, Florence Rabanus' works, many of which remained unpublished, comprise commentaries on scripture (
Genesis to
Judges,
Ruth,
Kings,
Chronicles,
Judith,
Esther,
Canticles,
Proverbs,
Wisdom,
Sirach,
Jeremiah,
Lamentations,
Ezekiel,
Maccabees,
Matthew, the
Epistles of St Paul, including
Hebrews); and various treatises on doctrinal and practical subjects, including more than one series of
homilies. In
De institutione clericorum he brought into prominence the views of Augustine and
Gregory the Great as to the training required for a right discharge of the clerical function. One of his most popular and enduring works is a collection of poems centered on the cross, called
De laudibus sanctae crucis or
In honorem sanctae crucis, a set of highly sophisticated poems that present the cross (and, in the last poem, Rabanus himself kneeling before it) in word and image, even in numbers. Among the others may be mentioned the
De universo libri xxii., sive etymologiarum opus, a kind of dictionary or encyclopedia, heavily dependent upon
Isidore of Seville's
Etymologies, designed as a help towards the
typological, historical and mystical interpretation of Scripture, the
De sacris ordinibus, the
De disciplina ecclesiastica and the
Martyrologium. All of them are characterized by erudition (he knew even some
Greek and
Hebrew). In 2006 Germany marked the 1150th anniversary of his death, especially in Mainz and in Fulda. Highlights of the celebrations included the display of Codex Vaticanus Reginensis latinus 124, an extremely rare loan by the Vatican to Mainz of a spectacular manuscript containing
De laudibus sanctae crucis. The anniversary also saw the publication of no fewer than three book-length studies of Maurus and his work.
Marcomannic runes c runes A runic alphabet recorded in a treatise called
De Inventione Litterarum has been ascribed to Rabanus. It consisted of a mixture of
Elder Futhark with
Anglo-Saxon runes and is preserved in 8th and 9th-century manuscripts mainly from the southern part of the
Carolingian Empire (
Alemannia,
Bavaria). The manuscript text attributes the runes to the
Marcomanni, quos nos Nordmannos vocamus (and hence traditionally, the alphabet is called "Marcomannic runes") but it has no connection with the
Marcomanni, and rather is an attempt of Carolingian scholars to represent all letters of the Latin alphabet with runic equivalents.
Wilhelm Grimm discussed these runes in 1821. ==Bibliography==