Erchempert () was a

Benedictine monk 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, they ...

of the

Abbey of Monte Cassino The Abbey of Monte Cassino (today usually spelled Montecassino) is a Catholic, Benedictine monastery on a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, in the Latin Valley. Located on the site of the ancient Roman town of Casinum, it is the first house ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

in the final quarter of the ninth century. He chronicled a history of the Lombard Principality of Benevento, in the '' Langobardia Minor'', giving an especially vivid account of the violence in southern Langobardia. Beginning with Duke Arechis II (758-787) and the

Carolingian The Carolingian dynasty ( ; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid c ...

conquest of Benevento, his history, titled the ''Historia Langobardorum Beneventanorum degentium'' (''The History of the Lombards living in Benevento''), stops abruptly in the winter of 888-889. Just one medieval manuscript of this text survives, from the early fourteenth century.

Editions

*Erchempertus.

Georg Waitz Georg Waitz (9 October 1813 – 24 May 1886) was a German medieval historian and politician. Waitz is often spoken of as the leading disciple of Leopold von Ranke, though perhaps he had more affinity with Georg Heinrich Pertz or Friedrich Chris ...

, ed. (1878)
''Historia Langobardorum Beneventanorum''
(in Latin). In ''

Monumenta Germaniae Historica The (Latin for "Historical Monuments of Germany"), frequently abbreviated MGH, is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published primary sources, both chronicle and archival, for the study of parts of Northwestern, Central and Souther ...

: Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI–IX''. Hannoverae: impensis bibliopolii Hahniani. pp. 231–264.
''Erchempert's "History of the Lombards of Benevento": A translation and study of its place in the chronicle tradition''
- Joan Ferry's PhD thesis from Rice University, which includes an English translation of Erchempert's work *Erchemperto, Piccola Storia dei Longobardi di Benevento / Ystoriola Longobardorum Beneventum degentium, edition and translation into Italian by L. A. Berto (Naples: Liguori, 2013). *Luigi Andrea Berto, ed. ''The Little History of the Lombards of Benevento by Erchempert: A Critical Edition and Translation of ‘Ystoriola Longobardorum Beneventum degentium’''. Routledge, 2021.

Sources

*L. A. Berto, “‘Copiare’ e ‘ricomporre’. Alcune ipotesi su come si scriveva nell’Italia meridionale altomedievale e sulla biblioteca di Montecassino nel nono secolo. Il caso della cronaca di Erchemperto” Medieval Sophia, 17, (2015), pp. 83-111. L. A. Berto, “Erchempert, a Reluctant Fustigator of His People: History and Ethnic Pride in Southern Italy at the End of the Ninth Century”, Mediterranean Studies, 20, 2 (2012), pp. 147-175. *L. A. Berto, “Linguaggio, contenuto, autori e destinatari nella Langobardia meridionale. Il caso della cosiddetta dedica della “Historia Langobardorum Beneventanorum” di Erchemperto“, Viator. Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Multilingual, 43 (2012), pp. 1-14. *L. A. Berto, “L’immagine delle élites longobarde nella “Historia Langobardorum Beneventanorum” di Erchemperto”, Archivio Storico Italiano, CLXX, 2 (2012), pp. 195-233. *L. A. Berto, Making History in Ninth-Century Northern and Southern Italy (Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2018), pp. 69-111. Italian chroniclers 9th-century Lombard people Italian Benedictines 9th-century Italian historians 9th-century writers in Latin {{italy-historian-stub