Blessed Rabanus Maurus

The proper calendar for the Catholic dioceses of Germany marks February 4th as the feast of one of the most interesting figures of the Carolingian era, the Bl. Rabanus Maurus, who died on this day in the 856. (His first name is also written as Hrabanus or Rhabanus.)

Bl Rabanus, together with Alcuin, presents his poem “On the praises of the Holy Cross” to Otgar, archbishop of Mainz. (Alcuin’s presence here is symbolic, since he was dead by the time Rabanus finished the work. Image from a manuscript of the 9th century copied out at Fulda, now in the National Library of Vienna.)

He was born around the year 780 to a noble family in Mainz, where St Boniface, the Apostle of the Germans, had been archbishop. As a child, he was sent to the monastery of Fulda, which Boniface had established as one of the centers of his mission. Fulda was already an important seat of learning, but would become widely renowned for this only later, under Rabanus’ own leadership. When his education was completed, he went to the court of Charlemagne at Aachen, and came under the tutelage of the famous Englishman Alcuin of York, who gave him his second name “Maurus” in remembrance of one of St Benedict’s favorite disciples. Rabanus followed Alcuin to the abbey of St Martin of Tours, where he studied the Bible, liturgy and canon law. In 801, he was ordained a deacon, and sometime before his teacher’s death in 804, returned to Fulda to become a master in his own right at the monastery’s school.

In 814, the year of Charlemagne’s death, he was ordained a priest, and four years later, the head of the school at Fulda. Many of the men who would perpetuate the legacy of learning encouraged by Charlemagne through the rest of the 9th century were students of Rabanus.

During his life as a scholar, he wrote an astonishing amount on a very wide variety of topics: commentaries on nearly every book of the Bible; treatises on theological topics and the liturgy, including an important revision of the Roman Sacramentary and a martyrology; works on canon law, clerical life and discipline, history, grammar; an encyclopedia based on the earlier work of St Ididore of Seville, as well as hymns and sermons. The Pentecost hymn Veni, Creator Spiritus, is traditionally attributed to him (this is now disputed by many), as is the original version of the common hymn for the feast of St Michael and All Angels, Christe, sanctorum decus Angelorum. The sermon read for the feast of All Saints in almost every version of the Divine Office before the Tridentine reform is also attributed to him, with great uncertainty. All this was done while maintaining frequent correspondences; he was on close terms and a valued counselor to both Charlemagne’s son, the emperor Louis the Pious, and his grandson Lothair, and with their wives.

In June of 822, he was elected abbot of Fulda, a position which he would hold for 20 years. Already at the time of his election, Fulda had several dependent monasteries, with a total population of around 600 monks. Rabanus worked tirelessly to expand the monastery’s library and its collection of relics, organized the administration of its considerable property holding, and built several churches and chapels for the benefit of the peasants who worked its many farms. In his later years, he was often called away from the abbey on imperial business, but as Louis the Pious became involved in a series of political disputes with his sons, Rabanus chose to withdraw by resigning as abbot, and returning to the life of a scholar.

Despite this, in 847, Louis’ son, known as Louis the German, whose lands included the territory of Fulda, had him elevated to the archbishopric of Mainz. He took office exactly 25 years and one day after his abbatial election, and proved himself to be as effective and energetic in his new position as he had been as abbot, despite his (for that era) advanced age. He ruled until his death less than nine years later, and was originally buried at the monastery of St Alban outside Mainz, another one of the most important centers of monastic life in western Germany. In 1515, his relics were transferred by the archbishop of Mainz, but they seem to have to have been lost during the disturbances of early protestant reformation, and so he has no known grave or relics. He has never been formally canonized, and is still known as the Blessed Rabanus.

One of his most famous writings is a cycle of poems, “De laudibus sanctae Crucis – On the Praises of the Holy Cross’, completed in 814. Six copies of this almost unfathomably complex work produced directly under his supervision still survive, including one with notes in his own hand, which is now in the Vatican library. (Vat. lat. reginensis 124). Each poem is written out in a grid, and within each grid, several letters are highlighted by their inclusion within various geometric shapes, larger letters, or drawings. The highlighted letters form their own independent verses; some of these verses form dedication poems to various people, including St Martin of Tours and Pope Gregory IV, while the most elaborate is a portrait of the emperor Louis the Pious. Here is a selection of some of the more complex images, beginning with one of the Lord.

The Lamb of God with the symbols of the Evangelists. 

Rabanus himself, kneeing in front of a cross.

Various angels.

The Latin word Crux (cross) crossed with Salus (salvation). It would be fair to note that this is a little clumsy (crlux), and Rabanus is extremely free with his use of meter, but nevertheless, one can only admire the mind that was able to plan such a thing at all. 

The portrait of the emperor Louis the Pious.