Blessed Notker the Stammerer

Notker the Stammerer (c. 840 – 6 April 912), Notker Balbulus, or simply Notker,[n 2] was a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of Saint Gall active as a composer, poet and scholar. Described as "a significant figure in the Western Church", Notker made substantial contributions to both the music and literature of his time. He is usually credited with two major works of the Carolingian period: the Liber Hymnorum, which includes an important collection of early musical sequences, and an early biography of Charlemagne, the Gesta Karoli Magni. His other works include a biography of Saint Gall known as the Vita Sancti Galli and a martyrology, among others. Born near the Abbey of Saint Gall, Notker was educated alongside the monks Tuotilo and Ratpert; all three were composers, making the Abbey an important center of early medieval music. Notker quickly became a central figure of the Abbey and among the leading literary scholars of the Early Middle Ages. A renowned teacher, he taught Solomon III, the bishop of Constance and on occasion advised Charles the Fat. Although venerated by the Abbey of Saint Gall and the namesake of later scholars there such as Notker Physicus and Notker Labeo, Notker was never formally canonized. He was given "the Stammerer" as an epithet, due to his lifelong stutter. Notker was born around 840, near the Abbey of Saint Gall in modern-day Switzerland. His wealthy family was of either Alemannic or Swiss descent and they owned land in Jonschwil of Thurgau. Notker's later biographer Ekkehard V claims he was born in Heiligau—now Elgg—in the Canton of Zürich, but this has been rejected by the historian Gerold Meyer von Knonau, who suggests a birthplace near Jonschwil. Since childhood Notker had a stutter, because of tooth loss in his youth, resulting in the Latin epithet balbulus (lit. 'babbler') or "the Stammerer" in English.