WALAFRID (Uualafrid, Walahfrid), Strabo. - Benedictine abbot of Reichenau (v.), in Latin Angia, nicknamed Strabo ("the one-eyed") because of his natural short-sightedness, which he himself changed to Strabus, born in Alamannia to a humble family (cf. his poem Nostalgia, composed at Fulda in 829) in 868-869, died on 18 August 849 while crossing a ford of the Loire. He is one of the most attractive figures of the Carolingian age.
Offered while still of tender age to the monastery of Reichenau, he became a monk there under the abbot Haito (806-23). He had as his teacher the monk Wettin and enjoyed the friendship of the librarian Regimbert, of Godescalc of Orbais and of Grimald. Under the abbot Erlebald (823-38), although hindered in his literary inclinations, he already showed himself a poet with the Tituli Angiensis, composed to celebrate the dedication of the church of Reichenau: versified letters sent in the name of Tatto to important personages of the time. His finest poem of that period is the Visio Wettini, which K. Vossler defines as a modest prelude to Dante's Divine Comedy: it is a song in honor of Reichenau and its abbots, whom it describes with great acuteness. V. had witnessed the death of the exemplary religious Wettin, who had dictated a journey accomplished in vision through hell, purgatory and heaven, guided by an angel; Haito had composed a prose text of it, with allusions to living persons; V. made of it a Latin poem, masterly, wholly original, although one feels that the author is an admirer of Virgil; showing, for example, the judgment of the clergy on Charlemagne, who is punished in purgatory, it even has some historical value. Another poem of V. is more interesting for the history of culture: the Hortulus, a poetic and practical description of the little garden of medicinal plants that was obligatory in Benedictine monasteries; the whole is sincerely felt, pervaded by the very fine observations of a lover of nature. He also composed at that time a petition in verse to an abbot, perhaps his own, begging him to show him clemency. From 826-27 to 829 he went to Fulda, then the greatest center of study in Germany, to become a disciple of Rabanus Maurus (v.). There he devoted himself to theology and Rabanus directed him to study exegesis, according to the commentaries of the Fathers. V. was among those who, under the guidance of Rabanus, translated the Diatessaron (v.) of Tatian into Old German; he composed a gloss, also in Old German, starting from Anglo-Saxon texts, which was rediscovered among the Augian codices.
In 829 Hildin (v.), grand chaplain of Louis the Pious, had him summoned to the court of Aachen, to be chaplain of the empress Judith, who was also born in Alamannia, being the daughter of Count Welf, and moreover praeceptor of the prince Charles (later "the Bald"). In the first days of his new office, which brought him into contact with the most important men of the time (numerous poetic letters to them survive), he composed the poem De imagine Tetrici, on the statue of Theodoric the Ostrogoth erected by Charlemagne in the royal palace; for him Theodoric is an Arian tyrant and serves as a pretext for celebrating the devout Emperor of right faith, Louis the Pious, and his second consort, against whom calumnies and uprisings on the part of the sons of the first bed were directed. Throughout that time V. shows toward Louis and Judith a full fidelity, which was moreover fidelity to the idea of the Empire.
V. intended, it seems, to present Charles the Bald as duke over Alamannia; but everything changed with Louis's defeat at the hands of his sons in 833. The Emperor had to send Judith into exile at Ortona; her son was sent to the abbey of Prüm, in the Eifel, where V. followed him. Once the Empress had been freed by a nobleman and had returned, after an adventurous flight, to her husband, things changed: V. returned to Aachen with Charles the Bald, who shortly afterwards was declared of age. In recognition of the great services that V.'s pen had rendered him, Louis wished to make him abbot of Reichenau in 838, but he did not prove acceptable to all the monks, a part of whom had supported Louis the German, who in 833 had for the first time occupied Alamannia. For this reason Erlebald resigned, and the scrutiny was held, which, it seems, gave the majority to Ruadhelm. However, in Jan. 839 Saxony and Alamannia defected from Louis the German, the Emperor regained Alamannia without a blow, and went, amid preparations for war against his rebellious son, to visit that province with Judith. Then the monks had to come to terms, and V. became abbot. Things changed immediately after the death of Louis the Pious (840): there followed the lightning-fast submission of Alamannia to Louis the German. V. went into exile at Speyer, where he wrote a song in honor of the emperor Lothair, as well as his most celebrated theological work, the Liber de exordiis et incrementis quarundam in observationibus ecclesiasticis rerum, a liturgical and archaeological manual, in which he sets out the origin of divine worship and of altars, of sacred images (supporting the well-known moderate Carolingian theory), of the baptismal rite, of the use of vernacular tongues; he recommends the daily celebration of Holy Mass, compares earthly and sacred dignities. Throughout the treatise he does not speak of transubstantiation, defended by Paschasius Radbertus, he even uses an unsuitable expression, but this does not mean that he denied it, as after E. Reuss certain
Protestant encyclopedias claim; V. in fact does not engage in dogmatic disquisitions, and is to be interpreted according to the doctrine of Rabanus Maurus who, although being, with Ratramnus (v.) and others, an opponent of Paschasius Radbertus, likewise teaches transubstantiation most clearly.
In 841 the battle of Fontenay decided against the unity of the Empire and against Lothair. Then Grimald succeeded in reconciling Louis the German and V. (842); Ruadhelm, having intruded himself a second time, had to renounce it, and from 842 to 849 V. carried out a most fruitful activity as father of his monks, raising Reichenau to a center of studies of attraction and international relations. He enjoyed to such an extent the trust of Louis the German that the latter, in order to prevent the continuous wars between Charles the Bald and Lothair, in 849 assigned him to the court of Charles the Bald; but V. died by drowning. He was celebrated by an epitaph of Rabanus.
A book of V. with formularies of epistles brings fully to light the work of the wise abbot, who knew the life of the great world like a perfect courtier; it has value, besides for cultural history, for the rare historical and biographical notices it contains. Another collectanea of writings of V. was very recently described by B. Bischoff. He can no longer be considered a great exegete, given that the Glossa Ordinaria has very few materials from V. Perhaps V. is more important for the commentaries in Old German than for those in Latin, but neither have the others been adequately studied so far. V. shines principally as one of the best Latin poets of the "Carolingian renaissance."
Bibliography26 works
Pietro Nober