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The ''Carmen de bello Saxonico'' (german: Lied vom Sachsenkrieg; en, italic=yes, Song of the Saxon War) is a
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
hexameters
Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek and Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It w ...
divided between three books that recounts the first phase of the
Saxon Rebellion
The Saxon Rebellion or Rebellion of the Saxons (german: Sachsenkrieg), also commonly called the Saxon Uprising (not to be confused with the Saxon Wars, also called the Saxon Uprising), refers to the struggle between the Salian dynasty ruling the H ...
against the Emperor Henry IV that began in 1073. Its account is limited geographically to the
Harz
The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German ...
region and ends with the Battle of Spier in October 1075. It is strongly pro-imperial in tone, and complements the pro-Saxon histories of
Bruno the Saxon Bruno the Saxon (Latin: ''Bruno Saxonicus''), also known as Bruno of Merseburg (German: ''Brun von Merseburg'') or Bruno of Magdeburg, was a German chronicler of the eleventh century and author of the ''Historia de Bello Saxonico'' ('History of the ...
and
Lambert of Hersfeld Lambert of Hersfeld (also called Lampert; – 1082/85) was a medieval chronicler. His work represents a major source for the history of the German kingdom of Henry IV and the incipient Investiture Controversy in the eleventh century.
Life
What ...
. It was composed within months of the events it describes, but the only existing manuscript copy dates from the sixteenth century.
G. H. Pertz
Georg Heinrich Pertz (28 March 17957 October 1876) was a German historian.
Personal life
Pertz was born in Hanover on 28 March 1795. His parents were the court bookbinder Christian August Pertz and Henrietta Justina née Deppen.
He married twi ...
published a first critical edition in 1851.
The anonymous author made use of several classical writers, including
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
Poeta Saxo The anonymous Saxon poet known as Poeta Saxo, who composed the medieval Latin ''Annales de gestis Caroli magni imperatoris libri quinque'' ("Annals of the Deeds of Emperor Charlemagne in Five Books") was probably a monk of Sankt Gallen or possibly ...
'', and had connections in the imperial court. Lampert of Hersfeld was once proposed as its author, but this suggestion was quickly dispelled. Today, it is commonly thought that the same anonymous poet composed the '' Vita Heinrici IV imperatoris'', a biography of Henry IV written some three decades later. His familiarity with local geography hints that he may have been a royalist Saxon, like the ''Poeta Saxo'' of two centuries earlier.
References
*
Theodor Ernst Mommsen The Mommsen family is a German family of influential historians.
*Jens Mommsen (1783–1851) ∞ Sophie Elisabeth Krumbhaar (1792–1855)
**Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903), 1902 Nobel Laureate in Literature ∞ Marie Reimer (1832–1907)
***Marie Momm ...