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Hrabanus Maurus, abbot of Fulda and later archbishop of Mainz, was the most learned teacher of the Carolingian age and a prolific poet. This small selection of his verse includes a poem to Eigil, abbot of Fulda, on a book Eigil had written, which declares that every work of man is overthrown by time except writing, which escapes fate and renews the past, as God’s finger wrote the law on stone; it is followed by verses to Grimold, abbot.
Hrabanus’ occasional poems, addressed to friends, patrons, and fellow monks, reflect the network of learned correspondence that sustained the Carolingian renaissance. The praise of letters as the one thing that outlasts time expresses the values of the monastic scholars who preserved and copied ancient and Christian texts.
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