Wolfger of Prüfening

Wolfger of Prüfening (c. 1100 – c. 1173) was a German Benedictine monk and writer. He is nowadays usually identified with the so-called Anonymous of Melk (Anonymus Mellicensis).[1]

Born around 1100, Wolfger joined the monastery of Prüfening around 1130.[2] He served as its librarian, archivist, treasurer, and annalist.[3] He compiled an inventory of the monastery's possessions and catalogued its library. He also commissioned manuscript copying and decoration.[2] A codex he commissioned contains a set of Toledan Tables with one of the earliest examples of Arabic numerals, including zero, in Germany.[3][4]

Wolfger was also an original author of historical and biographical works. He began the Annales Ratisponenses (annals of Regensburg) and compiled a biographical index of 118 ecclesiastical writers, De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis.[5] Most of his writers were from the 11th and 12th centuries.[2] The latest is Rupert of Deutz.[6] Wolfger most likely wrote the incomplete Vita Theogeri, a biography of Theogerus of Metz.[7] His authorship of the Vita Ottonis, a biography of Bishop Otto of Bamberg written between 1140 and 1146, is more debatable.[2][3]

Wolfger died on 25 March in an unknown year.[8]

Notes
  1. Ziomkowski 2002, p. 23.
  2. Killy & Vierhaus 2006.
  3. Howe 2010.
  4. Nothaft 2014.
  5. Killy & Vierhaus 2006. This latter work was formerly attributed to an anonymous monk of Melk Abbey (cf. Gentry 2010 & Swietek 1978).
  6. Gentry 2010 has the work completed around 1135, while Ziomkowski 2002, p. 23, puts it around 1165.
  7. Killy & Vierhaus 2006 call this certain, while Howe 2010 calls it debatable.
  8. After 1173, according to Killy & Vierhaus 2006, but before 1173, according to Howe 2010.

Bibliography
  • Gentry, Francis G. (2010). "Anonymous of Melk (c. 1135)". In Bjork, Robert E. (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-866262-4.
  • Howe, John McDonald (2010). "Wolfger of Prüfening". In Bjork, Robert E. (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-866262-4.
  • Killy, Walther; Vierhaus, Rudolf, eds. (2006). "Wolfger von Prüfening". Dictionary of German Biography. Vol. 10: Thibaut–Zycha. Munich: K. G. Saur. p. 607.
  • Nothaft, C. P. E. (2014). "The Reception and Application of Arabic Science in Twelfth-Century Computistics: New Evidence from Bavaria". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 45 (1): 35–60. Bibcode:2014JHA....45...35N. doi:10.1177/002182861404500103. S2CID 122722513.
  • Swietek, Francis (1978). Wolfger of Prüfening's "De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis": A Critical Edition and Historical Evaluation (PhD diss.). University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ProQuest 302881392.
  • Ziomkowski, Robert (2002). "Introduction". Liber contra Wolfelmum. Leuven: Peeters.
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