Page "Paul the Deacon" Paragraph 10

Paul wrote at the request of Angilram, bishop of Metz ( d. 791 ), a history of the bishops of Metz to 766, the first work of its kind north of the Alps.

This Gesta episcoporum Mettensium is published in Band ii.

of the Monumenta Germaniae historica Scriptores, and has been translated into German ( Leipzig, 1880 ).

He also wrote many letters, verses and epitaphs, including those of Duke / Prince Arichis II of Benevento and of many members of the Carolingian family.

Some of the letters are published with the Historia Langobardorum in the Monumenta ; the poems and epitaphs edited by Ernst Dümmler will be found in the Poetae latini aevi carolini, Band i. ( Berlin, 188f ).

Fresh material having come to light, a new edition of the poems ( Die Gedichte des Paulus Diaconus ) has been edited by Karl Neff ( Munich, 1908 ), who denies, however, the attribution to Paul of the most famous poem in the collection, the Ut queant laxis, a hymn to St. John the Baptist, which Guido d ' Arezzo fitted to a melody which had previously been used for Horace's Ode 4. 11.

From the initial syllables of the first verses of the resultant setting he then took the names of the first notes of the musical scale.

Paul also wrote an epitome, which has survived, of Sextus Pompeius Festus ' De significatu verborum.

It was dedicated to Charlemagne.