Egbert of Liège, in , was an 11th-century educator and author, working at the

cathedral school Cathedral schools began in the Early Middle Ages as centers of advanced education, some of them ultimately evolving into medieval universities. Throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, they were complemented by the monastic schools. Some of these e ...

Liège Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from b ...

(in what is now Belgium). His main work, produced around 1023, is an educational collection entitled ''Fecunda Ratis'' ("The Richly Laden Ship"), divided into two parts, the "Prora" (

Prow The bow () is the forward part of the hull of a ship or boat, the point that is usually most forward when the vessel is underway. The aft end of the boat is the stern. Prow may be used as a synonym for bow or it may mean the forward-most part ...

), containing proverbs and classical and secular stories, and the "Puppis" (

Poop deck In naval architecture, a poop deck is a deck that forms the roof of a cabin built in the rear, or " aft", part of the superstructure of a ship. The name originates from the French word for stern, ''la poupe'', from Latin ''puppis''. Thus th ...

) with extracts from

biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

and

patristic Patristics or patrology is the study of the early Christian writers who are designated Church Fathers. The names derive from the combined forms of Latin ''pater'' and Greek ''patḗr'' (father). The period is generally considered to run from ...

writers. The collection contains the earliest known precursor of the

Little Red Riding Hood "Little Red Riding Hood" is a European fairy tale about a young girl and a sly wolf. Its origins can be traced back to several pre-17th century European folk tales. The two best known versions were written by Charles Perrault and the Brother ...

story, entitled "". A critical edition of the ''Fecunda Ratis'' by Ernst Voigt was published in the series ''

Monumenta Germaniae Historica The ''Monumenta Germaniae Historica'' (''MGH'') is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published primary sources, both chronicle and archival, for the study of Northwestern and Central European history from the end of the Roman Empire ...

'' in 1889. An English translation by Robert Gary Babcock has been published as book 25 in the ''

Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library The Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library (est. 2010) is a series of books published by Harvard University Press in collaboration with the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. It presents editions of texts originally written in medieval Latin ...

'' (Harvard University Press, 2013). An extract describes the origins of the red riding hood:

References

External links

Scans of Voigt edition
at Internet Archive. Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Writers from Liège 11th-century Latin writers 11th-century people of the Holy Roman Empire {{Belgium-bio-stub