WALTER OF SPEYER (Gualtiero di Spira). - German poet and religious, b. ca. 965, disciple of Bishop Walderich in the monastery of St. Gall.

Having become learned in the 7 liberal arts and having become a subdeacon, in 983 he wrote a Life of St. Christopher in 5 books (1272 verses) and 29 chapters, preceded by 271 hexameters narrating his course of studies in the cloister. In 1014 he accompanied Emperor Henry II of Saxony to Rome for the coronation; around that time he was bishop of Speyer. It had been thought that W. was the bishop who presided at the ceremony at which in 1030 Conrad II the Salic laid the first stone of the cathedral of Speyer; recent studies, however, say he died in 1027. His style, laden with learning and rhetorical ornaments, is typical of the medieval culture of the cloisters, revealing knowledge of Latin classics including Virgil, the object of mystical veneration. Such enthusiasm for antiquity, fought by the more zealous clergy as the work of the devil, continued to flourish at Speyer under Emperor Conrad II the Salic.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: edd.: the poem, preserved in a manuscript of St. Emmeram at Regensburg (Munich, State Library, Clm 14798) was edited by B. Pez, in Thesaurus anecdotorum novissimus, II, Augusta-Graz 1721, pp. 29-122, and by W. Harster, Spira 1878. Studies: F. Ermini, Poeti epici latini del sec. X, Roma 1920, pp. 76-93; Manitius, II, pp. 201-506.

Alba Cori

@incollection{ec12_walther_von_speyer_gualtiero_d, author = {Cori, Alba}, title = {Walther Von Speyer (Gualtiero di Spira)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {1648}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/walther-von-speyer-gualtiero-di-spira} }

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Walter of Speyer (Gualtiero di Spira)

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