WERNER OF TEGERNSEE

Date and place of birth unknown; d. June 15, after 1195. A monk at tegernsee, once exiled to Salzburg, he later became head of the school at Tegernsee, hence his surname scholasticus. In striving for a purer Latin, Werner took the classical authors as models for his students. He drew a map of the world, and he began a botanical garden. There is no proof for P. Lindner's suggestion that Werner and Metellus, the author of the Quirinalia, were the same person; nor is there any certain knowledge of his alleged activity as an illuminator or author of a biblia pauperum. The prose Passio s. Quirini, sometimes attributed to him, is the work of a monk by the name of Henry. Werner considerably increased his monastery's library. His hand can be recognized in codices Clm 18523b, 18527a, 18646, 18769, where he wrote part of the Annales Tegernseenses [Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores (Berlin 1826–) 24:58], and in Clm 19164, with its colophon: W. diaconus et monachus patravit. His hand also appears in Clm 19488, fol. 119b. His share in the writing of Clm 19411—if he can be identified with hand D—is the cause for his fame, rightful or undeserved. At the beginning of the 19th century, Docen believed hand D to be the same as that found in fragment B of the Priest Werner's Driu liet von der maget, the greatest religious poem in 12th–century German literature. Since Docen accepted fragment B as an autograph, a chain of speculations ensued, developing a whole literary myth. Werner Scholasticus was believed to be the author of this Marian poem—actually written by a secular priest in Augsburg in 1172—and of almost every piece in Clm 19411. This manuscript contains, e.g., the famous Ludus de antichristo, as well as a poem on the voices of birds and other animals. Yet hand D did not write these parts. The oldest section of the manuscript contained the Breviarium de dictamine of Alberic of Monte Cassino and parts of the Praecepta dictaminum of Adalbertus Samaritanus, both epistolary treatises; the model letters of Henricus Francigena; and a collection of model love letters. This "schoolbook" was enlarged in a number of different hands between 1178 and 1186 by the addition of the Ludus and other poetic and historical texts, but mainly by 306 letters drawn from the monastery's correspondence. Of this latter section, hand D—the teacher's—did the main work. It is in this hand that the three love letters (nos. 9–11) are written; these were added to the model collection in Tegernsee, and possibly composed in Tegernsee. Number 10 ends with the famous German love poem beginning with the line: "Dû bist mîn, ich bin dîn." Did Werner add to the Latin model letter this verse inspired by Ovid (Her. 6.134)? Plechl's complete research on this manuscript and his promised editions of the collection of letters and (with Groll) of the love letters will clarify the portrait of Werner, the monk and the teacher.

Bibliography: o. mausser, Allgemeine deutsche Biographie 55:48–53. v. redlich, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 10:829; 9:1338–39. r. bauerreiss, Kirchengeschichte Bayerns (St. Ottilien 1949–55; 2d ed. 1958–) v.3 h. plechl, "Studien zur Tegernseer Briefsammlung des 12. Jahrhunderts," Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 13 (1957) 35–114; "Die Tegernseer Handschrift Clm 19411. Beschreibung und Inhalt," ibid. 18 (1962) 418–501.

[a. a. schacher]