Conrad of Hirsau or Hirschau (; ) was a German

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

monk and writer at the Hirsau Abbey. He is known for his literary work ''Dialogus super auctores'', an '' accessus ad auctores'' written about 1130. Conrad identified himself as a "modern" in literary terms. His ''Dialogus'' is "the only theoretical discussion of the technique of the ''accessus'' 'ad auctores''that has come down to us from medieval times". His own selection of authors consists of

Aesop Aesop ( ; , ; c. 620–564 BCE; formerly rendered as Æsop) was a Greeks, Greek wikt:fabulist, fabulist and Oral storytelling, storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence re ...

(actually the versifier Phaedrus),

Avianus Avianus (or possibly Avienus;Alan Cameron, "Avienus or Avienius?", ''ZPE'' 108 (1995), p. 260 c. AD 400) was a paganism, pagan writer of fables in Latin."Avianus" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes Ltd, George Newnes, 1961, Vo ...

Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known simply as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480–524 AD), was a Roman Roman Senate, senator, Roman consul, consul, ''magister officiorum'', polymath, historian, and philosopher of the Early Middl ...

, Cato,

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

, Donatus,

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

Juvenal Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ; 55–128), was a Roman poet. He is the author of the '' Satires'', a collection of satirical poems. The details of Juvenal's life are unclear, but references in his works to people f ...

Lucan Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (3 November AD 39 – 30 April AD 65), better known in English as Lucan (), was a Roman poet, born in Corduba, Hispania Baetica (present-day Córdoba, Spain). He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imper ...

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

Persius Aulus Persius Flaccus (; 4 December 3424 November 62 AD) was a Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satire, he shows a Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he considered to be the stylistic abuses of his ...

, Prosper,

Prudentius Aurelius Prudentius Clemens () was a Roman Christian poet, born in the Roman province of Tarraconensis (now Northern Spain) in 348.H. J. Rose, ''A Handbook of Classical Literature'' (1967) p. 508 He probably died in the Iberian Peninsula some ...

Sallust Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust (, ; –35 BC), was a historian and politician of the Roman Republic from a plebeian family. Probably born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines, Sallust became a partisan of Julius ...

, Sedulius,

Statius Publius Papinius Statius (Greek language, Greek: Πόπλιος Παπίνιος Στάτιος; , ; ) was a Latin poetry, Latin poet of the 1st century CE. His surviving poetry includes an epic in twelve books, the ''Thebaid (Latin poem), Theb ...

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...

and

Theodulus Theodoulos () or Theodulus (amongst other variations) is a Greek masculine given name. The name is a theophoric name, meaning 'servant of God' (in a similar construction to Christodoulos).Robert Parker ''et al.''Lexicon of Greek Personal Namesproj ...

.Edwin A. Quauin, "The Medieval Accessus ad Auctores", ''Traditio'', Vol. 3 (1945), pp. 215–264.Stephen M. Wheeler, "Introduction", in ''Accessus ad auctores: Medieval Introductions to the Authors (Codex latinus monacensis 19475)'' (Mediaeval Institute Publications, 2015), pp. 1–24. Conrad has also been suggested as the author of the ascetical works, the '' Speculum virginum'', ''De fructibus carnis et spiritus'', ''Dialogus de mundi contemptu vel amore'', and ''Allocutio ad Deum''.

References

Bibliography

*A. Stuber, ''Conradi Hirsaugiensis Dialogus super Auctores sive Didascalon'' (Wurzburg, 1889) *''Dialogus super auctores'', Collection Latomus, XVII (Brussels, 1955) editor R. B. C. Huygens *''The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism Volume 2, The Middle Ages'' edited by Alastair Minnis and Ian Johnson *Leslie G. Whitbread, ''Conrad of Hirsau as Literary Critic'', Speculum, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Apr., 1972), pp. 234–245 *M. Rainini, ''Corrado di Hirsau e il «Dialogus de cruce». Per la ricostruzione del profilo di un autore monastico del XII secolo'' (Firenze, 2014)

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