Notker Labeo

Notker Labeo (c.950-1022, St Gall), also called Notker Theutonicus because of his devotion to the German language, was in charge of the school at St Gall Abbey. He came of a family that provided several notable monks, including Ekkehard I, who was Notker's uncle. He appears to have been a man of attractive personal qualities. Notker's field of activity was limited to the monastic school, and his influence on wider circles is no longer believed to have been considerable. A careful scholar devoted to classical interests, he subordinated these to theological ends out of a sense of religious duty. Of his works, all designed for school use, his translations of Boethius and Martianus Capella, of Aristotle's Hermeneutics, and of the Psalms survive. Versions of Disticha Catonis, Virgil's Bucolics, Terence's Andria, and Gregory the Great's commentary on Job are lost.

Notker is especially remarkable for the command of language which enabled him to translate with a previously unequalled accuracy and flexibility. He combined this capacity for expression with a devotion to his mother tongue, which made him, linguistically, the outstanding German writer of his century. Die Schriften Notkers und seiner Schule (3 vols.) ed. P. Piper, appeared 1882-3, Die Werke Notkers des Deutschen, ed. J. C. King, P. W. Taxe, et al., 1972 ff.