"Presul Wolfgange cunctis semper vererande
Hæc tua qui scripsi jam memor esto milii
Presbiter et Monachus Otloh quidam vocitatus
Sancte tibi librum Bonifacii tradidit istum."
We have here sufficient evidence that Otloh was a worthy predecessor of the distinguished Benedictines to whom the world of letters has been so deeply indebted in more recent times.
Dr. Maitland's mention of the calligraphic labours of the nun Diemudis, Otloh's contemporary, is not a solitary instance: in all ages, the world has been indebted to the pious zeal of these recluse females for the multiplication of books of devotion and devout instruction. An instance, of so late a date as the eve of the invention of printing, now lies before me, in a thick volume, most beautifully written by fair hands that must have been long practised in the art. As the colophon at the end preserves the names of the ladies, and records that the parchment was charitably furnished by their spiritual father, I think it worth transcribing:—
"Expliciunt, Deo laus omnipotente, quinque libri de VITA & CONVERSATIONE SANCTORVM PATRVM Scripti per manibus Sororum AUE TRICI et GHEEZE YSENOUDI in festivus diebus suis consororibus dilectis in memoriam earum. Finiti ano dni M° CCCC° XLIX° in festo decollationis Sci Johannis baptiste ante sumam missam. Et habebant ad hoc pergamenum sibi ex caritate provisum de venerabi li presbitero Dno NICOLAO WYT tunc temporis earundem patre spirituali & sibi ipsiis spiritualiter ac in Dno sat reverenter dilectio. Ex caritativo amore sitis propter Deum memores eorum cum uno AVE MARIA."
I omitted to mention that Massmann, in his Kleinen Sprachdenkmale des VIII. bis XII. Jahrhunderts, Leipsig, 1830, p. 50, says: "The Benedictine priest Otloh, of Regensburg, left behind him a work, De Ammonicione Clericorum et Laicorum, in which is twice given a Latin prayer (Cod. Monacens. Emmeram. f. cxiii. mbr. sæc. xi.), at fol. 51. d., as Oratio ejus qui et suprascripta et sequentia edidit dicta, and at fol. 158. as Oratio cuidam peccatoris." On fol. 161. b. is an old German version, first printed by Pez (Thes. i. 417.), corrected by Graff. Diutiska, 111. 211., by Massmann, at p. 168. Otloh mentions in this prayer the destruction of his monastery of St. Emmeram, which took place in 1062.
I have advisedly called him Otloh, and not Otlohnus.
S. W. SINGER.