Notker Labeo

Notker Labeo (c. 950 – 28 June 1022), also known as Notker the German (Latin: Notcerus Teutonicus) or Notker III, was a Benedictine monk and the first commentator on Aristotle active in the Middle Ages. "Labeo" means "the thick-lipped one". Later he was named Teutonicus in recognition of his services to the German language.

He was born about 950, from a noble family of Thurgau, and he was a nephew of Ekkehard I, the poet of Waltharius. He went to the Abbey of Saint Gall when only a boy, and there acquired a vast and varied knowledge by omnivorous reading. After finishing his education, he continued in the abbey as a teacher and then head of the school under abbot Burckhard II. His contemporaries admired him as a theologian, philologist, mathematician, astronomer, connoisseur of music, and poet. He tells of his studies and his literary work in a letter to Bishop Hugo of Sitten (998–1017), and we also know of his activities through texts from his pupil Ekkehard IV.

The Necrologium sancti Galli recorded his death under June 27, 1022, as "Obitus Notkeri doctissimi atque benignissimi magistri". He died stricken by the plague.

For the benefit of his pupils he translated several texts from Latin into German. He mentions eleven of these translations, but unfortunately only five are preserved: (1) Boethius, "De consolatione philosophiae"; (2) Martianus Capella, "De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii"; (3) Aristotle, "De categoriis"; (4) Aristotle, "De interpretatione"; (5) "The Psalter". Among those lost are: "The Book of Job", at which he worked for more than five years; "Disticha Catonis"; Virgil's "Bucolica"; and the "Andria" of Terence (Terenz in German).

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