WILLIARM DI EBERSBERG

His historical and cultural significance is linked to the paraphrase (a translation into a mixed prose of Latin and late East Franconian, with commentary in Latin examples) that he made of the Song of Songs. The work, composed around 1065, was dedicated to Emperor Henry IV, who, like his father Henry III, participated as a convinced follower in the rigorous reformist spirit of the monks of Cluny; it has a mixed character, being at once a work of art (especially entrusted to the commentary in examples) and an instrument of instruction and edification. The translation follows the example of the *Exposition in Cantica Canticorum* by Bishop Haimo and the versions, particularly of the Psalms by Notker III of St. Gall, but, unlike the latter, it creates the type of German theological language, i.e., it establishes the characteristic use of technical terms in Latin. It also merits the credit for introducing into German literature the model of the Song of Songs, which, with the allure of its Oriental splendor and the nobility of its language, would provide new material for song, embellished with the allegorism so amply treated by W. himself, for the four travelers who would follow.