Hermannus Contractus

Hermannus Contractus (Hermann the Lame). b. Swabia, 18 July 1013; d. Reichenau, 24 September 1054. He was a Benedictine monk of the monastery on the Reichenau*, the island in Lake Constance. Hermann, born of a noble Swabian family, was crippled from birth. He was given as an oblate to the monastery on the Reichenau on 15 September 1020 and remained there all his life. His biography can be reconstructed from his own writings and from an account written by his disciple Berthold. This was composed as a preface to Berthold's continuation of Hermann's chronicle of world history. From Berthold we learn that Hermann could not walk and was carried by his brethren in a litter, and could speak and...