ORCID

Albrecht Diem: 0000-0002-2610-2043

Document Type

Book Chapter

Date

Spring 4-1-2025

Keywords

hagiography, early middle ages, monasteries, St. Gallen, legal history

Language

English

Disciplines

Christianity | European History | History | History of Religion | Medieval History

Description/Abstract

Diem, Albrecht.Otmar on Trial. Walahfrid Strabo’s Defensio Otmari." In Otmars Welten. St. Gallen und das europäische Mönchtum vom 7. bis zum 9. Jahrhundert, edited by Sebastian Scholz, Sabrina Vogt, and Gordon Blennemann, 145-173. Cologne: Böhlau, 2025. https://doi.org/10.7788/9783412532284.145. This chapter reevaluates Walahfrid Strabo’s Vita of Otmar (d. 759), the founder of the Monastery of St. Gallen, focusing on its description of the trial that led to Otmar’s deposition and imprisonment. It argues that Walahfrid’s aim was not primarily to produce a text that established the cult of a foundation saint but rather a “Defensio Otmari” that engaged with the accusations of sexual misconduct that were still part of the collective memory of the community of St. Gallen. Otmar was – reluctantly – established as a founding saint of St. Gallen only two generations after the production of the Vita Otmari. I place the trial in the context of contemporary legislation on monastic reform and clerical and monastic purity and show that Walahfrid’s description entirely lined up with the emerging monastic reform program and its normative basis. Moreover, Otmar’s trial gives access to the networks of power in which St. Gallen was situated and the different stakeholders that tried to get control over the monastery, its wealth and its mode of living: the Carolingian rulers and their local representatives, local aristocratic families, donors, and members of the monastic community. Lantpert, whom Walahfrid vilified as one of the accusers of Otmar can probably be identified with Landbert, one of the most important donors of the monastery. His and his mother’s donations laid the basis for St. Gallen’s future wealth. The Versus Winitharii, a sermon that was composed soon after Otmar’s deposition, most likely addressed its fallout on the community and the necessity to establish a proper vita regularis in St. Gallen. Reading the Vita Otmari along with the Versus Winitharii enhances our understanding of the process of turning the Regula Benedicti into the guiding monastic norm as part of the Carolingian monastic reform program.

ISBN

9783412532284

Additional Information

https://www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/10.7788/9783412532284.145

DOI: 10.7788/9783412532284.145

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submission

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