Walafrid Strabo

Walafrid Strabo (Walafrid the Squinter), c.809-849, German scholar, b. Swabia. Educated at the abbey of Reichenau, he wrote, at 18, a Latin verse account of a journey to the hereafter, Visio Wettini. In 842 he returned to Reichenau as abbot. There he encouraged the production and exchange of manuscripts which made the library and scriptorium famous. Among Walafrid's writings, renowned throughout the Middle Ages for their distinguished Latin, are Hortulus, a poem describing the monastery garden; a scriptural commentary; and notes on contemporary liturgy, still valuable as a source.

Bibliography: See H. J. Waddell, The Wandering Scholars (1927, repr. 1968).

Walafrid Strabo (c.808–49), i.e. ‘Walafrid the Squinter’, poet and biblical exegete. He studied under Rabanus Maurus, became tutor to the Emperor's son Charles (the future Charles the Bald) in 829, and in 839 abbot of Reichenau. His works include a poem on gardening, saints' Lives in verse and prose, and a liturgical treatise, De Exordiis. He abridged Rabanus' commentaries on the Pentateuch and perhaps commented on the Psalms and Catholic Epistles, but the belief that he wrote the Glossa Ordinaria to the Bible is unfounded.