Work

Walahfrid Strabo and the Hortulus

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Walahfrid Strabo’s Hortulus (De cultura hortorum) is a Carolingian didactic poem of 444 hexameters, probably composed in the early 840s and dedicated to Grimald of St Gall. Drawing on classical models (Vergil, Columella) while grounded in monastic practice, it stages a small instructional garden in which plant portraits function as both practical guidance and moral exempla. The work survives in a compact but coherent dossier led by Vatican Reg. lat. 469 and Leipzig Rep. I. 53; early humanist editions (Vienna 1510; Nuremberg 1512) shaped later reception. Recent scholarship debates place and date across Aachen, a Speyer interlude, and Reichenau, with the majority view favouring Reichenau. The poem remains a key witness to Carolingian garden culture without amounting to a prescriptive garden ordinance.

Source: Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17410221

Author: Niedenthal, Tobias

Language: English

Topic: Medieval Literature and History

Subfield: Classics

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W7093096924

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