When I used a Latin calendar poem by ninth-century monk Wandalbert of Prüm to add a bit of atmosphere to my 2006 book Becoming Charlemagne, I was surprised to find that Wandalbert’s poem was barely known in the English-speaking world. Most of the scholarship on Wandalbert is in German, and the only English translation was a loose rendering in an appendix of a hard-to-find book.

 

That’s why I’m glad this annotated, peer-reviewed translation has finally seen the light of day.

 

Wandalbert was not a particularly original poet, but he packed his classically inspired verse with quirky lore about hunting, farming, fishing, weather, climate, winemaking, natural history, and astrology. His descriptions of nature and rustic labors offer the promise of illuminating daily life in northern Europe in the years after the reign of Charlemagne, while his poem as a whole raises broader questions about using early medieval poems as historical sources.

 

Accompanied by a concise introduction and detailed notes, my prose translation serves as the only English-language guide to Wandalbert’s calendar poem for scholars and students alike. By providing context, commentary, and caveats, I hope to encourage further scrutiny of a work that may have a great deal more to say to us.

 

This translation is available from Witan Publishing on Amazon as a paperback and an e-book, both of them extremely budget-friendly. (E-book versions on other platforms are coming soon.)