The ‘Five Books of Histories’ of Rodulfus Glaber

Summary

Like Thietmar of Merseburg, the monk Rodulfus Glaber (c.985–c.1047) was strongly influenced, in the writing of his Historiarum Libri Quinque, by cultural aftershocks from the year 1000. He began this chronicle account of the history of France and Burgundy in 1028 and continued to work on it during sojourns at various monasteries, including five years spent at the great Benedictine abbey of Cluny. Although the subject matter of much of his work pre-dated the Millennium, Rodulfus evoked, in his references to such events as the invasions of Northern Europe by the Saracens in the eighth century, a sense of the apocalyptic disturbances which the generation who lived through the transition from the tenth to eleventh centuries expected to accompany, and stem from, the Millennium itself. Thus, in the first of the stories which follow, the monk Wulferius is surrounded by a collective apparition of the spirits of Christian knights who had died in combat with the Saracens. In the story I have called ‘An Army of Wraiths’, the vision of the priest Frotterius of a ghostly army moving across the landscape refers to an event which, at the time of the vision, was still to come: the account of the vision is followed in Rodulfus's text by a reference to the invasion of Burgundy by the French king Henry I in 1015. The portentous nature of these apparitions is underlined by the deaths soon afterwards of those to whom the ghosts appear. The other story, Rodulfus's account of a visit to his bedside by the Devil himself, described one of three occasions when Rodolfus claims to have witnessed a demonic occurrence.

Wulferius and the Ghostly Martyrs

Book II, Chap. IX

The monk Wulferius lived at this time in the monastery which is called Reomagensse in the region of Tarnoderensse [Réome in the county of Tonnerre]. He was a sweet-natured man, gentle in all his dealings, and a vision appeared to him one Sunday which is certainly worthy of belief. He happened to stay behind after matins to pray in the church, leaving the other brothers to return to take their rest. All of a sudden the entire church was filled with figures wearing white robes and purple stoles. As Wulferius watched, he was particularly struck by their stern bearing and demeanour.