Williram of Ebersberg

WILLIRAM OF EBERSBERG. - Benedictine abbot of Ebersberg, in the diocese of Freising (Upper Bavaria), d. 1085.

His historical and cultural importance is linked to the paraphrase (a translation into a mixed prose of Latin and late East Franconian, with a commentary in Latin hexameters) 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, was a convinced adherent of the severe reformist spirit of the monks of Cluny; and it has a mixed character, being at once a work of art (chiefly entrusted to the commentary in hexameters) and a work of instruction and edification. The translation follows the example of the Expositio in Cantica Canticorum of Bishop Haimo and of the versions, especially of the Psalms, by Notker III of St. Gall, but, unlike the latter, it creates the type of German theological language, in which the characteristic use of technical terms in Latin will remain. To it belongs moreover the merit of having introduced into German literature the model of the Song of Songs which, with the suggestion of Oriental splendor and the nobility of the language, will furnish a new material for song, adorned with the allegorism extensively treated by W. himself, for the minnesingers who will follow.