Udalschalk of Augsburg: Carmen de Itinere et Obitu Eginonis

This poem in rhymed leonine verse laments Egino, abbot of the monastery of Saints Ulrich and Afra at Augsburg, who died in 1120 while in Italy. It was written by Udalschalk, a monk of the house and later its abbot. The poem addresses a spiritual son of the dead abbot, telling him both to rejoice at Egino’s heavenly crown and to grieve at the loss of a father. It then narrates the hardships of his journey, including eight days in the wilderness among robbers, and his reception by the pope, who welcomed him kindly while clergy and people gathered in festive procession.

The poem is a companion to Udalschalk’s prose account of Egino’s conflict with Bishop Hermann of Augsburg, which drove the abbot into exile. Together they show how a monastic community remembered a leader who had suffered in the investiture disputes. As verse, the poem illustrates the twelfth-century taste for elaborate internal rhyme, with nearly every line ending on the same sound. It is a source for the abbot’s last journey and for the practice of commemorating abbots in poetry.