Ursperger Chronicle

From the Catholic Encyclopedia

A history of the world in Latin that begins with the Assyrian King Ninius and extends to the year 1229. At the present day it can hardly be doubted that the chronicle was written by Burchard of Biberach. Burchard was born in the latter half of the twelfth century in Biberach, an imperial free city of Swabia. He spent the years 1198-99 in Italy and was ordained priest at Constance in 1203. In 1205 he entered the Premonstratensian monastery, Schussenried, and in 1209 he became its provost. In 1215 he was called as provost to Ursperg, where he died in 1230. He began to collect material for his work at an early age and, in particular, made use of his stay at Rome to examine the papal Regesta. The basis of the first part of his work is the chronicle of the world written by Ekkehard of Aura which he copied almost word for word; for a later period he used the records concerning the Guelphs made by the monk of Weingarten, and for the time of Frederick I Barbarossa the records of the priest John of Cremona. Burchard's original work does not begin until the last years of Henry I; from this point on he narrates independently but in clumsy language the events in which he has taken part himself, or concerning which he has gained reliable information. He does not disguise his adherence to the Hohenstaufen party, and often speaks bitterly of the papal policy. The chronicle was last edited by Abbel and Weiland in the "Mon. Germ. Hist.: Script." XXIII, 337-83; also separately for school use (Hanover, 1874).

PATRICIUS SCHLAGER