Widukind of Corvey
WIDUKIND OF CORVEY
Saxon chronicler; b. c. 925; d. after 976. Widukind, a Saxon, became a monk of the aristocratic Benedictine Abbey of corvey c. 940. There he began his literary career by writing the lives of St. Paul the Hermit and St. Thecla, works that are no longer extant. His major and only surviving work is The Deeds of the Saxons in three books. It is dedicated to otto I the Great's daughter, Princess Matilda, later first abbess of quedlinburg, for whom Widukind's The Deeds of the Saxons is an important source for the history of 10th–century Germany. Although Widukind was not a member of the royal court, as is sometimes alleged, he was extremely well informed about imperial politics. His information probably derived from imperial officers who visited Corvey.
Bibliography: widukind of corvey, Rerum gestarum Saxonicarum libri tres, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores rerum Germanicarum v.56; German tr. p. hirsch (Leipzig 1931). w. wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter. Deutsche Kaiserzeit, ed. r. holtsmann 1.1:25–34. h. beumann, Widukind von Korvei (Weimar 1950). j. a. brundage, "W. of C. and the 'Non–Roman' Imperial Idea," Mediaeval Studies 22 (1960) 15–26.
[j. a. brundage]