ADAM OF BREMA. – Chronicler of the 11th century, known as the “first German historian,” born in eastern Franconia or in Thuringia at an unknown date, died at Bremen before 1085. He is found in Bremen in 1066, where he became a canon and, around 1069, rector 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 with the use of many sources now partly lost, draws inspiration from classical writers and deserves high praise for its practical sense and for the geographical descriptions of the Nordic countries, of which the author speaks. In this way it is of the greatest importance for our knowledge of the ancient history and geography of northern Germany, Denmark, and the other northern lands.
BIBL.: Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, in MGH. Scriptores, VII, pp. 267-389; reprinted in PL 146, 433-662; and by B. Schmeidler, ibid., minor ed., 3rd ed., Hanover 1917. – A. Bernard, De A. Bremensi geographo, Paris 1895; A. Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, III, 3rd ed., Leipzig 1906, pp. 946-48; P. H. Kohlmann, A. V. B. Ein Beitrag zur mittelalterl. 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. ecc., 12 (1911), pp. 17-37, 231-41 and esp. 652-69; M. Manitius, Gesch. der lat. Literat. des Mittelalt., II, 11, Munich 1923, pp. 398-413; W. Wattenbach - R. Holtzmann, Deutschland, Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter, Deutsche Kaiserzeit, I, III, Berlin 1943, pp. 566-72. Cesario van Hulst
