The monk called the teacher of Germany wrote a hymn Mahler later set
Rabanus Maurus ran one of Europe's great monastic schools, compiled an encyclopedia, rewrote a Roman military manual for Frankish armies and became Archbishop of Mainz. He is also credited with Veni Creator Spiritus, a hymn still sung at papal conclaves, which Gustav Mahler used to open his eighth symphony.
Born to noble parents in Mainz around 780, Rabanus was schooled at the Benedictine abbey of Fulda and made a deacon there in 801. His abbot, Ratgar, sent him to Tours to finish his studies under Alcuin, who nicknamed him Maurus after Saint Maurus, the favourite pupil of Benedict. According to Alban Butler's lives of the saints, he never ate meat or drank wine.
Put in charge of Fulda's school in 803, he made it one of the leading centres of learning and book production in Europe, training scholars such as Walafrid Strabo and Otfrid of Weissenburg. After a quarrel with Ratgar he left for a time; a supposed pilgrimage to Palestine during that exile turns out to be a misreading, since the passage cited was copied from Origen. He came back in 817, became abbot in 822, resigned in 842 to devote himself to study and prayer, and was pulled back into public life in 847 when chosen to lead the see of Mainz. Death came in 856 at Winkel, beside the Rhine.
His output was immense and learned; he even knew some Greek and Hebrew. He wrote commentaries on much of the Bible, a guide to training clergy drawing on Augustine and Gregory the Great, and De universo, an encyclopedia leaning heavily on Isidore of Seville and meant to help interpret Scripture. He abridged Vegetius's Roman treatise on warfare, adding notes aimed at improving Frankish tactics. His poems In praise of the Holy Cross fuse words, images and even numbers into elaborate figures, with the last showing Rabanus himself kneeling at the cross.
Another hymn attributed to him, honouring Saint Michael and the angels, was harmonised by Ralph Vaughan Williams and appears in the Episcopal Church's Hymnal 1982. Admirers called him Praeceptor Germaniae, the teacher of Germany, and the 2004 Roman Martyrology lists him as a saint with a feast on 4 February.
Source: Rabanus Maurus
