Saint Rabanus Maurus

Rabanus Maurus Magnentius (c. 780 – 4 February 856), also known as Hrabanus or Rhabanus, was a Frankish Benedictine monk, theologian, poet, encyclopedist and military writer who became archbishop of Mainz in East Francia. He was the author of the encyclopaedia De rerum naturis ("On the Natures of Things"). He also wrote treatises on education and grammar and commentaries on the Bible. He was one of the most prominent teachers and writers of the Carolingian age, and was called "Praeceptor Germaniae", or "the teacher of Germany". In the most recent edition of the Roman Martyrology (Martyrologium Romanum, 2004, p. 133), his feast is given as 4 February and he is qualified as a Saint ('sanctus'). Rabanus was born to noble parents in Mainz. The date of his birth remains uncertain, but in 801 he was ordained a deacon at the Benedictine Abbey of Fulda in Hesse, where he was schooled and become a monk. At the insistence of Ratgar, his abbot, he went together with Haimo (later of Halberstadt) to complete his studies at Tours. There he studied under Alcuin, who in recognition of his diligence and purity gave him the surname of Maurus, after the favourite disciple of Benedict, Saint Maurus. Returning to Fulda, in 803 he was entrusted with the principal charge of the abbey school, which under his direction became one of the most preeminent centers of scholarship and book production in Europe, and sent forth pupils like Walafrid Strabo, Servatus Lupus of Ferrières, and Otfrid of Weissenburg. It was probably at this time when he compiled his excerpt from the grammar of Priscian, a popular textbook during the Middle Ages. According to Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints, Rabanus ate no meat and drank no wine. In 814 Rabanus was ordained a priest. Shortly afterwards, apparently on account of a disagreement with Abbot Ratgar, he withdrew for a time from Fulda.