In the manuscript British Library, Add. 11852 (which originated from the abbey of St Gall, Switzerland), an unknown scribe added an epilogue in elegiac couplets after the Pauline Letters, reflecting on what he had just read. Even though his poem is edited in the MGH Poetae, it has received no further attention by modern scholarship. This negligence is a pity because a closer palaeographic, stylistic and philosophical examination reveals close ties to the writings of St Gall’s most famous school master Notker III (“the German”) and his pupil, Ekkehart IV. This paper will explore this connection and, hopefully, shed further light on Early Medieval thought, its discursive and literary strategies, as well as its place in monastic life.
Bernhard Hollick is a postdoc on Minuscule Texts: Marginalized Voices in Early Medieval Latin Culture c. 700–c. 1000.