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Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel< OSB (c. 770 – c. 840) was a Benedictine monk of Saint-Mihiel Abbey near Verdun. He was a significant writer of homilies and commentaries.

Life

Of Visigothic heritage, Smaragdus was born in Spain around 770. He had moved to Francia by the first decade of the 9th century. Through a fellow immigrant Goth, Theodulf of Orléans, he was introduced to Charlemagne.[1] After serving as principal of the convent school of the monastery on Castellion, he was elected abbot about 805. Around 814, he moved his monks a few miles away and founded the monastery of Saint-Mihiel on the banks of the river Meuse, in the diocese of Verdun.

Charlemagne employed him to write the letter to Pope Leo III, in which was communicated the decision of the Council of Aachen (809) respecting the adoption of the filioque clause, and sent him to Rome with the commissioners to lay the matter before the pope. He acted as secretary, and drew up the protocol. Louis the Pious showed him equal consideration, endowed his monastery, and in 824 appointed him to act with Frothar of Toul as arbitrator between Ismund, abbot of Moyenmoutier Abbey, and his monks. Smaragdus died about 840.

Works

His writings show diligence and piety. His published works in prose are:

There remain in manuscript a Commentary on the Prophets, and a History of the Monastery of St. Michael (cf. Mabillon, l.c.) Smaragdus also wrote poetry. Besides a hymn to Christ (Ebert, l.c. p. 112) there have been preserved his metrical introductions to his Collections and Commentary on the rule of St. Benedict, of which the first has twenty-nine lines in hexameter, and the second thirty-seven distichs.

References

  1. ^ Francis X. Gumerlock, Carolingian Commentaries on the Apocalypse by Theodulf and Smaragdus (Medieval Institute Publications, 2019), p. 11. The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature allows the possibility that Smaragdus was "perhaps Irish" but gives no further information for this.
  2. ^ Paris, 1532, 1640; Antwerp, 1540; Bibliotheca Maxima, Lyons, 1677, Tom. XVI. pp. 1305–1342.
  3. ^ The text is printed in Migne, PL 102:593–690. A translation is David Barry, The Crown of Monks, CS245, (Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications)
  4. ^ Migne, PL, 102:689–932. A more recent Latin edition appeared in the 1970s. An English translation is David Barry, Commentary on the Rule of St Benedict, CS 212, (Kalamazoo, MI, 2007)

Further reading

  • B. Lofstedt, L. Holtz, A. Kibre (1986), Liber in partibus Donati by Smaragdus
  • Terrence Kardong, Jean Leclercq, Daniel M. LaCorte, David Barry (2008) Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel: Commentary on the Rule of Saint Benedict (translation)
  • Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel, The Crown of Monks, trans David Barry OSB. Cistercian Studies no. 245. (2013) [translation of Diadema Monachorum]
  • Jean Leclercq. La voie royale/le diadème des moines. La Pierre-qui-Vire, 1949 (French translation).
  • Smaragdus, abbas monasterii Sancti Michaelis Virdunensis: Opera omnia in Migne, Patrologia Latina, Tom. CII. cols. 9–980: with Pitra's notes, cols. 1111–1132.
  • His Carmina are in Dümmler, Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, I. 605–619.
  • Hauréau: Singularités historiques et littéraires. Paris, 1861 (pp. 100 sqq.)
  • H. Keil: De grammaticis quibusdam latinis infimae aetatis (Program) . Erlangen, 1868.
  • Hist. Lit. de la France, IV. 439–447.
  • Ceillier, XII. 254–257.
  • Bähr, 362–364.
  • Ebert, II. 108-12
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