Otto of Sankt Blasien 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 ...

chronicler. He was born about the middle of the 12th century; died on 23 July 1223, at

Sankt Blasien St. Blasien (; sometimes spelled in full as Sankt Blasien) is a small town located in the Waldshut (district), Waldshut district in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated in the Southern Black Forest, 17 km northeast of Waldshut-Tieng ...

in the

Black Forest The Black Forest ( ) is a large forested mountain range in the States of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is th ...

Baden Baden (; ) is a historical territory in southern Germany. In earlier times it was considered to be on both sides of the Upper Rhine, but since the Napoleonic Wars, it has been considered only East of the Rhine. History The margraves of Ba ...

(southwestern Germany). Nothing is known of the events of his life. It is probable that in his later days he became

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...

of the renowned Benedictine

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

of Sankt Blasien. He is known as the writer who continued the chronicles of

Otto of Freising Otto of Freising (; – 22 September 1158) was a German churchman of the Cistercian order and chronicled at least two texts which carry valuable information on the political history of his own time. He was the bishop of Freising from 1138. Ot ...

; like Otto, he possessed a great talent for presenting a clear survey of events. His language was lofty, and followed the model of the ancient classics. Like many of his contemporaries, he liked to apply the fixed formulas of

Justinian Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...

to the German emperors, probably on the assumption, then widespread, that the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

was only the continuation of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

of the Caesars. His chronicles, written in the form of

annals Annals (, from , "year") are a concise history, historical record in which events are arranged chronology, chronologically, year by year, although the term is also used loosely for any historical record. Scope The nature of the distinction betw ...

, ''Ad librum VII chronici Ottonis Frisingensis episcopi continuatae historiae appendix sive Continuatio Sanblasiana'', embrace the period from 1146 to 1209, that is the period from Conrad III to the murder of

Philip of Swabia Philip of Swabia (February/March 1177 – 21 June 1208), styled Philip II in his charters, was a member of the House of Hohenstaufen and King of Germany from 1198 until his assassination. The death of Philip's older brother Henry VI, Holy Roman E ...

. Since he was distant in time from the facts he narrates, his accounts are quite objective, even though he makes no concealment of his prejudice in favour of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, which in 1218 received the

bailiwick A bailiwick () is usually the area of jurisdiction of a bailiff, and once also applied to territories in which a privately appointed bailiff exercised the sheriff's functions under a royal or imperial writ. In English, the original French combi ...

of St. Blasien from the dukes of Zahringen. Yet, after Otto of Brunswick was recognized as Holy Roman emperor, he writes of him in the same objective way as of his predecessors. Nevertheless, without any apparent cause, the narrative breaks off at the coronation of Otto IV. Perhaps the chronicler shrank from describing the bloody party conflicts of the times. His chief sources were the " Gesta Friderici" and perhaps Alsatian chronicles. On the whole his statements may be trusted. It is only when he has to resort to oral reports that he becomes unreliable; this is especially the case in his

chronology Chronology (from Latin , from Ancient Greek , , ; and , ''wikt:-logia, -logia'') is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the deter ...

, though he is not to be reproached with intentional misrepresentation of facts for this reason. His chronicles were published by R. Wilmans 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 ...

: Script." (XX, pp. 304–34); they were translated into German by Horst Kohl in "Geschichtschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit" (12th century, volume VIII, Leipzig, 1881, 2nd ed., 1894).

References

* ;Notes {{DEFAULTSORT:Blasien, Otto Of Sankt 1223 deaths German Benedictines Chroniclers from the Holy Roman Empire 13th-century German historians Year of birth unknown 13th-century writers in Latin