WILLIRAM of EBERSBERG. - Benedictine abbot of Ebersberg, in the diocese of Freising (Upper Bavaria), d. 1085.
His historical and cultural importance is connected with the paraphrase (translation into a prose mixture of Latin and late East Franconian, and commentary in Latin hexameters) that he made of the Song of Songs. The work, composed around 1065, was dedicated to Emperor Enrico IV, who, like his father Enrico III, took part as a convinced adherent in the strict reforming spirit of the monks of Cluny; it has the mixed character of a work of art (especially as entrusted to the commentary in hexameters) and at the same time 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 of Notkero III of S. Gallo, but, unlike the latter, it creates the type of German theological language in which the characteristic use of technical terms in Latin would remain. It also has the merit of having introduced into German literature the model of the Song of Songs which, through the appeal of its Oriental splendour and the nobility of its language, was to provide the troubadours who followed with a new subject for song, adorned with the allegorism extensively treated by W. himself.