ADAMO di BREMA. – Chronicler of the 11th century, called the “first German historiographer,” born in eastern Franconia or Thuringia at an unknown date, died at Bremen before 1085. We find him already in Bremen in 1066, where he became a canon and, around 1069, head of the cathedral school.
After a journey to Denmark, between 1072 and 1076 he wrote the history of the archdiocese of Bremen (Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum). This work, composed using many sources, now partially lost, draws inspiration from classical writers and merits great praise for its practical sense and for its geographical descriptions of the northern countries of which the author speaks. It is thus of the utmost importance for our knowledge of the ancient history and geography of northern Germany, Denmark, and the other northern countries.
BIBL.: Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, in MGH. Scriptores, VII, pp. 267-389; reprinted in PL 146, 433-662; and by B. Schmidler, ibid., ed. minor, 3rd ed., Hannover 1917. – A. Bernard, Die A. Bremensi geografiche, Paris 1895; A. Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, III, 3rd ed., Leipzig 1906, pp. 946-48; Ph. Kohlmann, A. V. B. Ein Beitrag zur mittelalter. Textkritik und Kosmographie (Leipziger Historische Abhandlungen, fasc. 10), Leipzig 1908; id., Untersuchungen zur hamburgischen Kirchengeschichte A. V. B., Leipzig 1908; id., Kleine Forschungen in literarischen Quellen des Mittelalters, in Historische Vierteljahrschrift, 20 (1920-21), pp. 129-49; L. Brill, Les premiers temps du Christianisme en Suède, in Rev. d'Hist. eccl., 12 (1911), pp. 17-37, 231-41 and especially 652-69; M. Manitius, Gesch. der lat. Literat. des Mittelalters, II, 11, Munich 1923, pp. 398-413; W. Wattenbach-R. Holtzmann, Deutschlands Geschichtquellen im Mittelalter, Deutsche Kaiserzeit, I, III, Berlin 1943, pp. 566-72. Cesario van Hulst
