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Wessobrunn Prayer

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Wessenburg, Ignatz Heinrich

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(Wessobrunner Gebet). Wessobrunn is a Bavarian village in which, according to documentary evidence, duke Thassilo established a monastery in 760; others say 740. Certain remnants of the studies of the monks there domiciled, upon geography, weights and measures, and also certain important glosses of the 8th century, have been preserved, and particularly this prayer, which exists in a codex now at Munich, and which antiquarians assign to the 8th century.

Rettberg argues (2:781) from the superscription to the first part of the piece (De Poeta) that it was taken from some other source by the author, who appended to it the second part containing his prayer for faith and strength. Part first seems to be designed for a hymn on the creation, which, however, is not carried beyond the stage of God's premuudane existence. Part second is almost word for word the same as a prayer in St. Emmeraus manuscript, with Latin translation, which was closed in 821. Grimm (Geschichte d. deutschen Sprache, page 484 sq.) states that the dialect in which the entire piece is written is genuine old High-German.

See Pertz, Monum. Germ. 11:215 sq.; Monum. Boica. Mon. (1766), 7:327; Mabillon, Annales Benedict. 2:153; Hund, Metropolis Salisburg. Ratisp. (1719), 3:335 sq.; Zedler, Universal-Lexikon (Leips. 1748), 45; Geograph.-Lexikon (ibid. 1749), 12; Wiltsch, Handb. d. kirchl. Geogr. u. Statistik (Berl. 1846), 1:380; Rettberg, Kirchengesch. Deutschlands, 2:166; the brothers Grimm, Die beiden altesten deutschen Gedichte (Cassel, 1812); Massmann, Erlauterungen zum Wessobr. Gebet; Wackernagel, Das Wessobr. Gebet u. d. Wessobr. Glossen (Berl. 1827): — id. Auswahl deutsch. Gedichte, 4th ed. page 228; Feussner, Die altesten alliterirenden Dichtungsreste in hochdeutscher Sprache (Hanau, 1845); Kehrein, Proben d. deutsch. Poesie u. Prosa, 1:18; Putz, Altdeutsches Lesebuch (2d ed. Coblentz, 1863), page 15, etc. See also Herzog, Real- Encyklop. s.v.