life:There is...

Dialogus de tribus quæstionibus

De promissionis bonorum et malorum causis

De cursu spirituali

De translatione s. Dionysii e Francia in Germaniam (fragmentary)

De miraculo quod nuper accidit cuidam laico

De admonitione clericorum et laicorum

De spirituali doctrina

Liber Proverbiorum

Sermo in natali apostolorum

Liber visionum tum suarum tum aliorum

Modern critical editions

• Othloni Libellus Proverbiorum, ed. G.C. Korfmacher (Loyola University Press, 1936); see, however, the review by Bernhard Bischoff in Historisches Jahrbuch 57 (1937), who unlike Korfmacher addresses the work's multiple recensions.

• Otloh von St. Emmeram 'Liber de temptatione cuiusdam monachi'. Untersuchung, kritische Edition und Übersetzung, trans. and ed. Sabine Gäbe (Peter Lang, 1999).

• Liber Visionum, ed. Paul Gerhard Schmidt in MGH Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte (Böhlau, 1989).

• Translationis et inventionis sancti Dionysii Ratisponensis historia, ed. Adolf Hofmeister in MGH Scriptores vol. 30/2 (Hiersemann, 1926), 823-37.

• Vitae Bonifatii libri duo, ed. Wilhelm Levison in Vitae Sancti Bonifatii archiepiscopi Mogutini (MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, vol. 57) (Hahn, 1905), 111-217.

• Vita sancti Magni, ed. in Maurice Coens, "La Vie de S. Magne de Füssen par Otloh de St.-Emmeran," Analecta Bollandiana 81 (1963): 159-227.

English translations

An excerpt of the Liber de tentationibus is translated in Other Middle Ages: Witnesses at the Margins of Medieval Society, ed. Michael Goodich (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 159-63. A complete translation of the Liber de tentationibus and Liber visionum currently is in preparation for Broadview Press's "Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures" series.

Critical studies

• Gillian Evans, "Studium discendi: Otloh von St. Emmeram and the Seven Liberal Arts," Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 44 (1977): 29-54.

• Ellen Joyce, "Scribal Performance and Identity in the Autobiographical Visions of Otloh of St. Emmeram (d. 1067)," Essays in Medieval Studies 22 (2005): 95-106.

• Willemien Otten, "The Bible and the Self in Medieval Autobiography: Otloh of St. Emmeram (1010-1070) and Peter Abelard (1079-1142)," in The Whole and Divided Self: The Bible and Theological Anthropology, ed. John McCarthy and David Aune (Crossroads, 1997), 130-57.

• Irven Resnick, "'Litterati, Spirituales, and Lay Christians according to Otloh of Saint Emmeram," Church History 55 (1986): 165-78.

• idem, "'Scientia liberalis', Dialectics, and Otloh of St. Emmeram," Révue Bénédictine 97 (1987): 241-52.

• Hedwig Röckelein, Otloh, Gottschalk, Tnugdal: Individuelle und kollektive Visionsmuster des Hochmittelalters (Peter Lang, 1987).

• Helga Schauwecker, "Otloh und die St. Emmeramer Fälschungen des 11. Jahrhunderts," Verhandlungen des Historischen Vereins für Oberpfalz und Regensburg 106 (1966): 103-20.

• idem, Otloh von St Emmeram: Ein Beitrag zur Bildungs- und Frommigkeitsgeschichte des 11. Jahrhunderts (Bayerische Benediktiner-Akademie, 1964).

• Alois Schmid, "'Auf glühendem Thron in der Hölle': Gebhard III., Otloh von St. Emmeram und die Dionysiusfälschung," in Ratisbona Sacra. Das Bistum Regensburg im Mittelalter (Kunstsammlungen des Bistums Regensburg - Diözesanmuseum Regensburg. Kataloge und Schriften 6) (Schnell und Steiner, 1989), 119-21.

• Nikolai Uskov, "Die Conversio eines Mönches im 11. Jahrhundert. Otloh von St. Emmeram bei der Arbeit an seiner Autobiographie," Verhandlungen des Historisches Vereins für Oberpfalz und Regensburg 139 (1999): 1-39.

• Gustavo Vinay, "Otloh di St. Emmeramo ovvero l'autografia di un nevrotico," in La storiografia altomedievale (Spoleto: 1970), 13-37.