Rabanus Maurus probably compiles his excerpt from the grammar of Priscian, which will become a popular textbook during the Middle Ages, in 803.

Born of noble parents in Mainz, the date of his birth remains uncertain, but in 801 he received a deacon's order at Fulda in Hesse, where he had been sent to school.

In the following year, at the insistence of Ratgar, his abbot, he had gone together with Haimon (later of Halberstadt) to complete his studies at Tours.

He studied there under Alcuin, who in recognition of his diligence and purity gave him the surname of Maurus, after the favorite disciple of Benedict, Saint Maurus.

Returning to Fulda two years later, he is entrusted with the principal charge of the school, which under his direction will become one of the most preeminent centers of scholarship and book production in Europe, and will send forth such pupils as Walafrid Strabo, Servatus Lupus of Ferrières, and Otfrid of Weissenburg.

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The alliterative verse fragment known as the Lay of Hildebrand (Das Hildebrandslied), written in Old High German alliterative verse, emphasizes fate in a decidedly pagan context.

The manuscript of the Hildebrandslied, discovered around 1715 by Johan Georg von Eckertis now in the Murhardsche Bibliothek in Kassel.

It is assumed to derive, like much else in the library's collection, from the monastery of Fulda.

It is written on two leaves of parchment, the first and last in a theological codex.

The codex itself was written in the first quarter of the ninth century, with the text of the Hildebrandslied added in the 830s on the two remaining blank leaves.

There is no evidence to support the suggestion of a missing third leaf which would have contained the end of the poem.

One of the earliest literary works in German, it tells of the tragic encounter in battle between a son and his unrecognized father.

It is the only surviving example in German of a genre which must have been important in the oral literature of the Germanic tribes.

Although there is no evidence that Hildebrand himself was a historical character, the background to the poem is formed by historical events in the late fifth century, when the Ostrogothic King Theodoric fought for mastery of Italy against Odoacer, the Germanic general who had deposed the last western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, and reigned as King of Italy (476-493).

Theodoric appears widely in Germanic legend as Dietrich von Bern (Verona).

Theodoric's Gothic Kingdom of Italy was subsequently seized by the Lombards, who had close connections with the Bavarians in South Germany, both speaking closely related Upper German dialects.

This accounts for the transmission of legendary material relating to Theodoric northwards.

Even if the Scandinavian analogues did not suggest wider dissemination, the close links between Bavaria and Fulda—the first abbot, Sturmi, was a member of the Bavarian nobility—would in any case be sufficient to account for knowledge of this material in the monastery.

Rabanus Maurus, a Frankish Benedictine monk born of noble parents in Mainz, had in 822 become abbot of the Monastery at Fulda.

The author of the encyclopaedia On the Nature of Things, he has also written treatises on education and grammar and commentaries on the Bible; he will be remembered as one of the most prominent teachers and writers of the Carolingian age.

The “Heliand,” an epic poem about the life of Christ written in the alliterative verse style of a Germanic saga, attempts to blend the old paganism with the new Christianity by presenting the Christian message in traditional heroic imagery, with the messiah as a Germanic duke.

The largest known work of written Old Saxon, the original manuscript would have been approximately six thousand lines, of which four incomplete fragments have been found that span most of the original.

Its preface indicates it was commissioned by Louis the Pious, which limits its origins to the years of Louis' reign, namely 814 to 840.

Rabanus Maurus, as abbot of Fulda from 822 to 842, has developed the abbey into one of Europe's premiere intellectual centers.

…the Abbot of Fulda.

Henceforth, the great abbeys and episcopal seats that Saint Boniface and his successors had established in southwestern Germany will have a monopoly on temporal office in Franconia, on a par with the counts of lands further west.

They have another virtue in the Ottonian scheme: as celibates, they are less likely to establish hereditary lineages.

The new abbey church at Fulda, dedicated on August 15, 1712, stands on the site of the Ratgar Basilica (once the largest basilica north of the Alps), which was the burial site of Saint Boniface and the church of Fulda Abbey, functions which the new building is intended to continue.

The plans of the new church had been drawn up in 1700 by one of the greatest German Baroque architects, Johann Dientzenhofer, who had been commissioned by the Prince-Abbot Adalbert von Schleifras for the new building on the recommendation of the Pope after Dientzenhofer's study trip to Rome in 1699.

The deliberate similarity of the church's internal arrangement to that of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is testimony to Dientzenhofer's visit.

The Ratgar Basilica has been demolished to make way for the new Baroque structure, on which construction had begun on April 23, 1704, using in part the foundations of the earlier basilica.

The shell had been completed in 1707, the roof finished in 1708, and the interior in 1712.

The dedication tablet placed on the facade by von Schleifras gives the dedication as Christus Salvator.